Classic Friday: Pastor Hariton Deligiannides Interview (2024)

Opening Conversation and Greek Pronunciation

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Avendroth, and I have a special guest in the studio today. Before I introduce my guest, I have been doing my Duolingo, the language learning app on my iPhone, and I've been studying four languages, Latin, modern Hebrew, which is killing me, Spanish, and modern Greek.

I read my Greek New Testament in the morning. It's called Koine Greek, but I don't know much modern Greek, and so every time I study modern Greek on my phone, I think of my guest today, Pastor Harry Delgenides.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, you Greek man. Thanks, Pastor Mike. So I'm so envious of you because you can just pick up the New Testament and read it like it's your mother tongue. Yes, it's fun. What is your biggest pet peeve when people like me pronounce a Greek word, but you think it's really the opposite, even though we don't know how Koine was pronounced?

Right, exactly. I'll pronounce it both ways. I'll say my pastor friends will say Koinonia, for example, the Greek term for fellowship, whereas we would say in modern Greek the O-I combination would be Kinonia.

So I'll use both pronunciations.

And it just dawned on me, Koine, Koinonia, Kinonia. I listened to a man on some podcast, and he talks about the Macedonians because it used to be M-A-K in a lot of the old things, so Macedonia, Macedonia.

How often do you get back to Greece?

Last time we were there was five years ago, a first time for our kids, and they loved it. We visited the family, both sides of the family, my wife's family and my family, and then we did some family vacation on a couple of islands, so it was great.

Well, for those of you that don't know Harry, Pastor Harry, he used to be here at Bethlehem Bible Church. Then he well, you weren't here to start when I got here. Then you did come here, and then now you're the pastor, and if memory serves me, is it Mendon Community Church?

Correct.

Okay, good. And what are we, about 35 minutes away from each other? 40?

40.

Okay. Tell us a little bit about the church website, stuff like that, so as people want to hear you preach, they want to hear the Greek Expositor, they know where to go.

The Greek Expositor, yeah, that's my cast line from my Twitter account, I think, right? Yeah, the website, we live stream through YouTube, and all the sermons are there and on our website, mendoncommunitychurch .org.

We have our doctrinal statement online, the gospel, what is the gospel, and so on and so forth.

Christ’s Bodybuilding Program for the Church in Ephesians 4

So, we were talking off air a little bit, you're preaching through books of the Bible, you're in Ephesians now. You've taught through Ephesians before, and you've listened to other people teach Ephesians.

Pastor Harry, what's struck you lately? It's probably already been in the text, and I don't mean some neo-Orthodox thing, but something, you're just going through it again, and you're like, oh my, that's wonderful, or that's interesting or fascinating.

Yeah, what I like, what struck me, again, I'm in Ephesians chapter 4 now, we're in the, I started in January of last year, of course, the first three chapters being heavy doctrine and theology, election, and the but-God chapter in chapter 2, but what I like in Ephesians 4 is the Christ through whom we are saved, now in Ephesians 4, gives us, as the head of the church, what I call Christ's bodybuilding program for the church.

We don't have to rely on the marketing technology and marketing strategies of our modern day era. How do I build the church? Rather, it is laid out for us. So, I love it because the scripture not only tells us how we are saved in God's work and salvation, of course, chapter 1, the work of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but now in chapter 4, this is Christ the head's program for how he's going to build this church, and we look to that on how we build the church.

We don't come up with our own bodybuilding program. Amen. I think my old pastor used to say,.

Well, it's Christ church, and we'll let him tell us how he wants to build his church. We are men under authority. We're not, I mean, I watch some of these YouTubes of crazy churches, and they'll play Metallica songs to start the service, and I'm just thinking, this is crazy.

I guess you can do it. It's a free country, but I think the word Christianity, are Christians already taken, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Harry, when did we meet? 12 years ago? 14 years ago? I'm just guessing.

You got it 14, 2010, when I first landed here, yes.

Okay, well, you were already a pastor. You had gone to Dallas Seminary.

Don't hold that against me. No, some of my favorite friends.

We just had Phil Howard, right, where you're seated. And I mean, many things struck me. You wanted to preach the word faithfully. You wanted to disciple men. You wanted to have your family involved in worship.

I mean, I could go on and on, literally, of things I admired about you. But on the personal level, I always found it fascinating, Harry, and I was very thankful for you didn't come in trying to say, come to me, Harry, and forget what Mike says, or trying to have people follow you instead of following Christ.

And so, I just appreciate that about you and wanted to say, and I've told you many times, but I want to tell you again on air, thank you for your attitude while you were here to try to build up Christ Church and not trying.

To get people to follow you. I appreciate you sharing that. I remember our first get-together over breakfast or lunch, and one of the things I wanted to assure you, because I was the new kid on the block, so to speak, I said, you won't have to look over your back, as it relates to me, that someone's going to come in and try to stab you behind the back, or steal sheep, or anything like that.

And one thing that's always motivated me, scripturally, is the passage in 1 Corinthians 3, beginning in verse 5, what then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything,.

But only God who gives the growth. Amen. Talking to Pastor Harry today on No Compromise Ministries, as you know, Harry, I've got many friends from the Dallas Seminary world, and of course, Master's Seminary world, too, and Southern Seminary, I guess the list could go on.

But specifically with Dallas Seminary, what do you think it is about many of the people at Dallas, kind, generous, nice? I'm thinking about Phil Howard again, when I was at the Dallas Seminary Conference at Mount Hermon, just meeting the Walvords, and the Pentecost, and Howie Hendricks.

Why do you think that vein, or maybe it's a generation, why do you think they were so.

Kind and nice? I think they understood, theologically, not only, but also personally, the grace of God. Of course, Louis Sperry Chaffer was big about that, one of the founders on the grace of God, and that emanated in their personal lives, in the way they ministered to the students.

They were very gracious. I remember those professors that I had, Pentecost and Prof. Howie, and that was across the board. I even had a friend of mine who we were working out. He came from Master's during the whole lordship debate, right?

And he said one of the things that attracted him was not so much the theological distinctions and differences there on that issue, but so much the men, the professors at Dallas, were very gracious in their demeanor.

Amen. I'd like to be considered a nice person, gracious, kind. I think I'm better at it now, by God's grace, after a couple cancers and some major health trials. But as one man said, you know, you can change people's theology, but it's hard to change me.

I mean, out of all people, it should be we preachers who understand sovereign grace, who understand the attributes of God, and God as a king. And, you know, reading the first book I ever read on the sovereignty of God was A .W. Pink.

Shouldn't we then be, as recipients of.

Grace That Transforms Character

Sovereign grace, the most gracious people? Yes, indeed. One of the books that has been influential in my life along those lines was Jerry Bridge's book, Transforming Grace. And in the last chapter, he talks about what he entitles garments of grace.

He talks about all those qualities and virtues that emanate from understanding the grace of God and being gracious.

In your personhood. That's interesting, Harry, that you brought that up, because I'm re-reading Transforming Grace. And when I read a book, I usually, at the end of the book, I go back to the front, and with pencil, I write, you know, June 2024.

That's when I finished it. And then I give it a rating, A B, C, whatever, and maybe make a little comment. And if memory serves, the first time I read Transforming Grace, I think I gave it like a B or something, and now I'm re-reading it.

And it's an A plus all the way. I mean, Jerry Bridges knew how to communicate to young people and elder people as well, seminal truths in a very, very simple way,.

And I really appreciate Jerry Bridges. And then to that, I first met him in my collegiate years, because he was on staff with the Navigators and used to teach at a lot of the Navigator conferences. But then the book, not only for my own life, but we're having some baptisms at our churches Sundays.

I know you are as well. And one of the men whom God saved and converted, the first study he did with us in our men's group was Transforming Grace. And he came from a heavily Catholic background, and I remember talking with him one-on-one outside of our men's small group, and I explained to him the gospel of grace and how distinct and different it is from what he grew up.

And he paused me in the middle of our conversation. He said, I know now without a shadow of a doubt that it's solely by the grace of God that I am saved. And of course, that was four or five years ago, and now we're going through Ephesians and Heavy on Grace, of course.

That is wonderful. It just popped in my mind, Harry, the Transforming Grace chapter where he said, I was going to go speak at a conference about grace, and I saw a woman there, and I was tempted to lustfully look at her.

But I said to myself, I'm going to go speak to college students on purity, and I ought not to do that because that would really inhibit it. And he said, what I should have thought is, I ought not to look at that woman because there's a gracious God who has saved me and loved me and has told me not to do that.

The motive of I'd like to be good at something versus this is to God's glory. And that really stuck in my mind. I was teaching a conference four years ago, and I hate it when they say, would you do a marriage conference?

I get my marriage could be so much better. And Kim and I got in a fight in the car, verbal argument on the way to the marriage conference. And I wanted to make up with her because a making up that maybe is right, but I wanted to be blessed.

So Jerry Bridges is still.

Convicting me, even though he's in glory. Yes. I can't relate to that incident that you had with your wife, of course, right? Not, of course, that's not true. One of the other chapters that you mentioned that what he was going to teach on, and it motivated me to do that last Sunday or two Sundays ago, he was going to a conference to speak something heavy about discipleship and something had happened in the church.

They lost a dear saint or something and he switched it. And so I've been going sequentially through Ephesians, but we lost a dear sin. She went home to glory a couple of Sundays ago. And I thought the church needs some encouragement about heaven.

So I preached on the latter half of Hebrews 12, which mount have you come to? Mount Sinai or Mount Zion to show them the glories of heaven. So.

Books, Ministry Reading, and New England Challenges

Amen. Well, I like to ask pastors what they're reading outside the Bible. I mean, sometimes, Harry, for me, what am I reading outside the Bible? I'm reading commentaries about Luke because I'm preaching.

Anything you're reading that's struck a chord with you these days?

Yeah, I'm reading two books. One is we're going through with our elders. It's a combination of Spurgeon's lecture to my students in all around ministry. It's entitled Servants of Christ. It's an author who put it together, put that together, of course, classic Spurgeon.

And then recently, with all of these things going on in our culture, I'm reading Pastor John MacArthur's War on Children, which significantly enough, no Christian publisher wanted to take that on because of the content of that book.

It's so sensitive with what's going on in our culture. So he talks about the attack on the family, the attack on life and abortion and all that. So those are the two right.

Now. Excellent. As you think about gospel ministry in Massachusetts, obviously across the world, people are depraved and they need the Lord. But there's unique things in cultures. If we lived in Salt Lake City, we'd be in fine tune with some nuances of the Mormon church, etc.

What are some challenges in Massachusetts. Slash New England in particular that maybe some people.

Across the country don't know about? We're heavily Roman Catholic here. A lot of our people in our church whom God has saved and converted came from a heavily Roman Catholic background. I think of one person also who wants to minister, a different person than my friend Art who's getting baptized, but somebody else who wants to minister to his Catholic family, and they are just so entrenched in that.

And so part of it is helping them understand grace because their work and they can never have assurance. They always feel that they've never done enough and they've gone through all the rituals and sacraments and everything, and it's never a basis of assurance for them.

Right. But what I think people don't understand.

Sometimes about New England, 80 of the people identify as Catholic, but a lot of them don't go to church. But if you push them, they'll want to die for their religion. You don't even believe it yet.

You won't think of anything else. There's a man, Steve Nelson, and he first started coming here in 96, 97, and he thought that if he went into a building, a Protestant building, that there would be some kind of judgment upon him.

Isn't that interesting? Amazing. So, you have baptisms coming up. How do you prepare your candidates for baptism? Do they have a class?

Do they give a testimony? What do you do? We have a class and show them. We walk them through it. Why baptism? What's the meaning of baptism? I did that in our home about a month ago, and then I also have them give a testimony.

So, I walk them through how to give a testimony, and they prepare it, and I look it over and read it over. And there's going to be not only the church body there, but they invite a lot of their unbelieving friends and family.

It's a great opportunity to testify to the gospel of God's saving grace. Amen. I know you have a desire to.

Training Men to Preach and Exegete the Text

Train men, and that's what a pastor should do, right? 2 Timothy chapter 2, 2 and following. In my classes that I teach laymen how to preach, I don't know why this is true, Harry, but I think it is true.

I think I've morphed more into the art of preaching, the delivery of preaching, how to communicate the truths. While I do talk some about exegesis and hermeneutics and those things, I think I've minimized that over the years, probably to my shame.

You, on the other hand, if memory serves, you probably put a lot more focus on how to do exegesis. What are the hermeneutical principles behind exegesis? And I commend you for that. Give me a rationale for.

Doing that. Well, especially for men who are in training and who are maybe lay ministers and not in full-time Christian vocational work like you and I are, part of it is their time. And so, part of their time is to know and understand how to exegetically study a passage using the hermeneutics.

But then I also do train them, because I think it is important, as you've mentioned, so you understand the thrust of a certain passage of Scripture that you're studying a portion. But how are you able to communicate that now to the congregation in a way that grabs their attention?

You don't go off from your exegetical study and the thrust of the passage, but how you communicate is of the essence, because then you're not able to get across the meaning of the text and how it applies to their lives.

Amen. Well, next round for me in my preaching class, I'm going to spend a little more time on exegesis. Not that I don't, but I think my dissertation at Southern was training laymen to preach the Bible verse by verse, and then the sub-theme was like exegesis, hermeneutics,.

And homiletics, or something like that. Yes, I remember reading that, yes.

Christian Friendship Across Theological Differences

Harry, as I think about our paths of life and how the Lord brought us into each other's lives, and then now, I don't mean out of each other's lives, you're just busy with ministry, and so am I, how can we still be friends even though we might have some nuances of theology that differ?

How can that happen? We have nuances of theology that differ? Well, even recently, when was it, in February when I was visiting Liberty University, I was reading the book you put together, which is some great stuff from some of the old Puritans and John Engle James, The Anxious Inquirer, which I had just recently done for our Sunday school, adult Sunday school class, so it was fresh for me as well, and that's so important.

So, there's a lot that we can still be friends because we're saved by the same grace of God, we're ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and there's differences and nuances in our theology, but that's not the foundation of it.

Well, when I attended the church that you.

Probably, I guess, three or four years ago, I don't remember when, usually when I'm in town, I preach, and so I don't know why I wasn't preaching when I was in town, but I got to visit. I thought, I could sit here and listen to Harry preach.

You were fired up, you were enthusiastic, you were passionate about the Lord Jesus, and I know you're not a Methodist, but even if you were a Methodist, I would still love you. I always told my kids, you probably did the same thing, when you see a theological word, or any word, find the root word, and you'll probably learn about them.

So, Methodist, methods. Oh, they have a bunch of methods to Christianity and discipleship.

Yeah, I have used that in talking about, you know, in Ephesians 4, he gave the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastor, teachers, shepherd teachers, and what the role of a shepherd is a pastor in using words like episkopos, episkopalian, so on and so forth, you know?

Right. The funniest one, and you'll appreciate this because it relates to Greek. We had a young man sitting in the back seat of our car with Luke, and this man was Lebanese, and we, I was taking Luke and his buddy to, his name was Tony, taking Tony and Luke to the skate park.

And so, I drove them down to, I think, down to Taunton, Easton, somewhere down there to this big skate park. And we're driving back, and Luke, my son, he's kind of taught to look at church names, you know?

United, Unitarian, Universalist. Oh, United, okay, fine. Unitarian, no trinity. Universalist, don't go to heaven. And there was a church, Agape Baptist Church. Did I say that right, according to this person?

Would you say that in modern Greek? Agape.

Well, you are studying modern Greek. Duolingo.

But so far, Duolingo is, you know, talking about two husbands.

Oh, I'm sure.

And so, this young man, Tony, was very smart, is smart. And he said, Luke said, look, Agape Baptist Church. And Tony said, it's Agape, you idiot.

Agape.

Agape.

And I turned around, and I said to Tony, that's a Greek word, and it's Agape, you idiot.

He actually thought it was a gape.

And my mouth dropped, and it went agape.

Questions About Preaching, Health, and the Goodness of God

Wow.

All right, let's switch it around. We've got about six to eight, ten minutes to go. If you were the podcast host today, and I was your guest, what would you ask me? Anything, anything come to mind? Flip it around.

Don't give me too much trouble now.

Well, when you qualify it that way, similar to what you asked me about what you're preaching, you're preaching through Luke now, and what things have struck in you, strikes you recently in your studies and your preparation.

Some of the joys of your ministry recently, and also some of the challenges of your ministry recently. And also, as we know, what you're going through with your health and how God has worked through that.

Thank you. I said one question. That's four. I'm just kidding. I'm preaching through Luke. And you know what I've been saying lately, Harry? I've been saying, instead of the gospel of Luke, I've been saying the gospel of Jesus Christ according to Luke.

It takes longer to say it, but I like to say it because that's more technically true. It's good news about Jesus Christ. And what struck me is I was reading a book, rather, and Luther said, how do you know that God's good?

Well, baby's being born. I have two more grandchildren on the way this summer, even, and the sun rises and sun sets and the taste of filet mignon and music and all that stuff. God's good. But then what about murder, famine, genocide, terrorism?

How do you know God's good? And Luther said, the answer to that question, how do you know God is good, is found in the incarnate Jesus. And so, that struck me because as I'm on the way to the cross, and I'm in chapter five, well, the cross isn't until 23.

What's going on? Oh, prophecy's fulfilled, et cetera, but you're seeing the goodness of God in the incarnate Christ touching the leper. When was the last time he was ever touched? When was the last time a leper was ever healed?

Right? Naaman and Miriam are the only two I could think of. And so, it's been good for me to see the goodness of God, which relates to your last question, because in the midst of cancer and pain and diagnosis and CAT scans and PET scans and aortic aneurysms and all these other things that I have, I used to be in good shape.

Then I think, since God is eternal and immutable, and now Jesus is even reigning in heaven with a body, God is still good, and I need to be, as it were, touched by the goodness of God, even with tears and pain and suffering.

So, they relate. It's been good for my soul.

That's great.

And I think, Harry, that's made my preaching better. When you know the truth, you start to study the passage on Sunday night, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and I sense I'm doing the right thing when I'm repenting sooner in the week, if it's about contentment or something, I'm thinking, Lord, it's Wednesday, I'm studying about contentment.

This is what the Greek word for contentment, all that other stuff. And I think, oh, please forgive me for not being content. Earlier in the week that happens for me, the better.

Yes, amen.

Sometimes it's when I walk up to the pulpit, sadly, to my shame. But it's been good for me to understand the goodness of God. And then I think it helps my preaching because I'm preaching to people that also suffer.

Joys of ministry, I've been watching the congregation really want to learn about Jesus. I think, Harry, they're making this connection, which is hard for all of us to continually make, but Sinclair Ferguson won't let me forget it.

Don't separate the benefits of Jesus, as wonderful as they are, justification, forgiveness, reconciliation, redemption, propitiation, we just keep going on. Lewis Berry Chaffer said there are 33 benefits to the death of Christ.

And the person of Jesus, don't separate the two. Who's the one who did this for you? The Father who sent the Son, He's the one. And so, I think that's been the biggest joy.

That's great.

The sad parts, you see people, you give them advice, Christ-centered advice, biblical advice, and then they don't take it. And then you have to be around to help them pick up the pieces, and you think, you should have just listened in the first place.

You know what I mean? But we still have to help them.

Yes, yes. I love what you said. A couple of things that come to mind. The goodness of God, all this ultimately in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, but even in the common grace part that Luther, you mentioned, said, you know, I'm glad you said a filet mignon and didn't say, like, enjoying a vegan dish or something like that, because the other day I was enjoying some lamb chops, and I'm so thankful for that.

But in terms of contentment, I was recently discussing with my children during family worship, and one of the expressions I come up with, even asking myself, how's your nose? How are your nostrils? And that's coming from the Old Testament, when the people were complaining to God, we wish we were back in Egypt, even as slaves.

We have to eat the same stuff over and over again. And God was so righteously upset with them that He said, I'm going to have this stuff coming out of your nostrils. So a good litmus test question mark to ask myself and even our family or our people we shepherd is, how are your nostrils?

If it's coming out of your nose, that means you're not content. See, that's what I like about you. You know where.

I thought you were going. I think it is, maybe Hebrew, I don't know about the Greek word, but longsuffering, I think in Hebrew is long nostrils. In other words, when the Lord is longsuffering, and He is, it's a picture.

It's just a word picture. He doesn't have a nose. He's a spirit. But it takes a long time for His anger to get out of His nose. You can think of a horse that's mad snorting or something. So God is long nosed.

Yeah, exactly. I like that.

Closing Thanks and Show Outro

Well, Harry, thanks for being on the show today. You know what I found. So, I'm finding so wonderful. It's been quite a while since we sat and talked for a while, face to face. It's been a while since we talked face to face.

And we just said hello for a few minutes before the show. Hey, let's sit down and talk. And it's like catching up with an old friend. So I appreciate you and your ministry. Glad there's another light in central Massachusetts.

Thanks for having me.

Well, my name is Mike Avendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. Don't forget if you'd like to order the Cancer Book, Cancer Is Not Your Shepherd, you can do that on Amazon. And also I've updated the new Sexual Fidelity book as well.

You can get that on Amazon. Any questions, info at NoCompromiseRadio .com.