Luther Lessons

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.

From My Radio Ministry, it is Tuesday, therefore we have Tuesday Guide, Steve Cooley. Welcome. Thank you very much.

It�s my pleasure to be here. I�m greatly humbled and honored to be here today.

Maybe like good theologians, we should just use your initials or something like that. You know, all the good theologians, it�s B .B. Warfield and J .V. Fesco, that kind of stuff. So it could be T .G. Cooley.

What�s T .G.? Tuesday Guy. Oh, yes! Duh! Woo! Stunk that one by you. I have a complaint. I�m sure you do. While I recognize that. So we�re going to do this on the air then? While I recognize that Philippians 2, when it states, �Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Can you imagine the first thing he says right after that is, �Do everything without complaining and murmuring. Okay, let�s work out our salvation. That�s pretty gross. Here comes sanctification. What do we need to start working on right now?

I can�t believe I�ve got to work out my salvation with fear and trembling. I have a problem with that. Yeah, I know. I know. How could Paul do it? Well, anyway, here is my grumble though. Today, it�s mid-September.

That part, I�m not grumbling about that. It�s perfectly clear out, blue skies, sun, I�m not grumbling about that. Low humidity, only probably about 80ish or something. It�s going to be a nice day.

Are you going to complain about that power tower there, tower power?

No, I�m going to complain that on a sunny day, I think out of all the times in Massachusetts, the seasons, the calendar seasons, I like the fall the best. Oh, yeah. Me too. Definitely. By far. Without question.

No, I�m not kidding. But my solar pope on a sunny day is not solaring. He�s supposed to be waving, he�s supposed to be giving the blessing, it�s a blessingless solar pope.

So� I�m going to give him a few years in purgatory for that.

In New England speak, we like to add �r�s to the end of words that end with an �a. So �idea� goes to �idear. And we do the opposite. If a word ends with an �r�, we take that �r� off and it becomes �ka� or something like that.

Well, I can�t do that with the pope because he hates the solas. And this solar pope, he doesn�t want to do sola, how can we do solar pope in the midst of the Reformation? Solar pope. Uh-huh. Sola scriptura, sola pope.

He�s failing too. I think Aaron should be giving better gifts that last a little longer.

Well, or come with batteries or something because the solar thing, forget that. I mean this just shows the fallacy of solar power right there.

I�m done with solar power. Well, if you live in your homes for the next 900 years, solar power will be cost savings. Maybe if you live to be as old as Methuselah, you will make some money. Oh, yeah. So was I.

In 40 years, you make your money back. Was I right about the whole Philippians 2 thing? I know she just looked it up. Is that the first thing he says after I�ve got your salvation?

Do all things without grumbling or spewing that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.

So then on the day of Christ, I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain, unifying to be.

Well, that�s true. So we live in a complaining age. Yes, we do. And pretty much that�s one of the besetting sins of Christians too, but unbelievers. They just complain all the time. And Paul says, hey, work out your salvation with fear and trembling and don�t grumble and complain.

And this will be an easy way for you to be a light and a beacon. Do all things. Oh, yeah. There you go. Yeah. So maybe we should have a little complain jar that every time we complain, you got to put a dollar in the jar and then send it to NoCo Radio.

Well, you know what?

I think around here would certainly help my attitude and hurt my pocketbook.

And then we could complain about how little is coming into the station. Steve, it is that time of year again where lots of ministries will say they�ve got to balance the books and consider the one-time love gift.

We�ve got a wonderful matching offering.

If your ministry says call people at home for the money, then maybe you should not hire those people. So then you cut down on some of your staff so you don�t have to call people at home. Okay. Well, today on No Compromise Radio, we have no idea what we�re doing.

And this is news? This is news. We forgot, you know, cool hipster stuff. Any music or food that you want to talk about before we start the show?

Well, I mean, this is how cool and hip I am. I was listening last night and thoroughly enjoying. They did this remake of it�s kind of a mashup of Take Me Home Country Roads and I Will Always Love You and On the Road Again, but it�s all these different country stars and the way they did it, you know, the video and everything was really great and that�s how cool I am.

There�s something about the mashup idea that it�s really great. There�s something that kids were listening to the other day. It was a Frank Sinatra mashup with I don�t know what kind of disco beat in the back and stuff like that and Fly Me to the Moon.

It was catchy. I liked it because, you know, you can�t get new music from Frank Sinatra these days. What? I know. And then you get the mashup. What did he do? He stopped recording? Well, you know, I think it was a contract dispute, you know, RCA Victrola or something.

Okay. That�s unfortunate. What I also like is they have these deals, I think, on YouTube, Steve, where they�ll take all the hits of the month or all the hits of the year and combine them all into one kind of sound.

Because they�re all the same. They�re all the same song. The beat�s the same and you go, �Oh, I forgot what songs were popular, you know, back in 1997.

It was a Macarena.

Luther's Lessons on Preaching for Ordinary People

Steve, sometimes we have the message moment on No Compromise Radio. We�ve got the Murkoff briefing. I�ve got a little instruction book here from Martin Luther. Can you think of anything off the top of your head for like a Luther�s lessons.

That�s exactly right. Excellent. Excellent. Luther�s lessons. �When I preach, I regard neither doctors nor magistrates, of whom I have above 40 in my congregation. I have all my eyes on the servant maids and on the children, and if the learned men are not well pleased with what they hear, well, the door is open.

What�s Luther after there for our Luther lesson?

Well, I think what he�s trying to say is, you know, you can�t preach at a postgraduate level, you know, and expect to hold your congregation because it�s really not the point to show how smart you are, which I�m thankful for.

But if that was the goal, well, first of all, if it was the goal, you�d have a very small congregation. But secondly, you know, a number of people just wouldn�t be able to grasp what you were talking about and they�d be utterly spinning their wheels.

What you want is to make the Word of God accessible, the truths of God accessible to as many people as possible, not to kind of shut the door in their face and go, well, you, the problem with you people is you�re not smart enough to understand what I�m saying.

Steve, I think we�ve learned the hard way because we�ve probably both started our preaching ministries at, you know, teaching at a higher level than we ought to have taught and kind of having that seminary hangover, our fault more than the seminary�s fault probably.

What kind of advice can you give to moms and dads who teach their children at home or Sunday school teachers that teach at the church or maybe even Bible study leaders or junior high, high school youth leaders who begin to really desire the deep things of God and are grasping some of the solid doctrines and connections as they see some exegesis through their hermeneutical lenses and they want to kind of go over the top?

I mean, the good news is they�re studying, they�re going through the deep things, they�re really after it. But then it doesn�t translate to their audience. Any advice for them?

Steve. Yeah, I mean, here�s what I would say. I�d say good for you. It�s the right thing to do to learn and to grow and stretch yourself. But secondly, I would say, think about it this way. If you�re learning calculus, you know, how do you explain calculus to a six-year-old?

Well, you probably can�t. But if the lesson was on calculus and you had to teach calculus, what you would do is try to make it as simple as possible and you�d use pictures or whatever, you know? You would just bring your vocabulary and the illustrations down to a level where you thought, �Okay, can my six-year-old understand this

And then if they�re looking at you quizzically, then you�d try to explain it a different way and you�d keep going at it. And so my two overarching messages would be, number one, well, three, don�t try to teach something that�s beyond the capacity of most people to understand.

Number two, use repetition. Sometimes, and by that I don�t just mean repeat yourself, I do mean think of several different ways to say the same thing. Because sometimes you hear things one way and you don�t get it and somebody says it a different way and you go, �Okay, now I understand it.

And thirdly, I would say, it�s good to ask questions, even if you�re preaching, it�s good to ask questions and look and see if anybody�s mouthing an answer or if they�re nodding or if they�re just kind of shaking their head, you know?

And if they�re like, �I don�t have any idea what you�re saying then just think to yourself, �Okay, how else can I explain what I�m saying At least try, put in the effort to try to communicate because if you�re not communicating when you�re preaching, you are failing.

Steve, it would be wrong to exegete the congregation or the audience to whom you�re preaching first and then say, �In light of that, I will look at the text. So you put the people in between you and the text as you�re studying the text and looking for authorial intent.

I think that�s wrong and bogus and solopope. By the way, you know, people do the finger-snapping thing, you know, when something�s cool now, they put their hands in an X and then that�s how they clap.

The coolest thing I ever learned was, you know, Panamanians clap like this.

Oh, I didn�t know that. Yeah. I only know that because I�m going to do what the solar pope does. And so he has his hand up, so elbow at a 45-degree angle, and then he moves his hand back and forth like one of those fake Barbie waves or runway waves.

And that�s what I think I�m going to start doing. If somebody does something really good, I put my hand up and go like that, tilt it back and forth.

You�re the Protestant bishop of New England, so.

Well, I know and I thought that there was going to be an automobile involved with that. No, just a robe. Can you imagine? You know who wrote an article recently about why you should wear, you know, Geneva robes and stuff and why that�s a critical thing.

I think it�s great if you�re in Geneva and you�re into robes.

And it�s 1580 or something like that. Okay, exegeting the congregation. So what you should do first is you go to the text and you say, �Lord, help me understand this text. And whatever you say and mean in this text, I want to faithfully communicate and making the right connections, understanding how it fits into the context, into the New Testament, into the entire canon, all that.

That�s what Luther�s after.

Pete. Yeah, I mean, again, I just think it�d be folly. You�re talking to the junior high people and you start, you know, teaching as if you it's a post-graduate philosophy class or, you know, you're going to get almost every kid in that class probably just like, you know, tuned out inside of two minutes.

Paul Matzko, Jr. Isn't it true that when you first begin to learn and study and you're getting all, you know, hyped up on the Greek commentary written by Peter O 'Brien on Philippians or something, you know, and you think, okay, we're going to have the youth group and teach them through Philippians and this is not an objective genitive.

This is a subjective genitive. Yeah, I'm going to diagram these sentences for you as I teach and you're going to be edified.

Now, if you want to diagram it in your study, I'm fine for that and what's the main verb and how does it connect. But then there should be this desire to teach those young people so that they can understand it, be excited about it.

And frankly, I know some preachers that I'm critiquing at the Master's Seminary and I think they are kind of, they're more monotonous, they don't have a lot of ups and downs in their cadence. And I say to some of them, listen, why don't you try to preach this Sunday to your congregation in a way that you would normally preach in the style you would preach to junior high kids.

And I'm not trying to say dumb it down, I'm trying to say explain it simply and then give me a little passion, give me a little heat, give me some enthusiasm. If you don't teach with enthusiastic gestures and voice to junior high kids, you are gone.

Steve McLaughlin Yeah, and even younger kids too. I mean, if you don't do something to interact with them and to hold their attention, you're sunk.

I mean, you might as well not even show up. Steve McLaughlin. Steve, what about the relationship between editing movies and editing sermons so you don't put everything in? Isn't it the sign of a good editor to have lots of scenes on the cutting room floor?

Because while they were good scenes and they're interesting if you want to do the extended version, but it just doesn't flow well. Why is it a virtue to leave some things unsaid when you're teaching?

Steve McLaughlin. Well, let me put it this way. If you're writing a theological treatise on a particular passage, then feel free to put the kitchen sink in there, you know, and footnote it all. Footnotes are really great.

If you are preaching and you come with the kitchen sink and footnote approach, you should, as the congregation files in that morning, you should hand each one of them a pillow because that's what they're going to be doing.

They're going to have a really hard time listening to you. And it's so often the case that we learn things during our study that we think are just fascinating. I mean, wow, I never would have known that and that is incredible.

And then you just have to sit back, take a moment, take a deep breath and say, okay, how does this preach? How does this fit inside of the main points of this sermon? And the answer is it doesn't. And then it has to go.

You know, either that or, you know, you just go, well, this is so critical. I'm going to redo my whole sermon around this one point. Well, fine. But don't just throw in cool facts just because you learned them.

Aaron Ross Powell. Steve, I can imagine that many men who go to seminary, graduate, go to a church and become a pastor are probably inheriting. I mean, they're less than perfect, but they're inheriting less than perfect churches.

And most churches today, if you say, hey, evangelical church, Mike, what do you think of them? Well, they're probably a little more man-centered than they should be. The sermons are too short. The music is too much on the entertainment mode.

There's a prototypical evangelical church these days. Now you've got a seminary guy and he goes into that environment and they're used to moralistic, therapeutic deism and he starts giving them the exegetical data dump.

Why don't you try to craft the message in such a way that you only sprinkle in some of the original language concepts? And don't even say in the Greek it says, but you can say it a different way. And then eventually and certainly throughout your ministry, you can turn into a John MacArthur who has educated his congregation over the last 47 years.

And if you say present active indicative, a lot of people at Grace Community Church know what he means.

Michael Munger. And sometimes, you know, and I know you would agree with this, sometimes the tense or the gist of the tense, you know, if it's a perfect, a one-time event with ongoing permanent effect, you know, it's impressive in a given context and you just go, wow, you know, I wouldn't have thought about it that way.

Or, you know, present active indicative, you know, believe, you know, are you believing permanently ongoing, you know? Is it a characteristic, you know, kind of thing? And that's fine, but you just can't do that for every single term or even most of the terms in your passage because it's just not, that's not preaching.

That's just, you know, like what you said, it's just a data dump.

Aaron Ross Powell. If you say a Greek word, and just as Pastor Steve just said, explain it. There's nothing wrong with that. In other words, this is what it means. And when you study a language, you know, there are nuances that the English can't capture.

And when you read, for instance, in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, where it says Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried and he was raised on the third day. And if you say to people, if you'll just stop for a moment and think about that raised and he was raised.

Well, we have things in our language that signify great concepts. Raised is perfect. And it means he was raised, and it's still significant that he's raised even today. He's the raised one even today.

It's an action that has lots of implications, ongoing implications into the future and into eternity. And Jesus Christ is always the risen king. The resurrection matters.

There's a way to do that. He left the grave and he never went back and he's never going back. And it signifies his victory over death and et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, perfect.

Luther's lessons. This comes from a little book that I had. I think somebody gave it to me. It's called Martin Luther's Little Instruction Book. Or Luther's Lessons. It should have been Luther's Lessons.

That's exactly right. How about dads who are teaching the Bible at home or maybe moms and they've learned some great concepts and they have to kind of distill them down to bite-size dino nugget portions for the children.

Dino nuggets.

When's the last time you had a chicken nugget? I can't even tell you. I mean the kids love those things, you know, or the chicken tenders or whatever. Everywhere you go, they've got to have that and the grandkids.

But I can't even remember the last time I had that.

So speaking of grandkids, let's talk about them for a second. They love chicken tenders. What else do kids eat these days? What's the hot thing? Because my kids are all older.

Eggos. But you know what I think is funny? Eggos or Legos? Eggos. You know, the little fake waffle things. What I thought was funny is I learned here not too long ago that Jude does not like French fries.

So we're out with him and he's eating French fries or he's eating ketchup, you know, pretending like he's eating French fries. And so I said It's a vegetable. So I said, take a bite of that French fry.

And he ate it with such violence. I've never seen anything like it. He literally like he ate it like it was beef jerky. It was like a rip and I just it made me laugh. He obeyed but I just thought it was funny.

Now, not too many children disdain French fries. I know. Where were you? Was it a McDonald's or something? We were at Red Robin. I think you like that place. Yeah, I do. I have to admit, I think the last French fry I had, we were sitting around Dairy Queen and there's one down the street and it's clean.

Lots of the kids from the church, they work there. So we go there to heckle them and to make messes. They have to clean them up. Just kidding. And the kids took some of their French fries. I mean we did like the Sunday night after church, get a dipped cone and some fries.

We don't have to have full on meals. Just get some fries and some dipped cones. And the kids, I think it was Gracie, she took some of the French fries and she was dipping it into the ice cream. Salty, sweet.

That was pretty good. I tried that. I think that was my last fry. Kids, they put French fries on their hamburger and stuff. Oh, yeah. The other day we were at the church picnic at the beach, at the lake, beach, beach lake, beach point.

And I saw somebody have a triple burger. This was a member of Bethlehem Bible Church. I think there needs to be a sermon series coming out of this. Exegete in the congregation. A triple burger, cheeseburger.

So three cheeses, I think three meats. And then they took a hotdog and they sliced the hotdog in such a way that it would fit on top of it. So it was a hotdog triple burger.

And then a couple slices of bacon. Seriously. I just looked at that.

And I'm not above eating hamburgers. I just, you know, didn't really want one that day. Give me some McGurgles or something. But boy, the triple burger with the hotdog on top and the only thing I thought they were missing, Steve, were the French fries.

Put the French fries on top. Or, you know, how about onion rings in a sandwich? Well, onion rings. See, we could do that. Yeah. When I drive past Texas Roadhouse, I say to myself, can you imagine, Kim, if we went in there and just ordered a Blooming Onion and ate it?

What we would feel like afterwards.

You know, I think I had a Blooming Onion once. Sorry for snorting. I just, I don't like them. I mean, I like onion rings though, you know, like Carl's Jr. onion rings.

They're pretty good. Well, what we've done today on No Compromise Radio, instead of doing the hipster thing at the beginning of the podcast, we've talked about food at the end of the podcast.

And so we've made it into kind of a food party.

Uh-huh. Because mi comida es su comida. Oh, thank you.

My food is your food in Anglo-Spanish.

Where was you at? In Spanglish. You can write us info at nocompromiseradio .com. Mike at nocompromiseradio .com goes straight to me. And for Steve, it's Tuesday guy. Is it the Tuesday guy? I don't know.

I think it's Tuesday guy. But your Twitter handle is the Tuesday guy. Okay. And you can follow NoCoRadio on Twitter or Facebook or other things. We don't ask that you send us money. But we ask that you tell your friends, hey, there's a podcast where there's a couple of

Have your friends send money. No. See, the other day I said, don't send money. But if you're a millionaire, we've got a new deal. You could send money if you're a millionaire. We'll take that. Nice. Because you could give according to your riches instead of out of your riches.

And then you'd be supporting a biblical concept. That'd be wonderful.

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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