The Insanity of Christian Marketing

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.

Daily Affirmations and the Problem of Christian Marketing

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and I always adjust this just like that. If you are wanting to write me, you can, info at nocompromiseradio .com. And right now, I�m doing a live Facebook.

You have to be on Facebook, and then at some kind of no-co group, Gnostically, you invite yourself, and then I can either say up or down and let you in the group. If you want to go to Israel with us, that is February 2022.

And for those of you that need some inspiring moments at the moment, I�m going to make sure I give you the daily affirmation for today because it�s important.

I declare that you will use your words to bless people. I will today. You will speak favor and victory over your family, friends, and loved ones. You will help call out their seeds of greatness, telling them, �I�m proud of you.

I love you. You�re amazing. You�re talented. You�re beautiful. You will do great things in life. I declare you�ll use your words to bless people. Well, there you have it.

It�s a nice little Joel cube. I can actually show that on the site there. I had two viewers, and the other one left, only Vicki remains. The other thing I�ve been doing, I just recorded a show on the Beza Briefing.

That�s what the book looks like. I know it�s backwards for you Facebook people, but it�s printed in Crawford, Edinburgh, and you can pick it up online. The Christian Faith by Theodore Beza. It is a concise systematic theology.

It�s a little bit more than, I thought somebody was calling me, a little bit more than a confession of faith, but less than a systematic theology. Speaking of which, systematic theologies are in the news.

Wayne Grudem has revised his famous systematic theology. I think he has sold 800 ,000 copies of systematic theology. I have it on my bookshelf someplace, but not because I like it, but because I just need to have it if you want to be charismatic, and if you want to have a couple of the wrong views, then you can use that.

He�s probably a fine man, but I don�t prefer it. In front of me today I have a Bible study magazine. So when I first got to the church years ago, 23 years ago, I thought it was fascinating because of what I would receive in the mail from people trying to sell me things as a pastor.

And they did all kinds of things, like if you buy this for the church and buy this for all the people, then you get something free, right? So I could benefit on the backs of the people, right? Remember the old picture catalogs, what are they called, a directory, picture directory?

And they�d always have, �Oh, the pastor, you get a couple free pictures if you bring these people in. And then I remember walking in one day and I saw the people who do the picture directories, and they give the directories for free, but they�re trying to sell individual pictures.

And there was kind of a poor family, and I saw them getting the high-pressure sales to buy portraits, and I just thought, �Something�s wrong with this. I wasn�t getting anything free, but the church was getting the free directories, and I�m like, �This is not worth it.

Nothing is free. Anyway, I get things like this in the mail. I get crazy things, but I think this is kind of fascinating because it gives me something to talk about since I no longer subscribe to Christianity Astray since it got so bad.

Can you imagine? Christianity Today, the magazine, got so bad that I couldn�t even use it anymore for No Compromise Radio. I could, but I refused to do that. So today we�re going to talk a little bit about modern evangelicalism, Big Eva, and if things get dull, I�m going to bring my chart out of the book of Revelation.

This actually can fold out, and there�s all kinds of things we could talk about in this large chart that would tell us what to do and when we�re going to get raptured. There�s the chart. All right. First thing I�d like to talk about is how marketing works in Christianity, and of course when I was taking marketing classes at the University of Nebraska, let�s see, I�m trying to think of the business hall, what it was called.

Hamilton Hall was where I took chemical engineering classes, but I don�t remember the business college name. And I remember the four P�s of marketing, product, place, price, and promotion. I remember those.

You probably remember those as well. But the first thing I do is I get a magazine like this and I realize the entire thing is trying to sell me things to buy, and that�s usually what happens if somebody sells.

There�s a buyer and a seller. But they�re bad things. They�re things that pastors don�t need or they shouldn�t want, and here�s what they�re trying to sell me on one of the first pages. Study scripture with theologians from around the world, and here�s what it�s called.

Majority World Theology, Christian Doctrine in Global Context. And when I read that, this is InterVarsity Press, I just think this is as stupid as it gets. This is, you know what, I can�t study the Bible because I�m white and I need to read black commentators, and I can�t understand hermeneutically the scriptures because of my white bias background.

That is a bunch of malarkey. That is a disaster. If I can�t understand the Bible, I�m not going to blame it on my whiteness, that�s for certain, and I�m not going to say I need to have the opposite of me to try to inform me.

If the person is a scholar, and they�re a wonderful scholar, and they�re from Africa and their name is Athanasius, okay, I read him, I have no idea what his skin color looked like. Why would I care? If you think about 1 Timothy chapter 2, there�s one mediator between man and God, the Jew Christ Jesus, it doesn�t say that, the Semitic Christ Jesus, the man Christ Jesus, and to be our representative, our advocate, our mediator, our savior, our substitute, the eternal God.

To use the language of Beza, since I just was using this a few minutes ago on the last show that you haven�t heard yet, but I recorded it, Jesus Christ, as to his divine nature, is the unique Son of the Father, without mother eternally begotten and not made, one God in essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit, co-eternal, consubstantial, equal with God his Father in all and through all.

And therefore, I see people, and you ought to see people, either in Adam, the first one, who by his actions as a representative federally affect the many, affect all except the Lord Jesus, and then the Lord Jesus, his federal headship as a representative affects the many, all those who would believe in him.

I don�t look at people and go, �Oh, you know what? They�re different color skin than I am, therefore I can be helped. And, you know, I need Eastern, Western, Asian, I don�t even know what I can say anymore.

Can I say colored? Can I say Asian? Can I say Oriental? I know I could say colored in South Africa because people are white, black, colored, right? That they�re just, you�re in between, you�re a mix. This is crazy.

Majority world theology. What if the majority of the world has awful, terrible theology? What if I look at 2 Timothy chapter 4, and I think, you know, people are heaping up teachers after their own desires, and maybe they are too.

I don�t want to go to a theological third world country, I didn�t say third world country, a theologically third world country. What if I say to myself, you know what, I need to have more German influence, even though I happen to be German, a large percentage.

The Germans these days, there are some exceptions, and I personally know them and enjoy teaching with them at the European Bible Training Center that I can�t go to anymore and have to do a Zoom class.

I have to do a Zoom class on preaching 15 students from around Europe. It will be in English because it�s a master�s degree program, so it has to be in English. How do I teach homiletics via Zoom? That�s a good question.

How do you do a no-co show via Zoom or via Facebook? Majority world theology, global context. You know, there was a day that there were good theologians in Germany. There was a day there were good theologians in France.

I�m talking about, you know, broadly speaking, generally speaking. But in the providence of God and the cycles and the cyclical nature of things, sometimes there are good theologians elsewhere, and sometimes they�re here.

And it happens, it just so happens, that these days, in these last days, the best theological resources are in English. And you say, �Well, I like Goldsworthy in Australia, English. I like so-and-so in England, English.

I�m trying to think of a theologian. What do I care? What do I care that I�m reading Beza in English, but it happened to be translated by James Clark? Here Beza comes to Geneva, and he is a person that ministers alongside of Calvin, and then he succeeds Calvin.

And it�s Geneva, but there�s France right there and French-speaking people, and, you know, what do I care? It matters not. Here�s what it says here in this magazine about this. �Bringing together theological resources from past and present, East and West, offers an unprecedented opportunity to enter conversations.

That�s like already a no-co, I�m going to la-la-la-la-la on that, �enter into a conversation. I don�t want conversations. By the way, if your pastor gives a conversation, verses heralding, I just was reading this morning, 2 Timothy 4 .2, you know, verse 1 talks about this solemn charge, right?

This courtroom adjuring, this oath-like language, �Raise your right hand and swear after me, regarding this great God and Christ Jesus, by the way, by His appearing and by His kingdom, you are to preach the word.

Right? Because He�s going to judge the living and the dead, and therefore, you preach the word. You preach in good times, you preach in bad times. You reprove, you rebuke, easy for me to say, you rebuke, I just had some kind of keto Slim Fast Bar.

It is not conducive to do radio, let alone FaceTime. We are to reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and doctrine, because the time�s going to come, he goes on to say, that people aren�t going to want to put up with it.

And so, when I think about this kind of conversation, no, it�s a herald. I want to herald. I don�t want to converse. I look at my commentaries, and that�s what I have behind me are commentaries. I have some books at home, some books here at the church library, my own church library here, and I don�t know what they are.

I mean, I guess if it says Karen Jobes, I guess I think to myself, woman, right? But I don�t know what she looks like. I don�t know how old she is or anything else. Most of them are written by men. Is that bad?

Would that be bad? Am I going to be patriarchal? Who knows what else am I going to be? I knew the word, but I couldn�t say it, nor did I want to. Anyway, I�m just going to tell you, brace yourself, dear listener, for this whole thing where, you know what, unless there are enough white people and black people and different kinds of people at your church, it�s going to be not good.

And I have told you many times before, as I look outside and I look at the town of West Boylston, I think we are 98 white in this little suburb of central Massachusetts. And the church happens to be, I don�t know, 70 white, 80 white.

So, people should be happy, right? I�m five times more diverse than the town. It�s just all crazy. So, when you think about studying theology, you pick the best theologians, the best exegetes, the best people that understood the Holy Spirit�s work through the church fathers into the Reformation, into the modern era.

You figure out those people and study. Who cares? Do I care who Vitsios was and what is the color of his skin, Coxaeus? Do I care what color Ersinus was, Caspar, Olivianus? I could care less, Luther, Calvin.

This is crazy. You have to be very, very careful when people try to sell you. You know what? You are prejudiced because of your skin color, and therefore, you can�t study the Bible because of who you are.

By the way, I thought God made me white. If this is white, whatever I am, this is how God providentially made me. I think it�s an attack on the Creator. You want to know why people�I�m reading Nahum now�why people hated Israel, they hated Judah?

I�ll give you the answer. Because God loved them. God loved the Israelites. He loved the Judahites, speaking generally, just the 12 tribes, Israel. And so, therefore, you have this seething hatred. What is the seething hatred about?

And even the carry-on now with Judaism and anti-Semitic people. What explains that? I�ll tell you what that explains, how it�s explained. I just posted on Twitter the other day. People gave me a low review on iTunes because the show had me talking to myself and laughing about my own jokes and poor editing.

You know what? Guilty on charges 1, 2, and 3. But this is the best theological humor that you�ll ever get. And they also said that this show has no pride in it all, he�s very humble, self-effacing. Anyway, I�m rambling.

My name is Mike Avendroth, this is No Compromise Radio. You can join this group, this Facebook group, if you want. All you have to do is ask. And so far, I don�t think I�ve had to kick anybody out. There are certain people I didn�t let in, but so far, you�ve all minded your manners and so I haven�t had to kick anybody out because we don�t really do anything on this channel anyway.

So be careful. You just study the Bible. Find the best. Forget what they look like. And if somebody�s pressuring you to read some kind of white privilege book or this or that or the other, you just say, �No, thank you.

Spend your book. You know what? Why don�t you buy books by Jerry Bridges? So that�s going to be the person I�m going to promote today. I�m going to promote a white theologian named Jerry Bridges. He was bald.

He had glasses. He was a humble man. And you ought to read everything you can by Jerry Bridges. Let�s say you don�t like Calvin because he�s from France. Who likes French people these days? Just kidding.

Maybe you don�t like Luther because he was German. Okay, let me give you a bald white guy from America. And if you read his books, you�re going to be blessed. The Gospel for Real Life, you ought to read that.

I had a friend, he read that 30 times because he needed to be extracted from the life of a Christian that everybody says needs to be excelling or else you�re not a Christian. And if you have had bad days or do have bad days and you�re not completely surrendered and completely yielded and not having, you know, the days that other Christians have, spectacular, super, wonderful, extraordinary, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious stuff.

But I shouldn�t say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious because I think that�s what a witch said in a Disney movie. So that�s strike two, strike one, witch, strike two, Disney. You ought to read Trusting God Even When Life Hurts about the sovereignty of God written in a very practical way.

You ought to read Respectable Sins because most of us, probably those watching, we don�t deal with unrighteousness as much as we have to deal with self-righteousness. And so today, I�m just going to say once again, we�re going to be promoting a bald guy with glasses who happened to be white.

See, why would that even matter? Let�s say that Jerry Bridges was Chinese. Would I care? Well, not until they invade us. Are you stocked up on ammo? Well, the currency in the future is ammo, food, antibiotics.

It might happen, I don�t know. Try to get a box of ammo these days, very, very difficult. I also want to talk a little bit with my time remaining because I�m still looking at this magazine here, what they try to sell pastors.

So that means what they try to sell churches, because what they try to sell me, they want me to sell to you. They�re trying to sell to me to be multicultural, multi-racist, multi-racist, there�s only one thing that would be worse than a racist, and that is a multi-racist.

They�re trying to sell me to do all this stuff. I can�t study with only white theologians. I can�t study with only French or German. They have to be from South Africa. What about Nigerian? What about from Kenya?

And there are probably some great theologians from all across the world, except like Iceland, but they don�t count anyway, right? Greenland. Have you studied Greenland theologians lately? So they�re going to try to get me to buy this so I make you buy it.

No, no, that�s not what we�re going to do. We are going to just week in and week out, preach verse by verse, high view of Christ, low view of man, great view of the Savior, realistic view of humans regarding anthropology.

What else are they trying to save me? Here�s what they�re trying to save me. Now, the Bible program that I use most regularly is Logos, and you might say that�s Logos. And since I will say Lagos, it�s just, you know, you have an omicron, we think in Greek language from 2 ,000 years ago, is a short A sound, like ah.

And if it was an omega, the O would be a long O. Logos would be omega, but they�re omicrons, and so I say Logos. So I do use Logos, but here�s what I want to say when it comes to Logos. It�s just a tool, that�s all.

Bible programs are just tools, that�s all they are. And I don�t mean that in a derogatory sense, like it�s such a tool, I don�t mean that at all. But here�s what I want. I put busy work to rest. I want you to realize they�re trying in this magazine to make it seem like this does all its work.

That�s all I need is Logos to prepare sermons for me. Ultimately, that would be plagiarism, and also, I have the joy of studying. That�s one of the greatest things about my occupation, is that I get to study the Bible, right?

I get to study a Bible, and then I get to preach. But I don�t want somebody else to study. Over the years, I studied commentaries not up front anymore. They�re at the end. I want to make sure I know that I�m not deviated, and I�m not off track theologically, so I will consult commentaries.

And there are experts in this, and I�m just kind of a generalist, as it were, when it comes to the Bible. And so, there are many reasons to study commentaries, and you should. You should have some commentaries.

If you don�t have any other commentary, you should have a good study Bible, ESV Study Bible, which would give you some comments. But the single volume best commentary, I just was reading Nahum�s stuff today, Wycliffe Bible Commentary.

It�s not written by Wycliffe, but it�s called Wycliffe Bible Commentary. Single volume, great scholarship. You can have around. You could pass to your kids, your grandkids. It�s a great tool that they�ll always use.

Think like pliers, crescent wrench, screwdriver, used regularly and often. And so, these things are tools, but when I read things in here on Lagos and what it helps me to do as a pastor, it says, �Never lose your audience.

How can this Bible program help me not lose my audience? Now, if truth be told, I think I�m fairly energetic when it comes to teaching the Bible. I�m 60 years old. The body�s failing me in many areas, but I try to just pour my heart out, as Spurgeon would say, and this would be important for you parents trying to teach your children the Bible or Bible Sunday school.

Remember when we used to have Sunday schools? It was a school on Sundays before church. And I try to pour my heart out. Remember Spurgeon said, �Get on fire for the Lord and people will come and watch you burn.

I want even the pagans to sit there and go, �That guy believes it. I think he�s a kook, but he certainly believes it. How is a Bible program going to help me not lose my audience? Okay? You ready?

Here�s what it says. They�re trying to sell me this, so I try to sell you this. And it�s the easy way out, it�s the lazy way out, and everything in life that�s the most wonderful takes hard work. This side of salvation.

I�m not talking about grace here. I�m just talking about work. I�m talking about law. Here�s what it says. Logos comes with a built-in word processor designed specifically for sermon prep. Once you�re done writing your manuscript or outline, just tap �preach.

Okay, really? Are you ready for this? Just tap �preach and it�s instantly transformed into an easy-to-read format with your slides clearly in view. There�s even a built-in timer to give you a heads up if you�re going long.

And then it gives me this dumb little slide thing. Let�s even go further. I know I�m going to offend some people, but if you have to use PowerPoint, and you�re not preaching, that�s not preaching. That�s PowerPointing.

By the way, not that long ago, PowerPoint has been around, since it�s been around such a long time, they�ve done all kinds of studies and they realized it doesn�t help retain attention at all, or memory or anything else.

But all that to say, if you want to use PowerPoint for a missionary update, a Sunday night thing, you�re going to put something up, some kind of map or something, okay, I get it. But really, PowerPoint?

You have the Word of God that is I was going to pick up the Message Bible, but that�s not the Word you have the Word of God, and it�s alive. And it�s got the drama of all drama, the drama of redemption.

And I�m going to need a prop? I�m going to need to put a Clint Eastwood clip up? You got to be kidding me. I�m just going to click �preach and everything�s transformed into wonderful slides. No, I think I�ll have my pencil and my paper and some commentaries and then ask God, the Holy Spirit, to help me when I teach.

My name is Mike Abendroth with No Compromise Radio. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God�s Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.