Mailbags-R-Us

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. Mike Abendroth here with Steve Cooley. I'm underwater. I know what it's like to journey to the bottom of the ocean in terms of my nasal sinus cavities. Indeed. And we are talking about issues in the local church today.

Listener Mail and the Day's Topics

Today we have accumulated some letters that we have received. Originally, Steve, I had billed the show where there'd be live call-in, except with 24 minutes. You don't really have a lot of time for call-in, and it's difficult since our studio's here at the church.

My friend Tom Krause, who's on at two o 'clock, he has a full hour. He does the show at the studio down at V &E headquarters in Auburn. It's a little bit easier. So what we do now is we'll save up some letters.

If you want to write us at info at nocompromisedradio .com, info at nocompromisedradio .com, you can write us with a positive letter, with a scathing rebuke. A brick bet, as it were. That's right. And we'll talk about some of those questions at a to-be-announced date later.

And so Steve's accumulated some of those, and we're going to talk about that today. If you don't like the first topic, we'll make sure to quickly slide on to the next one. Always biblical, always provocative, always hilarious, always in that order.

Woo! Okay, well, we've received a few emails asking us some questions. One individual wanted to know if we believe that the King James Version was the only inspired in English version. And so my question for you, Pastor Mike, is what is inspiration?

What does it mean that the text is inspired? And can the King James be considered inspired?

Inspiration, Inerrancy, and the King James Version

Well, this is a question, Steve, that I used to get a lot when I got here to the church 13 years ago. I would answer the phone, hi, this, and I had no secretary or anything. It didn't have you or anyone else.

And I'd say, hi, this is Bethlehem Bible Church. And they'd say, what translation do you use? And I thought at the beginning, oh, it's an innocent question. We, at the time, we used it for the first year, NIV, here's what we do.

Here's how I do my exegesis. Here's how I studied the original Greek and Hebrew, et cetera, et cetera. I went on this whole long thing, Steve. And then it was basically click because they said, oh, King James is the only Bible.

And sadly, that kind of questioning, it feeds, you know, here's what James White says. Let me give you a quote. The King James-only controversy feeds upon the ignorance among Christians regarding the origin, transmission, and translation of the Bible.

Those who have taken the time to study this area are not likely candidates for induction into the King James-only camp.

Yeah, in other words, the more you know, the less you are likely to be a King James-version-only person.

It would be so much easier if, like Moroni, God delivered the text down from heaven and transplanted it right to Pensacola Bible Institute, Peter Ruckman's door, and said, this is the text. Steve, you know, some kind of large family Bible, something very heavy and with a big, thick cover.

And, you know, room for great-grandmas and great-grandpas and all their birthplaces and everything else. Well, ultimately, though, let me get back to this. What does it mean when the Bible says that it is inspired?

What does that mean?

Well, I take a deep breath and I'm inspiring, or if I blow out, I'm expiring. 2 Timothy 3 is the passage that people go to, and most people should go to, when Paul is writing to Timothy and he says, all scripture, referring to the Old Testament at the time, and of course we know it carries on to the new, all scripture is God breathe.

It's a breathing outward. It's not necessarily breathing inward. I think of Whitney Houston if she says, oh, I was so inspired for this song. She's so inspired she can't even get a Grammy nomination these days, but that's another point.

Or the Grand Canyon is inspiring.

Oh, it's inspiring, and so this kind of word is just thrown around like some football these days, back and forth. By the way, speaking of football, I want Sue to win the Heisman Trophy.

Okay, nice aside, and by the way, that was an anointed answer.

Oh, it was very anointed. Maybe it should have been Sue-eth should get that, but I want people to realize that when the text says that God's, all scripture is God breathe, God breathes this out. He gives the truth, and this truth in the original manuscripts are free from error of any kind.

No scientific error, no chronological error. The scripture is not just inspired God breathed out, but also inerrant, free from errors, absolutely true. As one man says, the Bible contains the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

So help it. So help, that's like when God swears to himself. Do you swear to tell the truth, nothing but the truth, and everything but the truth? So help me, me. That's how God swears in Hebrews chapter.

There's no higher authority, right? That's it. Absolutely. And so we want to make sure when we understand scripture that we can't say of any translation outside of the original manuscripts that they are truly inspired.

The King James Bible is not inspired. It's a fine Bible, but why would there be so many mistakes in some kind of advanced inspired Bible like the 1611?

Yeah, I mean, it had to undergo revisions and there are a number of issues there. So obviously it cannot, I mean, wasn't there a version of the King James Bible called the, what was that? The Sinner's Bible or something like that?

Oh, the Wicked Bible? The Wicked Bible.

Thou shalt commit adultery. You have to quick get rid of those things.

Just a little printer's error, but you know, it makes the point that a translation is a translation. You cannot perfectly, you can't reconstitute the original language perfectly in a translation and they're not supposed to.

Well, which translation do we want to look at, Steve, in terms of being inspired when this email erode us, this listener erode us? Would that be the 1611 that they think is inspired off the press of Robert Barker?

Would that be the one with changes and additions, the 1612 or the 1613 or the 1616, the 1629 or the 1638?

Which one would they pick? Well, I think he chose the 1611 because the others are abominable.

Well, yeah, you know, and why do they have such a vicious attitude? You know, they write in all capitals. You've got some new age Bible translation, misquoting Psalm 12 as their justification. I think it's, they're very angry.

That would be a good Saturday Night Live skit, wouldn't it? You can have the angry King James only people.

Fighting fundies, that's where they get the name. It's not an accident. But, well, let me ask you this then, about the original manuscripts, because we talk about that. You know, when Paul wrote a letter, when Peter wrote his letters, when Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke and he wrote the Book of Acts, do we have those original manuscripts?

And since we don't, I'll just give it away. We don't have the original manuscripts. How can we know what's supposed to be in the Bible?

Well, that's a good question. And now we're getting back to the canon of scripture, C-A-N-O-N. Which books of the Bible? Are there 66? Are there fewer? Are there more? Which 66? How do we constitute the books of the Bible?

And when the word canon is derived from the Greek canon, isn't that interesting? K-A-N-O-N, which is a carpenter's rule. It's a measurement, you know, something for measuring something six cubits long.

That would be Hebrew kanah, Q-A-N-E-H. And so how do we get the canon? Of course, the Catholics tell us that's very easy. What do they say?

They say the church picked the canon, that the church infallibly chose the canon of scripture, that they infallibly put the Bible together. And that would be, that's right.

But that is improper. Contrary to that thinking, we don't use words like determine the canon. The scriptures are not determined, but they are recognized, are discovered as biblical. I know, Steve, you liked the book by Geisler and Nix, a general introduction to the Bible.

But on page 136, there's the correct view and the incorrect view of the church and the canon. Let me give you a view. You tell me if you think it's correct or incorrect.

All right, I've got my thinking glasses on. I'm in fear and trepidation here. It's so easy, though.

You'll be fine. The church is the determiner of the canon or the church is discoverer of the canon. Discoverer. All right, good. Well, you got to get all five right to win anything. The church is mother of the canon or the church is child of the canon?

Child of the canon. It's the mother and child reunion, isn't it? No. All right. That was Paul Simon. The church is magistrate of the canon or the church is minister of the canon? Minister of the canon.

And you know, Steve doesn't have these answers in front of him either. He's looking very hesitant. Just shooting from the hip. Absolutely. The church is regulator of the canon or the church is recognizer of the canon?

Recognizer. Good. And last but not least, for those of you that like five fingers, five points, five solas, here's the fifth view. The church is judge of the canon or the church is witness of the canon?

Can I get a drum roll? Witness of the canon. All right, there's the drum roll. That's exactly right. And so we want to make sure that when we look at the canon, whether it's Old Testament canon or New Testament canon, that we are under this book.

We are not over this book. And so when you, by the way, I'd say if you have not read any book on the canon, you ought to get yourself Geisler and Nix, a general introduction to the New Testament. New Testament or the whole Bible?

To the Bible, I think. I think it's the New Testament, but it could be the whole Bible. You could be right, yeah. That would be a great book so you can understand where these books fit in and how did the church, both in the East and the West, recognize these books to be biblical, written by the apostles, someone who has a close association with the apostle.

It's an excellent thing to do. And when I think of inspiration and inerrancy, Steve, I just think of people who, when they don't understand these things, they fall easily into the prey.

Oh, we've got to have this book. It's the King James only. Everything else is an abomination. Well, and it really gets down to, in fact, I really even said here, if we don't have them concerning the other manuscripts, how do we know that the Bible is what God intended?

And ultimately, it depends on our view of God. If somehow we think that the, I mean, the King James only people would have you understand it as God once and for all revealed the truth to the men who put together the King James Bible, and I have a number of issues with that.

Number one is, you know, they love the Textus Receptus. What they fail to understand is it was put together by Erasmus, in part, an unbeliever who didn't even have a complete Greek New Testament to work with, so he actually fudged parts of it.

You know, and that's the basis for this inspired book, the inspired man Erasmus, who didn't believe, certainly was not a Christian. But furthermore, it really gets down to, what's your view of God? Is he sovereign?

Is he able to preserve his word? Or is he somehow subject to the depredations of man where, you know, hey, these evil men, they corrupted the transcripts, they changed it?

Well, you've hit the nail on the proverbial head because if there are corruptions in the manuscripts, well then, and we've got to toss them out, like some of the King James only people want to toss out Westcott and Hort, then we ought to toss out Erasmus, this defender of the mass, this defender of transubstantiation, and this man who couldn't find some kind of manuscript evidence for 1 John 5, 7 to 8, so he just searched around until he did.

Verse 7 and 8 of King James Version Translation, I don't know if it's 1611, 1612, what it is, but it's King James Version. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.

And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood, and these three agree in one. You can get thousands of Greek manuscripts, according to Bruce Metzger of the New Testament, and you can't find anything back in those days except three that were known, are known, they figured out, help me, Steve, I don't know why.

Well, and it gets down to, there are a number of, we have literally thousands of Greek manuscripts, and here's what we've done to get to where we are today. They compare those manuscripts, they figure out which are the most accurate, and there are a number of ways that they do that, which would be the most, if there's a variation on a word, and we're talking about small details.

Sorry about that. Yeah, we're all struggling with various illnesses, but they will look at, they have means of looking at individual words if there's a variation, and determining which is the more likely, based on which is the more likely to have been miswritten or something of that nature.

And so over the last several decades, many experts have looked over all these thousands of manuscripts and put together what we think is virtually indistinguishable from what the original manuscripts would have been.

If they vary, it's a very small variation and would have absolutely no impact on a translation.

That's right, and now I know what I was thinking about. WVNE 760, this is No Compromise Radio Ministry with Mike and Steve. If you listen to President Obama give one of his presidential addresses, and you were sitting next to 5 ,000 professional stenographers, and they all took copious notes, and they were doing this for a living, and they were excellent note takers, and then we destroyed Obama's manuscript and then put those 5 ,000 together, do you think you could come up with a 99 .99 accurate witness of what President Obama said?

Absolutely.

That's what we're doing with the New Testament. Absolutely, the differences would be minuscule, and it's exactly the same thing. And again, ultimately it depends on what kind of God you believe in. Do you believe in a God who speaks and things come into being, who is able to preserve his word, who values his word, who wants the church to have the word, or do you believe in a God who's just kind of hopeless, helpless, and can't really do much to defend the revelation that he has given mankind?

And if you believe in that sort of God,.

Then you don't know the God of the Bible. Maybe we should teach people how to speak in English in other countries so they can have the Bible in their own language. Yeah, so they can have the original,.

The original 1611. You know what one of my profs used to say? If it was good enough for the Apostle Paul,.

It's good enough for me. Absolutely, the first Baptist was John the Baptist. Here's a closing word from a little quote here I have in front of me, and this is from, actually, Charles Wesley. Charles Wesley, not Charlie Crane.

Yeah, well that's Charlie Crane. I'm gonna interview him tomorrow, I think, for the show. The Bible must be the invention either of good angels, of good men, bad men, or devils are of God. One, it could not be the invention of good men or angels, for they neither would or could make a book and tell lies all the time they were writing it, saying, thus saith the Lord, when it was their own invention.

Two, it could not be the invention of bad men or devils, for they would not make a book which commands all duty, forbids all sin, and condemns their soul to hell to all eternity. Three, therefore I draw this conclusion, that the Bible must be given by divine inspiration.

That's right, I mean, one of my favorite arguments when people say, how can you follow a book that's just written by men, is I go, you read that book. You read that book and you tell me what manner of men, because we're talking about many men over many centuries, would put together a book that consistently portrays them as losers, them as failures, them as the ones who don't make it, and God is always faithful.

No one would invent that sort of religion.

You're right, if I was going to write it, or if the Bible was written today, we would not talk about men as corrupt, or depraved, or wicked, or worms, or sinful. We would have people who are basically good, people who have some problems, they've got a few diseases, a few syndromes, they were morally handicapped.

That's right, and we would not have, we would not depict a God who is sovereign. We want, you know, in our flesh, in our desires, in our sinful thoughts, we would prefer a God who is more like us, and that's the God we see in all the invented religions, the small g.

You know, I once had a friend who was a Mormon. He said to me, isn't it great that we have a prophet in Salt Lake City who can tell us what God is saying? And I said, no, I think it's great that we have a God who is so powerful that he's able to preserve his word so that we can still read it, and see it, and say,.

Thus saith the Lord. Good, and that was exactly the sentiments of Jesus Christ on earth, and this is what I want you to have if you're listening to No Compromise Radio. You need to have the same view of the Old and New Testament that Jesus did of the Old Testament, and he believed it was inerrant, infallible.

If he would have come along and said, by the way, too many manuscripts, too many deviations, you can't really trust it, you don't have a King James version of the Old Testament yet, abandon it. No, but he affirmed it, and he even affirmed by his silence the way that they would copy, and write, and hand down manuscripts, and going back to the earliest Old Testament book ever written, Job, Jesus affirms the Old Testament canon, and it is the most worshipful, and the most scriptural thing you could do is to say, I accept this as the word of God, and if it's a good translation, I don't care if it's the ESV, the King James, New King James, NAS, updated NAS, there's a variety of good translations, then just go ahead and read your Bible, and then do what it says, by the grace of God.

And that's really the key, isn't it, to do what it says. I mean, you can have a full collection of all the variations of the King James version, and if they're just collecting dust, they do you absolutely no good.

John Calvin, Calvinism, and Biblical Authority

All right, what's up next? Well, we, you know, I told you, Steve, that we weren't gonna have enough today, and you begged to differ with me. It's the other way around. Yeah, every once in a while, I'm right.

Well, we also received a question about John Calvin, and, you know, should we oppose or support his teaching? And so my question to you would be, should anyone teach what John Calvin taught? Should anyone refute what John Calvin taught?

In other words, what should our stance be.

Towards John Calvin? John Calvin, what a word, what a man, what a spark for this kind of discussion. It's very simple, Steve, because if you asked me that about John MacArthur, John Calvin, John Wesley, John anybody, I'd have to say where these men, who are fallible and who are sinful, line up with Scripture, then we affirm what they say.

God has given teachers to the local church, Ephesians chapter four, and he has given the church John Calvin. John Calvin taught wonderful devotional things to us, and so should we accept the things of John Calvin?

Well, where he's biblical, I do. The sovereignty of God, human responsibility regarding election, I accept those. When it comes to baptism, I know you've read the Institutes as well, it sounds like he's a different guy when he's talking about infant baptism, so I reject that.

And so we don't try to follow some men. What do we do? If I say the word Calvinism, why do we say the word Calvinism? It's shorthand. It's shorthand, theological shorthand. So people say, well, do you worship John Calvin?

Well, they don't say it that boldly, but do you follow John Calvin? I don't want to follow any man. I want to say, as they imitate Christ, I want to imitate them, and they have taught me things throughout the centuries.

But John Calvin, as he reflected on the nature of God, he pulled out the thinking away from the Roman Catholic Church that stressed the eminence of God, rituals, smells, bells, relics, incense, that focused on the closeness of God.

And then he said, no, God is not just close. He is close, but he's also transcendent. And Calvin helped the church realize the transcendent, utter sovereignty of God. And I think God was driving John Calvin to do that.

I think God illumined Calvin's heart to help him understand scriptures and then to write about God himself.

And if I just could encourage anyone, if you do visit us at Bethlehem Bible Church, if you take one of your pew Bibles out, you will not see a 67th book called A Letter from John Calvin. We don't have anything.

We don't worship the man. We don't believe that what he said was inspired unless he's quoting scripture. Same person asked about election and said that Calvin's view of election was wrong and suggested that New Testament election only refers to the Jewish people.

In other words, he said, when you read the New Testament epistles, you should apply the terms we and us to the Jewish people and the words ye and you, King James version, to the Gentiles. And I'm like, well, how does that square with say Romans eight?

And how does that square with Ephesians one? And I mean, how would we see that as just to the Jews only?

Well, this is some kind of convoluted argument and people have to strangle scripture to try to get their own theology out of it. And Steve, you know, this is called is a Jesus. This is vanilla ice. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, ice, ice, baby.

But ours goes dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. And so what do they do?

They have a theology in their head and they've got to torque scripture to get it to fit. And so Ephesians chapter one, you can imagine the church of Ephesus and those surrounding locations. We think it's a circular letter, just as God chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and blameless in him.

That only refers to the Jews. See, and there's all kinds of Gentiles around there, all kinds of Jews around there. We had a lady here at the church and she left the church in a kind way, in a nice way.

And I want to go to where my mother worships, et cetera. And I don't believe like you believe, and we're still friends. I said, that's fine. And she said, I especially don't believe in that election. And I said to the person, well, let me just ask you, what would this mean when Paul said that he chose us in him before the foundation of the world?

What would that mean? And of course she doesn't have an answer. And so God chooses. By the way, you like to choose, don't you? You're made in the image and likeness of God. You like to choose what football team you want to worship, err, root for.

You like to choose what kind of food you want. You're a choosing fool and you're a choosing maniac. We are little sovereigns as it were, because we have God's image and likeness. So God can't choose Israel.

God can't choose the elect angels. God can't choose some. No, the bigger question is why didn't he damn us all?

And I would just challenge anyone out there. If you're listening to No Compromise Radio today, you study Romans 8, Romans 9, Ephesians 1, Ephesians 2, 1 Peter 1. In fact, you can pretty much read anywhere in the New Testament, including the gospels.

Look at John 6. You cannot escape the doctrine of election unless you just want to.

I totally agree. And with my daughter, when she was really young, when she liked something, she said, I like it. I like that Pastor Steve, God bless you. Preach it. 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 six. 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. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.