Do You Regret Partnering with Mark Driscoll?
00:00:00.000 | About 100 emails have come in from listeners regarding Mark Driscoll and your relationship
00:00:11.120 | with him.
00:00:12.120 | Mostly the questions are centered on whether you now regret partnering with Mark Driscoll
00:00:15.280 | in the past.
00:00:16.680 | Secondarily, are there any lessons you're taking away from that relationship?
00:00:21.440 | And third, do you agree with the decisions of Christian booksellers that have decided
00:00:25.140 | to pull Mark Driscoll's books off of their shelves?
00:00:28.640 | Well, let me take the, maybe I forget now the order, the first and the last I think,
00:00:35.680 | the issue of regret and the issue of books on or off shelves and just dispense with those
00:00:41.300 | quickly and then tackle lessons a little more extensively.
00:00:45.080 | First, no regret.
00:00:46.920 | John Piper has no regret for befriending Mark Driscoll, going to Mark Driscoll's church
00:00:54.080 | and speaking at his events or having him come to the Jedi and God conference.
00:00:57.800 | I do not regret that.
00:01:01.240 | My regret is that I was not a more effective friend.
00:01:07.400 | Mark knew he had flaws.
00:01:09.800 | He knows he has flaws.
00:01:12.760 | And I knew he had flaws.
00:01:14.560 | He knew that I knew he had flaws.
00:01:18.360 | There were flaws of leadership attitude, flaws of unsavory language that I think is just
00:01:22.960 | wrong for Christians to use, flaws of exegetical errors, say in regard to the Song of Solomon.
00:01:28.920 | I wrote him a long critique of his use of the Song of Solomon.
00:01:34.480 | I wrote him personally about these.
00:01:36.200 | But I always hoped that in those cases, the relationship with me and with others would
00:01:42.360 | be redemptive and helpful.
00:01:45.080 | He certainly gave me more time and counsel than I deserved.
00:01:49.760 | I remember him sitting in the dining room downstairs from where we're making this recording
00:01:54.960 | right now and spending a long time with me and Noel, giving us good counsel about the
00:01:59.920 | last chapter of our ministry, then going home and producing a long paper for me to give
00:02:06.520 | guidance to me and the elders.
00:02:07.800 | He didn't have to do that.
00:02:08.840 | I didn't even ask him to do it.
00:02:11.200 | So there was a mutuality about this, and I felt loved by Mark, and I wanted to love him
00:02:18.560 | in return.
00:02:19.560 | I do hope for the best in Mark's life and ministry.
00:02:24.600 | So no, I don't regret it, because the things he said when he spoke were true and helpful,
00:02:31.440 | and I tried to do the same at his church.
00:02:33.520 | With regard to his books, whether they should sit on shelves in bookstores or churches or
00:02:40.240 | homes, that's a tough call.
00:02:43.560 | If he's disqualified from being an elder, should he still exercise the teaching office
00:02:48.440 | of an elder through his books?
00:02:49.720 | That's one way to ask the question.
00:02:51.880 | But sooner or later, a book becomes detached from the personal life of an author and stands
00:02:59.960 | on its own merits as true or helpful or not.
00:03:04.000 | And I can see a temporary reaction to Mark stepping down by bookstores or churches where
00:03:11.240 | they pull those back so as not to give any kind of public affirmation of mistakes that
00:03:16.560 | Mark may have made, but then maybe in years to come, the books re-emerge as helpful, since
00:03:22.560 | I think most of what he has written has been true and helpful.
00:03:26.560 | So let me turn to the lessons.
00:03:28.960 | What have I learned?
00:03:29.960 | What can we learn from these recent events?
00:03:34.600 | Number one, people are very complex.
00:03:36.520 | They are multilayered.
00:03:37.880 | They are often paradoxical.
00:03:40.060 | The psalmist cries out, "Who can discern his errors?
00:03:44.440 | Declare me innocent of hidden faults."
00:03:46.240 | That's an amazing statement.
00:03:48.560 | Some of our sins, he's saying, are hidden to ourselves.
00:03:52.880 | He just asks, "I cannot discern my sins."
00:03:56.760 | We have flaws and sins that we cannot ourselves fathom.
00:04:03.440 | And the second lesson follows.
00:04:05.240 | We desperately need to take seriously what wise counselors tell us about ourselves.
00:04:11.680 | If we have sins that are hidden from ourselves, then perhaps they're not hidden to others,
00:04:19.400 | and we do well to listen.
00:04:22.200 | I think that's implied in that text.
00:04:25.320 | Third, this also follows from those two.
00:04:29.240 | Sometimes, and I've experienced this, sometimes you can see what others are saying, pointing
00:04:36.120 | out to you about yourself, and sometimes you can't.
00:04:41.640 | And if you can see it, then you repent, and you fight the sin.
00:04:48.040 | But what if you can't?
00:04:50.280 | Even after others tell you what they see, you look and you don't see it in the way they
00:04:55.900 | see it.
00:04:56.900 | What then?
00:04:57.900 | Well, in order to have any integrity, I think you have to go with what you see.
00:05:03.600 | Otherwise, you'd be always jerked around by everybody on the street that tells you they
00:05:07.760 | see something, and you say, "Well, I don't think it's there."
00:05:10.360 | And Paul certainly did not agree with all the criticism that came against him, nor Jesus.
00:05:17.360 | When they said he had a demon, he didn't have a demon.
00:05:19.600 | His critics were wrong.
00:05:21.920 | And the result is either a struggle—in other words, when you have people around you who
00:05:27.320 | say this is true of you, and you don't think it's true of you, then the result is there's
00:05:32.560 | a struggle for leadership, and one or both stands down, or there's a fight, and somebody
00:05:38.440 | wins.
00:05:39.440 | And that's the ugliest of all.
00:05:41.960 | And Mark stood down.
00:05:45.000 | And that is probably a concession to, "Yes, much of what you say is true," and probably
00:05:51.440 | it's a measure of, "I don't think you saw me right."
00:05:55.640 | And that's just life.
00:05:56.840 | I mean, Paul and Barnabas couldn't work together because they did not perceive their
00:06:03.800 | own flaws.
00:06:06.240 | Somebody was amiss, and they couldn't see it.
00:06:09.200 | And I've seen it over and over again.
00:06:11.360 | It's just one of the heartaches of relationships.
00:06:15.880 | So a fourth lesson is that biblical leadership structures are not luxuries.
00:06:21.440 | I think the trend among some megachurches to put in place outside councils with authority
00:06:26.840 | that are not based in the elders of the local church is an unbiblical, unwise approach towards
00:06:32.960 | church leadership.
00:06:34.560 | I think the biblical pattern of leadership is that every church should have a team of
00:06:38.400 | elders, vocational, non-vocational, all with one vote.
00:06:43.200 | The preaching pastor has greater sway not by having a veto power with all the votes,
00:06:51.040 | but by being a wise, thoughtful, exemplary leader.
00:06:55.200 | As soon as I could, I put in place at Bethlehem a leadership structure that gave me one vote,
00:07:00.760 | first among 20, then among 30, then among 40, and that's where it ended.
00:07:04.520 | I had one vote, which means I could be voted down easily.
00:07:08.600 | But I never doubted I had great authority at that church, ever, because of the pulpit
00:07:14.880 | and because I tried to be a teacher leader.
00:07:18.440 | I tried to lead with truth, not with official constraints.
00:07:23.120 | I never wanted to use office or political power to get my way.
00:07:28.760 | I wanted people to be persuaded.
00:07:31.040 | So I think structure really matters, and there are a lot of—I don't know if it's a lot,
00:07:34.760 | but there are some megachurches today that I think are going off in an unwise direction.
00:07:40.080 | Fifth lesson, I think there is a lesson here about money and salaries of pastors.
00:07:46.440 | I think it is a huge mistake to view pastors as corporate executives with huge salaries
00:07:53.160 | in the two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight hundred thousand dollar range.
00:07:59.560 | That to me is a clear danger signal that the elders and the pastor have their heart in
00:08:06.880 | the wrong place.
00:08:08.200 | I don't know Mark Driscoll's salary, but I think that the corporate mindset was too prominent,
00:08:15.320 | and so the warning to us stands.
00:08:18.880 | Sixth lesson—I've got eight of these—there is a lesson how the same theology, Reformed
00:08:26.760 | or Arminian, on paper can coexist with very different personalities and leadership styles
00:08:35.560 | and sins.
00:08:36.560 | There is no theology on paper or merely in preaching that keeps a man from sin.
00:08:43.560 | Peter's withdrawal from eating with the Gentiles in Galatians 2 was sin, and it was not owing
00:08:49.360 | to a defective theology.
00:08:51.160 | Paul said very clearly in verse 14, "I saw that their conduct was not in step with the
00:08:58.480 | truth."
00:08:59.480 | And he means the very truth they believed.
00:09:02.040 | Human beings don't live up to their theology.
00:09:05.520 | Therefore, when a person falters in their behavior, it is a mistake to jump immediately
00:09:12.920 | without wider considerations to, "Oh, defective theology," because there are sinners and some
00:09:20.600 | serious ones in every branch of theology.
00:09:25.200 | So Peter knew the truth, and he didn't walk in it, and that's always a possibility with
00:09:30.440 | whatever truth is at stake.
00:09:32.200 | And Mark Driscoll has done much good in speaking and writing much truth.
00:09:41.640 | Thousands of people really have been saved and really have been built up in biblical
00:09:47.680 | gospel truth, and those people should not question their salvation or their truth just
00:09:54.840 | because he might in some cases have walked out of step with the truth.
00:10:00.240 | Seventh lesson, God's kingdom and his saving purposes in the world are never dependent
00:10:05.920 | on one man or one church or one denomination.
00:10:09.700 | God is God, and his kingdom is coming, and no one can stop it, and his Word is not bound.
00:10:15.720 | And the last lesson I thought of was, "Let him who thinks that he stand, take heed lest
00:10:21.240 | he fall.
00:10:22.840 | Restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, lest you too be tempted," Paul said.
00:10:28.000 | I think it would be sinful and unbiblical for any of Mark's detractors to simply feel
00:10:34.040 | good riddance.
00:10:35.040 | That's a sin to feel that.
00:10:38.080 | So we pray for truth to hold sway and for grace to transform and renew and restore all
00:10:46.560 | of us, including Mark.
00:10:48.920 | Yes, there are valuable and humbling lessons for all of us in this.
00:10:53.640 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:10:55.000 | And we return tomorrow to tackle another delicate subject of whether or not it's wise for Christians
00:11:00.360 | to watch beheading videos coming out of the Middle East.
00:11:03.360 | The phenomenon, of course, is not new, but the grotesque videos and pictures are being
00:11:08.280 | used as strategic propaganda today like never before.
00:11:12.680 | So that's tomorrow.
00:11:13.680 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:11:14.680 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.
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