What does it take to be a student of the Word?

Posted on November 3, 2025 by RC

All believers know that the Bible is God’s Word, that it is true in all that it teaches. We know we’re supposed to not only read it, but to be read by it. We’re to study it and to be studied by it. If there’s one thing it reveals about us it’s that we don’t do well as students of it.

What to do? I’d encourage the cultivating of three qualities we don’t necessarily connect to being good students, but that can make all the difference in the world. We begin with curiosity. Duty is less a motivator than delight is. Nobody has to be told to eat their ice cream. The Bible is that book which reveals to us the very grace and glory of God. A childlike wonder is what we are called to.

How many of us, at one time or another, actually feared that heaven might be boring? All that time. No hardships to overcome. A single encounter with the glory of God should cure such silliness. And a deep study of His Word is a constant encounter with that glory. When we look at the Bible as a history of what other people believed it will not likely grip us. When we see it for what it is, the revelation not just from, but the revelation of the Living God, we are drawn in.

Second, humility. We are prone to thinking we’re doing just fine. We may miss the mark by a bit, but it’s not like we’re Hitler. Except that it is like we’re Hitler. As one wise theologian used to say, if you put Hitler on one side of a spectrum and Jesus on the other, then place each of us on the same spectrum, we’d be holding hands with Hitler and needing the Hubble telescope to get a glimpse of Jesus. The Bible is that mirror that reveals to us what we are. But why would anyone want that?

If we start with humility, if we come to God’s Word already knowing our dependence on His grace, then every deeper glimpse of the stain of sin in us is just another cause for celebrating what He has done for us. If we start with pride, the Bible will pummel us instead. Humility reminds us not only that we’re no good, but that the Bible equips us for every good work, that it is profitable for correction.

Finally, courage. Courage is typically something we think we need when facing hardship, when entering into battle. What use is it when we are sitting down with Bible in hand? It’s useful in that context because we are facing hardship, entering into battle. The Bible is sharper than a two-edged sword, and it not only goes before us into battle with the world but comes toward us in our battle with our flesh. Are we willing to face our failures, to confront our consciences, to own our errors?

Curiosity, humility, courage. These three prepare us for the plow cutting into our souls, That the Word might be planted, that Spirit might bear in us an abundance of fruit for the glory of the Gardner.

Tonight, 7:00 eastern, we conclude our Bible study on the character of God, considering the glorious truth that He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Please plan to join us in person or on Facebook Live (RC-Lisa Sproul). For more on this theme, check here.

Posted in Ask RC, Bible Study, hermeneutics, inerrancy, RC Sproul, RC Sproul JR, theology, wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Not Standing But Kneeling; Not Thundering, But Silence

Posted on October 31, 2025 by RC

There was once a great man who managed to upset the religious leaders of his day. They screamed for his blood because he’d bypassed their own power structure, and gained a large popular following. He had taught those under his influence that the traditions they had received were wrong, distortions of the Word. He called them to something far older, something far more biblical. And the world was being turned upside down.

Those in authority accused the man of heresy, demanding that he cease and desist. And then, the most amazing thing happened. The history tells us that “…while He was being accused by the chief priests and elders, He answered nothing. Then Pilate said to Him, ‘Do you hear how many things they testify against You?’ But He answered Him not a word, so that the governor marveled greatly” (Matthew 27:12-14.)

Jesus gave no dramatic speech. He did not thrust His chin out, confess that He could not recant because His conscience was captive, turn on His heels and walk off. Instead He went like a lamb to the slaughter. He submitted Himself to the scribes and Pharisees, to the Roman empire, and more important, the Emperor Beyond the Sea.

Luther did the right thing, standing on the Word at Worms. And we, too often, do all the wrong things in his name. We think that the glory of the Reformation story is that he stood his ground, that he was courageous, immovable, a rock. And so we go in search of the same opportunities.

We boldly stand, and walk out of our churches because this possible inference of that potential trajectory of the other postulation in the pastor’s off-the-cuff remark might impinge on an important doctrine. We brashly defy the American empire, refusing to tell their census taker how many toilets are in our house. We stridently dishonor our parents, because we think them to be not quite as honorable as we are.

Luther is a hero not because he was bold, but because he was meek, not because of his stance, but because of where he stood. I suspect that great speech at Worms was delivered not with bravado, but as a plea, that he whimpered rather than thundered. Luther is a hero because he was willing to be slaughtered for the sake of the Lamb. It was not because he stood, but because he knelt, in submission to the Word.

It is a good thing to want to do great things for the kingdom. It is a better thing to understand that the better thing is almost certainly to submit to those in authority over you. The greatest thing Jesus ever did was not His miracles. It was not the proclamation of His message. It was not even the walking out of the tomb alive. The greatest thing Jesus ever did was to say, at the greatest possible cost, “Yes, Father.” May His grace and power teach me to do the same.

Posted in Biblical Doctrines, Big Eva, church, Devil's Arsenal, Heroes, kingdom, Kingdom Notes | 1 Comment

Here We Stand; We Can Do No Other, God Help Us

Posted on October 30, 2025 by RC

The difference between a right perspective and a wrong one is rarely a matter of data. It can happen that way. I may think I need a snowblower because I believe Fort Wayne averages 212 inches of snow annually. It does not. Not even close.

More often, but still not that often, the difference between a right perspective and a wrong one could be a matter of logic. I may think that my cat is a dog because I know that all dogs are four legged animals. And that my cat is a four legged animal. Therefore, my cat is a dog. The premises are true. The conclusion does not follow.

I suggest that the most common reason we end up with a wrong perspective, however, is we lack courage. I can’t, I admit, give you data to prove this. I cannot produce an iron-clad syllogism. But I still believe it’s true. While sin’s impact on our senses may lead us to misread data and its impact on our minds may lead us to reason poorly, its impact on our hearts is the real culprit. We choose what we want to believe on the basis of how it impacts our lives.

In our day, the most widely practiced hermeneutic among professing believers runs something like this- whatever this Scripture is saying, it cannot be saying I am wrong, that I have sin in me. Premise 1 of all our syllogisms is “I don’t have to change.” We may be willing to wrestle with the text, but as soon as the referee pounds the mat twice we call time out.

It isn’t, however, just the Bible. Whatever issue we may be discussing or debating, we are prone to choose the one where we come out looking the best. The postmoderns are quite right, that most of our discourse is not about the dispassionate pursuit of truth, but the secret pursuit of power. A groveling, lickspittle “power” to be sure.

Whether we call it “winsome” Christianity, third way-ism or cultural engagement, we are fools to believe we are wiser than Jesus. He promises us that as we follow Him we should expect the hatred of the world. Jesus commands of us that we consider the cost, and then take up our cross. We forget that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than it is for the Bible to fit through the Overton window.

Love for the world is hatred toward God. Public approval is just as merciless a task master as mammon. We have but one Lord, and He will not share our loyalty with another. Courage calls us to follow Jesus. It calls us to follow the truth. Courage commands us to immovably proclaim that Jesus and the truth are one and the same. The fear of man is a snare. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. May the Lord grant us the courage to be hated, in the confidence that we are beloved.

Posted in 10 Commandments, apologetics, Biblical Doctrines, Devil's Arsenal, hermeneutics, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, logic, RC Sproul JR, Reformation, wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

This week’s I Am Bible Study- God is Gracious

Posted on October 29, 2025 by RC

Posted in 10 Commandments, assurance, beauty, Bible Study, Biblical Doctrines, communion, creation, Doctrines of Grace, eschatology, grace, RC Sproul JR, theology, wonder, worship | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Encore JCE, Honoring the Ghosts of Halloween Past

Posted on October 29, 2025 by RC

Still getting the gremlins out of the podcast machine, but here is an encore presentation fitting for the season. A That 70s Kid segment on the tricks of trick or treat, and encouragement to take up and read the great Nathaniel Hawthorne short story, Young Goodman Brown. Grab some apple cider, stoke the fire and enjoy.

This week’s scary encore presentation of the Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

Posted in Books, Jesus Changes Everything, Nostalgia, RC Sproul JR, seasons, special edition, That 70s Kid | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The Science of Laughter and the Laughter of Science

Posted on October 28, 2025 by RC

I know they do this. In a world where a new crop of dissertations is needed every year and research grants can make or break a university I’m sure there have been extensive scientific studies into laughter. Without so much as asking Grok, however, I’m equally sure that they missed the joke. Laughter is precisely the kind of thing that will always confound scientists because it is so intensely human. It bubbles up to the surface from the parts of us too deep to fit in a test tube. To put it another way, you can’t get there from here.

Which is why it’s so funny, and telling, that they try. One of the most common forms of humor is when the prideful take a fall. The Emperor’s, shall we say, exposure, comes from this fertile field. How much more ridiculously prideful can man be then when he thinks he has a fundamental understanding of man? We must laugh when one of us takes another of us and earnestly tries to squeeze us under a microscope. And when our bellies begin to shake, instead of joining in the fun, the fool scientist sits down to take notes.

The Bible says we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:4). I’m enormously grateful for those who make careful study of our bodies, who develop skills in healing and making well. I have nothing but admiration for scientists who seek to think God’s thoughts after Him. Trying to grasp laughter, however, isn’t a man seeking to think God’s thoughts after Him but seeking to think himself god. It is a baby dressed in a business suit, an ant driving a car.

God, in His glory, has done something glorious with us. He has made us so complex, so grand in bearing His image, that every one of us that seeks to diminish us by claiming to master us, sits on a whoopee cushion. Anyone who claims humans are simple enough to understand doesn’t understand that humans are too simple to have that understanding. Anyone who rightly professes that we are too complex to understand shows himself a fool when he claims to understand.

This is not just true of laughter, but all that we are. The behaviorists who insist we can shape people by shaping their environment first must confess that the only reason they believe that is because they’re conditioned to. The people in favor of big government, on the grounds that people are so terrible, seem to forget that big government is led by terrible people. Those who insist that our denial of our racism is proof of our racism find themselves hoisted on the same petard. People are people and what’s sauce for the geese is sauce for all the other geese. It’s funny, you know?

One last thing. Don’t know if you’ve heard, but Buzz Lightyear recently got engaged. He and his fiancee’s bridal registry is at Bed, Bath… AND BEYOND.

Posted in Biblical Doctrines, creation, Devil's Arsenal, Education, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, philosophy, RC Sproul JR, wisdom, wonder | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dinner and a Bible Study, Tonight: God Is Gracious

Posted on October 27, 2025 by RC

We continue our weekly Monday night Bible study. We begin at 7:00, but local guests are invited to come for dinner too, at 6:15.

We air the study on Facebook Live (RC-Lisa Sproul). Within a day or two we post the video of the study right here for those who would like to watch on their own schedule.

We’d love to have you with us, in person if possible. We’d love for you to invite your friends. Our study considers the attributes of God, unpacking just a hint of His ineffable glory. Tonight- God Is Gracious

Posted in announcements, Bible Study, Biblical Doctrines, Doctrines of Grace, grace, RC Sproul JR, theology | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Which of your father’s books is your favorite?

Posted on October 27, 2025 by RC

First, confession time. I am not 100% confident that I have read all his more than 100 books. Most of them to be sure, many of them when they were in manuscript form. Like most people I too delight over my father’s capacity to make complex things clear. I too find his style engaging. I too come away from all his books the better for it. Which doesn’t mean I don’t prefer some over others.

I divide my father’s books into two categories- those he couldn’t not write, and those his publishers persuaded him to write. They’re all good, but there is something special about a book that came out of his internal zeal. Not A Chance grew directly out of a Christmas present I helped my mother pick out for him, a telescope. The joy he took in that led to reading widely on the philosophy of science and, coupled with his pre-existent penchant for piercing logic, out came the book. It is among my favorites. Faith Alone was another that burned inside him and had to come out.

Among my favorites, certainly in my top 5, are two that are not as well known. If There’s a God, Why Are There Atheists? and The Soul’s Quest for God. The former was one of his earliest books, having been released in 1974 as The Psychology of Atheism. He was still developing both his voice and his ideas, and that’s part of the pleasure. You can see The Holiness of God in its larva stage in its pages.

The Soul’s Quest for God I love for its subject matter. My father’s skill at explaining things is only a small part of his gift. He could also, when he wanted to, move us with what he informed us of. Too many look to my father as a source of good arguments for good theology. This book demonstrates he was a good goad to a closer walk with Jesus.

My favorite, however, may be the most obscure of all the books he wrote. It is the one I could not put down. It is the one I was most eager to share with others (which explains why I don’t even have a copy anymore.) It spent not very long in print, either as a hardback or a paperback. It’s original title, Johnny Come Home. In paperback it was Thy Brother’s Keeper. It’s a novel, a virtual roman a clef. It tells the story of two young men, best friends who encounter Jesus. One leaves Jesus behind, the other goes on to have a national ministry. And it is very good.

With this book my father let himself free as he wrote. The beauty that undergirds the gospel is its foundation. The characters are real and well-developed, the story-line compelling. What I love about it most, however, is all that it showed me about him. The façade of a novel opened the door for my father to reveal himself as he did nowhere else.

It was, as I read it in manuscript form as a teenager, the first time I realized that my dad wasn’t perfect, that he wasn’t as self-assured as he seemed. It revealed also, however, that in his humanity he was a beautiful man, redeemed by a beautiful Savior. I miss him. Not the charming teacher of theology. Him.

Posted in 10 Commandments, Ask RC, Books, grace, Heroes, on writing well, RC Sproul, RC Sproul JR, wonder | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Total World Conquest Through The Power of Repentance

Posted on October 24, 2025 by RC

The world is full of hypocrites. The solution to this problem is twofold. If you’re more modern, you deal with the gap between obedience and what you pretend to be by trying harder. You try to make your sin go away. If you’re postmodern, you deal with sin not by doing better, but by getting rid of the idea of sin. If there is no right and wrong, no one can rightly accuse you of acting like you are right when you are actually wrong.

The church is likewise full of hypocrites. Because we claim to be citizens of heaven but are suffused with the world, our solutions often look just like the world’s solution. We either, if we tend toward the modern, try harder to sin less and thus shorten the gap between what we pretend to be and what we are. Or, if we tend to be more postmodern, we muddy up God’s law, revel in a soft grace, and accuse our conscience of being a legalist.

The Bible’s solution, however, is neither to try to reduce the sin nor to reduce the idea of sin. It is instead to repent. We deal with our hypocrisy, our folly of pretending to be better than we are, by confessing how bad we actually are. We enter more fully into our sin by entering more fully into repentance.

Consider this: How quick are you to repent? If you’re anything like me, you’ve just this moment added several more things to repent of. First, pride. I suspect that you, if you are like me, think yourself a pretty decent repenter. You likely wish that others would learn from your wonderful example and do likewise. Indeed, now that I mention it, you can think of several people that owe you an apology, and aren’t you the one being so gracious about it up until now?

Second, lying. I suspect that you, if you are like me, have in thinking all of the above lied to yourself in an egregious way. You are deluded, your delusions springing forth from your deceitful heart like so many dandelions on a spring day.

Third, pride again. Here your pride is less about you and more about Jesus. That is, our failure to understand what failures we are is in turn a reflection on the work of Christ. We diminish His work on our behalf when we diminish the scope of our own sin. Fourth, unrepentance. That is, because, like me, you are a bigger sinner than you are willing to face; you have not repented for your sins like you ought. You have repented lightly for dark sins.

What should you do? You could get mad at me for pointing this all out. Or, you could repent. You could ask that God would forgive you for thinking too highly of yourself. You could ask that He would empower you to be swift to see your own sins and swift in turn to confess them both to Him and to those that you have wronged. You could ask that you might have earned the right to have etched on your gravestone: “He was quick to repent.” And you could thank God for His provision of His Son so that we can be forgiven.

You could ask Him to gently remind you each time you find yourself unhappy about the sins of your family, your neighbors, your fellow parishioners from your church, your parents, your elders, and others that such would be a prompt to you to assess honestly your own weaknesses. That we are sinners is a problem solved by the coming of Jesus the Savior. That we don’t know we are sinners — that is a problem for the Holy Spirit, who convicts and sanctifies.

The answer to every problem, no matter how complex, is simple — repent and believe the gospel. As frustrating as our own blindness might be, the light has come into the world. As maddening as our weaknesses might be, the Sovereign One has come and dwelt among us. As embarrassing as our pride might be, the One who is poor in Spirit has sent the Spirit to lead us into all truth, including the ugly truth about ourselves.

Before we take over the levers of power, before we dominion our way back to prosperity, before we press the crown rights of King Jesus over the culture, may we remember the crown of thorns and repent. And when we have repented, let us repent again for the anemia of our repentance. Then, let us believe that He is at work in us both to do and to will His good pleasure. And all these things will be added unto us.

Posted in 10 Commandments, abortion, Biblical Doctrines, church, Devil's Arsenal, grace, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, politics, post-modernism, RC Sproul JR, repentance | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Finding Who We Are By Finding Where We Are

Posted on October 23, 2025 by RC

Festival season is beginning to wind down. Here in Fort Wayne, Indiana Johnny Appleseed Days are in the rearview mirror. In my old hometown of Ligonier, Pennsylvania, Fort Ligonier Days have come and gone. These festivals have a great deal in common with festivals around the country. They tend to be held around the end of harvest. Many of them feature fair foods- funnel cakes and fried oreo cookies. A parade is often involved, with homecoming courts being squired along in convertibles.

There are, however, also distinctives. These festivals often zero in either on a regional food at harvest time, or on some historic event or personage. Here we remember John Chapman, the folk hero known as Johnny Appleseed, who passed away while in Fort Wayne. In Ligonier we remember the battle that took place during the French and Indian War, when the fort was commanded by a young colonel, George Washington.

As much as we might enjoy all that is common to these festivities, it is the distinctives that give each festival its charm. These are times for local communities to celebrate what makes them distinct from every other community. They are expressions of local, folk culture.

Which the juggernaut of pop culture continues to mow right over. Our shared experiences are increasingly less and less defined by the boundaries of our hometown, more and more defined by what’s streaming, what’s gone viral, what the latest craze is.

Folk culture is designed to be permanent, to sustain a local culture. Pop culture is designed to be disposable, to sustain the wealth of its creators. One encourages each of us to remember who we are, the other to forget, to be absorbed into the Borg. We are not merely allowing, but choosing to lose our accents, our peculiar vocabulary and phrases, our enigmatic habits, our acquired tastes. We want to be like everyone else.

Until we don’t. It is precisely because we are not made to live and move and have our being in pop culture that we actually, at least this time of year, remember what we once were, how we used to do things, even what we used to eat. Local festivals are celebrations of localities, and the loved ones who claim them as home.

Railroads, telegraphs, radios, televisions, a sea of franchise strip malls and the internet have done well to connect us to each other. But at the cost of disconnecting us from ourselves. May we better learn to remember where we are, that we might better remember who we are.

Ahab’s Horse

A man nursed a field, just as his father had
When along came an evil man, wicked King Ahab.
A family name was plowed under, and blood now stains the ground
You can still hear Naboth crying in that whistle’s sound.

Ahab’s horse keeps running, grinding men within its gears
It came to town and tore it down, driving here away from here.

They dangled foreign dainties, fruits found in fields afar
Made us free our jubilee, made continental scar.
They promised power paradise was just around the bend
And just around and just around and just around again.

Ahab’s horse keeps running, grinding men within its gears
It came to town and tore it down, driving here away from here.

They next strung up their wires to bring us distant cares
By dash and dot our focus caught on vanities’ affairs
A man knows not his neighbor when he studies teletype
The fruit of human kindness trodden under, over-ripe.

Ahab’s horse keeps running, grinding men within its gears
It came to town and tore it down, driving here away from here.

A Man, a land, a plan that never the twain be torn
A Horseman cometh one day and e’en this evil He has born
His wrath white hot, unquenching burns
And Ahab to his bile returns.

Ahab’s horse now paddocked, taken captive away
Home then here and here then home; we’ll drink new wine that day.

Posted in beauty, creation, cyberspace, Devil's Arsenal, friends, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, Nostalgia, poetry, RC Sproul JR, seasons, wonder | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments