"Chriistian" Bookstores

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.

Christian Bookstores as Ministries and the Problem of Bad Books

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and today I'd like to talk to you about books. What about books? Well, I don't know if I actually wanna talk to you about books per se, but I wanna talk about places that call themselves ministry and then sell bad books.

If you're out for money and then just sell anything, and you can be Barnes Noble, and by the way, it's fine if you wanna just sell books for money. I think that'd be good and appropriate, and people need to make their living whether you're a cobbler or you make peach cobbler.

It doesn't matter what you do to make money as long as it's righteous and worthy. I'm not after people who sell secular books. I like to read secular books. I actually listen to secular music. Oh, if you listen to classical music, you probably do too.

But anyway, what I'm after today is I just have the latest Christian book distributors catalog, and I just went into Morningstar Books the other day, and I'm wondering, here's my question. Riddle me this, Batman.

If you call yourself a ministry and then sell books that are teaching things not peripherally different, that is to say, different views of end times or to what degree do you believe in inerrancy, and there's a variety of things that may be discussed in a local bookstore or on CBD Preferred Customer catalogs, my question is this.

What about selling poison? Then I'd say, take your ministry title away and then just sell whatever for money. If I owned a Christian bookstore, and in one sense I do, the church has a bookstore here, we're responsible for what is in that store, aren't we?

Yes, we are. And so if you'd like to buy some books here at Bethlehem Bible Church, you're able to go buy those books. And maybe once in a while there's an error that slips through and we don't notice, and then we quick rectify it.

But if you come to us and say, by the way, there's a lot of books here promoting Roman Catholicism, promoting Mormonism, promoting word, faith, heretics. There's a bunch of books here by Joyce Meyer, who doesn't even know the gospel, nor believe it, nor teach it.

She teaches an anti-gospel. What would we do? Well, we should remove those things, and we should take those out, and we should repent, and we should ask for forgiveness, and we should say, the buck stops here, it stops at the top, and we ought not to have anybody say anything except, oh, thank you, because we were willing to say we were wrong.

So my question is, why do people continue to have these sections? I was shocked when I went into Morningstar. There was lots of good things there, lots of good Bible books there. There's some probably good CDs there.

My daughter bought a CD. But why is there a Roman Catholic section? How can that be considered a ministry when you have the Roman Catholic Church that teaches essentially through the Bible's tweaking, through the magisterium, and through tradition, justification by faith that's not alone?

At the end of the day, they can look at all the different words that they'd like to, but it's a works-righteousness system. And there's merit through things, and there's different kinds of worship, and there are different kind of playing around with mortal sins and venial sins.

It is a false system. I would go so far to say that if you're a good Catholic, you're not going to heaven. If you're a bad Catholic, you just might. What do I mean by good Catholic? A good Catholic is someone who does all the things that the Roman Catholic Church says to do and believes what the Roman Catholic Church says about faith and life and doctrine and the Church and the Pope.

That would be a good Catholic, which means you would believe in justification by faith-infused righteousness. You would not believe what the Bible teaches about justification by faith alone, no baptism, no other kinds of works, no sacraments.

And so good Catholics, by definition, have been excluded from the grace of heaven. And if you're a bad Catholic, that is to say you still go to Catholic Church and you're very set in your ways and you still go, but you read the Bible on your own, you study, you've been born again, but you just can't get out of the system because no one's come along and told you that you need to leave that apostate system, that you need to stop going, that it's a myth of influence that you can change people from the inside because you're not changing the Catholic Church.

Nobody's changing the Catholic Church. Unless you can get into leadership, you can't change an organization, an institution. You can't do it. I commend you for your heart and for your compassion and all that, but you just can't do it.

So back to my point, if you're a place that says we're a ministry, ministries are designed to support the local church, to support the local Christian, to help them. Ministries are not to hurt them, and we don't want to have books that are promoting the Roman Catholic system and have a section, you know, here's the Bible section, here's the music section, here's the commentary section, here's the charismatic section, and I'll get to that in a minute, here's the Roman Catholic section.

I about fell off my chair. And then if you go and complain, then you get the kind of look, you know? And so there's only one reason people do it. It's not that they have anything, you know, you just get yourself in a bind and you say, why do people do it?

The answer is, I guess maybe they don't know, but then, you guys, that's a big issue. I guess the other issue is you don't care. You don't care because you can sell some of those books, and then you do all the pragmatic kind of approaches.

Well, then maybe the Roman Catholics will come in here and buy books and we can sell them a little trinket that says free grace or something. Friends, if you're a ministry, then minister to the people.

Don't hurt them. When Christian book distributors, maybe they don't call themselves a ministry anymore, but I wish they just wouldn't call themselves Christian. Maybe small C, but it's not an evangelical outreach when you sell Joyce Meyer books, when you sell these kind of books that are sub-Christian.

I mean, I don't mind when Christian discount book sets, you know, sells nativity Christmas cookie cutter sets with devotionals because you pretty much get what you get. I'm looking at the page today on page three of their catalog for Christmas.

Precious Moments Musical Nativity Ornaments. It says, amidst all the lights and tinsel in your tree, hang a gentle reminder of the night Jesus was born. This four-inch Precious Moments Musical Ornament is fashioned of glazed porcelain, painted in soft pastels, and plays a beloved carol, Silent Night, a lovely keepsake that will become a family heirloom.

And so, you know, if they sell that, they sell that. And there's nothing innately wrong, inherently wrong with that. I have a problem with people who say they're Christians and they sell books by Joyce Meyer who promote the wrong gospel, promote that Jesus was born again in hell, promote that the idea that Jesus had to pay a ransom somehow to Satan.

That's what I've got a problem with. If I see things in here, I'm just looking through the thing now, Names of Jesus Cotton Throw Blanket. Wrap yourself in the warmth and message of this 100 cotton double-layer throw in remembrance of the love of Jesus.

Measures 49 inches by 67 inches, machine-watchable. I guess that's fine, you know, Snuggies for Jesus. You know, I saw dog Snuggies the other day at the store, so what's the difference? You know, lighted whistle key ring that's got God's word on there from Psalm 119.

God's word lights my path. I guess if you want to buy all that stuff, fine. I've got the Fruit of the Spirit ceramic bowl here with its mouth-watering fruit and sky-blue puffy cloud background. This hand-painted ceramic bowl is so pretty you may be tempted to keep it empty.

Measures 11 inches in diameter, hand-washed. You pay $15 .99. I guess the trivialization and the trinket-ization of Christianity is upon us. And if you do a study, does a Christian store make more money from trinkets and, you know, jam band CDs for guitar praise fans?

You'll, our books, commentaries, biographies of Christians, I think you'll soon find the answer is, trinkets is where it's at. Bible-opoly, Bible trivia, scategories, Bible edition. I probably even played some of those games.

That is not my point. My point is we have come to the place where you can no longer walk into a Christian bookstore and assume everything is good for you. If you'd like to have this challenge, then I'd like to give it to you.

You better be very, very careful when you get a CBD catalog and or you walk into your local Christian bookstore. You need to have a pastor with you. You need to have someone who comes alongside and says, let me teach you about good publishers.

Let me tell you about what's good or what's potentially bad with publishers. Here's what Moody does. Here's what Crossway does. Here's what Word does. Here's Thomas Nelson. Here's Broadman Holman. Here's all these different publishers.

Baker, here's these books. Here's where they're coming from. Here's the ones that are evangelical. Here's Erdman's. Here's all these. This is their bent. This is their strength. This is their weakness.

These ministries are not under churches where there's local faithful elders. Oh, some of their leadership might be elders, but remember, they're not designed to be a church, and I don't think publishers have to be under church.

They can if they want, but I just think if you walk into a bookstore and you just buy what's on the cover, you're in big trouble, and you will just read it, and you'll think, oh, yeah, the people at the counter seem kind and nice.

The picture looks good. Everyone else is reading it, and you could be reading strychnine. When you look at the top books sold in some of these catalogs, you will realize that it is not good, and when you just say, well, you know, I've got a teenager, and they don't want to read the Bible, so maybe I'll get them some teen study Bible, some revolve Bible that looks like Cosmo on the front, talks about skinny jeans that boys are wearing, and maybe they'll then read the Bible.

It's just the wrong approach. You have to be careful. I think on No Compromise Radio, I should tell you, don't be a compromiser when you walk into a local store and just assume everything is good. They are there to make money, and their store's gonna be pretty small if they say, we're gonna be ministry first and money second, because they've gotta get rid of all the Copeland, Hagen, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer nonsense, but they don't want to do it.

23 Minutes in Hell, they love to sell that, and that is just wrong. It is just absolutely bogus. 90 Minutes in Heaven. When I look at the top soft cover sellers for CBD Catalog, and I start looking at some of these love languages, it's just a bunch of psychological mumbo-bumbo, mumbo-bumbo.

Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer, number five. Is there anything here that's any good? We see the 90 Minutes in Heaven, 23 Minutes in Hell. Thankfully, there is Shepherding a Child's Heart by Ted Tripp, that's there.

Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges, that's there. I love that. Purpose-Driven Life, Nonsense Drivel, that's there. You have to be careful. Use discernment. The Bereans were commended for their discernment, weren't they?

Paul says to the Thessalonica Church in chapter five of 1 Thessalonians, examine everything carefully, and that means books. You walk in, you go, well, I'd like to get a new Christian biography, and maybe, oh, I didn't know Reggie White was a Christian.

I didn't know Deion Sanders was a Christian. I didn't know so-and-so is a Christian, and off you go. I've got the 20 top hardcovers here. What about hardcovers? Is there anything here that I think is good?

Fearless by Max Lacado, you could get rid of that. David Jeremiah, at least for David Jeremiah, he's not going to tell you a bunch of nonsense. He might have a different preaching style than I prefer, but I respect the man.

Let's see, John MacArthur, heretic. I'm just kidding. The Jesus you can't ignore, that's number six. Wow, we actually got a good book there. Jerry Bridges, Respectable Sins. Wow, we've got two in the top 10.

I'm going to have to eat my words. Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline. That's a horrible book. That's Catholic mysticism, mask and evangelical garb. Total Money Makeover, buy it if you wish. Prodigal God by Tim Keller.

I'm weary and watchful of that. Wild at Heart, Charles Colson. Who else? Inside the Revolution, Joel Rosenberg. That might be interesting, evidence that demands a verdict. I don't agree with the style, but he's a good guy, good man.

So if you just walk in, half the books are going to be bad. It's going to be Joel Osteen, It's Your Time, You're the Best, God Loves You, Be Prosperous. Some kind of Max Lucado, you know, 316, kind of be careful of that.

I don't even have to get into it all. Here's my point today. My point is today, if you're a ministry, then you ought not to sell something like the shack, or then you're not a minister. You're not ministering the gospel.

You're not ministering grace. You're contorting the Trinity. And you're saying, well, you know, the shack's got some stuff that's wrong about God, wrong about man. Other than that, it's a really good book.

And it's, you know, set in biography. I said once before in the review of the shack, if you want to have a biography of your grandparents and you want me to write it, and then I write that your grandfather, even though he wasn't your grandfather, I'll give you the same name of your grandfather, Grandfather Jim, he was a rapist and he committed incest with people and he robbed banks, but it's just biography, he didn't really do it.

You would be mad. You would be livid. But when people do that with a shack, they're invited into their ministry bookstores. 248 pages of arsenic for the Christian. And people just walk in, oh yeah, I've heard a lot about that book, I think I'll do it, and off we go.

Friends, be careful. You want to go to a local store and ask them a question? I would if I were you. Why do you have a whole section on Roman Catholic books? Why do you have all kinds of Benny Hinn books?

Why do you have all kinds of Joyce Meyer books? Why do you have all these things there? You know, if you want to find some kind of Max Lucado, John Maxwell study Bible for the soft leaders in your world, I guess that's not that big a deal.

I think if you pick study Bibles, you should pick study Bibles that help you understand the text. Well, that's kind of a novel idea, isn't it? But go there and ask them a question. I'd give you more business if you just stop selling things like Benny Hinn books.

That would be very, very helpful for these folks. And so here's what we're doing today. I'm just, yeah, here you go. You're just rambling. I'm concerned that people buy books without thinking. At our church, we have a book table, and those books have been given the once over by the elders.

And we will then say these books are good for our people. And while we disagree with some of the things in the book, then the books, it's not a huge deal. It's not a major thing. It could be, is it Pato baptism?

Is it Credo baptism? Is it Amil? Is it Premil? Is it Postmil? Is it Historic Pre-Trib? You know, all, I mean, Historic Pre-Mil, Pre-Trib, Post-Trib. I think there's room for a debate. We don't all have to think the exact same way.

But these have been checked. You're not going to find books on our book table that are heterodox, that is strange doctrine. They are orthodox. We are responsible for the lives of the sheep. And so shouldn't these other stores, shouldn't CBD, shouldn't Morningstar be responsible as well?

We ought to say, we love your store. It's a wonderful, huge new warehouse, but why do you have these sections? Let's have some more Bible books. And here's one of the answers. The answer is, well, people don't buy a lot of Bible commentaries, but they buy this.

Well, I'm not going to sell you a Joyce Meyer book, even if you would give me money for it. I don't want you to have it. I want you to have good things. We will answer before the Lord one day. And if you want to go to a bookstore and buy some kind of Yemenite shofar for $150 out of the CBD sale, authentic horn worship trumpet, 30 inches along the spiral, imported from Israel.

If you want to get one of those things, put a big toenail in your mouth. I don't care. Those things are made of the same thing. I always tell the kids that. This man, these horns are made out of the same thing.

Toenails are made out of, then get it. But we don't want people selling things that aren't true, that aren't good, that aren't profitable. Again, there's some healthy ecumenical thinking that we could have in terms of, well, we believe in substitutionary atonement, literal resurrection, inspiration of the scriptures.

And so let's sell books along those lines. If you come to our church, you won't find only John MacArthur books here. You'll find all kinds of people. R .C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Jerry Bridges, the list goes on and on and on and on, but we're accountable before the Lord.

And aren't people that have ministries that sell these things to Christians, aren't they going to be held accountable as well? And so if you'd like to sell, I found praise moves. This is interesting. You will welcome the physical benefits of yoga, but do you welcome the physical benefits of yoga, but wary of its spiritual overtones?

In her Christ-centered fitness programs, Lorette Willis integrates scripture and exercise to strengthen your body and soul. Praise moves includes one 60-minute and one 20-minute workout. 20-minute praise moves offers three routines.

So you can buy those for $11 .99. I say, well, why don't you be consistent and then don't buy anything from those stores? Well, maybe I should be consistent. I just have a hard time giving money to places who will go ahead and feed the flames of some kind of Roman Catholicism or Benny Hinn.

It just, there's a problem. If you want to buy praise moves, some kind of yoga light, fine. Some kind of fasting book, it's not that big a deal, even though I don't think fasting is necessarily, well, certainly not commanded today.

But when you sell Blue Light Jazz, Donald Miller, when you sell Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, then it's no longer ministry. When you sell Brian McLaren, it's no longer ministry because it is hurting that person that's buying it.

It is undermining them. And you say, well, then I'm going to have to read everything that I sell. I'm going to have to study up on that. Well, join the club and read the pastoral epistles and some other things about accountability and how you're influencing people.

And you probably would. Maybe your store needs to be smaller. Maybe you need to hire some seminary students that can quick kind of read those. I love when I'm in one of those stores and I see somebody looking around at a book and I go over and I try to say nicely, oh, did you hear about that book?

You wouldn't want to buy that book. I tell them why they don't want to buy it. And then I say, I think you'd like this one better instead. This would be a better gift. This Jerry Bridges book is easy to read.

Great high view of God doctrine. That's exactly what you need. This book right here. And they usually look at me and go, oh, thanks. You know, do you work here? And I say, no, but I love to help people buy good books.

Books are important to read. If you've got some kind of thinking that it's only the Bible, that's all you need, the spirit of God and the Bible, well, you're wrong because God gives in Ephesians chapter four, teachers.

He gives teachers to the local church and those teachers help teach the Bible. Some of them happen to be alive in your presence. Some happen to be dead. And there's a book that they wrote a long time ago for the good of the church.

Read books that help you understand the Christian faith better. And if you want to read an Arminian book by John Wesley, or you want to read a post-millennial book by Lorraine Bettner, I don't care if I differ on those kinds of issues.

I care about the substitutionary atonement attacked by Joyce Meyer. I care about frauds like Benny Hinn. I care about these sections where, by Rome's own definition, they think we're all damned and accursed according to Trent.

We are anathema. Rome's got it in their statement of faith, as it were, about we're damned and then we're gonna go ahead and sell their books and just kind of make this hybrid kind of let's all get along type of thing, or we'll use it pragmatically so then we can talk to them about other things.

No, let's just be honest. Let's go there and say, we have a Christian book store and we want to sell you books like The Pursuit of God by Tozer, but The Knowledge of the Holy by Tozer. We want to sell you some books that are gonna feed your soul.

And after we're dead and gone and after the retail market's all over, you could pick this book up on a desert island and you would say, God is great. God is wonderful. Jesus is the only son. Look at how he took on God's wrath at Calvary for me and God raised him from the dead.

Look at how Jesus the Son and God the Father both agreed on the plan of salvation with the Spirit and they enacted it and they did it and reconciliation was made at Calvary. That's what we want. We want to have church members lift it up.

As a pastor, I don't want my people going to bookstores if they're unarmed and uneducated because they're gonna walk out with some kind of stupid man-centered book that undermines the cross. So we want to be very, very discerning.

My name is Mike Ebendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. What started off as a five-minute little introduction has turned into a long, drawn-out, nativity-quilted throw, 1999. It was retail, $50. Wrap yourself in the warmth and comfort of this richly-colored polyester cotton throw with quilt-stitch accents.

But I thought the Old Testament said I wasn't supposed to mix fabrics. Oh, that's another sermon, hardy-har-har. Mike Ebendroth here, No Compromise Radio. You ought to read yourself some books. Here's my challenge.

Why don't you read 12 good books this year? Go to your pastor. Pastor, I'm gonna read one great book a year, a month, and help me, you pick those 12. You pick them, I'll read them. That would be a good ministry.

And then track them down on the internet for a cheap price. Mike Ebendroth, nocompromiseradio .com. God bless you.

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

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

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