I
have discussed what I regard as the disturbing double standard Mark Driscoll
displays on demonstrations of male and female vulnerability before. Mark Driscoll has sometimes demonstrated
vulnerability. He’s described how, about
ten years ago, he was at a point where he felt he’d been knocked down and
couldn’t get up again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQBDmNjnYX4&t=686s
How to Win When
the Odds Are Stacked Against You !
Streamed live on Mar 2, 2024
12:01
For me I've been knocked down a lot of times but, uh, it wasn't until about a
decade ago I got really knocked out. First time. Life just sort of defeated me
and kicked my teeth down my throat. Previously I'd been knocked down but I
always get up and I'm back in the fight. I'm kind of built for war. I lead with
the chin and I don't mind conflict and I'm willing to work and I have a high
pain tolerance and I'll fight my way through it.
And about ten years ago I got knocked down and I couldn't get up. First time in
my whole life. I remember getting knocked down and not getting knocked up--and
not being able to get back up. Got cancelled, overwhelmed, discouraged,
anxious, threats to my safety and my family and our future and it was just
overwhelming. And it was kind of like a boxing match where you take a knee but
you get up, you take a knee but you get up, you take a knee and you realize
"I can't get back up".
And it was at that moment that it felt like the Lord just threw the towel in
the ring cuz He could see his son wasn't getting back up. And it was the first
time I really experienced profound, devastating loss in my life, something i
couldn't fight through. It was over. There was no more rounds, it was time to
go home.
13:09
So like Gideon I withdrew. And then it says that the Holy Spirit CLOTHED Gideon
and then I felt the anointing power and presence of the Holy Spirit. And I
remember the Father spoke to me and I remember was really broken one day and I
was like, "What am I gonna do? I got no house. You know we're moving and I
don't know where we're gonna live and I don't have a job and I don't have a
church, I'm unemployed and I've got five kids. You know we're under attack.
What happens now?"
15:07
... and Jesus showed up and He met with me.
15:32
And all I remember is the Father just saying "You've lost everything but
my anointing and that's all you need. It'll go with you." And I was
like, "Great, you know, like, will Chase Bank take that?" Like, I
don't know, I mean, that's what I was thinking if I'm being honest with you.
The thing about
an anointing is it does not in any way demonstrate a person has any
character. Samson was a mighty man but
the worst Nazirite in scripture. He ate food from a corpse. He drank. He
married a Philistine. It wasn’t until he gave away the secret of his hair and
it was cut he lost his strength and the biblical text states that he got ready
for battle as he had so many times before but he had not realized the spirit of
the Lord had left him. When King Saul encountered a band of music-making
prophets he became a different person and people asked, “Is Saul among the
prophets, too?” But that change didn’t last and eventually when the spirit of
the Lord departed from Saul and a harmful spirit afflicted him David was sought
out for his musical skill and whenever he played music Saul felt more at
ease.
The petition in Psalm 51 “do not take your holy spirit from me” is not one that
comes out of nowhere. The Psalmist drew upon traditions in which it was known
that the spirit of the Lord could and did depart from previously anointed messiahs.
Driscoll can believe in his heart of hearts he still has a mighty anointing straight from God but, frankly, any person full of demons can also feel they have been imbued with real spiritual power, too. As Jesus put it in His polemic with adversaries who accused Him of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub, if that were true by whose power did their exorcists cast out unclean spirits and let them be judges of His accusers there. Maybe Mark Driscoll feels he’s a modern-day Gideon or Elijah or Elisha. Maybe he thinks he could curse some young men who taunt him by saying he’s a bald old man and she-bears can come out and massacre them. This does not necessarily make it the case. He can believe he has an anointing. He can even teach that it’s important for you to forgive people who you are sure have harmed you so that, on the other side of your forgiveness of them you can experience in even more powerful anointing. If the goal and purpose of Christian forgiveness is to procure and secure more and more powerful anointings I would like to know what is actually Christian about that. What kind of Christian teacher formulates a doctrine of forgiveness that has as its goad the promise that on the other side of the forgiveness you’re admonished to give your enemies there’s even more anointing/power on the other side?
I really am negatively impressed that in the wind-up to defending his “How dare
you!?” scream back in 2009 Driscoll decided he had to share the story of a
young woman who confided to him, he says, that she was born of rape and that her
rapist dad raped her. This is the same man who
said:
Sometimes womens' ministry is the cesspool that this
kind of activity flourishes in. Some have asked, "Why don't you have
womens' ministry?" The answer is we do, but it's, you have to be very
careful, it's like juggling knives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH65XFaW6ao
it’s at 56:32
But the man who inveighed against gossiping women at Mars Hill Church in 2008
has just shared the story of a young woman who shared a painful personal story
with him here in 2024 as part of the defense of why he screamed “How dare you!?”
in a 2009 sermon that, arguably, was not even his most controversial moment in
his public career.
Another potential candidate might be a sermon from his Peasant Princess days. Or, if controversy is indicated by sermons you may not even be able to find in any Mark Driscoll sites, the 2007 sermon he preached in Edinburgh, Scotland in 2007 might be more controversial.
https://www.christianretailing.com/index.php/newsletter/latest/19435-baptist-convention-scrutinizes-mark-driscoll
https://www.worldviewweekend.com/news/article/bott-radio-blocks-driscoll-replaces-segment-mid-show
https://web.archive.org/web/20090623084539/http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=30700&ref=BPNews-RSSFeed0617
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2016/06/mark-driscoll-and-influence-of-porn-few.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8sNVDyW-ws&rco=1
Mark Driscoll | Sex: A Study of the Good Bits of Song of Solomon
Edinburgh, Scotland on November 18,2007about 23:05
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8sNVDyW-ws&feature=youtu.be
―Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest, she says, ―is my lover among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade and his fruit is sweet to my taste. What is she talking about? Oral sex on her husband. That as he stands, she likes to be beneath him and his taste is sweet. It is a euphemism for oral sex, in your Bible. The Jews wouldn‘t even let men read this until they were married or thirty. Now you know why. You‘ve got Jewish boys under the blankets at night with a candle. [Laughter from audience.] Men, I am glad to report to you that oral sex is biblical. Amen? [Minimal response from audience.] No, you can do better than that. [Laughter from audience] The wife performing oral sex on the husband is biblical. God‘s men said, Amen. Ladies, your husbands appreciate oral sex. They do. So, serve them, love them well. It‘s biblical. Right here. We have a verse. The fruit of her husband is sweet to her taste and she delights to be beneath
24:17
I'll tell you a story if you don't tell anyone else of a man who started
attending our church because of oral sex. Right? So many women go to church. In
your country it's sixty or seventy percent. "My husband won't come to
church. He doesn't have any interest in the things of God. He doesn't
understand why church would apply to him." We had a woman like that in our
church. She became a Christian. Her husband was not a Christian. He hated the
church, wanted nothing to do with the church. She kept browbeating him about
Jesus. "You need to get saved. You're gonna burn in hell."
He had no interest in that.
And so, finally, I was teaching a class on sex and she said, "Oh, so
oral sex on a husband is what a wife is supposed to do?" I said,
"Yes." She said, "My husband's always wanted that but I've
refused him." I went to 1 Peter 3. I said, "The Bible says that if
your husband is not a Christian that you are to win him over with deeds of
kindness." I said, "So go home and tell your husband that you were in
a Bible study today and that God has convicted you of sin. And repent and go perform oral sex on your
husband and tell him that Jesus, Jesus Christ commands you to do so."
[emphasis added] The next week the man showed up at church. He came up to
me, he said, "You know, this is a really good church." That handing
out tracts on the street thing, there's a better way to see revival, I assure
you of that.
28:29
--you say, "Won't that make me dirty?" No, it'll make you a good
wife, and ladies, let me assure you of this, if you think you're being dirty
he's pretty happy.
By contrast to Mark Driscoll's eisegesis, let's consider one of those Puritans he used to say such nice things about. What would have been the Puritan Richard Baxter's advice to a woman who was told by a man she was obliged to perform oral sex on her husband, let alone that a man like Mark Driscoll claimed "Jesus commands you to do this"?
https://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2014/05/driscoll-vs-puritans-on-subject-of-song.html
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/baxter/practical.i.v.ix.html
let's look at page 445 in a section where Baxter discusses the duties of wives
to husbands and considers various grounds for legitimate possibility for
divorce.
Quest. XI. Is not the case of sodomy or
buggery a ground for warrantable divorce as well as
adultery?
Answ. Yes, and seemeth to be included in the very word itself in the text,
Matt. v, 31,32,
which signifieth uncleanness; or at least is fully implied in the reason of it.
See Grotius ibid, also of this. …
Richard Baxter’s advice to the woman would have been that Mark Driscoll demonstrated by his mishandling of scripture that he was a depraved reprobate unfit for pastoral ministry and that her husband insisting upon her performing sexual acts that went against her conscious would be grounds for a warrantable divorce.
Then there's some other Puritan guy named Matthew Henry
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/cmt/henry/sol000.htm
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc3.Song.i.html
Complete Commentary of the Whole Bible
Matthew Henry (1706)
... The books of scripture-history and prophecy are very much like one another,
but this Song of Solomon's is very much unlike the songs of his father David;
here is not the name of God in it; it is never quoted in the New Testament; we
find not in it any expressions of natural religion or pious devotion, no, nor
is it introduced by vision, or any of the marks of immediate revelation. It
seems as hard as any part of scripture to be made a savour of life unto life,
nay, and to those who come to the reading of it with carnal minds and corrupt
affections, it is in danger of being made a savour of death unto death; it is a
flower out of which they extract poison; and therefore the Jewish doctors
advised their young people not to read it till they were thirty years old, lest
by the abuse of that which is most pure and sacred (horrendum dictu—horrible to
say!) the flames of lust should be kindled with fire from heaven, which is
intended for the altar only. But, II. It must be confessed, on the other hand,
that with the help of the many faithful guides we have for the understanding of
this book it appears to be a very bright and powerful ray of heavenly light,
admirable fitted to excite pious and devout affections in holy souls, to draw
out their desires towards God, to increase their delight in him, and improve
their acquaintance and communion with him. It is an allegory, the letter of
which kills those who rest in that and look no further, but the spirit of which
gives life, 2 Cor. iii. 6; John vi. 63. It is a parable, which makes divine
things more difficult to those who do not love them, but more plain and
pleasant to those who do, Matt. xiii.
You might be detecting a pattern by now, that actual Puritans would have regarded Mark Driscoll’s approach to Song of Songs as more than likely indicative of his unregenerate depraved mind. I “could” go further and invoke the Puritan Richard Sibbes on Song of Songs but by now I trust the point has been made.
Bott Radio deciding to cut off a Driscoll sermon mid-broadcast because someone remembered his Edinburgh, Scotland sermon suggests to me that it was that sermon, and not the “How dare You!?” sermon Driscoll has touted as his most controversial moment, that is a candidate for his most controversial moment.
But all of that, arguably, pales compared to his rants as William Wallace II in php forum threads such as “Pussified Nation” and “Using Your Penis”.
Now if Driscoll thinks the 1 & 2 Peter series was one of his most
controversial moments because Janet Mefferd contended that he had plagiarized
material in that series, well, okay, there’s a case to be made it was one of
Mark Driscoll’s most controversial moments.
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