Potpourri for 500

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.

Grace and Peace in Paul’s Greeting

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

What's going on today? What's up? How are you? I'm just thinking about how Paul greets the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 1 verse 1, he takes up a Greek greeting, which they typically say greetings with the root word grace in there, charas, and then he switches that to grace because grace pretty much epitomizes Christianity.

If you had one word for it, maybe it would be Jesus or Christ, but the effect of what God has done and the motive for it is all grace. Of course, there are other motives, love and mercy, but grace is something that just, it's a word that just is a lovely Christian word.

And then he says grace to you and peace. And he takes a Jewish greeting where we get the word shalom. And when we think of peace in the West, it's usually it's an absence of war, but for the Jew, it was something much more than that.

It was certainly absence of war, but the presence of prosperity and wholeness from physical to emotional to spiritual. Did I just say spiritual? Spiritual, and that was different. That was different. And so I like that, grace to you and peace.

I think our greetings today, I like it when the lady's in California. I like it because it's funny. Say to Kim, my wife, dude, what's up? So grace to you and peace. Still figuring out what to do here on No Compromise Radio for the future.

We've been on the air for three years. And so this is not an appeal for money, but financially, do we just keep going on the radio station airwaves or do we just go to podcast? I think Piper made the decision and here you go.

I'm not really a big Piper fan on a lot of things, but I did like it how he opened up the floodgates for free material and everyone else followed, most everyone else. And I don't think he's on the radio very much anymore.

It's just all podcast. So not that I'm John Piper, although when people have tried to find Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minnesota, if they just type in Bethlehem, then we pop up too. So hey, how do you like that?

Bethlehem Bible Church. I kind of like a new name for the church, Bethlehem Bible Church. I don't know, Bethlehem, the contracted back in the old days in London was Bedlam. That's how you contracted Bethlehem, Leicester, Leicester.

We do that with those cities here, Leominster and Leominster. So anyway, Bedlam, St. Bethlehem's was a lunatic asylum in London. And so the activity that went on inside St. Bethlehem, St. Bedlam's was Bedlam.

So that's pretty much it around here. I'm the pastor of Bedlam Bible Church. People around here just call it BBC anyway. I guess in the sense that this is a place where you can get the bread from God, manna from God, manna, then I guess that's not too bad.

But I inherited the name and we did buy some property down the street a ways, down the road a piece. And I think we might have to change the name. I did have someone say to me, if you change the name, we're leaving the church.

And I just figured, well, I don't want to cause any undue stress, but Bethlehem gives me undue stress. And it's funny when you're talking to someone from the Midwest, and Ted, you'll like this, it's Bethleham.

And so when I even talk to people who don't know about the Bible, and they're trying to spell something, who's your employer again? Bethlehem, Bethleham. So if you don't have a Bible teaching church that you attend and you live close to us, then come on over to Bethlehem, Bedlam Bible Church.

8 .30 in the morning, 11 o 'clock in the morning, six o 'clock at night. We'd love to have you. All right, what is going on around here? Well, I get something called the Master's Mantle, Fall 2012, Volume 19, Number Two, Special Edition, History and Legacy of the English Bible, and it's from the Master's Seminary.

Trusting the Bible and the Authority of Scripture

And so one of the things that I have really been thankful to the Lord for is Master's Seminary. Oh, certainly not the perfect seminary, but one of the things that the seminary taught me and affirmed in my heart and then confirmed through scholastic studies is that you can trust your Bible.

Now, some Bible translations lend to more trustworthiness than others, i .e., word-for-word translations and not dynamic equivalent, not thought-for-thought, and certainly not paraphrases, messages and living Bibles.

But you can trust your Bible. And with the New Testament manuscripts that are existent, some say over 5 ,000, some say over 6 ,000. I think S. Lewis says over 6 ,000. You can trust your Bible. There's a class called New Testament Introduction with Robert Thomas, and you go through internal issues, external issues.

Is this book canonical? Why is it canonical? And in a sense, every day, I am in gratitude to Master's Seminary because with a pastor like John MacArthur saying, unlike Andy Stanley, can't say this to unbelievers, I guess, anymore, the Bible says, this is what the Bible says.

This is what the Scriptures teach. And we think of words like sufficient, authoritative, inerrant, infallible, inspired, you know, God breathed. I just hit this master's mantle on my headphone. Oh, that hurt.

Knocked some sense into me with the master's mantle. Reminds me of the mantle of orthodoxy that I think Hodge passed down to A. A. Alexander. No, that's not A. A. Alexander. I got my Princeton message.

Princetonians mixed up. I think it was Archibald Alexander that passed it down. I don't know to whom, and they're all great scholars. So anyway, back to the master's mantle. It's got MacArthur on the front with a 1611 Bible or something.

And then he's got reflections on the English Bible. He's got the legacy of the English Bible there. Mayhew wrote that. Roots of the King James. And what's the other one? What I tell my seminary students about the English Bible.

Keith Essex. And so I just wanted to say that one of the first things that happens when a person's given faith and God makes them a Christian is they hear the shepherd's voice through the word. And then it takes a lot of higher criticism and liberal academics to try to get them not to believe the shepherd's voice and not to hear him through the scriptures.

And so you can trust your Bible. And there are books out there. I think MacArthur's dad wrote one. John wrote one. Lots of books in the vein. You can trust your Bible. I actually think in front of the MacArthur Study Bible, there's a section there that talks about that very thing.

You can trust the Bible. And so I'm just very thankful because every day I think to myself, what is my authority? We deal with pastoral issues here. What does the Bible say? I'm not the authority. What does the Bible say?

And we're going to do things according to the Bible, hence Bethlehem Bible Church. Not really sure I even like the Bible part on there. That lends itself to, that's kind of a Dallas Seminary four-point elder-led model, a lot of the Bible churches.

If your church is a biber, if it's imbibing, if it's a Bible tabernacle or a Baptist Bible or a Baptist temple, a lot of those are King James only signs and not necessarily always, but sometimes. All right, so Master's Mantle.

You can write us at info at nocompromisedradio .com that we would respond to your emails. I'd say most people are very kind and they're nice about it and some disagree and we go back and forth. And recently somebody wrote me about the issues of speaking in tongues and spiritual gifts and said they disagree, but could I study this, that or the other?

What's your take on such and such? I was so happy to do that. I was so glad compared to some of the other comments that you get and people just, I don't know, they just lose their mind when they sit down in front of a computer and send off emails.

If you ever want to confront somebody on an email, probably you shouldn't. Certainly wait a day before you send it. I think you should be a man and go face-to-face. I think you should be not a coward.

Maybe somebody's overseas and you have to, but I just think you better just be very careful. And if you're a blogger, well, that's the first problem. If you like to interact with blogs, that's the second problem.

But no, seriously, if you do, don't be anonymous and don't have a fake name. Let's use deceptive practices. Let's not let people know who we are. I want people to just tell their names. My friend, Ted Bigelow, pastor down in Connecticut, he likes to interact with some of the people on Old Life with the DG Hart.

And he probably agrees with Hart on lots of things, but I'm sure he disagrees with him on others. And he says, Ted Bigelow says, so let's not hide behind who we are as Christians. That's not Christian.

If you ever want to talk to your pastor and you say, well, I don't really want to talk to him face-to-face. Well, if anyone, I mean anyone at the church says, I'd like to meet with you about a subject, then I say, okay, let's figure out a time.

I try to assess how important it is. Is it, you know, let's talk this second, or can we schedule it sometime this week or in a couple of weeks? Actually, someone from No Compromise Radio Ministry emailed me, said, we're going to be in town on Wednesday night.

Do you have a service? I said, no, but let's go out and have coffee. I'm supposed to have that coffee tonight with these folks. I hope they don't. I hope their first name's not Smith and their last name's Wesson.

So if you want to talk to your pastor about something, why don't you say, could I talk to you about something? I really can't think of a time where I said, no, I can't. I don't know, maybe it was, maybe there was a time, but if you ask me the question, I will try to get together with you, and I will not be no compromise mode.

I will try to be kind and nice, and I'll listen. I might say I agree or disagree, or I might give you the answer you like or not the answer you like. I don't know about that, but this whole thing where people say, well, so-and-so is unapproachable.

I think you just go approach your pastor. And so don't write them a letter, especially if it's going to be anonymous. I learned early on that cowards write anonymous letter, and that's not the Christian thing to do.

And so when, in the old days, I used to get anonymous letters through the mail. I think I still read them, even though my professors back at master's told me not to read them. But just write a letter, put your name on there, and if it's some accusation letter, or some blasting letter, or some disagreement letter, just go talk to the person in person.

That's just the best thing to do. Something about something written, and you could read it, reread it, overread it, underread it. Just go talk to the person. You can see their face. You can express your kindness for them, et cetera.

I think the other day I was talking to you about, Think on These Things, Ministry of Southern View Chapel, Gary Gilley. And I just like that little booklet he puts together. You can get online and find out a lot of stuff too.

I read a little quote from someone, and I just thought, and this is just wild. Dallas Willard. Solitude and silence are the most radical of the spiritual disciplines because they most directly attack the source of human misery and wrongdoing.

To be in solitude is to choose to do nothing for extensive periods of time. I don't know why that strikes me as funny. All accomplishment is given up. Silence is required to complete solitude, for until we enter quietness, the world still lays hold of us.

Now, what's the motivation for that? What would the said goal be? Well, if you're an Eastern mystic and you think solitude transforms you, then that would be the goal. And again, I said last time or sometime with Steve or something, some time ago, I'm not against being quiet and having a walk or not having the radio on and thinking and praying, but I'm not after doing nothing.

Now, there's a time for resting too, but that's not what he's talking about here. How about M. Basil Pennington? These are just quotes that Gilley gives us. God is infinitely patient. He will not push himself into our lives.

Okay, I guess then you're God and he's Jesus, the gentleman knocking at the door. Please open up. He knows the greatest thing he has given us is our freedom. Ah, so see, here we go. They need Pastor Steve's IBS class on Thursday nights that you can get online sometime, reading Geisler's Chosen but Free and James White's The Potter's Freedom.

I think maybe they should Skype in James one night for an IBS class, wouldn't that be good? The greatest thing he has given us is our freedom. Now, let's just talk about that for a second. What's the greatest thing God has given you?

What's the greatest gift that God has given? He has given his son. He's given himself. The father's given the son and God has given himself. And so the greatest gift is Christ Jesus, the God-man, the one mediator, the second or last Adam, rather, the substitutionary redeemer who was raised from the dead.

Wouldn't you say that's the greatest gift? The greatest thing he's given us is our freedom? Well, first of all, that's a lie because we're not free from God's influences. We're not free from the world's influences.

We're not free from our own sin on the inside. We're not free from all kinds of things. Job wasn't even free from satanic attack. So this whole freedom bit, I don't know where it comes from but it stems from a low view of sin and depravity and the fall.

If we want, M. Basil Pennington said, this is not Tom Pennington, by the way. This is M. Basil Pennington. Pennington. I can't stock trade. If we want habitually, even exclusively to operate from the level of our own reason, he will respectfully keep silent.

Oh yeah, that's the reason why I guess 1 Corinthians 14 talks so much about edifying speech and intelligible speech, things that benefit the hearer. We can fill ourselves with our own thoughts, ideas, images and feelings, he will not interfere.

But if we invite him with attention, opening the inner spaces with silence, he will speak to our souls, not in words or concepts but in the mysterious way that love expresses itself by presence. Well, M. Basil Pennington, I don't know what you think of that but I don't think very much of it because, let's see, let's give you the exact quote.

Quoted in Ruth Haley Barton, Invitation to Solitude and Silence, page 35. So what does a good teacher do? Don't do that, do this instead. Why don't you study the word of God while you're sitting there quietly and you can learn from God.

The great thing about God is you can understand him through his revealed word. And then that word will do its work in those who believe, 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 13. If you wanna be silent and just empty your mind and just enjoy the presence and you don't think about anything like the word, you are not going to grow.

And that by it, the pure milk of the word, 1 Peter 2, verse two, you may grow in respect to the word, the pure milk. Didn't notice, Ted, I did not say milk, the pure milk of the word. So if you like to just get by yourself and be quiet and let God speak to you outside the word, I'm just trying to tell you, please don't, don't do that.

That's Eastern Roman Catholic mysticism, or Eastern Hinduistic mysticism. You don't want to do that. This is, this images and thoughts and feelings business remind me that when my wife and I went to Santa Cruz Bible Church this summer, it was a Sunday night youth thing.

And one of the ladies came up to my wife and said that she was teaching or she was learning how to pray in colors. Okay. Learning how to pray in colors. Well, and again, I don't know everything. And if you listen to me long enough, you'll certainly figure that out.

But praying in colors, I think I missed that class. I think that was one of those classes I forgot to audit in theological seminary. So praying in colors, thinking in colors, do you dream in colors? Okay, is there anything else I want to say about this here?

Parker Palmer, the soul is like a wild animal. Tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, self-sufficient. It knows how to survive in hard places, but it is also shy, just like a wild animal. That's a shy lion over there.

It seeks safety in the dense underbrush. If we want to see a wild animal, we know that the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods, yelling for it to come out. But if we walk quietly into the woods, sit patiently by the base of a tree and fade into our surroundings, the wild animal we seek might put in an appearance.

So what does that have to do with anything? I have no idea, but I don't want you to be... This is like the wild at heart thing, isn't it? I'm trying to write a book on biblical masculinity, and right now it's entitled Evangelical, let's see, Evangelical Metrosexuality.

But it's not coming out too well, I guess, so enough of that. What else is on my desk today? Keith Getty criticizes contemporary worship music. Monday, December 19th, 2011. By the way, there are really bad hymns, and there can be really good praise music, but there can be really bad praise music as well.

I appreciate Getty, he says, or this article says, christianpost .com. The Irish songwriter has inspired audiences worldwide since debuting in 2001 with New Irish Hymns. Since then, Keith and his wife, Kristen, have championed hymns that adore God and amass the genre's rich congregational history in equal measures.

Okay, and Christian Post asked him, what would you define as a modern hymn? Getty, everyone defines hymns differently. We try to write things that are theologically rich but bring congregations together.

That is to say, it has to be able to be sung by a congregation, that's what I think. We also strive for the highest possible standard. It's not that hymns are always good and other songs bad. I agree.

A great song always communicates to people. People will always sing a well-written song and it will cross over many different boundaries. I just thought that was really insightful. We can, even if we're young people and we like more up-tempo music, when you go to church, you can to worship with the saints.

Go to a building to worship with the church, the saints, appositionally. You can appreciate some songs that maybe aren't in the genre that you prefer while you're working out. I think that's a good thing.

I think it's a good thing for 70-year-old saints in the local body to sing a few newer songs and if there's an acoustic guitar and I don't know, a bongo or something, not overriding the music or not having the music override the singing.

I think that's a good thing. I think we just learn and we say, as adults, as maturing people, well, that was really good and wholesome and edifying and pleasing to the Lord. That's not my style, per se, but it was really good because when you're an adult and when you're mature, you don't let preferences override everything.

Preferences are simply, as G. Adams would say, I remember him saying this, preferences. Preferences are preferences. By the way, I got set up one day because I was not necessarily, and I'm not completely sold on all the New Theta Counseling stuff.

I mean, they are by far better than integrationists or psychologists, but there are a few things I just would disagree with. I guess that's true for everything, right? And so the person that is, I'm not gonna tell you who his name is, but he wanted me to talk to Jay Adams so Jay could straighten me out on my few foibles that I had against New Theta Counseling.

And so I had to go in the car to the airport with Jay Adams. And so Jay had one-on-one time counseling me to be a better New Theta Counselor. And so we were in the car together for an hour and taking Jay Adams to the airport.

And then Jay basically New Theta, he New Theta, he gave me some, some exhortations into my mind. And so this was New Theta-o to Mic-o in the car. And so he didn't convince me though. So my question really is, is Jay Adams a great counselor if he couldn't convince me?

Because I'm fairly pliable, fairly malleable. Actually, Jay was a very much a gentleman and I appreciated the way he talked in the car and it wasn't condescending or anything else like that. I liked it.

That reminds me of the time when I was in the car with John Walvoord, taking him to his hotel. And he knew I wasn't going to Dallas Seminary and I was going to Master's instead. And why aren't you going to go to Dallas?

We'd love to have you. And I was very glad for those kinds of comments. But I said, no, I just, I don't prefer to. And he wouldn't let me go until I told him the reasons. And so I said, well, because of the lordship controversy, psychology's role in sanctification, that was when Minereth Meyer were there and there's still psychology references there and integration stuff.

And what was the other one? Lordship, probably women's roles or something. And so he wrote me a nice letter and told me what he thought about each of those three and how I should still come to Dallas.

So anyway, those, I'm not trying to, actually, it's now sounding like I'm dropping names. Well, when I was in the car with Steve Lawson, driving him down to Princeton. So I'm not trying to do that. Just interesting conversation because I have a show to fill, right?

24 minutes and 30 seconds, No Compromise Radio. Info at nocompromiseradio .com, nocoever .com segment two, episode two is coming out soon. And you can listen to Carl, James, Phil and I talk about mysticism.

That's the next one coming up.

One of my favorite topics. 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 six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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