R.C. Sproul > Quotes

“very heart of Christianity, is the concept of divine revelation. Christianity is a revealed religion, constructed not on the basis of speculative philosophy but in response to what God Himself has made manifest.”
― R.C. Sproul, Truths We Confess: A Systematic Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith

“But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?”
― R.C. Sproul, Surprised by Suffering: The Role of Pain and Death in The Christian Life

“It taught that the letters that make up the word joy stand for “Jesus,” “others,” and “yourself,” and the lesson was that the secret to joy is to put Jesus first, others second, and yourself third.”
― R.C. Sproul, Can I Have Joy In My Life?

“The Supreme Court decided that the state has no compelling interest in the fetus until viability. (One wonders at what point the fetus has a compelling interest in the state.) By denying the unborn the fundamental right to live, the state has reneged on its solemn duty.”
― R.C. Sproul, Abortion: A Rational Look at An Emotional Issue

“In short, no prayer of any human being ever uttered in history ever changed the mind of God in the slightest, because His mind doesn't ever need to be changed.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Prayer of the Lord

“When we are engaged with painting and other art forms, we are interested in beauty. The very concept of beauty is profoundly difficult to define. It is elusive and controversial. The discipline of philosophy has its own subcategory of aesthetics, which seeks to determine norms for beauty. Historically there have been many competing schools of aesthetic thought. Many people have concluded that there are no rules for beauty, that it is purely a subjective matter. Others, dating back to Aristotle and beyond, have argued for objective criteria for beauty. The subjectivists find refuge in the slogan that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” This tends to reduce beauty to personal taste or preference, such as found in the various flavors of ice cream. Here one person’s beauty is another person’s ugliness. On the other hand some schools of thought have tried to find objective norms by which to judge beauty. Thinkers like Aristotle, Aquinas, and Edwards, for example, have seen beauty based in matters of proportionality, symmetry, complexity, harmony, and the like. The intricate symmetry of complex parts points to elements of beauty. Though it is admitted that the simple may be beautiful, it is more often the harmonic composition of complex parts that points to beauty. We understand the difference between the presentation of stick figures and the structure of the human figure depicted in Michelangelo’s work. Likewise, we note the difference between a child playing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” with one finger and a concert pianist playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 4.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God

“Para volvernos expertos en cualquier cosa, debemos practicar. Si queremos aprender a orar, entonces debemos orar; y seguir orando.”
― R.C. Sproul, ¿Puede la oración cambiar las cosas?

“for i those who are called according to his purpose.”
― R.C. Sproul, ESV Reformation Study Bible

“The basic principle of the first commandment is that nothing that belongs to God is to be ascribed or attributed to any other thing, and the four elements that belong to God exclusively, according to Calvin, are adoration, trust, invocation, and thanksgiving.”
― R.C. Sproul, How Does God's Law Apply to Me?

“La conciencia es la herramienta que Dios el Espíritu Santo usa para inculparnos, llevarnos al arrepentimiento, y recibir la sanidad del perdón que fluye del evangelio.”
― R.C. Sproul, ¿Cómo puedo desarrollar una conciencia cristiana?

“8:26–27 says: “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the”
― R.C. Sproul, Does Prayer Change Things?

“application of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy as an essential element for the authority of the church. It was created to counter the drift from this important doctrinal foundation by significant segments of evangelicalism and the outright denial of it by other church movements.
In October 1978, the council held a summit meeting in Chicago. At that time, it issued a statement on biblical”
― R.C. Sproul, Can I Trust The Bible?

“We do want progress in our knowledge and growth in our understanding, but we have to be careful not to be lured into the temptation to come up with something new just to be novel. THE”
― R.C. Sproul, Everyone's a Theologian: An Introduction to Systematic Theology

“La gente me ha dicho en muchas ocasiones que el cristianismo no se trata de reglas y normas; se trata de amor. Eso sencillamente no es cierto. El cristianismo se trata del amor, pero eso es así porque el amor es una de las reglas: Dios nos manda que lo amemos a él y unos a otros. El cristianismo no se trata solo de reglas y leyes, pero las reglas y las leyes decretadas por Dios han sido un hecho de vida desde el día de la creación.”
― R.C. Sproul, ¿Qué puedo hacer con mi culpa?

“Evangelism is not only a duty; it is also a privilege.”
― R.C. Sproul, Chosen by God

“the “logic” of the facts—that is, as it sought to deduce laws or universals from the raw data of the particulars.”
― R.C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World

“A person will not be fully persuaded or assured that the Bible is the Word of God unless and until God the Holy Spirit does a work in his heart, which is called the internal testimony of the Spirit.”
― R.C. Sproul, Truths We Confess: A Systematic Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith

“All that God does is for His glory first and for our benefit second. We pray because God commands us to pray, because it glorifies Him, and because it benefits us.”
― R.C. Sproul, Does Prayer Change Things?

“If truth is relative, then the truth of God is not truth at all but a lie, for the Word of God contends that there is a Truth that transcends the universe, a Truth that is the norm and fountain of all truth.”
― R.C. Sproul, Defending Your Faith: An Introduction

“What does it mean to take the name of the Lord in vain? In the English language, the word vanity is used as a synonym for pride or narcissism, but when the Old Testament speaks of vanity, it is a synonym for futility. Therefore, the command means that God’s name is sacred and not to be treated in a cavalier or trivial manner, but rather in a careful and guarded way.”
― R.C. Sproul, How Does God's Law Apply to Me?

“heard;”
― R.C. Sproul, What Does It Mean to Be Born Again?

“ornithological specimens of the same or similar plumage tend to habitually congregate in the closest possible proximity.” Or being translated, “birds of a feather flock together.”
― R.C. Sproul, What is The Church?

“there’s a science to studying the Bible so that we can make the right deductions from God’s revelation. It’s called hermeneutics, and it’s what this little book that you’re”
― R.C. Sproul, Knowing Scripture

“Regeneration occurs through the direct and sovereign work of the Holy Spirit when He calls a person inwardly in the creative way in which He called the world into existence outwardly. Analogously, Jesus called to Lazarus with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” That is the effectual call of the Lord, the power through which Lazarus was raised from the dead. Lazarus was physically reborn as a result of that. Effectual calling is the Holy Spirit’s work of bringing about a change in someone. The change that is brought about in and through the effectual call is regeneration.”
― R.C. Sproul, Truths We Confess: A Systematic Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith

“If we
love Christ, it is appropriate to love Him extravagantly, for He is worthy of extravagant love.
There”
― R.C. Sproul, John

“The death of Christ covers our sin, but the life of Christ provides the merit and the righteousness that we must have in order to enter into heaven. So, Jesus’s life is as important for us as His death. He lived to fulfill all of the law of God.”
― R.C. Sproul, How Then Shall We Worship?: Biblical Principles to Guide Us Today

“It is finding the lost that necessitates the endeavor of missions. It’s easy for us to deceive ourselves into thinking that no one is lost, and one way of doing that is to distance ourselves from the search—that is, to make sure that we keep ourselves uninformed about the needs of the lost, to insulate ourselves from knowing what is really going on in the world. For instance, we don’t go out of our way to understand and learn about all of the people who are starving in this world. When we are confronted with it, our consciences are pricked and we are moved to action. But we don’t go out of our way to find misery; we think there’s enough misery in our own lives, without looking for more.”
― R.C. Sproul, What is the Great Commission?

“El concepto básico aquí es que lo que Dios crea, él lo sustenta. Por lo tanto, una de las subdivisiones importantes de la doctrina de la providencia es el concepto de sustento divino. En palabras simples, esta es la clásica idea cristiana de que Dios no es el gran Relojero que fabrica el reloj, le da cuerda, y luego sale de escena. En lugar de eso, él preserva y sostiene aquello que crea.”
― R.C. Sproul, ¿Controla Dios todas Las Cosas?

“What often happens when we relate to others is that we become the influencees rather than the influencers. In an effort to win people to Christ and be “winsome,” we may easily slip into the trap of emptying the gospel of its content, accommodating our hearers, and removing the offense inherent in the gospel. To be sure, our own insensitive behavior can add an offense to the gospel that is not properly part of it.”
― R.C. Sproul, Willing to Believe: The Controversy over Free Will

“The theater of God’s redemption is this world. It is to this world that God came in Christ. Christ refused to allow His disciples to hide in an upper room with the doors locked because of fear. No tabernacles were allowed on the Mount of Transfiguration. We are called to be Christ’s witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Jerusalem is in this world. Judea is in this world. Samaria is in this world. The ends of the earth are still on this earth. So we should not flee this world. But, oh, how many Christians try to do so. And in doing so, they may actually be displeasing the God who wants the world to be redeemed, not escaped.”
― R.C. Sproul, Pleasing God