Dr. Randy White
In my last post I began a review of LifeWay Christian Resource’s small-group “Bible study” resource based on the Mark Burnett and Roma Downey movie, the Son of God.” Subtitled, “The Life of Jesus in You,” the six-session guide is far more focused on you than on Jesus.In this post, I want to cover session 2, “Jesus’ Temptation and Your Temptation.”Each session includes a video clip along with Warren’s teaching. In the session 2 video clip, which presumably comes from “The Bible” television series and not the movie, Jesus walks weakly through the wilderness until He collapses on the dirt. Gasping for breath, a snake crawls out from under Him. Jesus, almost too weak to move, arises from the dirt and turns to see the black-robbed Obama-looking Satan. I have heard that Satan was removed from the movie (due to political pressure?) which is why I presume this clip did not come from the actual movie. As the clip continued, the Obama/Satan character asked Jesus (in the second temptation) to “throw yourself down from this mountain.” The only problem is…that never happened. Satan tempted Jesus to throw Himself off the pinnacle of the temple, not a high mountain (with nobody at the bottom to even notice). (Advice to producers of movies about the Bible: it isn’t that hard to stick with the Scripture. When you change it, we think you are lazy or inept, or perhaps have such a low budget you can’t afford a Temple scene, or maybe you just think you can improve on Scripture?) In the third temptation (after a rather elaborate coronation “dream” in which Pilate kisses the feet of Jesus), Jesus says, “Back away from me, Satan,” and the audience watches a snake slither into the distance.From this scene, Rick Warren then gives “Seven Steps to Escape Temptation.” The steps are basic, simple (even simplistic), and predictable. So predictable that I filled in the blanks before the answers were given—and got them all right, if not with the exact word at least with the same meaning. My guess is you can do the same.
- Get into the .
- Identify your .
- what you’re going to do.
- Guard your .
- Pray for .
- Refocus your .
- Find a .
In Warren’s seven steps there is nothing unbiblical, but there is also nothing worth the effort. The material is so basic that anyone could come up with it, including a lost person. The material is not dependent upon the Holy Spirit or the Gospel. Warren calls these “seven Biblical steps” and “God’s path of escape,” but they are really just basic therapeutic maneuvers. If you study secular material on “how to break bad habits” you will find much the same kind of psycho-babble.In the end, a participant in this small group “Bible study” would not really have any knowledge about the Temptation of Jesus. In fact, only if the participant looks to the last line of the session, in the “Diving Deeper” section would they even find the Biblical references to the Gospel accounts of the Temptation of Christ. That’s right, this study of Jesus’ temptation
never used any Scripture about Jesus’ temptation. The only material about the temptation comes from the movie clip. In the end, this is just a therapeutic session on some helpful hints to avoid bad activity.If Jesus had done these seven steps, would they have helped Him? Of these seven steps, only one of them can even be drawn out of the Temptation account (#1, Get into the Word). While it is a great point, since Jesus did use the Word in His battle with Satan, does the small-group participant know how to use the Word? After all, Satan also used the Word of God—as an instrument of temptation! The one studying these seven steps would go away with a therapeutic band-aid and little more.
Let Bible Study be a Study of the BibleThe problem, so typified in LifeWay’s “The Life of Jesus in You” resource, is that so-called Bible study is so empty of Bible content that a participant could not pass a basic Bible quiz on the biblical material, even immediately after completing the session. I encourage Bible study leaders to carefully scrutinize the resources they are using to make sure that they are actually leading Bible study—a study of the Bible—and not simply facilitating a nice, Bible-friendly discussion. If you are a Bible study leader, get rid of the idea that we need to tap into and focus on a “felt need.” Save such talk for felt-need studies. In a Bible study, study the Bible!
On the next post: Session 3-Jesus’ Suffering and Y
