The Purpose-Driven Life [Hardcover]

Rick Warren (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2003

Another Landmark Book by Rick Warren. You are not an accident. Even before the universe was created, God had you in mind, and he planned you for his purposes. These purposes will extend far beyond the few years you will spend on earth. You were made to last forever! Self-help books often suggest that you try to discover the meaning and purpose of your life by looking within yourself, but Rick Warren says that is the wrong place to start. You must begin with God, your Creator, and his reasons for creating you. You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense. This book will help you understand why you are alive and God's amazing plan for you---both here and now, and for eternity. Rick Warren will guide you through a personal 40-day spiritual journey that will transform your answer to life's most important question: What on earth am I here for? Knowing God's purpose for creating you will reduce your stress, focus your energy, simplify your decisions, give meaning to your life, and, most importantly, prepare you for eternity. The Purpose Driven Life is a blueprint for Christian living in the 21st century---a lifestyle based on God's eternal purposes, not cultural values. Using over 1,200 scriptural quotes and references, it challenges the conventional definitions of worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism. In the tradition of Oswald Chambers, Rick Warren offers distilled wisdom on the essence of what life is all about. This is a book of hope and challenge that you will read and re-read, and it will be a classic treasured by generations to come.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The spiritual premise in The Purpose-Driven Life is that there are no accidents---God planned everything and everyone. Therefore, every human has a divine purpose, according to God's master plan. Like a twist on John F. Kennedy's famous inaugural address, this book could be summed up like this: "So my fellow Christians, ask not what God can do for your life plan, ask what your life can do for God's plan." Those who are looking for advice on finding one's calling through career choice, creative expression, or any form of self-discovery should go elsewhere. This is not about self-exploration; it is about purposeful devotion to a Christian God. The book is set up to be a 40-day immersion plan, recognizing that the Bible favors the number 40 as a "spiritually significant time," according to author Rick Warren, the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, touted as one of the nation largest congregations. Warren's hope is that readers will "interact" with the 40 chapters, reading them one day at a time, with extensive underlining and writing in the margins. As an inspirational manifesto for creating a more worshipful, church-driven life, this book delivers. Every page is laden with references to scripture or dogma. But it does not do much to address the challenges of modern Christian living, with its competing material, professional, and financial distractions. Nonetheless, this is probably an excellent resource for devout Christians who crave a jumpstart back to worshipfulness. --Gail Hudson --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Pastor of Saddleback Church, a Southern Baptist mega-church in southern California with weekly attendance of more than 15,000, Warren now applies his highly successful "purpose-driven" framework, developed in the best-seller The Purpose-Driven Church, to individual experience. The same principles Warren has taught to thousands of pastors to help churches be healthy and effective can also drive lives, he says. The book argues that discerning and living five God-ordained purposes-worship, community, discipleship, ministry and evangelism-is key to effective living. His 40 short chapters are intended to be read over 40 days' time, giving readers small pieces of his purpose-discovering program to chew on. Warren certainly knows his Bible. Of 800-plus footnotes, only 18 don't refer to Christian Scripture. He deliberately works with 15 different Bible translations, leaning heavily on contemporary translations and paraphrases, as an interesting way of plumbing biblical text. The almost exclusively biblical frame of reference stakes out the audience niche for this manual for Christian living. It's practical yet paradoxically abstract, lacking the kind of real-life examples and stories that life-application books usually provide in abundance. The book has flaws editing might have fixed. People are quoted without being identified, and subheads simply repeat lines of text, which tends to make the prose sound too simple. This book is not for all, but for those needing a certain kind of scriptural rock, it is solid.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Running Press Book Publishers (October 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0762417153
• ISBN-13: 978-0762417155
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1,225 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,829,480 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rick Warren is often called "America's most influential spiritual leader." He and his wife, Kay, founded Saddleback Church in Orange County, California, which is now one of the largest and best-known churches in the world. He also wrote the #1 all-time bestselling hardcover book, The Purpose Driven Life.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring, September 2, 2011

By 

C. Johnson - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Purpose Driven Life (QR Code Enhanced Edition): What on Earth Am I Here For? (Purpose Driven Life, The) (Paperback)

The Purpose Driven Life is a devotional book, and with over 30 million copies sold, it's become quite popular. So what's all the fuss about? Well, the book offers readers a 40-day personal spiritual journey, and presents what the author says are God's five purposes for human life on Earth. They are:

1 You were planned for God's pleasure
2 You were formed for God's family
3 You were created to become like Christ
4 You were shaped for serving God
5 You were made for a mission

What you're suppose to do with the book is this. It's divided up into 40 brief chapters, and the reader is urged to read but one chapter a day so you can take time to think about it's implications for your life. Therefore, you really start finding yourself interacting with the book, and not just merely "reading" it. To that end, each chapter finishes with points to ponder, a verse to remember, and a question to consider.

All-in-all I found this to be a pretty thought provoking and inspiring book. The chapters are short, which I greatly appreciated due to my busy daily schedule. Additionally, I found the author's writing style easy going, which makes the book an overall enjoyable read. So if you're looking for a good book to help guide you along your spiritual journey, or a "workbook" to help you answer some of life's most important questions, I can definitely recommend you check it out. Other self-help books I liked include The Wishing Well Test: Take the Test - Get Your Wish!.

2,074 of 2,529 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Turning the House of God into a Den of Thieves., October 30, 2003

By 

tvtv3 "tvtv3" (Sorento, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Purpose Driven Life (Hardcover)

I try to keep abreast of things going on in the world. Sometimes things come along that are total fads: here one day, then gone and forgotten the next. It's sad to say, but as a Christian I have to admit that there are also fads in the contemporary American part of the Church. THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE is one of these.

I had never heard of THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE until a couple of local churches started doing the 40-Days of Purpose campaign. About the same time, a friend of mine mentioned this book as the next "big fad in the Church", and asked me if I got a chance, to read it. He believed I would agree with him and I do.

As a whole, there isn't really anything wrong with the book. Suspicious as his intentions might be, I'll give Rick Warren the credit and believe he primarily wrote this book to help Christians in their walk with Jesus. I believe that this book could be useful to a new Christian or someone who is possibly thinking about converting to Christianity. I also don't wish to discredit all those who have been helped in their life because of this book. The book is written in a very simply style that a third or fourth-grader shouldn't have a problem reading it. Warren supports much of what he says with Scripture and the book is filled with Biblical references.

However, the book is filled with severals flaws.

1. Warren says he purposely uses many different translations and paraphrases of the Bible to illustrate how relevant Scripture is to our day to day lives. However, Warren tends to rely on paraphrases more than actual translations of the Bible. This is a dangerous thing. Yes, the Bible was written in such a way that the "common man" could understand it's meaning. That's why paraphrases are so dangerous; they can change the entire meaning of a scriptural passage.

2. There is hardly any reference to the Holy Spirit. I am not a member of a charismatic church, but in many dominations across the country discussion of the Holy Spirit is totally ignored. Like it or not, the Holy Spirit is the seal that differentiates Christians from non-Christians. It is an essential part of the Trinity and to deny it, by ignoring it is very dangerous, almost blasphemous.

3. Though Warren uses a lot of Biblical references, there are several times that he says "The Bible says" without actually quoting any passages from the Bible. I found this to be puzzling in a book that contains so much scriptural support.

4. Warren tends to overgeneralize things. He uses words such as "all", "every", "everyone", etc. quite often. This was one of the more disturbing elements of the book to me. When I first started reading the book, I had considered purchasing it and giving it to my mother for a gift. However, about halfway through the text, I began to seriously disagree with some of what Warren was writing. The impression that the text leaves one with is that if you don't do things the way the book tells you to, then you're not a good Christian and there is probably something wrong with you. Many of the books suggestions aren't Biblical, just suggestions that Warren feels may help people out. But the impressions those suggestions leaves is not necessarily a positive one. Therefore, I am not giving this book to my mother.

5. The other major problem I had with the book is that it is largely a piece of advertising. In various chapters (especially at the beginning), Warren discusses a point and says something like, "if you want more help with that topic, see my other book" or "see the resources of mine listed at the back" which you can purchase. It seemed like every other chapter contained at least one plug for one of Warren's resources which can be purchased. I have nothing against writers plugging there wares. I have nothing against Christian writers writing for money. I do have a problem with people using a tool that is supposed to be for evangelism but also use it as a way to advertise so that they can sell more products and make more money. Though this may not be the original intent of the author, the self-promotion throughout the book leaves a reader pondering Warren's true intentions.

As I mentioned earlier, the book as a whole isn't all that bad despite the flaws. I can't rate this book lower than a three because I know that despite the flaws, there is a lot of material in the book that can be helpful to a lot of people.

658 of 823 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good overall picture of Christianity--I had 2 criticisms, November 13, 2003

By 

C. Stephans - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Purpose Driven Life (Hardcover)

The Purpose-Driven Life focuses on helping readers answer the question, "What on earth am I here for?" Warren sets out to help readers become the people that God wants them to be.

He elaborates on five truths to answer this question of why we are here. According to Warren, we exist for the purposes of worship, ministry, evangelism, fellowship and discipleship. He states that in fulfilling these roles on earth, we find and fulfill our purposes.

This is a comprehensive book about how to live the Christian life successfully. It discusses most of the major themes of The Bible. Warren cites over 1,000 scriptures in the book. He rarely makes a point without quoting from the Bible. The messages of the chapters are relevant for new and mature Christians.

The book is formatted in 40 chapters. Warren suggests readers study a chapter a day for 40 days, so that the reader can take time to reflect and meditate on each chapter's lesson. Each chapter ends with a main point to consider, a scripture to remember and a question to answer. I found these questions to be thought-provoking and meaningful.

This book is an excellent tool for study groups to read and discuss. It emphasizes the importance of Christian character development and of becoming an active member of a community of believers. Warren provides reasons and practical ways for the reader to serve others inside and outside the church.

For a church wanting to develop individuals excited and prepared to do ministry, promoting studies of The Purpose-Driven Life would help to meet this objective. Warren concludes the book by addressing each person's mission within the church and world. He also includes an appendix with further questions to initiate discussion among readers.

In citing 1000 scriptures throughout the book, Warren uses 15 different Bible translations interchangeably. He explains that all translations have limitations and that he uses various translations to present scriptures in a fresh way. The references for the scriptures he quotes are in endnotes, so I was continually turning to the back of the book to discover the version and verse of a scripture. To a minor extent, I think this undermines the integrity and flow of the book.

I always try to keep in mind when reading a book like this that the author's opinions are not infallible like the Bible. I say this because there are a few times while reading this book when I disagreed with an opinion of Warren's which was stated as a fact. Readers should keep in mind that opinions of Christian authors are debatable and not gospel.

I don't think these two criticisms detract much from the value of this book.

Warren writes that "The purpose of your life fits into a much larger, cosmic purpose that God has designed for eternity. That's what this book is about." In The Purpose Driven Life, Warren has written indefatigably about this purpose, and I think reading it will help you identify and fulfill your purpose.

Craig Stephans, author of Shakespeare On Spirituality: Life-Changing Wisdom from Shakespeare's Plays