Pardon the Interruption

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 ministry. My name's

Mike Abendroth. You can follow us at NoCoRadio if you're a tweet person, Facebook, NoCompromiseRadio, and then

NoCompromiseRadio .com. You can write us at info at NoCompromiseRadio .com. We will answer you.

And even if it's weird, we'll answer. We got some weird ones lately. And what else?

Just got a free book in the mail from Stan. Appreciate that, from his pastor. About the will of God.

Free to make a decision. I forgot. You can also pick us up at Worldview Weekend with Brandon House.

I'm thankful for that link. John Ortberg pays church $9 million for multi -site move.

I'm looking at the Christianity Today, May 2014. Most of the stuff in CT these days isn't very good, but there are exceptions.

In this particular month's edition, we have a

Mark Dever article. I appreciate the scholastic and gospel -centered work of Mark Dever.

Not in that order. Here it says, though, John Ortberg's church pays $9 million for multi -site move.

This is interesting for two reasons. One, his Menlo Park Presbyterian Church votes to leave the

Presbyterian Church USA. So when you see a Presbyterian church, you ask yourself, is this

OPC? Is this an evangelical Presbyterian? It is, is it

USA? You know, PCUSA, do those exist anymore? I don't really know. But you have to ask what kind it is because then that will help you make an analysis, proper analysis.

And so USA churches are typically liberal. That's the way the denomination is going. So then you've got somebody here who's not as liberal and they want out, but there are penalties based on the arrangement that the local church has with the denomination.

So how much money do you have to give up? What kind of property do you own? And so as the

PCA, strike that, the USA Presbyterian Church goes more liberal.

Well, you're leaving us. We didn't leave you, but we now have to pay.

And so Ortberg's church pays 9 million to get out of the PC, no, not the

PCUSA, but the Presbyterian Church USA. Well, it does say PCUSA, stalled over video preaching and competition for existing churches.

We wanna be a part of a denomination that celebrates and accelerates our capacity to do this, explained

Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. So it costs to get out, but they don't wanna compromise and they're willing to pay.

Pretty amazing to pay 9 million. Good, no compromise, move there.

Now, this is the other part that's interesting to me. Recent research by Leadership Network suggests nearly one in 10

Protestants now attend one of America's 8 ,000 multi -site churches.

So I don't know if there are 2 ,000 multi -site churches with four campuses each,

I can't tell that here, or if there are 8 ,000 multi -campus churches, which could then mean 16 ,000 places to meet or 24 ,000 or 48 ,000,

I don't know. But that's a lot of people who go to multi -site churches, one in 10 Protestants.

Wow, not my cup of tea, although I would say that if it is a stopgap measure that your church is going to multi -site while you're building the newer sites so everybody can come together and worship together, then

I would go for that. I think that that would be a no -co exception, right? We could tweet that. You say, well,

Mike, what's the difference between two services and multi -site? Well, all the difference in the world, my friend.

Joel Osteen said in this particular magazine, page 16, we were heartbroken, referring to the $600 ,000 in offerings, which had 200 ,000 of cash, stolen in March 2014 from the safe of America's largest congregation.

Houston Mega Church and Crime Stoppers offered a $25 ,000 reward for clues.

So I don't know if it was picked. I don't know if it was broken into. I don't know what happened, but that's a lot of money.

We were heartbroken. And it's interesting, they show the picture of him smiling here.

I know it's not related, but. What else do we have here in the news?

Well, Christianity Today, they have questions and it's called

Under Discussion. And this particular question that they ask a variety of different theologians is should

Christian colleges let female faculty teach men the Bible? Should Christian colleges let female faculty teach men the

Bible? Now we could say vacuums must be filled.

We could say this is para -church. We could say this isn't in a local church. We could say, hey,

Willie, we could say all kinds of things, right? We can say whatever we want. But what you have is a scale here.

You have a line of some people who say, yes, they should let them teach.

And then they have those on the other side, the other extreme, no. And then they have a few comments in the middle.

And so let me read you the two extreme thoughts according to this little bar graph line.

Yes, they should be able to teach men the Bible. Craig Blomberg, New Testament professor,

Denver Seminary. Quote, a college is not a church. Unless it's a college church, it does not baptize, exercise church discipline, have elders and deacons and so on.

Biblical restrictions refer only to office rather than function. And that view simply can't be fairly transferred to a college or even a seminary.

Any guesses on if Denver Seminary has female faculty teaching men? On the other side, we have

Wayne Grudem. Wayne Grudem, theology professor, Phoenix Seminary. And he answers the question, should

Christian colleges let female faculty teach men the Bible? He answers it, no. And then in between, you've got

Mary Cassane, you've got Dorothy Patterson, and you've got Owen Strachan.

So I'll just read you Wayne Grudem's response. Mixed gender theology classes should be taught by men.

It is illogical to say a woman should train men to be Bible teachers, train men to be

Bible teachers and pastors when she shouldn't be one herself. If women shouldn't be pastors or elders in churches, then they should also not have that role in other contexts.

Isn't that fascinating? Very, very fascinating here on No Compromise Radio. What do you say?

Give us your opinion. Twitter us at, just kidding, you can if you'd like, but oh, the phone's ringing in the background.

All right, what do we have next? We have a good article here. Tells us a little bit about Matt Chandler. What's the no -co response to Matt Chandler?

I like Matt, I want his health to do, I want him to stay healthy.

And I typically like Matt Chandler. I think he's kind of the new John Piper in the sense that he's a conservative charismatic.

I wish he would be a cessationist, but we can't hate everybody now, can we?

I think I'd probably like him in person too, because I'd be so intimidated, six foot five. Anyway, I email

Matt once, but I can't get him to respond. Well, he does.

Here's his response to me, no. Wanna be on No Compromise Radio? No. Okay, he said a few more things than that.

But I still like him. I still like Matt Chandler. All right, well, all this is, I'm forgetting what page

I'm trying to find here. Oh, here it is. This is the one I wanted to talk about. It is just awful.

It is just No Compromise, awful. Pardon the interruption is the title of the article.

How to Respond When Bible Passages Give You Pause, interview by Laura Turner. And she's interviewing

Marilyn Chandler McEntire, M -E, capital M -M -C, rather capital

E. And so she's talking to her about her book, What's in a Phrase? Pausing Where Scripture Gives You Pause.

And this is just horrible. Laura asked the question, how should we react when a scripture passage gives us pause?

Okay, I don't know how to say the German word, but it's like coffee break, it's coffee pause, it's coffee pause, and I don't know how to say it.

For me, she said, it's rooted in Lectio Divina. Okay, this lady, by the way, is a professor of English at Westmont College.

And she's going to offer in this book, brief meditations on biblical phrases. For me, it's rooted in Lectio Divina, the practice that Benedict taught his monks in the fifth century.

It's slow reading of very short passages of scripture, listening for the word or phrase that addresses you.

And what a selfish way to do it. What a horrible way to do it. What an unbiblical way to do it. Oh, I guess

I'm Israel now. I guess I'm Titus now. I guess I'm Philemon now. I guess

I'm... You're listening for something, she said, that invites the spirit to open doors of association, memory, and feeling.

Dear spirit, open the doors of my heart. Open my spirit doors for the channeling of Ramtha.

Say you encounter a phrase like, it is my shepherd. Okay, I'm quoting this lady,

Marilyn. Marilyn Chandler McIntyre. I don't think this is related to Matt Chandler.

I don't think he's related to her either. It is not related. She is not related. Let's hope not.

Say you encounter a phrase like, is my shepherd. On the second reading, you might ask, what is this about?

Where am I being summoned? Why did this touch me in some way?

He touched me. This is an emergent take on Karl Barth.

This is, the scriptures are coming alive now, therefore it must be spirit -breathed. This is like voodoo, basically.

This is a good example of how not to study the Bible, Then you could give those thoughts some silence.

On the third reading, you can open up further and ask what the invitation might be and how this might be giving you specific direction.

So, we abandon Sola Scriptura. Yeah, they would say they do not, but in fact, they're now believing

Prima Scriptura, the primacy of scripture. At least it's the, you know what it is? It's the springboard of scripture.

You use scripture to springboard into your own navel -gazing and you become a Quaker looking on the inside, forgetting about depravity and he who trusts his heart,

Proverbs says, is a what? It's a fool, that's a black heart you have. And you're gonna go inside, that's why we need to reveal the religion, as B .B.

Warfield says, from the outside we hear from God, not from the inside, because we can't trust ourselves, oh, wretched man that I am.

Is there any good thing that dwells in this body of death? Right, in me dwells no good thing.

But you go to the inside and then you are gonna be interrupted, but it's not going to be by God. We cannot have new revelation and that's where she's going.

And this is just the awful, let's bring in Roman Catholic mysticism and then wonder why everything's haywire these days.

Like Biola bringing in, what's that lady's name? I don't know, turn a fork in Biola, it's done. Mrs., Ms.,

hyphenated somebody or other, I don't know who it is. It's crazy, it's back to Roman medieval mysticism.

What broad philosophy of reading should we bring to Scripture? And so,

Laura Turner asks Marilyn Chandler McIntyre, who wrote this book for Eerdmans, I hope to contribute to the long conversation about what it means that Scripture is the living word.

So see, it's not fixed, it's not stale, it's not old, it's not sufficient, it's living.

I met a lady in Branson, Missouri. Most of the people that I talked to regarding my mysticism and Sola Scriptura message were very positive, very affirming and confirming.

And I was, frankly, because I was pushing the envelope a little bit,

I was shocked with joy that the folks that sit under Worldviews Ministry and Brannon knew so much because they weren't shocked when

I would critique Voskamp or Beth Moore or someone like that. But there was just one lady and she was like this lady in Christianity today.

It's not a relationship unless Jesus talks with me and I talk to him back and forth outside the word.

And I don't know if she's wanting nudges and still small voices. I don't know what she's after, but this is exactly the way they go about it.

I want the living word. And then she says, furthermore, and by extension, a living tradition.

Well, of course, because you're a Catholic. I'm troubled when people take possession of Scripture and read it with hardcore theological agendas.

I'm troubled by this. You take possession. It's like some kidnapping language, rape language.

That's how I feel it reads. This tends to ignore Scripture's subtlety, its malleability.

What? Its malleability and the way it summons you into an encounter, which is how

Jesus was. He met people at very different moments in their lives with different needs. Well, of course he did, but the

Scriptures are not malleable. The Scriptures are fixed, and you ought to read Deuteronomy, and you ought to read

Revelation, and you ought to read 2 Timothy 3, because we have this breathed out Scripture, and it's adequate, and it equips a pastor for every good work except for Lectio Divina.

Yeah, but that's not a good work. It's the same way with the prodigal son, she says.

There's more to the story than meets the eye. And the passage allows us to imagine. It's so wrong.

Everything hermeneutics. My hermeneutical mind just shouts out. Even Mortimer Adler, how to read a book, would say, that's not how you read a book.

Where am I in this picture? Where's Waldo, as Sinclair Ferguson would say. You're not there. Jesus is teaching a lesson.

Oh, he's teaching to you, but you're not in that passage. The prodigal son's passage, oh,

I'm sure we could learn about the big -hearted, tender mercies of the father who pulls up his, girds up the loins and runs.

And loves the son. Yes, of course. But the particular context, even more suited to the main interpretation is, is that you should be rejoicing that this gracious God saves sinners.

And you Pharisees are like that son. And you're mad. You should rejoice when lost things are found.

And then now, where am I in that? Let's see. I'm a pig. I'm in the pig fodder den place.

That's where I am. You're never supposed to say you're sick. That's why the show is bad. You're sick, but I'm sick today.

So I can say it today on the show. This isn't the pulpit. She said, Marilyn Chandler McIntyre said, "'This kind of reading is not necessarily about being faithful to the plot line of a particular story.

It's about being faithful to the way the spirit works. Note to self, note to all no -compromise radio listeners.

The spirit and the word aren't divorced. The word doesn't take you one way and the spirit takes you another. These are together, okay?

Look how the spirit works. Look how the word works. Look how they work together and keep them. What God has joined together, let no feminist medieval monk contemplate of prayer

Lectio Divina, Tara Sunder. In so many of the gospel stories,

Jesus allows himself to be interrupted. Like the diseased woman who touches the hem of his garment.

He's on his way to the house of a synagogue leader and she touches him and he stops and says, who touched me?

I take that as a model for reading scripture. Well, that's why I don't take you for a model of reading scripture.

Male or female, what's in a phrase? You ought to run from that book. This is awful. I only have one word.

I don't have any other words. I don't have any other synonyms today. Awful. I take that as a model for reading scripture.

To read until you find you've been touched and said, who touched me?

What was that all about? Let me stop here and not feel compelled to go on. Now, I would agree.

We read scriptures too quickly and we don't think and we don't meditate. We don't stop. We don't pause.

We don't say law. If the proper interpretation of say law is stop and let that sink in, as Dwight Pentecost would say.

Actually, Dwight Pentecost now knows the answer to that question. He knows the answer to that question.

What does say law mean? Graduated, gone to heaven, late nineties, Dwight Pentecost.

I liked him. I'll never forget the time when I heard him preach at Mount Hermon in California.

This was not the 9 ,900 foot Mount Hermon in Israel that you can go to with us. By the way,

February, 2015. This was in California, Santa Cruz area. And it's interesting because he was talking about Romans six and how people don't have free will.

And it was a Dallas seminary conference. I loved it. And he's kind of a little ornery. And he was a little older.

I think his wife Dorothy was still around at the time. Who touched me?

Let me stop here. Not feel compelled to go on. It's true that we read the

Bible too fast, but don't read the Bible this way. I'd rather have you read the Bible too fast and not think than put things in the

Bible that aren't in there. Because if you're doing speed reading, probably get a few things. They take verses like Psalm 46, verse 10, be still and know that I'm the

Lord. It doesn't say be still and listen to your gizzard, to your gut, to your bosom, to your liver.

It doesn't say that at all. It doesn't say go inside. We need revealed religion. And God says through natural revelation,

I'm powerful, I'm wise, I'm a creator. I'm magnificent because my creation is magnificent.

How much more greater am I? I'm not the creation. I am the creator. That's not enough to save in a fallen world.

That's enough to hold accountable. And we need specific revelation about who Jesus is and what he's done. And it's not gonna come in our navel or from the inside because from the inside, we're going to say,

God helps those who help themselves. You're never gonna come up with a gospel on the inside. Let's go within.

I will find grace and unmerited favor, demerited favor, substitutionary atonement, penalty substitution, confirmation by resurrection.

I think I'll find that on the inside. No, from the inside, you're gonna find I'm good and I'm acceptable and I'm not as bad as I sometimes hear from my conscience.

I'm pretty good. That's what you're gonna hear on the inside. See, the gospel is counterintuitive. The gospel is good news because it's real news.

It's God's news. And it comes from the outside. And the herald comes and says, whether that herald was Jesus, John the

Baptist, Paul, or your pastoral quoting one of those men, God saves sinners.

Sinners deserve hell. Sinners deserve judgment. Sinners deserve torment. But God, the great, gracious God, triumphing in his great son,

Christ Jesus, who dies a sinner's death, even though he's righteous.

And he grants righteousness by forensic imputation to those people who aren't.

And he does it because he's generous and he's gracious. And he, the son, is the last Adam. I need an

Adam. I need a substitute. I need a better representative than the first Adam. And his name's Jesus. Now that comes from the inside.

No, from the inside is, I'm pretty good. That's what the inside says. I'm not so bad.

Compared to everybody else, I'm actually better. What's in a phrase? Well, you need to read the

Bible slowly. I'll grant that. But you don't stop and pause and listen sometimes as the spirit opens doors of association, memory, feeling, and you might as well add smell.

That's what you might as well add because you might as well add, this is, you don't want to be interrupted this way.

This is the wrong way to read the Bible. And she teaches English. This isn't even the right way to teach English. I don't care what kind of genre you're teaching.

This is bad ways to read. But this is a postmodern way to read. This is post -Christian way to read.

This is the Catholic way to read, not small C Catholic, Roman Catholic medieval mysticism.

And just like Rick Warren getting on the Catholic channel the other day saying, well, I wrote Purpose Driven Church because I want it to last 500 years.

So I would get up in the morning and I would fast and I would light candles. And I would think about Teresa of Avalon.

Somebody, I forgot her name. And Thomas A. Kempis, et cetera.

Well, my name's Mike Ebendroth. Don't read the Bible this way. Get yourself a

Roy Zook hermeneutics book. Get yourself a Milton Terry hermeneutics book. Get yourself, it doesn't matter to me what kind of hermeneutics book these days.

If it's an old classic, okay. You know what you could do? Get Howard Hendricks Living by the Book. That's a great little book.

That's a great book on how to read and the scriptures speak to you through these last days in the person of Jesus, the son and his apostolic messengers.

That's Hebrews one. How does God speak in these last days? Pardon the interruption?

No, there's no pardon for the interruption. This is not the way to do it. Oh, could she be pardoned one day for teaching such nonsense?

Yes, because God is so gracious. My name's Mike Ebendroth. Info at No Compromise Radio or we'll see you online at Facebook.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth 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.