Taylor Sinclair Interview

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.�

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the

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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and we are today interviewing people, and we have

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Sinclair on today. And so, that Sinclair person, you don�t know if that is Sinclair, Buchanan, Ferguson. That could be

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Sinclair, I don�t know who else I know is named Sinclair. But what if it was somebody�s last name who�s

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Sinclair, and that�s in fact who we have on today. Taylor Sinclair, welcome to No Compromise Radio.

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Thank you for having me on. Now, do you have any Scottish background or anything, so you�re close to Sinclair Ferguson?

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You know, I�ve never done a formal heritage study, but that�s what my dad tells me, something

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Scottish or something like that. All right, well, I think the Mormons, for just a slight fee, they�ll look at your genealogy for you.

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My guess is it goes all the way back to Adam. All the way. So, Taylor, how did we initially meet?

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I know the answer to this question, but I just thought it would be interesting for the listening audience. I don�t know how we initially met.

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I think a semi -rural Minnesota kid found his way out to the

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Master�s University and met a surfer named

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Luke Avendroff, and through your, I think it was your Twitter ministry and your books,

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I think that�s how we met. I think so. It was through � Yeah, yeah.

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I think so. That�s how we saw each other face -to -face, and you�ve seen Luke probably more than you�ve seen me, but via some books and social media,

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Luke has spoken highly of you, and I thought, �You know what? I need to have Taylor on No Compromise Radio.�

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How old are you, Taylor? I am 22 years old. 22 years old, and just out of the

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Master�s University and now at the Master�s Seminary, correct? Correct, yep. And so, life has changed a lot from being the kid from Minnesota, now living in L .A.,

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and I think you�ve been recently married. Tell us about your wife. Yeah. So, recently married, just over five months, and my wife,

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Kelsey, is from Washington State. Met her out at the

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Master�s University and through Grace Community Church, and happily married five months.

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That is awesome. Now, my favorite thing about Minnesota, I think, revolves around food. I have been to the

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State Fair there, and they had a bunch of good food. Yes, the State Fair. I normally try not to eat for about a week before so that I can have all of those calorie counts just for the

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Fair. My father used to... Fried, chocolate -covered, and frozen. Oh! See, my father used to take me up to Minnesota, and we would fish for walleye and I think northern pike, but that was a long time ago.

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That was probably... Walleye are the best. That was probably back in the days when they had the

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Minnesota Lakers. I don't think I was born that way.

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So Taylor, tell me about the Master�s Seminary.

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You've been there for this is, I think, your first semester, and why did you pick the Master�s Seminary, and what's your favorite class, and why?

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Okay, that's a whole lot. I picked the Master�s Seminary. I got saved.

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Part of that was through the preaching of John MacArthur through Grace to You, and I attended a

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Bible study where the gentleman who led that encouraged me in my walk with the

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Lord and in my pursuit of formal seminary education. And so I was attending a quote -unquote

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Christian university in Minnesota, and decided that I didn't want to pay that much money for a

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Bible class where the teacher didn't believe the Bible. So I found my way out to the

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Master�s University, at the time it was the college, and finished a degree, an undergraduate degree in business.

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But the whole time I knew my end goal was TMS, was the Master�s Seminary.

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And so last spring was my first semester, so I'm into my second semester now.

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And oh, my favorite class, that's tough, you know?

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On the language side, I favor Greek over Hebrew, and I really enjoy my pastoral ministry classes

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Who's teaching the pastoral ministry class? It's a bunch of different pastors and elders from Grace Community Church, but the head professor is

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Austin Duncan, he kind of administrates over that. I heard he sometimes goes off the range and stuff.

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What's Austin's deal these days? Oh, Austin likes to provoke our thinking.

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He likes to challenge everything we believe. Well, I was joking when

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I said that. I work with Austin doing some doctoral ministry things at the

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Master�s Seminary, and once in a while, I don't think you know this, Taylor, he will text me and say, you know,

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I'm sitting in a class, a homiletics class, listening to someone preach, you know, what would you say to such and such?

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And we kind of go back and forth, and sends me both critique sermons. So I'm really thankful for Austin and what he does.

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And he does have that kind of provoking style, doesn't he? He does, it's great. It forces you to have an answer, have a chapter and verse to what you believe.

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Well, I have a book here, you didn't know I was going to do this, but since you're the Young Seminary student, I have a book here and it has

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Christian bestsellers. And so I'm just going to go through this list, this just popped in my mind, this is typical

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No Compromise Radio stuff, like with Steve or Tuesday Guy or something. There's just some books here, and I'm just going to tell you the book, and you can either tell me yes,

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I've read it, or no, you know, yes or no, okay? The Imitation of Christ, Thomas A.

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Kempis. No. Book of Martyrs, John Fox. Yes.

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Okay. Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan. Yes. That's a must. Christian's Secret of a

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Happy Life, Hannah Whitehall -Smith. No, I'm not sure

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I've read that. Okay, Ben Hur by Lew Wallace. No.

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Okay, In His Steps, Charles Sheldon. No, I'm not familiar.

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Okay, it's just some kind of wacky devotional. Quo Vadis by Heinrich Steinevegs.

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Do you have all these books in your bookshelf? No, no! Do you have them on a shelf in your office?

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Well, I'd have to turn them upside down or something like that. Okay, it's getting better. The Robe by Lloyd Douglas.

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I have not, no. All right, this is the Christian bestsellers according to whatever this booklet is

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I have in front of me. God's Smuggler by Brother Andrew. No. No, see,

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I've pretty much said no to everyone you've said no to, and yes to everyone you've said yes to. All right?

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All right. Three to go. The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey. I have not,

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I have not. Okay, now this is... Some of these are a part of the curriculum of your seminary.

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Yeah, well, see, you know, I've dabbled with, do I go to the seminary and teach other classes besides helping with d -men, so I could do some kind of Christian bestsellers class.

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The Purpose -Driven Life, Rick Warren. You know, I haven't read all of it, but I've read some of it.

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If you're going to refute something, you've got to go from the original source. Yeah, that's right. Good. Ad Fontes.

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And then finally, the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. You know,

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I haven't read them. I think I was too young when that came out. It wasn't really popular when

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I was at the age to read that. I do remember watching a scene of it with my mom as a young kid, and then, like, hiding under a bed or something, because I was afraid.

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Taylor Quipps. I don't remember watching it when it was popular, or reading it when I was four years old.

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Well, I'm happy to know that most of those books you have not read, and you don't really need to, so good for you.

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What are you reading these days? Okay, so I actually keep a stack of books in my office that I slowly work my way through that aren't part of my seminary curriculum, kind of just to let my whistle and get my mind out of Hebrew exegesis and Greek grammar and all the things we seminary students do 24 hours a day.

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But I have God's Battle Plan for the Mind by David W.

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Saxton. He basically takes what the Puritans say about meditation, not mystical, none of that stuff, but how to meditate on God's Word.

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We're going through that right now with our men's Bible study. And then above it, I have a guy,

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I don't know if you've heard of him before, Abendroth, Mike Abendroth, Jesus Christ, the

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Prince of Preachers. Hey, there you go, see? That should have been on the top bestsellers list right up there by Cole Vadasen in his steps.

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It'll be there, Mike Abendroth, Jesus Christ, the Prince of Preachers. I actually just started that.

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The Soul Winter by Charles Spurgeon, that's actually for an evangelism class here at the seminary.

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And the Glory of Christ by Owen, by John Owen.

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All right, that is excellent. We really have to be readers when it comes to ministry and gospel -oriented things, and it's just a joy to be able to read and to learn.

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Taylor, if you could choose what you'd like to do when you get out of seminary in three or four or five years,

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I know you'll probably get out in just a few because you've got a good aptitude for studies, what would be kind of your dream job?

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I know you'll do whatever the Lord would have you do, and it's a privilege to serve, but if you really could kind of plan it out yourself, what would be the way you would do it?

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You know, I think one thing that I recognize is I'm young. I'm 23,

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I turn 24 next month, or I'm 22, I turn 23 next month. So coming, finishing seminary,

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I think the goal would be some sort of associate pastor, getting under in a strong church, even potentially a smaller -sized church, and learning.

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Coming under a pastor who's preaching faithfully, who's shepherding the flock, and then who can disciple me, can train me more and more in the ministry.

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And then long -term, I would love to be a senior pastor. I'd like to teach on the side.

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I'd love to get a THM and teach an undergraduate Bible class or something like that, because I think people need to realize that the

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Bible is an amazing book to study. I've sat under some theology classes, not at the seminary, but before, where theology wasn't fun.

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And I love theology. I have Grudem, and I have

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Biblical Doctrine sitting on my desk, and I'm going through those a lot.

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We teach here. I work at Grace Community Church as a pastoral intern, and we're teaching systematic theology to 3 -year -olds through 6th grade.

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And so theology is fun, theology is exciting, and it's relevant. So I would love to long -term pastor and teach.

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Taylor, tell us a little bit more about that curriculum that you use at Grace Church and why it's important to talk to young people, even very little ones, about who

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God is and why you just don't simply teach manners and how to eat a goldfish cracker properly.

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Yeah. We have started a new program just a few months ago, just this fall, and we're teaching systematic theology, sometimes teaching it through a story in the

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Bible. For instance, we might teach God's sovereignty through the Book of Jonah and show how

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God is sovereign both over nature and over salvation. Or we might take a lesson where it's more systematic.

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Hey, here's three, four verses from different books of the Bible, but they all testify to God's grace or, you know, the judgment.

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And we teach through all of systematic theology, all the way from the Bible is the inerrant, infallible word of God, all the way to the end times.

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We teach all of it, and the reason for that is that, like I said before, it's relevant.

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All of these kids need to know the gospel. They need to know who God is.

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They need to know who they are according to the Bible, and they need to repent and believe and to put their faith in Jesus Christ.

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So that's the motivation behind it, and it's amazing because they can understand.

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They can understand. We teach the same lessons to the 3 - to 5 -year -old group as we do the 4th through 6th grade.

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Obviously, the length of time is slightly different, and the way in which we teach it is slightly different, but it's amazing how much these kids learn.

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I had a parent ask the other day about a question referring to angelology and was wondering why her kid was asking it, and we could say, oh, yeah, it's because we taught it so many

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Sundays ago, and here's the answer. So it's been an immense privilege and a real learning experience because it's a lot harder to teach kids than adults, and I think the reason why is if you lose kids' attention, they're making paper airplanes and they're throwing them at you, whereas most of the time when you're teaching adults, they at least act like they're interested.

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Now, when I taught at the Master's Seminary Chapel a couple weeks ago, I saw you folding some paper.

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Was that an airplane? No. No airplanes, not in chapel.

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Taylor, let's talk a little bit more about teaching children. When I prepare a message, any message, and I don't usually talk to 5 -year -olds anymore, but once in a while I have to go do something like that.

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I still study the Bible the same way because I'm trying to figure out what the author, small a, is trying to say, and of course, capital

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A, author, as I think about both God and men writing

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Scripture. But what I'm thinking about is what is God saying? And then I'm going to then say to myself,

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Mike, you're talking to a 5 -year -old kid, and the way you say something is going to be different, but not the what, essentially.

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I still have to talk about who this God is and how He doesn't change or whatever the lesson is. I'm not going to say immutability probably, but although sometimes

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I'd say to the kids, teenage mutant ninja turtles, what's mutant mean? Mutant means you change, you know, and then how

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God doesn't change. But anyway, I just see the dumbing down of evangelicalism not just in the main service, but if it's dumbed down in the main service, it's going to be really dumbed down in the

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Sunday schools and children's curriculum. Do you really expect children, and this is tongue -in -cheek here, children to grasp these eternal abstract concepts about who

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God is and His nature? Oh, of course. The gospel is easy enough for a child to understand and complex enough for you and I to spend all of our time studying it.

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And so, yeah, we expect that, and that's our mentality.

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That's our goal. I had another... One time I had a parent come up to me and say,

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Oh, I just got baptized a few weeks ago, and I've been learning theology from my third -grade son, and can

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I come and serve in this program even though I don't know all of the theology?

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And the answer is, of course. Come and learn right alongside your kid and come help teach it to other kids.

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It takes me almost the same amount of time to prepare a lesson for these kids on Sunday as it does to prepare a sermon.

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The difference would be the length. With a sermon, at least now in my preaching,

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I manuscript my sermon, and you're teaching for 40, 45 minutes, whereas with kids we're teaching probably about 20 minutes or less.

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I taught special needs Sunday school last Sunday, and I taught for maybe 10, 11 minutes.

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But they can understand, and it's important that they understand. We're talking about salvation.

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We're talking about children made in the image of God and sinners who need to repent.

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If the depravity of man is not seen in children, then I don't know what it's seen in. Kids are not inherently good, that's for sure, and they need the gospel, and so do we.

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So that's what we want to teach them. Taylor, I think it makes me even more happy when

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I know that Grace Church is working on these curriculums and then disseminating them throughout basically the world because what they do, what you do, really affects a lot of other churches, whether it's

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Fundamentals of the Faith or Sunday school curriculum. And I like it that people are teaching those children and others about the object of their faith.

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In the old days, if you asked Benjamin Franklin about God, he would know a lot about God even though it wasn't saving faith.

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People today are ignorant of God, and they have no idea of who God is. They've got an idea that maybe

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God is love, and that's about it, and Noah's Ark is a nice little thing that you talk to children about, but let's not talk about the flood part, just the animals will do.

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So that's important, talking to people about the object of who we want them to believe in, right?

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Yeah, exactly. And that's something that we're able to do, and of course, we're not going to go as in -depth as seminary class or as in -depth as an adult

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Bible study, but they're going to walk away and knowing the truth of God's Word. Amen.

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We're going to teach it differently. We're going to use, I use PowerPoint with really big pictures, and I use illustrations.

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Like if we're talking about the rapture, I might have a balloon in my hand and let the balloon go and use that to describe being caught up.

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So we're going to teach it differently, but it's important to teach it, and they can learn.

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It's amazing. I didn't grow up in a church that did this.

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I grew up in a church that is now very seeker -sensitive, and I didn't learn all of these

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Bible verses in Sunday school, and it's amazing how well some of these kids know their

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Bibles. Is it true or not true that the master's university,

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TMU, is also called the marriage university? Is that true? Can you confirm that?

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There's been rumors. There's been rumors of a degree called the

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MR test degree, where girls go to the university to get married.

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All right. Well, it seemed to work out in your wife's case. It did. She's actually still a student.

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She's got one more year left this year. She graduated in May. All right.

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Well, let's talk a little bit more about ministry and preaching and theology, and I've noticed some of your

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Twitter comments, your tweets. By the way, what is your tweet?

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I don't have it in front of me. Is it T, what's your middle name? Oh, it's

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Pat T. Scott Sinclair. Okay. And do you do any kind of blog writing or anything else? I actually have just started.

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The blog is not live yet. I haven't made it live publicly, but there's a few fellow

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TMU and TMS students who were starting up a blog just because we write a lot in class and we think that we can adapt those papers to be profitable for everyone else as well.

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All right. Well, if they follow your Twitter site, then they could probably find out the name of the blog, right? Exactly.

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Yep, that'll be to come. Okay. So I've seen some of your tweets. What do you make of this current discussion on justification?

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Justification is such an important issue. This is the hinge. This is the important doctrine.

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I was just reading MacArthur's chapter in an old

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Soli Deo Gloria book with Don Kistler and R .C. Sproul and John talking about the ground of our justification is

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Christ's perfect work and the evidences would be fruit and works and there seems to be a blending of those things.

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At best, maybe loose language. At worst, who knows what they're talking about. What's your take on the whole justification, sanctification, good works controversy?

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Yeah. So I think from the gate, like you were saying, justification is important.

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It is fundamental to the gospel and then something that needs to be studied, something that needs to be addressed.

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One of the aspects of being a full -time student and working in ministry and being married is that I don't get to follow these controversies quite as closely as I might like.

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I see lots on my Twitter feed, but again, not having time to kind of read through all the different articles and read through what every individual is saying.

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But nevertheless, it's an immensely important doctrine. I have been reading lately through biblical doctrine,

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MacArthur's systematic theology on the topic, and I think that it's important, like you were saying, to understand that the ground of our justification is the imputed righteousness of Christ.

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It's the forgiveness of our sins, the imputation of our sin to Christ, the imputation of Christ's righteousness upon us, and understanding that the means of that is faith alone, and then obviously that the result of that is good works.

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And that's a fundamental thing. And there's such rich theology.

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There's even intertwined in that a brief, you know, two, three -minute explanation that I can't explain.

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But again, it's extremely important, the doctrine of sola fide.

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You know, we just celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, and it's something that all of us in the

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Church need to understand. It's interesting, Taylor, when I was at seminary, we didn't talk really much about creeds or confessions, maybe a little bit in historical theology class.

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I'm looking at the London Baptist Confession of 1689 here under the justification category, and it says, number two, faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification.

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Yet it is not alone in the person justified, but ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love.

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It seems to me that if we would go back to some of the clarity, whether it's the

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Westminster Confession, Savoy, Belgic, Heidelberg, or here, the London Baptist Confession, it seemed like if we would go back to the clarity of these confessions, maybe we wouldn't get ourselves in,

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I'm talking about evangelicalism, wouldn't get themselves in so much trouble with some of their looser language about justification.

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Does that strike a chord with you? Oh, yeah. I mean, on my shelf

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I have Banner of Truth, little series they've done within the last couple of years where they have all the different confessions in these little pocket -sized books, and those are things that I reference.

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Just like systematic theologies are great, but systematic theologies are also a thousand pages and sometimes aren't as concise as we would like.

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And so I often am going to these creeds and these confessions, you know, maybe a closet confession reader, if you will.

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Not anymore. Well, I think it's true because, you know, many people that I know would read through these confessions and on things like justification and on sanctification, would of course would affirm them, and I think there's a richness to even how these confessions define terms.

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But yet, you know, there's always things in confessions that sometimes we don't agree with, and therefore, you know, we don't outwardly subscribe to them, if you will.

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Right. I think if I was going to teach historical theology at a seminary, I would have the confessions as mandatory reading, and even when

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I was, let's say if I was teaching an exegesis class, and, you know, people are looking at commentaries and everything else, you know, and you're trying to first do your work in the

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Greek, and then you check certain things after you've read the English translation, then you look at some commentaries, and, you know, as you're teaching people to go step by step,

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I think I would also include, I'd say to a student, listen, if you're dealing with justification, and words, all words matter when it comes to the

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Bible, but especially when you're talking about, oh, let's just say prepositions. Are you saved because of faith or through faith, on account of faith, one's meritorious and one's, you know, a non -meritorious instrument?

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You have to be so precise. I would just remind students, listen, when you're talking about these things, go back and quickly refresh yourself with, let's just say the

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London Baptist Confession, and when it comes to this debate with justification, and do you need a second justification, here read, number five,

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God doth continue to forgive the sins of those that are justified, and although they can never fall from the state of justification, yet they may by their sins fall under God's fatherly displeasure, and it goes on.

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But I guess my point is, Taylor, that would just be good for me to read, and then I would have to decide.

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Well, listen, this is tried and true. Lots of people put this together. It's stood the test of time.

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It might not be exactly right, but if I've got a weird view, and all the confessions teach something opposite, my guess is, yes, it could be true they're all wrong and I'm right, but it's probably the opposite.

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Does that seem fair? Yeah, and I think my hermeneutics professor would be disappointed because I can't remember the term, but part of the stage in hermeneutics is seeing what other believers in Church history have believed and have held to in a passage, because it's important to look at, and also the farther back you go, the closer to the source you go.

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So I would agree with you. Language is extremely important. Words have meaning, and so it's important to be very, very precise.

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Theology is a science. Theology is about precision. And at the end of the day, we want to know what the

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Bible teaches, not only to be right, not only so that at the end of the day

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I can say, oh, Taylor Sinclair got an A on this paper, but for the sake of salvation and for the sake of God's glory.

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Amen. Well, as we're wrapping things up, or when we're preaching we call it landing the plane, anything on your heart, anything you want to say to the audience, any kind of last words of wisdom, something you were wishing

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I was going to ask you, I didn't ask you, but now you want to give your two cents worth. Oh, I don't even have two cents.

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I'm on a seminar. Well, my problem was

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I was in corporate America, and I was making decent money. Then I became a seminary student, and by the time

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I got out of seminary, then I didn't have the money. The other book that's...

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Oh, I hear you. I was a business major, and they said, Hey, this is what you can plan on making every year.

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And I was an intern at a large company in the

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United States, and I made some good money there, and thank the Lord for that, because I got to get married and go to seminary because of that.

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But yeah, my check does not say that every month now. But the Lord provides, and He's faithful.

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Amen. One of my favorite things at the seminary was senior testimonies and one man after another would get up and say,

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Here's what the Lord has done in my life and how faithful He has been, and would testify to that very thing, and so that's encouraging.

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Taylor, I'm encouraged by you and young men who want to learn and study and find out what the text says and means so they can proclaim

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Christ Jesus. I'll work on the manuscripting stuff with you later. Yeah, hey, you can help me out.

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I haven't taken any preaching classes yet, so they'll fix me hopefully.

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All right, Taylor Sinclair, thank you for being on No Compromise Radio. I appreciate you, and we'll talk to you soon.

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Thanks for having me. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible -teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.