Gospel Genre

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

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

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My name is Mike Abendroth. I'm usually in the studio on Saturdays, but it is a

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Friday today. Actually the day I'm recording this show, it is what some people call Good Friday.

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Maybe we could call it Great Friday, Good, Better, Best, Best Friday. Well anyway, if the world can draw attention to the death of Jesus Christ as a substitutionary sacrifice,

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I'm happy. But we have, of course, in the Christian calendar, 52 special days, and today isn't one of them.

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You can certainly have a service if you'd like. You don't have to. You can have a Mound Day Thursday, just another manic

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Mound Day, and you can do whatever you'd like. But in terms of Sundays, that is prescribed versus do whatever you like.

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You can write me, Mike, at NoCompromiseRadio .com or info at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

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We still have a few kooks who write, but if you're not a kook, I'll read the article unless it's something that Spencer can help you with.

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You can go to the website, NoCompromiseRadio .com. If you order a book, Sexual Fidelity, we will send you, through May, things that go bump in the church for free.

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I think that's a $14 .99 value right there. So you get the regular book and that one. I haven't been working on books very often as of late, maybe the last three or four years, but I do need to get the

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S. Lewis Johnson Colossians commentary tidied up and off to probably create space since Zondervan hasn't even made their money back on the advance.

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Neither have I. Well, I have been doing a lot of Hebrews work, as you know, instead of, you know, common current events, rather.

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But today I'm not going to talk about Hebrews. Oh, maybe I'll give a verse here or there. But of course, since I'm thinking about the resurrection, since it will be

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Resurrection Sunday soon, it will already have played by the time, it will already have gone past since the time, you know, you've heard this.

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But I'm thinking about it in real time, future time, NOCO time. And by the way, you can follow us at Facebook.

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I don't really interact too much there, but there's a No Compromise Facebook deal. There's a closed group if you want to get in on that.

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There's some videos there and Twitter at NOCO Radio. We have lots of polls.

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You might want to take a poll on the Twitter. Some people call it the Twitter. But I was thinking about the resurrection and I thought, okay, what do

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I preach on Sunday where when we celebrate Resurrection Sunday? And I know we talk about the resurrection every single

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Sunday and we worship the risen Savior Jesus every single Sunday, yet there are many people who are unbelievers and they will attend on Christmas and Easter, right,

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CEO Christians, Christmas and Easter only. And people invite friends and relatives and spouses, et cetera.

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Well, that makes me think, should I have a message especially for that? And in addition, it breaks up the

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Hebrews messages. It's been very hard in Hebrews 9, difficult, abstract concepts.

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And then that helps congregation. And lastly, but of course not leastly, it helps me because I'm working on Hebrews 9 right now, 11 to 14 for the next sermon.

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And the resurrection sermon that I would work on wouldn't take as long as the

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Hebrews message because I understand the resurrection better than I understand some of the stuff in Hebrews.

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I've already taught the resurrection. I know the accounts of the resurrection. I don't know the book of Hebrews as well in terms of the past training that I've had and studies.

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Anyway, that's why we're doing the resurrection message on Sunday. Well, that's the lead into this.

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I didn't really know what to do with the resurrection in terms of what passage I would preach. I'm just not going to talk about the resurrection without a passage and do kind of the audible -ing like a quarterback would, 4 .16,

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8 .32, 3 .16, 8 .1 for verses. I want to settle in in a passage and that's what

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I want the congregation to see for themselves. Oh, I understand this. I see the context and I actually know this passage better now because of what the pastor did in terms of explanation since we paid his plumbing bills and his light bills for him so he can study.

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Excuse me. Wow, I need some more Pete's coffee, I guess. Anyway, so I thought, well,

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I could do Acts 17. I haven't done that for a long time. Mars Hill, Areopagus, Paul, that was wonderful to stand there and preach

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Acts 17 when I was there years ago, I think a few times now, two, three,

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I don't know. By the way, if you want to go with us to Israel, we are going,

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Omaha Bible Church with Pat Ebendroth, late February, like the last 10 days of February, 2020.

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And if you want to write for more, probably within a year or so, we'll have more details in terms of registration, signups and everything, but you should start saving your money.

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I think my wife is going to go with me this time and maybe oldest daughter, and we are going to go to Israel and I haven't talked to Pat about this yet, but I'm going to try to get the extension to go to Rome since Jerusalem is one of my all time favorite cities.

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And so is Rome. Rome is kind of got the, you know, it's fun because it's a modern city and it's got good food and, and, uh, espresso, gelato, et cetera.

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And it's got a religious background as well. Some more ancient and some more modern.

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So resurrection. So here's what I did all this to lead into. I read the resurrection accounts from Matthew, from Mark, from Luke, from John, the gospel of Jesus Christ, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

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And I wanted to see, in fact, how they describe things, right?

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There's four gospels that we have, four accounts. And I thought, well, what's the emphasis and is everyone written the exact same way?

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I mean, I already knew the answer to that question, but I went from Acts 17 to look at the four gospels.

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And then I thought, you know what? I'm so impressed. I'm so fascinated that that's going to be my sermon is looking at the four accounts of the resurrection from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John's perspective to help you, the listener in NoCoWorld or at BethlehemBibleChurch .org,

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you can understand the resurrection of Jesus Christ better. Well, since this is my radio show and I can talk about what

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I'd like to talk about, let's discuss firstly, or discuss first, what is a gospel?

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I mean, I know gospel means good news, and it's centered around the person and work of Jesus, God, the triune

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God, granting amnesty, as it were, clemency to rebels through his son's work, right?

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God requires obedience. We didn't obey. Adam didn't obey. Israel didn't obey the son of the

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Lord Jesus. He did. And we have disobeyed, and therefore we need to be punished for that.

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And Jesus was punished in our place. Even though he didn't disobey, he obeyed, yet he was punished for us.

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And that's a topic, that's a theme in the Bible of sacrifice and substitute, right?

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But what is a gospel? Now, there's all kinds of literature in the Bible, poetry and prose, wisdom literature, doctrinal epistles, narratives.

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Many people think, I do not know what's going on with my voice here. Many people think that the gospel is a category in and of itself in terms of genre.

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What kind of document are we reading when we're reading a gospel? That's the question that Michael Kruger says we should ask.

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What kind of document are we reading? Many people have said that the kind of genre that the gospels are is something called a bioi,

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B -I -O -I. I think the O -I is a oi, so it's bioi, like biography, bio.

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It is a Roman, Greek, Greco -Roman biography, and I have read,

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I think, only one Greco -Roman biography, and that was Suetonius, and that was the

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Caesars. Was it the Twelve Caesars? A pretty corrupt book, I think, in terms of chronicling the corruption of the

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Caesars. You can imagine if you've got that much power, what kind of corruption will come forth.

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Henceforth comes corruption. Is that a new movie? Henceforth comes corruption.

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Maybe that's the name of the show today. Is it a simple narrative? Is it influenced by these bios, if we want to call them that?

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Well, what some scholars will say, and I like Kruger, and Kruger will say, don't forget that these authors were

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Jewish. And Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, at least if Luke isn't

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Jewish, and I don't think he is, of course, I think he's a Gentile doctor, but there's a

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Hebrew connection. These people have tied in their story to the

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Hebrew Bible, at least. You've got three Jewish guys writing, and one Gentile, but still with all kinds of overlap into the

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Jewish world. They, the Gospels, have a structure of these kind of Greco -Roman biographies, but they are dependent upon and connected to the

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Old Testament in terms of their narrative. You can kind of almost say it's like a covenant document.

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Meredith Klein argued that very thing. He said, quote, the book of Exodus appears to have the same thematic focus and to exhibit comprehensively the same literary structure as the

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Gospels. The book of Exodus is an Old Testament gospel, the gospel of Moses.

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And Klein, in Kleinian style, hyphen style, lots of times he did hyphen words.

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He would kind of make up, he didn't make up the words, but put together with a hyphen, they were Kleinian type of thing.

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He talks about covenants and covenant mediators and what the covenant mediator expects in terms of law.

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And he's got the tie -in to Exodus with these Gospels. And, of course, you've got Moses in Exodus, and you've got the new

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Moses, Jesus. There's an Exodus into the promised land in Exodus, and there is an

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Exodus that's being led by the new Jesus, or rather the new

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Exodus by Jesus. There's new laws, bread from heaven, sacrifice, that is

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Passover, final sacrifice. And there's some tie -ins. Kruger says this, quote, if indeed our

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Gospels should be construed as covenant documents, two important implications follow.

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First, the covenantal nature of these books means they are not so much human testimony about God.

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And here comes the drum roll. I'm waiting for the drum roll. But rather God's testimony to humans about the terms of his covenant through Jesus.

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So let me repeat that again, because I think that's important. The covenantal nature of these books means that there are not so much, they are not so much human testimony about God, but rather God's testimony to humans about the terms of the covenant through Jesus.

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In other words, God makes this covenant, this divine covenant, and you have a gospel that is a kind of a legal, what does

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Kruger call it, a divine witness on behalf of covenant keepers and against covenant breakers.

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And there's going to be this continuity between old and new. And of course, if you focus on authors as humans, which you can, there'll probably be more discontinuity in your mind, or there potentially could be at least.

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But if you're focused on the one divine author, the triune God, and there's one book, one theme, one issue, one person, then there's going to be more continuity between the old and the new.

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If you had to summarize everything when it comes to the four gospels, maybe you would not just say they're biographies about Jesus, but they're theological biographies.

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When you read 1 and 2 Kings, for instance, you're not just reading the history of Israel and Judah, you're reading theological history.

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There are some things that are included, some things that are excluded, things for purposes.

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Sometimes there are arrangements that are not chronological because the author wants you to see the theme.

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And you can notice that in Matthew chapter 8 and 9, the power of Jesus, all these great things that he has done omnipotently that are arranged there so every reader would realize this is not a normal man.

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This is a man, but he is the God -man. Klein didn't do that one, but it made me think of Klein.

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So the genre, you might say simply history, but I think you're going to have to say it's a theological history, a theological biography with a lot of covenant overtones and the covenant maker, covenant mediator, covenant breakers, and a covenant keeper, the

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Lord Jesus, tied into the history of Israel and the

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Old Testament. Therefore, Jewish Christian content in a

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Greco -Roman form. Well, that's probably enough right there to stop.

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15 minutes in. Who's texting me, by the way? All these texts. All right.

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Oh, this is funny. I have this text that I don't know if we've ever played this.

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We don't really have the... I have the technology. I just don't really know how to do it. Oh, I know why that's not happening.

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Something's going on with our internet at church, and if I try to do the Wi -Fi, it doesn't play, so I have to just do it outside of the

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Wi -Fi. And it just flashes, and it doesn't work. Just a heads up.

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I will be in Ohio with my friend, John Tucker. Oh, there it is.

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Okay, there. All right. Our God is so great, and he is so gracious that he gives us freedom to make our own choices, and then we become responsible for those choices.

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This next... Hey, how did I lose that song? This next song, come on.

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There she is. On the freedom that he gives us. It's a whole song about free will, but you know what

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I especially like is... I set the boundaries of the ocean vast.

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That's not me singing. Carved out the mountains from the distant past.

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That's true. He's got power. Molded a man from the miry clay.

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That's true. Out of the earth, Adam. Breathed in him life, but he went astray.

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It's so far so good. I hold the waters in my mind's hand. I don't mean the quality of singing. Spread out the heavens with a single strand.

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Wow, the infinite creator, transcendent. Make all creation tremble at my voice.

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Power, Psalm 29. Let my own sons come to me by choice.

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Oh. I own the cattle on a thousand hills.

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This is my theme when I go to John Tucker's church, community church in Beloit, Ohio, mid -May.

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Control the planets with their rocks and rails.

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But give you freedom to use your own will. Now, that is as good as it gets, isn't it?

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The free will song on YouTube. I think it from Pensacola is where that is all taking place.

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That's true. And sheep will recognize the shepherd's call.

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Sheeple. I could demand your love. I own you twice.

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But only willing love is worth the price.

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Ooh. That is amazing to me.

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I write the music for the whippoorwills. I write the music for the whippoorwills, and there's a minute and 51 seconds to still go.

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I can't take it. I just learned about a pastor who will not preach to the book of Romans verse by verse because there's chapter 9 in there.

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Well, you know, the congregation might get upset, right? What's in the Bible. We're kind of embarrassed.

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That's translated into, I care what the congregation thinks more than I care what the

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Lord thinks. If the pastor said, I haven't talked to him, but if that pastor said,

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I'm not going to preach to Romans right now because while I'm Calvinistic, the church is

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Arminian, and I'm just working through things, and we're going to teach the gospel of John first, and they'll see the sovereignty of God there, or we're doing

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Galatians because they're adding works into their standing before God, and I want to deal with that problem.

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I mean, there are pastoral reasons to teach certain things. We don't want to do Ephesians 1 yet because, you know, unconditional election.

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And so we're going to do that in a couple of years as I lay the groundwork for the sovereignty of God, and I teach through Jonah.

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I think that's fair, don't you? I think there's a strategy. I think that pastor's first sermons don't need to be

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Romans 9. I get that. I understand. Yet, if you say,

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I'm never going to preach it because of that, it's going to split the church. It's going to cause divisions. Well, that's what truth does.

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When someone said to me, well, you say you're going to preach all the

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Bible if you live long enough. I don't think I'll ever make it, but that's my strategy. That's my goal.

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And you're never going to preach a Song of Solomon. And I said, okay, watch me.

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I actually read one commentary. I think it was some kind of communicators Bible commentary, and it said, don't preach.

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Song of Solomon is not suitable for Sunday morning worship service preaching. And I thought, well, how can that be?

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I mean, maybe Jesus should have said to us, by the way, the Canon for the Jews, there's one extra book in there and you better take it out.

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We would have all gotten ready with our pencils, excise pencils, or whatever those little blades are.

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And we would have excised Song of Solomon. And I don't know if I talked about Jesus enough in the sermons.

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I'm still not convinced that it's all about Jesus at the micro level.

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But just broadly speaking, when you think about husbands and wives and marriage and everything else, what came first?

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Marriage or God's idea to rescue the bride. And I think the answer is on an

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Ephesians chapter five and Titus one and other places. Anyway, if you say

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I'm not going to teach a certain book because what it's going to do, and I'm just not going to do that, then

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I think you're a kook. But if you say I have a strategy and first we're going to teach

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Jonah and then we're going to do the gospel of John and then we're going to do Titus and then we're going to do Romans.

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Okay. Let's look totally legit. What's also illegitimate is if you go to Romans one and preach through chapter eight and nothing shall separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

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And then you stop short of death, short of getting kicked to Strasbourg.

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But if you're Calvin and you come back to Geneva, you pick up in Romans nine. I mean, that's not what Calvin did, but he picked up where he left off in other words.

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And what you have to do is you have to say, well, we might not like what's in this book,

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Romans nine. The reason we don't like it is because we're not infinite. We're not sinless.

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We are prideful. And we, when confronted by the utter and naked sovereignty of God, our knee -jerk sinful response since we're tainted by the fall is to rebel, is not to like it.

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While we want sovereignty in our own lives, we don't want sovereignty over us.

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We want to be the sovereigns. And even that shows that we are image bearers, that we're made in God's likeness and image when we're wanting to be sovereign.

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Hey, you're not sovereign over us means we're sovereign over you. And that song,

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I think, by the Pensacola singers, I don't know what they're called, but it's

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Pensacola. That's like a good Saturday Night Live skit, the free will song.

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And if I had a radio show, I'd start playing the song and then talk in between some of the lyrics.

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I think that's just what I did. You can write me, mike at no compromise radio .com. If you want to write a letter, you can send it to us,

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Bethlehem Bible Church, 307 Lancaster Street, West Boylston, Mass 01583.

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And if you're in Central Mass and you are even someplace beyond that, we're going to have

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R. Scott Clark here. Dr. Clark is going to be at Bethlehem Bible Church in mid -October, I think something like the 11th, 12th, and 13th for a conference.

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Dr. Clark is going to talk about biblicism, he's going to talk about law gospel stuff, and some of the topics that I will personally assign him.

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I think we need to have him back on the show, and I think he's been listening. You have benefited from his ministry.

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Well, we're trying to land the plane here. We've talked about Greco -Roman, biblical, theological, genre, bios, etc.,

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and we're going to tune in next time, hopefully you'll tune in, and we'll talk about the differences between the four gospels,

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Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministries. 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.