What Seminaries Can't Do

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

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

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

Seminary as Local Church Training and What It Cannot Replace

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. This is Mike Abendroth, and I finally have Steve Cooley out of the proverbial cone of silence microphone.

Yes, I�ve been released on my own recognizance. I am free, and here I am.

Steve, I don�t know what happened with our trim levels before on our 1202 VLZ3 monitor, but you didn�t sound so well.

Well, you know, I was a little down, just a little health issue.

Yeah, and then now my microphone works, but actually I�m the stuffy one. Can you think of a pop lyric that would describe your state when you were underwater there? You were a little� Comfortably numb.

Oh, that is so bad, and you know, here�s the thing. Steve didn�t even have to think for a second. I thought maybe he would close his eyes. He would put his chin to his fist, Rodin�s thinker, and he didn�t even have to do that.

And I don�t even like Pink Floyd.

Well, that�s true. Steve, tell me a little bit about this whole Saturday thing. When�s that going to start? Tuesday guy on a Saturday. When are you going to tape that? Soon.

I was thinking about it this morning. Soon and very soon. Soon and very soon. We are going Know, personally, like every time before I preach, I�m hoping that the Lord will turn first, but, you know.

Well, it�s going to happen soon.

I�m getting the emails. I�m getting the emails when Steve is going to show up. I�m also getting emails, Steve, that they say now that you�re not on V &E anymore, can you make the show longer than 24 and a half minutes?

And then I had to tell the people that the whole V &E thing was just a ploy to get more donations. Nice.

Oh, yeah. Like 1 -800-PRAISE-A-THON. What are we, Paul Crouch now?

Steve, I don�t know. I can�t remember the exact name, but it was some critique of Tim Keller Ministries. Somebody was there for a long time, 20 years, and I was listening to the show and the host talking to this guy about it, World View or something, World Today, World Night, World News.

I couldn�t believe out of the 60-minute show, probably 10 minutes was advertising of the guy�s books and give money for this, that, or the other. Think if we took 10 minutes of no compromise to ask for money, we�d have a 14-minute show.

That�s a great point. Now, a commercial from our sponsors.

So I said the other day, Steve, on NOCO, that to get listeners from Wretched Radio, I had to give out free books. So I said, �I�ll give you a free book if you�ve never listened to no compromise radio.

And then when I sent the book out to the people, Gratis, then I said, �But now you have to at least listen to one show. So we buy our listeners is what I�m trying to say.

Yeah. I mean, that�s what you do when you have a show of virtually, well, of our quality anyway. Please, please listen. We�ll send you a free book. How about a T-shirt? What�s it going to take to get you to listen to one show?

Now, Steve, I was thinking about seminary just a moment ago with you, and I�ve been to two theological seminaries, and you�ve been to one. Well, that�s not true. I�ve driven on other campuses. Oh, well, that�s true.

Gordon-Conwell. And Princeton. And actually, I think in Mormon backgrounds, don�t you go to seminary almost every day? Oh, yeah.

I went to seminary four years during high school, absolutely.

So I guess you�ve got more seminary under your belt than I do. Woo-hoo! Anything that seminary can�t teach you, I�m just thinking about this in the context of the local church. Certainly seminaries are, I think, good parachurch organizations for the most part.

There are certain things I can�t teach the men here, and so we encourage men to go to seminary.

But what can�t they teach you? Do you think the Master Seminary would like to be called a parachurch organization?

Well, I think they tuck themselves underneath the belt of, since everything�s underneath the belt today, of the elders. But, you know, I guess as no compromise is to Bethlehem Bible Church, Master Seminary is to Grace Church.

There you go. Do you think that�s true? I think it�s sort of true.

I think it�s quasi-true because a lot of the leadership there at Master Seminary aren�t elders. Right. So I don�t know. But I mean, nonetheless, what can�t a seminary teach you? Are there things that they can�t teach you you need to really learn in a local church?

Well, I don�t think they can teach you personal interaction, for example. There�s absolutely no way they can simulate that, you know, unless it would be, I don�t know, just having a seminary prof randomly come up and give you a shiv, you know?

Notice with Steve, everything is this verbiage, this nomenclature from the prison system. You probably watched Prison Break, didn�t you? I did. You watched it for a few episodes, then you realized how crazy it was.

It could not be believable, and you had to say, �This is untenable.

I can�t watch it. Actually, I pretty much, during the first episode, I just kept pausing, you know, the DVR going,. �This is impossible. Let me explain why you know? And that was in a room by yourself.

Yes. Well, my dogs were fascinated by my description of things. Yes.

So, Steve, let�s think of something else. What a seminary can�t teach you. You know, I think a lot of seminary is knowledge, Steve, and passing on knowledge, what to study, what not to study. But how about the 2 Timothy 2 .2?

Real discipleship, Titus 2, pouring your life into someone else, 1 Thessalonians, we are examples to you. In some sense, they can. You look at Dr. Roskapp and see his faithfulness to his wife. On the other hand, I didn�t really spend a lot of time with Dr. Roskapp.

Maybe that was my fault. Well, on the other hand, some of us had discipleship labs, others of us didn�t.

Well, you�re required to take a discipleship lab every semester, and that would be six total. I only took one, but that�s because I could talk my way out of the others. And the discipleship lab I did have, I don�t think much discipleship was going on.

It was kind of an upperclassman, somebody just recently graduated, and they were going to say, �Let�s read Disciplines of a Godly Man together and then I don�t know what they did.

Well, some of my discipleship labs were more helpful than others. One I had was just kind of mind-blowing with Professor McDougall, which I really enjoyed. But let�s see, what are some of the other things they can�t help you with?

Well, I would argue there�s absolutely no help with regard to building programs, to how do you decide whether to go to two services or not, how do you determine whether or not somebody should serve in a given area.

All those kind of things really are not dealt with in seminary, and you have to make those sort of decisions all the time.

I think maybe in pastoral ministry classes, practical ministry classes, some of the general topics are broached, but Steve, I think you�re right. The only way you figure those things out is with an elder board at a local church, and I guess that�s why the Lord has ordained that 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, these are the characteristics of the men for ministry leadership as elders, and they�ll make good decisions as best they can in their own cultural, missional context.

Should we go?

I have more things that they didn�t teach us in seminary. Okay. This is a free-for-all.

You know, the caller buttons, we have a full board, but we�re just not going to take any calls today. Okay.

Well, hey, too bad for you guys. So I mean, they didn�t tell us how to handle not�well, how to handle money. You know, the whole church money situation, I think I�ve learned a lot more from you than I did in seminary in terms of, you know, we as pastors don�t touch the money.

We don�t have anything to do with it. We don�t know who gives what. None of those kind of things were talked about in seminary. I mean, there were some, again, general guidelines that were mentioned. We talked more about a pastor and his taxes than we did about a church and its finances.

You know, we didn�t talk about those kind of things at all. So, you know, a lot of this is just on-the-job sort of training, and you make mistakes, and you pick yourself up and move on.

Steve, I love it when somebody�s walking down the hall, it�s after service, and they�ve got a little envelope, an offering envelope, and they�ll say, �Oh, Pastor, I forgot to put this in the offering plate and all that stuff.

And sometimes it�s a little kid, you know, there�s probably some coins in there. It�s making some sounds, metals tinning against each other. And then I always do the same thing. I try to smile when I do it.

I always do the same thing, too. Give it to Pastor Mike. Oh, no. Very smart. I just say, �Oh, I�m sorry, I don�t touch the money around here. You know, find a deacon or just slip it underneath Pastor Steve�s door.

And just on the front, put �B-R-I-B-E. Yeah.

And Steve and I, we don�t say, we don�t have a say about our salaries and how much we make. And, you know, I don�t want to touch the money. Who sends what to whom? That�s why if you send in money to No Compromise, I hope you just put on the bottom left, you know.

No Compromise. Finances or something. I don�t know. No Compromise is different because I don�t even open that mail yet. It�s still different because I don�t know the people, right? This is some, you know, Wahoo Kindle man out in the middle of who knows where.

And so he sends in 30 bucks and.

Well, and our staff is more than able to handle all of the No Compromise radio mail.

You know what Master Seminary didn�t teach me and Southern Seminary didn�t teach me? When a guy said at the door, �I�m a Mason. And his name was Carmen, by the way. I thought he was probably in the mob here with Guido and Vinny were his two brothers.

Carmen said to me, �I�m a Mason and I�m the treasurer. And every year we like to give money to local churches. And I�m willing to give you� �you� meaning Bethlehem Bible Church $28 ,000.

Nice. Maybe he meant he was like a local bricklayer, that kind of Mason.

Well, maybe. I don�t know what that little G-pin with the upside down protractor would be, but.

I think that meant he�s an Angels fan. I don�t know. You know, kind of, I think that was a big A-pin you just mistook for. Oh, I did.

I did. And sadly, I know what those things mean on Mason�s pins. But actually, there were a lot of Masons when I first got here, Steve. Mason watches, Mason pins, Mason rings.

Dakota rings? Did they ever, like, teach you the secret handshake? You said, �If you�re really a Mason, I want you to teach me the secret handshake.

No, but I did say to Carmen who� he left the Roman Catholic Church. He came here and then left and went someplace else, and I think he ended up dying in the Roman Catholic Church, not the actual building, but believing in that system.

And I said, you know, �What do you do? We needed the money back then, right, $28 ,000. I could have done the D .L. Moody deal.

Satan�s had that money for long enough. Now let�s give it to the Lord. I take it in my allowance, $28 ,000. $28 ,000.

How about unmarked bills? Just put it in the offering? Sure. Right? If we don�t know. And I think the deal was, Steve, on this particular case, you had to have your church name listed. You had to be listed as, you know, one of the people that the Masons have helped, and then you had to send your representative there, kind of like the Southern Baptist Convention.

Are you Mason-friendly? You know, you have to advertise on your site, �We�re Mason-friendly. Absolutely.

But, you know, we still maintain the local autonomy of the church. That�s a high regard. So a long story short, I said, �I will take the money. If you let us, let me go there and talk to the Masons and tell them why we think that they�re in need of a Savior and are a false cult.

I never got the invite. You didn�t get the money either. No. I�m shocked. Steve, the other thing that the Master Seminary didn�t teach me is how to interact with the local pastoral prayer breakfast ecumenical haranguing meetings.

How do we do that? You know, they never told me that there was a switcheroo going on when I first got here. And once a year, the woman pastor at the Lutheran Church in town would then go to the Catholic Church and preach, and the Catholic priest, he would go to the Congregational Church, and he would preach for that fellow.

And then the Congregational Church person, he would go to the Methodist Church, and then the Methodist Church woman, she would come here to preach, and it would just be all big, �You preach, I preach and then you get to save a message.

You don�t have to study that week.

�Hey, let�s get the UU Church involved, too.

So I was never taught how to do that, and so maybe I did the wrong thing, Steve, when I said, �I�ll love to come to your church and preach, but you can�t come here to preach at my church unless you are a Mason giving $28 ,000.

I wasn�t very brotherly of you. Don�t you have some Bruce Springsteen song for me that talks about brotherly love or something? Who sings about brotherly love these days? Is it Springsteen? All the time.

Let�s just have a little shout-out for Carl Truman. My brother, Pat, in Omaha, Nebraska, Omaha Bible Church, said, �Can you give me Truman�s contact information Because I�d like to invite him to come to a conference.

And so I said, �Sure. I emailed Carl and said, �Carl, my brother would like to have you come out. Can I give him your email �Yes, fine et cetera, �Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Tevye et cetera. So Carl said yes to go visit Pat, one, because he likes gospel ministry.

Two, he knows who Pat is now. And three, he said, �I love the Springsteen album, Nebraska, and always wanted to go see Nebraska because of that.

That is a good album. I like Carl Truman more and more the more I find out about him.

I thought, well, I guess I�m hoping somebody in North Dakota asks me to come and speak so I can do some Lewis and Clark sites or something. I bet you nobody in North Dakota listens to No Compromise Radio.

If there are any North Dakota listeners, yeah, if you�re listening right now, I want you to just email us at info at nocompromiseradio .com, and just let us know that you�re out there.

2 Timothy 2 and Seminary Preparedness for Ministry

All right, we�re going to have a little message moment in light of our Master�s Seminary, Southern Seminary, Mormon Seminary, et cetera. This is 2 Timothy chapter 2. �So, my son, throw yourself into this work for Christ.

Pass on what you heard from me. The whole congregation is saying, �Amen. I did not know that was in the original. The whole congregation. Yeah, the whole congregation is saying, �Amen to reliable leaders who are competent to teach others.

When the going gets tough, take it on the chin with the rest of us, the way Jesus did. It does not say that. Jesus took one on the chin. Now if anybody somehow thinks that I made that up, right here on page 308 on NAVDA Press Publishing.

It�s got that. That�s pretty much a word-for-word translation, isn�t it?

Well, actually, this was derived not from the Erasmus Greek or the Jerome�s Vulgate. This was derived from the Good News for Modern Man. Oh, okay. That was their base text there. An original text. Yes.

�A soldier on duty doesn�t get caught up in making deals at the marketplace. He concentrates on carrying out orders. An athlete who refuses to play by the rules will never get anywhere. It�s the diligent farmer who gets the produce.

Think it over. God will make it all plain. Take it on the chin. Well, it goes on to say God�s Word isn�t in jail, so that�s a good picture right there. So, I never learned that at Master�s Seminary.

Did you? No, no.

We didn�t actually study that. We were more into the Masoretes. Yeah, who are they? Just a group of guys that, like the Masons, are.

A group of guys like the Masons.

The Masoretes are the ones who put the Hebrew vowel pointing in the original text. Okay. That�s good. You know when that happened? Yeah. I think that was about the 5th and 6th century AD. Oh, it was?

Yeah. I thought it was later, but I wouldn�t know because I was doing homework for my other classes while I was in that class. I think that�s right. I think it�s right about then. Was there a dress code at the seminary?

Yes, there was. Did you adhere to it? No. You couldn�t wear anything above the knees. That was the dress code. That�s right.

Well, now you know why, No Compromise listeners, that some people only listen to Tuesday shows and how some people, they don�t listen to Tuesday shows.

For anyone who doesn�t listen to the Tuesday shows, you�re not listening today. But I would just encourage you, you know, a little levity, not leaven.

A little leaven lumps the whole group.

A little leaven lumps the whole show. You know, every once in a while on Tuesday, we don�t address serious issues, and today apparently we�re not.

Well, what we�re trying to do is we�re trying to talk about Master�s Seminary, Southern Seminary, seminaries in general. I like how seminaries can come alongside of churches, but once they begin to rule the roost of a local church, somehow I don�t like that.

Yeah. When would that be? You know, that would be a question I would ask. I do like it, though, that the Southern Seminary has so many people in it now that eventually Southern Baptist churches that are very Arminian will have nowhere to go if they want a graduate of a Southern Baptist seminary.

That would be awesome.

I think that would really be good. Yeah. Well, I know the Master�s Seminary is cranking out its fair share of Calvinists too because for whatever reason, actually I know why. It�s because guys go to the seminary because MacArthur, and they believe what MacArthur teaches and they come out believing what MacArthur teaches.

At least a vast majority of them. Yeah, most of them do. Some of them go on to terminal degrees in England and walk away from the faith, but that�s a whole other story.

Steve, when you were at Master�s Seminary and you were watching some of the things that go on there, for me, I was surprised because I thought everybody there bought the company line that is to say, �We love John MacArthur.

We love the faithfulness of God in John through expositional preaching. He�s the model for ministry, and that�s why I�m at Master�s Seminary. I mean, I love the professors, but I was there because John�s stamp was all over the place.

And then to meet people who would say, �Well, I didn�t really know where to go, either at Master�s Seminary I wanted to go or Biola or Fuller. Fuller, yeah.

I�m just like, �I�m going to really, really That was the choice for you? Yeah, it�s kind of surprising. And then, you know, I mean, there were some guys who struggled to stay within the lines, you know, guys who thought it was really they were going to be so revolutionary by loosening the knots on their ties, you know, �I�m not going to tow the party line.

I�m going to loosen the knot on my tie. Or, you know, there was a guy once who said, you know, �With all due respect, Professor� and then proceeded to give the professor a lecture during class, and I just thought, �Okay, that�s pretty lame.

Always watch out for the guy who sits in the front center, and then he asks questions that aren�t questions. They�re really an opportunity for him to just tell the professor how much he knows. I hate that kind of attitude.

Yeah, it didn�t happen very often, but, you know, every once in a while there would be the guy who would have a three or four-minute question, which I�m just going,. �Really? I�m not paying to hear your questions.

It�s hard to do homework for your other classes and listen to that in that particular to class at the same time.

Yeah, we call that multitasking in seminary.

Steve, there�s a guy here at our local church, and I think you probably know who it is, and he came to me. He was at a different church, and he said, �I�ve asked the pastor for deeper theological tools.

I�d like to study the Bible more. Could you help me And the pastor said to this particular gentleman, who seems like a really neat guy, �Sorry, I can�t do that. You�ll have to go to seminary. Wow.

So one of the things we want to do is, we�re not trying to bag on seminaries and say how they�re horrible, but we�re saying to the local churches, to the pastors out there now, if you have people in your church that you�re pouring your life into, that is men, like Jesus did with the three and the twelve and then the many, according to 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 2, following Jesus, taking it on the chin, according to the Message Bible.

If you�re doing that, you�re helping your men. And some of those men, Steve, what will happen? They�ll say, �I�m not ready for seminary. Or you�ll say as the pastor, �I�m not ready for seminary. But you still have taught them a lot of things.

No, you�ll say as the pastor, �You�re not ready for seminary. You�ll tell the guys.

Yeah, my mind said that, but my mouth probably said Carl Truman or something. I don�t know what it was.

A shout-out to Carl Truman and Bruce Springsteen. Oh, sorry.

So we want the local pastors to train, but let�s talk just for a few minutes here, and that�s all we have left. If you�re a man in a local church and you want to learn and grow and you�re wondering, �Am I called

How do you talk to your pastor and what should you do before you even send in the admission form?

Well, I think you go to him and you express the desire. You know, 1 Timothy chapter 3 says it�s a good thing to have that desire, and your pastor should encourage that 100 percent. But he needs to point you to that, too, and say, �Okay, here�s the standard.

First of all, do you think you meet that? And hopefully the guy says, �No but you need to walk through kind of checking yourself for the calling. Do you have the calling? When you teach, do people listen?

I mean, that�s a good one, right? Are you capable of speaking in a group, you know, all these kind of things? And the seminary will teach you how to, you know, I don�t know, write sermons or however you want to frame that, you know, but you have to, overall, you have to have a desire and you have to have some kind of giftedness for teaching.

Do you think it�s fair to say, Steve, that as a church matures, so too will her potential seminary students? In other words, what I�m trying to say is if it�s a brand new church and she�s immature, and you�ll say to yourself, �Well, you know what?

We�re sending immature people to seminary. But as the church is maturing, you�ll send fewer people to seminary that are really not ready because that church will help them train. Oh, I think that�s right.

And you know, you get to the point really where I�m not trying to boast about me, certainly, but I think when I went to seminary, I already knew quite a bit. And that would be because of, you know, you and other men who were pouring theology in the Bible into my life.

And so when I got there, it wasn�t like, it wasn�t a shock to me. The things that they were saying didn�t, you know, overwhelm me other than, I will admit, Hebrew in particular, but yeah.

Well, and that shows you that if I�m weak on something and then I try to train someone, then I�m weak on that. And when you send somebody to seminary, 14 men, you get their strengths all combined as professors, they can help shore up some of the folks.

Absolutely. So what about online seminaries? Do you think they�re a good thing?

Well, I don�t think they�re a bad thing. I mean, they can certainly challenge you to think more deeply about issues and whatnot, but I think the interaction and just having almost kind of the godliness dust, as it were, rub off on you.

I mean, I think it challenged me in my life just to be around someone like a Dr. Roskapp, you know, and he was my academic advisor. And just to sit there and listen to him and to have, you know, five, 10 minutes with him, and I just thought, �You can�t get that online.

That�s just not available.

Dr. Roskapp, I think, is maybe the most kind man that I�ve ever met.

Without a doubt, the kindest man I�ve ever met. In fact, I�m just like, you know, as the Holy Spirit conforms me into the image of Christ, I certainly hope I have more Dr. Roskapp in me.

Well, some people get old. When they get old, they get crabby and mean, and Dr. Roskapp just kept getting sweeter and kinder. And so I think that is a good testimony, the grace of God in Dr. Roskapp�s life.

Steve, any last Saturday show, Tuesday men?

Well, I would encourage every man who�s listening to think about seminary and to listen on Saturdays.

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.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.