The following is an article with some thoughts from Daryl Rahfeldt on the topic of the Joyce Meyer video: “Get Serious,” which was the video critiqued on “Hit the Bar” Episode 56.

The online message began with an opening promotion for Joyce Meyer’s Everyday Life Bible. I have not looked at this Bible, but my advice is to avoid all Bibles and study Bibles with an individual’s name attached, and with his or her personal notes included. I don’t advise this only with respect to Joyce Meyer, but with respect to anyone, no matter what their theology may be. Why do I say this? Because their individual “theology” tends to get mixed up with the Scriptures, and you will tend to confuse them. Go instead for a good study Bible produced by a group of scholars. It will be more accurate and less likely to be skewed toward one person’s ideas or thoughts. It was common during the days of hand-copying of the Scriptures for the copyists to write marginal notes on the manuscript copies they made.

These copyists’ marginal notes would often get incorporated into later copies of the biblical text by well-meaning copyists. A similar thing happens in our minds when we read someone’s devotional thoughts on the pages of our Bibles. We begin to confuse them with what the Bible says. That is why notes produced by only one person can be problematic. We must check out all notes and explanations appearing in our Bibles, even when they come from a committee, because even a committee can have a particular slant. The Bible, after all, did not originate from man (2 Timothy 3:16-17 and 2 Peter 1), so no man’s name should be associated with it. In my opinion, if someone wants to write a commentary or devotional, they should do so in a book separate from the Bible itself. We have more than enough English versions of the Bible, and there are some quite good and reliable study Bibles available. There is no need for anyone to sell a Bible with his or her own personal thoughts recorded in it. This can only lead to confusion, and elevates the person to a kind of status no one in the Christian world should have. It is quite telling that in this promotional for the Everyday Life Bible, the narrator stated that having this Bible would be like having Joyce right beside you. If the Word of God puts anyone beside us, it should be the Lord Jesus Christ, not another human being. Why would I want to imagine that Joyce Meyer is beside me when I am reading or studying God’s holy Word? Why would I want to imagine any human being beside me, no matter how much I might value that person? Such a thing can only detract from the glory of God and put a sinful human being in his place. The Schofield Reference Bible most likely was the pioneer in the modern era of having a person’s name attached to a Bible and having that person’s theology expressed in the notes and references. Schofield’s notes are what spread the unbiblical “pre-trib” rapture theory and the theology of dispensationalism among conservative Evangelicals throughout the United States and beyond. Many of Schofield’s notes are quite helpful, but his notes are also primarily responsible for the most popular teaching on eschatology among fundamentalists and Evangelicals today. In the opinion of many reputable Bible scholars his scheme of premillennial dispensationalism is imposed upon the Scripture rather than derived from it. Perhaps Joyce Meyer has some helpful thoughts in her notes in the Everyday Life Bible, but in my opinion no individual’s ideas or devotional thoughts should be placed into God’s holy Word.

Joyce uses some common “thought-stoppers” here in her “Get Serious” talk. They may be intentional or unintentional, but either way, they have the same effect. “Thought-stoppers,” whether intentional or accidental, serve to keep the audience from questioning or evaluating what is being said by the speaker.

When she states that God told her to teach his word, and when she said that she attended the “school of the Holy Ghost” instead of getting formal training in Bible and theology, these statements cause people to stop questioning. Why? Simple: how do you question God and the Holy Ghost? Always watch out for these thought-stoppers when listening to speakers. Another common “thought-stopper” is to ask everyone to repeat a certain word or phrase, or turn to a neighbor in the pew and say what the speaker tells you to say. This tactic reinforces the speaker’s point by having you repeat it after him. After all, you yourself said it—how could it be wrong? It seems to me that part of her strategy in saying these things is to assure her audience that even though she has no formal theological training, she is qualified to teach because God told her to do it, and because she was taught by God himself! These are rather audacious claims. She could have said (if it is true—and I don’t know if it is) that she did not have the opportunity to go to Bible school, but that she has made up for it somewhat by reading and studying and taking on-line courses from reputable institutions. She could assuage some concerns by naming people she has studied under, authors she has read, and/or courses she has taken on-line or by correspondence. But she did not do that. She simply swept away her audience’s possible questioning of her teaching credentials with the two caveats that (1) God told her to teach, and that (2) God’s Spirit taught her how. Maybe in her mind she believes this to be sufficient, but it only leaves more questions for me and others. We are all charged by God to “test the spirits to see if they are from God” (1 John 4:1), and to be like the Bereans, who “searched the Scriptures every day to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). It would be helpful in evaluating any teacher to know where and by whom they were taught, and what they actually studied.

As I have just mentioned above, she holds up having no formal training as a sort of badge of honor (she says she was taught instead by the Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit). This “brag” is fairly common in some circles, especially Charismatic and Pentecostal circles. The speaker who makes such a boast may want you to think that formal training only hinders the free working of the Holy Spirit, and that being taught directly by God is certainly superior to “man’s theology.” (I don’t know if Joyce Meyer believes this, but many in certain circles do.) But we wouldn’t be satisfied if our auto mechanic or plumber said he had no formal training in his trade, but was instead taught his trade in the ‘school of the Holy Spirit.’ Certainly, we can and should all confess Christ at every opportunity and share the good news of the gospel, but God had a good reason for inspiring James to write that not many should become teachers. Teachers are held to a higher standard than others and will be judged more strictly (James 3:1). 2 Timothy 2:15 states that the pastor/teacher should “make every effort to show himself approved by God, a workman who does not need to be ashamed, guiding the word of truth along a straight path” (or “correctly handling the word of truth”). Training in Bible and theology and the biblical languages should be a part of that effort. In these days of encroaching secularism, the church needs trained teachers and preachers. Every Christian can share Christ, but not every Christian should be teaching others the word of God. Doing it correctly requires specialized training in languages, church history, biblical theology, and hermeneutics. By her own admission, Joyce Meyer does not have this training. She does not explain exactly what she means by “the school of the Holy Ghost.” Perhaps she has offered an explanation in other talks, but I have not heard it. This statement (that she was taught by the Holy Spirit) tends to make us think that she has received some sort of secret knowledge or insider information that is not available to the rest of us except through Joyce’s teaching. I don’t know whether or not she intended to convey this idea, but it comes through subtly anyhow. We must have a healthy skepticism toward anyone who claims that God has somehow uniquely called them and taught them truths that we can only learn by listening to them.

The written Word of God is public and is the same no matter who reads it. It is not secret knowledge available only to a select few. God has given it to the whole world, and it is available almost everywhere to everyone. We do not need Joyce Meyer or any other self-appointed “teacher” to give us insights into God’s “hidden” or “secret” knowledge. He has revealed to us in his Word everything he wants us to know. Pastors and teachers who are called and ordained by their church or church body are given the awesome responsibility of proclaiming God’s Word fully and accurately. They are accountable to the body which called them, and especially to God, for handling his Word correctly. We should always be skeptical of anyone who is a self-appointed Bible teacher. The Christian world is full of such people who often are accountable to no one, or perhaps only to a board they themselves have chosen. Who is going to call them to account if they err in their teaching? Most likely, no one. I do not know what Joyce Meyer’s status is in this regard, but it seems that she does not represent any church or church body. Is she accountable to an independent board, directors, elders, or some such? Perhaps someone has the answer to this important question. It would help in evaluating her ministry to know the answer to this question.

Her talk about God’s being “in love with us,” and “marrying Jesus instead of dating him” is a bit creepy. The Bible does not speak like this (unless one allegorizes the Song of Solomon). The New Testament speaks of the entire church as the “bride of Christ,” but it does not speak of the individual Christian as if he or she is God’s “lover” or “spouse.” We have to remember that most marriages in Bible times (especially in Jewish culture) were arranged by the families and did not necessarily involve the type of romantic love we are familiar with today. There was no “dating” in biblical culture as we think of it today. There was betrothal and then marriage, including the groom’s paying of money or property to the bride’s family. In the early centuries of the church’s existence there was a heresy called “Gnosticism.” This heresy emphasized feelings and secret knowledge. One church father wrote that the Gnostics sang “love songs.” So-called worship songs that could be sung to a spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend with little alteration are quite popular today. We must be careful not to read back into the Bible our own cultural norms and ideas. I think I know what Joyce Meyer was trying to convey. She wants her audience to know that God loves them. That is well and good, for Scripture speaks often of God’s love for his people, even of the whole world. But saying that God is “in love” with us conveys something quite beyond the scope of biblical thought. It conjures up thoughts of “romantic” love, which is not the kind of love God has for his people. By questioning whether people are “dating Christ or married to him,” she is trying to emphasize the difference between being a nominal Christian and a serious Christian. I get that. But the image of dating and marriage again causes us to think of some sort of romance between Jesus and us, which is foreign to Scripture. She could have used Jesus’ own words, when he said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Or, she could have spoken of Jesus calling his disciples his “friends,” for whom he laid down his life. She could have emphasized that the “serious” Christian is one who prays for God to enable him to live as Jesus desires him to. She could have said that the serious Christian is one who studies the Word of God to discover what Jesus’ commands are, and who attends church regularly and makes every effort to make progress in obeying those commands. It would have served her and her listeners well if she had spent more time talking about the struggles the serious Christian has, and the opposition the flesh constantly puts up against living in obedience to Christ and his Word. Instead, she spoke as if there is a “magic bullet” called “total commitment,” which will put one on a higher spiritual plane. She makes the rather cavalier demand that Christians “get out in the world and behave like Christians, and set fires everywhere.” We certainly want to live in obedience to Christ, but Joyce offered no biblical teaching that tells us how to go about getting from where we are to where we might want to go other than to make a radical choice to “get serious.” She seemed to denigrate attending church, as if “just attending church” is somehow a negative experience unless one “gets serious” through some other means. Many serious Christians—if you want to use that term—attend church regularly and receive God’s grace for living everyday life by doing so. I happen to be one of those Christians. Are there people who attend church mainly for the friendships and potluck suppers? I suppose there are. Are there hypocrites in church? Yes, every single person who attends church is a certified hypocrite in some manner. None of us perfectly lives up to what we know is required of us by God’s law. That is why we constantly need to repent and be forgiven, and why we need to hear God’s Word faithfully proclaimed every Sunday. It is why we need to receive the Lord’s Supper regularly for the forgiveness of our sins and the strengthening of our faith. I would wish that Joyce Meyer would spend some time talking about repentance and forgiveness. Perhaps she has in other talks. I have heard a few of her talks, but I have not heard her emphasize these truths.

In her talk, Joyce Meyer spoke about having the “right to bear Jesus’ name.”

She was referring to Christian behavior as demonstrating this right. It seems that she was strongly suggesting that we must earn the right to be called “Christians.” I agree that our behavior is supposed to reflect our faith. James makes that quite clear, as does the entire Bible, for that matter. But we bear Jesus’ name prior to any ability to live godly lives. Scripture tells us plainly that we are Christians by God’s choosing, and not our own decision. We do not earn the right in any sense to bear the name of our Lord. Quite the opposite is the case. We have no natural right or earned right to be associated with the name of Jesus. See, for example, Romans 3, Romans 8-11, 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5, and the entire book of Galatians. The gospel hinges on the fact that it is a free gift with no strings attached, and that salvation comes to us as those who cannot live according to God’s will. Romans 5:8 states, “But God demonstrates his own love toward us in the fact that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” In Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son, what did the lost son do to deserve to be called by his father’s name? Not only did he not do anything to earn that right, he did everything he could to trash his father’s name and his inheritance. But the father celebrated when the son repented and returned to him, expecting only to become one of his father’s hired hands. All of us have done the same thing as the prodigal. We have despised the gifts of God, wandered off on our own to indulge our fleshly desires, and given God a bad name in the world by our sinful living. At the end of several of his parables, Jesus states that there is rejoicing in heaven over even one sinner who repents. Jesus told his disciples that they had not chosen him, but that he had chosen them. After he chose them, they often displayed a lack of faith, understanding, and even loyalty. One of them betrayed him. Peter denied Jesus in his hour of greatest need, even after boasting that he never would. All the disciples fled when Jesus was arrested. Paul had to correct Peter when he withdrew from eating with the Gentile Christians because of peer pressure by some Jewish believers (Galatians 2:11ff.). This was the same Peter who had the vision in Acts 10 which declared all foods clean and gave him permission to enter a Gentile home to preach the gospel! Even the most “committed” among us fail and need to repent, even the leader of the twelve Apostles! Jesus declared that no one comes to him unless the Father draws them. Those who bear Jesus’ name are the baptized who believe in and confess Jesus as their risen Savior, who gave himself as the atoning sacrifice for their sins. The New Testament teaches that we are justified, not by anything we do, but by grace through faith. Even our faith is a gift from God, as Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us. If we must earn the right to bear Jesus’ name, then our salvation, our justification, is no longer a free gift of grace. It then becomes a payment or reward for our “good behavior,” even if that good behavior is a future reality. This concept is precisely the teaching of Rome, i.e. that God has done his part to save us, and now we must do our part. According to Rome, our merits (good works) must be added to those of Christ. This is not the biblical gospel, but the error that Paul denounces in Galatians. It is the error of every false religion and, unfortunately, of many in the American church. Many of the so-called “holiness” churches are guilty of this error by projecting the sanctification of the believer back on to his justification by stating or implying that one is not a “real” Christian unless he behaves in certain ways or refrains from certain activities. In many churches there is very little sense of repentance and forgiveness on a regular basis, but only an insistence on a radical surrender or total commitment, which is supposed to put one on a higher plane and keep one from falling into further sin. The so-called “baptism with the Holy Spirit” is the same thing in a different dress. In that theology, the Holy Spirit so fills a person that he lives his Christian life on a different level than before. If there is any kind of “falling away” or “backsliding,” then there must be another radical “rededication” to the Lord, often accompanied by kneeling at the altar and being prayed over by elders or deacons. I heard a talk by Joyce Meyer In which she denied that she is any longer a “poor miserable sinner.” I suppose one could quibble about the “poor miserable” part, but the fact that she and all Christians are still sinners in need of daily repentance and continual forgiveness and mercy from God is a biblical truth so plain that it hardly needs explanation. The admonition in 1 John 1:8-10 should suffice here. This text tells us that if a Christian denies that he is a sinner who sins, the truth of God is not in him. Further, as verse 9 tells us, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This was clearly written to believers. If we are able to “get serious” to the point that we never argue with our spouses on the way to church or yell at our kids in the back seat, then there is some sort of magic to the Christian life that most all of us have missed out on! If we always arrived at church at “peace,” as Joyce Meyer implies that we should, then why would we need to be there? We would, in that case, have outgrown our need for church!

Joyce Meyer is not unique in many of the things she says in this talk. Many mainstream Evangelicals and Evangelical pastors would agree with her. Her call for some kind of “total commitment” or “decision to get serious” has been a mainstay of Evangelical teaching for as long as I can remember. This one-time “surrender” has been touted as the key to the Christian life for decades, perhaps centuries. I think of a popular Evangelical hymn called “I Surrender All.” This old hymn expresses the essence of what Joyce Meyer is talking about, and what many in the Evangelical church promote regularly. Here are some of the lyrics, written in 1896 by Judson W. Van DeVenter:

All to Jesus I surrender

All to Him I freely give

I will ever love and trust Him

In His presence daily live.

All to Jesus I surrender

Humbly at His feet I bow

Worldly pleasures all forsaken

Take me, Jesus, take me now.

All to Jesus I surrender

Make me, Savior, wholly Thine

Let me feel the Holy Spirit

Truly know that Thou art mine.

All to Jesus I surrender

Lord I give myself to Thee

Fill me with Thy love and power

Let Thy blessing fall on me.

Notice the emotional component of this hymn. The author wants to “feel the Holy Spirit” and “truly know that Thou art mine.” Notice also the subtle boasting. The author makes a boast like that of the Apostle Peter before the crucifixion of Jesus, “I will ever love and trust Him,” and “worldly pleasures all forsaken.” Notice also the implication of “tit for tat” here. The author promises full surrender, and in return hopes to receive God’s love and power and his blessing. His request to “feel the Holy Spirit,” is an experience that God never promises in his Word. We can see the approach to the kind of personal intimacy with God that Joyce Meyer spoke about in her talk when she stated that “God is in love with you,” and when she asked if the audience is “married to Jesus or merely dating him.” It should perhaps shock us that this hymn was written in 1896, not 1996! This sentimentality and world-denying escapism has been attached to Christianity for a long time. Joyce Meyer spoke in her talk about having a “personal, intimate, powerful relationship” with God. She is calling for the same subjective spiritual experience that Mr. DeVenter was proclaiming over 100 years ago. Notice the line in the hymn, “Let me. . . truly know that thou art mine.” How will the author know that Jesus is his? By Jesus’ letting him “feel the Holy Spirit.” In other words, the assurance of salvation for Mr. DeVenter (and, it seems, for Joyce Meyer) is an experience with God rather than the objective statements found in the Scriptures. Herein lies the problem with much of the Evangelical church in America. Although it proclaims the Bible as the infallible and inerrant Word of God, it promotes experience, feelings, and actions as the ground and assurance of a relationship with God. This is exactly what Joyce Meyer is doing in her talk. In doing so, she is right in line with most of the American church. That is why I stated previously that I believe most Christians and most pastors would agree with her in much of what she says in this talk.

The philosophical background to this approach to the Christian faith probably lies in the “romantic” movement of the late 1700s. This movement focused on intuition, nature, emotion over reason, feelings over intellect, and a turning in on the self. A key figure in Christianity during this period was the German Reformed theologian and philosopher, Friedrich Schleiermacher. He theorized that Christianity was a matter of feelings rather than doctrine. He taught that “religious feeling” is the highest form of thought and life. In 1799 he wrote in Addresses on Religion, “Dogmas are not, properly speaking, part of religion: rather it is that they are derived from it. Religion is the miracle of a direct relationship with the infinite, and dogmas are the reflection of this miracle.” What Schleiermacher did, it seems to me, was to take Christian pietism and combine it with Romanticism, thus turning Christianity into a totally subjective experience. The creedal doctrines that the older pietists still affirmed were no longer present in his system.

Schleiermacher is sometimes called the “father of liberal Protestantism,” which is an apt description. However, this description is somewhat out of date. It is not just the liberal (or “progressive”) wing of Protestantism which follows his teaching, but a large segment of the “Bible-believing” church as well. Joyce Meyer represents one part of this wider Evangelical movement. It is easy to see that Joyce and other Evangelicals are using the same type of language Schleiermacher used, even though they may never have heard of him. The idea of the “direct relationship with the infinite” appears in Joyce’s appeal for people to develop a “personal, intimate, powerful relationship” with God. The Evangelical mantra today is that “Christianity is a relationship, not a religion.”

Joyce’s challenge to be “married” to Jesus rather than just “dating” him seems to fit this same idea of having an unmediated connection with the divine. Joyce Meyer’s theology seems to fit with the absence of sacramental theology in the wider Evangelical church. The sacraments are a means of grace, physical and material elements that mediate God’s favor of forgiveness and mercy to us in Christ. The water of baptism and the bread and wine of communion provide a connection with God through these physical elements. These sacraments were instituted by Christ, who is the incarnate Word of God. We experience Christ’s presence and grace through the Word and the Sacraments, both of which bring Christ’s work on our behalf to us in our physical existence. But Joyce Meyer and many Evangelicals speak as if there is no means of grace except this direct, intimate, personal relationship with God, this “marriage” to Jesus, which we bring about by our action of “getting serious,” of “surrendering” or committing ourselves totally to him. In Joyce’s message, she seems to say that this relationship has little to do with the church. She seems to deny that our spirituality has any connection with the church. Rather, she suggests that there is a mystical experience with God or Christ which happens before we get to church. It leads to moral improvement, which then makes us suitable for church. It is a perfectionist ideal—a kind of “romantic” relationship with Jesus, which we initiate by our act of surrender.

A wise Christian has written that when the sacraments are denied or ignored, then only two options are available: mysticism and moralism. Mysticism involves a direct experience of God without a mediator. It can be “hearing the voice of God,” praying in tongues, “feeling the Spirit,” and a number of other “spiritual” experiences in which one makes a direct connection with God apart from any objective truth, such as Scripture. Moralism involves living a pure, holy life, free from sin, usually through the avenue of complete surrender to God or a “total commitment” to him. It may also be straightforward legalism, in which not only God’s law but also a list of man-made rules must be obeyed in order for one to be considered a “real” Christian. Both of these approaches to God and the Christian life have the objective of bringing God’s grace to the believer and bypassing the need for constant repentance and forgiveness.

The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper (and also the Absolution) bring grace and forgiveness to us, mediated by physical elements which are outside of us. The Word of God spoken as these sacraments are administered is the objective truth and promises of God which secure them as means of grace. When Christians do not believe that these physical elements deliver God’s grace to us, but rather are ordinances or laws for us to obey, then we must seek God’s grace in other means. It seems to me that Joyce Meyer (along with many Evangelicals) is doing this very thing when she speaks of “getting serious” and having a “personal, intimate, powerful relationship with God.” Joyce is, in effect, stating that one is in a state of grace when he or she “gets serious” and develops this higher level relationship with God, which she explains as being “married” to Jesus. These statements promote both mysticism and moralism as the means by which we are to live in such a way that God approves of us and accepts us as his legitimate children. These appeals to surrender to and intimacy with God are substitutes for the sacraments. The sacraments are God’s gifts to us, for which we do no work and make no effort to acquire. What Joyce is asking her listeners to do is to work hard and make every effort to earn God’s gracious approval and favor by mystical and moral means. The difference between these two approaches to God’s grace is the difference between slavery and Christian freedom. It is the difference between self-reliance and trust in God’s promises.

In Ephesians 6, the Apostle Paul wrote about “the armor of God.” In order to live victorious Christian lives, Paul states that we must put on God’s armor. He lists these pieces of armor as “the shield of faith,” “the helmet of salvation,” the breastplate of righteousness,” “the belt of truth,” “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God,” and the “shoes of the gospel.” These are the tools we must rely upon for overcoming sin and Satan. But notice that these are all gifts of God. We do not earn or produce a single one of them. They are all given to us when we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior and are baptized. We do not acquire these pieces of armor by “getting serious,” but by faith.

Furthermore, theLord’s Prayer teaches us to pray, “. . . forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” The power and the glory which the addendum to the prayer declares, belong to God, not to us. No amount of “surrender,” “getting serious,” or experience with the Holy Spirit (whatever form it may take), will propel us to a higher level of Christianity. There is no higher level. The Christian life is a life of daily repentance and calling upon God for his mercy. The little parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14), which Jesus told, informs us about how we are justified before God. It is not by earning the right to bear the name of Jesus by “getting serious,” but rather by crying out as the tax collector did, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner!” Martin Luther wrote in a note found in his pocket after his death, “We are all beggars.” This is exactly true of every Christian, both before and after conversion. God owes us nothing, but in his love and grace, he grants us repentance and the faith to believe unto our salvation. There is an ancient Latin phrase, “simul justus, et peccator,” which means, “at the same time, justified and sinner.” This is precisely what the Bible teaches about us. The irony is that Joyce Meyer and others who teach along the same lines as she does in this talk, are inevitably creating hypocrites by their teaching. They condemn some Christians as hypocrites for not being serious enough, but create hypocrites by asking people to try to live in a way that is impossible. Attempting to live a life of total surrender (whatever that is) can only lead either to the pride of self-righteousness or the pit of despair. In either case, no one can live up to the mystical and moral ideals which Joyce Meyer and other Evangelicals teach. Professing to be “sold out” to Jesus, but failing to live up to that profession, satisfies the definition of hypocrisy. Only a life of daily repentance and calling on God for his mercy and forgiveness, knowing that we are “beggars,” who are at the same time justified and sinners, is the only way to live the Christian life. It is the only way to avoid being a hypocrite. We should not be making grandiose claims to be totally committed to Jesus or to have attained a “personal, intimate, powerful relationship with God.”

Whatever relationship we have with God is a result of His grace, not of our doing. And so it is with every aspect of our faith and lives as Christians. We should “get serious” by focusing on the cross of Christ, and not on our own spiritual status or attainments (1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5 & Hebrews 12:2).

Daryl G. Rahfeldt, Ph.D.