I'm not exactly a Star Wars fan now but I was a fan once. Darth Vader arrives and tells Ben Kenobi that before he was the learner but now he was the master. A master is known by the nature of his or her apprentice. If we want some sense of who, say, Jakes is like as a master, let's consider the activities of an apprentice of his like Paula White. If we want to consider the nature of a master like, I dunno, C. J. Mahaney, we might have to turn to a Joshua Harris. If we wanted to look to the real legacy of a guy like Driscoll we'd have to look to an apprentice like Munson.
Legacy is not just some list of things you accomplish. The poem Ozymandias was written for guys who think their monuments to themselves and their unbreakable legacies can't be forgotten. Jesus did not invest in monuments or legacies, did He? He invested in people. He invested in people who betrayed Him and denied Him. Yet days after His death He restored Peter saying, "feed my sheep." What we know about Jesus we know from His disciples. As Jesus Himself put it, a student is not greater than his teacher. We do not need more mini-Jakes or mini-Mahaneys or mini-Driscolls. Christians are to be mini-Christs.
Some of the things that have been bustling in the internet are events where in the last three to four years we have been given the opportunity (dubious as it may be in some cases) to learn about a self-described master from the behavior of an apprentice. We're also learning things about which masters other self-described masters are vetting as an insight into what kinds of apprentices they want. I'm not going to say these occasions are not sobering.
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