Mark Driscoll and the Mistakes of Jesus

Christianity Today (CT) has an interesting story about a sermon Mark Driscoll reportedly preached at Mars Hill Church on May 4, a sermon the web version of which Warren Throckmorton documents a six minute deleted section. Throckmorton claims in “Mars Hill Church Deletes Mark Driscoll’s Teaching on Jesus Making Mistakes” that comparing the web version and the original version which he’s obtained reveals:

Those who watch the sermon on the website are missing some material from the live delivery two weeks ago. A segment of nearly six minutes was deleted from the sermon after discussion internally and some questions were raised externally (Throckmorton has the full transcription of the missing six minute segment on his site

Until the controversy over plagiarism and allegedly using church monies to buy Driscoll’s book on marriage onto the New York Times bestselling list (other items like his radio interview with Janet Mefford added to the popping of Driscoll’s protective bubble but perhaps played a lesser role),  perhaps Driscoll could have been seen as Mr. Teflon amongst the New Calvinism phenomenon. Driscoll could get away with just about anything in his “bad boy” image with some Southern Baptist elites slobbering all over each other seemingly competing for who could claim loudest and more often, “Mark Driscoll is my friend.” If you’ve kept your ear to the woods like I’ve tried to do, you’d know too those birds are no longer chirping.

What’s very interesting about the CT story is several well-known evangelical thinkers were solicited for their views as to whether Jesus made mistakes and would those mistakes constitute sin. CT’s actual question was, “Did Jesus make mistakes?” Simon Chan, Michael Bird, Roger Olson who also wrote about Jesus and mistakes on patheos.com), and Oliver Crisp are among the respondents. Their words are helpful but no surprises.

Read “Did Jesus Make Mistakes?” by Kevin P. Emmert on Christianity Today

With that, I am…

Peter