On Being Bar-Barnabas, The Sons of the Son of Encouragement

Posted on March 17, 2026 by RC

The Holy Spirit is called by Jesus the paraclete, or Comforter. While I would never want to diminish the value of the comfort the Spirit gives, we might do well to look more deeply at the root meaning of comfort. Com, the prefix, means with, while fort comes from forte which means strength. The Spirit Jesus promises in John 14:16 comes with strength. In a similar way, to encourage, based on its root, doesn’t mean merely to speak well to another, but reminds us that speaking well to another blesses them with courage. It strengthens their resolve in the face of battle.

Just as we are called to correct gently, so we are called to encourage greatly. Which, for some of us, can be hard. Perhaps because we’ve been schooled in the biblical notion of total depravity, we seem more inclined to point out the flaws of others than their strengths. We tend to be glass half-empty people.

One friend of mine had a long and successful career as a Christian musician. When I saw him live it seemed like he was just pounding on his piano while delivering a Jeremiad, a sermon of judgment. Then, however, he spoke to the audience about some wisdom he had received from his wife. She had said to him, “You always sing about what you’re against. Why don’t you try singing about what you are for?” And so he did.

In our interactions with each other in our local body, are we more apt to grumble about whomever isn’t there, or to give thanks for those that are? Are we more likely to complain about weaknesses that remain, or strengths that are being strengthened? We are dragged down by droning denunciations. Words of encouragement, on the other hand, put wind in our sails.

The book of Acts introduces us to Barnabas, which being translated means “Son of Encouragement.” When my dear wife and I had just begun dating she asked me what I might come up with as a nickname for her. I named her “Batnabas.” True, it doesn’t roll right off the tongue. It doesn’t have any poetic panache. But it describes her well, as it means, “Daughter of encouragement.” She has an uncanny knack not only for speaking just what I need to hear, but does the same for our boys, and her friends, and so many others in our lives.

We won’t, of course, make manifest His kingdom through flattery. Blowing smoke never kindled a reformation. Genuine encouragement, however, begets courage. I’ve long argued that as sound and right as he was on justification, the defining quality of Luther was courage. Which was precisely the need of the hour. Just as it is in our day.

Look for opportunities to use your voice to encourage. Be alert. Remember that your heavenly Father is, because of our elder Brother, well pleased with you and your siblings in the faith. So let us speak to each other the words of our Master, well done thou good and faithful servant.

Posted in church, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, Lisa Sproul, RC Sproul JR, Reformation, Theses | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Study Tonight, Truth You Can Count On: Final Word

Posted on March 16, 2026 by RC

We conclude our Truth You Can Count On study. Tonight, 7:00, we explore the name of Jesus, the Word of God. We stream our study on Facebook Live (at the account Lisa and I share, RC-Lisa) for those who attend online. You can usually also find a link to the week’s study a day or two later right here in this space. We welcome conversation from all in attendance, whatever form it takes. The atmosphere is casual, though the study itself is serious.

Local friends are welcome to come early for dinner at 6:15. Do please let us know if you plan to attend in person. Hope to see you there.

Posted in 10 Commandments, announcements, assurance, Bible Study, Biblical Doctrines, church, eschatology, RC Sproul JR, sovereignty, theology, wonder, worship | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why do we have such a hard time grasping grace?

Posted on March 16, 2026 by RC

Because we need it. I mean that in two ways. First, we have a hard time grasping grace because we are sinners, and sin begins with pride. All of us, from the most pious saint to the most egregious sinner have within us a little Pelagius. We think ourselves, even when our lips confess otherwise, essentially good. Sure, we sin, who doesn’t? But by any reasonable standard, we think in the secret places of our hearts, we’d pass the test.

Those other people, the ones who score below us on the test, they need grace. And of course, those who score higher than us, they’re the self-righteous ones. If everyone were like me, recognizing my imperfection, but striving to do well, the world would be a happy place.

While the world denies the reality of sin, or pawns it off on others, we believers say we believe in it, but fail to own it. We put a check mark beside the doctrine of total depravity. Yet we lack a heart persuaded of the deep truth contained in “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.” The former is confessing a doctrine, the latter confessing our wickedness.

Second, we have a hard time with grace because we NEED it. The little Pelagius in us hates both dependence upon others, and even more so to acknowledge that dependence. How often do even believers speak of their salvation as if they simply decided to join the winning team? We say, “I came to Christ” or “I made Jesus Lord of my life.” Which misses the hard truth that He came to us. And He imposed His Lordship upon us by the unbidden, regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. We are not saved because we recognized His goodness, but because He recognized our badness.

This is precisely why Luther unleashed his biblical wisdom and acute invective against Erasmus in his Bondage of the Will. We tend, if we are aware of the controversy at all, to see the dialogue between the two as a kind of intramural debate between Luther, the Protestant who grasped God’s sovereignty in our salvation and Erasmus, the Protestant who denied God’s sovereignty in our salvation.

Luther didn’t see this conversation as a distraction from the battle he was waging with Rome. Rather he understood that this battle is the battle between Rome and Protestantism. Luther praised Erasmus, the Romish apologist, in the midst of his verbal assault, for at least dealing with the heart of the matter.

But even we who identify with Luther, who confess God’s sovereignty, are not in the clear. Too often when we confess our utter dependence on God’s grace the devil is there to congratulate us for our theological acumen. The moment we begin to think well of ourselves we’ve demonstrated why we need grace.

This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief (I Timothy 1:15). That’s what grace is all about- not that God grades on a curve such that we can pass, but rather that He sent His only begotten Son to pass the test, and receive our due for our failure. He sent His Spirit to give us life, while we were dead in our trespasses and sins. All I brought to the table was the need. And what I need is grace.

Posted in Ask RC, assurance, Biblical Doctrines, Doctrines of Grace, grace, justification, RC Sproul JR, Reformation, repentance, Roman Catholicism, sovereignty, theology | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

But As the Captain of the Lord’s Hosts I Have Come

Posted on March 13, 2026 by RC

Though I didn’t think such was possible, my esteem for both my father and the Bible took a rather sudden spike. I was blessed to be sitting in a seminary class, while he stood, teaching. He mentioned, almost in passing, this notion that rocked my world. “Some scholars,” he said (and by the way he said it I had a strong suspicion that he was one of those scholars), “believe that the ‘man’ Joshua met outside the wall of Jericho was a pre-incarnate manifestation of the second person of the Trinity, a Christophany.”

He blew me away as he went on to make the case. He encouraged us to remember that Joshua bowed and worshiped. Had he been with an angel from God, the angel would have forbidden such worship.

That the Father sent the Son further sanctified an already holy moment, as Joshua prepared for the first battle for the Promised Land. Better still, however, was the conversation itself. Joshua had only recently replaced Moses as the leader of God’s people. The wandering had come to an end. Now between God’s people and the land stood Jericho and its impenetrable walls. Would you not have felt the weight of every brick in that wall on your back as you took up the mantle of leadership?

In the midst of this, Joshua found himself facing a “man.” Joshua neither rashly attacked, nor did he shrink back. Instead, he asked what seems to us an utterly fitting question: “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?”(Josh. 5:13).

God the Son did not come, however, merely to honor the occasion. Neither was His goal merely to bring the victory. He came instead to sanctify His servant, to give Joshua the right perspective. To Joshua’s either/or question, God the Son replied, “No.” Just as Jesus befuddled the Pharisees as they sought to trap Him with their questions, here He befuddles us. No? What does that mean? He continued, “but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” He explained to Joshua this most fundamental truth: “The question, Joshua, is not whether or not I am on your side. The question is whether you are on Mine.”

Whether at war or at peace, whatever our circumstances, we all face this question each day. When Jesus spoke from the Mount, He made much the same point. He did so because we, like Joshua, need to learn the same point. We look at our obstacles in fear and confusion. Will we be able to win this struggle at work? Can we tame this challenge in our homes? Will we be able to overcome this obstacle at church?

And in our prayer lives, as we meet with our Father, through God the Son, we ask — sometimes in hope, other times in despair — whether He is with us, whether He will come to our aid and win the battle for us. And in His grace and terrible sovereign power and authority, He tells us, “No.”

God is not a witness to history, choosing sides and cheering His favorites on. God is Lord of history, moving history forward as what it is — His story. God’s grace to us isn’t that He sides with us, but that He has put enmity in our hearts against the Serpent and his seed. God’s grace isn’t that He fights for us but that He, by the power of the Holy Spirit, gives us life so that we might fight for Him.

When Jesus tells us to stop worrying about what we will eat and what we will wear, reminding us that the Gentiles worry about such things, He, naturally, reasons in the same manner. His message isn’t “Don’t sweat it — God is for you. He’ll come to your aid to make sure you get what you want. God is on your side.”

Instead, the command is not to worry about these things — our own interests and agenda — because we are called to passionately pursue the interests and agenda of the kingdom of God. He tells us, “No, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” The Truth, the Wisdom, the Word — He does not change and neither does His message to us. What He spoke to Joshua, He speaks to us.

Christ speaks the same message because He speaks to the same people — those who by faith are His. That He is Captain of the army of the Lord is grace to Joshua. And grace to us because by the same grace we are made soldiers in that army. The same grace in turn ensures the victory.

He is our Captain. Jesus, not Joshua, brings down the walls of Jericho. He, not Joshua, brings His people into the Land of Promise. Jesus, not Joshua, storms the very gates of hell. He, not Joshua, takes captivity captive. Jesus, not Joshua, is Lord of lords and King of kings. And we, because He loves us, march in the victory parade with Him.

Posted in 10 Commandments, assurance, Biblical Doctrines, grace, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, RC Sproul, RC Sproul JR, worship | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

One Constant Through All the Years, Ray, Has Been Baseball

Posted on March 12, 2026 by RC

I don’t know who bought, I mean won, last year’s World Series. Over the course of the past 47 years the only World Series stories I recall are the Red Sox winning one, the Astros cheating and the earthquake in 1989. My years of being consumed by baseball ran roughly from 1971 to 1979, the first year in my lifetime the Pittsburgh Pirates won it all, to the last time they won it all.

When it comes to football, I am more a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers than I am the NFL. Once the Steelers are eliminated from contention, I tune out. With baseball it’s a bit different. Because though I don’t much pay attention to the games, the game itself has a forever hold on me. Baseball, in itself, is too glorious, too wonderful, too platonically pure to be destroyed by free agency, billion dollar payrolls, steroids or frenetic mascots. It’s baseball.

Which may explain two cinematic wonders. First, there has never been a bad baseball movie. There’s been not great ones, but not a single bad one. Go ahead. Try to think of one. You can’t do it. Second, Field of Dreams. A top 5 movie of all time that rockets to the top on the juice of baseball. Every bit of legend and lore, every father and son relationship tapped to the root, all captured by the voice of America in an Iowa cornfield:

Mann: Ray, people will come, Ray.
They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway, not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past.
“Of course, we won’t mind if you look around,” you’ll say. “It’s only twenty dollars per person.” They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it. For it is money they have and peace they lack.

Mark: Ray, just sign the papers.

Mann: And they’ll walk out to the bleachers, and sit in shirt-sleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game, and it’ll be as if they’d dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.

Mark: Ray, when the bank opens in the morning, they’ll foreclose.

Mann: People will come, Ray.

Mark: You’re broke, Ray. You sell now or you lose everything.

Mann: The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.
America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.

This field, this game — it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.
Ohhhhhhhh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.

Spring training us up and running. Opening Day is just weeks away. I didn’t want you to forget. Baseball.

Posted in beauty, Books, creation, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, Nostalgia, poetry, RC Sproul JR, seasons, special edition, sport, wonder | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Cat in a Dog’s World: BS in a Modern Age Episode 2

Posted on March 11, 2026 by RC

Part 2 of my dear friend Dave Nelson’s television program, A Cat in a Dog’s World: BS (Being Sanctified) in a Modern Age is now available. Dave and I continue our discussion on the pursuit of sanctification in our troubled times. We talk about the He Gets Us campaign and more. Tune in below. It is likely to bless you. Let me know what you think.

Click here to tune in.

Posted in 10 Commandments, abortion, apologetics, assurance, Biblical Doctrines, Big Eva, church, Devil's Arsenal, evangelism, grace, interview, kingdom, preaching, RC Sproul JR, repentance, sovereignty, theology, wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sacred Marriage; Broken Window Fallacy; Crushing Ingratitude

Posted on March 11, 2026 by RC

Rahab’s Redemption. A Quick Lesson on Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. Jesus healing the woman who touched His cloak and raising a little girl from the dead. Plus putting to death our ingratitude for His grace.

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

Posted in 10 Commandments, Biblical Doctrines, Books, Economics in This Lesson, Good News, grace, Heroes, Jesus Changes Everything, Lisa Sproul, politics, RC Sproul JR, Sacred Marriage, theology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Reckless Fervor and the Safety of Our Father’s Presence

Posted on March 10, 2026 by RC

One of the oddest things to hinder our prayers is fear. Many of us are reluctant to pray in front of others. We fear, I suppose, that those who are listening might be critiquing our prayers. That fear is both sensible and foolish. It is sensible in the sense that people actually do, as they listen to others pray, make mental critiques. I know people do this because I am a people and I have done it from time to time, to my shame. I have run the prayers of hundreds through my own systematic theology grid, looking to filter out the folly.

It is foolish, however, because there is someone far more discerning than me who listens to our prayers, and He manages not to critique them. That is, we ought to fear saying foolish things to the object of our prayers rather than the bystanders. On the other hand, we probably really have nothing to fear.

When we pray, if we pray rightly, we pray in Jesus’ name. That little formula is important. It is good that we almost always remember to pray this way; it is bad that we hardly ever remember what we mean.

When we pray in Jesus’ name, we acknowledge that we are, in ourselves, not worthy to come into God’s presence. Our entrance into the royal throne room is made possible only by the imputed righteousness of Christ. We are saying to our Father, “I couldn’t even be here talking to You had You not sent Jesus to suffer in my place.” This means, of course, that our sins, including our sinfully foolish thoughts, do not make it past the ceiling.

Dr. John Gerstner once explained this phenomenon. He invited us to imagine a young boy gleefully entering his home, a mixture of flowers and weeds clutched in his muddy hand. He explained to his father that he wished to honor his mother with this bouquet. The father suggested, “Perhaps I could give them to her for you.” The son handed over the bouquet and the father surreptitiously removed the weeds, leaving only the flowers.

In like manner, when we pray to our Father in heaven, when we come before His face, the Holy Spirit sanctifies our very prayers. Because He does this, we can pray with boldness, not as those who seek the approval of men. “Our Father, who are in heaven…” See how much our heavenly Father loves us, that He allows His children to pray. And so, trusting as children, may we pray with care, but also with a reckless fervor. We are safe.

Posted in assurance, Biblical Doctrines, Holy Spirit, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, prayer, RC Sproul JR | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Last Week’s Truth You Can Count On Study: Cunning Fables

Posted on March 9, 2026 by RC

This study considers Peter’s assurance that our faith is grounded not in cunning fables but in eyewitness accounts. Check it out.

Posted in apologetics, assurance, Bible Study, Biblical Doctrines, Devil's Arsenal, preaching, prophets, RC Sproul JR, resurrection, theology | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Study Tonight, Truth You Can Count On: Spirit of Truth

Posted on March 9, 2026 by RC

We continue our Truth You Can Count On study. Tonight, 7:00, we unpack the role of the Spirit in illuminating God’s Word. We stream our study on Facebook Live (at the account Lisa and I share, RC-Lisa) for those who attend online. You can usually also find a link to the week’s study a day or two later right here in this space. We welcome conversation from all in attendance, whatever form it takes. The atmosphere is casual, though the study itself is serious.

Local friends are welcome to come early for dinner at 6:15. Do please let us know if you plan to attend in person. Hope to see you there.

Posted in announcements, Apostles' Creed, assurance, Bible Study, Biblical Doctrines, Holy Spirit, psalms, RC Sproul JR, theology, wisdom | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment