Listened to an excellent Mark Driscoll sermon yesterday at work. The subject was a character study of John the Baptist (or Baptizer). Driscoll chose to focus on a few aspects of the man and his life, among them the fact that he’s described as being “Spirit-filled” and being born of “Spirit-filled” parents, and what that means, and also the usually-glossed-over verse at the end of Luke 1, giving a glimpse into how John grew up.
The man was described in at least two places in the Bible (one of them by Jesus Himself) as the greatest man who ever lived, and Driscoll used this as a jumping-off point to discuss the biblical paradigm of manhood. He went on one of his rants against the prevailing, cultural view of manhood, something he does better than almost anyone else, and indicted society for promoting a wrongheaded view of modern manhood that emphasizes consumerism and keeps guys (not men) in a state of perpetual adolescence. Not that we’re “victims of the culture,” by any means—our responsibility is the fulcrum on which everything turns. He actually railed against the concept of adolescence itself, which is a modern invention—older, wiser societies had two categories for males: boy and man. Not only that, they had a definite markers of transition between the two, and when a boy became a man, there were definite expectations placed upon him by society at large: Move out of your parents’ house, prepare for your vocation, get a career-track job, meet a girl, take the initiative to court her, marry her, protect and provide for her and have children, create a new family unit and work to establish a multi-generational legacy. That’s the biblical model, and one seriously in decline all around us.
Driscoll drew from John’s example to underscore that real men are creators, cultivators, protectors, and not consumers, cowards and complainers. Real men step up and meet their responsibilities head-on and don’t actively try to put them off or avoid them as long as possible, something actually glorified in many corners of the mediasphere.
Needless to say, the sermon was excellent, and inspires me to step it up—by the power of the Holy Spirit—in those areas I’ve been failing, a primary one being providing my family a house—actively working toward that. I’ve been coasting, saying that when such-and-such happens we’ll consider it, but the urgency is mounting and there are many things I can do even now to prepare and learn.
