R.C. Sproul's Blog, page 9

Confessions and Church Leadership

Here’s an excerpt from Confessions and Church Leadership, David F. Coffin Jr.'s contribution to the June issue of Tabletalk:

Doctrinal standards are of great importance to the faithful and fruitful labor of church leaders. Such standards set forth some of the most important teachings of Scripture in a summary and systematic form, a form that typically has been tested over time and has proven faithful to its source. When voluntarily adopted by church leaders, they provide a bond of union for those joined together to care for the church as “a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).

Generally, confessional churches have distinguished between the function of a doctrinal standard with respect to church members and with respect to church leaders. Church members, having confessed the essentials of the gospel, may well be widely varied in their understanding of, and adherence to, the church’s doctrinal standards. A mature embrace of this fuller statement of the truth is a goal, not the prerequisite, for a life of discipleship. On the other hand, church leaders are required to embrace the church’s standards as their own, as an accurate statement of some of the great truths that they themselves find in the Word of God, and that will guide them in their labors. In this way, the truth is entrusted “to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2).

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Christ Mended What Adam Broke

History may be understood as the story of two men: Adam, the head of the old humanity, and Christ, the head of the new. In this brief clip, Michael Reeves teaches that where the first man brought brokenness and death, the second man brings mending and eternal life.

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Transcript:

And so, Adam was created as the pattern of the One to come. And from that moment, all of history would be the story of these two men—Adam, the head of the old humanity, and Christ, the head of the new. And the fate of every person would be wrapped up in one or the other. And what Adam would break, Christ would mend.

So at a tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Adam committed the mother of all sins, and he fell into death. At a tree, the cross, Christ obeyed His Father to the uttermost and conquered death. Adam brought sin and death; Christ brought righteousness and life.

 

We’re Called to Make Disciples, not Simply Converts

We should take notice of what Jesus did not say in the Great Commission. He did not say, "Go therefore and make converts of as many people as possible."

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matt. 28:18-20)

One of the most exciting times of my life was when I was first converted to Christ. I was filled with a zeal for evangelism. However, much to my consternation, when I told my friends about my conversion to Christ, they thought I was crazy. They were tragically amused, remaining unconvinced despite my sharing the gospel with them. Finally, they asked me, "Why don't you start a class and teach us what you have learned about Jesus?" They were serious. I was elated. We scheduled a time to meet, and I got there a little bit early—but they never showed up.

Despite my profound desire for evangelism, I was a failure at it. This realization came to me early in my ministry. Yet, I also discovered that there are many people whom Christ has called and whom He has gifted by His Spirit to be particularly effective in evangelism. To this day, I'm surprised if anybody attributes their conversion in some part to my influence. In one respect, I'm glad that the Great Commission is not a commission principally to evangelism.

The words that preceded Jesus' commission were these: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." He then went on to say, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations." When Jesus gave this commission to the church, He was speaking authoritatively. He gave a mandate to the church of all ages not simply to evangelize but to make disciples. That leads us to a significant question: What is a disciple?

The simplest definition of disciple is one who directs his mind toward specific knowledge and conduct. So, we might say that a disciple is a learner or pupil. The Greek philosophers—people such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle—had disciples. Socrates described himself ultimately as a disciple of Homer, the person Socrates regarded as the greatest thinker of all of Greek history.

We tend to think of Homer as a poet rather than a philosopher. But Socrates saw him as the supreme teacher of ancient Greece. Then, of course, Socrates had his own student—his chief disciple—whose name was Plato. Plato had his disciples, the chief one being Aristotle. Aristotle also had his disciples, the most famous being Alexander the Great. It is astonishing to think about how drastically the ancient world was shaped by four men: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great. In fact, it is nearly impossible to understand the history of Western civilization without understanding the influence of those four individuals, who in their own way were each disciples of another.

Aristotle, in particular, was known as a "peripatetic" philosopher. That is, he was a nomadic teacher who walked from place to place, not teaching in a fixed location. The students of Aristotle would follow him as he walked the streets of Athens. In one respect, Aristotle's disciples lived life with him, learning from him in the course of a normal daily routine.

The aforementioned concepts help illumine the nature of discipleship. However, they fail to capture the full essence of biblical discipleship. Discipleship in the biblical sense involves walking with the Teacher and learning from His words, but it is more than that.

Jesus was a rabbi and, of course, the most important peripatetic teacher and disciple-maker in history. Wherever He walked, His students would follow. At the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, He chose particular individuals to be His disciples. They were required to memorize the teachings that He spoke as He walked. What's more, people didn't file an application to get into the School of Jesus. Jesus selected His disciples. He went to prospective disciples where they were, whether in the marketplace or at their place of work, and give this simple command: "Follow me." The command was literal—He called them to drop their present duties. They had to leave their work, their families, and their friends in order to follow Jesus.

Jesus was more than just a peripatetic teacher however. His disciples called Him "Master." Their entire way of life changed because of their following Jesus not merely as a great teacher, but as the Lord of all. That's the essence of discipleship—submitting fully to the authority of Christ, the One whose lordship goes beyond just the classroom. Jesus' lordship encompasses all of life. The Greek philosophers learned from their teachers but then tried to improve on that teaching. Christ's disciples have no such warrant. We are called to understand and teach only what God has revealed through Christ, including the Old Testament Scriptures, for they point to Christ; and the New Testament Scriptures, for they are the words of those Christ appointed to speak in His name.

The Great Commission is the call of Christ for His disciples to extend His authority over the whole world. We are to share the gospel with everyone so that more and more people might call Him Master. This calling is not simply a call to evangelism. It isn't merely a call to get students for our seminaries, our colleges, or for Ligonier Ministries. Rather, Christ calls us to make disciples. Disciples are people who have committed in their hearts and minds to follow the thinking and conduct of the Master forever. Such discipleship is a lifelong experience.

When we're involved in discipleship, we do not graduate until we get to heaven. Discipleship is a lifelong experience of learning the mind of Christ and following the will of Christ, submitting ourselves in complete obedience to His lordship. Thus, when Jesus tells us to go to all nations, we are to go into all the world with His agenda, not our own. The Great Commission calls us to flood this world with knowledgeable, articulate Christians who worship God and follow Jesus Christ passionately. Our mission at Ligonier is discipleship in the biblical sense. By God's grace, we want to help the church raise up a generation of people who are dedicated in heart and soul to the Master and His authority. We want to call people to obedience and to following Christ in their daily lives.

Confessions and Worship

Here’s an excerpt from Confessions and Worship, Nick Batzig's contribution to the June issue of Tabletalk:

Some of my earliest childhood memories center on being with my family in worship on the Lord’s Day. In the Reformed and Presbyterian churches that we attended, expository preaching, hymn-singing, and prayer were fixed elements of worship, as were the historic creeds and confessions of the Christian church. We regularly confessed the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed—or some particular doctrinal statement out of the Westminster Confession of Faith, Westminster Shorter Catechism, or Heidelberg Catechism. Our pastors cited doctrinal statements from the Westminster Shorter Catechism in their sermons. Though I was unaware of it at the time, these historic doctrinal formulations were shaping my young mind in regard to biblical doctrine, worship, and the Christian life. Over a decade ago, I had the privilege of planting a Reformed and Presbyterian church. I enthusiastically incorporated many of the historic creeds and confessions into our worship service for the express purpose of instruction—as well as for the preservation of the core truths of the Christian faith and the worship of God.

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Does Romans 7 depict a Jew under the law or a believer struggling with sin?

In the second half of Romans 7, is the Apostle Paul describing his past as an unconverted Jew living under the law or his present struggle with sin as a believer? From one of our live events, Derek Thomas and Steven Lawson place this passage in context.

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God Never Forgets His Promises

The entire life of Joseph is summarized in Genesis 50:20: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” The teenager we met at the beginning of the story is now over a hundred years old. His life has come full circle, and he is addressing his duplicitous brothers. Their actions, in selling him into slavery, had nothing but evil intent written all over it. Their malevolence can in no way be lessened by the knowledge that things did not turn out as they might have done. Truth is, God overruled their evil actions to accomplish a purpose that neither they nor Joseph could have fathomed. God brought good out of evil. In the words of the Westminster Confession, God in His providence “upholds, directs, disposes and governs all creatures, actions and things” to bring about a sovereignly pre-determined plan (5.1). 

This, God had accomplished through a variety of actions. Joseph’s descent into slavery, followed by a false accusation of rape resulting in a lengthy imprisonment, spelled his downward spiral to the bottom. His life could hardly have been much worse. Only now, from the vantage point of what God had, in fact, accomplished — ensuring that an heir of the covenant promises was in the most powerful position in Egypt at a time when famine engulfed Canaan to ensure the survival of the covenant family — could Joseph look back and see the hand of God. As the puritan John Flavel has been so frequently cited as saying, providence is best read like Hebrew, backwards! Only then is it possible to trace the divine hand on the tiller guiding the gospel ship into a safe harbor. No matter how dark things get, His hand is always in control. Or, as the poet William Cowper wrote in verse:

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense
but trust him for his grace;

Behind a frowning providence
he hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast;
unfolding every hour.

The bud may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flower. 

Providence has wider issues in mind than merely our personal comfort or gain. In answer to the oft-cited question in times of difficulty, “Why me?” the forthcoming answer is always, “Them!” He allows us to suffer so that others may be blessed. Joseph suffered in order that his undeserving brothers might receive blessing. In their case, this meant being kept alive during a time of famine and having the covenant promises of their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, reaffirmed before their eyes. 

What do you think went through the minds of those disciples who carried the blood-soaked body of Stephen for his burial? Were they saying to themselves, “What a waste! Couldn’t God have spared this godly man so that he might be of use to the church in her time of need? Does God care about us at all?” In all these questions, they would have been showing the shortsightedness that is so much a part of unbelief. They would not have been reckoning on the purposes of God had they asked such questions. For there, at the feet of Stephen’s corpse, stood a man upon whom Stephen’s death had the most profound impact. In hearing the voice of Jesus speak to him and accuse him of persecuting God’s Messiah, Paul learned what is arguably his most characteristic feature: that every Christian is in such spiritual union with Christ that to persecute one of His little ones is to persecute Jesus Himself! 

And what were the purposes behind Joseph’s suffering? At least two are forthcoming in the closing chapters of Genesis: the first on a microcosmic level and the second on a larger, macrocosmic level. Joseph learned first of all that whatever happened to him personally, he was part of a larger purpose in which God’s plan was being revealed. In that case, he could not hold grudges against his brothers, no matter how badly they had behaved. True, they must learn their sin and confess it, and this explains the lengthy way in which Joseph finally reveals himself to them as his brother after first of all making them think that they had stolen from a prince of Egypt. God had used him as an instrument in the spiritual growth of his brothers, and Joseph seems to sense that by his utter unwillingness to hold a grudge against them. 

But secondly, and on a much larger platform, Joseph begins to learn the answer to the question, how will the promises made to Abraham be fulfilled? At one level, the final scene of Jacob’s burial in Canaan attended by a huge entourage of Egyptians seems a curious way to end the story of Joseph. But it is part and parcel of it. In the end, the Egyptians are paying homage to Joseph’s family! When Jacob says to his son, “Make sure that I am buried in the land of promise” (see Gen. 50:5), he is thinking of the promise that God had given to Abraham of a land — a land that at this time they did not possess apart from this burial plot! At the end of Genesis the people of God are nowhere near possessing Canaan. They are going to spend four hundred years in captivity in Egypt. But in Jacob’s burial there is a glimpse of things to come. God has not forgotten His promise. He never does. 

This post was originally published in Tabletalk magazine.

Natural Theology Is Incomplete but True

Nature clearly demonstrates the existence of God, but nature doesn’t show us everything God has revealed about Himself. In this brief clip, R.C. Sproul examines the teaching of Thomas Aquinas on the purpose of natural theology.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Let's look at the word, now, “incomplete.” What Thomas Aquinas means by that is that the knowledge of God that we gain through the creation is not a complete and comprehensive knowledge of God. It is incomplete; nevertheless, it’s true. And this was the point he was trying to make: The knowledge of God that we get from nature, though it is not as vast or as deep as the knowledge of God we get from Scripture, nevertheless it is true as far as it goes. Now, why is that significant? Well, it’s significant particularly in the light of today’s debates about natural theology. Many of the things that are said about natural theology is that not only is it inadequate and worthless, but many see it as positively harmful, because any knowledge of God that is gleaned from nature remains stripped of so much of the important content of our understanding of God that is given to us in the Bible. And so, it can give us, perhaps, Aristotle’s first cause. But there’s a long way from an abstract, first cause to the personal, redeeming Father of Jesus Christ who is revealed in Scripture. As I’ve already mentioned, what was significant for Thomas was, those who had attacked the Christian view of God leveled their attack chiefly at the doctrine of creation. And that’s true today: If one is an atheist, the most important item of Christian doctrine that needs to be demolished is this item of creation. Because if creation can be denied, then the very first teachings of the biblical record, with respect to the character of God, would fall with it. Genesis 1 begins with the affirmation, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” So, if you can attack the idea of a first cause, or of a creation altogether, then you demolish the very foundation of Christian thought. Aquinas is saying simply this: While nature may not prove the full content of God that we get from sacred Scripture, at least what does yield us, through a rational treatment of the created realm, is enough truth to stop the mouths of the atheists and of the skeptics. Because natural theology, according to Aquinas, clearly demonstrates that God is the author of the universe. And though that doesn’t tell us everything we need to know about God, it tells us something that is true as far as it goes. That’s what he means when he says that natural theology is incomplete but true. And that “true as far as it goes” is vital to the historic philosophical debates that have gone on between various forms of theism and various kinds of atheism.

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What are the “elementary principles of the world” in Galatians 4:3?

What are the “elementary principles of the world” that once enslaved us, according to Galatians 4:3? From one of our Ask Ligonier events, Sinclair Ferguson describes how our relationship to God’s law changes when we come to Christ.

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The Methods vs. The Message

Many Christians go their entire lives without being used by God to be the human instrument and means by which a person comes to Christ. My own calling is not as an evangelist, but seeing another human being come to Christ is the most meaningful ministry experience I've ever had.

I once was hired by a church to be the minister of theology, which meant that my job was to teach. They also added to my job description "minister of evangelism." I said I didn't know anything about evangelism. So, they sent me to a seminar to train in evangelism.

The minister leading the seminar talked about how to memorize an outline, how he uses key questions to stimulate discussion, and how there's a pattern to the way in which evangelism is to flow. The idea behind the method he used was to focus attention on the ultimate issue of a person's individual redemption—how can he justify himself before God? Most people will say that they have lived a good life; very few will say that they have been justified by faith alone in Christ alone.

Methods such as these have much to recommend them. They are easy to learn, and they make it possible for people to engage in discussions about Christianity, though care must be taken that one is not simply reading a script but rather is really connecting with the other person.

Ultimately, evangelism is less about the method one uses and more about the message one proclaims. Evangelism, remember, is the proclamation of the gospel—telling the story, announcing the news. Some fear that they don't know enough to evangelize. I say, "Tell them what you do know." Leave the defense of the truth claims to the apologist and hold forth the simple message of the gospel. Anyone who has the ability to speak about three or four simple principles can become an effective evangelist. This is where evangelism programs and training can help.

This excerpt is taken from What Is the Great Commission? by R.C. Sproul. Download more free ebooks in the Crucial Questions series here.

$5 Friday (And More): Assurance, Moses, & Predestination

It’s time for our weekly $5 Friday sale. This week’s resources include such topics as assurance, Moses, predestination, reformed theology, salvation, John Calvin, and more.

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The Expository Genius of John Calvin by Steven Lawson, $16 $8 Jonathan Edwards: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought by Stephen Nichols, $17 $12 Assured By God: Living in the Fullness of God’s Grace by Burk Parsons, $16 $10 Defending Your Faith by R.C. Sproul, $17 $10 The Life and Theology of Paul by Guy Waters, $17 $10And More

Sale runs through 12:01 a.m.–11:59 p.m. Friday ET.

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