Mark Driscoll recently spoke at the Desiring God Conference hosted by Dr John Piper. Dr Piper caught a lot of heat for inviting Driscoll to speak because of people that are so hung up on Driscoll’s unorthodox style, they don’t hear two words of his content.

(They didn’t want Driscoll at Bethlehem Baptist. A less charitable person than I might wonder if they want the people that Driscoll reaches in heaven.)

Driscoll had to leave shortly after his message, and so he wasn’t present when Dr Piper later issued a caution to him (and, ostensibly, those like him). This absolutely set the blogosphere on fire as Driscoll-supporters wondered aloud about Piper’s method and venue and Driscoll-bashers smugly gave the Sunday-school equivalent of “Nyah, nyah. Told you so.” Case in point from one commenter:

Many of us who were concerned about Piper having Driscoll in at this conference, it now sounds like those concerns were justified . . .

Well no, Steve, actually they weren’t even close to being justified. Not only did Driscoll take the admonishment in the spirit in which it was intended, but when Piper found out that some online might read way too much into the situation, he encouraged Driscoll to make it clear that he (Piper):

. . . would not have .001 seconds hesitation in having Mark Driscoll come back tomorrow to our church or our conference.

You can read the entire exchange here, and see what Godly and humble men they both are.

As a bonus, here’s a link to all of the audio from the conference.

UPDATE: Found a more succinct version of my thoughts here.