Mars Hill Podcast Revives Old Video With Mark Driscoll, James MacDonald, Mark Dever—And It Reveals a Lot

I left a church back in 2014 because they were uncritically using James Macdonald’s work as a resource, and what struck me back then, and strikes me now as well, is how much people were willing to overlook in their appraisal of leaders like MacDonald and Driscoll; abusive interactions with church contractors (ironwork, Macdonald), majority rule on the elder board by the pastor, softpedaling the Trinity in discussions with TD Jakes, talking about “overcoming the addiction to food” while being 100 lbs overweight, and the like. Sometimes the hardest things to see are those which are most obvious.

And in this one, I would have hoped that any beginning Greek student (or even pew-sitter whose pastor has a Greek dictionary and uses it) would have cringed at Driscoll’s challenge of the definition of “ecclesia.” Again, the hardest things to see are often the most obvious.

[Bert Perry]

And in this one, I would have hoped that any beginning Greek student (or even pew-sitter whose pastor has a Greek dictionary and uses it) would have cringed at Driscoll’s challenge of the definition of “ecclesia.” Again, the hardest things to see are often the most obvious.

Bert, I watched this video when it was first published by TGC. My impression: it wasn’t that Driscoll and Macdonald didn’t understand the biblical meaning of ecclesia; it was that they just didn’t care. They were committed to doing church their way, just as they were committed to leading the church their way.

Tom, point well taken, as MacDonald is a TEDS graduate and certainly knows better….I’m guessing Driscoll at Western is the same…..and that scares me even more than the thought that they might not have known. We are closing in on “wolves” territory.