May 20. 2019 Show with Steve Martin on “Mentoring in Ministry”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you the listener with your own questions and now here's your host

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon Cumberland County Pennsylvania Lake City Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Monday on this 20th day of May 2019.

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I'm delighted to have back on the program Steve Martin not the stand -up comic but the dean of students at IRBS Theological Seminary.

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In fact it just occurred to me that my guest has the name of two very famous comedians

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Steve Martin and Dean Martin but he's the dean of students as I said of IRBS Theological Seminary one of the primary supporters and sponsors of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and today we are going to be addressing the theme mentoring in ministry and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Steve Martin.

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Chris thank you very much it's my honor and my privilege to be on your show. Praise God and before we go into the subject at hand mentoring in ministry why don't you let our listeners know something about IRBS Theological Seminary.

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IRBS Theological Seminary is the only residential confessional reform

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Baptist seminary in the world by confessional I mean we fully adhere to the 1689 Baptist confession of faith which has been the grandfather of all

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Baptist confessions for the last 400 years and it's residential in that there's classes there's a brick and mortar campus we're encouraging students to come and sit under professors who will invest in their lives and myself who will invest in their lives and we have existed for 20 years in California as an adjunct to Westminster Theological Seminary in Escondido California but our association of churches voted two years ago to have a freestanding seminary and we moved here to the south suburbs of Dallas Fort Worth to Mansfield where Heritage Baptist Church is hosting us temporarily five acres have been given to us to build on and we're waiting to collect the monies to build in the meantime the educational wing of Heritage Baptist Church has been given over to us to train students so we're thankful by the way if any of the listeners have an extra couple hundred thousand dollars they don't know what to do with we'd be glad to put it into brick and mortar for the seminary.

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Well that certainly isn't me that has that much money lying around in fact I'm on the brink of poverty myself but I want to give our listeners the website it's irbsseminary .org

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don't forget to put the two s's there sometimes when there's two letters together people lose one of them somehow but it's irbsseminary .org

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and I'm sure if my memory serves me correctly I will be repeating that later on in the day.

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If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com

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c h r i s a r n z e n at gmail .com and please give us your first name at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter and that may be something like you disagree with the theology of your own church where you are a member perhaps you disagree with your pastor we obviously would not and would not identify the name of your church or pastor in such cases it could be that you're a pastor and you disagree with your own denomination could be that you are going through a transformation in your theological thinking and you don't want to identify yourself at this point along your journey and you'd like to ask a question we will broaden the questions to any subject regarding theology and doctrine but today's theme is mentoring and ministry and we especially want questions on that subject even though we will not restrict other questions regarding theology and doctrine chrisarnsen at gmail .com

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tell us about exactly what you mean by mentoring when we speak of mentoring in the christian sense in the pastoral sense what exactly do you mean especially in this title that you came up with today mentoring and ministry well um the title has changed over the years when i was first converted in 1969 as a junior in the university the idea was that older christians help train younger christians at least in the basics of the faith and at that point it was called discipling sometime i think in the late 80s it morphed into mentoring or being a being a self -conscious leader and developer of younger men i don't have a preference for either term i guess i was started with discipling and still think of it that way but um the idea of older christians more mature christians helping younger christians in my case as dean of students mentoring the seminary students discipling the seminary students shepherding their souls while they're in seminary to see to it that they're in a good place when they graduate uh sadly it's not always been the case that students who go through seminary come out in a spiritually healthy condition i can remember when i was in seminary in the late 70s and early 80s that people crashed and burned while they were in seminary they went through divorces or they somebody had an affair or somebody just showed spiritual immaturity to a great level and crashed and burned and so it's important that young men don't see seminary as simply graduate school with christian content but it really is an opportunity to grow in godliness and and holiness and if i don't learn to take my studies and pour them into godliness and holiness i've i've really missed the boat amen uh well why is this uh concept such an important one i know that it is very dangerous for christians to believe that they are islands unto themselves standing alone sometimes that's out of pride and arrogance where people just don't think that they need the assistance of others you have many professedly bible -believing christians who perhaps in a distorted and unbiblical and heretical reaction to the heresies of rome which elevates the place of the church and its hierarchy to a heretical extreme uh sharing glory with christ and so on uh perhaps in a heretical reaction to that people think that they are smart enough and holy enough and have enough insight and enough love for the word of god that they can go off in the woods alone and just read the bible and they will glean whatever they need to know and they will even come up with insights that nobody else has seen and they do not need the the guidance and the tutelage and the mentoring of pastors or even other fellow brethren in christ so those two are very dangerous extremes aren't they well they really are and they've been with us a long time um it is true that rome went beyond scripture and made um men the conduits of grace and um really turned the the priest and the pope into unbiblical styles of leadership and sadly in the last 200 years in the west um individualism has run rampant and you gave a good synopsis of what that looks like that me and jesus and my bible sitting under a tree that's christianity and i can take or leave the institutional church or a pastor or older more mature christians um me and jesus that's christianity the rest of the stuff's just icing on the cake and those are both wrong and so seeking to um not make men dependent upon me or dependent upon the the leader so to speak or the mentor at the same time helping younger men to see that they do need they need not just the mentor who's right in front of them but they need to learn from two thousand years of christian history that we're not the first generation of christians we're not inventing christianity a whole cloth out of nothing and it's important to to learn from the history of the church and if i you know i've only come up with two actually novel ideas my whole life and both discovered they were early church heresies i can't even come up with novel heresies so in fact uh most of the heresies that we uh see are really just new uh old heresies in new costumes exactly you've hit the nail on the head i first saw the need to train men when i was a student a young convert and then i was involved in the student ministry for almost a decade before i went to seminary and spent time training and developing young men who i was amazed and pleased that the kind of men that they were becoming and um i remember telling a group of young men i was working with it and this is many years ago but i said you know i could die a fulfilled man today just seeing the fruit in your lives and seeing the trajectory of your men where you're going and i think almost to a man they've remained faithful one of them's gone to be with the lord the rest of them served and are serving in their churches faithfully to this day and um so i saw the importance working with students and then after seminary being a pastor for 37 years and by the way if you add up all these years decade and 37 and that's really difficult considering i'm only 40 years old but anyway i saw the importance of investing in the men in my church because um there's a crying need for men in the world today we need men to be heads of their homes isn't isn't the lack of fathers and the lack of biblically faithful husbands are crying need in our culture and in the churches and then don't we need men who are men of god to lead in the churches and don't we need men to be men of god to lead in the culture outside of their home and business and civic affairs and don't we need men to perhaps go to the end of the world with the gospel so men are needed today and and maybe at one time there was more common grace that we could assume that a young man or middle -aged man coming to christ would have enough common grace that had the gospel to his life and he could be off and running in good ways but nowadays you can't take that for granted there's been so such a um falling away from the truth and that men grow up ignorant men grow up without fathers men grow up without biblical foundations and so they're in a sense reinventing their lives so they're they're building their lives anew from scratch many times and so we have to help them help them build into men and there's just that crying need for men in the churches and men in homes and men to go out into the world and be salt and light we have a listener in bangor maine john who has a question for you he said in addition to those heretical extremes of those that have responded against rome in an unbiblical fashion i believe that there are other extremes that take place in the church where you have pastors who do not believe in the plurality and parity of the eldership does your guest agree with the plurality and parity of the eldership in the church because i think although it is not 100 full proof in protecting the flock from heresy and error it is at least a better barrier than a man on his own i agree with that question in fact if i can plug a book i wrote i wrote a book or edited a book i should say to be careful i edited a book and submitted a chapter or two and it was on the question of abusive authority in the local churches it is entitled biblical shepherding of god sheep about published by day one publications and that was as argued for in the book that we don't need uh little margaret so we don't need little dictators that aren't accountable to anybody but their own conscience but i think biblically and our confession gives us an idea of a plurality of elders and pastors working together as a team to shepherd the flock i think common sense where any man would tell you would you want to raise your kids by yourself without your wife's input and gifts and graces i certainly would not have and i think a wise pastor would want to gather around him good men who can invest in the life of the flock and that calls for a plurality of elders so i agree with his concerns and his call yeah in fact i automatically now want to have you back on the program to discuss that book that day one publishing has brought into print well it's been out for a number of years but maybe we'll sell the rest of them after that well i think it's a it's a very valuable and important subject because we would be very dishonest if we were to say that those kinds of things those abuses uh of authority within not only soul pastorate ministries but even in the plurality of elders it can take place and uh we would be also dishonest if we didn't say that the reformed baptists have shared their guilt in that but uh even though we are reformed baptists but uh so let's keep that in mind and i'll contact day one publishing and see if they can send us some giveaway copies for our listeners mentoring in ministry now uh let's start i mean there's two sides of that theme there are those that mentor and that and there are those that are the on the receiving end of mentoring and of course i'm assuming you would think that everyone no matter who they are should also be in some sense on the receiving end of mentoring uh doesn't mean that they have to view themselves as a pupil or a student of the one mentoring them they could be peers but i think that as this radio program in its own title uh attests to the fact that iron sharpens iron the biblical truth that we cannot question as believers in biblical inerrancy so if you could start with uh the one who is mentoring the one who is mentoring others good point um as a pastor from 1981 till 2012 i had an opportunity to to work with uh people in my church and as as the chief shepherd among several shepherds uh senior pastors so to speak or point man on a basketball team it was my view and i think shared by our elders that we wanted to train all the people who were teachable and that begins with the public means of grace on the lord's day and so it's important that everybody be exposed to the same truth there's there's not one body of truth for one group of people and then another body of truth for another group of people we we basically expose the whole body of believers in our church to the truth but then as we as we began to know and work with the people of the church we wanted to work with the men because they were called to be the heads of their homes they were called to be the the chief not not subsidiary but the chief trainer or disciple of their children even though their wife would have them for several years while they're very small but um and men would be the leaders in the church so we we did target men with the understanding that they were to see that they were to lead their own families that they um were to bring their lives along they were to have family worship they were to make sure their lives were on board with the truth and teach their children i used to say that if a church has a reputation for being orthodox but the men of the church don't own what's being taught from the pulpit don't live it out of their lives don't bring their wives and their children along then however our church may have a reputation for orthodoxy it's a very weak church if the men aren't buying it and passing along to their wives and children it may only go out five feet from the pulpit but it's not really impacting the lives of the people so as a mentor i wanted to teach everybody the basic truths of the christian faith but then work with the men to bring them along to help them to see their responsibility as mentors to their own wives and children and then um some of the men might become deacons and elders along the way and they would have a responsibility for helping others it struck me years ago that the passage in john 7 37 to 41 where jesus stands up on a feast day in first century palestine and says if any man is thirsty let him come to me and drink and you know that's kind of an obvious point if you've ever lived in a dry culture people are thirsty much of the time particularly before modern access to water and healthy liquids anyway people were in a sense thirsty all the time but he said if you're thirsty in the right way come to me and drink and out of your inmost being shall flow rivers of living water and it dawned on me that he didn't didn't say a symbol he didn't say teacup didn't even say a bucket but he said rivers of living water i've lived in hot dry deserty climates and you're not talking about the mighty mississippi kind of volume of water but you are talking about plenty of water from a river that's 25 feet wide a foot deep and way more water than an individual can handle the point is is that if a person really does come to christ thinking here of a man god will give him enough grace in those rivers of living water that it will overflow to his wife if he's married and if he has children to his children in other words god gives a man enough grace that others can come and drink from the well that he's drinking from or they can benefit from the overflow in his life and so i think it's important that as i work with men and would encourage other men to work with men that men see that if you're really converted and you're really a growing healthy christian there should be an overflow of your life that your wife and children should look to you as a spiritual resource not that you have all the answers or all the gifts but there's a real spiritual overflow to your life you have energy for your wife you have energy for your kids and um that's an aspect of being a mentor uh on the other side besides what the mentor is looking for men who are teachable and have a heart for god and the question uh to ask a younger man or a younger christian or someone who's coming along is is this person teachable do they have a heart for god i've known people who were young christians but nobody could teach them they they were still enthralled in the pride and sadly some of them never made it out of it but i've known people who were not teachable and i've known people who didn't have a heart for god that um they may like the the pastor or the religious leader they may want to be part of his entourage so to speak but they didn't really have a heart for god they didn't love the lord jesus christ they didn't love god the father with all their heart soul mind and strength and they they just didn't have this heart for god and that's absolutely necessary um there used to be an old adage you can't steer a moving car excuse me you can't steer a parked car and a person has to have has to be engaged the gear house should have to be in and and drive and you have to be moving to turn the steering wheel and in the same way it's not impossible to help a person who's not teachable and doesn't have a heart for god they're just not going to make any progress we have a listener in eastern suffolk county long island ronald who asks do not even the most brilliant among us who might tend to think that they don't need a mentor for themselves actually need to be more sensitive to their own flaws and failures because there is very rarely a person who is totally well -rounded in all aspects of christian life they may be a brilliant exegete and know the original languages of the scriptures but they may be lacking in social skills they may be battling with the sins of aloofness and pride and perhaps need mentoring and how to be a true brother and friend to those around them well i i agree with that caller too i think ronald is exactly right i saw men like that in seminary who are world -class scholars but um you wouldn't want to be trapped on a desert island with them and you know one of the reasons that over the years um i've been an avid reader and i think any person in the pastoral ministry or spiritual leadership needs to be a lifelong learner is because gosh i just i just don't know much i don't i've got areas to grow in um yes i'm farther along than i was 50 years ago it was 50 years last january first when i came to christ and uh but i still have so much to grow in i'm still battling sins i'm still putting on the lord jesus christ and putting to death remaining sin and so um i'm not sure the word mentoring comes to mind is the exact need like i'm not gonna suggest to a new testament scholar you need someone to take you under their wing and mentor you but i think the same thing can be said for this man needs to be teachable and recognize his need for the rest of the body of christ that just because he has a great skill set in one area doesn't make him uniformly well -rounded as ronald said in his question and i know men who they really don't listen to others and they don't listen to the body of christ they don't listen to 2 000 years of church history and to me that's that's sad because i think they're the benefits they might have given to the church the gifts they might have used for the church are short -circuited by their blindness or their or the blinders of remaining sin the best men keep learning keep benefiting from others uh growing humility down to the very end um i hope that i'm growing in that area um i was oblivious i tried reading a book on humility about four years in as a christian i didn't understand it which says so much about me well it could have been a bad book well it wasn't it was by andrew murray it was and uh i know so that says more about me than andrew murray but anyway it's something we all need to work on to the very end that i've not arrived and um if i think i have because of expertise in one area then first corinthians 12 says well i can't say to the ear i don't need you or to the hand and i can't say to the rest of the body of christ i don't need you um as the dean of students i team teach one course with president james renahan but i do have the privilege of sitting in another classes and i i raised my hand in the hermeneutics class and i said engulf they call it a mulligan but can i have a do over here for seminary this is so good and it's really helpful to me and um here i am 71 still learning about christianity learning about what it means to be a minister of god what it means to be a mentor to younger men and uh hope i never stop learning amen we have to go to our first break right now and if you'd like to join us please send us an email to chris arnson at gmail .com

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chris a r n z e n at gmail .com if you have a question uh as always as i said before please give us at least your first name city and state and country of residence and uh only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter if you disagree with your own church on theology or something like that uh we will broaden the scope of questions to anything regarding christian theology but primarily we are talking about mentoring and our email address again is chris arnson at gmail .com

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don't go away we'll be right back with steve martin and our theme mentoring and ministry right after these words from our sponsors hello my name is james and i'm the president of irbs theological seminary in mansfield texas the word of god says if a man desires the office of an overseer he desires a good thing do you have the desire to serve jesus christ in pastoral ministry 20 years ago the institute of reformed baptist studies at westminster seminary california was born for those two decades these institutions worked together to train men for ministry in reformed baptist churches it's been a wonderful partnership now we have advanced our school into an independent seminary offering a full program of courses leading to the master of divinity degree this is irbs theological seminary we believe that the scriptures of the old and new testaments are the inspired and inerrant word of god that jesus christ is god in the flesh who came to save sinners by his life death and resurrection and that the task of the serve the triune god in all things irbs theological seminary is dedicated by god's grace to preparing godly ministers who will be committed to these doctrines do you sense a call to serve jesus christ in his church as a pastor why not consider irbs theological seminary you'll find more information at irbsseminary .org

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that's irbsseminary .org two s's in the middle i hope to hear from you soon god bless you chris arnzen host of iron sharpens iron radio announcing a new website with an exciting offer from world magazine my trusted source for news from a christian perspective try world now at no charge for 90 days by going to getworldnow .com

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forward slash podcast my name is steve lawson founder and president of one passion ministries as well as teaching fellow for ligonier ministries i serve as professor of preaching and oversee the doctor of ministry program at the master's seminary in los angeles i would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students andy woodard serves as the pastor it's called new covenant church nyc they are a reformed baptist church that meets in midtown manhattan you can find their service times and location on their website which is www .ncc

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.nyc they believe in a sovereign god who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel if you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching which is simply biblical preaching in new york city i'd like to recommend that you visit new covenant church nyc again their information can be found at www .ncc

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that's ptl bible rebinding .com i'm pastor bill shishko host of a visit to the pastor's study and i am so thankful to be part of the advertising family right here on iron sharpens iron if you live on long island or if you're visiting the metropolitan new york area i invite you to join us for worship at the haven on sundays at 4 30 p .m

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as frequently as you can and help them remain in existence as well because the longer they survive the longer we survive and we thank mike gadosh and all the folks at solid ground christian books for their faithful sponsorship of this program we are now back with steve martin uh we are discussing uh mentoring and ministry steve martin as i mentioned earlier when i introduced him he is the dean of students at irbs theological seminary in mansfield texas and if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own regarding uh mentoring and ministry or any other theological issue our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

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chrisarnson at gmail .com we have bobby in hartsdale new york who asks the question how does one go about beginning a mentoring relationship with others it may seem arrogant if you were to walk around or call people or write people saying would you like me to be your mentor uh or does the the one mentoring have to just wait upon others to ask him to mentor them that's a good question um there have been situations that i have become involved in as a pastor where there were people who felt that other people needed their input and that they they were therefore called to be a mentor but what happened over time was what in the 90s were called codependent relationships where people that they mentored never got out from underneath their authority or their persuasive psychological control and it wasn't healthy um you know for example um positively uh second excuse me titus 2 -2 talks about older women teaching the younger women and i think by inference older men teaching the younger men um it would not be wrong for an older woman to if she knew several new wives new brides or young mothers hey would you like to get together for a bible study and what it means to be a woman of god given what's going on in our culture and given the place you're at in your life and she could begin there or a man could say he could look around and say well i see some young men who um have potential they seem to love christ but they could go farther maybe i could challenge them to be in a bible study to look at being disciples of christ together and um and that could evolve evolve into a mentoring situation i don't feel comfortable encouraging people to say to walk up to people and say hi i'd like to be your mentor wouldn't you like i mean even as a pastor i didn't do it that way i invited everybody who was interested for example to come to an early morning bible study and if you had enough gumption to get up early and come to an early morning bible study that showed something if you couldn't work it out schedule wise i didn't automatically write you off but i did work with those who the lord gave me at that time and then as they showed promise and etc that some of them went on farther some perhaps might become deacons or later become elders but you have to start with exposing everybody to the opportunity to grow or as a pastor i could do that in a church as an older more mature layman you see several young younger christians that you could offer to be in a bible study together to let's meet for 16 weeks on this subject let's meet for four months studying the pursuit of holiness or kevin young's uh the hole in our holiness or let's read a book about the doctrine of god or whatever but um to our um to the question i think that just um being a co -owner with these people offering to take them higher up deeper in i think that would be a good thing thank you bobby uh we have arnie in perry county pennsylvania who asks do you think that it is acceptable to get a mentor from outside of your own church perhaps even on occasion from outside your specific theological circles the reason i say this is that sometimes i think that we who are reformed fail to recognize some of the gifts that many of our brethren have from other theological persuasions i'm not talking about heretical ones i'm just speaking about those that we would consider to be different but yet biblically orthodox perhaps they are arminian or from some other persuasion but they have valuable skills such as spousal areas and also parenting areas and there are many other areas in the christian faith where even a reformed person can learn from a non -reformed person i think the basic thesis is sound as a former pastor for many years i would say i would encourage this person or arnie i think that was his name yes to um if he could talk to his pastor or somebody in his church and say you know i i would like to grow in this area um it doesn't just have to be reform books i mean i over the years i've i've certainly prospered as a husband and father from reading non -reformed people back in the and the things change over time but for example in the 70s and 80s james dobson was something of the leader of working on your family well his background is nazarene i didn't buy into james dobson's systematic theology but i did think he had a lot of insights on marriage and parenting and i profited greatly um there have been other people that i've learned from i think a healthy um spiritual environment is where you do recognize that that you and your group doesn't have a stranglehold on all the truth um i can learn from other people who don't dot their i's or cross their t's just like i do um i think there the danger comes when you start meeting with people and coming under their leadership who don't do different spiritual background you might find yourself being um drawn into a situation where you might not recognize there are parts of their theology that drives what they do that aren't um as biblical as we would understand in the reformed faith and so um you know for example when i mentored younger men we read books by non -reformed people uh and um i think they understood or perhaps i said explicitly this guy may not have it right in every area of his life but he's probably forgotten more than i've ever learned and this is and we need to learn from him and so um i you know approach your pastor one of the elders and say i'd like to grow more in this area there may not be a reformed book on that subject but um is there some other things i can learn that would help me um and would you be willing to lead this group i think that'd be a healthy combination amen and uh something just popped into my head when you were speaking about james dobson uh i don't know if you know this this is probably something that not a lot of people know but i remember years ago when i worked for wmca radio in new jersey i was tuning into the station when dr dobson was was scheduled to be on every day and i was thinking for a moment that he was replaced by a another preacher and i'm listening to this preacher and i said this has got to be joel beeky he has got an unmistakable voice and cadence and homiletic style and sure enough at the end of the sermon all of a sudden james dobson comes on and says that was my wife's favorite preacher joel beeky i was i was very surprised coming from a nazarene himself yes uh to hear that wow that's great well there is a certain cross -pollinization that's healthy um when ian murray wrote his book on john wesley and those who followed he got a lot of fact flack from some of his reformed brethren at the salt why are you writing a book about john wesley why are you writing a book about the men who were the first generation or so of wesleyan preachers and having read the book and read the many biographies of these other men i'm not worthy to untie the sandals of a lot of these guys i mean they were great and good and godly men and they got some things wrong i get that but they weren't non -christians they weren't heretics um and so i think it's just it's just not healthy to have a bad mindset of what i used to i served under a former uh air force colonel who went into the ministry and he a lot of the a lot of the military came into his view of the pastorate but he he said too often people have a near attitude i said what's near uh nih not invented here so if we if our group doesn't come up with it it's not orthodox you shouldn't do it he said that's just unhealthy i agree with him so um you know i think casting our our net wide spurgeon read a lot of people he quotes the best people but it's spurgeon read a lot of people alexander white was known for the other great puritan lover of that generation was known for reading all kinds of people and you know even today i might quote some from the pulpit who i wouldn't recommend everybody read everything this person wrote but i wouldn't even give his name but i would give him credit i would give well this one commentator says that this one theologian says um but at the same time at a steadier exclusive diet of that person wouldn't be healthy right yeah in fact i will not mention his name but there's a very well -known reformed baptist who i heard speak at a pastor's conference and he surprised everybody when he was uh asked homiletically who is your favorite speaker and this reformed baptist pastor said well believe it or not it's someone that you would never guess and i hope that you don't quickly judge me for saying this but norman vincent peale he said believe me it has nothing to do with the content of what he's saying i'm speaking strictly about his delivery so there you go yeah and of course i think that many of our fellow reformed baptists are too quick to be overly harsh against our dispensational brethren when we have one of the greatest minds today and the greatest preachers today in john macarthur who although he agrees with us soteriologically on the reformed doctrines of faith he still is a dispensationalist through and through i give john macarthur a lot of credit i imagine standing at the 50 yard line of the rose bowl and you're wearing totally dispensational clothes and you realize that you're really becoming reformed in many ways so you're going to take off your reformed clothes assume to take off your dispensational clothes replace them with reformed clothes in many ways but nobody's going to see any pink nobody's going to see any bare skin while you're doing all this in public john's gone through amazing transformation from you look at some of his early um notes and commentaries and to his later ones and he's come a long way he's um not always my cup of tea but uh as one one man asked um george whitfield one of whitfield's young admirers said do you think we'll see wesley in heaven and whitfield goes no i don't think we will and the young man acted smug and arrogant and whitfield went on to say no i think as we're standing in line before the savior's throne wesley will be so much up in the front of the line and we'll be so far in the back no i don't think we'll see him yes uh i think that we have to be very careful i mean it's it's amazing how often we who are reformed of all people our theology is intended to humble us to the dust and to give a hundred percent of the credit to god for every blessing and yet we very often allow our insights that we have gained into the scriptures in regards to the reformed faith we allow those things to elevate us and puff us up and it's it's a tragedy because it's the very opposite reaction that those doctrines are intended to do well that's exactly right when i was living in atlanta for many years i would meet men in the area who would call me up and contact me about they'd become calvinist or reformed and as i got to know some of them it grieved me because what it was is these men had just adopted a new theology that was superior to the theology they held so they could argue um with people and it's like i've reached the top of the mountain i can roll grenades down the mountain on those poor benighted souls that aren't as who haven't arrived like i have and it was more for sparring and intellectual one -upsmanship more than it was for causing my heart to be in awe that i'm saved and causing my heart to be in wonder that god would send his son to save a wretch like me so theology can go bad on you it's like mana if you don't use it for the right purpose in the right time frame it goes bad on you we have an anonymous listener who says one thing that has been troubling to me for many years in the reformed faith is when i see pastors mimic their mentors and rather than just imitating the things that all christians should imitate from the lives and teaching of others they were actually taking upon themselves new voices like they were rich little performing in las vegas for those of our millennial listeners who have no idea who rich little is he was a very famous tv personality he used to do brilliant imitations of famous people celebrities politicians and so on uh but is this not a very poor direction for someone being mentor mentored to take i agree 137 percent um in fact it's part of what i would call um the the sad dichotomy the sad um theatic relationship between uh people who um some people like to lord it over others and people who are looking for an idol or a god to worship and so they they unconsciously absorb all of the uh personality and pulpit mannerisms of their hero and try to replicate it and it's just not them and it's like david trying to wear um sol's armor or something like that uh you just need to be who you are and by the you know when i was a young man i had a couple of heroes i looked to and um i wasn't either one of them and over the years i grew with other heroes but i couldn't be any of those men i just had to be myself and if i do have a little smidgen of pride is that men i trained in atlanta none of them sound like me and none of them sound like each other they all sound like themselves that's how it should be that they're each unique individuals gifted graced and um just need to be ourselves but i agree with that with that caller's point of view that we don't want little um cookie cutter pastors who are seeking to be the great man preach like the great man uses pulpit mannerisms hang up our jacket at the right time in the sermon like this great man did or whatever the idiosyncrasy is we just need to be ourselves and pray the holy spirit would fill us which goes to a great quote i have by aw tozer tozer why we need good man he says god the holy spirit does not fill rabbits and by the way folks uh it's interesting how many people think that aw tozer was reformed because he's very frequently quoted by reformed people he was not reformed and yet that just proves our point that we were saying before that we can learn and benefit and glean from people outside of our specific theological circles amen i know a lot of reformed people love aw tozer because he was biblical and the the tradition he did read was the early church fathers so you'll find him quoting those more often than anybody his particular denomination the christian missionary alliance left the reformed um world and became a world of its own what kind of anti -reform but um he was biblical and he was early church centered and i think that we have a lot of good things to learn from aw tozer amen and by the way uh there are believe it or not some theologically reformed uh churches within the christian missionary alliances one in colorado i know of a certain and there i have met uh at least a few others look at other pastors who are good for them well that's great we have to go to our midway break right now this is the longer than normal break because grace life radio 90 .1

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fm in lake city florida requires of us a longer break in the middle of our show because they use this time to air their own public service announcements and commercials for the lake city florida area in order to localize iron sharpens iron radio to lake city so while they air their commercials and public service announcements we air hours that are heard globally so please use this time wisely uh write down information provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them because the more you do that as i keep repeating the more we are going the more likely we are going to remain on the air because we depend upon the advertising dollars of our sponsors also write down questions for steve martin on mentoring and ministry and uh please be patient with us as we take this longer than normal break and our email address once again is chris arnzen at gmail .com

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chris arnzen at gmail .com and don't go away god willing we're going to be back right after these messages with more of steve martin and mentoring in ministry chris arnzen host of iron sharpens iron radio here i want to tell you about a man i have personally known for many years his name is dan buttafuoco dan is a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer but not the type that typically comes to mind dan cares about people and is a theologian himself recently he wrote a book titled consider the evidence for the bible ravi zacharias wrote the foreword dan also has a master's degree in theology dan handles serious injury and medical malpractice cases in all 50 states he represents many christians in serious injury matters all over the country dan is an exceptional trial lawyer he wrote the test for the national board of trial advocacy and currently his firm has over 100 cases that have settled for 1 million dollars or more and in approximately 10 different states in illinois his lawyers had the fourth largest settlement in the state's history in new york his case involving a paralyzed police officer made the front page of the law journal if you have a serious personal injury or medical malpractice claim in any state i recommend that you call dan consultations are free there is no fee unless you win dan buttafuoco's number is 1 -800 -669 -4878 1 -800 -669 -4878 or email me for dan's contact information at chrisarnsen at gmail .com

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that's chris arnson at gmail .com hey this is pete orta former guitar player for the grammy award -winning christian rock band petra i'd like to invite you to my new podcast called christian conversations unfiltered this channel is much different than my sermon podcast the episodes are intimate conversations with people who i enjoy about topics that i can't really unbox from the pulpit each episode is unproduced unedited and unapologetic conversations that might not only help you answer some relevant questions you might be struggling with but also help create some questions in your head that you might not have even ever thought of the purpose of this podcast is to help people apply their theology while broadening their biblical worldview so go to peteorta .com

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that's p -e -t -e -o -r -t -a .com and click subscribe to podcasts and then choose what podcasts you'd like to hear if not both and what platform works best for you can't wait for you to join us god bless iron sharpens iron radio is sponsored by harvey cedars a year -round bible conference and retreat center nestled on the jersey shore harvey cedars offers a wide range of accommodations to suit groups up to 400 for generations christians have enjoyed gathering and growing at harvey cedars each year thousands of high school and college students come and learn more about god's word an additional 9 000 come annually to harvey cedars as families couples singles men women pastors seniors and missionaries 90 miles from new york city 70 miles from philly and 95 miles from wilmington and easily accessible scores of notable christian groups frequently planned conferences at harvey cedars like the navigators intervarsity christian fellowship campus crusade and the alliance of confessing evangelicals find harvey cedars on or at hcbible .org

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hcbible .org call 609 -494 -5689 609 -494 -5689 harvey cedars where christ finds people and changes lives hi i'm stephen limblad assistant professor of systematic theology at irbs theological seminary in mansfield texas i accepted this call to teach at the seminary because i'm firmly convinced that the people of god in the churches of our lord jesus christ need to be firmly grounded in the truth of holy scripture i'm excited to be teaching such subjects as the nature of theology and the doctrine of scripture and even the doctrine of the person and work of jesus christ our churches and our people need to be well grounded in these truths indeed future ministers of the gospel need to understand these truths in order to proclaim them to all of god's people if you want to learn more about our program visit us online at irbs seminary .org

01:00:01

tired of box store christianity of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship and how about the preaching perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from long island well there's good news wedding river baptist church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of god's word and this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times 631 -929 -3512 or check out their website at wrbc .us

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that's solidrockremodeling .com solid rock remodeling bringing new life to your home i'm pastor bill shishko host of a visit to the pastor's study and i am so thankful to be part of the advertising family right here on iron sharpens iron if you live on long island or if you're visiting the metropolitan new york area i invite you to join us for worship at the haven on sundays at 4 30 p .m

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we meet at the ascension lutheran church facility 33 bayshore road in deer park new york at the haven you'll find god's saturated singing gospel rich ministry and great commission opportunities learn more about us at the havenli .com

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and join us this sunday at 4 30 p .m 33 bayshore road deer park new york my name is steve lawson founder and president of one passion ministries as well as teaching fellow for ligonier ministries i serve as professor of preaching and oversee the doctor of ministry program at the master's seminary in los angeles i would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students andy woodard serves as the pastor it's called new covenant church nyc they are a reformed baptist church that meets in midtown manhattan you can find their service times and location on their website which is www .ncc

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.nyc they believe in a sovereign god who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel if you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching which is simply biblical preaching in new york city i'd like to recommend that you visit new covenant church nyc again their information can be found at www .ncc

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.nyc have a great day Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said give yourself unto reading the man who never reads will never be read he who never quotes will never be quoted he will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own you need to read solid ground christian books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the prince of preachers to heart the mission of solid ground christian books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to christians in the present and future and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world since it's beginning in 2001 solid ground has been committed to publish god -centered christ exalting books for all ages we invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com

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that's solid -ground -books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past or present you can unearth from solid ground solid ground christian books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of iron sharpens iron radio hi i'm buzz taylor frequent co -host with chris arnson on iron sharpens iron radio i would like to introduce you to my good friends todd and patty jennings at cvbbs which stands for cumberland valley bible book service todd and patty specialize in supplying reformed and puritan books and bibles at discount prices that make them affordable to everyone since 1987 the family -owned and operated book service has sought to bring you the best available christian books and bibles at the best possible prices unlike other book sites they make no effort to provide every book that is available because frankly much of what is being printed is not worth your time that means you can get to the good stuff faster it also means that you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic heretical and otherwise faith insulting material promoted by the secular book vendors their website is cvbbs .com

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that's cvbbs .com let todd and patty know that you heard about them on iron sharpens iron radio and cvbbs .com

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is continuing their offer for my favorite of all biographies a pastor in new york the life and times of spencer cone by john thornberry a friend of mine uh for many years going back to the 1980s was a brilliant church historian and this is i believe such an extraordinary biography it should be turned into a major motion picture it's filled with just fascinating aspects of spencer cone's he was a school teacher he was a lawyer he was a stage actor in the 19th century he was a war hero in the war of 1812 and then of course he was a pastor a particular baptist pastor in manhattan pastoring for the longest period of time i believe the first baptist church of new york city where i have been in manhattan i had actually held a major event for iron sharpens iron radio in that building which still stands and this is a extraordinary book i can't say enough about it you can get it absolutely free of charge if you purchase a minimum of 50 worth of merchandise what you have to do is go to cvbbs .com

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and you have to put a pastor in new york the life and times of spencer cone by john thornberry a beautiful hardback by the way published by evangelical press you have to put that in your cart and then you have to add fifty dollars worth of other merchandise and then add the coupon code iron sharpens iron all capital letters all one word and the cost of a pastor in new york will be deleted from your total and i i can't recommend this book enough and i am sure if you love biographies you're going to love this one you can also call them and verbally tell them the coupon code iron sharpens iron at 800 -656 -0231 800 -656 -0231 they man that phone line monday through friday between 8 a .m

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and 4 30 p .m and i know that uh todd and patty jennings the former owners of cvbbs had a very high regard for my guest today steve martin and they urged me to get steve on the air for quite a long time and i'm glad it finally happened but we'll be giving you the new information hopefully soon on the new owners of cvbbs we keep running the old ad because one of the new owners is still working on an ad script for us so hopefully that will be on the air soon but we have a few more announcements to make before we return to our interview with steve martin first of all my pastor's luncheon the iron sharpens iron radio free pastor's luncheon is this thursday 11 a .m

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to 2 p .m at the carlisle fire and rescue banquet hall right here in carlisle pennsylvania featuring guest speaker dr tony costa professor of apologetics and islam at toronto baptist seminary he's going to be speaking on the theme how the dead sea scrolls vindicate the reliability of the bible it's absolutely free of charge to all men in ministry leadership whether you are a pastor or an elder and i believe that's the same office by the way whether you are a deacon whether you are a parachurch leader whatever office you hold if you are a man you are welcome to this lunch and absolutely free of charge you're not only going to be fed for free you're not only going to hear dr tony costa give a powerpoint presentation on the dead sea scrolls for free but you're also going to receive at least two heavy sacks of books perhaps even more of brand new books that i've selected personally from major christian publishers in the united states in the united kingdom who have donated these books every year and so this is well worth your while if you can take a plane train or automobile to carlisle pennsylvania to attend the luncheon and unless you think that my only inviting men has something to do with male chauvinism or misogyny i could tell you that the person who came up with that rule a very strict rule was my precious late wife julie who started these luncheons in the 1990s and she not only said that this is only to be for men but it's also only to be a time of refreshment and edification and blessing to men there is nothing ever for sale at my luncheons there's never any ulterior motive or hidden agenda this is just a time of blessing for men in the ministry because my precious late wife knew how much men in the ministry deserve these kind of events because they very rarely are invited to anything that doesn't have some kind of ulterior motive behind it so just send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

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chrisarnson at gmail .com and put pastor's luncheon or something like that in the subject line to register then uh dr tony costa and i are going to pack up our bags after thursday's luncheon and we are heading to long island new york where dr costa is going to be speaking at a number of different churches and they include new high park baptist church new high park long island they include wading river baptist church in wading river at long island they include hope reform baptist church of quorum long island and missio church of ridge long island if you'd like a full itinerary of where dr costa is speaking on long island with the different themes and the contact information for each church just send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com

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and put something like dr costa's new york itinerary in the subject line and i'll get that to you as soon as possible by the way these events on long island are not restricted to men in the ministry they're open to all man woman or child christian or non -christian you may attend all of these events absolutely free of charge then uh coming up right after that uh i am going to be packing up my bags again and i'm going to be heading to elizabeth town pennsylvania for the banner of truth conference and what a wonderful conference that is uh right here in pennsylvania the banner of truth east coast ministers conference and this year's theme is on i believe in the holy spirit and if you would like to attend this conference just go to banner of truth .org

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banner of truth .org and click on events and then scroll down to east coast ministers conference this event just like my pastor's luncheon is restricted to men in ministry leadership so be prepared for that when you go to the website and you register the speakers include jerry kingswood i'm sorry jeff kingswood terry johnson david vaughn steve nichols michael morales and chad vegas that's i believe in the holy spirit the east coast ministers conference of banner of truth that is taking place tuesday may 28th through thursday may 30th go to banner of truth .org

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banner of truth .org click on events and scroll down to east coast ministers conference then later on in the year december 19th and 20th a thursday and friday i'm heading back to my old stomping grounds in manhattan to the founders i'm sorry the foundations conference the foundations conference is a conference of sermonaudio .com

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and i am very excited about the speakers that they have they always have great speakers but this december they include dr stephen j lawson whose voice you hear every day promoting new covenant church nyc on my show paul washer one of the most magnificent preachers alive today reverend jeff thomas another remarkable preacher known to most banner of truth fans and all lovers of reformed theology uh jeff thomas a retired reformed baptist minister who you've got to hear if you've never heard him preach he's extraordinary uh reverend armand tamasian i think he is going to be a household name amongst reformed christians over the next decade one of the most powerful preachers i've ever heard even though he's a young man in the ministry you will not regret hearing reverend armand tamasian unless of course you're a lost person and you're not liking what you hear uh richard caldwell jr and andrew quigley are two men that i have never heard preached before but since sermon audio selected them i am sure that they are excellent to register for the foundations conference in new york city december 19th 20th go to the foundations conference .com

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the foundations conference .com and then in january i'm heading back to atlanta georgia more specifically college park georgia uh which is uh having the g3 conference which stands for stands for grace gospel and glory or actually gospel grace and glory and uh that's from thursday january 16th through saturday january 18th the theme is worship matters the speakers include costy hin and that's right his name is h -i -n -n hin and he is the nephew of the notorious heretic benny hin whom costy has renounced uh and costy is a convert out of the word of faith movement he repented of those heresies and is now not only a cessationist but he's a reformed baptist in california a reformed baptist pastor and uh he is on the lineup what a remarkable brother he is and a very humble man at that uh we have david miller on the lineup an excellent preacher uh derrick thomas somebody who's very well known to reform christians everywhere my friend dr james r white of alpha and omega ministries joel beaky who i just mentioned earlier a remarkable man of god and preacher that i've known since the 1990s and as i just said earlier at least at one time he was the favorite pastor of dr james dobson's wife uh josh bice the founder of the g3 conference paul washer and stephen j lawson are going to be at this conference as well my friend dr tom askell the executive director of founders ministries which is the calvinistic ministry within the southern baptist convention and vody baucom a really powerful and profound preacher if you want to register go to g3 conference .com

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g3 conference .com and since they are expecting over 5 000 people once again at this conference i strongly urge you to register for an exhibitor's as well if indeed you have a business a parachurch ministry a church or something else that you want to promote to the body of christ that would be an ideal place i will be manning an exhibitor's booth there myself and i would love to see you there i hope your exhibitor's booth is near mine and as i said over 5 000 people are expected as attend every year go to g3 conference .com

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g3 conference .com last but not least if you love iron sharpens iron radio and you do not want us to disappear from the airwaves if you look forward to hearing the guests and topics that we air every day that are very often not heard anywhere else then please go to iron sharpens iron radio .com

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and put i need a church home or something similar in the subject line i have helped many people in our listening audience find church homes near them all over the world including england and australia and other parts of the united states and also i've helped people find churches for their loved ones in other places and also people who need to visit a church while they're vacationing so please send me an email to chris arnson at gmail .com

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and put i need a church home or something like that in the subject line that's also the email address to send in a question for steve martin our topic as i've mentioned before is mentoring in ministry steve martin is the dean of students at irbs theological seminary in mansfield texas our email address again is chris arnson at gmail .com

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chris arnson at gmail .com if you uh have a question you can also ask on any question regarding a christian theology and uh give us your first name city and state and country of residence and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter uh steve as far as mentoring is concerned what are some basic practical steps if you are going to begin a mentoring relationship with someone who desires to be mentored by you how do you start planning out such a relationship as far as activities and interaction and so on that's a good question and before i answer that i want to say that two of your advertisers i have very high regards from both cumberland valley bible book service cvbbs as well as mike gadosh solid ground christian books this is not an exaggeration but probably over the years i bought a hundred thousand books dollars worth of books from these two purveyors they're great they can answer questions you cannot call up amazon and ask what's a good bible study revelation um they're not going to have any clue but you can call up cumberland valley or solid ground they can give you good counsel and they have great literature and they're keeping the best of the past available to us so i encourage your listeners to buy your books if not exclusively mainly from these two purveyors they're they're great now to your question uh what what are some practical steps we can do well one of the things is that we need to train men by our examples um our lord didn't just hover above the earth drop down some outlines from heaven and return to heaven but he became incarnate now i understand that he's unique but there's something to be said for a mentoring in that i'm with my men peter when he instructs elders he says now those who are elders among you the idea is that elders or excuse me spiritual leaders are not simply men who float by in the cloud but they're involved in life and the things that they would like you to excuse me i got hiccups here but they would like you to learn they're willing to practice so i would take men i was working with with me to do things um if you a lot of times you can if you have an opportunity to take a man to share his testimony if he's never heard himself speak he can hear himself explain the gospel and what he came to understand i would train them a little bit ahead of time what's involved in a healthy bible testimony but um take men with you uh incarnate what you want them to do don't just tell them to do it but show them by taking them with you our children learn by imitation and younger people that we're mentoring and during the faith at least uh will learn by watching us why have christians picked up weird prayer habits like lord i just want to thank you oh lord i just where'd the word just jump into prayers well i think that became orthodoxy in the 70s and it stuck with us and uh why do we call it sharing our faith well it became orthodoxy in the 70s too that we share our faith we don't witness but um taking people with you demonstrating by example um that the things that we want them to learn i think the second thing would be after training and taking them with you i think it'd be important to um to give them good books to read one of the things in our arsenal that we need to take advantage of is good books not only do i take them to do things whether it's helping to put a roof on a widow's house or helping to dig a ditch at a or helping to put in a new toilet at a struggling missionary mission church or sharing testimony at a public meeting but also getting them to read sound literature good books um reading changed my life i don't know anybody who's a leader who isn't also a reader and that means that we expose them to the best books there's so much garbage out there and there's so much fluff um one speaker talked about that we had too many even jellyfish uh they don't have any signs they don't have any skeletal structures they have no doctrinal backbones they're just all about feelings and sentiments and and listening to their favorite preacher but not really developing any doctrinal skeleton we need to help our people develop doctrinal skeleton to put the meat on but the skeleton is is central um so besides taking men with you and besides exposing them to the best literature i'd say um another practical thing to do is is as you're working with men we pray for them um you you know jesus said men are always to pray and not lose heart we can do less than pray for them but we can't do more than pray for them and um it's a mark of how humble we are by how much we pray for our men if we're all hustle and bustle for our great ideas of what we need to do to whip these people into shape but aren't really on our faces before the lord praying for them saying lord make them humble make them teachable in this area help them to see their need here help them to um have a heart for you whatever we want to lay before the lord but christianity we say is a supernatural religion not everything is supernatural but um god must work in men's hearts and um in the movie chariots of fire the protagonist eric little falls down after winning a tremendous race where he gets knocked down part way through and gets up and races around the course and beats everybody and then collapses and um the trainer of another man watching tells eric little's trainer you know you can't train what god hasn't put in god's given you a great man there and you be sure to train him well but the point is is that god has to put in men's lives what ultimately you're going to help shape and so to pray for our people to pray for our men or women or whoever we're working with and that means sometimes too speaking the truth of love it could be something as mundane as i was working in parachurch ministry with a young man who was a really good personal worker but to be very blunt he had abominable abominable bad breath i mean he could knock a buffalo dead so after after doodling about this for a few days and recognizing that other people recognize it but who wants to bring that up i had to take him aside over a cup of coffee for breakfast one morning say brother i love you you're really dear brother you're doing a lot of things well but there's a possible impediment here in your ministry and for whatever reason you have really wow i wish there was a fly in the wall for that conversation my favorite or easiest but i had to go there or i had to take a young man aside who was growing in grace and i said you know you're at the stage of life you ought to be using deodorant because frankly you're either smuggling rotten baloney or you know sometimes it's more difficult like you when i was in seminary i worked with a man who was visiting from another country and he was a leader in that country and he was getting his phd and i took him aside one time and i said you know i realized that i've not arrived on even just getting my master's you're getting your doctorate but i think there's a cultural blind spot that you have that you treat your wife like she's a second -class citizen and in their country the wives even walked a couple of paces behind the husband and that could be done i suppose out of deference and respect but frequently the man walking in front treats his wife like a second -class citizen i said i think you could do better at being more biblical and less cultural and since you're a spiritual leader others will take note and so that's you know you have to really pray about those things you don't want to be just a have a personality where you're always quick to shoot people for their weaknesses but if i love you i have to love you enough to tell you the truth as hard as it may be and if it particularly if it's an impediment to keep you from going on to the next level in your christian life by the way do you share a sermon notes with one of my pastors simon o manny because just yesterday in his sermon he used the chariots of fire illustration about eric little falling and then going on to winning winning the race anyway well our great minds think alike and simon's a good man and i respect him and uh no we haven't talked about it but uh one of my favorite movies and um a great example in eric little's life but uh delegating to to people to you know jesus gave his men menial things to do to test how faithful they were you know go into town and get some food while i sit here at this well and then he talks to the woman at the well if i can't get trust you to go to mcdonald's and get some burgers and come back and meet me if you can't do that right i'm probably not going to give you greater things along the way or jesus said can you go into town and get this donkey and here's the details about it and bring the donkey back it may seem like the piddly things that he delegated menial tasks you know i once had a man who was a candidate for being a deacon and he was incensed that part of his responsibilities was to set up churches set up chairs before church because we rented a facility he goes i'm not called to set up chairs well it was obvious he wasn't even called to be a servant and he proved to have a lot of other weaknesses and i was glad he never became deacon but the point is is we need to delegate to men and the more they show faithfulness and you know he who is faithful in little things is faithful also much but he was unfaithful in little things were unfaithful and much it's like the guy who used to say in high school i don't do practice i just show up for game day well i suggest if you don't show up for practice you won't be much on game day right yeah that that was a uh disturbing response from the from either the deacon or the diaconal candidate i can't remember who you said he was but that that's one of the very responsibilities exactly he here he was coming out of a southern baptist background where deacons were like elders and he thought of himself as someone great and as it turned out he was a very mediocre christian and um a really bad husband and father so anyway and he had bad breath and b .o

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on top of that i've been combined in one person i think i just would have taken him out back and shot him but that was at that point so there we go uh i think we should expose our men to a variety of opportunities to learn um you know even letting a man try something he might fail at one time when i was working with students there was a man it was a young man who's obviously gifted in many ways and it wasn't a natural leader and others looked at him but i thought if i made him a leader prematurely it would go to his head so i asked him to run the book table at our ministry meetings where we had a couple hundred students and then there was another man who was kind of quiet and uh not very quick on his feet and awkward i made him my master of ceremonies not because i wanted to humble him but just because i wanted him to try something and work at it and see how he did and he struggled he became at least proficient and the man who was very gifted did a fine job running the book table well after a while i swapped them around and the guy who struggled to be a master of ceremony was very happy to run the book table and the guy who ran the book table well was did very well as the master of ceremonies but it kept either of them from thinking that they were great or that they could only do one thing and the guy who ran finally ran the book table was appreciative of the man who had master of ceremonies gifts and the man who was master of ceremonies gifts was appreciative of what it took to run a book table so it's like first corinthians 12 with different different gifts in the body and giving people opportunity to try different things test themselves um i think that um and one of my heroes is barnabas he was really good at encouraging men and picking up men who others were questionable about um he picked up saul of tarsus and uh used his own credibility to maybe the impromptu or the stamp of approval to the other apostles that paul was legitimate he's the real deal he's public enemy number one has not become a pretend christian order to sneak in among us and kill us all he's really become one of us and we need to get behind him and then later john mark is our nephew who paul just for whatever reason i just can't take this kid anymore i don't want him to come with us and barnabas said i think he's salvageable and they had a heated debate and they parted but later paul admits john mark is useful to me for ministry sent him to me he's a good man and um barnabas doesn't get much pr so to speak in the christian world but 43 of the new testament was written by men he trained or discipled or mentored paul and john mark wrote a big chunk of the new testament and um barnabas was the man who mentored them who encouraged them he started off the ministry and next 13 is saul and barnabas sweet barnabas and paul and then later became paul and barnabas paul was the more gifted man the front man the more powerful preacher and teacher but barnabas didn't mind taking a back seat um when revival among the gentiles broke out in antioch barnabas was the one sent there and he encouraged the saints well gentiles can become believers really even these people can become one of us so anyway i think barnabas is a good role model for people who want to be mentors to study his life study what he did um i'm not suggesting he was some superman all christians are depraved sinners who are saved by the grace of god even the great dr martin lloyd jones said at the end of his life that he wants i've written on his tombstone here lies an old sinner saved by grace amen but barnabas was a good man who showed us how to work with different people a super gifted dynamo like saul of tarsus and then a diffident perhaps more difficult young man john mark and they both ended well because of his mentorship and i would hope to be something like him yeah one of the greatest compliments i ever received in my life is when my dear friend dr james r white of alpha and omega ministries wrote to me that i was a barnabas to him and i can't remember if that was in his dedication to me in his book the forgotten trinity or if it was in another correspondence he had with me actually i think it was an engravement on a pen that he gave me so long ago it's hard to remember in the 90s but i remember the compliment though and i'm not saying that to brag but i'm just saying that to uh mention that it is it is uh one of the greatest compliments i could ever have received amen amen and by the way james white books book the forgotten trinity is a great book and a neglected subject yes amen we're going to our final break right now it's much more brief than the last one but if you want to send in a question on mentoring in ministry or on any subject regarding christian theology send it in quickly because we're rapidly running out of time the email address is chris arnson at gmail .com

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chris arnson at gmail .com and as always please give us your first name your city and state of and your country of residence if you live outside the usa and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter in fact i'm going to read an anonymous question to you and you can answer it when we return okay uh the anonymous listener asks you mentioned earlier about not becoming too attached to a mentor and almost having a cult -like relationship with him i'm not saying that those were your words but that's the idea that i got from it i was wondering how does not only the mentor but the one being mentored prevent that kind of entanglement and uh i will have you answer that as i said when we return from the break don't go away we'll be right back after these messages hello my name is james renahan and i'm the president of irbs theological seminary in mansfield texas the word of god says if a man desires the office of an overseer he desires a good thing do you have the desire to serve jesus christ in pastoral ministry 20 years ago the institute of reformed baptist studies at westminster seminary california was born for those two decades these institutions worked together to train men for ministry in reformed baptist churches it's been a wonderful partnership now we have advanced our school into an independent seminary offering a full program of courses leading to the master of divinity degree this is irbs theological seminary we believe that the scriptures of the old and new testaments are the inspired and inerrant word of god that jesus christ is god in the flesh who came to save sinners by his life death and resurrection and that the task of the church is to honor and serve the triune god in all things irbs theological seminary is dedicated by god's grace to preparing godly ministers who will be committed to these doctrines do you sense a call to serve jesus christ in his church as a pastor why not consider irbs theological seminary you'll find more information at irbsseminary .org

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that's irbsseminary .org two s's in the middle i hope to hear from you soon god bless you paul wrote to the church at galatia for am i now seeking the approval of man or of god or am i trying to please man if i were still trying to please man i would not be a servant of christ hi i'm mark lukens pastor of providence baptist church we are reformed baptist church and we hold to the london baptist confession of faith of 1689 we are in nofork massachusetts we strive to reflect paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how god views what we say and what we do than how men view these things that's not the best recipe for popularity but since that wasn't the apostles priority it must not be ours either we believe by god's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man and to be vessels of christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us and to build up the body of christ in truth and love if you live near nofork massachusetts or plan to visit our area please come and join us for worship and fellowship you can call us at 508 528 -5750 that's 508 -528 -5750 or go to our website to email us listen to past sermons worship songs or watch our tv program entitled resting in grace you can find us at providence baptist church ma .org

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that's providence baptist church ma .org or even on sermonaudio .com providence baptist church is delighted to sponsor iron sharpens iron radio i'm dr gary kimbrough patsy bethlehem baptist church and laurel mississippi god tells us in james 127 that pure and undefiled religion is a visit to fatherless and widows and their affliction in the providence of god three years ago i discovered a poor small church outside lusaka zambia in a township called kabanana who are taking care of 24 orphans i found them just at the time when they had lost all their funding what was i to do could i just say god bless you and walk away the situation of the children said heavily upon me as i was praying concerning this need it came to me i trust from the lord to tell the orphans plight to a broader audience the entire need for their clothing food education and some medical services is 73 dollars per month per child if just 50 of us would give 35 a month we could meet the need bethlehem baptist church will pay the fee to get the funds there so if you give a dollar a dollar we'll get to the orphans in this season of hope and giving will you consider giving hope to 24 orphans please send your gift of any amount to bethlehem baptist church 838 reed road laurel mississippi 39443 or donate through our website bbclaurel .com

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again the address is bethlehem baptist church 838 reed road laurel mississippi 39443 or bbclaurel .com

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thank you linbrook baptist church on 225 earl avenue in linbrook long island is teaching god's timeless truths in the 21st century our church is far more than a sunday worship service it's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant it's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement it's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people and healing we're a diverse family of all ages enthusiastically serving our lord jesus christ in fellowship play and together hi i'm pastor bob waldeman and i invite you to come and join us here at linbrook baptist church and see all that a church can be call linbrook baptist at 516 -599 -9402 that's 516 -599 -9402 or visit linbrookbaptist .org

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that's linbrookbaptist .org every day at thousands of community centers high schools middle schools juvenile institutions coffee shops and local hangouts long island youth for christ staff and volunteers meet with young people who need jesus we are rural and urban and we are always about the message of jesus our mission is to have a noticeable spiritual impact on long island new york by engaging young people in the lifelong journey of following christ long island youth for christ has been a stalwart bedrock ministry since 1959 we have a world -class staff and a proven track record of bringing consistent love and encouragement to youths in need all over the country and around the world help honor our history by becoming a part of our future volunteer donate pray or all of the above for details call long island youth for christ at 631 -385 -8333 that's 631 -385 -8333 or visit liyfc .org

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that's liyfc .org i'm pastor bill shishko host of a visit to the pastor's study and i am so thankful to be part of the advertising family right here on iron sharpens iron if you live on long island or if you're visiting the metropolitan new york area i invite you to join us for worship at the haven on sundays at 4 30 p .m

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and join us this sunday at 4 30 p .m 33 bayshore road dear park new york did you know that all believers are priests in first peter chapter 2 verse 9 the apostle peter describes christ's church as comprising a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation a people for god's own possession so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light so if you're a christian you're also a priest now you can find the newest styles in reformed and protestant apparel at citizenpriest .com

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visit citizenpriest .com today my name is steve lawson founder and president of one passion ministries as well as teaching fellow for ligonier ministries i serve as professor of preaching and oversee the doctor of ministry program at the master's seminary in los angeles i would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students andy woodard serves as the pastor it's called new covenant church nyc they are a reformed baptist church that meets in midtown manhattan you can find their service times and location on their website which is www .ncc

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.nyc they believe in a sovereign god who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel if you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching which is simply biblical preaching in new york city i'd like to recommend that you visit new covenant church nyc again their information can be found at www .ncc

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.nyc have a great day thriving financial is not your typical financial services provider as a membership organization we help christians be wise with money and live generously every day and for the fourth year in a row we were named one of the world's most ethical companies by the ethosphere institute a leading international think tank dedicated to the creation advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics contact me mike gallagher financial consultant at 717 -254 -6433 again 717 -254 -6433 to learn more about the thriving we know we were made for so much more than ordinary lending faith finances and generosity that's the thriving story listening to christian radio can be a big gamble spiritually even many of the major christian networks that include excellent biblically faithful teachers on their lineup sadly often also include the worst of doctrinally dangerous heretics if you are a lover of the doctrines of sovereign grace you need not fear listening 24 hours a day to first love radio .org

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welcome back this is chris arnzen and if you have a question for steve martin send it in quickly because we're rapidly running out of time our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

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chris arnzen at gmail .com and as always please give us your first name city and state and country of residence if you live outside the usa and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter one quick note about the new american standard bible since they sponsor us i'm urging you if you are a pastor a deacon or someone in charge of purchasing bibles for your church if you've been noticing that your pew bibles are tattered falling apart the pages are falling apart they're filled with children's graffiti whatever the case is or if you just want to replace your bibles because you've outgrown the translation that you've been using and want a bible that is more faithful in english translation that is more faithful to the original languages please go to nasbible .com

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nasbible .com and please mention chris arnzen of iron trip and zion radio when you contact them they have been faithful supporters of iron trip and zion radio ever since we first launched the program in 2005 and have been sponsoring special events that i have organized since the 1990s including debates featuring dr james r white they are dear friends and faithful sponsors so please support them so that they can continue to sponsor iron trip and zion radio we are now back as i said with steve martin and steve i want you to basically highlight what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners before we run out of time today okay i think there was a question that was asked that i was to answer oh yeah i forgot that's okay you got a lot in your mind i think that you need to be careful as a mentor that paul said follow me as i follow christ he didn't just say follow me end of discussion he said follow me as i follow christ imitate me as i imitate christ and i think that we always need to be pointing people to christ as the only perfect human who's ever walked on the planet the only one worthy of our absolute devotion men deserve our relative trust christ deserves our absolute trust uh in my book and i'm psalms like i'm promoting my book but i actually am biblical shepherding of got sheep uh i do have the chapter there in the use of abusive authority and how there are authoritarian leaders so there's idol worshiping sheep i'd like someone to tell me what to do every day i'd like someone to run my life on me so i don't have to think and i don't have to trust god and that's idolatry and there are men who like to dominate women and there's women who like to be dominated sad to say and there's laymen who like to be told what to do and there's people who like to tell them what to do and that's not biblical we need to look to christ so anyway um if i wanted to leave our people with one thing i would say that um we need faithful shepherds who's going to pastor your grandchildren who's going to pastor the next generation of reformed christians and many of us have had to cobble together our own understanding of the reformed faith because it's been an abeyance for some time but we're thankful that it's come out of the woodwork that men have rediscovered the doctrines that changed the western world and they needed to be understood to be held on to tightly and to preached unashamedly in the power of the spirit and that's what i'm seeking to help young men to learn to do as i am the dean of students and mentor to young men in the seminary here amen and uh i think that not only is it very important for people not to become overly uh attached in an unbiblical way to a mentor from uh an actual contemporary mentor a physical mentor whom you know today uh it's i think very important not to get uh so caught up in hero worship from men in the past who you love to read that they become idols and i know that some of my presbyterian friends may be upset by this but but i think that some of them if they were honest they would know that this is a reality i'm not saying this is always the case but i can't help but think when i hear uh some of my friends who have become believers in pato baptism who are formerly reformed baptists when they give their explanations very often it sounds like nothing more than they're just following their heroes lockstep no matter what they taught i've even heard people say specifically well john calvin and the reformers and the puritans uh couldn't be wrong and i'm like why couldn't they be wrong they're human beings exactly well that's a good point you know i have lots of people who've been my heroes i love martin lord jones and he was a mixed bag he would only baptize professed believers but he couldn't defend he felt immersion so he would sprinkle that um believing people and so he was kind of a mixed bag on other people i have presbyterian heroes i did my master's degree on charles hobbs the great leader of princeton and then of course baptist heroes but there's all kinds of people like i mentioned earlier aw tozer christ deserves our is the only one who deserves our unthinking unwavering hundred percent devotion and we would do better to spend more time in the gospels looking at christ and reading about him in the old testament the bible of the first century christians well i want to make sure that our listeners have all of your contact information uh first of all for those of you interested in exploring the irbs theological seminary go to irbs seminary .org

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irbs seminary .org don't forget the two s's in the middle and uh if you could do a contact information that you care to share uh steve well rev steve martin rev steve martin at gmail .com

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is my email address rev steve martin that's all one phrase rev steve martin at gmail .com