Current Evangelical Events (Part 2)

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

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

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

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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

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

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. No Co. Each day keeps the confusion away.

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Preach it. Steve here is... Steve here? Steve is here. Steve is here.

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Steve is here. That sounds almost like New England. You know, New England, they love to get rid of prepositions. You know, I'm going down Cape, down cellar, down basement.

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Now we can get rid of transitive verbs. Steve here. Steve here. You know,

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I think I went to some... I was on a jury or something a while ago, and they call your name Mike Abendroth. And why do

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I want to raise my hand and say here? Too many years in school. Mike Abendroth here. If I'm not here, why would

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I say that? How about I just say yes, raise my hand, establish eye contact? No compromise. That's how you answer that.

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I thought for sure I was going to get kicked off the jury because of who I was, and they kept me on.

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Yeah. Well, I think it's when you said, I'm a radio show host, I'm internationally broadcast.

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We've got listeners in London and Saudi Arabia. Yes. So anyway, they kept me on, but I wanted to be the guy in charge.

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You know me. Yeah. I wasn't. I was just some kind of lackey who sat there. But I did say with my vote, and it was unanimous, and the lady we pronounced not guilty.

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We infused a lack of guilt into her. Did they send you out for coffee? Is that how low you were in the jury pool?

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Yeah. Oh, you want to be the foreman? I'll tell you what, you can be the coffee guy. No, it was one of those quick cases, probably within an hour.

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Really? But I love the dynamics, looking at people. And I also said to myself, if I'm ever found guilty of anything really,

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I'm ever accused of anything really bad that I didn't do, I would rather have a panel of five judges who can see the evidence.

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They're not swayed by some kind of emotional sentimentality. He seems to look nice, this, that, or the other.

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I want people who are tried and true people. But that's not the country we live in.

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Well, we used to say that all the time. Well, I mean, you can waive a jury trial and just have a judge. And if you're innocent,

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I think you want the judge to hear the case, because he'll see through all the smoke and mirrors. If you're guilty, you want a bunch of Oprah book readers on your thing, because then they're going to identify with you, and you can be shaven and no -shorn.

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Well, not to cast any aspersions, but like the O .J. Simpson jury. But I digress.

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I was driving down the street when they were going to announce the deal. I was actually at the gym watching the white

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Ford Bronco. And then I went and I pulled off to some Montgomery Wards or something up in Pasadena to see the verdict.

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And everybody's yelling and all happy. Yeah. I wasn't so happy. All right.

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Look, we want you to be readers. And Harry Truman's right. If you're a leader, you should be a reader.

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If you're a Christian, you should pick 12 books, minimum this year, to read through. One a month. And just, you know, stop watching your favorite show, tape it, or do something.

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But we want you to read good books. And so today on No Compromise Radio Ministry, we're going to burn every book possible.

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No. We're going to talk about Christianity today a little bit more because they've got their book awards out, their music awards, probably their drama awards, movie awards.

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And so we're going to just interact with pop culture so you can think Christian -ly. Christian -like.

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Yeah. Christian -like. That's better. But Christianly, I think people say that all the time. Jesus said we're to love the Lord our

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God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And so we believe Christianity, it's not limited to this, but it does contain an intellectual engagement.

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You need to use your mind. The mind is a terrible thing to waste. And so we want you to think well, and we want you to learn about good books through the right avenues.

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And that right avenue is not really Christianity today. How come I don't really know any of these books?

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Why is that? Well, some you do. I think the only book that they give out for their book awards,

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Judging Began with 427 titles submitted by 62 publishers, and the editors selected the winners.

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And they've got different things like spirituality, ethics, etc. The only one I see in here that I really like is

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Philip Yancey, What Good is God? Oh no, strike that after our last few shows. No, the only one

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I really like is N .T. Wright's After You Believe. Oh no, strike that one too. No, I do think, even though I didn't read it,

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Christopher Wright, W -R -I -G -H -T. By the way, that's not the comic from Boston.

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Stephen Wright. And no relation to N .T. Wright. Yeah, and no relation to N .T. Wright. Christopher J.

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H. Wright, his book on Mission, The Mission of God's People, a Biblical Theology of the

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Church's Mission. I bet you that is excellent. But short of that, I have only read one book on this entire page.

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Which one was that? I read Alistair McGrath's The Passionate Intellect, Christian Faith and the Discipleship of the

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Mind. And how was that? Do you know what? I like him because he's stimulating, but I didn't really care for the book.

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So here's what they have. They have books, and if I look at these as a pastor, I would not really want anybody to read these books at Bethlehem Bible Church, mainly for this reason.

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Not because they're all heretical or they're all full of aberrations, but because they're just not the best.

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They're not good, better, best kind of categories. Maybe they're good, but they're not the best. And so can you think of anything in here that you would tell people, oh, you shouldn't really read that?

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Maybe Anne Rice's End of Love and Evil? No. In fact, I was just looking at this one, and I'm going, there's no way

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I would recommend this book. The Historical Jesus, Five Views. Well, here's the one view that you need to know, is that you can know the historical

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Jesus by knowing the biblical Jesus. And that's, I mean, this whole historical

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Jesus is a bunch of rubbish, and here you have someone like John Dominic Crossan, one of the contributors to that, who is, you just listen to the man and you go, he's a very nice, very smart man, but he's obviously not a

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Christian. James Dunn with his whole new perspective. I mean, there is nothing to commend itself in this book.

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If you're a reader, why don't you get online and find some books that will help you?

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Trusting God by Jerry Bridges. Why don't you read David Brainard's journals? Why don't you get a book and say, you know,

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I'm going to read The Sovereignty of God by Pink. Don't you think, Steve, there are so many other books? Why would we recommend a book called

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Almost Christian? They're great books. I mean, you know, here's something, and I mean, you probably have talked about some of your favorite books, but, you know, like if we had a list of two, three, four hundred books,

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I guarantee you none of these books would be on that list. I'm going to put together my 50 favorite books or something that have influenced me the most because a

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No Compromise radio listener wanted me to do that, but I just haven't done it yet. Well, and will any of these books appear?

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Maybe Of Love and Evil by Anne Rice? No, I haven't read any Anne Rice, although I read

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Bram Stoker's Dracula. Oh, well, good for you. When I was a kid, a pagan.

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All right, how about movies? Best movies? Now, is it a sin to go to the Passion Pit? I mean, the movie theater?

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No. It's okay as long as you buy popcorn. Answer. Steve, here's the proper answer. It's not okay to go to the movie theater, to the

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Passion Pit, but it is okay to rent an R -rated movie and go home and watch it on your big screen.

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Oh, I was not aware of that. Yeah, yeah, that's fundamentalism for you. I like you, would love to go see some movies, but I, like you, get tired of a bunch of stuff that is just bad for you.

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I am curious, though, what did Christianity Today say for good movies for the year? Okay, well, here's what they said.

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The most redeeming films ... Now, there's a term, I just, you know, I don't know.

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Let's redeem the culture. Yeah, the most redeeming films of 2010, Toy Story 3. Now, I have to say,

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I did see this movie, and I really, really liked it. Made me actually cry a little bit.

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Oh, it did. Well ... But then again, so did Rocky III, so ...

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Rocky III. Here's what I don't like. I don't like the whole idea,

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Steve, where we have to find some kind of biblical themes in a movie. Yeah. And so here it says, you know,

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Woody and Buzz, their final adventure is so redeeming. There's lots of themes of love and loyalty.

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They risk their lives for each other. You know, it's like Jesus laying down his life for another.

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I just don't like that. Why can't we just say, it's Toy Story, go take your kids? Can I tell you what the main theme ...

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Did you see Toy Story 3? I did. Here's the main theme of it, for those of you who haven't seen it, is a kid grows up and just dealing with going to college.

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It's that whole, you know, kind of, he's no longer a child thing. And having gone through that with my own children, you know, it's quite a moving time in life, you know, where you just realize this is no longer a child, but a young adult in, you know, different life circumstances.

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But I never thought about it, oh, this is so gospel -ish. I never thought that way for a second.

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You know, it goes back to these movies like The Matrix and Christians trying to redeem the

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Matrix. If you want to go see The Matrix, I think it's probably got bad stuff in it. I haven't seen the three in the trilogy.

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But why do I have to redeem these things? And by the way, Steve, what's your take on violence versus, you know, nudity?

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I never will forget what MacArthur said. If you go to a movie and there's a 50 -foot, you know, a 50 -foot screen and there's a body on there nude, how are you going to get that image out of your mind?

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I think that's... That's a lot of... That's a lot of image. But what do we do if there's, you know, if you say, but I like army movies, and so, you know,

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I want to go see Green Zone, and how do we process that? If you're a Christian, what's your advice for Christians who want to go see movies?

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And then there was silence. You know, what I always try to do is I always try to, actually,

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Christianity, not Christianity Today, Focus on the Family has a site where they kind of analyze the movies.

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And, you know, again, I don't really care about the redemption themes and, you know, how much biblical thought they can import into it.

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Notice, it doesn't come out of the movie, they import it into it. It's eisegesis. But what

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I am looking for is, you know, how much sexual content is there? What's the language like?

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I mean, there are some movies that I saw before I was saved that I would never want to see again simply for the language, for no other reason.

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I don't want to hear that in my daily life, let alone pay money to go see it.

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Well, the Tom Hanks, I don't know if Spielberg was involved or not, but with Band of Brothers and then the

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Pacific, do you know in the Band of Brothers, who was the main guy there? He just recently died.

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I forgot his name. Yeah, I can't even think of his name. Just a super studly, you know, leader guy. He got after Hanks because he said, we didn't swear like that over there, and you're inserting all these extra swear words, and we didn't do that.

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Well, recently, I read With the Old Breed by Sledge, and that's the book that they used to film the

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Pacific, took a lot of stories out of there. I read the entire account of this marine who went through Peleliu and Okinawa, and I think there were two swear words, two

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D words in the entire thing. And when you watch the Pacific, I thought there's some kind of graphic sex scene and a bunch of swearing in every show.

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And I don't know why Hollywood thinks that's what sells, but pretty much for me, enough is enough.

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Well, and you know, to take our culture in 2010, 2011 or whatever, and to somehow transport it back in time to the 1940s is absolute rubbish.

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Things that people do today in public would have been shocking, revolting, and got you cast out of your community back in the 1940s.

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People didn't talk the way they do now. People didn't act the way they do now. They weren't so self -centered as they are now.

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It was, in fact, a different time. All right, Steve, I have a question for you on No Compromise Radio Ministry.

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What should churches do about illegal immigrants in their midst? Shelter them from the federal authorities because they're, you know...

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You know, the people that came across on the Mayflower, they were undocumented aliens. You know,

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I never thought about it like that before. So it's interesting. In the magazine, it talks about do everything legal as an option to that question.

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Ask new questions. That's an option. Or bridge divisions. And so if you were asked the question as a pastor or an elder or a leader, what should churches do about illegal immigrants in their midst?

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So you have somebody who's in the country illegally. Should you do everything legal? Should you ask new questions or should you bridge divisions?

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What are those... What's the second one and third one? I have no idea. Well, you know, the second and third one are variations on this one here.

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I'll rephrase it. Do nothing. No. Because you want attendance up. Do everything legal is part one.

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And then the second one would be do some things legally and some things illegally. Yeah, I think that's about right.

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You know, people say, well, we wish there was a simple solution. I'm not saying if you've got an undocumented illegal alien at your church that you need to call the

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INS immediately. But I am saying you should sit down with them and say, let's try to figure out how you can make right this wrong.

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And that includes going to the local courthouse or wherever you go, INS deal.

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And it could include you going back home. Yeah, we're gonna honor Christ by sheltering those who violate the law.

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This is a good time for us on No Compromise to say situational ethics aren't ethics at all.

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You do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may. You need to get a good book on ethics by Kaiser or by the

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Feinberg brothers. You do the right thing. You don't say, well, if I do this, then such and such will happen.

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Let's break the law and maybe something good will come out of it. I don't like that at all.

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We at our home Bible study, Steve, as you know, Rosie and David, David and Rosie, unbelievers.

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They're in a gang. He carjacked somebody plus a bunch of other things. He gets thrown into the jail in Los Angeles.

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He gets saved. She gets saved. And he serves his sentence and then goes to Tijuana.

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He's deported to Mexico. Well, I'm sad that he was deported to Mexico because now he is a true

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Christian. But we have to tell the wife, you know what? It's time to move to Mexico, even though you're a

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U .S. citizen, live in Tijuana and minister to your husband. Which is so shocking because shouldn't we, rather than doing everything legal, shouldn't we ask new questions or maybe bridge some divisions?

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Let's ask questions as we smuggle him across the border because his seven brothers and sisters after all are legal.

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But you know, let's smuggle him in. It's just the church cannot be involved.

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Oh, well, you know, let me back up on that. Can the church ever be involved in illegal activity?

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Well, it can be if the activity prescribed by the government causes you to sin.

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That's right. Short of that, Romans 13, we obey them and let the chips fall where they may, submit to Nero the king.

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He was no Christian lover. But like, for example, the government outlaws gathering together for fellowship.

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Well, then you become the senior pastor and get arrested and I'm the new associate.

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Nice. That's kind of the bummer, isn't it? I have to go to jail first. That's situational pastorship.

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That's a bummer. How about Denver Seminary's ad, Steve? Would Jesus listen to jazz?

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So they have a whole section here on seminary. The master seminary, it says, we train men as if lives depended on it.

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Yeah, that's nice. Master seminary. It's got a picture of the Bible. Preach the word in season and out of season.

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I solemnly charge you. A picture of MacArthur there. Nice juxtaposition, right?

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Yeah. And then right across the page, it's all black with a microphone. Would Jesus listen to jazz? Find out at denverseminary .edu

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slash jazz. You know, I think I've been through the Bible a few times.

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I don't remember that part where Jesus says, you know what, tonight I'm just going to chill and listen to some jazz.

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I'm going to put some Ella Fitzgerald on or whatever, you know. If Jesus was alive today, I'm sure he would listen to jazz because there would be some dear

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Christian person who was saved and he would want to go encourage them. And when I was a pagan, I went to see

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Miles Davis. Is he a jazz musician? Yes. He was. I don't think he's still alive.

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He was. I'm looking at these ads. If you were a church, how do you get people to come to your church?

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What do you advertise? Comfortable seats. By the way, I got kind of a blistering letter that said I was very snarky and mean because I was saying things about churches who promote their church via the website, come because you can dress casually.

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And so that person really didn't like what I said. I tried to write and said, thanks. I said, thanks for listening and writing and I'm nicer in person, but I still think it's very feminine.

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You know what you should have said? You should have said, we certainly encourage our listeners to dress comfortably as they listen to the show.

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That's exactly right. That's funny. I like it. But if you were a church, how do you advertise your church?

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No, you say technically we don't advertise, but how do you promote the gospel via your church? I think seminaries and I think churches fall short in general because they're trying to promote everything else, like jazz music.

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Don't you say, we'll instruct you in the languages, we'll teach you historical theology, biblical theology, systematic theology,

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Hebrew, Greek, exegesis, practical theology. And all that jazz. And all that jazz. And all that jazz.

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Isn't that how you promote your seminary versus Starbucks coffees, a guy behind the microphone, some cool glasses and the guy hasn't shaved for a few days, shows a lot of pictures of women because I'm sure they want to get the women in to be pastorettes.

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All of our profs use iPads. See? Well, I just don't get that.

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So if you want to find a church, you have one question. How do they preach the

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Bible? Do they preach Christ verse by verse? I think that's the question. If you want to find a seminary, how should you find a seminary?

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I mean, we've got here Haggard School of Theology, Indian, Wesleyan University, not

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Indian, sorry, Indiana, Louisville Presbyterian, Master's Seminary, Nazarene Seminary. How do you pick those?

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Well, I'll tell you what you do. Same way you would pick a church. You look for one that's diverse. That's the key. Yeah. And they dress well.

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Yeah. Ecumenical. Good coffee beans. Here's Southern Seminary. Do you like this one? We're serious about the gospel.

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And it shows a guy with his Bible open. And he's not smiling. You know what? He's not. He's got kind of like the

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Al Mohler smirk almost. He's confident. He looks pretty serious though.

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I don't know. Are those casual clothes? Yeah. Well, business casual. Business casual.

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How about Trinity Evangelical Divinity School? Go deeper. Well, she looks like a nice pastor.

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Well they have other degrees besides that. She's an MDiv. She's an MDiv. Let's just read what it says.

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In my time at Trinity, I really have appreciated the intentionality of the faculty and their approach toward their students.

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They're committed to providing expertise in their field as well as developing and caring for the whole person. The faculty are extremely pastoral.

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Here it's not just my mind that is valued but who I am as a whole person. I feel like I received an education that connects the mind with the heart.

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I have no idea what that means. Well, it's one of my big pet peeves, of course, is when we say, you know,

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I got it in my head but it hasn't come out of my, it hasn't gone through my heart before it comes up through my mouth.

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Those 12 inches are the most neglected 12 inches in all the world from head to heart before it goes out of mouth.

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Well, friends, I hate to tell you that in Hebrew and in Greek, head and heart, you're going to see a lot of mind in the word heart.

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Yeah, I think I probably would have a problem with a seminary that almost sounds like Oprah could be on the faculty, you know.

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You know what? If a student says that, hey, we've all been to schools where some of the students are stupid and dopey and we've been stupid and dopey, right?

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Well, speak for yourself. But they could choose this ad.

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That's right. You know, that picture of MacArthur, that picture there on Southern Seminary, they picked those on purpose. There's probably an editorial board there and somebody's had to make a decision.

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So they made a decision to do that. You know, Steve, if I'm running out of gumption to be the pastor here at Bethlehem Bible Church, you can always look at employment opportunities in the back.

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Nice. And so I don't know if I'd be good at this, but it says dentist, great opportunity to join a

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Christian group practice in central Pennsylvania. Really? Yeah. How about this one?

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Pastor. Small, reformationally minded church seeks pastor, liturgical worship guided by the lectionary with emphasis in the arts.

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Wait, you know, I missed that class in seminary, the arts. I think I was at jazz class. Liturgical.

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I mean, it just it sounds like they're going to spend about five minutes reading a creed, a couple more minutes reading scripture, and then it's going to be dance and, you know, ensemble music or something.

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I don't know. I, you know what? I should have taken the class on arts and the whole time,

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Steve, I was in a liturgical dance class. I wasted that class. That was like knitting in college at seminary.

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I took that liturgical dance class. We translating the creeds into dance, you know, what a great class that would be.

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All right. Here's another one. Gordon Conwell. That's close to home. Gordon Conwell is still an evangelical school. Gordon College.

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They have rabbis speaking at chapel. They have Jews speaking at chapel. They have rabbis and Jews.

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That's shocking. Is that what I just said? Roman Catholics, I mean. OK, there you go. But Gordon Conwell, even though they're egalitarian, there's still some hope maybe for Gordon Conwell.

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Let's see what these guys say. Gordon Conwell professors are not just theologians. They're also pastors and counselors.

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That's active in the community, living out what they preach in our classes. It's real life application. So here,

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Leon Stevenson, he's after application. Yeah, I guess that's OK. But I think we're kind of living in an application oriented world.

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Yeah, I think if what if you only taught somebody, Steve, love your neighbors yourself. You explained it in context, original authorial intent.

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You talked about some of the Greek words and agape and everything else. And that's all that you taught them. I think they need to know more than that.

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Well, let me ask you this. Let me ask it this way, then. Do you think the Spirit of God could take what they've learned about those two great commandments?

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And even though you never gave them any five takeaways, love your neighbor this way, do you think the Spirit of God could apply that verse in the life of a believer to love his neighbor as himself?

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Yes, but I want to follow it up with a 27 part series on how to be a better neighbor.

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We want you to be Bereans. Act 17, the Bereans were commended. First Thessalonians 5, examine everything carefully.

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And so we want you to just look at life and under the auspices of Jesus owns everything.

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We didn't even get to Muslims and the Son of God on the cover. I know. I didn't really like the picture. Did you?

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Well, I don't blame you. Yeah, because it looks like Mohammed baptizing, you know, somebody.

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I know. It looks like Mohammed baptizing Jesus. Yeah. Well, my name is Mike and Steve's here as well. This is No Compromise Radio. And you've basically been a fly on the wall today in the office.

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

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

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

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

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