Bible Study Tools

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

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

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.�

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

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

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

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Steve, do you have your phone off? What phone? What phone?

Now, Steve, we have certainly a responsibility to be kind and sweet and nice and gentle and all those kind of things, right?

But sometimes we have to be cruel to be kind. Yeah, see? Why is that? You know, Nick Lowe and Dave Edmonds, right?

Is that Dave Edmonds? That was just Nick Lowe. That was his solo, but Dave Edmonds was playing. I think he played guitar.

Yeah, Rock Pile. Rock Pile was there. I like that. Sometimes our musical tastes intersect. Most of the time, they're like parallel lines.

Well, yeah, usually. But see, there's this flair of brilliance found still in you with Rock Pile, Elvis Costello, that kind of stuff.

Actually, I happen to think that my musical taste is brilliant, but... You sometimes listen to country music, don't you?

Don't you go to country concerts and stuff? Yes, I do. Yeah, and why would that be? Because they're like American evangelical for God and for country and for guns and for Republicans or something?

Yeah, it's just about real life. I mean, their stories are stories about real life.

I mean, those are... George Jones sings that song, Sinners and the Saints. Only thing different than the sinners and the saints.

He stopped loving her today. You know, I mean, we, you know, I mean, there's a... Well, one of them's forgiven and the other one ain't.

Yeah, there's truth in them songs. So I grew up listening to country music, but it was kind of the old style country music.

I remember being by the river, Missouri River, up in South Dakota, Yankton area, listening to Tanya Tucker sing

Delta Dawn and Hank Williams Sr. sing something about cigarettes or something. I don't know what it was.

Hank Williams Sr., really? I don't even know, you know, other than... What, Joe?

Are you gonna go? I mean, I know about three or four Hank Williams Sr. songs, but, you know, not that many. He seemed pretty tough.

Yeah, well, yeah, I think he was. Right. Maybe we'll change our intro music on No Compromise Radio to some old,

I don't know. Who sang that song, Trailers for Sailor Rent? Oh, that's Roger Miller. Uh -huh.

King of the Road. That should be the No Compromise theme song now. King of the Road. King of the

Theological Street Road. See, now that's a sad song too. I mean, you know, lives in a little tiny room.

Steve, Christianity Today has an ad, has a promo, has an advertisement for the

Preachers Outline and Sermon Bible. And you can buy this Preachers Outline and Sermon Bible containing hundreds of thousands of leaders around the world who trust this pre -written, not really sermon book, but it's got a lot of stuff to help you so you don't have to fully write your sermon book, maybe, your sermons.

Oh, so you can have fuller sermons. Well, are they, so then they would be not really sermons, but sermonettes?

Steve, it says here on this page, I don't even know who produced this, who published it.

It just says Leadership Ministries Worldwide. But it's authored by Anonymous. I know. But here's what

I don't get. It says, theologically accurate and unbiased, designed to help leaders to get to the heart of each scripture passage so they can focus on crafting compelling messages.

Now, I've got a few things I want to talk about regarding that today on No Compromise Radio with the Preachers Outline and Sermon Bible.

Theologically accurate and unbiased. Steve, don't we all have biases? Well, speak for yourself.

You can keep your own biases. Yes, I think we do. We do have our own biases.

You know, so that's, that goes without saying. So, how do you write something completely neutral?

Well, because in your own bias, it's neutral. Right? See, I know. So, what do they do?

Maybe they say, well, whether you're a Calvinist or an Arminian or a

Wesleyan or a Keswick person or something, these are the four different views. They're all relevant. They're all true.

I don't know. Well, or they just pick out the common truths and leave out the ones that would divide.

Because you don't want to divide. Doctrine divides. Truth brings people together.

Why can't we just be together? Steve, the other thing I don't like about this, it gives you things to get to the heart of the scripture passage so you can focus on crafting compelling messages.

Let's get, let's get past the like authorial intent and stuff like that. We've got to craft a compelling message.

Now, do you know, there can be compelling messages that don't even use the Bible. You can compel people without the

Bible. And you can make people feel all kinds of things. And you know, I'll tell you, here was a compelling message when

I saw Schindler's List. That was compelling. It told me a lot about, you know, the wicked that men can do.

I was compelled by that movie. I was really moved by it. I pardon you. Well, I mean, so think about that.

I mean, that's compelling. So, what do I need the Bible for? I can just, you know, I can just talk about Schindler, Oscar Schindler for 45 minutes.

Pete Steve, for the moms at home who are teaching their kids the Bible or Sunday school teachers, dads, junior church teachers, adult

Sunday school teachers, preachers, what advice would you give them when it comes to, hey,

I've got some of the Bible now and now I need to turn it into a compelling message? In other words, isn't the

Bible already compelling? It is. I mean, it's, somebody says, if you think the

Bible's boring, then you're boring. I don't know who that guy is. Boring!

Hemingaring! But I mean, the truth is, who was that? That sounded like one of the members of The Clash just stepped in here.

But the Bible is compelling because it's all about the most compelling person in all of history, the

Lord Jesus Christ. And so if you're bored, either by Bible study, by Bible teaching, by a

Bible -based message, then it's because maybe you don't have the

Holy Spirit and you don't really get it. Steve, maybe the culture has defined what is exciting or boring, how much action has to be there.

You know, you can't even watch a show these days, an old show, an old army show from 1965. Because I find myself saying, get on with the action.

You know, this character development stuff doesn't really move me anymore. And I have bought into the whole

THX, you know, Indiana Jones style of movie where let's just have some action. But Steve, isn't the drama of redemption exciting?

And I think we see knockoffs of the drama of Christ's redemption all over in novels, in movies, in songs.

There's a problem. There's a solution. At the risk of the person's own life, they rescue someone else.

And this is an exciting book from start to finish. Pete Well, I don't know if you've seen Frozen or not.

You know, but at the, which is almost incredible, except for your kids are older, but you know, at the very end, the one sister, she takes the death blow intended for her sister, you know, even at the cost of her own life.

You just go, yeah, there are redemption themes and even in children's movies, you know, so it's a very popular thing.

In fact, you know, my wife and I talk about this all the time. If a movie has a sad ending, I can pretty much guarantee you're not going to like it.

You know what I mean? It's who wants to see that, you know, to be like, well, let's watch a movie where everybody in the world dies.

Nobody's going to want to see that movie. Who wants to see that? So, yeah, I mean, these are very popular themes.

We want right to win, you know, no matter how dark things get, we want the good guys to win and we want happy endings and we appreciate our heroes.

Pete Steve, if you're going to talk to a Bible teacher, Sunday school teacher, youth teacher, what would you say would be the best approach to study the

Bible for a message? So, let's say it's Genesis 22 and Abraham is told to go kill

Isaac on the mountain and they have a Bible and they have a computer. What should they start doing if they don't have this wonderful Leadership Ministries worldwide resource from Christianity Today?

What would they do? Pete Well, they should be trying to put this in context, you know, in light of what

Moses is saying in Genesis, you know, in the surrounding chapters, and then in the overall theme, you know, what's the point of this picture?

And then how does this relate to Christ ultimately? You know, is this a foreshadowing?

Is this something we can look at and go, hmm, I can sort of get the bigger picture here.

Pete Steve, great advice. Let's go to Genesis 22 and find out what happened in the near context.

So, you know, chapters 21 and 20 and 23, that kind of thing. Then let's go to the far context within the book still.

What's Genesis trying to say in this book of beginnings and this book of generations? And then let's see where the book fits in the

Christian canon between Genesis and Revelation in the stream of thought in God's progressive revelation.

Where does it fit in? Shouldn't every Bible study do the near, far, and then entire

Bible context? That's a great way to study the Bible. Yeah, because then you understand, it's one thing to understand the minutiae, you know, of scripture and to, you know, to know who

Noah's husband is. You know, and those kind of stumped the pastor.

He said, what? He made a mistake. Just email me at, you know, Steve at NoCompromisedRadio.

Or Tuesdayguy at NoCompromisedRadio .com. But it's one thing to know that kind of thing, and it's another thing to understand what's going on in the slightly bigger picture, and then the bigger, bigger picture and the overall picture.

You know, is this a foreshadowing? Is this a look back at the cross? What is this? You know, and how does this all fit into the redemption of God's people?

Just to give you a specific illustration in Genesis 22, he didn't spare his son.

The Lord knew that Abraham, basically in his heart was, you know, he did the deed.

He was going to kill his son, Isaac, like God had told him to. And he didn't spare his son.

The Greek translation of that Old Testament passage in Genesis 22 has the exact same word that Paul uses in Romans chapter 8, where God didn't spare his own son, but he gave him up for us all.

And so you even see the tie in there where there's a father going to slay the son on Mount Moriah.

Remember that old R .C. Sproul message that he did? And he paints beautifully this picture of Abraham getting up early in the morning, not because he was so godly to get up and quickly obey, but because he couldn't sleep that night.

And so let's just go get it done. Takes the son, he raises up the knife, and then he hears, you know,

Abraham, Abraham, you know, stop, don't do it. There's a lamb over there stuck.

Pete I mean, how could you sleep? There are things that keep you awake at night anyway, you know, different issues with different people.

But if the Lord, you know, if you heard from the Lord, first of all, that would be really something. But secondly, you know, if God said, you know, tomorrow you need to sacrifice your son.

I don't know how you sleep after that. Pete Steve, I've been thinking about Genesis 22 some, and it says, but the angel of the

Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here I am.

It's a very common Semitic way of showing affection to repeat someone's name twice.

And you can see even in English, we would say Steve, Steve, you know, with emotion and affection.

And in the burning bush passage, Exodus 3, Moses, Moses, David to his son,

Absalom, Absalom. And so here with tender affection, God says, you know, don't kill your son.

I knew you were going to obey me and stop. So you begin to think, here's my point,

Steve. Talk about affection. Talk about compelling. Talk about getting drawn into the narrative with all the emotions and all the issues.

So I need to now double check my unbiased sermons Bible to give some compelling messages.

Pete Well, and you know what, I'm sure it probably has something great to say about Abraham, you know, probably carries on about him.

And I always just think, well, forget Abraham. What about Isaac? Isaac, who could have kicked the old man around, you know?

Pete I know how he was old enough to not just lay there. You know, it's hard enough to get a three -year -old to hold still, let alone a teenage boy.

Pete And Abraham would have been exceptionally old. He would have been much older than us. Pete Steve, when

I watch cops or shows like that, Alaska State Troopers, sometimes I watch, and then they've got some crazed guy that three policemen are trying to basically hogtie and put handcuffs on.

That's hard to do. Pete Yes, it is. Pete Tell us about your background in trying to hogtie people.

What was the hardest, what was the most difficult experience you had trying to get cuffs on a person? Pete Well, I mean, the one that comes readily to mind was we had a guy who we were arresting for essentially, well,

I mean, he was at a party with loud music. And we just told him to turn the music down and we were leaving and he pushed me and that was about all she wrote right there.

So, but he was strong. He was drunk. He was not going to comply.

And he was difficult. In fact, I tell people

I go with his left arm alone. He was giving my partner an e -ticket ride, you know, so he was a strong fellow.

And my partner was not so big, probably weighed about 135, 140 pounds. Pete So, Steve, we're talking about Bible study today and how wonderful the story of redemption is.

Steve, could we go overboard the other way and say, we don't need any tools. We don't need any commentaries.

We don't need any study Bibles. I've got my 1611 and that's all I need. Steve Sure. And I mean, people try to do that.

And I think, you know, one of the problems with that is the Lord has given, we know from Ephesians 4, he's given men to the church, gifted men.

So, why would we not read what gifted men have said, you know, over the centuries about a given passage?

Why would we not go to the tools that we have? Because now we have so many available tools to us regarding the

Greek and the Hebrew, even, you know, great websites where you can go and look at these things, you know, and you don't have to be a scholar to kind of get some of the essential truths of a passage.

But I mean, if you just want to look at the Bible and, you know, say, well, I've got the Holy Spirit and my 1611, that's all

I need, I'm going to say that you're really missing out and there's just a little bit of, well, it's willful ignorance, but it really is a little bit of arrogance to think that you can rightly divide the

Word of God without doing all the diligence possible. Pete And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen?

Who would dare even to point a finger? Pete Hmm, boy, that sounds, so if you just take that, if you just take that out of context, that's pretty good, right?

Touch not God's elect as anointed. Pete Steve, you make a great point. I'm sorry, I just had to throw the

Message Bible in there because I was thinking of Romans 832 and the passages that follow regarding not sparing his own son.

I, if I'm not careful, will just get a bunch of theological resources and then kind of go to those first verses, just reading my

English Bible, reading my Greek Bible, just seeing what's in there. Steve, when I'm disciplined not to default to the commentators right away,

I'm really happy. And here's why I'm happy. I see things that the commentators see, and I think to myself, do you know what?

I've seen that too. I understand that too. And so, I have the joy of discovery versus, you know,

I just default to a commentator and go, oh, they said it. Yeah, I get that. Steve And so, some things, oh, I can't see.

I can't, I can't, I'm not smart enough to go, oh, do you know, every time the name Moses, Moses, Absalom, Absalom, you know, is given, it's a good

Semitic term of endearment. So, commentators would help me with that. And there's nothing wrong with going to other resources that the

Lord has given. Pete Yeah, I was just reading about the different parties at the

Temple Mount, you know, I mean, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and different aspects of what they did and what they didn't do and how they get along and how they didn't get along.

Well, you can't just pick that up. You know, somebody, you have to read some historian or whatever who's actually done that work.

Otherwise, how are you going to find that? It's not all in the Bible. You know, like the Essenes are not even really mentioned in scripture.

How would you know about them? And, you know, do they have any pertinence? And so, it's important that we have those other kind of checks on what we want to do.

And so, if you're just doing this on your own, it's inevitable that every once in a while you're just going to bark up the wrong tree.

Especially if you're just going with the 1611. Pete Which I quite like as a

Bible translation. Pete It's fine. But I mean, it does have a few issues here and there. Pete Well, on No Compromise Radio today, we're just talking about Bible study in general.

And if you're going to spend your money on Bible study tools, then you can probably save a bunch by just going to certain websites, monergism .com.

What are some other sites that you go to? StudyLite or something like that? I can't, I mean, there's one

Bible, we should give a, we should post a list of helpful, because I have them all bookmarked.

But I guess when you have them bookmarked, you don't even think about the names anymore. You just go there and… Pete Yeah, what's my phone number?

What's your phone number? I don't know. It's just kind of like in my phone. And so, you want to spend some money on resources.

Steve, back in the day, we always promoted the Wycliffe Bible commentary, the one volume commentary on all the

Bible, just because it would give you some data. Some good study Bibles would help too.

Steve, if you had to pick like a David Jeremiah study Bible, a Ryrie study Bible, a

Schofield study Bible, a MacArthur study Bible, what would your decision making process look like?

Pete I'd take the No Compromise study Bible. Pete It's in the works! Pete Well, I mean, here's the thing.

I mean, I think, you know, many of the study Bibles have different things to commend them.

But having looked at a number of them, I mean, I'm going to go with, even if I don't agree with everything that the

MacArthur study Bible says, I'm going to agree with it, you know, 99 .9

% of the time. And it covers, it covers a lot of verses, you know, and has a lot of great stuff in, you know, the intertestamental section, the

Harmony of the Gospels by Dr. Thomas. And, you know, there's so many great resources in that book.

In fact, I just posted it yesterday on Facebook because they had the New American Standard Kindle version for $4 .99.

And I'm like, why wouldn't I promote that? It's a great study Bible. It's the best thing there is. Steve, we've had the privilege of being at Grace Community Church, having

John MacArthur for our pastor. Now, there are probably other men who are more scholastically, they're more academic in terms of, you know,

PhDs and those kinds of things. But when you see a man behind the scenes, in the pulpit, around campus, in the classroom setting, and you realize that, of course, he's just a man, but he actually does what he says, that is, he tries to live out what he preaches.

And he's a kind man and a humble man and a man who wants to serve. It makes me trust the study

Bible more. It's the value of a life behind it. And so, we'll have professors at the seminary, and you see, oh, this man is a man of prayer.

And when he talks about other issues, I want to listen because I see how godly he is. Pete Well, and, you know, when you think about MacArthur, I mean, his, the number of ministries or years in ministry is 45 plus or whatever.

But, you know, over 50 years of Bible study, you know, between the time that from the time he got saved until now, it's over 50 years and you just go of literally pouring his life into the study of scripture.

And, you know, when a guy says, here's how I prepare for my sermons. I sit in my seat until my sermon is done.

You know, that's impressive. Jared Steve, for years with the Young, Restless, and Reformed, they didn't like MacArthur.

I don't think they really respected him. He's kind of this older guy, you know, fundamentalist, and he doesn't like Driscoll, and he's saying some of these things.

And so, I could see a real pushback against the ministry of John MacArthur and basically trying to ostracize him or, what do you call it when you put somebody out?

Pete Well, they just want to dismiss him as, you know, some kind of fringe lunatic. Jared Do you think there'll be a swing back to some of the ministry of John MacArthur by these younger men as they see that, in fact,

John, not prophetically speaking, but John would say, you know, watch out for this, that, or the other, and what

John has said has proved true? Pete Well, yeah, because he's right. Because his thing is scripture, scripture, scripture.

And when you just look at the Bible, look what it says, and you say, I'm going to stick with this no matter what happens, no matter what the fashion, no matter what the trend is, well, then guess what?

The trends eventually will all fade away, and everyone will be looking back and going, hey, that MacArthur said this trend was going to go away.

He might know something. Jared Steve, it recalls to my mind the quote by Carl Truman at the

NoCoEver video deal we did several years ago. And he said, the church, God's church is meant to be run by old men.

What did he mean by that? Pete I don't know, but I'm getting there. Jared Well, he's just talking about, listen, the problem with young people is they get, and I understand this, you know, they get enthusiastic.

I mean, look, when I first got saved, I'll talk really fast. When I first got saved, you know, everything that I felt like was an encumbrance upon my walk all got trashed, you know, because that's what young believers, enthusiastic believers do.

Older people, wiser people, they measure things. They don't, you know, they're not tossed to and fro by winds of doctrine.

They're stable. They know what they believe. They declare what they believe, and they're not going to be moved, and that's what we need to be like.

Pete Steve, when I would watch the MacArthur's of the world see these new trends, theological trends, theological fads,

I don't know, five -point Calvinists who are continuationists. I just watch these older guys and see how they observe and assess.

And I think, you know what, I need to consider what they've said because these men are wiser than I am. Pete They've been there, and they've gone through all these things.

I mean, not exactly the same, but trends come and go. They change. They tweak a little bit, but the

Word of God remains forever. Pete Mike Abendroth with Steve Cooley here on No Compromise Radio. If you want to email us and ask us a list of some of those websites, we'll be glad to send them to you, info at nocompromiseradio .com.

Or if you've got Steve's email, you can email him. Pete Tuesdayguy at nocompromiseradio .com.

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

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.

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.

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

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WV &E, its staff or management.