Race

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Pope Francis, Walls, and Building Bridges

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. This is a cough-free zone, Steve. Okay, cough button on. Yeah, where is that cough button? It's right here. Breaking news. Uh-oh. A person who thinks only about building walls, not of building bridges, is not a Christian.

This man is not a Christian if he has said things like that, said Pope Francis to Donald Trump. Glad we have the Pope weighing in on walls. I just got back from the Vatican not that long ago.

Some pretty big walls there. What about rebuilding the temple walls?

Ooh, what a burn. What about a bridge over the temple wall? Ooh. What about Pontifus Maximus, the ultimate bridge builder? Well, hey. Uh-huh, it's about building bridges. I think he's been building quite a few bridges lately.

Until he like lost his temper and scolded those people the other day. That was burning a bridge.

That was burning a bridge, that's good, that's good.

Preparing Better for Bible Study

Steve, I have an email from one of our listeners. I do have an idea. Who has a profile pic as an egg. Uh-huh, this is not any egg. That's an ostrich egg that they use in Africa too. It's an artwork, symbol of art.

Okay, moving right along. I do have an idea for future shows. Okay. There's not one show, but many shows. Many shows. I lead a men's study weekly. And I would like to sub for you guys. With about 10 guys.

Okay. It is discussion format, and I always feel underprepared. Can you guys offer any tips on how us uneducated laymen can be better prepared? And I wrote that, I read that as it was written. So there's a few SIC moments in there, but that's okay.

So let's say there's somebody out there and they're teaching a Bible study and they feel underprepared. What would you suggest to them? Prepare more. That's what I would say. Study more. Approve work when you're not ashamed.

2 Timothy 2 .15.

He doesn't get into it here, but generally speaking, I mean, it's easy. Here's what I would do, and I've done this when I had a group of guys. Now it was a fairly complicated book, but we were just going through a book about the Bible, about things that were in the Bible.

And what I would do is I would read it ahead of time and to just kind of reinforce things for myself, I would actually write questions, right? I would write questions for the men, and maybe this is something you could use, for the men to answer.

So we would have like a quiz, and that way I could not only reinforce the things that were in the chapter, but it also helped me prepare and kind of focus on some specific highlights that I wanted to hit.

Let's say our writer, our listener who wrote in is preparing 10, 15 hours for a study. Steve, I think what could happen is when the Bible is studied, there are all kinds of ancillary questions that develop.

So you're in a passage and then, well, what's the implication of this truth? And what about the pygmies in Africa? Are those people in Sri Lanka? Or what about natural revelation? Can it save? Maybe he feels underprepared that he can't answer all those questions.

So what advice would you give him to kind of tell the people and shepherd them? Those are good questions. Let's write them down. I'll give you the answers next week,.

But tonight we need to stick with the text. Well, and that's what I do. First of all, if you hit a question that really stumps you, then just, I told my FOF class last week, here are two of the greatest words.

Well, it's actually three words. And actually four words, because I can track one of them. Greatest phrase in the English language, I don't know. You know, I mean, it's okay. And then just say, you know, I'll get the answer and get back to you next week.

But one of the things while you're preparing is, you know, you just think about the text or think if it's a book that you're going through, whatever it is, just think about what some of the implications of that are for yourself.

I mean, when I'm focusing on a sermon, I start thinking about, okay, what does this mean? What does it preach? How does this apply? You know, are there any applications? What's the practical, you know, use of this passage?

And then I just try to figure out how do I work all that in? And so if you're doing that kind of thinking, if you're just kind of ruminating about things, then when those questions come up, maybe you have thought about them.

But it's also good if you can turn to the guys, because this is a Bible study, right? And just say, well, that's a good question. What do you guys all think? Right? And it's entirely possible somebody might have the right answer there.

And is that different than one of these sharing ignorance sessions? You know, the Bible means this to me. How can you make sure you don't slip into said discussion? Well, it means this to me, and it means that to you.

Well, that's a good question. And I mean, one of the ways to sort of steer away from that is you can almost, I mean, there's almost an alarm bell going off in your head when somebody starts going, well, to me, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then you just listen and you just go, okay, well, is there any particular part of the text that makes you think that, you know? And then they're going to say, well, no, you know? And then you can just go, okay, well, you know, anybody else have any ideas, you know?

I would also give this advice. Maybe the person who's preparing this study is taking too big of a passage of scripture. So let's say you're trying to do the old kind of Calvary Chapel chapter by chapter.

I commend you for that, but that means you've got to study a lot of verses. Yes. So if I'm preaching through Hebrews and I've got 10 verses I've got to work through and there are five Old Testament quotes found therein from first, you know, chapter of Hebrews verses four and following, I got to have, that's a lot of work.

So I think maybe smaller sections would be good for people. I also think that if you know what the Bible is about generally, then know what the book is about particularly, then you can ask the questions about the minor verses in light of what the book means.

And, you know, presuming that you are going through an actual book of the Bible or a passage of the Bible, one of the things that you want to do is just maybe read one or two commentaries because a lot of times these kind of questions or applications will be brought up, you know, in a good commentary.

I mean, you know, like maybe the Hendricks and Kistemacher commentary, for example, they'll bring up different things and you just go, you know what? I didn't really think about that as a potential application, but it's true.

That is an application, you know, or that is a potential problem of this passage. And by the way, if you're studying for a Bible study, you have to be aware of, you know, am I trying to teach a problem passage?

You know, one that has, you know, if it's 1 Corinthians 15, 29, is it about baptizing for the dead? Whatever it is, it's right in there, you know, and there are 45 different interpretations. Well, that would be a good passage to drop kick, you know, I mean, to not emphasize on your Bible study.

Jared Steve, these days, I know it helps us to have ESV study Bibles, Reformation study Bibles, MacArthur study Bibles. I know Ryrie died yesterday or two days ago, so Ryrie study Bible.

Pete Did it get better now that he's, I mean, it was always good, but you know.

Jared Well, he's better now. He's not quite as dispensational as he used to be. He's more covenant in his theology. Anyway, those things have helped the lay person. But when you have a home Bible study and you're talking about something, I mean, I know probably what I would do, you know, I'm listening and I'm looking down at my notes and then I read whatever the study notes are to see if it matches up.

And sometimes that lends itself to more conversation than maybe what the Bible teacher wants to have happen.

Pete Definitely. I mean, especially, again, it just depends on the passage, but there are some passages you're just like, all, you know, the Word of God, all of it is profitable. Some of it is more profitable than others.

And I mean, really, like the baptism for the dead thing. If you guys spend an hour talking about what that means, you pretty much, that was 59 minutes too long.

So… The other night we sat around at the dinner table with my family and I, and I said, all right, we're going to do something a little bit differently. Hebrews 1 says, after making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, Hebrews 1 .3.

We're just going to make some observations about after making purification for sins. Jesus made purification for sins. I said in seminary, I think I had to ask 25 questions about a verse like that. I think it was Ephesians 5 .25, wasn't it?

Peter 5 .18, I believe. You're correct. You're correct. 5 .18. Be filled by or with the Holy Spirit, in the Holy Spirit. Is it an, what is it, an N? E-N?

In Greek? Pete. Oh, I don't recall. All I remember is just going, it was probably one of the roughest assignments ever in seminary.

So my kids said, 25. I said, let's see how many we can come up with. Jesus makes purification for sins. We'll just use that as a summary statement of that part of the verse in chapter one, verse 3D. He made purification for sins.

And so we started off and it started off pretty rough. What's an observation? How do we go about it? And then we got on a roll and we got up to about 12 of them. You know, what's, just observations. And so this is a good way to do a home Bible study.

You take something very simple like that. What can we observe? And then when you have questions, then the leader studies those questions and finds out the answers and then brings them back the next week.

So he makes purification for not his own sins. It said for our sins. He made purification for sins, not transgressions. What's the difference? He made purification for sins, not sin. He made purification.

Doesn't say reconciliation there. Why does it say purification? And we went on and on and on. I let the kids pick them all. We had a great time, focused on just what that little sentence, part of that sentence means, that Jesus makes purification.

Muhammad didn't. Pete. So that's how you do it in sermon prep now these days? Pete. Well, partly I was thinking about the passage because that's the sermon for this coming Sunday. But I thought, let's just talk about observation, making observations.

And what are the W questions that you could ask? There's an H question in there, but they're mainly Ws. Pete. Who?

Pete Yeah, right. Right. What? Well, where wouldn't be very appropriate, right? Jared But, you know, is there a where question? Pete Well, he sat down, right? So, that'd be a…. Jared Well, because with Mormonism, where did Jesus make purification?

It wasn't in the Garden of Gethsemane. Pete Oh, that's true. Jared That might be good. Jared Uh-huh. Yeah, when did it happen? Where did it happen? Why? Why did Jesus make purification? Pete Well, because there is sin, right?

And with sin, nobody can get into God's presence.

Jared Because a triune God loved people and sent his Son to die for those sinners. Pete There you go. Jared Yeah, good. Purge, is there…. Jared Yeah. We also asked the question. I had to lead them into this though.

If Jesus purged our sins at Calvary, do you have to go someplace to get a purge later? Pete Like the purgatory? Jared Yeah, that's right. Pete The purgatory. I mean, who could fall for such a canard of a deal?

You know, it's just like, this is awful.

Pete. Oh, he only makes purification for most of your sins. See, now there would be another one. Do you make purification for all your sins? Jared. I wouldn't know how….

Pete. Some. Jared. How much does it hurt to be in purgatory? Is it like a boo-boo? Is it an owl? Is it a scream, blood-curdling scream?

Pete It's got to be less than hell, right? But it's got to be pretty bad. Man, that would have to hurt. Pete Yeah, it'd have to hurt a lot. Jared Purging those sins away. Pete Like, what do you think?

Is it like 30%, you know, of the wrath of God? Or what is that? It'd be interesting to, it wouldn't really be interesting to find out what a Catholic is. Jared I was studying that this week,.

And they have all their machinations. You can imagine with the same determination that we read about with Aquinas and how many heads,.

How many needles…. Pete. Angels can dance on the head of a pen. Jared. Oh, yeah. That's what I wanted to say right there. Pete. I know. Jared. It's the same thing. How hot's purgatory? How long do you have to stay?

Pete. All those imponderables, and they're imponderable because the Bible never talks about them.

Jared I posted one of those Gustav Dore pictures of purgatory paintings, engravings, etchings on Facebook. And then people made a comment because I said purgatory, you know, not or henno, Hebrews 1 .3.

And somebody wrote down below in the Facebook page, DMV line, RMP line.

They're all lined up, just stuck.

Pete Yeah. If you ever want to know what purgatory is like, just go to the RMV.

Jared. Why is that? A lot of things happen with cars. If you have to go buy a new car, new to you or brand new, or go to the RMV, DMV for registration of a car or anything. Why are the car things seeming like purgatory so often?

They're just the horrible things to do. Pete. Highly motivated government employees. Jared Mm.

That's right. Pete Yeah. Jared All right. Mike Avendroth here with Steve Cooley on No Compromise Radio. Make sure you do study. Make sure you ask questions. And if you feel inadequate in your preparation, I would finally say join the club.

The Bible, Observation, and Purgatory

Pete Yeah. Welcome. Welcome to the fraternity. Jared Steve, maybe this is too hot to touch, but that's what we do in No Compromise Radio. Black Lives Matter, racism in the church. How do we engage in social justice?

What are your thoughts in general about the evangelical debate now found on Twitter, Facebook, Gospel Coalition kind of stuff for this race issue? Why does it seem to be an issue?

Steve Candidly, I don't know why it's an issue. Because when I look at Galatians chapter three and say that there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. And when I read that, I just think, okay, at the foot of the cross, we're all equal. We should see each other, not in terms of black, yellow, white, and brown, but as brothers and sisters in Christ.

We have something that is far, far more powerful and stronger and more long-lasting than any kind of ephemeral racial relationship, you know, black, white, all those kind of things. All that kind of enmity is supposed to be put away at the cross.

Pete Yeah, but I thought Adam's first sin was only imputed to people that weren't my color.

Pete I don't think so.

Pete. It's so stupid when you think about it. There's one race, I would assume, right? The human race. Some people have more pigment than others, right? Pete. And see, there are some things, I mean,.

I was thinking about this the other day. We didn't even know what Adam and Eve, what color they were. I mean, how would we know?

They could be Asian for all we know. We don't know. Pete. Well, I think Jesus probably looks Semitic. Pete. Yeah, but I'm talking about Adam and Eve. Pete I know, I know. Pete. Who knows what they look like?

They could have been African. They could have been, you know, we don't know. Adam I have admitted plenty of times on No Compromise Radio that by my own sin, fueled by my relatives' sin, that I was fairly racist growing up.

And when somebody moved in next door in Omaha, Nebraska, they were a different color, you know, a proverbial H-E, double toothpicks, broke loose kind of thing. But one of the things I noticed when I got saved, many things in my life changed.

Now, not everything changed. I mean, some people still struggle with saying profane things. For me, it was just instantaneously gone. I still thought kind of swear words once in a while, still do. But I just don't say them.

And one of the reasons I know I'm a Christian is because I used to have some racism issues, and those are just all gone, all completely gone. I don't have any vestiges to my knowledge. And I'm not trying to brag like I've got it going on, but I just don't see that anymore at all.

And being in an environment like Los Angeles and Grace Community Church, where there are plenty of white people there, of course, but our home Bible study, we hardly had any white people there. And it didn't make me mad.

It didn't make me feel weird. I felt, Steve, that how would we all get together besides the cross of Christ and redemption found in Christ Jesus? Just like on a Sunday here, from whites, blacks, Indians, Puerto Ricans, just all kinds of different people here worshiping Jesus.

Pete Slauson Greeks, yeah, I know. And I guess we all have backgrounds and, you know, people could say, Mike, you're white, and you didn't really have any oppression and all this other stuff, and therefore you don't understand.

But I'm glad to tell you that I'm free from looking at somebody and judging them based.

On the color of their skin. Pete Slauson. Well, we ought to be, right? I mean, if we're not, we're in sin. Let's just put it that way. I think anybody who looks at someone else and harbors some kind of bitterness because of their skin color, then they're in sin and they need to repent.

Jared James Chapter 2 discusses that and it says, My brother, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. So, you think about the glory of Jesus. Maybe think of the transfiguration.

And Peter, James, and John, I think they were all checking out who had more pigment than the other guys as they were all on their face before Jesus. It's just so dumb to think about.

Pete Slauson. I really don't have, I have absolutely no use for that. I don't understand any of it.

So…. Jared James. I think, Steve, and you know what? I can certainly be wrong. But until someone can find out the vestiges of my latent racism that still exists in my heart, I just think, you know what?

At the end of the day, I have three daughters and one son, and I would hope they'd all get married. And they happen to be one quarter German, one half English, one eighth Danish, and one eighth Swedish.

And if they marry somebody that's from Ghana, or from Sri Lanka, or from Norway, I honestly don't care.

Pete Slauson Yeah, I mean, well, I mean, I could talk about it as a past event, you know, my threshold was what? Do they love the Lord? And are they ready to take care of my daughter or my, you know, to take care of my daughter in a way that I think that they ought to be biblically?

And that's the threshold. It doesn't matter to me what they look like, you know?

So, I never gave that a thought. Jared James Steve, I've been watching a lot of Malcolm X interviews and speeches on YouTube. Pete Slauson. Getting ready to convert? Jared James. Not quite. Pete Slauson.

Okay. Jared James I think his name originally was Malcolm Little. But then he went by Malcolm X, because he thinks that the last name Little was given by the slaveholders of his, you know, grandparents and stuff like that, great grandparents.

I'm just listening to the rhetoric, and I'm thinking about evangelicalism. And certainly white people can be racist, but black people can be racist too. And I just don't think there should be any part black.

If you're in South Africa, there's three groups, white, black, and colored. In America, we don't say colored because it's a negative connotation. But there, it's fine. You're just not either white or black.

You're in the middle. And what I love to do is to be in a church in South Africa where people are angry regarding race, but people that have been saved by the grace of God, worshiping Jesus Christ, holding hymnals together.

I mean, it is just the best.

Pete Slauson Well, that's how it's supposed to be. I mean, you know, we say here in America that the most segregated hour, or it's often said that the most segregated hour is Sunday morning, you know, church services.

And not only should it not be, but it's shame on any church that would keep out somebody.

Because of the color of their skin. Gary Barnes. Totally. And what you have to do is, you have to say, all right, where do I live? If you live in Finland, and you know, hey, are any blacks going to your church?

That's a dumb question. When I'm in Zambia, and there's hardly any white people, but I'm at a church, it doesn't mean their church is racist because there's hardly any white people there. But if you're in the inner city, and you think, you know, we only have white people in our church, and we're in the inner city, I think it's fair to ask the question, why?

Now, it might be musical preference, there might be a legit reason, but here I'm happy in West Boylston, which is a pretty white city, do you think? Pete Slauson. I think it's pretty white. Gary Barnes.

Pretty white, yeah, probably 95 white. Our church fellowship is made up of not 95 white. Pete Slauson. Right, because

Gary Barnes 99%. No, no, because we draw a lot from Worcester, which is more of a diverse population.

Pete Slauson So, what do you think of a guy like Tabidi Anaweli? And he's, to me, he's stirring up the issues in a way that I wish he wouldn't.

Gary Barnes. Well, I mean, it's hard to address in two minutes, but here's what I would say. I would say that I would encourage him to examine why he's doing what he's doing. It's hard for us to really kind of know his heart, but from the outside, it doesn't look helpful, you know?

And instead of encouraging unity, it seems like he's encouraging disunity and trying to pick and, you know, and I don't know. I mean, I would like to hear all the leaders of evangelicalism everywhere encouraging unity, encouraging us to look at one another not as black, white, yellow, whatever, but just as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Pete Slauson I think what happens, and certainly in person, he's a nice man and, you know, godly man, I'm sure, and everything else. But when you get involved with Twitter and Facebook and blogs and stuff like that, I just don't ever want anyone to say, you know, Abendroth's kind of pro-Black Lives Matter platform, and then have to say, Oh, no, but I'm really not.

I only used it for such and such. And I think he's getting in trouble because you shouldn't have to disassociate yourself from a bunch of people who have a racial agenda when it's not necessary, it's not helpful for the kingdom.

Pete Slauson Well, I've said it before. I don't care if it's this issue, I don't care if it's abortion, but if you want to link arms with unbelievers in some social cause, you know, I think eventually what's going to happen is you're going to look to your left and look to your right and go, I should be evangelizing these people and not trying to turn the world upside down.

I should be trying to turn their life upside down. I'm doing something wrong if my first priority isn't Christ. And I think if you get caught up in a movement like Black Lives Matter or any number of, you know, movements, you've kind of shifted the goalposts.

You've moved away from your first love.

Jared. Men, women, Black, white, everything in between, Jew, Gentile, slave and free are image bearers of God and could only look to one Savior, not the Jew Jesus, not the Semitic Jesus, but to the man, Christ Jesus.

Pete Slauson. Everybody needs to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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