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Voscampian Rules
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, a ministry. Pastor El Jefe Steve Cooley, welcome. Hi. It�s me. Okay. Hello, it�s me. Who sang that? Todd Rundgren. He had a really cool video. One of those first videos that came out that, you know, pre-MTV stuff.
Yeah, I wasn�t a huge Todd Rundgren fan, so I don�t know.
Can you name one other song that he sang? Probably not. I can�t either. Watch anything interesting these days, documentaries or anything?
I�m trying to think if I�ve watched anything interesting at all. I watched, well, I watched a horrible, lie-filled 60 Minutes the other night, but.
You know, I remember watching 60 Minutes when I was younger. I haven�t watched 60 Minutes for so long.
I don�t even remember why I wanted to watch it. There was something on there, and so I recorded it and then watched it, and, you know, they never failed to disappoint, so.
Anything going on with your grandkids or anything like that?
Well, they�re just fun. You know, I mean, if you can�t enjoy grandkids, you can�t really enjoy anything. So Declan�s going through, the youngest one�s going through this phase, what is he, about 19, 20 months, and he doesn�t really talk a whole lot, but he points.
He doesn�t like when anything is out of place. If there�s a door that�s not closed, if there�s a gate that�s not put in the right place, whatever. He�s just like Mr. Pointer guy, like everything is an outrage to him.
There�s a lot of stuff in the world to fix.
Oh, yeah. He�s Mr. But, you know, he�s like a lot of people at church. They point and complain, but they don�t do anything about it. Oh, opa.
They have the ministry of complaint. When I was reading from James last Sunday, I was thinking, Steve, as you know, because I said it out loud, when it says Jesus was without sin, and I thought to myself, well, how easy is it to sin, right?
How hard, then, must it have been to not sin if sinning is so easy, right? Easy for you to say.
I know. I know. It must be easy to sin if not sinning is so difficult.
And then the one is in chapter 5, don�t grumble against one another. That�d probably be a good banner to put above a church sometime.
Well, all the talking would just stop, right? No, don�t grumble against one another. Silence.
The sound of silence. Well, that reminds me of the kid song, you know, �He brought me to his banqueting table. His banner over me is love. Except the only problem with that is, in Hebrew is, �He brought me to his house of wine.
His banner over me is love. Well, let�s take the Song of Solomon and make it for, you know, God�s love for people. Mm-hmm. Very nice. Yeah. All right. Well, today we�re going to talk about Ann Voskamp.
We haven�t talked about Ann for quite some time. No, we have not. But you know what? That�s her fault because she wrote another book.
Well, good for her. Congratulations, Ms. Voskamp.
If Calvin�s first sentence in his Institutes talk about, you know, it�s important to know who God is and who man is, right? Those are the two foundational things. And she�s got a wrong view of God and a wrong view of man.
I guess it�s going to be a short show. And a bad book. All right. Let�s talk at a more bird�s eye view. Why do you think, Steve, this will be our controversial show for the week, why do you think that women tend to only read other women when it comes to Christian books?
Christian women reading Christian women.
Well, if I may say, I think it�s for the same reason that men don�t like to read men, right? Because they don�t like sound theology. I mean, just, it�s so dry. I like something a little more relatable.
Experiential. Yeah.
Something I can put my arms around. Okay. So point one, and this is all unrehearsed. I know it�s hard to believe, but it�s unrehearsed. Well, yeah.
If you count unrehearsed as reading from a script.
But I mean, we don�t have these points in front of us or anything. Point number one.
Just a word-by-word script. Yeah. Even my interruptions are scripted.
Yep. Point number one, women don�t� women. Deepak Chopra. That�s well-read. Now we need the script. But here�s what I�m after, Steve. I�m after women that will only read Elizabeth Elliot, Ann Boskamp, Beth Moore, Melissa Kruger.
I mean, you know, some of those people I would not recommend and some I would. Why do you think ladies maybe by default only read ladies? Because they� what do you think?
Well, I think part of it is they think they can relate better and that the ladies will write about� other women will write about things that are more interesting to women, right? I mean, women don�t tend to write about things that they�re not interested in, right?
I mean, it�s pretty hard. I mean, would you write a book that you didn�t care about? It�d be a short book. Shalom. I don�t care about this book, you know, that�s my title.
So do you think it�s good for ladies to read books written by men? Yes. When it comes to theology? Sure. Absolutely. Okay. Does it have anything to do with Ephesians chapter 4 and pastor-teachers?
In my mind? Yeah. Not so much. I mean, I think it has something to do with, you know, the whole idea of women being teachers and, you know, versus men being teachers, yes, you know. So do I� should we trust a woman who wants to engage in that?
I don�t know, you know, engage in the teaching of Scripture?
I have a problem with that. Well, here�s what I was thinking, Steve, and you know me well, but you can�t read my mind. No, I can�t. Thankfully. Not on Tuesdays. And God has ordained that both men and women learn from pastor-teachers, right?
Some are current, you�re a pastor-teacher, and then some are in the past, and they have died, but they�ve written books, and we have maybe some audio sermons or something like that. There�s nothing wrong with a woman learning from a man, right, theologically?
No.
I mean, men preach every week and� Right.
And, you know, I know people are listening, and they�re wondering if we could ever learn anything from a woman. Has your wife ever taught you anything? I�m going to take the fifth. Well, here�s what I would say.
If you�re a lady and you�re a reader, you want to read the Bible and other things about the Bible, I, A, commend you.
Don�t we want to commend ladies who read? For those about to learn, we salute you.
This is so wrong. But when it comes to Ann Voskamp, we have concerns to the extent that if she was a member here, and she wasn�t living in Canada with her husband talking about how Americans should let more illegal immigrants in�we�ll put that aside for a
Kind of easy to do if you�re a Canadian, isn�t it? It�s super easy. Yeah, you can go down to D .C. in March, but I�d have bigger problems. I wish that was the extent of her problems. Would you allow her to teach at Bethlehem Bible Church?
I know your wife was teaching just an hour ago here to the ladies. Would you let Ann Voskamp teach? Teach the ladies? Yeah. No. Teach the men? No. Teach the children? No. Do you think you want to put her in the aberration category or heritage category?
I mean, honestly, I�ve not read enough Ann Voskamp to be knowledgeable, to be Voskampable. Oh, okay.
Very nice. Yeah. Well, here�s the thing. If she were here, I wouldn�t have her teach. I would have her learn, and I would give her a systematic theology book, and I would hope she would learn underneath the systematic exposition of the Scriptures as well.
But I don�t think she�s ready to teach because the Bible does not say that not many of you should be teachers because you incur the stricter judgment. If you�re teaching people the wrong things, that�s not going to go over well.
It is.
Well, I mean, let�s just say it�s condemned in Scripture.
Now here�s what we�re going to do. We�re going to use this show against you, ladies. If you�re a lady listening, we�re going to use it against you because if you somehow like von Kasbach and Voskamp, we have a great website.
A lady wrote this blog. The website is called wiseinhiseyes .com, and this lady wrote a little critique on Voskamp�s The Broken Way. And this lady, her name is Rebecca Womble. She�s a 27-year-old Christian wife, mother, and author living in South Florida.
So this is not from a discernment site. This is Mrs. Rebecca Womble.
But she�s going to take her out to the Womble woodshed. It is a major woodshed.
Okay. Now I pulled this up because she has some good things to say. So you�re learning from a woman. Well, I�ll tell you, the main reason I pulled it up is because it had the most quotes from Voskamp.
I didn�t have time to read this book, right, because I was still memorizing the Thousand Love Gifts or whatever it was called. Who buys these things? I don�t know. Now here�s what Mrs. Womble said. �The most frightening thought I had while reading was that even an unbeliever could agree with the vast majority of this book.
That�s a good critique.
Wow. I mean, it�s like the purpose-driven life, you know, where it was being handed around from Mormons to Muslims to everybody else, and you just go, okay, if it doesn�t offend anyone, it can�t really be very Christian, right?
Totally.
Now, let�s get to the big stuff, the immigration issues and the romance and the experience and the broken way. Broken. By the way, she uses such ambiguous language that I don�t even know what she means half the time.
Who was that? I was listening to somebody who kept using the word broken the other day, and I had to shut it off.
It�ll come to me later. Was it Jeremiah, the broken cistern?
No, it was not. I haven�t listened to the prophet Jeremiah in a while. His podcast is very good, though.
What do you think about this, Steve? When it comes to theology proper, this is a profound mystery, and we�re going to move into Christology here. God became emptied of God. �Jesus, self-emptying, hid his divinity but became the window through which we saw divine majesty�, page 94.
So when she�s talking about Philippians 2, does God empty himself of being God? Negative.
Negative. I mean, first of all, that�s impossible, right? God can�t stop being God.
Somehow, yeah, yeah. And even if the impossible were possible, we would all be nonexistent. Yes.
Yeah. I mean, what happens if God takes a day off? We all die, right? I mean, He�s upholding everything by the word of His power. I mean, this is what He does, right? And when God says, �You know, I�m just not feeling it today.
I want to take it off. That�s it. All of creation is obliterated in that instant.
I would say that my theological critique of Ann Voskamp�s writings. And Steve, by the way, have you gone to her with your concerns yet, Matthew 18, personally?
Well, I have an Ann Voskamp doll at home that I do. I say, �Ann, what are you writing this for
We�ve talked about it so many times, just a canard, a false knowledge of Scripture that is going to Red herring. Yeah, that�s it. Is it a yellow canard or a yellow canary? It�s a red herring. And it�s a red herring.
But, you know, you don�t have to go to her. I mean, I guess if you knew her, you could say something. I�ve tweeted to her several times about some of her things. She never tweeted back.
Well, when somebody publishes something publicly, they�re paid money to publish something. And then, you know, somebody says, �Have you gone to her in private She published it.
I wish she would have gone to me in private and said, �I�m going to publish something that could affect your people, and they might buy it.
What do you think of this Yeah, because then we could say, �Well, actually, it�s impossible for God to stop being God. And we can give a number of references for that. You know, this is just uninformed gooberishness.
I mean, this is nothing.
Now, see, Steve sometimes doesn�t like it when I make up a word gooberishness and then, you know, �salubrious you know, is actually a word, but �gooberiousness. What actually is that? Gooberishness?
It�s gibberish. It�s rubbish. It�s tripe. It�s dross. It�s... �Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing. That�s where we get the word �emptied.
And how does he do that? �Taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man. You could say, Steve, could you not, that at certain times the Son did not exercise His divine attributes, but you must always say that He was always God.
Yes.
I mean, we see very clearly that He emptied Himself. There are things that He doesn�t know, for example, in His humanity. But as God, He knew all these things. And so, you know, it�s a bit of a... it is a mystery in that sense.
How does He continue to be God and yet not know everything? And how does He... you know, but those things are true, right? Because He voluntarily stops doing some things for a time while He�s on the earth.
But He cannot stop being God. You know, it reminds me of that song, �Emptied Himself of all but love. Well, no, He didn�t.
Yeah, justice out the window, right? Mercy out the window. Omnipotence out the window, you know? Well, Jesus... well, let�s talk about the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. He co-equal, co... you know, the same nature, same essence as the Father and the Son, right?
One God, three persons, you know, one God subsisting in three persons. Jesus at the Incarnation, He adds human nature, right? So, you have one person, two natures, and He will always have those two natures forever and ever and ever from now on.
The second of the Incarnation, He had those two natures and He didn�t say, �Well, now that I�m going to have the Incarnation, I guess I take the one nature on and then I empty myself of the other nature.
Right. I mean, we have all kinds of �isms� for this.
It makes me think of like chemistry class, right? Where you pour from one beaker to another. You know, He emptied His divine beaker into His human beaker and stopped being, you know, the divine beaker.
The beaker!
Centrifuges and beakers. You know, we think of the word �emptying� as an English word where you pour water out of a beaker, right? But here, He goes on to say what He means, �taking the form of a servant.
So, it is emptying by addition. He empties Himself by adding human nature because that is the great condescending love of the Incarnation.
Taking on the limitations of humanity. Yeah.
God became emptied of God. No, no. That would be bad. And I can�t believe her publishers wouldn�t catch this. What publishing company is it? I don�t know. But whoever it is, it�s bad, you know? And then you�ve got Together for the Gospel promoting her, at least some of those people there.
All right. Let�s keep going here. God�s mercies are new every morning. So far, so good. I like that one. Not as an obligation to you.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. But as an affirmation of you. No. Page 83. It was going so well for a couple of sentences there. I mean, that�s Shuler-worthy right there, you know, as an affirmation of you.
Okay. Steve doesn�t know what I�m doing because I�ve read a few of these, and I�m doing something that we call in Radioland aggregation. And this is going from I�m getting aggregated. Hey, don�t take your aggregation out on me.
I�m just the messenger. All right. She has a chapter. It�s called Chapter 6, What�s Even Better Than a Bucket List. Okay. Even better than a bucket list. All right. What�s better than a bucket list? The Hasidic rabbi that was on her airplane one day told her some advice.
Why do people always say it�s about having a strong belief in God? Who sits with the knowing that God�s belief in you is even stronger than yours in him?
Believe in the God who believes in you. Now this is, I�m telling you, this is like second generation Shuler.
When you interpret God through the lens of your own heart, emotions, false religions and other things, it�s not going to go well for you. It�ll be a man-centered view of God and an exalted view of yourself.
And here we go, page 85, Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way. Watch Steve. Watch Steve go from. We need a camera. Mm-hmm. I know. Yeah. Maybe it isn�t enough to believe in Jesus. Maybe I have to believe that Jesus believes enough in me to choose me.
I can hear Vince Gill singing, �I still believe in you. You know, this is, I mean, this is so bad.
Now, you know, I know people make these kind of errors, right? People in our own congregation make these kind of errors. And left to ourselves, we think there�s something good in us and then God would choose us and we choose our spouses because they�re, you know, lovely or godly or whatever.
But the way God chooses people makes certain that he gets all the credit for the choosing. That is to say the objects of his affection are ungodly, yet God still has his son die for the ungodly.
Can I ask you a question? Yes, you may. What is the core of idolatry?
Well, if I was Tim Keller, I would say making good things ultimate.
Kierkegaardian. Well, I mean, what do people do when they make up a god?
Well, they fashion them out of their own hearts and desires and they make them look just like him.
And Ann Voskamp�s god sounds a lot like Ann Voskamp.
Well, that�s why when she says in her previous book, �One thousand gifts something like that, �one thousand broken gifts. One thousand adversaries. Gifts. One thousand gifts, maybe it is, yeah. That she flies to Paris to make love to God.
And she talks about caressing and wooing and draping her hands on the bed sheets and all.
These kinds of weird things. And the Gospel Coalition promotes this woman. Yeah, I know.
Because she�s tapping, she�s exposing a nerve of evangelicalism because we�re too stoic or something. Could that be? She goes on to say in that same sentence, or after that sentence, �If Christ has chosen me, can he not believe in me?
Can I believe Jesus believes in me.
What about the sovereignty of God? What about salvation? Why would we even use a paradigm of Exodus, you know? Let's just think about that. Well, God saw the Israelites, they were wondering around. And he believed in them, I mean, after 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, and he so believed in them that he had Pharaoh kind of rerouted, and the water rerouted.
And it's hard to believe that God believes in me when I don't believe in myself.
Well, you know what, they were broken. They just needed somebody to affirm them, to, to, you know, just kind of shore them up so that they could find their own way out of Egypt.
He died, and his death broke a hole in the wall of time, an abundant life without become, without becoming...
A hole in the wall of time? What, what is it? What is this, a kid's book? This sounds like a wrinkle in time or something. What?
Now, do you know the song? Yes, of course. Okay, okay, now wait, now don't, now don't spoil it here. This is in the background. It's yellow. I love yellow. Jesus died of a broken heart. Yeah, well, of course he did.
Justification by faith is ultimately a daily co-crucifixion that, ultimately, life-giving.
Jesus died of a broken heart. No, Jesus gave up his spirit. That's what he did. You know, into my heart, or into your hands, I commend my spirit. That's what he did, right?
I'm not laughing at what you just said. I'm just laughing about, this is, this is some strange magic. Uh-huh. I think that's the new Voskamp subtitle. I love yellow. Jeff Linn, Jeff Linn is a genius.
Uh-huh, because he's a traveling Wilbury. Yes. Do you say Will-a-berries or Wilbury?
Wilbury. Wilbury is like a New England way to say it. Yeah, it came from George Harrison, actually. Here's Ann Voskamp for you. You know what, if Ann Voskamp was to write a biography of Jeff Linn, I'd probably read that.
Oh, you know what, but she might have a lot of dashes and such. Right, her ambiguity and her writing style. Jeff was broken. There are people giving it forward today. That's giving it forward, G-I-F-T, by the way, giving it forward.
Yeah, and don't think that every gift of grace, every act of kindness, isn't a quake in a heart that moves another heart to give. That sounds very,.
Like social gospel. Right, I mean, isn't that what that is? That is like three, that is completely removed from the gospel itself. The gospel, the good news isn't that you're paying something forward to somebody else.
That's not the gospel.
I think she knows about 2K theology, Two Kingdom theology. Don't say that this isn't what a broken-hearted world desperately needs. Don't say it isn't how to change a broken world. What if the truth really is that every tremor of kindness here erupts in a miracle elsewhere in the world?
I don't, I don't, there is nothing remotely biblical about that. Why is Ann Voskamp, why does anybody listen to her?
Steve, we're going to get in trouble today because we are laughing. Uh-oh. Right? Remember back to the day when we were mocking?
I feel, listen, I feel sad for everybody who buys her books, everybody who listens to her, and everybody who thinks that she has anything intelligent to say about the nature of God or the gospel. Well,.
Then if we're going to offend people, we might as well really offend them. There's only one thing worse than a Christian lady reading Ann Voskamp.
A Christian man reading. A Christian man reading Ann Voskamp. Yeah, that is pretty bad.
Yeah, we encourage you to go to the website, Wise in His Eyes, if you'd like to see some of the quotes there. And we just want you to stay away from this. Why accept the gruel full of BBs and in eating it like that when you can just read some excellent books about the nature and work of God?
And why wouldn't you do that? Men who have been gifted over the centuries to teach the truth.
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 10 15 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.