Christianity Today is always Kooky

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.

John Owen, Sanctification, and the Holy Spirit

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Today is Tuesday, and that means Steve can�t get his headphones rightly done. Matter of fact, I ordered those things for your ears, Steve, so you wouldn�t get those little black chips on there or whatever it was, the pieces of the ear muff.

It was so nice of you, because like I would spend two days trying to rinse all that stuff out of my hair and everything like that. You know, people are like, �Is that like black dandruff or something

Yeah.

You know what I just thought it was? I thought, you know, as I�m getting older, I�m getting a bunch of hair growing on my ears, in my ears, around my ears. I just thought it was that.

And amazingly, it would just get really bad right after every episode of No Compromise Radio.

I know. There�s just this taint, this fleck, this speck. I don�t know what it was. It�s a remnant. You know, but God always has a remnant.

Just want you to know that. Yeah, I�m surprised. Well, yeah, I mean, just imagine if they were like radiated, my ears would have been glowing when I left. So, yeah.

I like that. Okay. Steve, last time we were talking a little bit about Bible translations, and so I�ve swept through my CTs, my Christianity Todays, and my inserts, and my other things, and I just have a few pages I�d like some of your comments on, but before we do that, I have a John Owen quote.

Okay. This part of the show, I give a quote, and you just make a reaction. �When the Holy Spirit sanctifies believers, He does a complete work in them. He puts into their minds, wills, and heart a gracious, supernatural principle which fills them with the holy desire to live to God.

The whole life and being of holiness lies in this. Well, I would agree with that. That's amazing. John Owen, doesn't he play in the NFL? You know what? That on-site kick, I could not hardly believe.

Okay.

That's what I thought it was. Yeah. No, I like that quote.

That's good. �He puts into their minds, wills, and hearts a gracious, supernatural principle, and that's what makes you want to live for the Lord.

I think that's true. And, you know, here, I mean, it just makes me think, you know, �Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, you know, and I'll give you rest. I mean, there are so many people that think Christianity is a religion of rules and, you know, obnoxious regulations and lack of joy, and Jesus would tell you it's quite the opposite, so.

That's right.

I'm looking at something here on my iPhone, the second Helvetic confession, and here it says, �Concerning good works, for we teach that truly good works grow out of a living faith by the Holy Spirit and are done by the faithful according to the will or the rule of God's Word.

And anyway, I think if you show me a person who's filled by the Spirit, whatever law we put up against them, I think the law couldn't find anything wrong with them. And it's not because of them. Right.

Absolutely. Okay. So we were talking about Bible translations, and I find something here with the NIV, and it looks like it's got a cross afterwards, but I think it's the NIV Plus, and of course, I think the NIV got completed, maybe started in 78, completed in 84, and then we had the TNIV that had all the weird stuff in it, and then they got exposed, Zonovan did, for not telling the full truth on that, and then they put out later a little bit more of the, whatever it was, 20 or 30 of the TNIV back into the 84 NIV and called it the 2011 NIV.

I think that's what they're selling here, right?

Yeah, I think so. I'm waiting for the NIV Plus Plus.

Well, I thought this was maybe just the symbol for the woman. I was waiting for the NIV with the arrow. Oh, nice. The male thing. So it'll be balanced. And so here's the website, the NIVbible .com, Zonovan, Biblica, then it says, Trusted and Loved.

Okay? Actually, when I read the NIV 84, it's got some good things in it. Yeah.

I'm looking at the list of, you know, the spiral, the hermeneutical spiral that surrounds the NIV Plus.

So it looks like the NIV, it's the center of the orb of the sun, as it were, and then there's a fulgent radiation coming out. And so I underlined a few, so... There's some good names there. There's some men and women here on this list that since they use it, it must be good.

I think that's their point. Oh, is it? Okay. Uh-huh. So they love it. They trust it. You should love it. You should trust it, even though we've jammed the TNIV into it. I think that's the point. So how about Rick Warren?

He loves it, and it's trusted by him.

Yeah, but he loves about 20 other versions, too. I mean, he'll just, you know, he is like the ultimate scooper. He'll take a scoop of this and a scoop of that, and...

Steve, of course, Saddleback does it, and we've seen it with our own eyes, but other churches who do this, it is one of my ultimate pet peeves, is to sit down in a church service and some guy's up there preaching, TED talking, moralizing, and then they put the verses up on the screen.

That's not the bad part. I mean, I still don't like it, but I understand. Maybe somebody's blind or something, and, you know, so it can be technically fine.

Maybe most people can't find any verses in their Bible. Uh-huh.

And then they've got verses out of context. It's not the whole section, you know, it's like the five first verses of Ephesians. And then at the little bottom, it's got the open, close parentheses, and it says MSB, or CEB, CEV, CSB.

And you know, they're just cherry-picking for the one that sounds the most emotional.

Or the closest to whatever the emphasis is that they want to say, right, regardless of what the verse actually means in context. That is... I can't stand that. I mean, it's actually worse than proof texting.

They should call it, like, proof-wrecking or something. I don't even know what to call it.

That is bad. What would you call it if you can't criticize Rick Warren because he's a Southern Baptist and you're a Southern Baptist? What would you call that?

Mmm, the Sacred Brotherhood of, you know, I don't know.

Open parentheses, SBC, Sacred Brotherhood of Churches, close parentheses.

I've had people tell me, you know, you can't...recently, actually, I won't say, but it was an alumnus, who said, you know, you can't criticize Rick Warren because he was kind to me as a child and, you know, he was a real big spiritual influence in my life.

And I thought, well, that's an interesting position. I guess he's uncriticizable, then, you know. I just have to be quiet.

Well, you know what? Before I got saved, Satan was pretty nice to me as my father. Shots fired. I'm just saying that logic doesn't work.

No, it doesn't, you know. So it, you know, and in this case, it just didn't matter, so I let the... I mean, there are a lot of things I could argue about on social media, but arguing about the ministry of Rick Warren is not something I want to spend too much time on.

Steve, I just use Hootsuite and just throw things out. It's like the one-way monological whatever. But now that I'm back to work again, my Twitter zingers are just going down the drain. They're blowing up.

I've been working. Oh, have you? Okay. Yeah. So anyway, here's some other people. Does this make you trust the NIV more or less? Less. James Dunn? Less. Less, yeah. Here's a new perspective guy. How about Dan Kimball?

Less. Craig Groeschel? Less. I think she's the best preacher on the list here, according to some. And Graham Lotz. More.

Hey, any kin of Billy Graham, you know, it instantly elevates the text, so... Now there are some people... How about Andy Stanley?

No. Hmm. Interestingly, on the names here, I do see D .A. Carson. I do see Daniel Wallace. Bigfoot Wallace. Then there's some others. Oh, Max Lucado. Does that make you trust it more or less? It's the waterproof Bible for baptismal regeneration.

Makes me want to ban it.

All right. I wouldn't burn it, but it makes me want to... Max Lucado, come on. The next time he says something biblical, I'll be impressed. I mean, it probably happens.

I just can't remember. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's... He's putting the new seven-volume Systematic Theology out.

Oh, man. That might be the funniest thing I hear all day. I'll ask. Well, you just got Tony Evans. He came up with the Systematic Theology. Yeah, but Max Lucado... I guess anybody can. Max Lucado, I mean, come on.

He's more likely to put out a complete series of stuffed animals than a Systematic Theology.

What are those dolls that they said were cabbage patch? They were really Satan stuff, a bunch of wild fundamentalists saying that these are satanic dolls. I love fundamentalists. They're fun. Not much fun, not too much mental, and a lot of lists.

I have to agree with that breakdown. Here at No Compromise Radio, we're putting the fun back in fundamentalism. That is exactly right.

Steve, sometimes we like to take study tours of Israel, and maybe there's more touring than studying, but it's fun to go see Dan and the waters of Dan, and skipping rocks of the Sea of Galilee, putting your toe into the Dead Sea.

Last time I was there, somebody almost drowned in the Dead Sea. They flipped over on their face, and then they couldn't make themselves upright. Why would you even want to get in there? You probably do it every time, don't you?

I do, but I got nieces and nephews, and kids, and stuff, and trying to be the grandpa-dad thing. I still get in, but it's cold when I go in February. Anyway, I probably should promote a study tour in a couple of years when we go every couple of years, but nobody in No Compromise Radio Land ever wants to go with us.

Oh, okay. Well, that would be a good reason not to promote it.

Because I'll show you. I'll get you back. Here, Steve, I don't know if you know this, but you better, you know, it's going to happen next year, October 13th, 2015. I'll be saving my drachma. 2019, the C .S. Lewis Institute presents Study Tour of Israel.

Well, the tour guide's name is Ransom.

Tour guide and his name, Baptismal Regeneration. So I just want to let you know, there's a lot of C .S. Lewis stuff.

You know, that's the hero in the space trilogy. Is Ransom?

Ransom, yeah. Oh, that's talking about Ransom Theory of the Atonement or something. Well, I mean, that's what it is. But Ransom, that's his name. You know what? If you can't make that, you could go to the Aslan Academy Conference Helping Parents Disciple Their Children.

I'm so there. Emanuel Bible Church. What? Really? Before we be whacking it, I think that must be Jessie. I think it is. I think it is.

What if you're Jessie's girl? What would that mean? I don't know. But that's, Jessie's girl, I like her dad. I know. I know. She's nice, too. Here we go. Let's see. You know what?

Wow, really? That is a... Jessie doesn't listen anyway. That's my birthday. Maybe we should go down there. All right. Jessie doesn't listen to our show anyway. It doesn't really matter. Okay. Steve, while we're talking about translations, since this is kind of part two of that.

The CSB, Bible Translation Marketing, and Accuracy

Yeah. The other page says 100 scholars, 17 denominations, one translation, CSB, Christian Standard Bible. So you have the Holman Christian Standard Bible done by the Southern Baptists. And now, I don't know what they've done to reboot it, but it's a CSB now, Christian Standard Bible.

Can you think of any good reason to have another Bible translation out there and buy it? Besides... Yeah, I can. Yeah, okay. Money. Yeah.

Next question. I mean, the Holman, I think in the beginning, the HCSB, they were supposed to be putting like Yahweh in the text, and then somehow that fell out and didn't happen, and you know...

Okay, because the Holman Christian Standard, they didn't do it every time. But often they said Yahweh instead of all caps, Lord. Okay. And now they got rid of it with a CSB.

Okay. So maybe that's... They took out some of the good stuff, and now they made it the CSB.

Let's think about this big picture, Steve. There's definitely an advantage to knowing the original language, right? Greek in the New Testament, Hebrew in the Old, with some Aramaic, you know, and Daniel and Esther, et cetera.

So if you can study the original languages, it helps. But I mean, was it not Luther that said, in these last days, God has spoken to us in Greek and Hebrew letters? But I also remember what S. Lewis Johnson says, and he says, if you can't learn Greek or Hebrew or anything like that, what you can do is you can get four or five Bible translations in the language that you speak, English in this particular regard, and if you put them side by side, you can really dig deeply and pretty much find out what God is trying to reveal in Scripture.

Sure. Yeah. As long as one of them isn't the message. MSB.

Well, now let's read this with that in mind. Here's their liner notes for the CSB. How do you make a deeper, clearer connection to God's Word? What would you say to that, by the way? They're going to say, read this Bible.

But if somebody said, Pastor, I'd like to have a deeper connection to God's Word, what were some of the things, what would be some of the things you'd say?

I'd say, study it instead of just read it. Okay. Take time to meditate. Yes. So one, good. I mean, if you really want to know it well, you know, I would say, consult some commentaries. I mean, if you really want to dig deeply into it, then I would say, you know, you can spend some time doing that and listening to some sermons on it.

Okay. Good. You know what? I like that.

I'm going to add something. First Peter 2, put away all malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander like newborn babes or infants long for the pure milk of the Word that by it you may grow up into salvation.

In other words, you know, if there's sin in your life, just God, please cleanse me of my sins. I know Christ has dealt with it positionally and just practically. Would you just wash me? I'd like to know what you have said in your word and could your spirit help me understand it.

Right. So dealing with sin, praying. Well, let's see what they say here. How do you make a deeper, clearer connection to God's Word? The Christian standard Bible, by the way, if you're a Christian, this is your standard Bible.

There's no other standard. Well, it's like, if you speak English.

Right, right. You know, the new American standard.

Right. But the English standard Bible version would be for you if you speak English. So you're really stuck if you're American and you speak English and you're a Christian because then you have three standards.

Which one do you obey? You know, these standards, this is the covenant of works all over again. It's just law, law, law when it comes to the Bible. I mean, come on. Standards everywhere. Well, I mean, at least the NIV.

Well, yeah, you studied that overseas, New International Version. It's for anybody in the world. Was it not Dick Lucas that said to John MacArthur, when it comes to the NES, the Americans don't set the standard in anything?

Well, he was wrong. Nobody else has gone to the moon. Was there a flag put up there or not? How was that in a breeze? What was that whole breeze thing going on?

It's, you know, the lunar breeze. The lunar breeze.

Well here it says the Christian standard Bible captures the Bible's original meaning. Okay. Okay. Capture. Capture, right? Make captive. Without compromising clarity, helping readers better understand God's Word and inspiring lifelong discipleship.

The CSB is for everyone. It's a Bible pastors can preach from, and a Bible you can share with your neighbor, hearing God's Word for the very first time. Now let's just kind of break that up a little bit, because, you know, I want these companies to promote their Bible and say, it's easy to read, and it's got a dynamic equivalent, or it's literal, or it's functional, word for word.

Whatever they want to say, so I can understand what their philosophy of translation would be. But it helps readers understand better God's Word. How about we're just going to try to be as accurate as possible, and we'll let the Holy Spirit do this particular job?

Well, you know, I just say accuracy is overrated. I mean, come on, how close do you really need to be? As long as you have the gist of what's there, masomenos. In fact, I think that would be my Bible translation philosophy.

Masomenos? Yeah, is it accurate? Masomenos, you know, more or less. Talbes.

All right. All right. You know. All right. Well, back to Jesse's.

I mean, how accurate do you really need to be, right? So... Very accurate. I mean, it's only the Word of God, you know. He's only going to judge you, so I wouldn't, you know...

Preaching Conferences, Apologetic Preaching, and Women Preachers

Steve, there is a Gordon-Conwell preaching, a seminar that just happened last month, and it was probably... I missed it. A week ago, Steve, I thought, you know, Steve and I have not been up to Gordon-Conwell for these, you know, one-day deals on preaching.

We saw Sidney Grudanus there last time. It was a great first hour. I wanted to like it better than I did. But anyway, I thought, well, who's there speaking? And so I actually was on Gordon-Conwell's...

I think they're changing their name. It's Oliver Cromwell's Seminary.

Nice. Well, you know, it has more of a ring to it, definitely, than Gordon-Conwell. A lot of new people go there. A lot of models go there. A lot of people in the Army go there. Cool. Yeah. Nice.

So this has... It's a preaching conference. So here's what I don't like. Some of the great preachers of our time. Okay. I like that Mark Dever's there. I think you could learn a lot from Mark Dever's preaching.

I think he's a fantastic communicator. Right. Very clear. Yeah. Well-studied. I mean, let's just shrink it down to this. That's a smart dude right there. I know. I know.

Ravi Zacharias. I don't know. I don't consider him a preacher. These other people... He's very entertaining, though. Who's that? Who's that guy? Well, let's get to that guy later. Okay. There's some other names that...

The good news is, from a wide variety of backgrounds... What does that say? Jared Alfalfa? Alcantara. Okay. And then Calvin Wusong Choi. Okay. Mark Furnham. I think... I thought he was up in Idaho or something writing detective novels after the whole OG debacle.

So-called Furnham? Yeah. Yeah. And... No, this is Farnham. And then Afshin Ziafat. So he must be Middle Eastern or something. But here it says, come together with preachers, pastors, and those training in ministry from around the world for this unique conference aiming to sharpen apologetic preaching through preaching to prove.

So that's the theme of the conference, preaching to prove. So before we look at the last speaker there, is this something we should do? What do you mean, preaching to prove? I'm thinking precept. I'm thinking rationalistic stuff.

I'm thinking classical apologetics. Do we prove things when we're preaching? Do we dialogue? Do we show?

Do we demonstrate? Well, what's the phrase I'm looking for here? Where you give a sermon and it's to make a point, right? I mean, not just a regular sermon, but I mean to... Polemic? Yes, polemical preaching.

So maybe that's kind of what they're... Do you think? To sharpen up apologetic preaching. And then we've got Ravi. So he's this kind of apologetic guy. I don't know. That's interesting. I don't know. But as good as Deborah would be, I think on the other side of the scale, we've got Mary Holst there.

And Mary, I don't know what she's doing there. That's an abnormal name for a guy. Yeah. Well, I'm not sure how that works. I mean, there are two Noahs in the Bible. One's a man, the one that you know about in Genesis 6 to 9, and then there's another...

Just looking at this tiny picture, that does look like a woman. Mary. Mary.

Yeah. Yeah. So maybe she's got something to prove. Maybe she's preaching to prove that women can be preachers.

And if y 'all don't think so, just wait till I get done. Yeah.

Anyway, I just... I don't know. I think you can get things online if you want. Preaching to prove. That's... Yeah. The other thing that I want to show you that, Steve, we need to consider since we're kind of outgrowing our building again, you know, you have these cycles of ups and downs and two services, one service, a parking problems.

There are now regaltheaterchurch .coms, and you can just put this package together. I mean, they pay for you to do it. We're much more than just another rented venue. Regal Theater Church will help you with church design, flow logistics, children's ministry design and consulting, because, you know, where are you going to put the children if it's in a movie theater that you're renting?

You're giving me another idea though. Yeah.

Let's just flip this around. When we're not here, we rent our church out as a theater.

Do you know what? I think that's excellent because I've been really wanting to, you know, watch the Dirty Dozen again and the Magnificent Seven and shows that I watched with my father growing up and maybe popcorn could be given out.

We can make a bundle on this. Why don't we give the money to the local missionary or something that supports, I don't know,.

United Way or something? Well, we could rebrand, we'll call ourselves Movie Theater Church. Okay. True story. Maybe this was before your time.

Okay. Probably. Kim came up with the idea. She probably learned it from someplace and just made it her own. So we had a drive-in movie theater night for the kids at church, and so they all had to make their own cars out of cardboard, and Kim and Luke made a Batmobile and stuff, and so you just sit that down in the sanctuary area, because we have a multipurpose building, and it was all decorated.

And then we just had a big, you know, projecting screen up there, and we played a movie. I don't know what we played, Incredibles or something. And then, as they were all sitting there, some of the junior high, high school kids who were in ministry, they would roller skate over to them and give them popcorn and stuff like that.

And if they spilled, they spilled or whatever. Sometimes a kid would get in a car with another kid, you know, for the drive-in movie theater at the church here. No less.

Very nice. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I showed up at the church here when Luke was eight, so I don't know. I think he's probably smaller than that.

Yeah. The drive-in movie night. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A long time ago. I think we only had four families leave because of... Not the drive-in movie thing, but I think the popcorn in the sanctuary and the Batman theme.

Wow. Yeah. Because, you know, this is the lowest common denominator church, and if anybody's offended, then we're all offended because we're all one body. Steve's giving me that look. Mike Abendroth here with Steve Cooley.

Steve, you're on Facebook, right?

I am. Uh-huh. You're on Twitter? My name on Facebook is Steve Cooley. Nice. And on Twitter, I'm TheTuesdayGuy.

Okay. And I'm NoCo, at NoCo Radio, and I think I do the No Compromise Radio Facebook. See you then. Yes, you do.

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 bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.