Luke Abendroth and Westminster Seminary Escondido  

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and today we're going to have kind of a first.

00:19

Luke Abendroth has been on the show many times, but the first is he's driving back from seminary to go who knows where.

00:27

And I thought instead of me just talking to Luke on the phone, I would let you all eavesdrop and listen to Mike Abendroth talk to Luke Abendroth.

00:36

How does that sound, Luke? Sounds great. People have to have low expectations.

00:42

There needs to be low expectations because I didn't know this was going to be on the radio. That's right. But when I asked you to do some shows when you were here in person, you were busy and you've got a wife and all that other stuff, a baby on the way.

00:54

Are you excited about the new baby? Of course. You don't have to tell us names or anything, but do you have names figured out for the male, if it's male or female?

01:09

Well, yeah, we'll figure it out. We don't know exactly yet. I like the really strong Old Testament names that just scream that your parents are some kind of like old school parents.

01:21

Oh. Those are the names I like. Well, you know, there's two Noahs in the

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Bible, a male Noah that we all know about with the flood and a female Noah. And that female Noah, I believe, had a sister named

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Huggla. So you could always pick Huggla if you needed to. Well, I don't know how you knew that that was going to be our daughter's name, but you guessed it.

01:44

Huggla Abendroth. Mr. NoCo Jr., tell us a little bit about Westminster Seminary Escondido.

01:51

You just finished your first semester back in December, now you're starting up probably your second semester. Tell us a little bit about some of the highlights of West Cal.

02:02

Yeah, well, I think we probably talked about it on the radio show before, although we haven't done one in a while.

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But I finally started at Westminster and I finished my first semester and I took besides language classes and stuff.

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I had my first class with Michael Horton, Intro to Theology and Apologetics, and then a class with Dr.

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R. Scott Clark, who's been on the show many times, Ancient Church. So those are probably the two highlights.

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I like the languages and stuff as well. But I think those are my two favorite classes, just talking about church history stuff with Dr.

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Clark and then Intro to Theology with Mike Horton. So those were super fun.

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I like those guys. You know, I've listened to them for a long time, so it's fun to be able to raise my hand in class and ask questions or go up to them after and get some clarification on something.

02:55

So it's great, great being in class and really it's not too far from where I live. So it's been it's been awesome.

03:02

Luke, I'm sure you learn things, but sometimes if you've been taught at home and you study on your own and you've been in ministry for a while, you're not 20 years old.

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Did you learn anything that was just kind of mind blowing that was new or this kind of just a refinement of what you know theologically?

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Well, you know, I think I didn't really know anything about ancient church stuff.

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So it's kind of I mean, I know the names. I know, you know, Irenaeus is supposed to be good or Ignatius or something, you know, but I have no idea who these people are, how they contributed or how to plot them out on a timeline or who was interacting with who.

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So I think although I knew some that was probably the most enlightening was

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Dr. Clark's class of just having to read primary sources of some of those guys really looking at what they were responding to and just going back to those sources.

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So I think that my conception of the early church, the class was from the Ascension to 8500.

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That is, although I have a lot to learn still, much clearer. I think that was probably the biggest thing, just learning who these people are, who are all the players, what are the controversies, you know, what are the real issues of those times.

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So that's been helpful. And then through that, you learn stuff like Christology. And although, you know, hopefully

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I wasn't a heretic before, but just sharpening issues of, you know, homoousios and all those things.

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So, yeah, it was fun. That was probably the biggest thing that I learned. And then I liked Horton's class, just little nuggets of things.

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Are you there? Well, while you go through the dead zone, I'll talk a little bit as well.

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I know you were encouraged by Dr. Clark's class. And I think you told me that he's kind of new school teacher.

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He's the one who says regularly, you need a different grade.

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Just plead your grade. Luke has dropped me, so I've got to get Luke. We're going to pause right now.

05:15

Okay, I have Luke back. I just said Luke while I was buying time because I thought you were in a dead zone. I said that Dr.

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Clark, he's really kind of new school teacher. You know, if you don't get your homework done on time, that's fine.

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You can always appeal for a better grade at the end of the class and tell them that there are reasons why you didn't get the work done.

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How do you think of Clark's strategy now, his new philosophy as a new school teacher? You know, explore, play with blocks and things like that.

05:48

That'd probably be more his next, maybe that'll be his next move after teaching at West Cal.

05:55

Well, I lost you for a little bit there, but we're just going to plow through because this is just like real radio, raw, everything else.

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Tell me a little bit about your Hebrew class. I know you had some Hebrew when you studied in Israel.

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How's that coming along? Are you able to, what are you doing, starting to read the book of Jonah in Hebrew? How does that work?

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Well, so the way that the program's designed at Westminster, and sorry, I'm driving through some kind of like country area, so sorry if you're losing me.

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But the way that they do it at Westminster is you take four semesters of each language and then

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Hebrew one through four, Greek one through four. And then you actually don't start any of your

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New Testament or Old Testament classes until you're done with Hebrew and done with Greek.

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So that way, all of the study of a book of the Bible or the Pauline epistles or something in the

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Old Testament is actually in the original language. So I have a lot of years left of Hebrew and Greek, but just started my second semester of Hebrew in the winter room with Dr.

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Keel or Professor Keel, who wrote that book, Sacred Bond, that I know you recommended before. So really enjoying it.

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I like these little biblical theology nuggets in between class, in between vocab words in Hebrew.

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And yeah, it's been fun. So Luke, tell us a little bit about the culture there on campus.

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I think you're, are you assigned or is it volunteer that you can have some prayer partners, as it were, to pray with some of the professors on a regular basis?

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How does that work? Yeah. So they assign you to a prayer group where you have one of your professors and they'll just take prayer requests and you all pray together with some of the other students.

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It's once a week. I forget which day it is. I should know. I think it's Wednesdays. So anyways, I'm in Dr.

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Clark's prayer group and Dr. Horton's also in the prayer group. So it's been fun. You know, I just get to sit in a circle with those guys and pray about different things.

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And it's cool to see, you know, I know those men and their ministries and appreciate them. But it's sweet to hear, you know, just their piety and love for the

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Lord and care for the other students in the prayer times and stuff. And so I always, I mean, you know, we love

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Dr. Clark anyways, but I always defend Dr. Clark because I'm in his prayer group, you know, because he's such a warrior online,

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I think, for good things, for truth. But then he's so sweet and gracious and kind and following up on prayer requests during the semester.

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So that's been a real blessing. Amen. Talking to Luke Ebenroth today on No Compromise Radio Ministry.

08:39

Luke, when I'm dead in 20 years, are you going to continue the ministry of No Compromise Radio or what are you going to change it to?

08:47

Maybe I'll do a couple of weeks and see how much the listenership drops off by. If it's like 60%, then, you know, it's probably not worth it.

08:55

Well, you know, I always think I appeal to the younger folks because I know their slang and where they're coming from.

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And then I realize only people who are over 60 listen to my show. I don't know.

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I think there's some younger people who listen. Yeah, because they're all your friends. So I guess this weekend is the

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West Cal Conference, right? Are you supposed to attend that? Is that required as a student to attend the conference?

09:23

No, it's not. You know, I would attend. I'll plan on attending in the future, but we have some stuff going on at church.

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So got a youth camp coming up. So I've got to be at that. I don't think I'm going to make it to the conference.

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So when it comes to youth camp, I know Bible teaching is passe and out of date. Explain that game again where the children, the young adults, rather, put the peanut butter on their face and you throw cheese balls to see if they stick.

09:50

Explain that again. Yeah. Yeah, that's the game that we play. I think that's the only youth group game that you know,

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Dad. I know. Maybe because it's such a weird one. I know. It's always stuck in my mind.

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Luke, I know you are involved. I know you're involved with a group called Christian Surfers. And when

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I first heard about it, I thought, ah, it's probably, you know, no pun intended, watered down and all this other stuff.

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Tell me what goes on at Christian Surfers and how the Lord's given you some opportunities to preach the law of gospel, preach the real gospel, see some fruit regarding all that.

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Tell me about Christian Surfers. Well, you know, I like Christian Surfers because I met my wife through Christian Surfers.

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So I've got to preface everything that I would say about it through that. Wow. NoCo.

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NoCo is in a new air house. Sound effects. That's dangerous. You might even draw sound effects.

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It's dangerous. How about this one? Charlton Heston.

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That's the Ten Commandments movie, right? When he sees them, the golden calf.

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Moses comes down from the mountain. Wow, I really got you on that one.

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That was good. That was the best thing I heard all day. Yeah.

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So there we go. So, yeah, Christian Surfers is a ministry. It's very broad parachurch.

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But it's been great because I met my wife. We just randomly we all serve our family. Everybody knows that.

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But we were some of my roommates were surfing and they met some people in the water and they said, hey, somebody gives their testimony.

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There's free food on the beach. So I kind of got involved through that. And now

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Hannah and I help lead one of the Christian Surfers chapters. So pretty much all we do is we surf together and then we have somebody come in and talk about the

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Bible or share their testimony or something. So now we're just starting a series through John where we have a good amount of kids, of younger kids who surf, but they've never been to church or anything.

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But they come on Thursday nights and we surf together and then we'll read a chapter of John and we'll talk about the main points and ask some questions.

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So we're just kind of trying to expose these younger, you know, we call them groms, these kids to the

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Bible and to Jesus and who he is and the claims he makes about himself. And obviously the theme of John is that you might believe that Jesus is the

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Messiah. So it's been really great. You know, we have people who just meet in the water and you can say, hey, come right into the beach and get some free pizza or whatever and talk to them about the gospel.

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So it's been good. And I was able to talk at their Mexico trip gathering and just talk about the gospel.

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And so so it's been a blessing and a nice way to kind of reach out. And surfing is such a selfish sport anyways, that it's kind of nice to do something with surfing.

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You've got to be nice when you're surfing and then you're going to go sit by a flag that says Christian surfers. Well, and down the street from here, at least your old place, you had that $1 taco place and you just go buy 50 tacos for 50 bucks and hand them out.

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That's what I would do. Yeah, seriously. And they do have a Christian surfer's budget. So you can get reimbursed at least even for the $50 tacos.

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See, that's nice. Is there a theological equivalent to some of the nomenclature in surfing? If I said something about kooks or getting pitted, what do you think of theologically when

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I say that? I don't know. Do you still have that? I still think of the kooks and Barney's award that he used to give out. I know.

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And I should probably give it out more often. But I've turned the ministry into talking about Jesus more. And of course, it doesn't work out.

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I did hear today. I don't know if you heard, Luke, that Alistair Begg said in a Q &A, he was talking to a grandmother and that grandmother didn't know if she should go to a gay wedding or not of probably one of her relatives or a grandson or something.

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And Begg said, yes, and you should buy them a gift too. And I thought, that sounds like kooks and Barney's award to me.

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Yeah. Well, I think, yeah, that's probably, that's an interesting one.

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I don't know what else to say. I don't know what else to say about that. All right. Well, you don't have to say anything else.

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Well, I was just thinking about golf movies is what I started thinking about immediately. Oh, okay.

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Well, that's for, you know, let the reader understand. Yeah. Speaking in terribles so that prophecy would be fulfilled.

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Oh, nice. So when I was a seminary student and I was in between semesters or it was the summer,

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I got to read a couple of books that I wanted to read versus all the books I had to read. Did you read anything fun while you were having a little break?

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I know you were in England and then Germany and other places for Christmas.

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But did you read anything good in between semesters? You know,

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I wish I could say yes. I am. I'm a bad habit of starting a lot of things and slowly working my way through many things at once.

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So I'm reading the history of the Scottish Reformation in Scotland by Don Knox right now because we were just there,

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Hannah and I, in Scotland. So that's fun to read about just from his perspective, what happened and about,

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I think it's Hamilton, Patrick Hamilton, you know, who was the first martyr of the Scottish Reformation. He went to Wittenberg and came back to Scotland and wrote one book.

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I think he was executed when he was 24 or something. And his one book is just an explanation of the law and gospel distinction.

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And so anyway, it's just fun stuff like that and to see all those places. So I've been reading that and then

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I've been for school trying to get ahead. So I've been reading some Meredith Klein and I'm trying to slip some hyphenated words into my conversations with my wife.

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And then what else am I reading? I know I'm also reading some books that I don't like too much.

15:59

Just reading an Amy Byrd book that I think maybe we could give the award to.

16:06

So, yeah, all kinds of things. I was not expecting the

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Amy Byrd deal, but I know why you would read such a book.

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When you were in England and Scotland, of course, we at No Compromise Radio love the

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Merrow men. The representatives, whatever they're called.

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Representatives, I think they're called also. You went to Erskine's house where he lived.

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Where'd you go? Ebenezer's? Yeah, Ebenezer, who's, you know,

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Ralph Erskine's brother. And then what was their father's name? I forget the name of the father. But they were, you know, they had all these sons that were pastors.

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And Ebenezer Erskine was the one who I believe started, he broke off eventually from the

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Church of Scotland. And it was either the Free Church or I don't know, anything. Something like that. So, anyways,

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I went to his, the church that he was a pastor in. And then there was his big monument right by York, or excuse me, by Stirling Castle.

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It was a big statue and monument to Erskine and some other monuments to these other Scottish martyrs and stuff.

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So it was cool. I mean, I wanted to go to Octorarter, the Octorarter Creed, but it was out of the way.

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And, you know, I already had stopped at so many random theological sites. I was trying to, you know, probably find a coffee shop for Hannah and I and get a little bit of a break, you know.

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So, trying to deny myself. See, well, you can go back again another time, hopefully.

17:45

It reminds me, Luke, when I was taking you around Europe, we did two different sabbaticals in Europe.

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And I remember, I don't know, I don't think it was you. I think it was one of your sisters that looked at me and said,

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Dad, do we have to see another Martin Luther site? And I thought that was...

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The answer should have been yes. Yes, you do. I know. And then before you got saved, remember,

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I took you to England. And I thought to myself, do you know what he's... I've driven, you know, taken

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Luke around the world, seeing theological things. And so let's look at some war things.

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And we went to Churchill's bunkers and other places like that. And so I tried not to take you to the, you know, where John Rogers was burned or whatever.

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And now looking back, you wish I would have taken you to even more sites biblically, right? Yeah, but the thing is,

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I wouldn't have appreciated it at the time. So maybe I just got to see it for myself now. I did go, interestingly,

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I went to Augsburg, to the church where Luther stayed during...

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I don't know what it was. It was something before... It wasn't high eternity. Somebody.

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Anyways, Luther was summoned to this meeting and he had to go and defend... I think it was early on, so it was in 95

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B .C. And he stayed there with these monks at this church in Augsburg, Germany.

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And Hannah has some friends there who were celebrating New Year. So we met up with them. And on our way over from the train station to the bus station to get to our friend's house,

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I saw, you know, I think it's where the Augsburg Confession was published. And I thought, you said

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Luther, some Luther thing here. And I found it was that church. So we went over to the church and we went in and they are having some kind of New Year's Eve Lutheran service.

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So they were doing like the creed in German and singing some hymns. And so we went in and sat in the back for 15 minutes.

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So I thought that was my little Luther thing of the trip a couple weeks ago. Oh, I think that's excellent.

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Would you tell our listeners a little bit about how you then went to the barber shop there in Germany in honor of the monk

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Luther? You got your hair tonsured? Yes, I did.

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And then I asked, the barber asked me how to pray. And I told him about the

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Lord's Prayer. I said, it's a simple way to pray.

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Well, I hope our listeners understand what Luke is saying. I did look up in Latin. There's a lot of parables here. I know.

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The word tonsure in Latin, tonsura, comes from clipping or shearing. And so, you know, medieval

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Catholics love to do that. And I don't know if you know this or not, Luke, good thing you didn't get the tonsure because it is no longer required by papal order since 1972.

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So I hope you're glad for that. I am. It would have been disheartening if I would have gotten it and then found that out after.

20:52

That's right. Well, today I'm talking to Luke Ebenroth on No Compromise Radio Ministry. Luke, you've been preaching some at the church you attend at Tri -City

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Church in, what's the name of the city again? Vista. Vista, yeah. And I know you were assigned to preach,

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I don't know, 19 chapters of 1 Samuel at one sitting. How did you get your mind wrapped around whatever the three chapters you had to preach through?

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That was a good exercise, I guess. I think it was six. I think it was six. So it was basically the rise and fall of Saul.

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And yeah, it was challenging. You know, I just had to pick things that I was going to skip. We were trying to do a series, kind of a jet tour through 1 and 2

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Samuel in preparation for Christmas. So I ended up preaching on the rise and fall of Saul.

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And so that was cool. You know, it's good to have to preach the Old Testament. And, you know, it helps being in seminary.

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I'm kind of always chomping at the bit now to preach Christ from the Old Testament and all these things.

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But I don't get as many opportunities as I'd like. So it was fun, even though it was challenging to just kind of go through and see.

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You know, what we see a lot in Saul is he sets up the need for an obedient king.

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Here you have a king, and it's what the people want, and he looks good on the outside. But at the end of the day, the expectation from Deuteronomy is we need a king who's going to obey.

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A king who's not going to just sacrifice, but is going to be obedient and actually in our stead to represent us, whether we want to call it federal headship or corporate solidarity or whatever.

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So it was fun to kind of draw that out and try to make the connection for the people at the church and show that this is actually from the text and that Christ is found.

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You know, we're not reading him in to the Old Testament, but he's there. He's actually there in the text, even,

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I would say, you know, in the authorial intent. You know, maybe not, they don't have the full knowledge, but he's there.

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It was intended to make you look forward to the greater king. So that was fun. Luke, I can't remember.

22:50

Is it Deuteronomy 13 that talks about the kings? What's the passage that what king should veer from, stay far away from?

22:58

I think it's Deuteronomy 15, but I don't know. And you know what? I think Abner Chau would be disappointed with me that I don't know this right off the top of my head.

23:09

That's bad news. I want to say. Well, can't you just tell me what it says just generally?

23:17

It's not Deuteronomy 15, and now I'm on the, at least we're not on the air, we're on the podcast. At least we're not on the air.

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So it basically just, well, you keep saying, I mean, I'm not trying to dog you, but you keep saying like, this is the Game and Drop, this is the podcast.

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Like, it's a radio. Someone's going to tune in. Well, I guess it is, huh? You do have a radio show. It's somewhere, it's radio.

23:38

That's right. We have, actually now it's Central America, Alaska, and Wyoming. So it's true.

23:44

Okay, so I take it back. You're my wise father. I do know

23:50

Deuteronomy 18 is the new prophet like Moses. That much I do. I think it might be the same.

23:57

No, it's 17. Deuteronomy 17. Deuteronomy 17. Since you're driving now. So anyways, I couldn't move on past that without saying that.

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But it talks about what the king is going to do. And it's interesting because there's no king yet in Israel.

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It's Moses writing this, and it's the law that's given. And it's this, it's almost this prophecy, not prophecy, but this statement that when you do this, when you reject

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Yahweh for being your king, and you set up a king over yourself. So this asking for a king is actually a rejection of Yahweh.

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This is what that king is going to need to do. So God's still going to work through this rejection of your king, which actually is interesting.

24:38

Think about that. God's going to give you the king that you need through your rejection of him as king, which,

24:47

I mean, does that sound familiar? But anyways, I digress. And the king that you need needs to be someone who doesn't accumulate many horses, doesn't accumulate gold, and writes a copy of the law in his, and copies out the whole law and makes his own copy.

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And it's kind of this idea of the king has to be the law man. He's the one who, he's the expert in the law.

25:12

He's the one who studies the law. And then what you see Samuel does is as he goes through the story of Saul, he points out all these different instances where if we have

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Deuteronomy 17 in mind, we know the king doesn't know the law. Or if he knows it, he's ignoring it.

25:30

So whether it means he's going to be the one to offer the sacrifice instead of waiting for the priest, or in his hesitancy to kill

25:38

Agag, King Agag, even though in Deuteronomy itself, Israel's commanded to wipe the

25:45

Amalekites clean from the earth, all these different instances, we get these hints that this king really doesn't know the law and he's not obedient and he's not the king we're looking for.

25:56

And so anyways, it was fun to draw that out. Luke, as I'm reading Deuteronomy 17, and you shouldn't, since you're driving, he shall write for himself, talking about the king on the throne.

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He shall write for himself in a book, a copy of this law approved by the Levitical priest.

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In other words, it's one thing to just read it. It's another thing to write it out yourself and then have somebody, the priest double check it and it shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the

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Lord, his God, by keeping all the words of this law and these statues and doing them.

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And I think that's very interesting, especially in light of, you know, what, what did Chow say? It was, uh, the things that you should...

26:41

Gold gals and giddy up. Gold gals and giddy up. Horses, riches, and wives.

26:48

So that's Deuteronomy 17. That's worth tuning into the radio show, not just podcast of No Compromise Radio.

26:57

Otherwise, Luke, I'd have to call it No Compromise Podcast. Yeah, that just doesn't have the same ring to it.

27:02

No, it doesn't. And, and what I don't like is when people call these things pods, because whenever I hear pod,

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I think of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Yeah, which, which actually is inappropriate movie.

27:13

So don't recommend it on the show. Well, I'm talking about the original one in the fifties and it was, it was the two things about that show,

27:20

Luke, the original one. Number one, it was talking about communism. That was really the theme of the show that people look just like your husband, but they're acting differently.

27:29

And so it was communistic takeover. Beware of communism. That was the first thread. And the second thing that was on board.

27:36

Yeah. And the second thing was at the very end, the man in San Francisco, the bridge or someplace close, looked into the camera and said, they're coming for you.

27:46

And that's called in Hollywood lore, breaking the screen, breaking it. Yeah. Breaking the fourth wall.

27:52

Yeah. Yeah. That's right. So anyway, that's probably better than breaking the fourth commandment. Yeah. Which is pretty popular or CV.

28:07

I know. Anyway, Luke, I'm glad we could talk a little bit today. A no compromise radio. We have said earlier that maybe, you know, once a month or something, uh, we have you on as you're driving home and we just have to deal with some

28:19

Spencer edits because if you drop out, then I just keep talking. Right. Like right now, you just broke the fourth wall.