A quick Google search would have torpedoed Noble’s sermon
Posted on 01/05/2015 10:47:26 AM PST by Gamecock
On Christmas Eve, Perry Noble gifted the world a rewritten Ten Commandments. In so doing, he contradicted Scripture, celebrated his ignorance of the Bible, and ultimately rejected the gospel.
NewSpring had repeated its Christmas service during the week before Christmas day, yet before the final pre-Christmas service, word went out over the NewSpring social media grapevine that Noble had a new sermon, so everybody should come back to hear it.
Noble raised the stakes at the outset, saying that God had told him the previous day that he needed to deliver this sermon. After some of Noble’s staff confirmed for him that he had heard God speak, Noble wrote the sermon in ten minutes. It showed, but it also provided a disquieting glimpse into Noble’s biblical illiteracy. More than illiteracy, it was biblical rebellion.
Noble’s premise was that what we erroneously know as the Ten Commandments aren’t really commandments. They’re just God’s promises.
He knows this because a Jewish friend who was driving him around Israel told him that there’s no Hebrew word for command. Noble acknowledges that he knows no Hebrew (as if that’s an acceptable thing for a preacher to remain ignorant of), so he takes his driver’s word as fact. Noble describes his friend as being to him as Mr. Miyagi is to the Karate Kid. “I just love this man,” Noble says. “He is full of wisdom. He loves Jesus. …He’s just an amazing man of God, and he’s teaching me the Bible. I’m trying to spend as much time with him as possible and he’s teaching me the Bible.” His friend is a poor teacher, and Noble is an even worse student.
Noble’s tutor tells him that the Ten Commandments are a mirage. Initially, Noble is surprised.
This is weird, because I’ve been around the Ten Commandments all my life. But in the original Hebrew language, there’s no word for command, so it couldn’t have been the Ten Commandments. He said it’s best translated as the Ten Sayings. Then he said this: ‘You could also interpret it as the Ten Promises of God.’ Instead of Ten Commandments that you have to keep if you’re going to be a follower of Jesus, they’re actually ten promises that you can receive when you say yes to Jesus.
Noble then announces that he is going to persuade his audience to say yes to Jesus because they no longer have to worry about obeying the commandments. Before we get to his rewritten commandments, let’s quickly debunk his erroneous premise.
The entire Old Testament is full of references to God’s commands and to the Ten Commandments in particular. In fact, in Deuteronomy 5, the second presentation of the Ten Commandments, God follows the list by repeatedly referring to his law as commands.
Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever! Go and say to them, “Return to your tents.”
But you, stand here by me, and I will tell you the whole commandment and the statutes and the rules that you shall teach them, that they may do them in the land that I am giving them to possess.’
You shall be careful therefore to do as the LORD your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
You shall walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess.
Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them. (Deut 5:29-6:1)
Obviously, the Hebrew word for command is an essential part of the Old Testament. What Noble’s Bible teacher may have been referring to was that the Torah didn’t formally label the list as the Ten Commandments, instead presenting them as ten sayings. Even so, a saying can be a commandment without having to be labeled as such. And we see in Deut 5 that God Himself called them commandments. Noble and his teacher are both very wrong.
A quick Google search would have torpedoed Noble’s sermon
(For a man who has assumed the responsibility of pastoring around 40,000 people, why couldn’t he have spent just a few minutes consulting a concordance, calling someone who does know Hebrew, or even Googling it? Even Google knows Noble’s claim is incorrect.)
From the New Testament, we see that Jesus understood them as commandments in his response to the rich young man in Matthew 19.
“If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
For Jesus, commandments referred to the list we know as the Ten Commandments (even though he abbreviated the list here).
Right away, we have a problem with Jesus’ advice if we are to take Noble’s teaching seriously. Noble says that being a Christian doesn’t require obedience, yet Jesus insists on it. The point of Jesus’ exchange with the rich young man was that it was impossible for anyone to actually keep the commandments. The disciples see the problem, to their horror.
When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
To be saved we must obey the Ten Commandments, but we can’t, so it’s impossible for us to be saved by anything we do. The only way to salvation is though the Mediator that God graciously provides for us and whose perfect obedience he credits to us. This is the gospel of grace and the wonder of Christ.
If the commandments don’t even need to be obeyed, there’s nothing to be saved from and no need for the Mediator. All we need to do, in Noble’s formulation, is to say yes to Jesus, something that even this rich young man couldn’t do.
Noble is denying the gospel, not preaching it.
Noble compounds his error by arbitrarily rewriting what’s left of the commandments to make them palatable for nonbelievers, even though he’s told us that they’re legally irrelevant. Noble presents his version by starting with the original biblical commandment, then wiping them off the screen and replacing them with his own version. God’s commands appeared on Noble’s big screen for 4 minutes and 12 seconds, but Noble’s commandments got 20:41 of screen time. Here’s what Noble wishes the commandments could be:
1) You shall have no other gods before me becomes You do not have to live in constant disappointment anymore.
Noble intimates that the command is selfish and unreasonable. (Check his body language at 35:36 on the video as he wags his finger, as if angry and demanding.) This sets the tone for the rest of Noble’s revision in which commandments that are focused on God and others become favors focused on us. God exists to make us happy.
2) You shall not make an image becomes You can be free from rituals and religion and trust in a relationship.
Noble talks about people who think incorrectly that their good religious works like church attendance and Bible reading will save them. That point is correct, but by rejecting the concept of the law in the first place, Noble has created a system where good works aren’t even necessary. If there’s no offense against God through breaking his law, there’s no need for reconciliation and no need for the Savior. In Noble’s universe, there’d be no Jesus for anyone to say yes to.
3) You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain becomes You can trust in a name that’s above every name.
Noble complains that Christians have butchered the commandment by prohibiting people from saying darn, a point illustrated with a story about being freaked out by a witch mannequin at a party store. Such is biblical exposition at NewSpring.
4) Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy becomes You can rest.
This is another one that Noble claims that Christians have butchered, thinking that God would kill them for doing yard work on Sunday. Given that Noble had already cancelled church for the following Sunday, it was important for him to ignore the clear meaning of this one. Sabbath breakers prefer not to preach too much about this commandment. Moving on…
5) Honor your father and mother becomes Your family does not have to fall apart.
He complains that parents use this as a “spiritual grenade” by teaching their children that the Bible tells them to honor and obey their children. This is improper, says Noble, because there’s no Hebrew word for command.
Like the Sabbath commandment, this is another awkward one for NewSpring, which often encourages its youth to reject parental authority in favor of NewSpring’s programs and teachings. Common in these parts are stories of families being torn apart by children and young adults who break from their Christian parents in favor of NewSpring, or leave college against their parents’ wishes to attend NewSpring College. NewSpring leaders know that big family events like Christmas often precipitate family conflict over NewSpring, so they prepare young people with articles like this one published in early December entitled My Family Thinks I Belong To A Cult. If young people don’t have to honor their parents, they can’t be talked out of their cults.
6) You shall not murder becomes You do not have to live in a constant state of anger because you will be motivated by love and not hate.
Noble uses this as yet another opportunity to beat up on other Christians.
I think one of the things that bothers me most about Christians is how hateful we seem to come across sometimes. I mean, we’re just mean. And we tend to be mean at people that are very different from us. Theologically, if you don’t agree just like me, I’m going to be mean to you. Moralistically, if you don’t agree with me then I’m going to be mean to you. But then, as we read about the person of Jesus, he just wasn’t mean to very many people (except the Pharisees–called then sons of hell), but to other people, he’s just this loving guy.
Yet again, Noble ignores the sin problem that requires the gospel. God hates sin, and because we were sinners, God hated us. (Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.) Because God’s hate is righteous, it’s holy and good, unlike ours. As we saw earlier, Jesus proclaimed the need to obey God’s law, which is impossible to do perfectly, making us lawbreakers and enemies of God. The good news is that, for those God gave to him, Jesus mediates between us and God with his perfect obedience, meaning that we meet God as our adoptive father rather than as an avenging judge.
Without an understanding of God’s terrifying hate, his love is meaningless.
7) You shall not commit adultery becomes You do not have to live a life dominated by the guilt, pain and shame associated with sexual sin.
Perhaps Noble could tell us what now constitutes sexual sin if there are no commandments regulating sexual behavior. From whence comes the guilt and shame if there is no law forbidding anything? By Noble’s logic, you’re free to commit adultery (whatever that is now) so that you can experience the blessing of having your shame removed.
Noble proudly claims that, unlike most other preachers, he likes to talk about sex and thinks that it’s good so long as it’s in the context of a heterosexual marriage. The problem is that by removing the law against sex outside of marriage, there’s nothing morally commendable or God pleasing about marital sex. Noble promises God’s forgiveness for sexual sin, but there’s no need for forgiveness if there have been no laws broken. By revoking the law, Noble erases the blessing.
8) You shall not steal becomes I will provide.
Noble prefaces this by saying that he actually thinks this is a good command (God must be relieved), but it makes a better promise. Noble assures us that God provides for his children, though his examples limit God’s provision to material benefits. His interpretation of God’s paternal care being linked to American commercialism would surprise believers in other parts of the world and other eras.
9) You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor becomes You do not have to pretend.
Contrary to what you understand from a plain reading of Scripture, this is not intended to benefit your neighbor; it’s really designed for your emotional self indulgence. It’s hermeneutical solipsism; the Bible’s all about me.
Cue another anti-Christian rant:
Church people are famous for pretending. Seriously. Every week in church it’s Halloween. People dress up in costumes, pretending to be someone that they’re really not. It’s a shackle that religion has held on people for far too long….When you know Jesus, you don’t have to pretend for a bunch of people who don’t know him anyway.
All those other non-NewSpring churches, in other words, are full of liars who aren’t actually Christians. (If NewSpringers ever wonder why parents worry that their kids have joined a cult, preaching like this is a clue.)
Noble doesn’t truly believe in removing his own masks and being fully transparent, however. As Chris Rosebrough was first to document, earlier in the sermon Noble accidentally used the N-word while recounting a conversation he’d had with a single friend about whether he should just buy himself a dog over his wife’s objections. Noble said, “I was like, ‘N*****, ca…'” at which point he stopped being honest and changed the topic. In the context of the moment, the word could be nothing else but what it sounded like, and it suggests that he regularly addresses someone in his life by that awful term.
Contrary to Noble’s hypocritical call to full transparency, some things ought to remain opaque. This side of heaven, we’re sinners with thoughts and desires that all-too-frequently violate all ten commandments. With the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying help, we work to make our fallen hearts fully subject to God’s moral law, but it is good for us and all of our neighbors that we keep most our internal ugliness just between ourselves and the Holy Spirit. The ability to do that is part of God’s common grace that holds societies together.
10) You shall not covet becomes I will be enough.
Noble starts by saying that the command against coveting donkeys, oxen or servants seems irrelevant, so he has to wrestle with this one. Now that he’s discovered that it’s not actually a command, he doesn’t have to worry about coveting donkeys any more.
If the true meaning of this command was that God was enough, God had already stated this in the preface to the Commandments when he reminded his people, “I am the Lord you God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” This is not the same as the command that we must not covet.
Noble finishes the sermon by telling his audience that he has given them ten reasons to say yes to Christ, then leads them in a prayer that starts, “Jesus Christ, I know that I’m a sinner and I need your forgiveness. I believe you died on the cross and you rose from the grave to pay for my sin. I receive your payment.”
There was nothing in the sermon that supported any of the points in the prayer. How would Noble’s audience know they were sinners? Noble erased the law, so nobody in his audience ought to think of themselves as sinners. What laws have they broken that require forgiveness?
There’s nothing in the sermon to explain the need for Christ (besides him being someone that for some reason pleads for us to say yes to him), nor why he would need to die on a cross. Why was the resurrection important, especially when the cross seems unnecessary? What is Jesus paying for, and why is it me that’s receiving the payment? It’s backwards. God receives the payment because I cannot possibly pay. Jesus was sacrificed for me, not to me.
After the prayer, Noble tells those who prayed to sign a name tag to show that they have “nailed it down” with God. Hearing the gospel is a prerequisite to faith and repentance (Rom 10:14), yet nobody at NewSpring that night heard the gospel preached. Nevertheless, Noble confidently assured scores of people that they had just become right with God.
If it still actually mattered, to many of his hearers such a claim would have seriously violated the Ninth Commandment.
Update
NewSpring’s public relations director sent the following reply to a series of questions I had sent asking if Noble stood by his claim that there is no Hebrew word for command, if he still thinks God told him to deliver the message, if he had said the N-word in the sermon, and if he ever used it with other people.
We do stand by the message Perry gave to our church on December 24, 2015, and we do believe the Lord prompted Perry to deliver it as he did.
In regards to your question about the ‘N’ word, Perry doesn’t use that word and doesn’t address anyone in his life by such a word. He did not use that word in his message and what you perceived as him doing so was [a] matter of words getting jumbled as can happen with anyone who is speaking.
The SBC needs to boot this church at their next convention!
I want to know why people follow a man like this. I am very thankful my SBC pastor teaches straight from the Bible. He does not add or take away anything from it. We are truly blessed.
I am SB but I have never heard of him or the church. Guess I should be thankful.
Officer, I wasn't stealing that car - I was simply accepting God's provision...
I’ve go that book. Painful to see what is taking the place of Christianity.
Premise is, that in many studies, “Christian” kids have the worldview that God is there for me when I need Him. Nice people go to Heaven....
Jesus was the only Man to walk the Earth that could obey/keep the Commandments. If we could do the same, He would not have had to die for us. Those who claim we must/can obey the commandments discount His death and Resurrection. In Romans, such folks are berated as having fallen from Grace because they are trying to be worthy by their obedience, by following the old ways, and not enjoying the fruits of His gift of loving Grace.
http://www.newspring.org/new-here/our-beliefs-vision/
I happen to be a member/owner of NewSpring. Wikpedia is full of errors as many Freepers have often times noted. It said is is a Baptist Church, it is not. (Perry used to be a Baptist). For the past 7 years I have personally witnessed the jealousy and rivalry of people towards our fast growing church, much like Gamecocks vs. Clemson fans. NewSpring is far from a cult. The Bible is full of miss-translations. Would it not be better to go back to the original languages and thus the meaning and inferences of terms used? Many bible scholars have done this before and have gained a better understanding of God’s written word. For instance the Blue Letter bible site, lists Strong’s H1697- dabar. Look up the reference to the 10 Commandments, Exodus 37:28 for example in Hebrew it is a “saying or utterance” not “commandment”. Pastor Perry is a down to earth kind of guy, maybe that’s a gift for him to relate to people in this day and age where most churches are losing memberships and struggling. To take what he said and try to dissect and analyze based on false premise only propagates lies and is not much difference than what the media has done in the past...sensationalize. Perhaps people should listen to Pastor Perry’s sermons, before they jump to conclusions. Search out the truth.
My first thought is: if you don’t know what the Hebrew Torah means, ask a Rabbi. There are plenty of orthodox Rabbis that can explain and translate exactly the Hebrew language of the Old Testament.
You aren’t the only one. He was my pastor for many years and I loved him. The last time I talked to him was the day one of my daughters was baptized. He prayed the sweetest prayer for her life. I would love for him to still be around to see the strong Christian young lady she has become. He died a few months after she was baptized.
On another note, Perry Noble continues to be a disgrace. The first time I heard his name was after his church rock band played “Highway to Hell” on Easter Sunday.
I did not have the privilege of attending one of his services in person but I have listened/watched a great many of his recordings/videos. I rank him as the most powerful, knowledgeable, and eloquent pastor I have heard (and that includes Billy Graham, Dr. W.A. Criswell, and several others).
A few years ago I heard John MacArthur say the same thing about Dr. Rogers. I could name dozens of things he said or did that impacted my life. I have always felt so blessed the God placed me where I would hear his preaching from the time I was a boy up until I was about forty. His impact on my life was incalculable.
And I am happy to report that since you heard him preach, you knew him. The private man was exactly the man you saw in the pulpit. He was a brilliant and wise man of incredible character.
W.A. Criswell was truly outstanding as well. The past few years I have gone back and listened to a number of his sermons that are available online. I’m one of many Calvinists Adrian Rogers’ preaching produced. Dr. Criswell preached a sermon on the doctrine of election (I’m sure he preached more than one) that I wish every Southern Baptist could hear.
What is the role of the 10 commandments in the life of the Christian?
Trying hard to word this to keep it from being personal. So let's just refer to the official web site of the Southern Baptist Convention.
http://www.sbc.net/churchsearch/results.asp?query=NewSpring+
Turns up
NewSpring Community Church
Location:
150 Walker Way
Anderson, SC 29621
Contact:
Tel: (864) 226-6585
Year Founded: 1999
Church Staff:
Senior Pastor: Perry Noble, (864) 231-2172
Did you read the disclaimer? BTW NewSpring is affiliated with SBC, it does not mean it is a Baptist Church. There is a difference...just saying
A church that large with a $50 million annual budget should be able to afford a professional PR person.
They do Credobaptism rather than Paedobaptism:
“At NewSpring, we wait until children are old enough to express their own decision to follow Jesus and understand the meaning of baptism.”
They do baptism by immersion:
“If you haven’t been baptized by immersion since you decided to follow Jesus, we want to help you take your next step of being baptized.”
https://newspring.cc/articles/6-common-questions-about-baptism
So it is a member of the SBC, it follows Baptist distinctives, and it is featured in the Baptist Courier (” the official newspaper of the South Carolina Baptist Convention “) http://baptistcourier.com/2014/03/state-church-s-c-s-newspring-among-nations-largest-fastest-growing-churches/
and the Baptist Press
http://www.bpnews.net/41086/fastestgrowing—largest-churches-tallied
So it looks like the pastor ran off the rails fairly recently. Perhaps you might suggest that he have a neurological exam to see if that might be the problem. Or is he having some sort of personal crisis? When did he start claiming it wasn’t Baptist?
Sounds like NewSpring’s public relations director has been taking lessons from Josh Earnest. What a wimp answer.
I expect the SBC is not happy about this. They are, thank goodness, a pretty conservative group.
I feel sorry for you.
I don’t need your pity, I have God’s grace.
PS..... take me off all your ping lists.
I’m about done with FreeRepublic, I’ve been a member since 1998.
I’m no Biblical scholar, I do believe in its inerrancy and listen frequently to the studies of Chuck Missler. These have shown me that far too many organizations called churches and/or religions have gone astray because of misinterpretation, both intentional and unintentional.
I think misrepresentation is at the heart of this thread.
Both lula and I are long-time FreeRepublic supporters and I am, after a fashion a South Carolina son, as much as anything in my life travels.
It occurs to me you both may have an axe to grind with Perry, similar to Jim Duncan, the author of this blog post and its blog. All of us are of South Carolina and probably know the Gamecock-Clemson rivalry is one of Perry’s ongoing asides (Perry for Clemson, of course).
Or, it may be that the ‘denomination’ to which a church-goer subscribes dictates his or her willingness to accept the gospel messages’ means of presentation or decry the blasphemy of another sort of believer, denominational or not.
It may also be that Mr. Duncan has had more personal valid complaints about errant and subsequently dismissed NewSpring staff members. However, it seems to me he’s either attempting to turn his blog into the leading anti-NewSpring voice in an attempt to achieve celebrity as NewSpring continues to grow at a very surprising rate OR his (s) righteous Christian anger (/s) is driving him to look for any excuse available to attempt to impugn NewSpring and/or Perry.
Perry was using a teaching tool. He showed that, having accepted Christ, one can look at the Ten Commandments as a positive force in one’s life as opposed to the negative strictures “the world” complains about.
Whether NewSpring is affiliated with the SBC or the English word ‘commandment’ has a direct translation in Hebrew are distractions. Claiming that Perry revised the (KJV/NIV/...) Ten Commandments is hyperbole in the extreme and obviously intended to arouse indignation as opposed to intellectually honest discussion (but who cares for that anymore?).
I’ve been disappointed by posters at FreeRepublic before, and will be again. If my disappointment is wrongheaded, please help me understand.
As lula hates me saying “we’re all broken”, I’ll say “we all fall short of the Glory of God, save Jesus ... and Jesus saves us”. I believe The Ten Commandments was intended to prove none of mankind measures up, and Jesus died so we could still be accepted by God and live life positively. I thought Perry’s teaching tool got that point across in a refreshing and engaging way.
The judgment criteria for Perry’s message should be whether hearts were changed, salvations occurred and Christian walks were straightened. Only God knows; the Holy Spirit informs the church. If the church (Christ’s actual followers) can righteously discern that this goal is not being pursued by a pastor, preacher or pope THEN there is a reason for complaint and action.
When people are deceived, the prince of this world is at work. As followers of Christ we must work to defeat him.
It was hypothesized by J. Vernon McGee that the church in the U.S.A. would be driven underground by the denominations. Expect the greatest vitriol to be directed towards the Bible-believing followers of Christ who recognize the importance of Israel in God’s plan.
I am anxious for Harpazo, dear Lord.
**Or, it may be that the ‘denomination’ to which a church-goer subscribes dictates his or her willingness to accept the gospel messages’ means of presentation or decry the blasphemy of another sort of believer, denominational or not.**
Not hardly.
The Gospel is clearly being preached in some churches affiliated with denominations that are spiraling into theological liberalism. And in my conservative denomination there are churches that aren’t preaching the Gospel, but law. You can’t tell if a church is true to her calling just by what it says on the sign out front.
Just calling an gathering a church doesn’t necessarily make it so.
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