The Supremacy of Christ and the Church in a Postmodern World.
By Mark Driscoll

This was Driscol's lecture at the Desiring God Conference in 2006. I'd be curious to get feedback on what he says HERE.


The Supremacy of Christ and the Church in a Postmodern World :: Desiring God Christian Resource Library

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Patrick
OPC
MDiv, RTS Jackson.

"He does well, that discourses of Christ; but he does infinitely better, that by experimental knowledge, feeds and lives on Christ." Thomas Brooks.

Patrick,

Thanks for pointing me to this. I watched his lecture this afternoon... a very profitable hour!

First, let me confess that I've heard some soundbytes, I've read a few excerpts... but this was the first time that I'd heard him speak for an extended period. I was very impressed. I like his style very much - just "earthy" enough to really resonate with me.

Second, his stuff on Christology was spot on in my estimation. I do agree with him that the emergent movement - and I'd through in Evangelicalism - emphasize the imanence to the detriment of the transcendent with the effect being that they have a Jesus that is too small to really command attention.

I have mixed feelings about his bit about the church and doing it in a relevant manner. On the one hand, part of me wants to simply say, "If I'm being faithful to preach the Word, pray, administer the sacraments... then I AM being relevant. NOTHING could be more relevant than that." But on the other hand, (I don't care what protestations I may receive from some of the more anal retentive folks...), I have seen people speak truth, but they do so in such a dumb and foolish manner that they are totally written off and discredited before they're able to even receive a hearing. When I was in the Evangelical world, a large crowd was cause for a self-congratulatory slap on the back because it was OBVIOUSLY a sign of faithfulness. Now that I'm in the Reformed world, it is a small crowd that is seen as proof of faithfulness. (I'm sorry... I don't buy either position.)

Anyway, I agree with most of his lecture even though I feel a little uneasy with his relevancy position.

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Ben
Sanford, NC
TE Ohio Valley Presbytery, PCA

I know my dear brother Josiah is not fond of his ecclisiology. But i think he has a decent thing going on. Especially in bringing Christ to many in a liberal wasteland like Seattle.

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Nathan Olaf Brandal
First Baptist Church of Kirkland

"Man is nothing: he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him to will and to do his good pleasure"
GEORGE WHITEFIELD TO JOHN WESLEY

My Blog

I like his style too. He is speaking my modern language. He is a very gifted communicator.
Agreed. Jesus went and talked to the rejects of society. We should too if we are true disciples. I think Driscoll put that in a much more understandable way in how he described Christology. Jesus didn't seemed too concerned about his reputation when he went out to reach sinners.
I agree that being faithful is relevant. But I also think that being faithful means we communicate the gospel in a way that the people understand it in their own terms. Seattle is full of fruits and nuts, Driscoll has been able to get down with them and speak the true gospel too them. Though I don't think I can agree with the Mars Hill worship style, Driscoll's preaching is spot on and extremely easy to understand. You can see some of his sermons on their website. It has certainly humbled me. I need to do more to reach out to those in the fringes of society.

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Patrick
OPC
MDiv, RTS Jackson.

"He does well, that discourses of Christ; but he does infinitely better, that by experimental knowledge, feeds and lives on Christ." Thomas Brooks.

Exactly. If you would have told me 10 years ago that there would be a mega church preaching Reformed soteriology in Seattle, along with preaching male headship, calling homosexuals to repent, bringing the gospel to prostitutes and strippers, etc. I would have said you were nuts. But God is clearly doing something there now.

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Patrick
OPC
MDiv, RTS Jackson.

"He does well, that discourses of Christ; but he does infinitely better, that by experimental knowledge, feeds and lives on Christ." Thomas Brooks.

Not fond of the ecclisiology, but very thankful that our lord is bringing many to himself in seattle. Lets pray that there are more opportunities in the wake of Mars Hill to plant solidly reformed churches in the area.

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Josiah Lovett
Member of
Trinity OPC Bothell Wa.
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Westminster Standards

Its been a little while since ive listened to this particular download (listened to the whole conference 6 mo or so back). Mark Driscoll is someone who I have never been too fond of his preaching to his home church, but ive enjoyed his confrence material for the most part. He is preaching to the big City of Seattle, I live in a town of 300 people, he is speaking to a city full of professing atheists and worse, if you dont profess christianity around here you get picked on. The problems that face his church are completely different than the ones i deal with. The number one group needing evangelised in my part of Oklahoma is the group that claims to be christian. He goes a little for with cultural relevance for my taste as well.

I do thank God for the work he does in reaching the postmodern world and teaching them there is an ultimate truth and his name is Jesus Christ.

Ohh.. and I Loved his message over church discipline. its on the mars hill website I would recommend it.

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Bryan Riddle
1689 London Baptist Confession
Bethel Baptist Church Owasso, Oklahoma

I was meaning to start a thread to ask what others thought about this as well.

I found it mostly encouraging with a bit of the same concerns Ben had.

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Kevin Rogers
Sovereign Community Church, PCA
Moncton NB

I enjoyed listening to Driscoll's message tonight. His nine points of doctrine that belong in the closed hand were tremendous.

Here is the speaker panel link from that same conference. Driscoll had already left to fly back to Seattle and the rest of the speakers had some fun at his expense at the beginning. As things got more serious one of the speakers (can't remember which one, may have been Carson) made some interesting comments about Driscoll's point on contextualization. It's worth a listen. Also, at the end of the Q&A session Piper explains to the audience why he brought Driscoll in for the conference. He made some great comments in reference to Driscoll's orthodoxy.

Speaker Panel :: Desiring God Christian Resource Library

__________________
Ryan Barnhart - Pastor of OGBC
Husband to a beautiful wife, Father to two beautiful girls
"But by the grace of God I am what I am." I Corinthians 15:10

"I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms. And in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer." - John Paton

Mars Hill Church | Philippians | The Rebel's Guide to Joy in Temptation

I listened to this Driscoll message last night. Like him or not this was good expository preaching, imo. He's definitely an anomaly. I'm still unsure about how I feel towards his ministry, but I know his messages that I have heard have been very good and for the most part spot on. I think Piper really sums him up well in the last couple of minutes of the Speaker's Panel that I posted above.

__________________
Ryan Barnhart - Pastor of OGBC
Husband to a beautiful wife, Father to two beautiful girls
"But by the grace of God I am what I am." I Corinthians 15:10

"I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms. And in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer." - John Paton

This is bizarre. Sonya and I were returning home from an evening meeting with our Church and I was discussing this very topic. Let me try to pull together a few thoughts I've been having and see if this resonates with you guys because I think we're on the same page here. Maybe it's a military thing because I noticed Archlute giving you a Thanks for it.

Anyhow, I exhorted yesterday on 1 Peter 3 and was reproving the notion of the Evangelical "Superstars" that are paraded around as the exemplars of Christian Hope: A Ready Hope (1 Peter 3:13-17) | SoliDeoGloria.com (you can listen to it there too and I'd appreciate your thoughts)

Anyhow, as I've had to step into a regular teaching role while we search for a new Pastor, I've tried to make some immediate changes to ensure that the Japanese in our congregation can follow what we're doing. I've been there for two years and the Japanese members are so polite. They NEVER complain. Well, I just found out from a dear sister that many of them do not have a clue what the Pastor is talking about. In fact, a Canadian who lives here and speaks fluent Japanese mentioned that they get frustrated because they want to laugh at what I'm talking about when I'm interacting with the kids so they can be united in their laughter with the congregation but dont understand why the rest are laughing. That seems so subtle but we're so used to our culture group that we take even our jokes and euphemisms for granted.

We're blessed to have two Japanese secretaries that speak excellent English so I've started synopsizing the message into a paragraph about what the message is basically about. She translates it into Japanese. I'd have her translate the entire transcript if she had the time but I don't want to burden her. I'm also much more cognizant of my "sayings" around the Japanese. I used a term like "bait and switch" yesterday but I was very careful to try to explain it in a generic way.

On a sidebar, I was laughing the other day because my son and I were getting ready for family devotions before bed and the bed covers were all messed up. He said: "Daddy, the covers are all dorked up." He also says: "Good to go" and a host of other Marine-isms. We really need to be cognizant of our communications.

So it was very heartening when I was talking to a Filipino Deacon who is giving me feedback about the messages. He said that it was easy to follow, even for the Filipinos and that he and his wife were agreeing that, yes, even in the Philipines, they like to have Evangelical superstars. The message resonated with multiple cultures. The truth was communicated past language and cultural barriers. That made me very happy.

I then started talking to Sonya about a recent frustration on this board. Everyone knows how much I love the scholarship here and the devotion to Truth but there are some thing that just drive me up the wall - certain pet peaves that I have little time for and one of those are people that can get along and agree on a principle but refuse to do so because they want to insist on the type of language that they've just discovered after reading some Puritan from the 17th Century. The Puritan is communicating the same basic concept that everyone here agrees with but uses a term that would immediately cause eyebrows to raise and the break out of a controversy that a person may not be orthodox.

Well, don't you know, it's then revealed that the person who is using it is very clever and well read and, after all, the rest of us should be too so what is our problem?

I'll tell you what my problem is: It's antithetical to the goal we have as Christ's Body to sweat at being in unity with one another. It's antithetical to the principle that we are to prefer to give honor to one another. It's antithetical to a heart that is supposed to be focused upon Christ and not their own preferences. Now, for my part, I need to be patient with such people but this kind of attitude is becoming more apparent to me about one of the basic problems with much of Reformed Theology.

I think one of the reasons there is such a lack of Reformed witness is that a spirit of intellectual competition pervades in our culture. Its a spirit of "oneupsmanship" to see who can read the most and quote the most. It's the reason why this board has so many more men than women - because it really is a male thing. I think it's also the reason why many women are turned off from Reformed Churches.

Look, I love Reformed soteriology but many times those that champion the doctrines haven't gotten the reality in their bloodstreams. They use the doctrines as means to bludgeon opponents and divide rather than to edify the weak in their midst.

Just yesterday I was teaching on 1 Peter 1 and the hope that the foreknowledge of God is to the believer. Unfortunately, such doctrines are often pulled out of their context, sterilized, and then discussed in a nakedly doctrinal manner divorced from the context that the author of the Epistle wrote them for. So we start to speculate about how, precisely, God reprobates the wicked and get into all sorts of doctrinal rabbit trails that don't really edify anything other than our curiousity.

Now, if the most important thing for me to teach yesterday was doctrine for doctrine's sake then I might have hit hard on the cylinder of election and used all the lofty terms to describe unconditional election and speculate in a grandiose manner among the saints. But my goal was to edify. So I explained to everyone present that these verses are meant to give them hope. Reflect upon the fact that God, from all eternity, has purposed to save you and that you are united to Christ in His death and resurrection by faith and God will surely see to your salvation to the uttermost. The trials and temptations will come but God will never leave you nor forsake you for the moment He considered you, you were saved. Glory! What a confidence that instills! But if I insisted upon theological terms then some might have put up their force fields right away and refused to listen.

After two years of this stuff, I'm convinced that the average Evangelical will voraciously consume many core soteriological doctrines if we simply start treating them as things that are meant to build them up instead of doctrines that are to be considered in a laboratory. I'm glad that we keep our membership distinct here so we can work all the fine details but when it comes time to teach it on the ground, it's time to put away the thesauras and make sure you can be understood by a common man. It's time to be able to teach the truth of God without having to use jargon that people either don't understand or won't listen to you past the first minute. I'm sure it's bound to happen, but I haven't met a Christian yet who wasn't edified at the end of one of my classes or exhortations.

Perhaps the greatest compliment I've received in many years came last week from the Church secretary: That's what it's all about!

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Rich
Northern VA
OPC

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I was in Minneapolis for this conference in 2006, and Driscoll's lecture/sermon was probably my favorite (closely followed by Voddie Baucham's). Excellent stuff.

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Rae W. | Elder @ Grace Central Presbyterian Church | Columbus, OH
not another blog, v2.0

Gonna watch that!

__________________
~etexas~

I agree with you Rich. It may be a military thing. I know that the way Mark Driscoll speaks in his sermons, is the language I spoke in the military, especially as an enlisted man (and as an officer too). Not that there is any virtue in the language. It's just the common national vernacular. If we don't explain the theological jargon we use in common terms and metaphors then we simply won't communicate the gospel in a meaningful way to modern people. Public education is not educating anymore. There is no more cultural Christianity and common knowledge of the Bible. We will only be able to counteract that trend if we explain the truth in little words and popular illustrations. Plus, we have a strong anti-intellectual strand in American culture. Many people just don't like to learn. We have to whet there appetite again to learn about Jesus with milk before we throw the steaks at them.

I think Driscoll's strongest point is the fact that we need to start thinking like missionaries. God has sent us to be missionaries to our own culture. Missionaries have to spend a great amount of time learning how to communicate the truth in their culture. We need to be good listeners and learn to understand what concerns are most on peoples minds in order to better communicate the truth to them. It's always a mark of a good teacher that you can make complex things easy to understand (another valuable thing I learned in the military). I think this is reflected well in your work in Okinawa that you described above. Our culture no longer speaks King James English and uses big words. That doesn't mean we give up our vast treasure of Reformed Theology, we just have to work at translating it to our modern culture because the Reformed understanding of the gospel is in fact the clearest, most powerful, and most relevant message to any culture. I also think it's important that to be Reformed in our theology doesn't mean we have to be familiar with all the historical jargon. That is important for a pastors and elders, but not for new converts.

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Patrick
OPC
MDiv, RTS Jackson.

"He does well, that discourses of Christ; but he does infinitely better, that by experimental knowledge, feeds and lives on Christ." Thomas Brooks.

Very good posts, I would just add one thing. We are to "make" disciples not converts; Too many times the thrust of evangelism today is to "make" converts and then expect them to grow with no intentional one on one discipleship.

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How often have you wondered why Christ should set His heart upon such a one as you! --Octavius Winslow

Lon Wadkins (Jesup, Iowa)
New Covenant Fellowship, OPC
Independence, Iowa

I'll tell you what my problem is: It's antithetical to the goal we have as Christ's Body to sweat at being in unity with one another. It's antithetical to the principle that we are to prefer to give honor to one another. It's antithetical to a heart that is supposed to be focused upon Christ and not their own preferences. Now, for my part, I need to be patient with such people but this kind of attitude is becoming more apparent to me about one of the basic problems with much of Reformed Theology.

I think one of the reasons there is such a lack of Reformed witness is that a spirit of intellectual competition pervades in our culture. Its a spirit of "oneupsmanship" to see who can read the most and quote the most. It's the reason why this board has so many more men than women - because it really is a male thing. I think it's also the reason why many women are turned off from Reformed Churches.

Look, I love Reformed soteriology but many times those that champion the doctrines haven't gotten the reality in their bloodstreams. They use the doctrines as means to bludgeon opponents and divide rather than to edify the weak in their midst.

Rich, this is indeed a big part of the problem. It is interesting to me how people respond when asked how they came to Christ. More often than not it was through some Arminian ministry. Only as they grew in their faith did they discover the riches of God's sovereign grace. Isn't it sad that so many Christians committed to theological and biblical accuracy can become so sidetracked by the intramural struggles that they lose sight of the big picture of the Great Commission and cede the ground of actual evangelism to those who have seriously deficient beliefs? Say what you will of Billy Graham, Jack Hayford, Tim LaHaye, et. al. (just to pick three exemplars of different stripes of Arminianism), they have a passion for the lost that humbles and shames me.

There is painful truth in the D. L. Moody vignette about receiving a complaint from a woman who didn’t like his method of evangelism. “I don’t really like mine all that much either. What’s yours?” She replied that she didn’t have one. Moody said, “Then I like mine better than yours.” Some of us (me too) would seem to prefer a fullsome critique of the mega-church pastors for their superficiality, venality, and theological vacuity while we practice our orthodoxy with our few dozen well catechized folks who can quote chapter and verse of Bavinck and Turretin, content to remain a few dozen folks.

The intellectual one-upmanship is only a symptom of one of the more toxic unintended side-effects of the Reformed ethos. As sinners, we are all prone to sin. So, in a community that emphasizes intellectual commitment, is it any wonder that intellectual hubris should be the primary expression? Our Arminian brethren do not generally commit themselves to such rigor of thought and expression. So, they fall prey to the errors of emotion and pragmatism.

Yet, there is some good news to be had. Recently, a Founders' Ministry type SBCer asked the question: "How many great Bible expositor's do you know who are not 5-point Calvinists?" The answer was none. Whether Piper, MacArthur, Driscoll, or someone else, there has been a titanic move toward the Doctrines of Grace in the last couple of decades. May those of us who celebrate a sovereign and electing God be quick to form common cause with sisters and brothers who share that same blessed truth regardless of some differences around the edges.

__________________
Dennis E. McFadden, Ex Mainline Baptist (in Remission)
Atherton Baptist Homes, CEO
First Baptist Church of Alhambra, Member, Transformation Ministries (CA)

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Right.
I shouldn't have placed the sickness at the feet of Reformed theology per se. It's really a reflection of our sinful hearts in the same way that the Law is holy but it's our hearts that is tempted to sin whenever it intersects the Law. As I think Reformed theology is Biblical, I don't want to blame the Bible for the way men act who ought to be transformed by it.

I've just had quite a few recent experiences, including some study on Romans 12-16, that have demonstrated to me that it was my heart that was giving offense.

I think there's a good reason why James teaches that not many should be teachers but, instead of sharing the hope within us with gentleness and reverance, our individual sensibilities are offended by the actions of others and we do judge others instead of seeking to edify them. So instead of sharing the powerful testimony of Christ's death and resurrection and the complete gift of salvation to all who believe, we set out, instead, to teach about everything that is wrong in the world.

Now, I am surely frustrated by some that see some Biblical truth as inherently divisive and they're more worried about spreading the Gospel. I don't agree with that approach. As noted, this is about disciples and the Word naturally offends. The issue is whether we offend or not.

I would also agree that the desire to spread the Word outside the walls of the Church is more prevalent in non-Reformed bodies but the motivation is often not a disciple-making one. There is also a long-term collateral effect to this approach that is spiritually perilous. I'm not quite sure I completely agree with Moody that any method is better than no method at all. It's hard to measure disobedience against disobedience. I'm gratified that men end up reading the Scriptures for themselves but then I always think about the vast majority that are in Churches with essentially no Gospel or discipleship. It's kind of like that statistical debate over the "Convenience Machine" where an anemic Church is the Convenience Machine. Is it worth it in the end?

It's also pointless simply to exist to point out the anemia of a method and you've got to be focused on building up from within and ensuring people's hearts are warm to their neighbors. If you spend all your time lamenting how the Church is outside your doors then the only thing many are about is explaining their Evangelism by negation - everything that we're against intead of really doing nothing positive. I think if we just focused more on what we're going to do on the basis of our reasonable response to the Gospel then we would be fine provided our hearts are really grateful and humble.

__________________
Rich
Northern VA
OPC

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