Kofi Abu-Boahen Interview

No Compromise Radio iconNo Compromise Radio

2 views

Kofi Abu-Boahen Interview

0 comments

00:01
Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
00:08
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
00:16
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.�
00:24
In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.
00:30
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
00:37
Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.
00:45
Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. And when I started this show eight years ago,
00:51
I would have never imagined the kind and type and number of people that I�ve talked to and interviewed.
00:58
I tried to figure out a way to do radio in a way that would not copy other shows, something new or original, not with content but just with style.
01:08
And so I came up with the Sermons on Mondays, Tuesday Guy Steve discussing church issues on Tuesdays, hence
01:16
Tuesday Guy, Thursdays just talk about a doctrine that�s important, hypostatic union or eternal sonship, and then
01:24
Fridays maybe critique something, you know, the justification controversy or something like that.
01:29
But on Wednesdays, I thought, you know, I�m going to interview people. And I love hearing testimonies during baptisms.
01:35
I love hearing different takes from people who God has saved. And so today is
01:40
Wednesday, and we have an interview. And this is an old friend of mine, and I think of him with great joy, like a father would a son.
01:50
Kofi is on with us, and the last name is pronounced, even though this is my first time I�ve ever pronounced his name in public,
01:58
Kofi Edu -Boahim. So Kofi, welcome to No Compromise Radio. Thanks for having me on,
02:03
Pastor Mike, it�s a pleasure to be with you. Hey Kofi, tell our listeners, how do you pronounce your name, where are you from, how did you go from where you�re originally from to the
02:12
UK to where you are now? Sure. So my name is Kofi, and I�ll say the last name slowly,
02:19
Edu -Boahim. I am 26 years old. My parents are originally from Ghana, hence the funny sounding name, and they emigrated to the
02:29
UK in the 80s. I was born in December of 1990, and for 26 years, the
02:37
UK was home. And I was born and raised in London, spent a few years living in Germany, but the bulk of my life was spent in the
02:43
UK. And then in April, I got married to a wonderful woman called Laura, and she lived in Southern Oregon.
02:50
So after we got married, I moved over to Southern Oregon, which is where I live now.
02:57
Well you know what, wherever you live, it seems like you live in these, from Ghana, to London, to Germany, to Oregon, aren�t they just all one big socialistic continuum?
03:10
Yeah, something along those lines. What�s the biggest shock in, obviously when you get married and you wake up and realize you wake up with the biggest sinner in the world, that is yourself.
03:22
But short of marriage, and we�ll get to that in a second, what�s the biggest shock moving from London to Oregon? Oh, that�s a really good question,
03:30
I�ve been asked that a few times. I think one thing that shocks me is just how different our cultures are, the culture between London and Southern Oregon.
03:41
So in London, everything is very fast -paced, we�re all sort of in a hurry to get somewhere.
03:46
You�ve been to London, so you�ve seen it. People are always in a hurry, no one really talks to each other, we just kind of pass each other in the street and that�s about it.
03:55
I walk around here in Southern Oregon and people stop me in the street and say, �Hey, how�s it going ?�
04:00
I�m like, �Oh, doodle -a�, which, stuff like that, just the difference in people and cultures is a bit of a shock, but it�s been a good shock.
04:09
I think it helped me to become a bit more open as a person, a bit more friendly in a way that I wasn�t previously.
04:16
So, yeah, that would probably be the biggest surprise I�ve found. Kofi, I know you have a heart to honor the
04:21
Lord, and that yields itself in evangelism. I mean, our message is the same, whether we�re in Germany or London or Oregon.
04:29
How about the way people are socially there in Oregon? How do you think about evangelism differently when it comes to, not content, but just maybe your style or approach?
04:41
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think one thing I�ve learned living here in Southern Oregon is the need to be able to build relationships with people, not in a sort of friendship evangelism �
04:51
I need to be their best friend before I can even get to the gospel � but just the reality that, you know, people kind of value relationships and communities and being spoken to as somebody who actually cares about me, not just someone who�s trying to get a message across.
05:06
And that�s been something good for me to learn, not to just think about, okay, getting across this information, so to speak, but actually, you know, talking with this person actually in mind, and getting to know them and their experiences, and you�d be surprised at the things that come up in trying to share the gospel with folks, and so those are things that I�ve noticed and learned in being here, with how to proclaim the gospel to folks who desperately need to hear it.
05:32
Do you miss PG Tips? I�m not actually much of a tea drinker anyway, so that much
05:41
I haven�t missed, no. Kofi, when my wife and I were in � and children were in London just a few months ago, and I had the privilege to preach at Grace Life Church there, we would always take the bus or the tube, and before we got on, we�d stop at Poundland, and that�s similar to the
05:58
Dollar Store here in America, and they had these huge bags of PG Tips for one pound.
06:04
It was incredible. And so anyway, my wife�s a tea drinker, I�m not.
06:11
Tell us about the church that you came from, Grace Life in London, and then the church that you�re at now.
06:17
Sure. So Grace Life London is a church plant from Grace Community Church in Southern California.
06:23
So our pastors, Tom, Dreon, Ross Orgill, and now Adam Waller, all studied at the
06:30
Master�s Seminary, and Tom and Ross met at TMS and just became really good friends and served together at Grace Church.
06:39
And in 2000 and � I want to get the date right � 2009,
06:45
I would say, they began plotting and scheming, if you will, to plant a church back in the
06:52
UK and very quickly realized Central London would be the best place for that. In God�s providence, he opened up a facility that, to this day, the church uses rent -free, which if you know anything about Central London, that is nothing short of a miracle.
07:08
And so they began services July of 2010, and the church just began to grow very quickly.
07:17
Actually, I joined in 2011, and God was gracious, just with the ministry of his
07:25
Word, the proclamation of his Gospel, a focus on creating disciples, the church just began to grow.
07:31
And just before I left, we were running about, I would have said, 250 in our worship service.
07:39
So that was the church I was in, and like I said, that was a blessing for me just because the church was so small at the time, it provided, you know, an opportunity to be discipled.
07:50
And before long, I was getting involved in ministry at the church, so I was teaching a fundamental faith class. I then started taking our midweek
07:59
Bible study occasionally, even preached a couple of times on the Lord�s Day. And, you know, I really thank
08:04
God for that church because really that was the place where I kind of traced my call to ministry from, and I�m just incredibly thankful for them.
08:12
So that made moving quite difficult. I think that was easily the hardest decision, you know, leaving this church that I�d become very attached to, and you know, this was home base, if you will.
08:24
And by the way, just to interrupt you just for a second, there�d probably be only one good reason to leave that church, right?
08:31
You know, there�s lots of reasons in life, but the one that�s coming up is probably the good reason to leave, don�t you think?
08:36
Yeah, which was I was getting married, and as we discussed earlier in our relationship, we realized that, okay, moving to the
08:46
U .S. actually works better for the both of us than my wife moving to the U .K. And so I moved here in April and joined the church that my wife goes to called
08:55
Bear Creek Church, so named because we live in the area near Bear Creek.
09:03
And so a really wonderful church, again, solid teaching of Scripture, solid focus on the gospel, and I kind of moved here thinking, okay, maybe, you know, this is sort of take pause with ministry for a while because, you know,
09:20
I�m the new guy who�s sort of transported into a church, so to speak. Very quickly
09:26
I got here and our pastor reached out to me and said, �I heard you used to do some teaching back home.�
09:31
And I was like, �Yes.� And he said, �Well, would you be interested in teaching here ?� That began a conversation, so now
09:38
I�m doing some teaching at the church and actually will be starting as an intern on staff there for the
09:45
New Year, so lots of exciting happening here in pretty much phase two of ministry life, so to speak, now happening on this side of the pond.
09:54
Wow. That is wonderful. My name is Mike Abendroth, talking to Kofi. If you want to follow him on Twitter, A Cup of Kofi, A -C -U -P -O -F -K -O -F -I.
10:05
Does Kofi mean anything in Ghanaise? Yes. So in the part of Ghana that I�m from, you name children according to the day of the week that they�re born on, and so I, being a boy who was born on a
10:21
Friday, quite narrowly, I was born 1 -18 in the morning, so quite narrowly, but born on Friday, and so my name is
10:31
Kofi, which is the name you give, one of the names anyway, there are like two or three each day, one of the names you give to a boy who is born on Friday, so that�s what
10:40
Kofi means. Well, you know what? Steve is Tuesday guy, Kofi�s Friday guy. Yep.
10:46
See? How�s that work? Kofi, I want to hear your testimony in a little bit, but just thinking about Oregon, where you�re ministering now, and inclusivism and pluralism, if pluralism says
11:00
Jesus isn�t the only Savior and you don�t need faith in Christ, that pretty much would summarize, in my mind, a lot of Oregon and the
11:11
West Coast and, of course, many places in Western civilization. What�s your approach when you think about the pluralistic culture you live in and Jesus as the exclusive and only
11:21
Savior, only His sinless life and His atoning death and resurrection is the ground for salvation, the means of salvation?
11:30
How do you go about preaching Christ there in Oregon? Yeah, that�s a really good question.
11:38
I think it helps that I�ve come from a culture which is itself incredibly pluralistic, being in central
11:47
London, just because you�ve got pretty much every nation in the world represented there. So everybody has their ideas about God or religion.
11:54
I grew up around a lot of Muslims, so I�m used to speaking to Muslims, I�m used to speaking to Sikhs, I�m used to speaking to Hindu folks,
12:03
I�m used to even speaking to a few Buddhists here and there. And then, of course, I go to university and I�m surrounded by atheists, pretty much.
12:10
And moving over here, realizing that�s one thing that�s pretty much the same. Everyone is very, very left -leaning, if you will, in their views of things.
12:21
One thing that I�ve found really helpful is to state that up front, not to be ashamed of that. I think the temptation in being in an area like ours is to sometimes think, �Okay,
12:32
I need to find the most clever, intellectual way in, and I need to sort of surprise attack people with the centrality of Jesus.�
12:42
And one thing I found is that that just doesn�t work in a pluralistic society. You need to be up front and let people know, otherwise all kinds of assumptions get made and nobody�s helped.
12:52
So being able to say up front, �No, this is what I�m about. I am about the Lord Jesus Christ, because without him there is no salvation.
13:00
He is the only ground of salvation. He is the only way that we will stand before a holy
13:05
God and be able to say that I have nothing except your
13:11
Son.� And being able to proclaim that and stating that up front, it�s challenging, but that, to me, has become something that my conviction has grown in and being able to just do that, as Paul says, �We proclaim him.�
13:25
Not, �I�m trying to find a really clever way in ,� or, �I�m trying to philosophize my way in.�
13:31
No, it�s just up front proclamation of Jesus Christ, and being able to say, �This is the only way.
13:40
He is the only way. I�m not calling you to a religious system. I�m not calling you to a life of Jews and those.�
13:45
I�m calling you to a person. Being up front about that, I think, is just, I found, the most effective way of dealing with a very pluralistic, very inclusive society.
13:57
Amen. I think of John 17, 3, �Now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true
14:03
God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.� Kofi, I think we have similar disgust for any type of division in the body of Christ, and even when it comes to thinking about different races and other things,
14:18
I look at Psalm 117, �Praise the Lord, all nations extol him, all peoples, for great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the
14:29
Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord.� Don�t you think that there�s basically one race, and that there are two
14:38
Adams, the first Adam and the last Adam? And as far as I�m concerned, I see people, they�re either in the first Adam, lost because of the impossibility of trying to work to get to heaven, or they�re in by grace alone, through faith alone, in the last
14:52
Adam. And that�s how I see people. What has happened in Christianity to make many people see other federal heads, if you will,
15:05
Adam the first, Adam the last, and then something else? What do you think�s going on? I just am just beyond words, practically, for the craziness in modern evangelicalism.
15:18
How much time do you have? Hey, you know, you�re the token black guy on the show,
15:24
I ask you the question. I�m surprised how many times I�ve heard that one. See, you know, it�s crazy how people are.
15:31
I think you know me well enough, and I know you well enough. I am just beyond belief.
15:37
I did a show a while ago about, you know, R -A -A -N, or whatever people call it. This is just crazy. Just, here�s my platform you have on NoCode, just launch on this, because this needs to be addressed.
15:50
Absolutely. I�ll tell you a bit about my testimony, which will factor into how
15:58
I answer this question. I grew up in an African family, as you can tell. Both my parents are umpteenth generation
16:06
Ghanian, and so I was a first -generation Ghanian growing up in the UK.
16:13
And because the UK is a multicultural society, and that has its benefits and it has its curses as well,
16:19
I grew up around people of all different races. I went to a school which was predominantly Southeast Asian, so Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis.
16:28
Went to school with a lot of black people as well. There were white people there. There were people from Eastern Europe. I grew up in the mix, so to speak, so I never felt self -conscious about my race or being black.
16:46
I look back on my childhood, people often tried to make out as though, as a black man, you are always being looked down on, you�re always bottom of the food chain and stuff.
17:00
Again, by nature, I never felt that I was blessed to have two parents who weren�t perfect, but always taught us that you treat everybody with respect.
17:12
You treat everybody with dignity. Now, did I experience racism? Yes. We lived in Germany, and in Germany, for the first time,
17:19
I was called the N -word by someone. And as a kid, I got home, and I still vividly remember this, one of the few memories of my childhood that I remember, going up to my mom and saying, �Mom, what does �blank� mean ?�
17:31
And she�s just looking with complete bewilderment that her six -year -old child has just been told that for the first time.
17:39
And so she sits me down and says, �Basically, son, there are some people in this world who recognize that you are different from them, and they don�t know how to respond in a good way to that.
17:53
And they will sometimes say things and do things that will hurt and will cause you pain, but remember that not everybody is like that.
18:03
Do not take that to heart.� And so that was my first exposure to it.
18:08
I grew up older, and those incidents happened more and more. But in God�s providence,
18:14
I was saved at 14. I grew up in church, didn�t really hear the Gospel much growing up, but I did hear the
18:20
Gospel one day from a Sunday school teacher, and this message of my own sinfulness and my need for a
18:29
Savior and God�s provision of that Savior in Jesus Christ just took root. And at the age of 14, I was converted.
18:36
And again, I grew up in a predominantly black church, so again, not really grappling with a lot of this, but it really wasn�t until I became
18:43
Reformed in my theology about three years later that I eventually left the church
18:48
I grew up in and joined a really good Reformed Baptist church in the heart of London. You may know it as Spurgeon�s Church in Metropolitan Tabernacle.
18:56
And that church was more white, I wouldn�t say predominantly white, but there were more white people there than I had grew up going to church with, and even then didn�t grapple with these issues.
19:09
But you�re right, I began to notice really for me about four or five years ago a sea change in people�s responses to perceived racism.
19:21
It went from, as you were saying, that there is one race, the human race, there are two Adams, the first Adam or the second
19:27
Adam, and our identity is not found in anything else but our relationship to either the first Adam or the second
19:33
Adam. I began to notice more and more a discussion, and the phrase that was always thrown around was �racial reconciliation.�
19:42
And in and of itself, it�s not a bad phrase. And in and of itself, I don�t personally believe that it started off as a bad discussion.
19:50
I think as with the church in every agency, even in the Book of Acts, sometimes there are ethnic tensions, there are cultural tensions.
19:59
Those things happen. However, as I began to pay attention to what was being said, it was much more than just the, �Okay, here�s the friction that usually happens when you�ve got people from different cultures or trying to make sense of Christianity or what have you.�
20:15
No, now it was the thing of, there is one group who are the victims, and there was another group who are the victimizers, and the victimizers have this thing called �privilege.�
20:25
And because they have privilege, they don�t realize that they have it, and therefore there�s a bunch of things that they do which sin against us, and because they�re sinning against us, now they need to start relinquishing their power and control to people who are � well, the phrases keep changing.
20:43
At one point it was �ethnic minorities.� Now it�s �people of color.�
20:48
Whatever term they chose to use, those who are the victims, so to speak, need to either be accepted at the table, or now what they�re saying is they just need to leave � a rapper recently made this phrase really popular � they need to leave �white evangelicalism ,� so -called.
21:05
For me, it�s frustrating because I read the New Testament, and what I see in the
21:10
New Testament is that the Church isn�t divided along ethnic lines. It�s not divided along �racial� lines.
21:18
Galatians 3 .28 talks about the fact that we are all one in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2 .11 -22 talks about two of the most difficult groups, if you will, racially speaking,
21:32
Jews and Gentiles. It says, �No, actually, you are now one in Christ Jesus. You�ve been incorporated together.
21:38
You are now this temple that is growing in the Lord.� I look at these things, and it�s hard for me as a �person of color� to witness such a blatant disregard for what the
21:54
New Testament says about issues of race, and issues of ethnicity, and issues of culture.
22:01
There�s a complete ignoring of that, and the imposition of a number of theories and philosophies that, if you trace the roots of it, are explicitly anti -biblical.
22:13
But because they allow people who feel that they have been marginalized to have a voice, allegedly, they�ve now become just taken as standard.
22:24
It concerns me when I read article after article after article lambasting a group which, in and of itself, is quite diverse.
22:32
I mean, in the spirit of full disclosure, I have a wife who is not
22:38
Black. My wife is white, which means I now have an entire extended family who are not
22:44
Black. And they are as diverse as anything.
22:51
And it makes me now even more frustrated when I hear people talk about white people in general, because in all honesty, no two white people are alike any more than any two
23:01
Black people, or any two Hispanic people, or any two Asian people are alike. There may be varying levels of similarity.
23:10
But to try and now build walls where the gospel has torn those walls down, it really, really concerns me.
23:18
Kofi, thanks for some of that. I�m just thinking about 1 Timothy 2, �For there is one
23:23
God and one Mediator also between God and men.� And then it�s interesting, the text does not say, �The
23:32
Jew Christ Jesus.� The text does not say, �The Semitic -looking man
23:37
Christ Jesus.� It�s fascinating. It says, �The man Christ Jesus.�
23:42
And I know you�re a scholar. There�s no article before the word �man.� And so, we get the quality of man.
23:49
Not this particular man, although that is true, but the text is talking about by essence and nature, focusing on his quality as man.
23:58
He doesn�t even say, you know what, �The Jew Christ Jesus.� It�s very fascinating. Here we have the man.
24:04
And so, since we�re all men, men and women, we�re of mankind, this goes back to Job 9, �If
24:11
I only had an arbitrator, a referee, someone to stand between me and God.�
24:16
And so, I just look at this and think to myself, we�ve lost our minds and people do things for reasons.
24:22
I don�t know if they want to have acceptance into certain groups. I don�t know if they want money. I don�t know if they want platforms.
24:29
But it just drives me crazy when I start seeing people do what they�re doing now, and the whole, you know, white evangelicalism, black evangelicalism.
24:39
Probably my favorite thing in life is when I�m in a different country, in India or Zambia, singing praise songs about Jesus Christ, the man, the
24:48
God -man. And I don�t say to myself, �Oh, look at their color, look at those.� I just hear all the voices together in unison saying, �Great is thy faithfulness.�
24:57
And, you know, when I look around, maybe I think, �What a bunch of Gentiles praising this Jewish Savior.�
25:03
I might think that, but that�s the extent of it. I�m thankful for God�s grace to Gentiles. Absolutely.
25:10
I mean, I come from Africa for centuries. You know, Western Africa did not have
25:15
Christian witness, and it was people from Europe who brought the Gospel to us.
25:21
And we thank God for them, and we have fellowship with them. And, you know, I can be in a church where I am one of few black people and have great fellowship and be able to worship our
25:32
Savior together. I can go back to my church in London, which you visited, it�s predominantly black, and have good fellowship, even though we have white pastors.
25:41
Well, with the exception of Adam. But, you know, be able to have great fellowship regardless, because the thing that unites me is not the amount of melanin in my skin.
25:52
The thing that unites me with them is not that. The thing that unites me with them are the
25:58
Gospel, our love for Scripture, our love for Christ. These are the things that would unite. And ultimately, it�s our relationship to the second
26:05
Adam that makes us who we are. Not our relationship to the first Adam, or even to our earthly descendants.
26:13
Amen. Kofi, tell our listeners where they could find some of your writings. You�re an excellent writer as well, and I know you�ve written on the solas and some other things.
26:21
Where would they go to read what you�ve written? Sure, if you�re looking for my work, you can find it at FieryLogic .com.
26:30
F -I -E -R -Y Logic .com. Okay, great. And sometimes
26:36
I hear your little scuds and screeds on discernment ministries. Do you think No Compromise Radio is a discernment ministry?
26:48
I think discernment is a good thing.
27:02
I think we need more people who have that gifting and have that calling. I love
27:07
No Compromise Radio. I�ve been listening to you since your first episode. I�ve not missed an episode since the show began when
27:14
I was in university and listened to it. And I�m thankful for the fact that you speak out on issues that kind of get under the radar, things that plague the
27:23
Church. I think you had a book called Things That Go Bump in the Church. I love the fact that you deal with those issues, and you deal with those issues teaching us not just to, �Okay, this is bad ,� but actually, �This is wise, let�s think through this.�
27:38
In that sense, I have no issue with ministries which are pointing out legitimate error in the
27:45
Church. I think where my gripe comes in often is when we become almost hypercritical and we�re now picking fights where, you know,
27:58
Presbyterian talks about love covering a multitude of sins. Sometimes evangelicals do dumb things. We all agree with that.
28:04
And sometimes you need to call those dumb things out. Other times, you can sit there and say, �Okay, this is not worth starting
28:10
World War III over.� And I think it�s that mindset of everything is a fighting issue. Everything needs to be as caustically dealt with as possible.
28:18
That�s where my issue comes in. No, NoCo doesn�t do that at all. I absolutely love NoCo. I listen every day.
28:25
No, you�re not the kind of discernment ministry I have in mind when I kind of go in on stuff like that.
28:32
Well, Kofi, I knew that, but it just gave me a good question to ask you. And, you know,
28:37
I think I�ve said it before on the show, if you only know me via No Compromise Radio, then, you know, maybe you do think
28:43
I have grudges and an axe to grind. But I tell people, you know what, every
28:49
Sunday I�m preaching Hebrews, and I�m probably following someone when they said, �Hebrews is like the fifth gospel, because it is just Christ, the
28:58
Exalted One, Christ the High Priest, Christ the Man, Christ the Eternal God.�
29:04
And so it�s different. This is a radio show, and sometimes I do talk about Jesus and want to extol
29:09
Him on the show. I want that to be a regular theme. But discerning to discern, and outside of a local church context,
29:17
I run into big problems because people don�t seem to know there are some things of first importance, the gospel, 1
29:24
Corinthians 15, and other things are not that important. So we give them a little discernment workover, but then when it comes to the gospel, well, then we really need to take that to task if people are not teaching the gospel properly.
29:39
So, you know what? If you were my son, I�d be proud of you for that last answer. Kofi, what are your plans for gospel ministry?
29:48
You have been teaching not only in London, but now you�ll be interned here. Would you ever want to go to seminary, or what are you thinking in the future?
29:56
Well, thanks for the question. I think my ultimate desire is to serve in the local church, facilitating a ministry of discipleship.
30:06
Discipleship is something I�m very passionate about. I don�t believe that it qualifies God for us to simply just come to church each week, kind of just go through the motions, and then just live life as though, �Okay, that happened.
30:21
It�s great. We�ll do it again next week.� But it doesn�t really touch everywhere I live, so to speak.
30:28
Discipleship is a really big thing for me, and so I was doing a lot of that back in London and now looking to do more of that here in Southern Oregon.
30:39
Actually, lots of announcements happening on this show. I would definitely love to be seminary trained.
30:48
In the last year or so, I came to know of an organization called the North American Reform Seminary, which allows you to do seminary -level training online while being connected to your local church, because that�s how this internship has come about.
31:03
I�ll actually be pursuing a course of study with them and hopefully more study in the future, but definitely sort of adult discipleship ministry in the local church, as well as teaching and preaching would be the ultimate ministry goal.
31:19
Well, that is excellent. We don�t have too much more time. I am extending the show today, for this is the extended version of No Compromise Radio because of our guest today,
31:31
Kofi. Let me think if I have a bunch of questions left, but I need to kind of figure out what they are.
31:37
Let�s just ask you this one. The last five books you�ve read, can you think of the last five, or give me five that you like that are on your desk now?
31:47
I think I�ll go with five that I�ve enjoyed recently, just because there�s one
31:52
I want to mention which I haven�t read recently, but it�s worth mentioning again. The Whole Christ by Sinclair Ferguson.
32:01
I know we�ve discussed that book personally, and that book for me was, as I read it in 2016, that was the standout book of 2016 for me.
32:13
His treatment of the whole controversy surrounding legalism and antinomialism in the context of the marrow,
32:21
I think is second to none, and not just for the historical work that he does, I think more so for how he deals with the gospel as the center of our faith, and how that deals with both legalism and antinomialism.
32:36
We tend to think that, well, the legalist needs the gospel, the antinomian needs more law. He says, well, actually, that�s not the case.
32:43
What they both need is the gospel. Dr. Ferguson writes in his typically clear fashion, but at the same time with great depth, and there�s a lot to chew on.
32:55
That book, for me, was sort of a paradigm shift. So I�m really thankful I got to read that.
33:01
I actually read that on the plane to a Shepherd�s Conference, just started reading it and could not put it down. An amazing, amazing read.
33:09
So that�s a book I always want to recommend. I�ve actually just started reading
33:15
Buchanan�s book on the doctrine of justification again, found a digital copy and just been reading through that.
33:23
With this whole controversy that�s been happening, it�s kind of reminded me that, okay, I want to be clear on the doctrine of justification.
33:32
I want to be clear on our declaration of righteousness, apart from works through Jesus.
33:40
I want to be clear on that, crystal clear. So I�m reading that book again and deriving so much profit from it.
33:48
It�s refreshing to read older writers who seem to be unencumbered by a lot of the issues that more contemporary writers feel that they need to kind of address and deal with.
34:00
And so sometimes things get said, which are very sloppy and very unhelpful. Buchanan�s is incredibly clear.
34:07
And so I�m really enjoying that. I�m reading a small little book as well called �Teaching to Change Lives� by Howard Hendricks, just to help me be sharper as somebody who�s teaching quite regularly at the moment.
34:20
I�m reading that. I�m always, of course, in scripture and I�m currently about to begin the book of Numbers.
34:27
I�ve been really convicted about getting to know my Old Testament. And so reading through the book of Numbers, it�s in scripture.
34:34
And a book I�m always reading just because I use it so often in my devotional life is
34:39
Matthew Henry�s �A Method for Prayer.� I have the banner edition called �A Way to Pray.�
34:44
And so I�m always reading that and allowing that to influence the language
34:50
I use in prayer and topics that I pray for. So those would be five books that are having a bit of an impact on me at the moment.
34:56
Well, that is excellent, and I think our listeners have probably heard some of those before. I too,
35:02
Kofi, have been looking at Buchanan, and I just pulled out the Institutes of Calvin on justification, reading
35:09
John Owen, Volume 5, on justification as well, and just thinking about all these issues swirling around with justification, sanctification, perseverance, good works.
35:20
And I think it was Ursinus who said, you know, we need to be clear on these things. And of course,
35:25
I�ve said many things in the past that I would change. I don�t believe those things anymore. So sometimes when we read someone who said something a long time ago, we have to factor that in.
35:36
And I also want to make sure that I�m clear. So like you, this issue needs to be spoken of with clarity.
35:45
And you know what, Kofi, for me, when I read Buchanan, Calvin, Owen, the Merriman, they were clear.
35:52
They weren�t mixing or blending. They were trying to speak with categories. I just was looking at Berkhoff�s Systematic Theology on Justification.
36:01
It is just clear, point by point by point, like a seminary class. And that�s what
36:06
I really want. The men that I�ve been critiquing lately online and here on the show, I�m not saying they�re not
36:13
Christians, or they�re not fine scholars, or they�re not decent husbands. That�s not my point. I want them to be clear on justification, sanctification, categories, how things aren�t to be blended, and how we should speak of things.
36:27
And that�s my real concern. So I think for a young man like you, going back to read
36:32
Buchanan or reading the Merrill Whole Christ by Ferguson, that�s going to put an indelible impression on you for the next 50 years, because justification�s always going to be attacked.
36:45
Oh, absolutely. I think it was Dr. Berkhoff who said that one of the things he found most surprising in his ministry was the fact that he wasn�t having to defend the gospel against those out there, so to speak, that he was having to defend the gospel in -house, so to speak.
37:00
And like I said, in every age, we�re going to have to be dealing with this. I imagine that if the
37:07
Lord wills in 20, 30 years, I�m going to have kids, and I�m going to have to walk them through these issues of the gospel and the relationship of the gospel to justification and sanctification and what have you.
37:20
Because, like I said, those are issues that we are always dealing with. They�re perennial issues. They will come back in some way, shape, or form, and the
37:27
Church will once again have to reassert and reaffirm its stance on the gospel as Scripture reveals it.
37:37
So yeah, absolutely. Okay, great. Well, we�re pretty much out of time. Let�s just have me give you an evangelical name, and you give me a word or two or a sentence just in quick response to.
37:50
How�s that sound? Oh, that�s not going to be controversial. Hey, that�s what we�re after here.
37:57
All right, let�s start easy. Peter McMaster. Don�t think
38:03
I know the name. Was he not the pastor at Spurgeon�s London Tabernacle?
38:09
A piece of monster, you mean. I said McMaster. Excuse me, Peter. I apologized to him, sorry.
38:16
Yeah, Peter Master. Godly man. Incredible heart for evangelism.
38:23
Don�t agree on every issue, but he loves the Lord, and that shines through powerfully. I�m incredibly thankful I was under his pastor for five years.
38:31
Such a blessing. All right, amen. Tabeti Anawely. Disappointing.
38:38
I think that�s the one word I used. He has seriously lost focus, and it�s sad as someone who at one point looked up to him as somebody who is an
38:47
African -American and he�s proclaiming the Gospel. You know, we don�t really have many great models or great
38:53
Bible teaching from that side of the aisle, so to speak. So yeah, disappointing to see some of his more recent stuff.
39:00
Okay, two more. Ligon Duncan. Hero. Absolutely love that man.
39:08
Someone who is a scholar but at the same time has a pastor�s heart. That�s somebody I would love to emulate.
39:14
I would easily say he�s one of my favorite Presbyterians. Absolutely love him. Hey, that could be a good blog post.
39:22
One of my favorite Presbyterians. I think
39:28
I know what you�re going to say about this guy, but it�ll just be interesting for me to hear, and it�s good for radio.
39:33
James White. Good friend. I�m thankful for him, not just because we�re friends on a personal level, but also because he models what it is to be firm in asserting the truth, but at the same time being able to say, you know, we have to be accurate, and we have to � this is his words that I�ve learned from him � we have to be consistent, that you can�t use one set of arguments for dealing with one issue, and then kind of shift the goalpost, so to speak, when it comes to something more closer to home, that you need to be consistent in the way you think through things, and the way you proclaim things, and the way you speak, and the way you act with people.
40:16
That�s something I�ve learned from him, and he�s a sharp mind. I�ve learned tons from him just in terms of apologetics, and apologetics isn�t something that I would say is a first interest of mine, but he�s somebody who can always grab my attention on those things and show the importance of them for the
40:32
Church and for the Christian. So, yeah, I�m incredibly thankful for him. I know he�s caught a lot of flack of late for his dialogues with Muslims, and there are all kinds of opinions about that, but I would say look at the body of work and then kind of ask yourself the question, what is his aim?
40:52
And his aim is to get the Gospel to these people who will not hear the Gospel usually, because as evangelicals,
40:58
I think sometimes we�re sort of terrified when it comes to Muslims and how to speak to them, but he�s on the front lines doing the work and doing it well, so yeah,
41:08
I�m incredibly thankful for him. Kofi, I did not know this until today, the answer to this question, so let�s see if you know the answer to this question, and that is, what�s the origin of the term devil�s advocate?
41:20
Do you happen to know? I actually do not know. Yeah. That�s an interesting one. I did not know either, and it comes from the realm of the
41:29
Roman Catholic Church, and when they were going to decide if this particular person was going to be a saint or not, before they would be canonized, they would ask all kinds of questions amongst the group, and there was someone who was styled the devil�s advocate.
41:48
And this particular book that I�m reading says, quote, �Catholic canon law requires that someone recognized as a saint should have led a holy life, and that miracles should be associated with him or her, either while living or after death.
41:59
If the devil�s advocate isn�t convincing enough in his objections, then the way is cleared for eventual canonization.�
42:07
And so they had someone there playing the devil�s advocate when it comes to sainthood, so. Oh, what do you know?
42:13
I know, I know. Kofi, Saint Kofi! Anyway, thank you for being on the radio show,
42:20
I really appreciate you, and I am encouraged when I see young men like you, 26 years old, learning, studying.
42:28
Of course, the old men like me will die off one day and the church baton is handed off to you men, men like you and my son
42:36
Luke, and I think, you know what, Lord? You don�t need anyone, and we just pass the baton off to other faithful men, and so,
42:45
Kofi, I thank you for you and your ministry and your life, and wonderful blessings that God has given you, marriage, and many other things.
42:53
So thanks for being on No Compromise Radio. It�s an absolute pleasure to be on, and like I said,
42:58
I�ve been listening to NOCO from the start, and so this is something of an honor for me to be on the show. Amen.
43:03
Well, if anyone else is listening, and you�ve heard every show today, well,
43:09
I might just give you an opportunity to be on. Just kidding. Kofi, thanks for everything.
43:15
Have a good day. Yeah, thank you. at 508 -835 -3400.