Some of you need to understand *why* Paul needed to say “Shall we sin then so that grace may abound?” If what Paul was preaching didn’t sound a lot like “God will not be angry with you because of your sin” they never would have asked that question.

Get a life.
If you don’t like it, take it up with the Sovereign Lord. He sure seems to be using Mark.

Or would you rather have the Joel Osteen blinding-white smile with nary a negative anything?

You don’t have to like him, but don’t judge him. If you think what he does is wrong, fine, don’t do it.

So tell me: how do you feel about Driscoll being referred to as “reformed?” I couldn’t quite tell, so could you state it for me one more time.

Kidding.

First of all, I’d recommend you getting to know me before you put forth all this speculation and conjecture. First, Driscoll refers to himself as “reformed” in his book “Confessions of a Reformissionary Rev.” Tim Keller also refers to himself as reformed in numerous sermons. So in both cases, I’m quoting them.

Secondly, I hold to the literal nature of Genesis 1-11, so be sure and take care to make sure you know where I come from before you tell me I give Christianity a “black eye.” Let’s get it right before you start with the accusations.

I’m surprised this blog post made you “freak out of your mind.” Seems like anytime anyone speaks of Driscoll, it’s too polarizing. Wow.

You referred to Brother Driscoll as a “Reformed” loose cannon. First of all, I am sick and tired of the term “reformed” being to anyone and everyone who is a Calvinist. “It ain’t so, Joe.” The appellation requires much more than simply being a Calvinist. Driscoll apparently has, at least for now, a soteriology that is Calvinistic. That’s about as far as it goes for him. Don’t devalue the term by referring to either Mark Driscoll OR Tim Keller as “reformed.” You don’t know what you are talking about. And don’t go crying, “Well, who are you to define the term ‘reformed’? Mark Driscoll is a very powerful and dynamic speaker, and there are some real beauties in his sermons. But, he is anything but “reformed” in the classical, historical sense of the word. When I think of Brother Driscoll simply as a broad evangelical who is a Calvinist caught up in the contextualization fad, I don’t get the heebeejeebees. But, when I hear guys like you refer to him as “reformed”, I freak out of my mind. I can appreicate Driscoll as a brother with a passion and a message to narrow niche of American culture. However, when it is suggested that he is “reformed”, I get heartburn. Mark Driscoll is an example of an “emerging church” type who believes in the sovereignty of God. That’s about it.

I do want to warn readers that he is dead wrong in his exegesis and interpretation of Genesis 1-2. In his sermon on Genesis 1&2, the first five days, he tells listeners not to write him any letters. He doesn’t want to hear it. Phew! That’s not only super prideful, it is dangerous for his soul.

I am appalled that so few modern leaders in the “reformed” movement get it so terribly wrong on the first 11 chapters of Genesis. Boice, Piper, Dever, Keller, Driscoll, Alister Begg(sp?), RC Sproul (finally repented but keeps silent on the issue.)…Do any national figures beside Al Mohler and John MacArthur really take seriously the first 11 chapters of Genesis?
Error in the beginning is like poison. It brings death in the end. These men might be able to keep the error in check in their own theological lives, but, eat will eat the soul right out of the avegage person in the pew. Church history bears this tendency out.

You guys who went to TEDS, Gordon Conwell, Westminster, Fuller, Wheaton and Covenant need to read beyond Boice’s commentary on Genesis, Kline’s “Because It Had Not Rained”, Phillip Johnson’s many books on ID and Hugh Ross on Progressvie Creation. You give Biblical Christianity a black eye when you espouse this compromise. The unbelieving world KNOWS what Genesis 1-11 teaches and that the rest of the Bible backs it up. How is it that they can get it right, and you can’t?

For the glory of Christ and the Truth,
jo
(PS: I’m pushing 50 so hard it hurts.)

http://www.youtube.com/user/ReallySad1
.

I thank you for your concerns about me, but when I say sisters I mean my sisters in Christ and I treat them like 1 Timothy 5:2 says to. And I can’t tell you how many times I have heard nonchristian men(or boys rather) say that church is the best place to “pick up chicks”(and I use this phrase because the phrases they actually used were much more crass). In Seattle, the number one talk show host among young men is Tom Leykis. Look him up; you’ll want to throw up. I did.

Secondly I would like to apologize for the tone I carried in my last posts; I was not as loving as I should have been. And I encourage you to read this post with the knowledge that I am a sinner.

Now I will continue with first a prayer so that I may not sin because in all honesty I am very flustered. Not out of my own pride but out of the blatant attack on the works of Jesus Christ and my 2 Corinthians 10:17 and my 1 Corinthians 1:31.

Jesus Christ, You are a sovereign God and you reign over all people in all nations. Lord I thank you for your sacrifice on the cross and I pray that you would give me the words to write and Holy Spirit keep my mouth in check and in line with the Word that you inspired. You are a righteous and just God, slow to anger and abounding in love; I pray that I would be the same. Amen.

Carley,

After what you’ve said. I’m not sure that you’re even a Christian. You’re actually saying that you want the spread of Christianity in Seattle to stop. Jesus accused the Pharisees of being sons of the devil and without Jesus I would say much worse than that. But I won’t. Your religion-not the true religion of James, to care for widows and orphans, but the kind that put Jesus on the cross-You religion is sinful. Scripture says in 2 Timothy 3:16 that all scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. (And in all honesty I could use 1 Timothy 2:12 right now, but I do not think that would be loving, but it would be funny) So please let me rebuke you. Not harshly (1 Timothy 5) and not with my opinions, but softly with scripture. But before I rebuke you or defend Jesus Christ and his works, I want to first tell you about Jesus. Because nothing you have said supports any notion that you actually know him-the Jesus of the Bible.

There is one God. He is the maker of Heaven and earth, and he made us in his image and likeness, male and female with dignity, value, and worth, with purpose. He made us to worship, and we chose to sin against him, to rebel against him, to disobey him. As a result we are separated from God and we live under the foolish myth that to some degree we are each our own god declaring right and wrong and living our own life by our own standards. And that God lovingly came into human history as the man Jesus Christ. Fully God. Fully Man. He was born of a virgin and lived a life without sin, even though he was temped in every way as we are. And he went to the cross, and there he substituted himself. Our first parents in the garden substituted themselves for God, and at the cross, Jesus reversed that substitution and substituted himself for sinners. And when Jesus went to the cross, he took willingly upon himself the sin of those who would come to trust in him. That means me. He went to the cross and took upon himself all my sins, past present and future, sins of omission and commission, sins of thought, deed, and motive, and Jesus Christ, God, who was a man, died. In my place, for my sins, paying my debt to God and purchasing my salvation. Jesus’ dead body was then laid in a tomb, and for three days he was buried. On the third day, a Sunday, which is why I worship on that day, Jesus rose, in victory over Satan, sin, death, demons, and hell. And He commissioned us, with the Holy Spirit, to be missionaries telling this amazingly good news that there is a God who passionately, lovingly, continually, relentlessly pursues us. And he ascended into heaven, and today Jesus is alive and well and He’s seated on a throne and he is ruling and reigning over all nations, and all cultures, and all philosophies, and all races, and all periods of time and he is the KING OF KINGS AND THE LORD OF LORDS and He is ruling and reigning over all people, commanding everyone everywhere to repent of everything and he is coming again to judge the living and the dead. And those who trust in Him will enjoy eternity in his kingdom of heaven forever, and those who do not will suffer apart from Him in the conscious eternal torment of hell. That is what I believe. I believe in Jesus Christ.

Now if you believe this, then continue reading. But if you don’t, I pray that you would grab your Bible and spend some time in prayer and start a real relationship with Jesus Christ, the God of the Bible. But if you believe this, that’ll be quite ironic, because this is a direct quote of Driscoll. (Did you catch the part about “male AND female with dignity, value and worth”?

If you are by any chance a widow I love you the same and what follows is not for you so please don’t read on, and I sincerely apologize for my combativeness against you, for it is not my place if you do not have a husband to teach you the scriptures. And if that be the case, I still love you as a sister in Christ but encourage you to not post your opinions on message boards without a husband to keep you accountable to scripture and love you like Christ loves the church. If you do have a husband though, I pray that he would love the Lord and step up to be the man that God has called him to be and teach you the scriptures so that he would not have to be held responsible for these sins as Adam was held responsible for the sin of his wife Eve.

Please, please don’t continue if you don’t know this Jesus of the Bible. It is not my place to judge or rebuke the sins of an unbeliever, only to share Jesus with them, and for not previously assuring this, I apologize. But if you’re still reading this then I take it you do believe in the Jesus of the Bible, your husband is alive, and you would like to hear what I have to say. Here goes.

First.

You have not presented one bit of scripture, but rather irrational statements based on your “religious” opinions. Satan quotes more scripture than (taken out of context, twisted, and altered) but at least he’s quoting it.
All of this has just become an argument and 1 Timothy 6:4 says: “he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions,” I do not want this to become that, though it already has started.

This brings me to my second point: Slander.

How dare you accuse Driscoll of woman hating. Clearly you haven’t read or listened to him. In my hundreds of hours of reading and listening and attending Jesus’ church that he preaches at, I have heard nothing whatsoever that supports this claim. (Jesus help me out here, keep me from sin, James 1:5 says that to obtain wisdom, all I must do is ask, Jesus please give me wisdom to handle this situation) He loves and stands up for women and teaches us to do the same. You are a liar filled with deceit. And to anyone reading this: Seek the truth. Don’t trust even what I write, though I am not at all trying to deceive you. Nonetheless test it all. I’m a sinner too (Romans 7 and 8 is a fun study for this one).

Beer drinking is not a sin. Jesus drank wine. It’s a sin to get drunk though, as well as break law. Give Ecclesiastes a good 6 month study and you too will be convicted to drink good wine and eat good meat. (And don’t even think about arguing this without a verse.)

The Bible doesn’t touch swear words, I mean behavior regarding them. But the Bible does use strong language itself. I believe Isaiah 64 says that our righteous acts are like blood tampons. And Philippians 4:8 says that it is like dung. The word that is actually used there in its original Greek is “σκύβαλα” pronounced “skubala.” This word literally translated to English is “Shit”(Matt, Please don’t edit this out, it’s the Bible, if you don’t trust me, please flip to Philippians 4 in your Greek Bible and see for yourself) and early English translations of the Bible actually used this word. You could argue that that’s the only Greek equivalent. That would be false. There is επίστεγο-poop, περιττώματα-feces, κοπριά –dung, λίπασμα-manure, κόπρανα-excerement, απόβλητα, λύμα, σπατάλη, σπαταλώ-all meaning ‘waste’. So you see there are many other words Paul could’ve used, but he chose one with strength and vulgarity, σκύβαλα. So get off Driscoll’s case for doing the same in a city where nude bicyclists freely parade down our streets.(Again, please don’t argue this without a verse, you won’t be helping your case)

Thirdly

I don’t think you understand biblical masculinity. You are confused. If I continue, I may sin, so please read Genesis 1,2, and 3, the books of 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, 1 Corinthians, and Revelation 19. And I pray that the Holy Spirit would convict you of your sin.

Lastly,

I conclude only because it’s late and I have better things to do. After studying the letters of 1,2 and 3 John, I sincerely thank God for you. Because when people not unlike yourself come into the church and oppose the Word of God, Christian men bury their noses in scripture to in order to defend the truth. And because of you, I have grown in my relationship with the King and knowledge of his divine Word. So thank you. I really love you, I do. As well, studying Galatians, which I would encourage you to do also, I understand that you may say the things you do to anger me and lure me into sinning. And I probably have, and I apologize for that. It is very clear that you are trying to provoke me, but because of Jesus, I can love you and I feel (without pride or self-righteousness) that I have-for the most part-maintained self-control. (Thank you Jesus)

Jesus, you are a gracious God, a compassionate God, and the only true living God. I thank you for the Son you sent and the reconciliation that resulted from those tragic and sovereign turn of events Lord Jesus. I lift Carley up before you. I pray that she would be convicted by your word and not by my unworthy lame defense of your name, as much as I try. Lord I pray for her husband if he is still here with us on earth. I pray that he would dive into the scriptures to see what kind of man you have called him to be. Jesus I pray that you would show your love to Carley’s family and that you would help her understand that you are the way the truth and the life, and that religion and stupid rules have no say in whether or not we get to enter your kingdom. Holy Spirit please soften her heart toward Mark Driscoll and the amazing things you’re doing in Seattle and the thousands of people who are getting saved and the hundreds of churches that are being planted because of what you are doing through him. Lord I pray for him that he would continue preaching the scriptures and that more and more people would turn from their worldly lives of sin to you, the only source of joy. Jesus I pray that you would show Carley that just because things aren’t done the way that she would have them done, they aren’t wicked or sinful, but contrarily expanding your kingdom. Jesus. I can’t change Carley’s heart, only you can, and I pray that you would, because I love her, and I hate to watch her get wrapped up in meaningless religion that takes attention away from you and the love that you have for her. Jesus I thank you for this opportunity for me to grow in my knowledge of you and my understanding of your word. I thank you that I was able to hold my tongue(or fingers rather), and because this has a propensity to cause pride and self righteousness to swell up, I pray that you would keep at the forefront of my mind that I am wicked and you are holy, I’m a sinner and deserving of hell, but you love me. Jesus I love you dearly, and I thank you for the cross.

Amen.

Carley, I love you.

I just seriously wonder if you are okay because of your focus on pervert’s feasting on your sisters as a point of frequent reference. Did something really bad happen to your sister or is this something they teach at the church. Are they instructing you that it is your role to protect the women from perverts waiting at the door or worse sneaking in? I know you think you are instructing me in the way more perfectly, but really your writing is just quite alarming.

What you should know is that one of the leading causes of death among women, is not the pervert sneaking into the church but the macho guy they marry… You ought to check the statistics out if you are really concerned about the physical welfare of women. Having worked with battered women it became clear early on the more invested in being macho men are the more violent they are to the women in their lives. And churches with more authoritarian approaches to women often have incredible levels of violence going on behind closed doors. However, it is a wide-spread problem not just in the church.

I also wonder about the reference to the macho Driscoll men not wearing sweater vests and being good little Christians so they can beat the perverts up. It makes me think that somewhere along the line your sense of masculinity was really challenged or that a family member was really hurt and the male authority figure did not protect them? Or worse the male authority inflicted the damage. Either this happened to you, or your world view is being shaped in frightening ways by this Driscoll’s odd teachings which by the way I do not find biblical.

I also get the impression that you believe that people who oppose Driscoll like sweater vested emasculated men who are sissies and wimps (using language you use) Thus you make the assumption that if I had sons I wouldn’t let them play war games and you make the assumption I am young. It is a stereotype, which concerns me and makes me wonder what is being done to your head that you see the world through that kind of lens. A lens predicated on the nothion that anyone who opposes Driscoll for theological or moral reasons wants to emascualte men and dress them in pink.

I see this sort of slant as its own kind of perversion. Your Emails have been the most persuasive argument about the damage this church does to impressionable young men.

Again, it also makes me wonder if something really bad happened to your family or if you are being taught that the perverts want to come and damage sisters–but Driscoll men are manly enough to beat them up? I’m sad for you if that is the case.

I didn’t have sons I have fabulously beautiful, extremely well educated daughters and nieces who have lived within walking distance of Driscolls church and when I ask the impression of the church among them and their friends and other Seattlelites he is supposed to being winning over en masse because he is so manly, relevant and cool, they report that the Hipster woman hating church is considered a joke among most, except the very small percentage of the town that are entertained and titillated by the Hipster drama theology. Which really is one of the most irrelevant things in town compared to the other issues Seattle faces.

I’m relieved they are not attracted to it, because I fear them becoming the slave of a macho Driscollite that keeps them barefoot, pregnant and picking up socks in the name of protecting the little women from perverts… Frankly, women probably need more protection from those kind of guys in terms of wasting their lives then they need protection from perverts. There is more than one kind of predator. I’m very grateful my daughters and nieces found this church appalling and go to churches where they are treated with respect. I wouldn’t want them to waste their lives and dumb themselves down enough to fit into a place like that

There was a point that I was really fascinated by this discussion and I appreciate your efforts to win me over. You didn’t succeed and now, I’m done with the conversation because I understand in terms of the Church of the Living God, all over the world, this little gnat of a movement in Seattle will blow over and be seen for what it was. Just one man’s little kingdom around a strange blend of shock jock, reformed theology, woman hating, beer drinking, profane, loud and ugly empty noise. Ultimately the big draw is that it appealed to the pride of man and the desire to be some kind of gospel ganster and Lord over their own domain. What a waste.

Take care
Carley

I’ve attended and listened to well over 200 hours of Driscoll’s teachings, and read his books, I have no idea what you are talking about. Driscoll teaches biblical masculinity. I’m gonna go out on a limb and ask if you do(or will) let your boys play with guns and swords? The result of passive sweater vest good little christian men, is that they are prone to not doing anything and end up committing sins of omission. They stand by while perverts sneak into the church and take advantage or our sisters, they don’t step up to the adventure that God has called them too and worst of all, they don’t defend the scriptures or challenge questionable doctrine. Driscoll doesn’t tell guys to pick fights or unjustly assert themselves, he teaches them to stand up for Truth and to defend their wives, children, and sisters in Christ, as well as the name of Jesus. Driscoll’s teaching is very raw but that’s because he took heed to 1 Corinthians 9:19-23. He became like a Seattlite, to win the Seattlites. Unless anyone can find me a verse that speaks against what Driscoll is teaching, then there aren’t any grounds for argument and this is only meaningless talk as 1 Timothy says. I would encourage you to watch http://www.marshillchurch.org/sermonseries/nehemiah/week_06.aspx .

Not teaching christian men to stand up and fight is like building a house without any locks on the doors.

I hope this helps.

-Joshua

The fruit of Driscoll is displayed very clearly in Joshua’s post above. In his post you see a young man raised in the church who is now ashamed of himself for his love of a sissy gospel and likes the “real man” talk of Driscol. And if you read Driscolls book he flaunts his days of “banging weak willed women like a broken screen door in the wind”

He swears in his post (this is a Driscoll thing too) and he mocks the sissified people of the south and so on and he has adopted the language and attitude of his Real Man pastor. Please read Driscolls site resurgence where one of his blogger’s writes about the feminization of the church and see how he defines real men–primarily rude, raw, edgy, offensive, arrogant, obnoxious and at times vulgar. The fact that Driscoll maintains that men today don’t want to worship a Jesus they could beat up.

Actually, if you spend about 40 hours just sifting through all that he is saying and see the response in this town, look at his videos, read his web-site, listen to his critics and allies it becomes very clear that he is very, very dangerous to the cause of Christ and to living with humility and brokenness. Driscoll is gaining an audience by appealing to the lust of the flesh of young men. Read how his peer Anthony Bradley calls the Hard-Core Punk culture awesome and says we should embrace them in all their violence. It is stunning.