Mark Driscoll contends that many believers, even pastors, cannot answer, “What is a Christian Church?” Even the Nicene Creed does not define the church. It simply states, “We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.” From Acts 2, Driscoll finds eight characteristics which define the church.
1. The church is made up of regenerated believers in Jesus (Acts 2:38-41)
2. The church is organized under qualified and competent leadership (Acts 2:42;)
3. The church regularly gathers to hear God’s Word rightly preached and to respond in worshipful ways (Acts 2:47)
4. The church is where the biblical sacraments of baptism and Communion are performed regularly (no reference)
5. The church is unified by God the Holy Spirit (no reference)
6. The church is a holy people (no reference)
7. The church is a loving community that devotes itself to fellowship, or koinonia (Acts 20:7)
8. The church is an evangelical community where the gospel of Jesus is constantly made visible by its preaching, its witness of the members, and its Spirit-empowered life of love (Acts 2:47)
Next, Driscoll examines how Catholicism and Protestantism have defined the church differently. The Roman Catholic Church defines itself as the visible church which is synonymous with the invisible. Driscoll correctly observes that the Protestant reformation rightly rejected this view because “Jesus distinguished between wheat and weeds, and wolves and sheep in the church.”
I disagree, however, with Driscoll’s reformed definition of the invisible church: “The invisible church is the community of all Christians throughout history who have been or will be loved and saved by Jesus Christ, including the believing people of the Old Testament.” In my next post I will give my response.
I ws thrown off to by his use of the word sacrament as we call it ordinaces.
Decoding Driscoll:
I agree with most of what Driscoll has to say in this chapter, especially the main points which are outlined above. It is likely that as we dig deeper into Driscoll’s definitions, we will detect a differing nuance in some of the terminology. This is evident in his understanding of the EKKLESIA. Driscoll links this to the Hebrew word QAHAL and determines that they are one and the same. For obvious reasons, we as dispensationalists disagree on this point. It is helpful to understand how he uses words.
In another instance on p. 40, Driscoll describes apostolic ministry as an ongoing phenomenon, but his use of the word “apostle” must be understood according to his usage. This is a Barnabas-type apostle as opposed to a Paul-type apostle – a “sent one” as opposed to a Witness of the Resurrected Savior and Conduit of new Revelation for the Church. This type of usage is common among Driscoll’s vein of Pneumatology. They leave room for a depleted or diminished giftedness. This type of nuance is terribly unhelpful when coupled with Driscoll’s brisk pace. We would definitely favor the active mission work which results from commissioning people to carry the Gospel to the nations, but we would prefer the term missionary as opposed to apostle, for the sake of clarity.
I must say I simply don’t understand where Driscoll gets the idea that Hebrews in the Old Testament are part of the church. The church was a mystery not even revealed until the New Testament. Driscoll must take an allegorical view of the scripture in order to justify statements that simply aren’t provable from a literal reading of the scriptures
In the references he gave as footnotes several of them mention about the “brethren”, congregation, etc…In Acts 7 it is actually referring to Israel thus he seems to not clarify very well between Israel and the Church. It seems as though he does mind really “stretching” out to get things to tie together for him and his thoughts.
I’m with you on that. I took out my Ryrie book, as well as another book on the subject, and made sure that I understood what Driscoll was trying to say, which was basically the opposite of Ryrie. As someone who hails from Jewish heritage, it sounded a little too much like Heritage Church Theology (all the ancestors will join the party in the end…I think that’s my own term, but let me know if I had actually heard it somewhere and misused it!).
This is a great chapter, with the exception of the one little dependent clause “including the believing people of the Old Testament” p. 46 in reference to who belongs to the invisible church. This chapter, for the most part, calls us back to what it means to be a biblical NT church.
I feel that Driscoll does a great job with the eight characteristics of the Christian Church. These characteristics work together to show what the Christian Church is about. However, I also feel that he needs to make a clear distinction between Israel and the Church.
Driscoll does well with the 8 characteristics of a Christian Church. I also liked the chart he had about the invisible church and the visible one. As he said in the video we must not allow our churches to become museums, we must continually look to Jesus to lead us in a way that keeps bringing people to Himself.
To define characteristically the church is a daunting task. Driscoll’s brief list of distinctions does well in supporting the church, but should not be held solely to these distinctions. There are many things that can be stated about the church and its growth, Spiritual empowerment, and goal. However, to the definition of what a local church is to be and do this is sufficient enough.
Paul, your comments are well written and to the point. As Driscoll indicated, his list was from Acts. His editorial staff may have helped by inserting references for all of the characteristics. The scope of his writing seemed to be restricted to the events in the opening chapters of Acts (pre-Paul).
If Driscoll is going to make statements like the believing people of the old Testament are part of the church, than he at least ought to say that when in the blessings of Jacob by Isaac he said “Be a multitude of people”. Was he refuring to the church? or in Nehemiah’s pronouncement ” the Moabites should not come into the congregation of God forever” (13;1)
I agree with Driscoll again. The church distinctives mentioned are fairly adequate. Although I did not appreciate in the book how Driscoll seemed to be pretty inclusive with the Roman Catholic Church with Evangelical churches.
I highlighted a lot of this chapter, but the part that hit home the most was his section on the Modern Era. As a Church Planing Missionary, and now a Pastor’s wife of a “Mission Church”, we are constantly fighting the temptation to get sucked in to the trend of “selling church” or “selling the Gospel.” How can we market our “Product” to make the consumers want to buy? Convicting…
I really enjoyed hearing what he had to say in the video. I think he had it spot on when saying that a movement should never become a museum. I did think it was interesting though how he used the word sacraments instead of ordinances. I think I am just so use to hearing the word ordinances and not sacraments. I think he did a good job with the eight characteristics to define the church