Austin Duncan Interview

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.

The Program Format and Weekly Schedule

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, glad to be your host. We�re almost into our sixth year now, and if you listen regularly, you know the format. Monday, it�s a sermon that I preach on a Sunday here at Bethlehem Bible Church.

I�m in Malachi now. It�s been really fascinating as we go through the oracle or burden of Malachi. Tuesdays, I usually talk to Pastor Steve about issues in the church, what�s church membership, how should you find a church, how could you leave a church.

Thursdays, I usually teach something positive. I call it kind of K-Love Thursday. What is imputation? What is the act of obedience of Christ? Something like that. Fridays, I usually take people to the theological woodshed.

Sadly, there�s lots of folks that need to be taken to the woodshed. But on Wednesdays, I like to interview folks and learn what the Lord has done in and through them. It�s fascinating to me that God uses sinful, fallible, finite people just like me, and He�s building His kingdom, He�s building His church.

And so today, speaking of sinful and fallible, we have Austin Duncan here on No Compromise Radio.

Austin. Mike, thanks for that bumper intro, that�s really helpful. Wasn�t that really nice? Yeah, two things. I�ve never been so happy that it�s not Friday, at least on your show, because I�m not ready for the woodshed.

Somebody actually sent me a t-shirt. Is it a theological woodshed Friday t-shirt?

Yeah, no, no, I�m really glad that we�re pretending it�s Wednesday and this is an interview for that day and not for Friday. I�m just not ready for Friday. And yeah, if you�re looking for fallible, you�ve come to the right place.

Austin Duncan is a pastor at Grace Community Church. Most people know who John MacArthur is. He�s the college pastor there. He�s been the junior high pastor, I believe, high school pastor. And was it a graduation to be the college pastor?

Are you kind of working up through the ranks?

Will it be young adults next? No, they�ve tried me in four or five different jobs here. They�re just looking for one that I could actually do. So, they�re still trying me in different things. I�m hoping that.

Well, Austin, in all seriousness, I thank you for your ministry at Grace Community Church. Not just for college students in general, but my son Luke attends the college ministry there. And so, thank you very much for teaching him the Word of God in a Christ-centered way.

I really appreciate it.

I got to spend some time with Luke last weekend at a graduation party for one of the kids at the college. He�s a fine young man. He was looking forward to spending some time with his family this summer.

I think you guys are going to surf or something. He�s sort of like the young and handsome version of you. That�s right. It was good to talk to him a little bit.

College Ministry and the Centrality of the Word

Let�s talk a little bit about college ministry because I know your philosophy, but maybe some of our listeners don�t know. There seems to be a desire for attendance and interaction with some of our young college students, and so too often churches turn to everything but the Word of God.

Tell us why the proclamation of the Word of God is so central to college ministry and how you go about it at Grace Community Church.

Yeah. We have a ministry opportunity at Grace, being in Los Angeles, and not just an opportunity but a responsibility to reach the campus. There are other ministries that happen in the campuses in the greater Los Angeles area.

There are church organizations, Campus Crusade for Christ, Center of Our City, stuff like that, but we really have a heart here at this church that certainly predates my involvement here. The role is represented there.

When they come together, all these campuses, we want them to go to church, pass an admirable job teaching the Bible. Austin, so many people might come into college ministry and say, �Well, but I do teach.

The Word, and when I tried to teach the Word of God, it didn�t really work, and so I�ve gone to other philosophies or approaches. What would be your response to someone who would say that?

You know, that bums me out, because I think it�s goofy guy, you know, by nature. It�s kind of how God�s wired me, I think. God being taken. I would never say a youth group should. Every Sunday for us in college ministry, I just want to remind these students that God has an indestructible purpose that the gates of hell can�t prevail against.

For them to understand that that�s when they need to start to give and sacrifice and live for. That�s big boy stuff. It�s not fun and games. And when student ministry. Talking to Austin Duncan today.

He�s in youth ministry at Grace Community Church as a college pastor there. Austin, I think of S. Lewis Johnson, and he would say, �Ministry is to be sober, but you don�t have to be somber. And I think there�s a real joy, especially we as men who rejoice and exalt in the sovereign, distinguishing grace of God.

If you want to call it Calvinism, that�s fine by me. The joy that we can have in light of that, knowing who we are, who we were, and then now who we are in Christ Jesus. I�m all for excitement and fun and to have joy and enthusiasm, but certainly not at the expense of the Word of God.

So, I�m just echoing that. Tell me a little bit about the Foundry Conference, because I�m sure you�ll address some of these matters. June 5th, 6th, and 7th, just outside of Washington, D .C. What�s going to be happening there?

You know, my friend, Jesse Johnson, we were. Who�s that? Jesse who? College years. Jesse Johnson, the Reverend Jesse Johnson. Daniel Bible Church. He asked me to come out and to help him put on a conference for the college students in that area and say, �If there�s any listening to this show, I hope that they�ll join us this weekend.

It�s the first weekend in June. Daniel Bible Church�s website. And you can Google it and find it. And, yeah, we�re going to have a great weekend together. Again, it�s just the same thing we�ve been talking about.

It�s a biblical worldview. It�s about connecting your life as a college person, as a young adult, to those great global purposes that God has in bringing glory to himself. It�s about rejoicing in the sovereignty of God.

And we�re going to have a fun weekend together. And I�m not sure what the ministry of the college students. Well, our listeners can go to EmmanuelBible .net to find out more about that.

The Foundry Conference, June 5th, 6th, and 7th. Austin, as I look at youth ministry, college ministry, I think of that juvenilization of American Christianity that Thomas Burglar wrote. And, you know, you�ve got a lot of �put peanut butter on kids� faces and throw cheese balls to see if they stick or jam grapes up people�s noses and shoot them into a basket for snot put or all these kind of things.

Then it gets into see, notice how I know these things? I�m trying to, like, identify with my audience. And then it�s worked its way into the corporate worship service on Sunday morning. But now I think it�s almost working its way back into college and youth ministry.

And I see Luke�s friends at Masters College. And when I was just there during the Shepherds Conference, the Inerrancy Conference, these young men that he was with hey, what about this issue? I�ve learned such and such a topic when I was growing up, but now I want to earn it for myself, or excuse me, own it for myself.

What does Burkoff have to say? Studying deeply engaged in, of course, college life and fun and coffee, but they wanted to know what the Word of God said. And so I�m encouraged by these young people who are post-modern.

They know there�s truth. They know there�s true truth, to use Francis Schafer. And somebody please tell me the truth, because I know you�re a phony if you don�t.

Cultural Decline, Biblical Anthropology, and the Gospel Hope

Well, Mike, I think as we see an obvious cultural decline, the world�s offering as to what the priorities are around us in a culture that�s unbelieving. You know, from what marriage is, to what tolerance is, to what a good citizen of our society is.

It doesn�t take even much of a Christian worldview to understand how ludicrous and how unacceptable the world�s standards are becoming. And so I think you have Christian young people who are recognizing that they are more equipped to answer the folly of this age, that we believe in things like a relationship between sexuality and gender.

This is so basic, and it�s so biblical, and it�s so what the world is selling right now, that our young people need to have confidence that they have the Word of God, and they know what the Bible says, and they can engage on the highest levels on these topics, because they know the Word of God.

They�re more wise than their teachers. So that�s what�s exciting about working with young people, serious about the Word, serious about engaging, about tearing down strongholds, and about knowing the reason God made them male and female, and knowing that marriage isn�t just a career, not harder.

As the world gets weirder, it becomes even more simple to show them what the hope of the gospel is. He created it, right?

Amen. We�re talking to Austin Duncan today. Austin, let�s go maybe with a little quicker answers, because I�ve got a short time left, and it�ll be like a Todd Friel �I ask you a question� when you ask MacArthur a question, and answer it like in a minute.

We call it �Lightning Round. Yeah, that�s right. Hey, this is my show. So, let me ask you just a couple questions, maybe five or so, and if you answer within a minute or less, that would be great. What�s your favorite MacArthur book, and why?

It�s not a new one, it�s an old one, but you�ve got to get a copy. And because not only does it demolish kind of the Babel approach, it�s my favorite MacArthur book, and I bought myself a first edition copy.

Preaching Judges and the Dangers of Pandering to the Flesh

Great. Question two, why are you preaching through judges, verse by verse?

Oh, boy, the dark days of the judges. It�s been all the students, I learned so much. I try to keep going in the Old Testament, I go old, new, old, new, with the judges, because I love the historical books, the old book of Judges, and my reading of it, and my study of it, hands him over to the Pharisees.

You know, I think, when we think about the Old Testament, we think about Israelites worshipping the Jews, and I don�t think we realize what was hard, what was, you know, I mean, the sexual, even their concepts of agriculture around them.

It�s an obvious parallel there, so the book of Judges is really helpful in talking about pandering to the flesh, and the dangers of conflict.

Well, that�s excellent, because you�re fired up about preaching the Word, and so I love that, and anytime someone uses the word �avant-garde�, I�m happy. Alright, just a couple minutes. We started Ruth on Sunday, and it�s a chopped-up concubine, and things don�t go really well.

Sunrise. Amen. What�s your short response to the Southern Baptists opening their ranks to missionaries who now speak in tongues or have private prayer language?

You know, I don�t know anything about it. I mean, I know about private prayer languages because when I was a kid, I grew up in a Calvary Chapel world, and we were not only encouraged to go try to learn how to speak in tongues in our dorm rooms at summer camp, but made to feel left if we could not.

And unfortunately, you know, I could not. I didn�t realize that was because tongues are real languages and a gift given, you know, in the Apostolic Age. So, as a young person raised with Pentecostal background, I just think it�s so sad to see the modern conception of what were true and biblical gifts with very distinct purposes in building the early Church.

So, I�m bubbed at private prayer languages, but I don�t know anything about it.

All right. About one minute to go. In retrospect, it�s been two years. Any thoughts of the Driscoll�s books confiscated issue two years after the fact? I was there that day.

I was in Seattle a few months ago. We�ve got about 20 seconds. Yeah. And I saw some of the wreckage of that whole thing. And I pray for those people that they find a good, a good place to go.

Amen. We�re talking to Austin Duncan today, college pastor at Grace Community Church. Austin, thank you for your ministry, testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ,.

And for Gospel Preaching Together. 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.

We�re on the evening at 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.