Tag Archives: Mark Driscoll

Preachers and Sex Sermons: Then and Now

19. Oct, 2011 1 Comment

J. Sidlow Baxter and the Sex Sermon Preachers
I have always enjoyed J. Sidlow Baxter’s (1903 – 1999) material. I regularly still use his classic “Explore the Book”, a complete Bible survey course that is outstanding. It’s still in print and there’s also a Kindle edition.)  His devotional writing style, reverent approach to scripture and keen insights into God’s Word, make him a joy to study. In 1974 he released a book entitled “Rethinking Our Priorities: The Church, It’s Pastor and People.” It covered a wide range of subjects and while much in it was very helpful, it also reflects the values and upbringing associated with a man born in Australia in 1903 and raised in Lancashire, England. Baxter’ like all of was a product of his time. He attended Spurgeon’s Theological College in London and was a pastor in Scotland and England. Even so, some principles and priorities are timeless and deserve to be revisited.

What struck me when I read the following was just how true the statement is that “the more things change, the more things remain the same.”  What many perceive as a problem now, Baxter did then.

Preachers and Sex – From “Rethinking Our Priorities” by J. Sidlow Baxter

“Is it not overdue that some of us should inveigh against the new over-proneness to talk sex from pulpit and platform? Let me here utter a protest against those preachers nowadays who seem to think that in order to appear modernly psychological or bravely attractive they must always bring sex into their public speaking. I, for one, am nauseated by it, and I believe that a long suffering majority of others feel the same way. The jolting over frankness with which some ministers and conference speakers talk about marital relationships and sex experience is disgusting.

 

They tell me that one has to be boldly frank in order to deal with the sex problems of the day. I deny this. Much that goes by the name of frankness is veneered vulgarity. Sometimes the speaker can scarcely disguise his own sickly relish and morbid pleasure in the subject. Far fewer of us are deceived than such speakers think; and when they punctuate their over-intimate comments with jocular sex anecdotes or remarks which evoke a few inane giggles from folk in the congregation who will laugh at anything spicy, we despise them.

 

Let us get a few things straight. If for some acute reason sex  matters simply must be publicly spoken of in some Christian service or conference, it should be done without descriptive detail, with very carefully restrained phrase, and with becoming reticence. That which belongs to private counseling is not for public parade. I have known persons for whom these public expatiations on sex matters have created problems which they never had before. Instead of solving problems the speaker has inflamed them.

 

In these days, when there are so many books written on sex and marriage, including wise and useful publications by Christian ministers, doctors, and psychologists, what need is there for this pulpit and platform lingering with face-reddening intimacy over the sex quarrels, sex-disappointments, sex-fulfillments, or sex-estrangements, and so on, of married couples and others? To me it is like a conducted tour of drains and sewers, and the preacher seems to love being down there.

 

One of the most angering things of all is that the sexual matters descriptively dilated upon could be referred to far more effectively with respectful restraint. People know well enough what we mean, and how we are trying to help, without a lot of smutty elaborating…
Today, we live in a sex-mad society. We should avoid anything in our Christian services and fellowships which adds to the general sex emphasis. We should do everything we can to restore a sense sacredness to the subject of marital relationship. Things which were divinely meant to be private and sacred and referred to only with reverent respect are discussed with blatant freeness, until nearly all the decency and dignity of life is being martyred. Such trends do not engender social purity and happiness; they bring uncleanness and misery.

 

Our churches and Christian meetings should strike a deliberate contrast. Instead of lingering on fleshly, ugly, animalistic aspects of nuptial and sexual relationships, we should keep turning the minds of our people to the higher and purer and holier aspects of love and wedlock and family life. It is in the light of those higher levels of thinking and 0f Scripture teaching that most matrimonial problems find true solution.

 

Perhaps someone still objects: ‘Oh, but the Church should face up to the sex problems of the day.’My reply is threefold. (I) They should not be ‘faced up to’in the brazen way which is common today. (2) They should never be thus ‘faced up to’ in mixed meetings, with males and females, married and single, parents and children, older and younger, all together. ( 3) Any such public ‘facing up’ should be avoided in favor of private counseling.

 

Finally, all such public “facing up” in the objectionable way which I have here denounced is utterly unscriptural. Listen again -to Ephesians 5:3. It says, “But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints:’ In other words, there are some things which, in Christian gatherings, instead of being “faced up to,” should be faced away from.

 

It is time we put away this dirty-puddle-stirring from Christian platforms… this irreverent and blushing ‘free speech’ about bodily relationships, on the plea that it’s being helpfully realistic, is a make-believe of sickly minds. It belongs to the garbage dump not the Christian desk.  It is time some ministers had something more elevating to talk about.”

 

(I’ve abbreviated the article. If you’d like to read the rest, click here.)

Church, Preaching
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Is Their A Second Chance at Heaven After Death? – Mark Driscoll

08. Apr, 2011 0 Comments

Mark, as always a passionate and prophetic voice, takes on the subject with compassion and conviction…

Bible
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What Is The Kingdom of God?

27. Jul, 2010 0 Comments

Doctrine by Mark Driscoll

(Cont…)

“Tragically, there are many erroneous views of the kingdom that misrepresent the glories of God’s eternal kingdom. The kingdom is not like the cartoonish inanity that shows heaven as a white cloud upon which we will sit wearing diapers and playing harps with wings far too small to carry us anywhere fun.

The kingdom is not the naive dream of liberalism, that with more education and time sin and its effects will be so eradicated from the earth that utopia will dawn. The kingdom is not the deceptive dream of Christless spirituality where all learn to nurture the spark of divinity within themselves and live out their true good self in harmony.

The kingdom is not the political dream that if we simply get the right leaders in office and defeat all the bad guys good will rule the earth.

The kingdom is both a journey and a destination, both a rescue operation in this broken world and a perfect outcome in the new earth to come, both already started and not yet finished.”

Quotes
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Simplicity in Preaching by J.C. Ryle – Part 2

Simplicity in Preaching by J.C. Ryle – Part 2

27. May, 2010 0 Comments

Yesterday, I began this summary of J.C. Ryle’s Simplicity in Preaching. Banner of  Truth is the publisher and it’s well worth the 3 bucks they charge. In his recommendation, Sinclair Ferguson writes,

“Ryle packs more experience and sanctified common sense into two dozen pages than many others manage in a lengthy treatise.  And, like all of his work, this one illustrates the very simplicity he commends to others.  Here indeed is a work whose value and usefulness is out of all proportion to its length.”

Ryle begins with 4 prefatory statements, the first two of which we covered yesterday. The first was that to attain simplicity should be the goal of every minister who desires to be useful to souls. The second was a warning that those who wish to preach with simplicity should not consider it an easy task. In other words, this is no shortcut to sermon prep! So now we come to the third and fourth prefatory comments.

3) “When I talk of simplicity in preaching, I would not have my readers suppose I mean childish preaching.“

As the writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us, knowledge puffs up. On many occasions I have witnessed preachers talk down to a congregation in a scolding or impatient manner. It was as if their thought was “how can you be so stupid? This is as plain as the nose on your face! What’s the matter with you?” No one likes being made to feel foolish or ignorant. Ryle points out that we sacrifice any possibility of being useful if people feel that they are being treated as inferiors and not as equals. Says Ryle:

“People do not like even the appearance of condescending preaching…. They will at once put up their backs, stop their ears, and take offense, and then we might as well preach to the winds.”

Sadly, many churches contain pastors who are already being shown the door and don’t yet know it. Their people quit listening some time ago. To preach with simplicity is not to speak in a childish manner but in a responsible one. Simplicity flows from a heart that has the highest respect for those it serves and longs to be useful to them.

4) “Finally let me observe, that it is not coarse or vulgar preaching that is needed.”

This pamphlet is part of a larger work published in 1888 but it certainly applies today! Let me start by addressing an issue of modern vulgarity and then get to what Ryle is speaking of.

Much has been said about crude language in the pulpit, quite a bit of which has surfaced in the recent wave of messages on sexuality. In 2009, Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle was drawing heavy fire from folks like John MacArthur over his use of profanity. The N.Y. Times reported: “he has the coolest style and foulest mouth of any preacher you’ve ever seen” and that his “Mars Hill Church is the furthest thing from a Puritan meetinghouse.”

Of course, being that there are hundreds of young pastors influenced by Driscoll, you can bet there has been a lot of this kind of thing. Now I like Driscoll. I like his passion for truth. He writes well and I’ve listened to a number of his messages which I have found compelling. So I’m not ragging on Mark. Unfortunately, he’s just the poster boy on this issue for many in the church. Now, I’ll be honest, while I have never cussed in the pulpit, I still do on occasion in private conversation. Usually it’s in a counselling appointment with a brother who’s avoiding some issue and I’ll tell him that what he just said is a big pile of bulls**t. Frankly it’s purely for shock value. Shakes them up when the pastor does that! But the truth is, it’s not necessary and the idea that somehow I need to do that to relate to the culture around me is actually a good idea (relevant speech) pushed to far. There really is to be something different about the speech of the believer. We know the scriptures:
Ephesians 5:4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.

Ephesians 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Colossians 3:8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

Think about it. Paul obviously wrote this knowing that his readers would would be familiar with what the contrasts of speech involved – what was filthy and foolish and what was thankful and grace-giving. So there is a cultural tide, when it comes to speaking, that needs to be resisted.

Now, all that being said, that is not what Ryle is talking about here.  In Ryle’s day many of the churches were filled with men and women who were uneducated and illiterate. Consequently their speech was not refined or “courteous.”  Ryle’s contention was that one could be simple while still being a “gentleman” and maintaining a high standard of dignified speech. He argues:

“It is an utter mistake to imagine that uneducated and illiterate men and women prefer to be spoken to in an illiterate way, and by an uneducated person.”

Ryle comes off sounding a bit snobbish here by declaring that if you have a choice between a lay reader or evangelist who only knows how to read and someone like an “Oxford man” who knows his Greek and Latin, then you should go with the more refined and educated gentleman. Now this is a fairly cultural thing to Ryle and his time but there is a point here that is important. When Ryle speaks of coarsness and vulgarity he is not talking about foul language (that was never even a consideration!) but rather speaking in ways more common to the uneducated. Our words should inspire, not just instruct. They should be worthy of the subject and invite people to think great thoughts. There should be prose and poetry, imagination and music in the words we use. The soul hungers for it. To quote Ryle:

“People only tolerate vulgarity and coarseness, as a rule, when they can get nothing else.”

Do we want our preaching to be something people have to settle for when in fact we could stimulate their minds and imaginations and not just their feelings and passions?

“ My heart overflows with a pleasing theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe.” – Psalm 47:1


Next, we’ll look at the first of Ryle’s 5 hints for better preaching.


Preaching, Quotes
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