John Piper and Mark Driscoll: lessons not learned?

Somehow a filing that was posted to discuss Piper’s role in the life of Driscoll got turned into discussion about John MacArthur. I have seen this before, where the best defense of Driscoll some give is to attack John MacArthur and Phil Johnson.

Let me be clear, since I am the person who raised the question about Team Pyro and John MacArthur.

IN NO WAY WAS I DEFENDING MARK DRISCOLL!!!!!!!!!!

Clear?

I think I own almost every John Macarthur book on the market, and NONE by Driscoll. Got it?

I simply see Pyromaniacs throwing a lot of arrows around, some for good reasons, others I disagree with. I was reading this post, and saw the mention of salaries, and I remembered a time I saw Phil Johnson asked about John MacArthur’s salary and he ignored the question. So, I posted the thought. In fact, if MacArthur did take home $400,000/year I would have no problem with that given the amount of work he has done, does, and continues to do. For your information, I posted the first paragraph of the first post I made, then went and did research, and posted edited the post to include the second paragraph with MacArthur’s 2011 salary. It was posted for your information.

I appreciate Phil Johnson posting here, though I do wonder how he found out about it? Methinks I know.

Finally, I NEVER CRITICIZED John MacArthur or accused him of exorbitant salaries. I merely asked if Team Pyro KNOW WHAT HIS SALARY WAS.

Thanks for asking. Here was my train of thought:

1-TeamPyro attacked Driscoll (yes, Piper also, but I assume they aren’t criticizing Piper’s compensation, just Driscoll’s). Fair enough.

2-TeamPyro consists of many people associated with John MacArthur.

3-I have seen Phil Johnson in particular asked about John MacArthur’s compensation. I personally have never seen him (in person or video) respond to that question.

4-So I wondered if TeamPyro was aware of “their guy’s” compensation since they attacked Mark Driscoll about his.

Was that reasonable? Was that a conspiracy to shield Mark Driscoll?

I in no way support Mark Driscoll. I can honestly say I have never listened to more than about 10 minutes of a Driscoll sermon. I have never read one of his books. I have however listened to hundreds of MacArthur’s messages, and read dozens of books.

that one humble man in fly over country asking a question on a minor blog awakened the giant Phil Johnson. That was kind of fun!

Aren’t you glad I asked. :-)

Mark Smith, I wasn’t singling you out or anything. I was thinking more of the whole thread which reminded me of a personal conversation I had about a year ago with someone. We were discussing Driscoll’s claims about himself, and suddenly the person I was chatting with made Phil Johnson out to be the bad guy. Driscoll made outlandish claims, Johnson accurately quoted Driscoll’s words on the pyro blog, and so somehow Johnson was the villain instead of Driscoll. I still haven’t figured that one out.

I assume Phil checks in here at SI from time to time since this isn’t the first time he has posted here (his post is tagged as his 12th since joining in ‘09). I am sure many readers frequent both sites as well.

I bet Phil read all of my posts about creationism as well :-)

“Ol’ Wild Eyes” probably just popped in to see the Fundamentalist reaction to the Piper podcast. I think he largely lurks in the shadows of SI - he’s been a member a VERY long time and had chipped in on his “Dead Right” message from 2009ish, but I’m sure he felt the need to interject on this matter since it’s so close to his heart.

In any case, he’s always welcome here in my book!

Please return to the apparent original purpose of the thread the criticize John Piper.

No one at TeamPyro has any relationship with John MacArthur. I was the only contributor there who even knew Dr. MacArthur personally, and I have not been affiliated with TeamPyro for 2 1/2 years.

I’ve been reading and posting comments at SI since the beginning, in 2005.

Can we move on? I didn’t realize you weren’t a part of it anymore Phil (though your post header still has the blog address for example, so you can see why someone still thinks you are connected with it). I never read the blog other than links here at SI, so that is my fault.

John MacArthur, who no one at Team Pyro knows, is a wonderful Bible teacher. I asked a question, I wasn’t insinuating anything.

I was at Sharper Iron in 2005-6 as well, as Physicsfaith.

There is (or was) a secret Sharper Iron / John MacArthur quick response unit.

If anyone is critical of John MacArthur, this formerly unknown unit springs into action to suppress and mitigate any potential damage to MacArthur’s reputation.

The identities of this secret team have never hitherto been revealed. Below: Susan R and a a yet to be identified male:

I knew it was you all along!