“To be sure, some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of good will. These preach out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel; the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, thinking that they will cause me trouble in my imprisonment. What does it matter? Only that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice because I know this will lead to my salvation through your prayers and help from the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

A few years ago, I listened to a podcast series called The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. It’s about the former megachurch in Seattle by that name that was led by celebrity pastor Mark Driscoll. It was an enormous church that baptized hundreds of people and produced lots of great bands. Under the surface, though, years of stunningly toxic leadership became an iceberg that sunk the titanic community as fast as the famous ship. The church went from thousands of people worshipping together across fourteen campuses to closing its doors forever in a matter of months. In the aftermath of the collapse, there has been much criticism of the whole affair (including an entire podcast series!), questioning everything the church ever did. Was it all worth it? How should we think about the Gospel being proclaimed by people or in an environment that doesn’t ultimately reflect its ethos? Paul offers some challenging counsel here for us to explore.

Honestly, Mark Driscoll wasn’t ever really my cup of tea. When I first started listening to podcasts years ago, Mars Hill was one of the feeds I subscribed to. I listened for a little while, but that was before I discovered I could listen to podcasts on double speed (and with the latest iPhone update I can take that up to 3x, although 2.5x is as fast as I can process), and Mark consistently preached for over an hour. I don’t care how famous you are; that’s a long sermon. As a result, other than the podcast series, I hadn’t ever really paid all that much attention to the church or the pastor.

What’s interesting is that Driscoll only disappeared from the ministry scene for a little while. He popped up a few months later as the pastor of a church in Scottsdale, AZ. He planted that church not all that long after being forced out of Mars Hill. In other words, he’s still at it. Occasionally videos he has created will pop up on my YouTube feed, but I’ve never stopped to watch them. They always seem too clickbaity to me. The title of one I saw just the other day promised viewers Mark would tell them the only translation of the Bible that Christians should be reading from. I kept right on scrolling.

Mark seems to be pretty sincere in his own ministry. Indeed, why would he come back to it after such a public and embarrassing collapse as his former ministry experienced? Perhaps he’s addicted to the celebrity of being a megachurch pastor? Is he so consumed with pride that he’s relentlessly determined to show all of his critics that they were wrong and he was right by defiantly pastoring a church and preaching in spite of all their criticisms? Does he honestly have a burden to preach from the Holy Spirit that he can’t get out from under?

The truth is that no one but Mark really knows the answer to any of those questions. But while the answers do matter, if Mark is at all preaching Christ and baptizing new believers into God’s kingdom, then they only matter so much. If souls are truly being saved, then Mark’s motivations, subject of fascination from fans and foes alike though they may be, don’t really matter all that much in the end. Yes, God will deal with him justly. He will only be saved himself in the end by the grace and mercy Christ just like all the rest of us. But if he is truly proclaiming the Gospel and people are accepting that, then people are accepting the Gospel and that’s what matters most in the end for them.

As Paul was sitting in prison in Rome, word apparently reached him that his ideological enemies within the church were getting all the bolder in pointing people to Jesus at Paul’s expense. How would that work? Perhaps they were saying something like, “Look, Paul’s approach to this whole thing landed him in a Roman prison. Our approach still has us out here telling people about Jesus and expanding God’s kingdom. Don’t take Paul’s approach; take ours.” We don’t know for sure because Paul doesn’t tell us. What he does indicate, though, is that their motives were somehow false or wrong in their preaching.

“To be sure, some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of good will.” Yes, there were some doing it genuinely and honestly, but some did it to spite Paul and his ministry like perhaps Mark’s preaching is now toward his Mars Hill critics. His current church isn’t nearly as big as Mars Hill was, but if I’m not mistaken, it’s still pretty large. I wonder how much of him feels smugly self-satisfied and defiant toward his critics that for all their efforts to silence him and drive him out of the ministry, he’s still there doing it.

Paul seems like he would understand the position of Mark’s critics pretty well who have to be exasperated to the point of distraction that Mark is still at it. “These preach out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel; the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, thinking that they will cause me trouble in my imprisonment.” Paul was clear: these other folks are not doing right. Well, they are doing something good, but in doing it out of false motivations, they are laying the ground for all sorts of potential trouble down the road.

And it would be easy to get all caught up in frustration with someone like Mark or like Paul could have done with those who were preaching the Gospel to spite him and his ministry. Think of the harm he has done. Think of the harm they were doing. Think of the harm he could yet do if he doesn’t profoundly change his heart and attitude (and there’s not much public evidence of that having happened). That was certainly a tempting path for Paul to walk while they were out freely doing the work he so desperately wanted to be doing. “But you know what,” Paul said, “I’m not the most important factor in this equation. Jesus is. And if Jesus is being proclaimed, that’s all that really matters.”

“What does it matter? Only that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Chris is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice because I know this will lead to my salvation through your prayers and help from the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” As long as Jesus is being proclaimed, as long as people are being pointed toward God’s kingdom, that’s all that really matters. If I don’t happen to like another preacher and his style but he is successfully being used by God’s Spirit to point people toward Jesus, I need to get over myself, keep my criticisms to myself, and rejoice in the new life that is being created by God through his ministry. If Paul could do it, so can I.

Instead of being consumed by bitterness or jealousy, Paul took a much better path: rejoicing. He rejoiced in Christ and the proclamation of His Gospel. He rejoiced in spite of what his friends and supporters might have encouraged him to do. They perhaps wanted him to turn to bitterness or envy because that would have given justification to their own feelings. But by refusing that and walking the path of rejoicing in Jesus, Paul was staying on the path of salvation. He was staying focused on Jesus and not his own desires. That path would get him where he was trying to go. It would lead to his salvation, something he invited his Philippian friends to join him in praying for.

So then, do the motivations of someone proclaiming Jesus as Lord matter? I saw a street preacher at a Christian concert even the other day. I really don’t care for those guys and their approach. That kind of antagonism to get people’s attention is something I consider to be less helpful than not. It strikes me as divisive and gives critics of the faith too much ammunition to use against us. But if that guy successfully pointed someone toward Jesus that night, then thanks be to God and praise the Lord. Yes, motivations do matter, and we should exhort those who proclaim the Gospel to have the best motivations possible, but if Jesus is preached and someone is connected to Him in faith, that’s the thing that matters most. We should indeed rejoice in that.