# Driscoll- Good Soldier



## Puritan Sailor (Nov 1, 2007)

I know many of you don't like Mark Driscoll but I would be curious to get your feed back on THIS issue he talks about here. He discusses his philosophy of church planting. 


[video=youtube;JIrIKbCz3n4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIrIKbCz3n4[/video]


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## Contra_Mundum (Nov 1, 2007)

As a former infantryman, I thought it was a powerful statement.

Let me go on a tangent for just a second. As a former military man, I see a lot about that experience that went into making me into the person I am today. And I get a cognitive and experimental connection to the language of warfare in the Bible that is only truly graspable from first-hand knowledge.

But not everyone can have the same experiences. Nor should we. And the Bible is full of a variety of metaphors to help a variety of people. In fact, I really don't recommend today's military to the average youth--no more than I think Paul the apostle would have recommended the Legions to his young converts.

Rich recently wrote about his Marines, and the general carriage and deportment of those men. He likes to be around them for the qualities they do have (not for the vices they display), and often moreso than the typical Christian. The Christian professor too often can't even summon enough discipline to act virtuous for a full 8 hours on the job. The Christian life (is there any such thing anymore?) is seen as a do-as-you-please-never-worry-about-it condition that excuses an undisciplined character. No wonder the world cares nothing for the church. The church is offering them no challenge, not even something they want to imitate secularly!

Paul the apostle was obviously on the lookout for "former military men" along with others. Not to create a "Christian militia" (far from it) but to channel those energies into the creation of a strong and virtuous church. Why else would there be these many military illustrations if they weren't the very things that resonated?

The "effeminate" were also being saved, thank God for it. But those men had different (and more) issues to overcome. They still needed many basic virtues--things many old soldiers already had from simple civic indoctrination. I'm merely using that as an example. Soldiers are typically men of many evil vices. But they have more easily observable traits of leadership, understanding of authority, and concept of a disciplined life, to name but a few.

In an age like ours, the church could do with quite a few "military-minded" men. You can share my attitude of wanting a smaller national military, no foreign wars, and turning young people off to military service today (all which I think I would share with the apostle Paul)--and still want "military men" in the church. I thank God for my service, for Rich, for Ben Duncan, for Archlute, etc. on this board--just a few who bring this background to the church, and to the pastorate especially. There is so little of this knowledge to be gotten any other way. Just another way our age resembles the Apostolic age.

The last thing we need is a militaristic church. God help us--we already have that in many quarters, with all the churches beating the war drums for "fighting the Turk" today. We need those men, though. Man, do we!


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## Romans922 (Nov 1, 2007)

I liked the part where he talked about 'men'.


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## Puritan Sailor (Nov 1, 2007)

Any one else?


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## RamistThomist (Nov 1, 2007)

I saw that a long time ago, if it is the same one. It is interesting. Certainly, it has his "style" of presentation, but I didn't notice anything objectionable.


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