Terrible Advertisements in Christianity Today

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. Steve just gave me a zinger off the air. I said something about, �Oh, let�s quick get back in the studio and put our headphones on, and we might as well say the funny things while we�re recording.�

And I�ve got something funny to say, and you said? I�ll be the judge of that. And I said? You said, �You don�t need anybody�s stamp of approval on your sense of humor, to which

I guffawed loudly.� No, I think I said something like, �I don�t need your approval to laugh at my own jokes ,� or something like that.

Yeah, okay. That�s what you mean. So, here�s what I was talking about. We�re talking about Twitter and Twitter polls and how some people have been coached to keep their heterodoxy close to their vest until they get 50 ,000

Twitter followers, and then they can say what they want. And I was thinking about people like the

Jen Hatmaker and Ann Voskamp, those type of people that seemed like they would fall in line with that.

I mean, I can�t prove anything. It�s just my opinion. I typed in, here�s the funny part, I was going to do some

Ann Voskamp scud in a Twitter poll or something, just funny. It switched the spell check,

Ann Voskamp, it turned into Ann Volcano, which is probably what she would, if she ever saw your

Twitter, she�d probably hit volcanic. Speaking of which,

I think one of the social media people that was a part of Whitehorse Inn, Modern Reformation, my court and stuff,

I think they�ve been let go. Oh, sad times. Isn�t that sad? In a not -very -sad way. Steve, I�ve got a variety of things from Christianity Today.

From a variety of sources. I do, I do. And in Christianity Today, there are still ads for seminaries, because I guess it must work, right?

Otherwise, why would people do it? And here�s an ad that I found kind of, it�s just odd,

Regent University, and it�s got Mark Batterson, Regent graduate, 2012, with kind of a denim shirt, beard, nice glasses, nice -looking guy.

I think he�s a circle -maker guy, isn�t he? Is Batterson circle -maker? I don�t know. I want to say.

I don�t know if this is the same Batterson� Is that like tent -maker? This would be like�

You mean the prayer circle stuff? I think so, yeah. Is he really? Yeah, yeah. But anyway, here�s what

I don�t like. Here�s Regent�s advertisement. Pursue your God -sized destiny.

I don�t know, man. That takes me back to Salt Lake City. God -sized destiny.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, because you�re going to become God. Well, what if I could maybe help them with their marketing?

Pursue your God -shaped vacuum? How about God -ordained ministry? I know.

Well, how about� God -sized destiny. How about man -centered view or God -centered view?

What about service or something like that? Your God -sized destiny. This is

Jeremiah 2911 kind of language to me. It just struck me as odd. That�s weird. Well, besides that, when

I look at the picture, I don�t think he�s God -sized. Well, here�s my problem with this whole thing.

The denim shirt is kind of cool, but there are buttons on collars, you know, on the corner of the collars, but you never wear a button collar without the buttons buttoned.

No, you don�t. I don�t. So, see? It�s bad. And what a lot of people don�t know, I could just throw this in for their sartorial benefit.

Button collars are actually considered less formal. Did you know that? Less formal than non -button collars.

So you could just write that down. Do you ever go out of the house with a collared shirt that�s supposed to� it�s not buttoned down, but it would have collar stays inside, but you forget the stays, and they just kind of poke up like�

I don�t know. That�s a party foul. Party foul. In fact, a party foul, and I actually have extra stays just in case, you know, because if they�re supposed to have stays and they don�t have � that shirt winds up looking pretty weak.

Do you know what I do, Steve? On Saturday night, I get my clothes ready for Sunday morning, because I don�t need any extra hassle on the

Lord�s Day, and I make sure I put the collar stays in the shirt collar that I�m going to wear the next morning.

There you go. You know what I did this last Sunday? My wife laughed when

I told her how I picked out what I was going to wear. I chose my tie first and then went backwards from that. Oh, see?

That�s nice. That�s nice. Well, I got a tie from my daughter for Christmas, but I don�t like to wear

Christmas stuff the day, you know, the Sunday afterwards, because then it�s kind of like, you know, you go to the�

It�s kind of like canceling Christmas service. Oh. Oh, sorry. Let�s talk about that, too. It�s kind of like, you know, you go to a concert, you know, you go see

Billy Bragg, and then, you know, the next day you wear the shirt or something. Yeah. Now, Steve, you�re really going to think this one�s funny.

Moved to California and study at Gateway Seminary. This is in the back of Christianity Today. And it�s got a picture of what there?

The beat. And if you had to guess, like, where would that be? Well, San Diego.

It looks like San Diego. It could be maybe like Redondo Beach. There�s a little retaining wall there.

Okay, yeah. The area that doesn�t have the boardwalk. I�ll be out in Manhattan Beach here soon. Okay. Could be a

Manhattan -ish. It says� But definitely SoCal. Uh -huh. Affordable student housing.

Lie. Full tuition scholarships. Well, that might be true. Easy application process. Minister in a multicultural environment.

And, you know, it looked pretty attractive. There�s a couple of people out there. This guy just� You know, he looks like he�s doing the gold�

The gold� Well, see, the only part I don�t like is affordable student housing. Okay. Maybe� You know what?

Yeah, yeah. On the beach. Yeah. Yeah. Not likely. But, see, I know you. And so I know what you�re going to think when

I show you this next part. Because I was all on board. You know, so far, so good. Gateway Seminary.

By the way, it�s www .gs .edu. Gateway Seminary. And it turns out�

Ontario, California. Oh, man. See, now, that�s funny, because I grew up not too far from Ontario, right?

Now, that�s false advertising. Yeah, that�s� It�s at the beach. No. Ontario is� Look it.

It�s not affordable. It�s not full� No. Well, maybe it is full tuition. I don�t know. But Ontario is out, you know, in the desert.

I mean, smog capital. And this is what makes it the worst, though. Not that it seems like it�s false.

Not like it�s the California dream and deal. But it says gs .edu forward slash be the difference.

So what�s the difference? You�re going to be the difference. I thought, you know, if I� I think this whole lifestyle evangelism thing bothers me.

If I thought, you know, about theological difference, I would think, like, maybe the Holy Spirit should be the� maybe he would be the difference, right?

Or maybe, like, I�m the Calvinist, and I show up in this Arminian school, and I�m the difference. Be the difference. You could tilt the scale to Calvinism.

You know, that whole, you know, fifth gospel deal. �Many people will never read Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, but they�ll read you.

They�ll read you. Be the fifth gospel.� How�s that working out, by the way, for you? I don�t know.

I always thought the fifth gospel was Isaiah. Oh, that�s good. Or Hebrews.

That�s also called the fifth gospel. The sixth gospel. So, you know, be the fifth gospel. What do you mean? Isaiah? I�m not changing my name.

Okay, be the sixth. Be the sixth gospel. You mean Hebrews? What makes the gospel so powerful, it�s not about us at all.

It�s in spite of us, and that the Lord would use us. No wonder he talks about how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news and glad tidings.

Wait a minute. Isn�t it, how beautiful are the feet of those who are the good news? Be the difference. How beautiful are those who are the difference?

Oh, man. I mean, haven�t we, you live in your neighborhood long enough. You blow it in front of your neighbors, right?

You�re married long enough. What if you blow it in front of your kids? How about that? Be the difference.

Speak for yourselves. Yeah, okay, I will. It�s true for me. Some of us tell the truth, and some of us are seared consciences and lie speakers.

What? All right, well, here we go. More Christianity Today. That�s what I�m going to call the show, by the way, today.

CT Today. Christianity Today Today. No, no, no, that�s CAT scan. That�s CAT scan. Oh, CT.

I�m having a CT today. Computer tomography today. Steve, I�ve got a question for you.

This is new from Tony Evans. I want to say it�s TonyEvans .org, but that would be a little presumptuous of me. Okay, TonyEvans .org

forward slash pathways. So that wouldn�t be presumptuous. Mark it down.

You know, as much as sometimes I talk about no -co in the third person, you know, first person, you know,

Mike Tyson talks about himself, Ricky Henderson, you know, he had always talked about Ricky stealing bases. Ricky hitting home runs.

Did you know Ricky went back to baseball at 46 years old for some kind of Southern California Scorpions or surf chasers or some other team?

That guy stayed in shape. So I don�t doubt that he could do it. I know. I mean, he was in serious shape.

There�s a rumor that he had a million -dollar check as a bonus given to him and he just put it up on his mirror and never cashed it.

Ricky doesn�t need a million dollars. That was spoken by Ricky himself.

It�s a quote. I have a whole book load of Ricky Henderson quotes. Okay, nice, nice.

Do you know how they make rum, by the way? As a matter of fact, I do. So here�s an ad.

Are you afraid to take the next step of faith? Kind of. So was

Esther. Yeah. Did she live up in Green Mountains? The story of Esther appears to be a series of coincidences.

But it actually shows God�s power through events that deliver the Jews from certain death. Now, that part, talking about a

God -centered view of Esther, is way better than, are you afraid to take the next step of faith? So was

Esther. These kind of character studies. God selected Esther for a particular purpose at a particular time.

I think so did King Ahasuerus. Yes, he did. But that was, I thought, funny.

Like Esther, God has a purpose for your life. Wait a minute.

That's not written well. Esther has a purpose for my life? Like Esther, God has a purpose for your life as well.

Who does this? This is B &H. Yeah, well, it's not well -written because it should say, just like God had a plan for Esther, He has a plan for you.

Like Esther, God has a purpose for your life. We're not messing this up either.

And every action or event that occurs within it has been used to make that purpose a reality.

Can we pray to Esther then? You know, as long as we just don't, we can,

Latria, we just can't. Not doulos, but Latria. It's not doulos, but it's what, doula, doula, yes, yes, doula.

Have you ever named your, like, you know, one of your dogs, Doula? Wouldn't that be fun, Doula and Latria?

Julia. Julia. Dear Lord. He's a bulldog.

Anyway, this whole Esther thing, what do you do when people say, well, you know, God's not even mentioned in Esther?

That's not that hard to overcome, but it's harder to overcome this evangelical kind of numbskull stuff that is just, you know, here's what

Esther's like, you be like Esther too. Are you afraid to take the next step of faith? So is Esther. Yeah. Just kind of tag team yourself into the story of Esther.

You know, just like Esther was afraid. You're probably afraid, but let me tell you something, God had a plan for Esther and God has a plan for you.

I know. It's just crazy. All right. What else do we have on No Compromise Radio? Steve, here's another book, InterVarsity Press, of course,

IVPRS. Is American Christianity still held captive by slaveholder religion?

Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion by Jonathan Wilson, Hartgrove, forward by the

Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II. You can kind of see where this is going, can't you? Some kind of historical analysis of the

Civil War? Steve, I think one guy on Twitter said, you know, be committed,

Pastor, to quote at least 52 non -white people in your sermons this year. And I thought,

I don't even, when I pull out a commentary, and I've got a lot of commentaries, I never think, what's their background? But by the way,

I think I'm going to quote 52 non -white people this year as I preach, because while I don't know if Paul wrote

Hebrews, I'm pretty sure he wasn't white. Luke? I don't think

Luke was white. So every time you quote a Bible book, you're quoting somebody who wasn't white.

Not from England, Germany, France. Well, I think Scandinavia, you know, there's that book,

Tobit the Scandinavian, and Bell the

Norwegian. This is so dumb.

I, you know, I'm baffled by all of it, because it makes no sense whatsoever, and what does slaveholder religion mean anyway?

I don't know anybody, maybe you do, but I don't, you probably don't. Do you know anybody who owns slaves?

Los Angeles Clippers? You mean Sterling, whatever his name is?

Yeah, I mean, this whole idea, I mean, I don't know, it's kind of, this desire to bring back what happened 150 years ago and make it like it was yesterday, or still going on today.

It's bizarre to me. The fall has had a lot, many consequences, and of course, sin has infected the entire universe, and when

I think of my grandparents, who are Germans, Abendrot, and they were living in Nebraska, and they would have their lunches thrown at the bottom of the outhouse deal because they were

Germans, and America was, you know, just had fought Germany and all that stuff. I mean, a lot of people do a lot of bad things to a lot of people, but I'm not looking for reparations for how they treated my

German grandparents. Why? Because it's just onward and upward. That's really dumb.

We could go onward to Biologos Conference 19. The only thing missing here is, I think, Tim Keller, but there's

John Ortberg. I didn't know he was a Biologos guy. I didn't know either. That's certainly exciting to think about.

Now, I did sign you up, Steve, for this Biologos thing, because I know you didn't really care about the

Jonathan Merritt session or the Richard Mao session, but there's the Night at the Aquarium that is at night there, so you can go see the product of evolution and stuff at the

Biologos Conference. If they're going to have nice lighting and stuff like that, I bet my wife would like that. Well, you know,

I guess it's either pre -conference workshops or nice lighting and stuff at the Aquarium, so. I prefer the nice lighting.

When I first saw this when it says, don't miss the engaging plenaries, I thought it was engaging

Pharisees. And I would actually like to engage a Pharisee.

Eusto, my man. Eusto Gonzalez. Theologian and historian.

I just thought he was more like a historian. What about Jennifer Wiseman? She's an astronomer.

Probably not too smart for her to be at this conference. How many Wisemen were there at the birth of Jesus? Well, the story would have us believe it was three.

How about NIV Plus? NIV Positive is what we call that. I know, that's exactly right.

Trusted in love. Now, here's my point for this Zondervan updated NIV 2011, you know, mixture of...

There's some really heavy names on here, man. Okay, but as you look at the names, Steve... D .A. Carson. Uh -huh.

When I look at the names, I think to myself, charismatic theology is overtaking evangelicalism.

Because not all of them are charismatic, but there's so many. If there would have been one charismatic years ago, but how many now are charismatic?

And so, you know... There's so many problematic names on this list. I know. Scott McKnight, Rick Warren, I mean, come on.

I'm just kind of... Toby Keith. Well, that's just a joke.

So you've got... Dan Kimball. Wow. I know. Well, actually Kimball is not doing much teaching anymore at the...

Jim Cimbala. Jim Cimbala. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Luke Walton, when he started...

Before he was the coach of the Lakers. Well, when he started doing that stuff with Genesis, it made me very concerned.

True story, Steve. He learned it from his dad, though. Speaking of his dad, it's West LA, it's

Wells Fargo Bank ATM, and I needed to get out of the car because they didn't have a drive -thru one.

It was over... We're just right off the 405. And, you know, when you're at the ATM, you kind of want to just be aware who's behind you.

Absolutely. There's a certain safe space, kind of a personal space, that if somebody was just right behind you, you wouldn't like it.

Yeah. Anybody closer than, say, six inches, that gives me the willies. Yeah. That's right. And the person felt like they were right behind me, even though when

I turned around, they weren't right behind me. But since Bill Walton's a really tall guy, it felt like he was closer than what he really was.

See, I would have, like, collapsed right there. And I said, hey, can I give you a tip? And he thought

I was going to give him 20 bucks out of the ATM. And my tip was, you shouldn't have gone to the

Celtics. He's like, what? I got another ring out of that deal, man.

I got to play with Larry Bird. Speaking of rings and all that stuff, Stephen, your man Alford, just got canned at the

Bruins. I have to say, I want to refrain from schadenfreude, but I was pretty happy.

Did his son play for the team? A few years ago, a couple of years ago, yeah. Okay. Well, I was thinking they were going to change it to Alford Pavilion after his run, but it just never...

Not going to happen. No. All right. Next here on the list, come, comma, now is the time to entertain.

Christianity Today, from Ligonier Ministry Lifeway Research, you know, it was out a while ago.

Must churches provide entertaining worship services if they want to be effective? Now, you've got different people, frequent attenders, infrequent attenders, white attenders, millennial attenders, female attenders, non -white attenders, boomers, et cetera.

I don't like this whole white, non -white thing. That's another story. If you just look,

Steve, frequent attendees of evangelical churches, monthly or more, 9 % say they don't think you have to provide entertaining worship.

Wait, wait, wait. 9 %? 9 % said, you know what, you don't have to do that to be effective. Now that was,

I thought that was pretty good until I see somewhat agrees at 25. So if I combine strongly agree and somewhat agree, this is 34%.

A third of the people think that churches need to provide entertaining worship services if they want to be effective.

That's awful. It is bad. Well, I mean, I'm even surprised, let's say it's 10%, 10 % of frequent attenders, week in and week out, and they're thinking, you know what, this isn't very entertaining.

Entertain me. Yeah. Thrill me. This last Sunday, 2

John was read for the Scripture reading. That was really entertaining. It was super entertaining. Remember Will?

I was on the edge of my seat. When Will sang, Jesus paid it all, all to him

I owe, that was really entertaining. Super entertaining. I was riveted. The announcements that we'll have no

Sunday night service because of the Lord's day and everybody's tired. It was entertaining. The reviews are in.

The reviews are in. I have to tell you that I never think to myself, what will entertain these people?

Well, can you imagine, how about, you know, Sunday evening, you look at your email and you get an email and somebody from the church wrote and says, hey, that was really entertaining today.

Now, in the old days when I would preach, I'd get a lot of these kind of comments. I really convicted, hey, thank you.

These days I'm shooting for more. I don't mind being convicting, but I'm shooting more for, you know, that was encouraging today.

I was encouraged today to learn about Jesus. That's what I'm shooting for. I was really afraid of my faith. What made that was so funny is to see

Steve, he was up so close to the microphone when he was doing that, he was like, he was gently snuggling the authentic microphone there.

And, but I have had some people in the last five years of my life say to me after I preached,

I mean, I'm not trying to, I mean, I'd love to have them tell me how great I was, but I wasn't trying to elicit this comment.

I enjoyed that today. I enjoyed that message today. Now, is there a difference between enjoyment and entertainment?

I was entertained by that message today. Come on. I mean, you know, if you stand up there and go, you know, normally about this time

I get into my sermon, but today I got to tell you guys a couple of stories there and they'll just kill you.

I'll get to the sermon in a minute, but you know, first let's have a little fun. Well, it was a couple of Sundays ago and I thought, oh,

I was just talking about sin and it was the, it was the Christmas service where we had some visitors and it's one thing to say,

I'm a sinner. It's another thing to say, I've sinned against a holy God and whatever punishment

I've earned, I deserve and he deserves to send me to hell kind of discussion.

And I was just talking about the pervasiveness of sin. And I talked about that. I read about that lady that stole the honey baked ham.

And the article said that she held it between her legs, between her thighs or something like that.

And I'm like, how am I going to say that? Because I don't even really want to say that in a sermon.

But what happened was I said, she put it up her dress and it fell down when she was trying to sneak out.

And the second it hit the ground and rolled down the little walkway area there, she looked around and said, hey, who's throwing the honey baked ham at me?

And I just thought, that's exactly what sin does. It is so, you know, God made our minds to worship him, but our minds can be so sidetracked.

We're going to use it to blame other people. Blame shifting. It's tried and true. And you know what? You don't even have to teach little kids how to do it.

They know. I mean, I'm amazed at what some of my grandkids come up with. And I'm like, dude, it would have taken me like 10, 12 years before I would have come up with a story like that.

And you guys are like almost straight out of the womb, you know. Let's see the white attendees.

If we combine these strongly agree and somewhat agree, that is 34 % say that, you know, you probably should be effective by entertaining.

But the non -whites, what do they do? They are at 36%. So what's that tell us?

No difference. Why? Why have these categories? White, non -white.

Well, because if we don't, we're not too woke. You know, the problem with this, this, you know, the human body deal that they've got, you know, the thought, the skinless bodies of real humans, you know, around there's not diverse enough.

So not many people are attending. Well, you remember the Wonkavator? Now we have the Wokevator. It moves this way and that way.

Mike Abendroth, Steve Cooley, No Compromise Radio. You can write Steve, the Tuesday guy at No Compromise Radio or Mike at No Compromise Radio.

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

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