Book review: Who Do You Think You Are? by Mark Driscoll

This book is essentially a sermon series in book form, walking through the book of Ephesians from start to finish. The subtitle is ‘Finding Your True Identity in Christ,’ which captures the theme that runs through the book, but there’s a lot more in it than simply a redefinition of identity.

I’ve read most of Mark Driscoll’s stuff, and my thoughts in the past have always been that his writing style seems so close to his preaching style that it doesn’t really lend itself to doctrine-focussed books (which is what most of his previous ones have been) – I read this expecting to like the content, but not be too enamored by the presentation. It turns out he’s struck a winning formula in this one.

Although perhaps not as funny as some of his other books, this is a solid, Driscoll-style presentation of Ephesians, taking a few verses and breaking them down in each chapter into a number of easy-to-digest points, with challenging and practical ways to apply the lessons learnt throughout. He’s a massive fan of footnotes and endnotes, which means that it’s easy to find out what Bible passage to look up to follow an idea through, or which book to buy next if you want to explore an idea.

In short, I don’t think I’m going too far to say this is Driscoll’s best book out there. It’s easy to read, thoroughly biblical, and contains an important message that people need to hear. With some insignificant reservations I’d recommend it to anyone, but particularly new Christians, and Christians who don’t think they need to read it. That might be you!

I got this book for free from BookSneeze.com in exchange for an honest review.

 

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Preachers: preach!

Public speaking (Photo credit: brainpop_uk)

The Sermon on the Mount is arguably the most famous act of public speaking in history, despite remarkably few people actually knowing what it’s about. Go on, give it a read, it’s over here. I’ll wait.

I know, pretty shocking, isn’t it? Is he actually saying that people who don’t believe in him are going to hell? It does sort of sound like it, doesn’t it? In fact, there’s a lot of controversial stuff in there. Please feel free to discuss any of it in the comments section.

Anyway, I love a little throwaway comment that Matthew put in after he’d finished speaking:

the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes. (Matthew 7:28b-29)

Do you see that? Their scribes, the ones who were meant to know what’s going on, didn’t speak as if they had any authority! I wonder…I wonder if I’m even allowed to say this…I wonder how much ‘preaching’ in the world today is done by people who speak with true authority.

I reckon ‘motivational speakers’ definitely do. Politicians generally seem to. The New Atheists seem to (although their ‘authority’ is more presented as arrogance and aggression). But do Christian preachers?

Certainly there are some; it’s hard to deny the authority presented by Matt Chandler, Mark Driscoll, Craig Groeschel or John Piper. And this isn’t a jab at preachers, more a question: if you preach, how much authority do you preach with?

A bit of heresy never hurt anyone, did it?

Image via Wikipedia

Oh, it’s been a while since something properly controversial has happened so when T.D. Jakes was invited to speak at The Elephant Room, chaired by one of my heroes, the mild-mannered, softly-spoken Mark Driscoll, I thought we were onto a winner.

There was a bit of a flutter at the time, speakers pulled out, bloggers went crazy, and ultimately it all went forward as planned. And, yes, the Big Issue was discussed…for those who aren’t familiar with the situation, the Big Issue was that T.D. Jakes had previously denied the fundamental Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Instead, he believed in ‘oneness’; that God is one and only one, yet manifests himself in three ways (like H2O manifests itself in ice, water and steam). This may not seem that important but when it comes to something significant like the doctrine of propitiation, oneness just doesn’t quite cut it.

During The Elephant Room Driscoll just comes out and says (you can read a sort of transcript here):

the issue between Trinitarianism and modalism is one God three persons, or one God manifesting in three ways.

In other words: ‘Come on, Jakes, what do you actually believe?!’

The response was relatively woolly, but seemed to submit to Scripture and simply admitted that humanity is never going to quite get it right:

I stand today on one God, three Persons. You describe manifestations as modalism, I call it Pauline. “For God was manifest in the flesh.” The semantics can be this way or that way, but before the controversy started, Paul used the word manifested.

There are distinctives. Father didn’t bleed and die. The person of Jesus did that. We are baptized into the body by the Holy Spirit. That is consistent with my belief system.

I’m with you. I have been with you.

So it seems that Jakes agrees with the doctrine of the Trinity, but doesn’t see a massive issue with using slightly different words to articulate that.

I don’t have a problem with that, but I’d definitely rather he use the word ‘Person’, if only to acknowledge orthodox doctrine. As it is he seems to basically want to avoid any direct doctrinal discussion, and the only reason I can think of is that he doesn’t want to lose his following among Oneness Pentecostalists…

And it would seem that some who listened in to the debate had a massive issue with the fact that T.D. Jakes didn’t publicly repent of this heresy! Check out, for example, this post (which I like) that says it all:

But hey, if a bunch of middle-aged American pastors in the Elephant Room tell you Nicea and its delegates — and all the Christians who have suffered and died to maintain its truth over the centuries — are irrelevant, who am I to question them? To do so would surely be the height of arrogance. Ahem.

And probably the most in-depth and just overall best post of the whole lot has to be either ‘the Don’ Carson and Tim Keller’s response over here, or Thabiti’s latest version of events over here (and a testimony from someone he knows who really suffered from Jakes’ teaching here).

I think I’m still pretty confused. And surely this brings up the question: What’s more important, doctrine or unity?

Vintage Church: Timeless Truths and Timely Methods by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears (audio)

This book pretty much does what it says on the tin. It beings by defining exactly what the church is (a very useful task), before laying out each aspect of this definition as ‘timeless truths’. The book then moves into the ‘timely methods’ half, attempting to apply the model of the church to today’s world in a way which is relevant and appealing.

Overall I really enjoyed this book – it’s informative, challenging, and communicates its message well. But I do have one minor issue which I’d highlight. Driscoll tends to speak with a weighty, compelling authority on whatever he is speaking about, whether or not he should be the authority on that area or not. At times this means that his opinions and perceptions are presented as fact, for example when writing about the multicampus church model. It’s very interesting to hear how Mars Hill Church does it, but you could read it and think that if you disagreed you were committing a sin, which I don’t think is the intention.

The narration is clear and appropriately passionate – there are a couple of occasions where I could hear that Driscoll would have phrased something slightly differently, but I don’t think it takes anything away from the audiobook at all.

My favourite chapter was around the church’s missional role, but it’s all good stuff to be honest. I’d recommend it to every leader in every church – it will challenge and provoke, and at least make you ask questions about why you do and believe certain things.

I got this audiobook for free from christianaudio.com. I’m not required to give a positive review.

Ed Stetzer and Adrian Warnock

Adrian Warnock’s blog is one of my most visited websites and I thoroughly recommend it, along with his book, Raised With Christ.

He recently posted a video interview – he’s normally the one asking the questions but I thought this was fascinating and encouraging so if you’re a Christian who’s not in full-time ministry (just like Adrian is) be sure to go and check it out!

Judaizers

This picture made me laugh:

Read the back story here.

Rob Bell and the anger of God

I was recently on that internet and I came across this article:

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2007/11/heresy_on_tour.html

Fans of Rob Bell are pretty angry that fans of Mark Driscoll (and Driscoll himself, of course) are calling him a heretic. The author of this article seems to have been won over by a sermon given by Bell on a tour. I do not want to get dragged into little arguments about penal substitutionary atonement, the truth about the virgin birth and so on but I do think that sound doctrine is incredibly important – because the Bible tells me that it is!

I do, however, have a little issue with Rob Bell’s sermon content – let’s just ignore the fact that he actually talks about the spirituality of cavemen and the ‘evolution’ of the Christian faith. Apparently, the whole point of God speaking to Abraham, the giving of the Old Testament law and Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross were to prove to us that God’s not angry.

Now I have a problem with this. I think that God is angry. Very angry. Monumentally angry. I think that God’s wrath is absolutely key when it comes to understanding the cross. How on earth could a God who is not at all angry take His one and only son, and force him through torture, mockery and isolation? I look at things like The Passion of the Christ movie and see a dying, tortured, hurting man – I can only see this as a result of anger; I would not torture and kill someone because I thought it might be for the best!

Without God’s anger there is no need for me to be ashamed of my sin; whose problem is it if I want to be gay, or a murderer, or a pervert, or a false teacher? If God’s not angry with me then I might as well sin as much as I can, getting the short-term benefits in the knowledge that Jesus’ sacrifice is enough for me. That simply doesn’t wash.

I think that God’s anger is a key theme throughout the Bible. Take that out and we’re left with a confused God who doesn’t mind us sinning but kills His son anyway. And the thought of Him giving me eternal life without being at all angry that I’ve spent my entire life sticking my middle finger up at Him actually makes me angry. I don’t think we can even begin to imagine the depth of God’s anger.

I would really appreciate your thoughts!

Heretics ahoy!

I just saw a website that made me chuckle a lot. Have a look:

http://alpha-omega-outreach.com/id38.html

This is entitled ‘The Heretics’, and is a list of heretics in the church. Now, I don’t have a problem with Christians highlighting heresies in teachings, because we should avoid false teaching – that’s entirely biblical and, indeed, we should be on the lookout for this stuff. Whether we should ever be in a position to create a list of heretics or not is another matter, and not particularly something I will ever be doing.

The thing that made me laugh was the people on this list. I would agree that some of the names have said heretical things in the past but some of these names are well-respected Bible teachers – just check out some of ‘The Heretics’:

• John Piper
• T.D.Jakes
• John Calvin
• Joyce Meyer
• Billy Graham
• Bill Hybels
• Rick Warren

Made me laugh anyway…

How to win competitions

Enter them.

That’s pretty much it – inspired by my most recent conquest…which I will tell you about.

I was reading a blog by, of course, Mark Driscoll, who said that a competition was underway on facebook. You basically had to draw a picture of Jesus as described in Revelation 19, and the winner would get a copy of his new book. I had no time so did a quick one on Paint…but it was clearly ‘good enough’ and won me a prize!

So here’s the conclusion: enter competitions, because there’s always a small chance you might win. That’s it.

I hope you have had a similar experience.

God wants us in the city

I’m currently reading the excellent book, Vintage Jesus by Mark Driscoll. He puts forward a very compelling argument, which I have heard from a number of sources and would like to share with you now.

Perhaps the majority of Christians in the world today have a view of what heaven will be like that goes something along the lines of this: the Garden. Christians have a general view that the Garden of Eden was at the beginning and was what God intended and therefore that is what heaven will be like.

The truth is the opposite – heaven is described as an urban paradise – heaven is a city! God’s plan is to go from Garden to city, which gives us something slightly different to look forward to, but also leaves a challenge that we must, as Christians, be those who go to the city, rather than moving away, locking ourselves in our home-schooled Christian family bubble, storing up canned goods in case the tribulation starts…for the following reasons:

1. Cities are more dense - there are simply more people, so by living in the city we will have a greater impact for Jesus, just in basic numeric terms, than if we live in rural areas.

2. Cities are more diverse - people of many different languages, cultures, backgrounds move to the city, so the effects of our work are greater in terms of international connections and God’s purpose for a collection of peoples from every people group.

3. Cities create culture - in the river of culture, cities are upstream; cities are where for example politics, education, finance, health, the arts, fashion, and media are created, and rural areas inherit these. Think about it – every countryside person I have met can tell you the names of the characters in Friends, but how many living in the city could tell the difference between breeds of cow, or areas most heavily impacted by blue tongue or foot and mouth disease? By impacting culture in the cities there is a knock-on effect on the rest of a nation, and the world.

4. Cities are strategic - look at the New Testament method for building the church. Paul and his teams planted churches in each major city, ensuring that the surrounding area would be impacted by the gospel, for God’s glory and His Kingdom.

Here’s a great song to finish with – Chris Tomlin does a great version on the latest Passion album – it’s called God of this City and is wonderful.