Say What?

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said,.

But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you. In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

My name is Mike Abendroth, and today, real time, it is the end of February, and it is pouring rain and cold, but not cold enough to make it nice, pretty white snow. We just have the veritable fusillade of rain coming down.

Thanks, by the way, to Michael for that email, so I know the difference between fusillage and fusillade. So, fusillade, discharge of firearms, and then fusillage, the structure of the airplane or something close.

So, anyway, what are we going to do on No Compromise Radio today? Don't forget you can see the NoCo90 videos, 90 seconds on YouTube, the No Compromise 90 channel. NoCo90 was taken, but I can still say the name.

So far, what do I have in front of me? Long lines lead to rise of wheelchair miracles, Yahoo Finance page said, and I was actually quoting the Wall Street Journal article by Scott McCartney, Wednesday, February 20th, Los Angeles.

I sound like George Putnam, don't I? Remember George Putnam? Yeah, I think he was 870 a .m. in Los Angeles for lots of years, and he would ride the horse in the Rose Parade. George Putnam, he, I think, was a registered Democrat, kind of a Truman Democrat, but he told it like it is, and he was kind of a no compromise guy.

George Putnam, he's since deceased. It happens regularly, airport officials say. A traveler requests a wheelchair, gets pushed to the front of the security line and screened, and then jumps out of the chair and rushes off into the terminal.

We call them miracles. They just start running with their heavy carry-ons, said wheelchair attendant Kenny Sanchez, who has been pushing for more than 14 years. Wheelchairs, that is, not drugs. Wheelchairs, the assistance for wheelchairs, vital, widely used, airport service, making travel feasible for elderly people and people with disabilities, et cetera.

But we've got some wheelchair miracles. There are more miracles at LAX Security than there are at Benny Hinn, I was going to say concerts because that's pretty much what it was. I did notice that, and speaking of Benny Hinn, when you go to one of those crusades, the time that it takes to set people up for his shenanigans on stage, it's a long time.

You've got to sing repetitious songs for a good while, half hour, hour, put your head back, put your arms up. He's got to get you in the mesmer-like mode before he comes out and does his shenanigans with Holy Ghost machine guns and slaying people with his coat.

I remember when I went to the Benny Hinn crusade in Anaheim, probably 1995, 96-ish, we couldn't get in and neither could all the people who had organic diseases in their wheelchairs. Oh, if you've got a bad back or you need a leg lengthened and you have a minor problem in your wheelchair, with your body in the wheelchair, then you can get in.

But if you don't have a leg, then you're not going to get in because Benny Hinn knows that he can't heal that person. So I have another article here in front of me today, Why I Defend Women Preachers.

Now, Steve and I will talk about this soon. We had an email, what do you believe at church, what's your position, etc. I almost said et cetera, etc. And Steve respectfully responded to this lady and she wrote back and said, you're rude and disrespectful pretty much because I think we didn't tow the party line of the world and the culture and say we like women preachers.

Why I Defend Women Preachers by J. Lee Grady, and it's entitled Fire in My Bones, and I found it on Charisma's website. J. Lee Grady is former editor of Charisma and the director of the Mordecai Project.

His latest book, Fearless Daughters of the Bible. Okay, she's a Nigerian living in England, talks about her accent, makes her sermons all the more fascinating to listen to. Besides her obvious anointing as a preacher, she's also a model of Christian integrity.

She's been tested through serious trials, including the loss of her husband, Alfred, who died in a plane crash. So she leads with grace and compassion. Thankfully, Abby, she's talking about this woman preacher, Abby Olufemi, finds support from her denomination, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, the largest indigenous church network in Nigeria and one of the fastest growing Pentecostal groups in the world.

Many Christians who love God and the Bible believe women are not allowed to serve in pastoral roles. This is especially obvious whenever Charisma publishes an article on the topic. Three weeks ago, my column, Six Gender Myths in the Church, sparked a firestorm of protest.

I don't argue with people on online forums because I respect the right to anyone's opinions. I can't spend all my time answering critics. Well, we do agree on that one. So on my NoCo90 and Facebook, for no compromise, I don't respond at all because I can't get sucked in the vortex of all that because it's hard to change people's opinions in the blog comment section, although sometimes I read them.

There's so many women who want to reach people for Christ. But being with Abby in London made me realize that many Americans oppose women leaders because they just haven't seen very many examples. Okay, so that's the reason.

At the risk of sounding simplistic, I will list three reasons why I believe we need more women on the front lines of ministry today. Now, I will agree that we need more women in the front lines of ministry today, but that doesn't mean in the pulpit and or that doesn't mean as elder.

Let's see what this guy says. It's pretty fascinating, by the way. One, the Bible endorses women in leadership. Paul's first epistle to Timothy seems to limit women's roles in leadership. See 1 Timothy 2 .12.

See, on first blush, it seems that. But when you dig into the deeper meanings and in the Greek and stuff, it's pretty hard to change this right here. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over man.

Rather, she is to remain quiet. Then he gives two reasons. One, for creation order, Adam was formed first, then Eve, verse 13, and then verse 14. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived, verse 14.

So the fall as well. So here is what J. Lee Grady says. Yet Paul also gushed with praise for women who served with him as co-laborers, Phoebe, Junia, Priscilla, who helped lay the foundations for the local church.

He expresses solidarity with two women, Euodia and Syntyche. I see I got it right at the end. Michael, don't send me any emails. I'm down under. And he refers to other women who obviously led churches, such as Chloe.

So they meet in Chloe's household. I guess she is the leader. Nor does he try to silence or restrict them. Nympha, Colossians 4 .50. I want to start singing, I, I, I, I, I am the Frito Bandito, but most of the people are too young to know that.

Traditionalist, he said, who insist on barring women from leadership positions, always refer to 1 Timothy 2 .12 as the ironclad rule. Yet they ignore women who serve with Paul. I'm not ignoring it. I'm saying that 1 Timothy is a pastoral epistle, and it tells me how to do things in the local church.

Verse 14 of chapter three, I hope to come to you soon, but I'm writing these days to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.

This is a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned. It's very, very simple. I'm not a traditionalist. I just read that and say, hmm, why did Paul tell Timothy to clamp down on women in Ephesus when he allowed Priscilla to teach?

The most sensible interpretation is that the Ephesian women were teaching heresy. They had no business teaching the Bible or leading the church that Paul just encouraged faithful women. Oh, so see, I didn't know that.

That was a special spirit-led observation, that Paul is restricting women in Ephesus or at Ephesus. First Timothy chapter three, that's where Timothy received the letter was Ephesus because they were teaching heresy.

See, I've been to a couple theological seminaries and I never knew that. Number two, churches need women's gifts and perspectives. See, I totally agree. You may be listening to this and you might think I'm misogynistically patriarchal and trying to dominate women.

This has nothing to do with that. First of all, you should meet my wife and see why I'm not allowed to do that. It's wrong and sinful. She wouldn't tolerate it. There's lots of reasons. It has nothing to do with stomping down women.

It has to do with this. We are people who have received revelation from God, and you can either submit to it or you can put it under your feet. Those are the two options. I guess you could add other things equal to it.

Churches need women's gifts and perspectives. Yes, my response to that is, of course. Claro que si, duh, of course. This is a moment where we would all agree. But with God, let's just go back to the Old Testament for a minute.

I know we're not equating these things perfectly, but the leadership of the temple, you know all those men priests and Levites and all that, we need some women's perspective on how to slay these animals.

See, it's just a non-sequitur. It doesn't make sense. Three, we can't address women's problems without empowering women to address them. Now listen to this. In the 1800s, women were not allowed to go to medical school.

Some believed the female brain was smaller than the males and that women had no business being doctors. And so, see, as people sinfully put down women in the past, people are still doing that today in the church.

See how that works? Except that doesn't work either. Oh, it says a bunch of other stuff too. Number four, women leaders don't hinder men, they help them. Some gripe about feminization of the church and they threaten to ban flowers from altars.

Who? Who does that? To make the sanctuary look more like a man cave. That's goofy. Well, this article is goofy. My Bible says, you know, people are really reaching to their lowest level when they say that.

My Bible says God made flowers as well as antlers and rawhides. Now talk about goofy. That's as goofy as Eldridge's latest cow pie deal. God gave him flowers, hearts in the shapes of cow pies. That's it.

It's goofy. When I listen to Abby preach or see how she shepherds her growing congregation, I receive truth from the Holy Spirit and learn valuable lessons. So now we'll go to pragmatism. Let's grow and embrace biblical equality.

Well, I didn't want the whole show to be on this today, but I'll just give you a few reasons why I do embrace biblical equality. Because Genesis 1 is true, because Galatians chapter 3 verse 28 is true, because the Bible is true, but that doesn't mean I embrace biblical equality in function because men aren't women and women aren't men, and Adam was made first and Eve fell.

That's just the fact. And so here's the interesting thing to me. The godly women that I know have no problem with godly male leadership. Domineering male leadership, we all have problems with that. Sinful, hypocritical, smash-mouth men's leadership.

Well, of course, we all have problems with that. I don't want to be under that. But biblical leadership in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and Titus chapter 1, who doesn't want to submit to that? Who doesn't want to submit to those kind of men?

Who wouldn't want to submit to the Lord? We have functional differences, even though we have equality. See 1 Corinthians chapter 11. The Father and the Son are co-equal. They're co—in essence, part of the triune God, but one functions in a certain way in subordination, eternally subordinate.

So my name is Mike Abenroth, No Compromise Radio. I was going to do a NoCo 90 on this subject, and here was going to be my point. One of the reasons why we don't have women in leadership at Bethlehem Bible Church or No Compromise Radio is because it eventually leads to homosexuality in the pulpit.

I don't mean the act. I mean people who are practicing homosexuals in the pulpit, because once you get rid of the women-man difference, then the next thing to follow is that very issue. Homosexual practicing clergy.

And so that's not what we're after. All right, what else? The last thing we need, here's a quote from Michael Horton, Gospel-Driven Life, page 197. I encourage you to get it. My friend Ryan sent me this quote.

The last thing we need is a church that keeps us sealed up in our own compartment with others of similar experiences in life. We need to be integrated into the body of Christ. Younger believers don't need another speaker to come in and tell them about dating, self-esteem, and relationships.

They need to have relationships with saints who have put on a few miles in the Christian faith and have faced challenges to their faith and practice what younger believers have not, is typo. And the lessons learned from these relationships need to be passed on to the rest of us in unplanned, unchoreographed, and unplugged conversations.

Well, one of the things that Horton is getting at, and I totally agree with the sentiment, is this. We need to have Titus 2 -like ministries in the local church. And it doesn't even have to be formal, of course.

Titus chapter 2 says this. But as for you, Titus, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanders or slaves to much wine. They're to teach what is good. And so train the young women. Boy, this is a hard show today. To love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

Titus chapter 2, both men and women teaching those who are younger. I know this is a broad statement, a general statement, but we have churches that have music. And it's basically the music, the up-tempo music.

I'm no prude when it comes to music. You should see what's on my iPod. I won't tell you, except for a small fee. I'm not a prude when it comes to music. But if you have rock and roll concert-like music, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, even if you have good Bible teaching, although it's hard to have the same thing, it's hard to have both of those together, that's another show.

But you are going to drive out the older people, because the old people are going to say, this is immature worship. This is selfish worship. And so you have a lot of people who are the exact same, homogeneity with age, let's say, and you've got the cool hip pastor, and he's 28, cool and hip, and you've got the rock music that's cool and hip, and you've got the people who like that.

And so we have no older folks and no younger folks, and the body of Christ is not—it doesn't look like that. If you want to have a youth outreach concert on Friday night, fine. Probably most people will look just like you do.

I don't have any problem with that at all. But if you say Sunday morning, this is what we're after, and it's the wall of sound, you can't hear congregational singing. And by the way, the old hymns are too boring to sing.

And it's this rock and roll concert sound. You drive out all the old people. I've said this many times, and I'll say it again on No Compromise Radio right now. If I had to make the choice, do I run out a 65-year-old saint, or do I run out a 20-year-old saint?

Which one do I have to run out? Now, I don't want to run out either. I'd like to minister both to the 20-year-old and the 65-year-old. But if I've got to run one out, I'm running out the 20-year-old.

Now, it's an argument, I know, but here's my argument. This is for the sake of argument, right? For the sake of No Compromise Radio. The 65-year-old has been around the block and has had—if it's a man, a wife who's had a miscarriage, or they've had a child who strayed from gospel teachings.

They've lost their job and seen God's faithfulness in all of those areas, and then they're able to relate that to the people who are 20 who need that. We need the older people. It doesn't mean we cater to them, but we don't cater against them.

How would a worship service please the Lord? The old people, they need to learn to sing some new songs. And they need to appreciate those. If their idea of worship is it has to be at least 200 years old for it to be biblical, they need some learning, right?

But the young people also need to know that there are older generations who can contribute to the faith. There's a reason why the New Testament church, designed by God, is to be older people. Why are they to be older and gray?

Older men, specifically, of course. Because they've been around the block. There's maturity. Immaturity isn't bad if you're immature and you're a brand new Christian. But if you should be mature by now and you're still immature, well, of course, then that's the Hebrew five spanking kind of set of verses.

So we've got people who run from one conference to the next to the next. Here's Horton's point. When they could be getting a lot of that, of what they need, from their own folks. When I see folks, there's a particular man here, his name's Guido.

And when I see Guido, his wife is sick and it's hard for him to get into the church and get her into the church, and he faithfully comes. And I like to have young guys who come up to me and want to talk to me, and I'm over talking to Guido, saying hello.

I like to say to Guido, Guido, in the last 50 or 60 years, just how faithful has God proved himself in your life and marriage? Or have you seen God being unfaithful in your life? Or a question like that.

And almost every time I say that, I want the young man to listen to this older man with wisdom, with a certain tenure, with an understanding of who the Lord is. And Guido usually tears up and begins to talk about the faithfulness of God.

We need older folks at the church. So what's the key? Well, it all starts from the top down in terms of how the Bible is thought of by the elders. But this is the body of Christ. And so your color, your race, your age, I would like to have a mixture.

If there's a Saturday night outreach concert or something else, a mixer, I don't care. I could care less about that. But what I do care about is if you live in a community where there are different kinds of people, there should be different kinds of people at your worship service.

So anyway, my name is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. 21 minutes in, how can that be? How can we be 21 minutes in and I still have nothing to say? Oh, I just have this here from Jesus Feminism. Women assert that Christ teaches feminism to his church, found in Christian News from the Christian News Network.

New York Magazine, that bastion of theological truth, discuss the insurgency of feminism into Christian culture, most notably the term Jesus Feminism. Writer Alyssa Quart interviewed self-proclaimed feminist Sarah Bessie for her article.

A 34-year-old mother of three who is set to release her book, Jesus Feminist, Life on the Other Side of the Church Gender Debates, this year. I'm a feminist because Jesus made me one, Bessie stated, asserting that her mission is to revive feminism in the church.

Well, that's a perfect time for me to say that I'm working on the book about biblical masculinity. So hopefully it'll be finished next year. One more of my books, five or six, there's half of them have been published but are about to be published, but several of them, three or four, I can't, they're done, but I can't get publishers for them.

So maybe another day, maybe if I just went to the secular press. But anyway, I'll try to refute some of that in the book, of course. Here it says, the word feminism is a lot of evangelical churches, no, in a lot of evangelical churches, is a bomb being dropped.

I'd like to reclaim our place in the history of feminism in secular scholarship. Feminism has a lot of roots in women of faiths. So, you know what? It's pretty interesting when you've got somebody who's the author of the women's Bible, which she penned with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and a panel of 26 women.

I wonder what's going to happen with that Bible. All right, I'll tell you. However, upon the release of Anthony's feminist Bible, some women were outraged, decrying her redefinition of the Godhead as, are you ready?

Heavenly mother, father, and son, and her notions that Christians should pray to their ideal heavenly mother. Paganism has mothers to worship. That's why Christianity is so different for that reason and many other reasons.

But there is a father who creates by divine fiat. In the beginning, God. He's given himself male personal pronouns. His name is male. And so we'll just stick to that. And when it comes to the other stuff, you can see that it's rubbish.

The problem is, this is easy to spot, but it does make its way into evangelicalism. I just was listening to a church sermon, a church not too far from here in the local Worcester area, and here's the lady up giving Bible readings, a scripture reading by the lady.

So if you'd like to write me, info at nocompromiseradio .com. You can go to the No Compromise 90 YouTube site, or you can go to NoCoEver and watch a couple hours of Carl Truman, Phil Johnson, James White, and yours truly talk about mysticism, R .T .D. Jakes and the Elf Room, etc.

A veritable fusillade of God.