Ligonier Ministries

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
How do I know that I am elect? How do I know my faith is genuine?

The way in which we come to know our election is through faith in Christ. So we must never try to bypass Jesus Christ, because, for example, as Paul says in Ephesians 1, we are chosen in Christ before the …Read More
Which comes first in the ordo salutis (order of salvation)—faith or regeneration?

I think first of all of what Jesus said in John chapter 3, when he said to Nicodemus that unless you’re born from above—which is regeneration—you’ll neither be able to see or enter the kingdom of God (John 3:3-5). And …Read More
Is there biblical warrant for Sunday evening worship?

When people ask, “Should we have two services on the Lord’s Day?” my inclination is to say that I think we as the people of God ought to rise up in righteous revolt against the parsimony of our preachers and …Read More
How do you define a false teacher?

SPROUL: When is a false teacher a false teacher? It’s when he teaches falsehood. MOHLER: Amen. I would just add that I think there is in the New Testament a clear reservation of that title not just for one who …Read More
How should Christians respond to the imprecatory psalms?

GODFREY: It seems to me there’s a lot of confusion on this in part because Jesus has told us to love our enemies, to pray for them. And what we’re being reminded there is we are not to call down …Read More
What do we say to a mother who has lost her child in infancy when she asks, “Is my child in heaven?”

GODFREY: The Canons of Dort, First Head of Doctrine, Article 17, say that godly parents may believe without doubt that their children dying in infancy are elect and saved. And I think that’s true. DEYOUNG: That is exactly what I …Read More
What is the gospel?

SPROUL: When I would teach in the doctor of ministry program and I’d have the clergy in there, I would ask them to define the gospel. And if I got ten percent of them to give an adequate answer to …Read More
What parts of the law are still relevant to us today?

We make distinctions among the ceremonial law, the dietary law, the civil law, and the moral law. To the Jew, every law commanded by God in the Old Testament was moral in the sense that it had moral significance to …Read More
Is it important that a church subscribe to a confession? Why or why not?

Anything smaller than that, or theoretically larger, will not give you the stability that a solid confession of faith will do. For example, you might say, “The Bible is our confession.” But that wouldn’t help us. All that tells us …Read More
Since God is sovereign, what is the purpose of intercessory prayer?

There are layers of answers to that. One purpose is obedience to God, because in so many different places we are urged to pray, and we are urged to pray without ceasing. So even if we were not able to …Read More
How can I be assured that I am among the chosen?

HAMILTON: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. SPROUL: Now the problem is complicated because we have four kinds of people: people who aren’t saved and know that they aren’t saved, people who aren’t saved and don’t know that they aren’t …Read More
What did the Lord do in your life to help you embrace your calling as a battlefield theologian?

Mainly it was the influence of my studies in seminary as a young man and looking at what God did in the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The magisterial Reformers were world-class academicians, people like Luther and Calvin and so …Read More
Are there distinctions of sin in hell?

SPROUL: I think the New Testament makes it clear. There are at least twenty-five references in the New Testament that speak of the various degrees of punishment and/or reward in heaven relative to the degrees of sinfulness of sin. Even …Read More
Does the Bible preclude the existence of life elsewhere in the universe?

MOHLER: The answer is no; that’s speculative. What it does make very clear is that the entire cosmos was created for the drama of redemption, as Calvin said. The cosmos is a theater of God’s redemption, of what would take …Read More