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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 apostle

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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 divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. I have to restart this button again because Steve was giving his grumbly, gravelly,

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Gershner -like voice. I don't know what you're talking about. Now, did Gershner have that kind of an accent?

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No, Gershner was actually more like, how to possibly escape hell.

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Steve Cooley is here with me in the No Compromise studios, and for the next two hours, if you have the special insider bonus pay money, you get to have these interviews.

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That's right, if you're a NoCo insider, you get all the behind -the -scenes scoop and two hours of fascinating radio.

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I'm loco for those NoCo's. Are you a loco? There you go, there's our new campaign thing, right?

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Are you a NoCo loco? I think Ray says that, or he's got another one. He says, a

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NoCo a day keeps the something away. Keeps the heresy away? Confusion away. Oh, confusion away. Yes, that's right.

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Steve, today, I would like to try to, I want to have your back today. That's what I want to do. Thank you, thank you so much.

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Somebody needs to. Now, normally it's the other way around because I happen to be probably in front more often than you do.

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Would you think that's, is that a fair statement to say, a true statement? Sure, because I'm always like, hey, Mike, why don't you go on up the front and see what's going on up there?

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And you know, all of a sudden there's the crack of rifle fire. So the good news is though,

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Pastor Steve, he has to take his lumps as well pastorally. And so today we'd like to talk a little bit about a letter via email

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Steve received from someone who wanted to know about the church and they pretty much didn't like your answer.

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Well, if I may quote, I don't want to give too many quotes because, you know, and just in case she's listening, probably not.

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Let me quote, you are rude and disrespectful and definitely not the church for me. So let me interrupt Steve for a second.

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Someone writes to the church, I assume the secretary, she forwarded to Steve, and there's a lot of different things she asks.

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And we're going to go through those things today on No Compromise Radio. And I think most of them were fair to ask.

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And Steve, I have to tell you, I think you did a great job of cutting and pasting or typing every question you gave an answer.

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And then she writes back, you are rude and disrespectful and definitely not the church for me. Don't you think she could have just said, thank you.

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We're not on the same theological wavelength. I'm going to search around or something, a simple thank you would have been fine.

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Yeah, she could have, but she didn't. And not only that, I just wrote back to her real quick and I said, what part was rude and disrespectful?

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I mean, I just like to know so that I can avoid that. What'd she say? She didn't write back. So, I mean, obviously she didn't care that much for me.

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I guess it's loving to just blast somebody and then run away. I don't know. That's a popular thing to blast and run.

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So let me - What's your ministry? Oh, I just blast people up and then I run away. I won't say her last name, but I will say her first name.

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You wrote to this lady named Robin. She said, I'm looking for a new church and have some specific needs that I'm looking for.

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Now let's talk about that first. Steve, if she means by that, well,

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I'd like to make sure that your church matches up to the Bible and Holy Writ and Sacred Scripture, because I personally need a church that is biblical.

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That would be fair to ask, wouldn't it? Yes, it would be. You know what's amazing, just to kind of preview things a little bit, nowhere in her letter does she mention

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Jesus, the gospel, or the Bible. And not one verse.

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Well, I would imagine you have some verses referenced here. Yes, I do. Okay. She didn't.

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And so she has some specific needs that she's looking for. And honestly, as soon as I read that, I just thought, uh -oh.

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Yeah, this is my church. This is what I want. This is the kind of music I like, the youth groups that I want, the singles ministries that should be there.

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This is just consumerism at its core. You're rude and disrespectful because you won't buy into her crass commercialism and consumer -driven market,

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Rick Warren strategies. Well, that's why the longest response I gave was to that first sentence, that she had some specific needs.

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And so I just said, look, I wrote back, I would encourage you to look at our website, our statement of faith, our philosophy, and many, many sermons are available for free download.

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Now, if that was rude or disrespectful, I don't know. Right after Steve puts a little section here in concerning preaching the word and how we're supposed to do that very thing with expositional preaching so that we accomplish our mission as a church, then

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Steve says, basically, here's the good news. God is holy.

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We're sinners. Jesus Christ. What do you say about Jesus Christ? Read that to our listeners. Jesus Christ, eternally the second person of the

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Trinity and Son of God, came to earth voluntarily, veiled himself in flesh, lived the perfect life demanded of us all in order to get to heaven, died a substitutionary death in the place of sinners and was raised from the dead on the third day.

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All who believe on him will go to heaven. Now, was that rude and disrespectful?

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You told her every Christian should want a church that proclaims the good news. Translation, you're looking for the wrong things.

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Let me try to help you in a nice way. Look for the right things. Yeah, and you know -

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That's pretty rude, Steve. It's pretty rude that you would guide people into truth. And disrespectful. How dare

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I? Yes, I wonder if she's read the Gospels and she probably thinks if you're disrespectful, just how much more?

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Even more, Jesus must be disrespectful to her. I mean, telling people to repent.

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Imagine the woman at the well when he tells her that, yeah, you're right, the man you're with is not your husband and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

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Imagine how rude that must have seemed and disrespectful. Hey, Jesus, you're saying all these woes to the scribes and Pharisees.

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What do you think of us? Woe to you lawyers as well. That's rude and disrespectful. It says here in her letter from Robin via email,

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I did see that the church leadership consists of all men. Is that by design? No, it happened with the day age theory explosion, big bang, five billion years ago.

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And that was her second statement, right? The first one was she wanted to know, she had some specific needs that she was looking for.

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The second one is, I see the church leadership consists of all men. And so I just, you know, I said, well, that is the biblical model.

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And I said in 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, and it's based, the apostle Paul wrote on the consequences of the fall.

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And then I cite 1 Timothy 2, verses 12 to 14. Steve, here's what we have.

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And it's very common today in post -evangelicalism and post -modern era, that if you say something that the person doesn't like, a fact statement, a truth statement, a claim of a verity, then that's rude and disrespectful because we can't have any disagreement now, can we?

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Because then I'm not affirmed. Yeah, I guess I was supposed to couch my answer. Well, you know what?

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That's a good point that we have only men in leadership. Is it by design?

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Well, I'm not really sure. What were you looking for? It could be by design, maybe it is.

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Now, we don't say on our webpage, men only, women are second -class citizens, me,

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Tars, and you, Jane. But we just list out the elders and we list out the deacons. They all happen to be men.

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I thought that was probably 1 Timothy 3, but maybe I was reading the New Living Egalitarian Translation.

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Yeah, I feel like we need a message. We need a message moment at this time. The inlet, you just let them do whatever they want.

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Sure. You know what, Molly, while you're talking, Steve, I am gonna look up 1 Timothy in the message moment.

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What's the next question? I'll read it to you and then you tell me what you think she means by this. What is the church's view on the baptism of the

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Holy Spirit? Does the church think we are to be baptized in the Holy Spirit or just water?

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Well, I knew it didn't take much reading to know that she wanted to know if we spoke in tongues.

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Why didn't she just look at our statement of faith? Listen to one sermon. I think she could probably figure it out right away that we don't believe in the

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Holy Spirit at this church. Yeah, I think you had a sermon that was basically titled, we believe in the

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Holy Spirit or something like that. What would happen if the Holy Spirit left Bethlehem Bible Church? We'd probably stop getting letters like this.

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So I said, rudely and disrespectfully, I said, we believe that all believers are baptized into the body by the

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Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 12, 13. However, we do not believe tongues is for today.

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Our senior pastor just completed going through all of 1 Corinthians verse by verse. You are more than welcome to listen to his messages on that.

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I thought, okay, at least maybe that had just caused her to respond.

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Well, what are you saying? Rude. Rude. This is the message moment here from Eugene Peterson, 1

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Timothy 2. I don't let women take over, tell the men what to do. They should study to be quiet, obedient along with everyone else.

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What? That's it. Well, they should study and be quiet.

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So it has nothing to do with creation order or the fall or this is just God's plan.

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It has to do with, you know, they're rude and trying to take over. And there could be some men trying to do that too, but actually at Ephesus, it was just the women who are trying to do it.

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I read that actually yesterday. So he just booted the whole thing about the fall. Well, he does say Adam was made first, then

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Eve, woman was deceived first. Our pioneer in sin with Adam right on her heels.

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But Adam wasn't deceived. Adam sadly, of course, it was worse than deception. He knew full well what was going on and he followed his wife anyway.

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Adam wasn't the lesser sinner. He was a federal head and then we and Adam fell and had his sin imputed to our account, but Adam wasn't deceived.

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But he's the prototype for the modern man. I'll tell you that, you know. Oh, well, my wife, you know, the wife that God gave me said that we should go to church

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X. So that's where we're going. If I was a feminist though, I would not like the message Bible because it says

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Eve, our pioneer in sin, exclamation point. Yeah, it should be our pioneer

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S, shouldn't it? I think that'd be better, yes. There are a lot of pioneers in Nebraska.

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And when I was a kid, we used to drive out on Interstate I -80 along the Platte River. And when you got out to Holdridge and to Minden, they had pioneer log cabins, pioneer valley, pioneer something, and it was kind of a museum with all the old pioneer stuff.

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With cowboy hats? Pretty much. All right, cool. So anyway, back to this disrespectful and rude email.

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Yeah, from me. What's your view of the Holy Spirit and baptism and all that? Well, I said he does baptize us into the body, into the church universal, you know, so we are baptized.

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It's just a dry baptism and it has nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with that,

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Mr. Abendroth. All right, next question.

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What is the church's, by the way, we're not saying you shouldn't write an email to a church to ask them for questions.

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I commend that. There's just a way to say thank you, even if you disagree, right? Yeah, sure.

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Okay, in Christian love. What is the church's view regarding the man as head of the household?

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Does the woman obey the man or God? Now, do you notice that she's put us in quite a pickle here because she's transposing biblical truths so that there's no way out?

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When did you stop beating your wife? That's this kind of question. Yeah, yeah.

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Now, if she were to say when the man who is the God -ordained head of the family asks the wife to disobey the scriptures and or God, or God and the scriptures, do you believe that she should submissively and respectfully and not rudely say to her husband,

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I can't obey that because I have to follow God, Acts 5? Yeah, I mean, if he was to say, you know, well,

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I don't think we should have any more kids or have a child at all, so you need to get an abortion. Well, that would be, you know, trying to get her to sin.

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That would be wrong. But so here's what I wrote back to her. I said, Robin, we believe what the Bible teaches, which is pretty much the common theme of my letter to her.

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The man is the head of the woman, meaning he is responsible for her. And then I said, he must love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

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And I guess that was considered rude. And then I, you know, never was, yeah, Ephesians 5, 22 to 28, rude.

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Well, it's interesting that we have weddings that we officiate here at Bethlehem Bible Church and offsite as well, when they want to serve alcohol.

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Just kidding. Partay. And I love to ask the couple,

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I'm going to be preaching the gospel. Are you glad? What's your response? And they usually tell me, oh, that's really good.

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Please do, we insist. And then I say, I'm going to say some things that are for your vows that you'll repeat after me.

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And they are not symmetrical. The husband is supposed to love and the wife is supposed to submit. And so when I say those words, what will your response be?

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And what if I say the word obey? I love to see their faces when I ask that question.

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But Steve, that's only second to the look in the congregation when you have to say those words.

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I can remember one wedding I did where I actually said, now this is one of my favorite parts. And I said, and I just,

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I was looking at the ladies and they were all, you know, the unbelieving women were all getting, you know, and I said,

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I said, here's the good news. The good news is, yes, you're supposed to submit to your own husband, but the husband is supposed to love the wife like Christ loved the church.

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And how did he love the church? He gave up his own life for the church. So if you have that kind of sacrificial leadership in your life, it's a lot easier to submit to it.

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Caveman stuff, caveman stuff all the way. It says in 1 Peter 3, I thought this was commending

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Sarah, by the way, I didn't know it was a decommendation. A beat down. Yes, it says, for this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands as Sarah obeyed

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Abraham, calling him Lord. And you are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.

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Even the concept of submission, how about that? So it's a good thing, in other words. Well, I don't know.

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Maybe Eugene Peterson has his own take of the thing. Okay, while you're looking that up here, I'll just - I haven't memorized it, sorry.

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I'll get into her next question, which really wasn't a question. It's one of her needs. I'm looking for a prayer ministry, semi -colon, singles ministry, semi -colon, a church that helps people achieve what they feel

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God has put on their heart. See, and now when she said she wanted a prayer ministry,

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I had a picture of her like praying somewhere, you know, during the sermon, praying that the pastor would preach the word.

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Singles ministry, I get that because single people usually want to be married and I understand that.

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But then this one, a church that helps people achieve what they feel God has put on their heart, the church of personal achievement,

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I guess. Steve, would we do at the church what some people do with their own children?

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Children, what do you think you want? What would you like to eat? How would you like to spend your money?

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Should we save? Should we go to bed early? Do you know what? My kids, they're getting older now, but they pretty much would eat

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Captain Crunch every morning if I'd let them. So would I. So don't

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I. So don't I. And they probably stay up super late and they wouldn't pay their bills on time.

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We wouldn't do that with our children, at least if we were a conscientious parent, but we'd do that with people at the church.

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Steve, luckily for us, wink, wink, wink, we have the Bible to tell us what to do.

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And the message translation says, cultivate inner beauty, 1

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Peter 3, the gentle, gracious, kind that God delights in. I guess God, he ends his sentences with the preposition.

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Does he? Yeah, I guess right here, yeah. The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way and were good, loyal wives to their husbands.

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Sarah, drum roll, for instance, taking care of Abraham would address him as, my dear husband.

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That's it. Nothing about obedience and nothing about Lord. I mean, I think wives are to submit and obey their husbands, but I don't know too many husbands who require them, their wives to call them

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Lord. Well, you know, my wife is. Well, yours, but I just have my wife say it in Greek.

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She just calls me curios. Curios, I find that curious.

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So anyway, so I said to her, I said, Robin, we may not be what you're looking for.

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I mean, I'm trying to be nice here, not rude and disrespectful. Rude. I said, we have a prayer ministry on Sunday morning between services.

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We offer folks the opportunity to employ their spiritual gifts in service to the body.

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I mean, what's rude about that? That's what spiritual gifts are for, right? But she -

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We don't have any at our current church. We don't have either regarding singles ministries. Our fun groups.

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You know what, you can pay for fun groups down at the little moms, mops groups and stuff like that. You can have the fun groups.

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Fun, fun, fun. I don't think there's anything wrong with Christians having fun. Actually, I'm having fun dissecting this letter right now.

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This is my fun. And you're being rewarded amply for it. Yeah. Tell me about the achieving

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God's plan for me and the nurture because Steve, I could tell from this, she's wounded.

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Well, I get to the, yeah. Well, let me just finish up the whole thing about the singles ministry and all that.

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Cause she did ask, she said, do you have to be a member to lead a ministry? And so this is maybe the rudest

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I got in the whole letter. Cause I did, yeah. I did say anyone who leads a ministry must be a member.

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What sort of church now here, you know, I kind of go off the reservation here. What sort of church would allow a non -member, someone who will not commit to the church to lead a ministry?

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Well, Steve, I think you made a grievous error there. I would rephrase it this way. What sort of church would allow a non -member, someone who will not commit to the church and who will not submit to the leadership of the church as per the

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Bible, lead a ministry? Well, yeah, yours was much nicer than mine.

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Rude. Rude. Okay, so getting back to achieving God's plan for me.

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I need nurture, you know. I mean, that's what it says, achieving God's plan for me. You know,

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I guess Robin has her own little book in the Bible. Well, how do you know it's a woman? Could be a man, you know,

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Batman hand. No, it's definitely not. I see. Oh, I think this could be a man.

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He's asking pretty please permission for his nurturing. No, no, no. All the questions. Steve, I misread the email.

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I thought she was asking for a nursery, not a nurtury. She says,

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I strongly feel that I should be doing fundraising on a large scale. Interesting. Did you say fund or fund? Fund. Fundraising?

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Fundraising. Oh, okay. Which I found interesting because, you know, I thought, I read that and I go, huh, we could use a fundraiser.

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I will be job hunting and apartment hunting once I found the church, so the church doesn't necessarily have to do fundraising.

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But what I'm hoping for is a church that will help nurture what I feel God has put in my heart to do.

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I want to change the face of the way this country and the world responds to catastrophes. So the church that she's going to go to should be ready to raise a lot of money to help respond to catastrophes anywhere in the world.

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I think actually she's a grammar expert and she was trying to get rid of all unwanted apostrophes.

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You know, possessive apostrophes. You know what? I think you're right. I think so. Okay. It's a veritable fusillade.

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So let me give you my rude response. I said, our focus is on equipping the saints to do the work of ministry.

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Strangely, that's Ephesians 4 .12. We believe that helping people who need, who are in need is important, but if we fail to give the gospel to them, we have solved a temporal problem.

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In other words, their immediate need, but their spiritual trajectory is unchanged. We can feed, clothe, house, you know, give fresh, clean drinking water to every soul on the face of the planet, but if they're all going to hell, have we really accomplished what the

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Lord would have us accomplish? And that's what I say. If we could solve world hunger, that would be nice.

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If all who had food still went to hell without hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ, the church would have failed in her mission.

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Is that rude? Well, Steve, you know what? Maybe I should start answering these letters.

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Okay. Hey, you are more than welcome, bro. I'll just forward Pastor Mike.

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No, no. I told Tracy, our secretary, that when she gets these emails, they must go to you or else she's fired.

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So here's our point today on No Compromise Radio. If we can somehow rescue a point, the moral, what's the moral of the story?

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The moral of the story is this. We want you to do your research before you go to a church. And thankfully, these days, although the web offers horrible things, it offers good things as well, and uplifting things like church websites with sermons and doctrinal statements and everything else.

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And so if you're right, the pastor's a question and you disagree. Let's say you agree with NoCo's doctrine and you've signed the

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NoCo doctrinal statement, all 95 points. And you try to find a church and they say, well, we believe in the gifts for today, we're charismatic, we're

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Pentecostal, we're this, that, and the other. Just write back and say, thank you for letting me know.

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Isn't that a better way? But somehow people behind the anonymity of a keyboard blast away to their shame.

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Thank you for being rude and disrespectful. She didn't actually say, she didn't say thank you, but that was only until she read my answers because she said, thank you.

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I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions, but now, you know, here's how I close my letter.

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I may not have told you what you wanted to hear. I knew that, okay? But I would encourage you to measure what

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I wrote against the Bible. Now, if that's, and then I said, may the

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Lord bless you in your search. That's rude and disrespectful. Well, Steve, I guess there's one less

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No Compromise fan club member now. They probably clicked unlike on our

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Facebook page. After this, she immediately canceled her NoCo, LoCo membership. She did, so now she gets, and she doesn't get the long extended versions because we're having a crunch in giving.

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She gets just 24 and a half minutes. Yeah, but she got her 24 and 95 back. She did. Mike Avendroth, Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio.

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Info at nocompromiseradio .com. If you have snarky questions, Tuesday guy at nocompromiseradio .com.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Avendroth 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 six. 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.

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