Ligonier Ministries

Are all Christians called to be missionaries and/or do the work of missionaries?

We’re all called to serve Jesus Christ. The word “missionary” just means somebody who is sent. And we’re all sent, we’re all drawn into Christ and we’re sent out by Christ to live in the world as witnesses to Christ. …Read More

Is it a sin not to pray?

We should always expand on these things a little bit. The Lord calls us to pray. There are many commands in the Scripture to pray. If we’re prayerless, it may reflect a kind of hyper-Calvinism that says, “God already knows …Read More

How is the exclusivity of Christ alone under attack in different cultural contexts?

DE CHIRICO: The seal of the gospel that my city and my nation have received as the standard form of the gospel was a Rome-alone kind of gospel. In our twenty-first-century context it has been substituted with a mercy-alone gospel. …Read More

How do you explain the doctrine of election to an unbeliever?

The first thing I would say is that it is not the place to begin in talking to an unbeliever. The second thing is that since the reality of election is grasped only by faith, that’s what we really need …Read More

What is the greatest threat of the world to the church today?

HORTON: The greatest question in any moment is whether that Word above all earthly powers is being proclaimed by weak and sinful human beings. THOMAS: From a personal point of view, my greatest threat is always that I lose my …Read More

Why did Jesus speak in parables?

He actually answers that question Himself, or gives one answer to it, when He tells the parable of the sower and the soils and His disciples don’t get it. They come to Him and say, “What was that all about?” …Read More

Since the Bible is sufficient for all of life, should we rule out psychology in counseling?

HORTON: This is where a quote from Calvin is so helpful. The Anabaptists, the radical Protestants of Calvin’s day, believed that secular learning itself—secular culture, secular science, secular rhetoric, and logic—was sinful. We should just study the Bible and get …Read More

Will Christians who have been forgiven answer for their sins in judgment?

First of all, let me try and put it this way: When we are justified, we are justified with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. What that means–if you can begin to take it in–is that when you stand before God …Read More

Did Old Testament believers possess the Holy Spirit the same way as the New Testament believers?

HORTON: I just wrote a book on the Holy Spirit, and it really enriched my own experience of the Spirit as well as thoughts about questions like this; and it made me more uncertain of the answers that I had …Read More

What are apocryphal books, and should Christians read them?

I’m a Presbyterian, and the confession of faith that the denomination I’m in uses is the Westminster Confession of Faith. In its first chapter it makes a comment on the apocryphal books, which basically is that they have no more …Read More

How should I preach the doctrines of grace?

I think, pastorally, one must always recognize that in some of these areas people do not have the paradigms to be able immediately to take in what Scripture teaches. Sometimes they have been taught in a way that is contrary …Read More

How do we obey the moral law without being moralistic?

We obey the moral law, first of all, by understanding what it’s for, and there are various ways of putting this. For all my life I have been interested in the game of golf. Golf is played according to rules. …Read More

What are the essential qualities of a Christian?

Think for example about what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13. Here is a church where certain gifts are being held up before the people as indications of a kind of super-spirituality. And basically what Paul says in 1 Corinthians …Read More

Why should we pray if God has planned all things?

In a way that’s a form of a bigger question that sometimes people who ask that question don’t ask, which is, “If God has planned all things, why should we do anything?” And we understand that what we do as …Read More

How do you know if God has called you to be a pastor?

When Paul is reflecting on young Timothy who has been called to the ministry, he says to him in 2 Timothy 1:6, “Fan into flame the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of my hands.” …Read More