July 31, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Stephen Atkinson & Ron Elkin on “Jewish Evangelism & Calvinism: Friends, NOT Enemies!”

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on Jewish Evangelism and Calvinism

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon. Cumberland County,.

Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth, listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you a happy Friday on this very last day of July 2015.

Calvinism, Jewish Evangelism, and the Charge of Antisemitism

Are Calvinism and Jewish evangelism friends or enemies? Well that's our discussion today with two individuals who are both what we call Calvinists, which is just a nickname of course. They are both theologically reformed, and yet they both have a passion to evangelize the Jewish people, and they hopefully, God willing, will break and destroy, help to destroy the stereotype today about those who believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace, and it is a sad tragedy that reformed people have had the caricature and the slanderous accusation that they are anti-semitic.

Now of course there are Calvinists who are anti-semitic, there are Arminians who are anti-semitic, there are all kinds of people who are anti-semitic or who hate the Jewish people, but I can assure you that our guests today who are both theologically reformed and have a passion for the Jewish people are neither anti-semitic nor do they hate the Jews.

In fact, our second guest today is in fact a Jewish believer and a Calvinist, but let me introduce you to our first guest today, Stephen Atkinson, who is the Director of Ministry for Christian Witness to Israel's North American Branch.

Their website is cwina .org, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Stephen Atkinson. It's good to be with you, Chris. And Stephen, I detect a Northern Ireland accent, I believe, if you could tell us something about yourself and where you're from and how on earth did a man from Northern Ireland get such a passion to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Jewish people, since I don't think there are all too many Jewish folks living in Northern Ireland,.

But if you could explain. Not too many Jewish folks. And your headquarters for the North American Branch are in Arkansas, correct? It's Arkansas, yes, which is not Jew central. We must be, it is not for so many of the things that we see that desires today.

There's so much, so much in his heart's desires that they may be saved. And my real, I come as an outsider, somewhat into the American scene. I find that this is that perhaps don't have a reformed understanding, perhaps I might speak at my dispensationalist friends, that it's not about land, it's about the gospel.

And I would speak to my Calvinistic friends, that it's not about replacement. You know, learn your history, learn what we might call, although I don't particularly like the term, what we might call the heroes of our faith.

Learn what they said about Jewish mission and get that burden from these good men of old. And again, one of the things that I seek to do when I go to reformed churches is to remind them and remind myself of our, I'm a Presbyterian pastor, I'm a PCA pastor, remind of our Westminster standards, and how the Westminster divine very specifically in the 1600s, were concerned about Jewish mission.

And I think this is just something that we have forgotten. And so I will nudge both.

And although you already have obviously explained a bit about the work of Christian Witness to Israel and what you've already said, please perhaps give us some more specific details about that organization.

And also, I gather from what you said, the Israel in the name, Christian Witness to Israel is more about a description of the Jewish people rather than.

A nation in the Middle East. Yes, absolutely. I think that's, if you mention Israel, think of a land. And that's not our biblical, or important to us in particular. So because the people need the Lord, they're not unimportant.

All that you were searching prior to that, because there was a mission over Mary McShane, young restless, and they came back, and ours was one of them, which was started in London in 1842. And they prayed the opening prayer at that first ever meeting.

So we have a very noble history and heritage. In fact, sons are southern between myself as a PTA pastor. Reformed Baptist, Reformed Presbyterians have so much in common, and I love my Reformed Baptist brethren.

And for the benefit of my Baptist brethren, I can name drop even further and say that C .H. Spurgeon preached on four occasions for our ministry. He did the annual sermon on four occasions. We have actually one of those sermons online where Spurgeon preaches on the Valley of Dry Bones, and makes very specific reference to that grafting in again of the natural branches of Romans 11.

And the preaching to the bones, and the praying to the wind, 37, is really what we're seeking to do. Very dry, there's but one way, and we're praying for the wind, to sensitively understanding and winning the argument.

I must pray that the Lord will open the eyes of the blind. We must pray for the wind to revive any dead soul. And again, that's our calvary, and we pray for the wind. And certainly, Spurgeon was one who did that, and we were delighted also to have him as part of our past history.

So again, all that to say, being Reformed and being Calvinist, a very passionate.

Interest and love that they may be saved. Amen. And it might even surprise many of our listeners to know that another very well-known outreach to the Jewish people, Christian outreach to the Jewish people, Chosen People Ministries, a lot of people are totally unaware that that ministry came to be as a result of Presbyterians evangelizing the Jewish people of Brooklyn in the 19th century.

And their current president, Mitch Glaser, who I've had on this broadcast, although we would disagree on eschatological things and so on, he is a Calvinist, a five-point Calvinist. So it is interesting, and a lot of people are just totally unaware of that.

He also has a very open view to those being involved in Chosen People Ministries from different eschatological perspectives and has no restrictions against amillennial or postmillennial folks in being involved, which is good to hear because you very typically will hear from organizations, messianic groups and so on, that amillennialism and postmillennialism are anti-Semitic in their nature, and that I believe that nothing can be farther from the.

Truth from that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We have a good relationship. I attend that once a year and meet up with my brethren, and I have a deep love for some others who present a dual covenant, the Old Torah, and that's...

Yeah, that's absolutely amazing to me. I believe you're speaking primarily of John Hagee, are you? Yeah, you know, we have John Hagee's quote, and what, in fact, it's more than... It's obvious that he doesn't really understand the Gospel.

He can't understand the nature of man and the depravity of man and the need of the cleansing blood of Christ if he has this view. In fact, the thing that makes it more bizarre is, who was Jesus Christ's main audience in the New Testament?

They were Jews, and he was not giving them comfort to stay as they are. In fact, Nicodemus, when he came to visit Jesus in secret, Jesus gave him no comfort to be a righteous Jew for his salvation.

I think this is what... And it also, here is my... What you believe, and we, as your life, and start sacrifices, if that's our theology, then that will be our mission. Now, I, in my Reformed understanding, believe that that is our mission.

In fact, it's not my theology. My theology is that they need to be saved. My theology is, yes, according to Romans 9 -11, that they're... Yes, I long for that with... To go out to the streets and to the highways and byways and make the connections and bring the Gospel to the Jewish people.

In fact, we're doing that right by a number of our experienced staff from the UK and Europe, and as we... And they're working, actually, doing a joint outreach with us, and that outreach is continuing through until, I think, the 9th of August.

Individuals to reach them and connect them. That's what it's all about. It's a no-brainer. You know, and it just saddens me. So many rabbit trails. Theology, correct, how good that might be. And I'm talking to my Calvinist friends, and I'm talking to my Dispensationalist friends, I'm talking to all.

If we can get us refocused on the one thing needful, what an influence for good we can be in this country, where 42 of the world's Jewish population live. 42 are right on our doorstep. This is the mission field.

So let us get our own church's agent and personal help to folks who have Jewish friends, and I also do some seminars on how to sensitively reach out to your Jewish neighbors, and I've done that in some of the seminaries as well as some individual churches.

And I think if I can mobilize the willing laborers, as it were, in the churches to be reaching their Jewish neighbors, then really that's how I want to multiply myself. And we have churches and Christians that are in Jewish neighborhoods connecting with Jewish people.

Even where I live here in Northwest Arkansas, I have a dear friend, and he's got Jewish business friends. He meets them four times a year. They come from Miami, they come from New York City, and they meet three or four times a year.

And he has been connecting with them with the Gospel, and he's had them in his home share the Gospel with him. That very natural way of sharing people, that's how we will draw forth. Instead of the Christian church being fascinated by blood moons and red heifer, it saddens me.

There's such an interest in rapture theology rather than the Redeemer, when the Redeemer is demoted.

Amen, amen. You mentioned a term before for our fellow Calvinist brethren to be leery about embracing, and I don't know if I'm going to have a difference of opinion with you on this, but you mentioned replacement theology earlier.

I don't know of any Calvinists or Reformed people who use that term as a way to describe themselves, and I do not think that if the Gentiles are grafted in with the Jews as one people of God, and that the church is a fulfillment of the nation of Israel, and that we are a royal priesthood and holy nation as a church, I don't view that as replacing anything.

Replacement theology almost gives the idea that Gentiles have replaced ethnic Jews or something, which I abhor as a racially bigoted heresy. But if you could comment on what I had to say, perhaps you disagree somewhat with what I said,.

But if you could continue. What I'm finding over here is not a rabbit, but one of the quote again, men throughout church history, even Martin Luther, not Calvin, much kinder, and yet they were still expelled as time.

And it seemed to me that the Reformation, as we know, and the Reformation as to the understanding of God's purposes for the Jewish people took place over some time, and therefore I delight in my Westminster divines.

Samuel Rutherford prayed that he could stay out of heaven. In fact, I've got a quote right in front of me. I'll read it for you. He said, I could stay out of heaven many years to see that victorious, triumphing Lord, act that prophesied part of his soul-conquering love in taking into his kingdom the greater sister.

Joy and what glory would I judge it if my heaven should be suspended till I might have left to run on foot to be a witness of that marriage glory and see Christ put on the glory of his last married bride and his last marriage love on earth when he shall enlarge his love bed and set it upon the top of the mountains and take in the elder sister.

Samuel Rutherford was certainly not a replacement, but some others, as I say from my research and also from what I hear from my colleagues in the UK particularly, there is a radical growth in theology during their work, and it just saddens me because we need to get back to reading what these good men of old had said, and instead of believing that God is done with Israel, God has replaced Israel with the wonderfully obedient.

But there is that mindset. I don't find it so much in the US, but I know that my colleagues are facing it very strongly from some of the Reformed churches.

In the UK. Now, would some of that replacement theology be involved in like Anglo-Israelism, or I know that that would be certainly replacement theology, viewing basically the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant as a replacement of ethnic Israel, but I don't even know how prominent that is anymore.

I know that the Armstrong cult held to that, but perhaps you could comment on that because I don't even know if that's even really a significant issue today. I think you're right,.

But it is cultish. It's even mainstream, and we stand up for the authority and it's deemed East, and then that anti-Semitism as well as in the UK. We're not seeing it so much here, and I'm delighted for that.

I think what I'm seeing here is from my Reformed brethren, I suppose something of staying away from the whole Israel question. It wouldn't be so much replacementism, but more a neglect. I think we've let the whole Israel question be in the hands of those that perhaps are into the stargazing stuff, and so my more sober-minded brethren perhaps are saying, well, that's all a little complicated, a little complex, and we'll not go there, and therefore we're not very good at being balanced, so we let the swing go to the other extreme and we stay clear of the whole Israel question, which again I feel we're not fulfilling our commission which we've been given, and particularly in these climactic passages of.

Romans 9 through 11. I'm going to give our email address if you have a question for our guest Stephen Atkinson of a Christian witness to Israel's North American branch. Our email address here is chrizarnsen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

Please include at least your first name and the city and state where you reside or the country where you reside if you're writing from outside of the United States. We do have a couple of listeners who have just sent in emails, and we will get to you right after this break, so we ask of you to please do not go away.

We're going to be right back with Stephen Atkinson and a Christian witness to Israel. It's easy to put off saving for retirement,.

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Tired of box store Christianity? Of doing.

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Well, there's good news. Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word. And this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you.

Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times. 631 -929 -3512. Or check out their website at wrbc .us. That's wrbc .us. Welcome back. This is Chris Zarnes. And if you've just tuned into Iron, Sharp, and Zion, our theme of the day is Jewish evangelism and Calvinism, friends or enemies?

And we are seeking to prove today that those two concepts are indeed friends and not enemies. And we have as our first guest for the first hour Stephen Atkinson, who is Director of Ministry of Christian Witness to Israel.

And their website is cwina .org. Later on at 5 p .m., we will begin our interview with Ron Elkin of Ami Ministry. And they are also a Calvinistic or theologically reformed outreach to the Jewish people.

And Ron Elkin himself is a Jewish believer in Jesus Christ. So we will look forward to that as well. Our email address here, if you have questions, is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And please include your first name, city and state, or country if outside the U .S. And Stephen, if you could, before we even go on, what is your personal eschatological background? Because I know that not all reformed.

People agree on that. Yeah. I grew up in the mainline President Church in Ireland. For those that are in the know, it was the same denomination as down out of that stable in Ireland. And my theological position was strongly reformed.

I initially had obviously that amillennial theological position, but an optimism that I suppose millennial hope. And at the same time, has not answered all my questions. And so some aspects of pre-millennialism.

So you might say that I'm in the mix there. And I think I'm in good company because I heard on record that we're in a mix of good men if they really fall down on one of those three positions. But rather, I suppose theologically, I would mostly be in the amill.

And I suppose some aspect pre-millennialism appeals to me personally. I think sometimes in our reformed theology, we have taken a Greek mindset rather than the Hebrew mind that philosophized our understanding of things, Hebrew amillennialism.

I'm not specifically falling down on one particular. And that's a mission Christian witness to Israel is confessionally reformed all our staff here to one of the reformed confessions. So I'm Westminster, we also Savoy or Heidelberg.

So as a mission, we are we're reformed, holding to one of those, but allow that liberty in terms.

Of the of the escalator. Now, in regard to what some of the things that you were saying earlier before the break, wouldn't you still believe even though you know of some bent of anti-Semitism, even if it's unconscious, unconscious anti-Semitism amongst reformed believers, especially in the UK, as you were saying, that the dominant view of Jews amongst reformed people, you would not categorize as anti-Semitic, would you?

And you would not categorize anti-Semitism as inherent in any way to the theology known as Calvinism or reformed?

No, no, I wouldn't, sir. And I would have apathy, apathy about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I just think that we have my dispensation here by John Hagee. But we do have our differences because of some of the more radical just at my reformed brethren have neglected the whole I want to get into.

And yet, you know, I commend folks to go to our website and look up called Notable Quotes. And you will find quotes there by Jonathan Edwards and Spurgeon and Rutherford and Sibbes and Thomas Boston and Bonner and John Murray, Charles Fard.

All of those guys believe in God. It saddens me that there is, you know, if we if we believe Romans 116, we may even have a belief in a prior Jew first. And in fact, Robert Murray McShane believe he uses the illustration that a doctor will run to the most needy patient first.

And he speaks strongly about the Jewish as we find it in Romans 2. And so McShane says, well, if judgment is to the Jew first, if they are the most needy patient, the doctor needs to run to that needy patient.

And so he believed in a prior. But even if my reformed brethren don't see that priority, I would certainly like to see every church. And here's my here's my vision that every church in the U .S. has an intentionality.

It is part of the great giving to us. They are right on our doorstep and we must be doing something. And specifically where churches are in Jewish areas, they must have an intentional bossing that divide and reaching their Jewish friend.

And where churches are not in Jewish areas, I would love them to just have that passion and that prayerful burden, even that our old Scottish Presbyterians had. There weren't very many Jews in Scotland in the 1800s, but they had a theological burden that drove their prayers and their practical mission.

And I'd love to see that kind of thing happen again, that if the church is not in a specifically Jewish area, well, we'll get the burden and pray for your brethren who are in doing that frontline work of ministry.

I've been to some churches in South Florida where the church is very positive about their Jewish neighbor, and the senior pastor has told them, well, we're doing this or we're doing that. And I said, brother, you don't need me.

You're doing a wonderful job. Just keep doing it. And then I've been to other churches in South Florida and other places where they've said, well, you know, we really could do with some help in this. You've rebuked me.

I said, well, I'm not trying to rebuke you, my brother, but nonetheless, if you feel rebuked, let's make some changes and let's make some intentionality.

To your outreach to your Jewish friends. And I want to repeat our email address. It's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com if you have a question for our guest. And before I forget, I want to announce that our guest Stephen Atkinson will be here in the Carlisle area September 30th, God willing.

That's a Wednesday night at seven. He is going to be speaking at the church where I am a member, Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. And the website for more information on Grace Baptist Church is gracedbaptistcarlisle .org.

Grace Baptist Carlisle, that's c-a-r-l-i-s-l-e dot o-r-g. Wednesday, September 30th at 7 p .m. If you live in the area, please come out to see and hear Stephen Atkinson. And we will try to post that on the Iron Sharpens Iron radio website as well.

We do have a listener in Toronto, Canada. He doesn't really have a question. He just says, personally, as a Calvinist, I strongly reject the idea of replacement theology. As I have understood things, as Paul said, it has always been the children of the promise who are the true children of God.

Would you want to respond to that? Because I actually believe all of the elect are the true children of God. But if you could comment on that.

Yeah, I'm grafted into the olive tree. The branches and the dead, even to the natural lying around the tree, they have not been burned up. It will be one shepherd and one group. Again, we don't believe in there being two peoples.

But I think what I would stress is that while we believe that we are grafted into the olive tree, that God is not done with the ethnic people. And I think that's what is a wonderful aspect of Romans 11, or Romans 9 through 11, is that God is not finished with the natural branch of Israel.

And I suppose as a Calvinist, it confirms to me that God is gracious. The Lord did not persevere with me, a sinning saint, if he said, okay, I'm done with you. Well, my salvation is in jeopardy. But I don't believe that.

As a Calvinist, I don't believe that. I believe that God perseveres with my sinning nature, and by his grace and by his mercy, he that began the good work shall bring it to a wonderful, gracious end. And I think when I see folks with the ethnic people, that saddens me, because to me, that's not Calvinism.

Calvinism is that God begins work. And he, again, in the sovereign purpose of God, he has, again, according to Romans 11, but not completely hardened. And it is of the Lord to take away. And goes on to speak of this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.

So it seems to me that God has a future purpose for the Jewish people. And that again, is what fires me for mission and inspires me to have that fulfilled. By the way, I wanted.

To, I didn't get a chance to say this earlier, I would probably be in the same camp as you in regard to eschatology. I guess I would call myself right now anyway, an optimistic amillennialist. But what would not be a dogmatic amillennialist, I am willing to learn about the other groups.

In fact, I want to let our listeners know that once again, just like we did on the old Iron Sharpens Iron years ago, we're going to be having a week of eschatology, August 17th through the 24th. So we're actually having six days of eschatology on Iron Sharpens Iron, where each day we're having a major view of eschatology represented by someone who is an advocate for that particular view.

And the majority of these participants would be thoroughly reformed, even though they disagree on the end times and so on. And also, I don't know if you were aware of this, Stephen, but Ian Murray is also an optimistic amillennialist, even though he wrote the Puritan Hope and a lot of post-millennialists cling to that as their handbook.

He has told me face to face that he is not a classic post-millennialist and would fall more in the amillennial camp.

Yes, yes, I got the opportunity to meet with him. In fact, I was called as the pastor in 1992, and some of your listeners might be interested to know, in 1991, a certain Ian Murray was called to be the pastor of Cambridge Presbyterian Church England.

And a couple of months before his installation, he felt the Lord calling him not to pursue that, and so he did not become the pastor. And within the next 12 months, the Northern Ireland Church and Ian Murray preached my installation.

It was wonderful. He called me up once a month to ask how I was doing, because I was a young 30-year-old. I love him in the Lord, not just for the book.

We have a listener that asks a question that you did address already, but perhaps you can expand on it, because I think that we could say a few more things about it. Jeff in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania writes, do the errors, from a reformed perspective, of dispensationalism cause an overreaction towards Jewish people as unique and Jewish missions?

Romans 11, in my reading, means we should all long to see ethnic Israel turn toward the Messiah, and that would benefit all nations. So would you say that a lot of the apathy that you were discussing earlier, that you see amongst reformed churches and ministries regarding Jewish evangelism, would you say that that's an overreaction to dispensationalism and a fear of being equated with dispensationalist errors and so on?

I think, Jeff, it's right on the button. I think.

That's exactly one of the things that I, and this is where I go after my reformed camp, and it seems to me that what Jeff is saying, that there is an overreaction. We don't want to go there. We don't want to think about it, lest we be labeled a dispensationalist.

I firmly dispute that. I think that is that my reformed brethren are so tightly concerned to remain within their little group that they're not prepared. I would try to say, look, why are you afraid to start to lead with these good men of old?

Quick answer to Jeff's comment. He's absolutely right. There is an overreaction, and what I want to do in my preaching ministry and teaching is to get us to be nudged back to what I see as a historic reformed position, that we had Jewish mission in our standards.

I commend your listeners to look up the Westminster Larger Catechism, question 191, Westminster Larger Catechism, question 191, which is praying for the downfall of the Kingdom of Satan. Now, that's not a very political correct thing to do today, but there is much perversity that we should be praying down.

And in the Catechism, question 191 answer, we are to pray for the downfall of the Kingdom of Satan and pray for the gathering in our Westminster reformed theology and Calvinism are certainly friends and not enemies.

Amen. And it reminds me, Jeff from Philadelphia's question reminds me of how reformed people can overreact to an error of another group and therefore neglect something that they should be doing just because they don't want to look bad.

It reminds me, I just wanted to say, reminds me of years ago when I visited a church that was formerly an Armenian church and the new pastor and new congregation that had purchased the building were Presbyterian, they were independent Presbyterians.

And when I looked over the baptismal tank, Revelation 22, 17 was up there on the wall and whosoever will let him take the water of life freely. And I said, oh, I love that verse up there. And the pastor said, really, well, we're taking it down.

We don't want to look like we're Armenian. I said, it's a Bible verse. And I said, what better way to convey the message that you believe in all of the scripture to the Armenian opponents of Calvinism by leaving that up there?

I mean, that just struck me as totally bizarre that they would remove a text of scripture from the wall.

Because again, Calvinists, with our understanding of predestination, have been labeled as non-evangelistic, as if we're just waiting for the Lord to save people, because the elect will come in. But no, we have been given the calling.

We've been given.

The commission. And let's also make sure that before we leave your segment of the program, since we only have about four minutes left, I really want to make sure that everything that you most desire to have burned in the hearts and minds of our listeners before they go today, before they leave your portion of today's two-hour program, please just unburden your heart for as long as you wish within our remaining three minutes or so.

Sometimes in our Reformed circles, we neglect evangelism. And that's a legitimate charge placed against some of my Calvinistic friends, my own heart perhaps, that we're not speaking to people about the Lord at every turn.

We study Reformed theology in the comfort of our own churches instead of reaching out with this glorious... And I think that's what happens then with regard to Jewish people. And if I can make one final plea, it is that we will see the importance of bringing...

For eight months, he started attending a church I was visiting, and coming to faith. And we have an article in our most recent magazine as well. And the title of the article is that he said, I feel I've been lied to my whole life.

Reputations will not cut it on the deathbed. On the deathbed, Jewish people will meet their God. And the only one that they can meet their God in the strength of is Melchizedek, is the King of Righteousness.

It is Jesus Christ. And we must bring that gospel of Jesus. One final illustration, and then I'm done. My CEO in London is Joseph Steinberg. And he said, you know, my own mother said, I want this one thing on their mind, is we bring Christian...

Amen. Amen. I couldn't have said it better myself. And that goes for most things, I think. And I want to repeat your website. It's CWINA .org. That's CWINA for NorthAmerica .org. CWI for Christian Witness to Israel.

NA for NorthAmerica .org. And once again, Stephen Atkinson will be speaking, God willing, on Wednesday night, September 30th at seven o 'clock at Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The website is gracebaptistcarlisle .org.

Grace Baptist C-A-R-L-I-S-L-E dot O-R-G. It's been such an honor and privilege and joy to have you on the program, Stephen Atkinson. And I look forward to having you return on the program, perhaps next time, right here next to me in the studio when you're visiting Carlisle.

I would love that. And thank you so much for having me today. It's been a real blessing. And I find a new fine friend in Chris Arntzen. It's been... And you're my brother. And Lord bless you and your radio ministry.

Thank you so much. And I hope everybody stays tuned in for Ron Elkin of AMI Ministry, who is coming on next. And we look forward to receiving your emails for Ron. Our email address is chrisarntzen at gmail .com.

Chrisarntzen at gmail .com is our email address. And if you if you write to us with a question for Ron Elkin of AMI Ministry, please include your first name, your city and state of residence, and your city and country of residence if you're outside of the USA.

And we look forward to hearing from you. And by the way, you may disagree with our guests. You don't always have to agree with what our guests have to say on Iron Sharpens Iron. Feel free to write with any kind of objection that you may have.

And we look forward to having our guest Ron Elkin respond to you to the best of his ability. And so please don't go away. And while you're at it during the station break, tell your family, friends and loved ones to get on their computers to ironsharpensironradio .com and have them listen to the broadcast.

They can also, if they don't have access to a computer, they can also listen to the broadcast by phone. And the phone number for people to listen to the program anywhere if they have a phone with them is 401 -283 -6754.

401 -283 -6754. And you can hear this broadcast live by phone, but don't go away. We'll be right back with Ron Elkin of AMI Ministries. It's easy to put off saving for.

Retirement, but it's just as easy to start. Once you do, you'll feel more confident about your future. So where to begin? Start with Thriving Financial. They'll help you define your financial goals and take realistic steps to help you reach them.