Ligonier Ministries

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

Did the Holy Spirit indwell or regenerate Old Testament saints before the resurrection?

GODFREY: He regenerated people in the Old Testament just the same as in the New. MOHLER: As the writer of the book of Hebrews ends chapter eleven, it was meant by God that they not be saved apart from us …Read More

Are those in hell aware of God’s presence?

MOHLER: I think there is a sense in the tenses of verbs related to hell in which hell is clearly not yet as hellish as it will be. Even as believers in Christ who die are not yet entirely in …Read More

How can I witness to my friends who say they’re Christians but their actions say otherwise?

HORTON: It is hard to know what to say exactly. That is a very large and difficult problem. I would say the best way to approach it for someone who isn’t privy to the specifics is to press them on …Read More

Is there a point where we can go too far in confessing our sins to one another?

NICHOLS: If it’s a particular sin against a brother or a sister, sometimes we think, “Well, I’ve confessed that to God. I’m now forgiven of that sin.” But I think we do have another obligation if it was a particular …Read More

How is the current cultural climate forcing the “mushy middle” out of the church?

Churches used to be able to say to unbelievers, “You can gain a bit of social capital by coming to join with us. There’s some value added to your life if you come and join with us. If you just …Read More

With the rise of seeker-sensitive churches, how do we understand biblically “seeking” God?

SPROUL: In Acts 17, Paul at the Areopagus quotes some of the pagan poets and talks about people groping after God. They have the statue to the unknown god, and in one sense they’re seeking Him. In the other sense, …Read More