Latest from R.C. Sproul Jr.
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We Are Family
from R.C. Sproul Jr. Apr 18, 2010 Category: Articles
One of the telling measures of our own cultural decline is the steady erosion of a sane understanding of the family. Family, we should remember, is on one level what we call a common blessing. God has not restricted the freedom to marry and to raise up children to His redeemed. He has instead blessed all mankind with that liberty, with that calling. The serpent, however, has countless versions of the false family, a dizzying array of communities held together by base and foolish affections. He entices us to look for love in all the wrong places, to draw circles in the sand that will wash away with the tide. Keep Reading -
The Second World War
from R.C. Sproul Jr. Mar 23, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine
It is natural, though altogether wrong, to think that somehow when we turn the pages that separate the Old and New Testaments that we are entering into more gentle times, that God in the interim somehow became kinder and gentler. We do not see in the New Testament, as we do in the Old, flaming mountains with flashing lightning and earth-shaking thunder. We do not see all the first born of a given nation wiped out in a single night, nor the earth’s whole population, save one family, suffer death by drowning. We do not see Uzzah struck dead for touching God’s ark, nor do we see the prophets of Baal struck down by God’s own prophets. Instead, we meet Jesus. Jesus, we are told, will not break a bruised reed, nor quench a smoldering wick (Matt. 12:20). He is gentle and mild, and utterly determined to bring all His enemies under subjection, to silence every pretender to His throne. Keep Reading -
Doctrine and Life
from R.C. Sproul Jr. Mar 19, 2010 Category: Articles
This past Sunday I was blessed with the opportunity to preach, this time at Reformation Orthodox Presbyterian Church near Denver. The pastor there is my friend and co-laborer and Highland Fellow Kevin Swanson. I preached what has become of late what I call my “traveling sermon,” that sermon that I give when I visit sundry pulpits around the country. My text is John 13: 1-17, where Jesus washes the feet of the disciples. I suggest in that sermon that, strangely, we who are Reformed, are often proud of ourselves for being Reformed. I argue that we would likely have joined Jesus in washing the disciples’ feet, missing the point that our own feet are filthy. We confuse believing in the doctrine of total depravity with having a deep sense of our own sin. One is affirming a doctrine, the other a more existential awareness of our own condition. Keep Reading -
Participating in the Census
from R.C. Sproul Jr. Mar 16, 2010 Category: Articles
Should Christians participate in the Census? If so, should we answer all the questions or, as according to the Constitution, just tell the number of people in our household?
Several years ago I wrote a short piece encouraging Christians, when faced with an intrusive state, to not so much push back, as remain firm. One could argue that just as Paul insisted that he receive his rights as a citizen of Rome, that we ought to insist on our rights. One could, on the other hand, argue that when Jesus calls us to go the second mile, this is precisely the kind of thing He had in mind, that even if the state has no Constitutional warrant to ask us anything beyond the number of people in our home, we ought to humbly and meekly comply. Keep Reading -
10 Important Things To Ask a Potential Pastor
from R.C. Sproul Jr. Mar 07, 2010 Category: Articles
When interviewing a potential pastor, what are the ten most important questions that you would ask? I suspect that in most churches the gap between the actual questions and the best questions would go a long way to explain the particular weakness of the particular church. The questions we ask reveal our hearts just as much as the answers reveal the heart of the potential pastor. Here, I believe, is what I would want to ask. Keep Reading -
What Is the Goal of Becoming a Christian?
from R.C. Sproul Jr. Feb 18, 2010 Category: Articles
It is my contention that we spend far too little time thinking through issues of teleology, the study of end or purpose or design. We prefer to leave these questions unexamined, and thus move through our lives less than deliberately. That said, this question comes with at least a potential danger, turning the Christian faith at best, and God at worst into a means to an end. Marva Dawn wisely described worship as a “royal waste of time.” It is royal because we are praising the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. It is a “waste of time” because such worship serves no other end, but is the ultimate end of all things. Keep Reading -
Two Birds, One Stone
from R.C. Sproul Jr. Feb 10, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine
When error comes into the church we face a set of obligations. First, we must confront the error. The world has embraced a live-and-let-live relativism that will accept any foolishness, but will not accept the wisdom of calling foolishness by its name. Too often the church follows suit. We want to get along, and so pet the wolves in our midst rather than drive them away. Our calling, as faithful soldiers of the kingdom, is to combat error in whatever form it takes. Second, we must not err when confronting the error. If we would have sound and accurate thinking in the church, we must be sound and accurate in what we denounce. Keep Reading -
How and When Did You “Get Saved?”
from R.C. Sproul Jr. Jan 27, 2010 Category: Articles
How/when did you "get saved?" Or when did God sovereignly grant you the faith to repent and believe?
I don’t know. I certainly had any number of conversion experiences in my life, the latest of which took place when I was in high school. The first I remember was while saying prayers before bed with my mother when I was still in grade school. Another was a typical experience at church camp. The last I was alone, listening to Bob Dylan’s record “Saved” when I asked God to cover my sins in the blood of the Lamb. I have been tempted over the years, however, when asked to give my testimony, to say something like this, “I was baptized as a child, and have been improving on that baptism, more or less, ever since.” I do not, of course, believe that God necessarily gave me the gift of saving faith at the time of my baptism. The Westminster Confession affirms wisely that the efficacy of baptism is not tied to the moment of time wherein it is administered (chapter 28, section six) and I concur with it. I don’t believe in baptismal regeneration. Keep Reading -
Be Still (and know that you’re loved)
from R.C. Sproul Jr. Jan 21, 2010 Category: Tabletalk Magazine
The children of God are rather different from the children of men. We have been reborn by a sovereign God. They have not. We have been redeemed by a sovereign God. They have not. We are being remade by a sovereign God. They are not. Despite these things that distinguish us, that set us apart, there are yet ways where we are very much like those outside the kingdom. We, both inside and outside the kingdom, have drunk deeply of the modernist conceit that we are defined by what we know. Thus, we think the difference between us and them, between sheep and goats, is a matter of knowledge. We are those who have been blessed to have the truth revealed to us. Once those outside the kingdom have the truth revealed to them, we seem to think, they will become just like us. Keep Reading -
Last Things First
from R.C. Sproul Jr. Dec 23, 2009 Category: Tabletalk Magazine
Last things last, that’s what I used to say. It seemed to me that there were plenty of difficult theological issues for us to wade through without having to worry about the end times. We all agree, after all, that in the end our side wins. Whether Jesus comes to find His world a horrible cesspool that needs to be cleaned up, or to find a glorious reflection of His successful bride, or somewhere in the middle, He does come back and make all things right. I was indifferent about how He would return. But two things kept nagging at me. The Bible talks about the return of Christ. It talks about the full consummation of history. And one thing I didn’t want to happen when Jesus comes back was this — to have Him be displeased with me because I tossed aside a portion of His Word cavalierly, indeed, if I tossed a part aside at all. The second problem was this, a fundamental principle of progress. One cannot know which way to go unless one knows where one is supposed to go. If you’re going nowhere, any direction will do. But if you want to get somewhere, you have to know where. Keep Reading
