Mark Driscoll's Resignation

My son just asked me my thoughts about this breaking report about the former head pastor of Mars Hill church.  

I think Mark Driscoll disqualified himself from his current office quite some time ago, though perhaps not irredeemably so. The pages of his future have not yet been written. The self-humbled are lifted up by the Lord, though not always to the same places.

He was pugnacious, lacked self-control, allegedly lorded it over others, showed a sexually impure mind in many of his words, and didn't maintain pure speech generally. By the standards of 1st Timothy 3, he shouldn't have been in the position he held. The public statement by the governing council of Mars Hill (released yesterday) showed they still weren't requiring those standards of Driscoll.

I think his practical successes outran his maturity. Driscoll is a very talented man. But he is like a jockey who starts out the race riding a fast horse, but ends up being disastrously and violently dragged along by the mad pony. The race-horse he needed to control was himself. I also think the flimsy, oligarchical polity of Mars Hill Church didn't serve him well.

I hope he goes to a place where spiritually weak knees are strengthened, and the attitudinal joint that has been knocked out-of-socket can be set right.