“Great news, folks! We’ve arranged a training night for . . .” (insert pastoral care team, children’s ministry, music team, etc.). Does that sound like good news? Even with coffee and donuts, many just hear this as another demand on scarce time. But training for ministry isn’t optional polish; it’s how we love God’s people and honor Christ.

Everybody is busy. Time is at a premium. How can we ask those involved in leading ministry in our local churches to invest more of that precious time training for ministry rather than actually doing it? How can we make it feel significant and not just another box to tick before the real work begins?

Ministry Is for Everyone

First, we need to see that ministry is for everyone. Not all are called as pastoral ministers, but all are called to use their spiritual gifts to benefit the church in some way (Rom. 12:4–8). That should be exhilarating. The King of the church, who can do all things without any assistance, has included you and me on His team to accomplish His glorious mission. We’re all different, but He has a role for you in the life of people who need to be reached with the gospel or who are seeking to live as followers of Jesus. And what we do will have eternal consequences. That sounds like something to get excited about! But it also means that when we neglect training, in addition to stunting our own growth, we weaken the church’s capacity to love and teach.

Listen to the instruction Paul gives Timothy, the man he is mentoring in pastoral ministry: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).

Do Your Best

We need to train for ministry because we want to do our best for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For example, when I hear the pianists at our church, I recognize that I am not like them. Though I learned to play the piano when I was young and understood the basics quickly, I didn’t practice or learn from an experienced teacher or train enough to improve. We should not let this happen in our ministries that serve Jesus.

“Do your best” is an invitation to work hard. God has said He will enable us, but that does not preclude the need to train as best as we can so that we are equipped to serve God as well as possible. Maybe you could ask a mature leader to observe you and give constructive feedback, or take a course to develop your abilities. Perhaps you could resolve to practice weekly a skill you use to serve.

Rightly Handling the Word of Truth

All of this starts by rightly handling the Word of truth, the Bible. Knowing, understanding, and being able to apply God’s Word to your life and ministry requires training. So, find ways to grow in your understanding of the Bible, God’s character, and the way He calls His people to serve Him. Delve deep into the delights of God as He reveals Himself in His Word. The more we know God, the more we will desire to serve Him. The more we reflect on all He is and has done for us, the more we will be shaped by His Spirit into the kind of people fitted for service in the gospel. Knowing God’s Word and being shaped by its truth is essential for everyone as they serve God in any capacity, not just pastors and teachers.

Finally, training is not merely pragmatic; it is an act of worship as we offer our minds and methods to Christ. How we serve God in the church and the world is one of the primary ways we respond to the gospel. How we serve shows the glory of our Savior and the thankfulness we have for being saved. The stakes are incredibly high as we seek to communicate the life-changing message of Jesus Christ.

Before becoming a minister, I was a physical education teacher. It took me four years to qualify for that position. If it took me four years to qualify to teach forward rolls, how much more should we prepare to handle souls and the Word? I am now involved in the selection and training of ministers for my denomination. In ministerial training, we teach not only what to do but why it must be done. And the things we do in training are applicable for all forms of ministry. We underpin all our programs with constant reflections on the gospel of Jesus. This does not have to feel demanding. When we see God in all His majesty and delight, the way He relates to sinners like us, and when we remember how Christ has welcomed us in the gospel, then we train not to earn acceptance but to serve in joy.

God has given you a role in His church, so receive training as a gift. Choose one step this month—find a mentor, enroll in a course, or establish a rhythm of learning—and offer your growth to Jesus.

“Are you going to hell when you die?”

How often have you heard this question come up in conversation? Probably not often. Yet this is a question of eternal significance. It concerns the condition of our souls before the holy God.

Today, we live in a world that desperately avoids such questions. Many people live as though reality is limited to what we can see, hear, and feel. Others laugh away life’s greatest questions. We see this every October as our society trivializes the demonic as a source of amusement. Satan is happy for people to fear haunted houses and scary movies, so long as they remain blind to the eternal destruction of their souls.

Even Christians are tempted to live as though this world were all there is. Yet in the words of Dr. R.C. Sproul, “Right now counts forever.” He taught us that we can only truly understand our lives in light of unseen realities.

Ligonier Ministries confronts spiritual apathy by proclaiming the eternal truth of God and applying it to all of life. With our prayerful and generous supporters, we’re providing clear Bible teaching around the world.

Your gift of any amount this month can accelerate this outreach in an increasingly secular age. As thanks, we’ll send you Unseen Realities by Dr. Sproul. This book brings biblical clarity on the spiritual realm that impacts our daily lives.

We are a people at war. Yet this struggle is not against flesh and blood (Eph. 6:12). Satan has blinded the minds of billions, leading the world in rebellion against God. This battle rages because our Lord Jesus Christ has invaded the domain of darkness to redeem His people. Through His death and resurrection, Christ has delivered us from the devil’s tyranny and brought us into God’s eternal kingdom.

In this battle for souls, Ligonier Ministries does not shy away from confronting people with the truth about God and about themselves. Our teaching resources directly address the holiness of God, the threat of Satan, and the urgency of the gospel. Since God’s Word makes Christians sober-minded and watchful, we can “resist the devil, and he will flee” (James 4:7).

Your support reaches more people with truth to fortify their souls:

• All of Dr. Sproul’s 170+ teaching series are now free to stream. Thank you for helping to remove financial barriers to these 1,400+ messages to strengthen the global church.

• Ligonier’s app serves Christians around the world, around the clock. With your support, significant app upgrades now help more Christians set their minds on eternal truth.

• Hundreds of thousands of pastors worldwide are receiving the Reformation Study Bible to better shepherd their flocks and equip their congregations for spiritual warfare.

Through all of Ligonier’s outreaches, we seek to arm our Lord’s church with the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God (Eph 6:17). And since Satan never rests from sowing seeds of indifference, neither can we slow down from rousing sleepers to watchfulness.

Help us spread the Word to every nation and generation, knowing that victory in Christ is certain. When you donate this month, we’ll send you Dr. Sproul’s book Unseen Realities. R.C. draws our attention to the spiritual battle around us. His chapters on angels and demons, heaven and hell, remind us of the eternal significance of our lives and our absolute dependence on the Lord Jesus.

Since Christ has overcome the evil one, we can march forward with confidence. Thank you for joining Ligonier in proclaiming the holiness of God with full assurance that the gates of hell will never prevail against our King and His church.

Preparing a “top 5” list of commentaries on the book of Revelation is extremely challenging in a number of ways. Commentators differ on many basic issues, from the structure of the book (recapitulation, chronological ordering, telescoping, etc.) to the basic interpretive approach (futurist, preterist, historicist, idealist, eclectic) to its date of composition (which itself affects one’s interpretive approach). All these differences and more mean that it is very rare for someone to find a commentary on Revelation with which they agree on every point. I cannot point to a single commentary with which I agree entirely. My own understanding of the book is set forth in a very summary manner in the last chapter of my book From Age to Age (a chapter that is not intended to be read until all of the other chapters have been completed). I have found very helpful material in a number of commentaries that approach the book from perspectives different than my own. In short, this “top 5” list will be a bit different from all the others in that these five commentaries are not listed in any particular order. I have merely listed the five that I regularly consult for different reasons. They are not by any means the only five commentaries a student of Scripture should consult. For more, see the “Runners-Up” section following the top 5 list.

1. The Revelation to John by Stephen S. Smalley

I include Stephen Smalley’s commentary on Revelation in this top 5 list because I believe his view of the dating of the book is essentially correct. In his commentary, and more fully in his book Thunder and Love, Smalley argues that the book was written in the reign of Vespasian (AD 69–79), just before the fall of Jerusalem to Titus in AD 70. As I explain in my own book, this view of the date of Revelation fits very well with several pieces of evidence, including what John writes in Rev. 17:9–11. I cannot wholeheartedly recommend this commentary as the best, however, because I differ with Smalley’s interpretive approach. Despite the fact that his view of the book’s date lends itself to a basically preterist view, Smalley takes a modified idealist approach instead. Although the modified idealist approach does not go as far as some traditional idealist approaches that tend to treat almost everything in the book as timeless symbols, I remain persuaded that more emphasis needs to be placed on the specific historical context and audience.

2. The Book of Revelation by G.K. Beale

Many Reformed and evangelical scholars argue that Beale has written the best available contemporary commentary on Revelation. It is outstanding. Beale’s commentary is the place to turn for insight on the many Old Testament allusions and echoes in the book of Revelation. My one fundamental reservation about the book has to do with Beale’s modified idealist approach. Revelation is a prophecy (1:3; 19:10; 22:7, 10, 18, 19). We do not interpret Old Testament prophetic books in an idealist manner. They were written to specific people in a specific time and place, often referring to specific imminent judgments and promising a time of restoration in the distant future. Revelation is very similar, I believe, in that it is dealing with the imminent destruction of Jerusalem and the restoration that will take place at the consummation. To interpret it in an idealist manner is to decontextualize it. Beale’s commentary, however, contains a wealth of information and should be consulted by any serious student of Scripture. There is also an abridged version for those who do not require all of the technical material.

3. The Divorce of Israel, 2 vols. by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

I first heard about Kenneth Gentry’s Revelation commentary project in the late 1990s and even placed a footnote about his forthcoming work in a book I wrote in 1999. I thought Gentry’s commentary would be published a few years after that. I was wrong. It was not published until 2024, but that is largely due to the immense amount of labor it requires to write this kind of verse-by-verse commentary on such a difficult book. It was worth the wait, however. We now have, in addition to great in-depth commentaries on Revelation from the futurist and idealist perspectives, a great commentary from a basically preterist perspective. Until now, if I wanted to recommend a decent preterist commentary on Revelation, I was forced to recommend David Clark’s little work (see below) because I have serious reservations about David Chilton’s hermeneutical approach to Scripture. Gentry has solved that problem by writing a preterist commentary on the book that doesn’t get into the hermeneutical oddities that characterize Chilton’s work.

4. Revelation 1-5; Revelation 6-16, and Revelation 17-22 by David E. Aune

David Aune’s massive commentary on the book of Revelation is another that should be consulted by every serious student of Scripture. The strongest point of Aune’s commentary is the amount of information it contains regarding relevant extrabiblical literature that sheds light on the historical context. Regarding the date of the book, Aune takes a slightly complicated view. He believes the book went through stages of composition. He argues that Revelation 1:7–12a and 4:1–22:5 were probably composed around AD 70, but he believes the final edition of the book was put together during the reign of Trajan (AD 98–117). The primary problem with this commentary, however, is that it loses sight of the forest for all the trees. Aune is very helpful with the details of the text and the details of extrabiblical literature. He is not as helpful when it comes to the point of understanding what the book means—its message and theology. He looks closely at the brush strokes, but he looks so closely that his readers can easily lose sight of the big picture.

5. A Commentary on the Revelation of John by George Eldon Ladd

Some readers may be surprised that I would recommend Ladd’s commentary since Ladd is an historic premillennialist. Despite differing with Ladd’s millennial view, I believe his commentary still contains a wealth of interpretive insight. Ladd describes his interpretive approach as a blending of the preterist and futurist methods, which means that he recognizes the relevance of the immediate historical context. His dating of the book during the reign of Domitian, late in the first century, causes some problems, in my opinion, but this classic commentary is well worth consulting.

Runners-Up

There are a number of other helpful commentaries on the book of Revelation, including those by Grant Osborne, Joel Beeke, Derek Thomas, Paul Gardner, Robert Mounce, Ben Witherington, G.B. Caird, Craig Keener, Leon Morris, Ian Paul, William Hendriksen, Simon Kistemaker, Peter Leithart (Vol. 1, Vol. 2), Vern Poythress, Dennis Johnson, and Sam Storms.

The best contemporary commentary written from a dispensationalist perspective is Buist Fanning’s commentary in the ZECNT series. It is better, in my opinion, than the classic dispensationalist commentary on Revelation by John F. Walvoord. A good, although very short, older preterist commentary is David Clark’s The Message From Patmos.

Helpful Related Works

Although it is not a commentary, I would be remiss if I did not mention the classic little book by Richard Bauckham titled The Theology of the Book of Revelation. If you are interested in understanding Revelation, Bauckham’s book is a must-read.¹

We know very little about Zephaniah. The book that bears his name runs only three chapters, and Scripture does not speak of him elsewhere. He comes to us without a narrative of his calling or ministry. We have only the superscription that opens his book and the meaning carried by the name it records. Yet from these few details we can learn who Zephaniah was, what his message means, and how it points us to Christ.

A Prophet of Royal Descent

The prophets are usually named only by their father, yet Zephaniah begins with a genealogy that traces his lineage back four generations to a man named Hezekiah (Zeph. 1:1). There is good reason to believe that this is King Hezekiah (2 Kings 18–20; 2 Chron. 29–32), which would mean that Zephaniah stood in the royal line, the great-great-grandson of Judah’s great reforming king. That his genealogy stops at Hezekiah may be significant, as Josiah, the king in Zephaniah’s own day, was a reformer too. This would also explain several features of the book. Zephaniah seems familiar with the palace, whose court officials and princes he specifically indicts (Zeph. 1:8), and he knows Jerusalem intimately, down to its gates and market districts (Zeph. 1:10–11).

He appears to be a prophet raised up from inside the royal covenant line itself. His name tells us something as well, and it may hint at the purpose and trajectory of the book. Zephaniah means “the Lord has hidden,” or “the Lord has treasured up.” The prophecy holds out a great hope to the faithful: Even when God’s wrath is poured out, His people have a refuge and hiding place (Zeph. 2:3).

A Prophet of Josiah’s Reign

Zephaniah ministered during the reign of Josiah (640–609 BC). He was a contemporary of the prophets Jeremiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk at a critical moment in covenant history. Generations of unfaithful kings and people had brought Judah to the edge of covenant judgment, and the Northern Kingdom was already in exile. But Josiah recovered the Book of the Law and instituted reformation. Zephaniah may have been a godly influence upon the young Josiah (2 Chron. 34:3). Still, it appears that Zephaniah prophesied early in Josiah’s reign, since he still confronts an active Baal cult, hearts divided between the Lord and Milcom (the god of the Ammonites), and priests who profane their office.

In this setting, Zephaniah functions as a prosecutor of the Lord’s covenant. God often used His prophets to call the people to repentance and faith, and, where they refused, to pronounce His judgment. The blessings and curses of Deuteronomy hung over Israel as the sworn terms of her life with God, and Zephaniah was sent to press those terms upon a people who had broken them.

A Prophet of the Day of the Lord

The great theme of his message is the day of the Lord, which runs throughout Scripture. Zephaniah shows us that this day will be nothing less than a de-creation event, as the Lord comes against sin in His wrath (Zeph. 1:2–3). The clearest historical touchpoint was the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 587 BC. That was a coming of the day of the Lord, yet it only anticipated many more to come. The destruction of the temple in AD 70 was another. The ultimate day of the Lord awaits the final judgment, so Zephaniah speaks beyond his own generation to the reckoning still ahead.

That reckoning does not pass over the house of the Lord. Having sentenced the surrounding nations, Zephaniah turns and exposes Jerusalem as no less guilty (Zeph. 3:1–4). This cannot have been an easy word for him to preach. He pronounced ruin on his own city and his own people—perhaps even on relatives in the palace. Formally belonging to the covenant people did not shield them from God’s judgment. Many within that community never truly believed, and the Lord would purify His own. The lesson for us is sobering. Formal membership in the church, or outward participation in the things of God, does not settle our standing before Him. We need a regenerate heart. We must trust in Christ alone for salvation and not in works of the law. Nevertheless, the day that threatens is also the day that purifies, for the Lord’s purpose is to preserve a remnant who take refuge in His name (Zeph. 3:12).

This is why a book so filled with judgment ends in song. The Lord has taken away the judgments against His people, and their King has come to dwell among them: “The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst” (Zeph. 3:15). Zephaniah points us not to any son of David but to the Lord Himself, present among them as “a mighty one who will save” (Zeph. 3:17). This is the hope fulfilled in Jesus Christ, in whom God Himself has come to dwell with us. He gathers and purifies the remnant and bears their judgments Himself. As the great and chief Shepherd of the sheep, He lays down His life for them. On the far side of judgment lies the true consummation. It is not a return to the garden but an entrance into the new heavens and the new earth in glory. Christ secures salvation for all His people, and He will come again as the One whom Zephaniah proclaimed, quieting us by His love and exulting over us with loud singing.

How serious is our sin?

The State of Theology survey has returned to the United Kingdom, revealing what people really believe about God, the Bible, and salvation.

The results reveal significant confusion, even among professing Christians.

63% of evangelicals in the United Kingdom agree with the statement, “Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.”

This response shows that the confusion has grown worse since Ligonier’s last UK survey in 2018, when 48% of UK evangelicals agreed with this false statement.

Now, nearly two-thirds of evangelicals seem to misunderstand the effects of the fall. Though God created humanity upright and in His image (Gen. 1:26–27), Adam’s sin corrupted the entire human race. We’re not good people who occasionally do wrong. By nature, we are fallen sinners in desperate need of God’s grace.

Scripture is clear about the seriousness of our sinful condition. We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s perfect standard of righteousness (Rom. 3:23). That is why we need Jesus Christ, the only One who has perfectly obeyed God’s law and whose righteousness alone can make sinners right with our holy Creator.

Download the Free Study Guide

These survey results are serious, and they warrant serious discussion. Gather a group and download the free digital study guide for The State of Theology UK. Each section includes discussion questions and biblical insight to guide your conversation.

More Resources on Total Depravity

R.C. Sproul founded Ligonier to help Christians know who God is and who they are. Here are several of our resources addressing the Bible’s teaching on the doctrine of total depravity.

• The Bondage of the Will, book by Martin Luther
• “Radical Corruption” article by R.C. Sproul
• “The Sinfulness of Man” message from Reformation Truths with Michael Reeves
• “TULIP and Reformed Theology: Total Depravity” article by R.C. Sproul
• “The Bondage of the Will” article by Nicholas Needham

Have you ever asked or been asked the following questions: Are you Reformed? When did you become Reformed? Is this a Reformed church? These questions are common, but they can be surprisingly difficult to answer.¹

So, what is Reformed theology? At its most basic level, the term Reformed theology refers to the theological conclusions flowing out of the Protestant Reformation. The early Reformers, such as Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Calvin, had sharp and specific criticisms of late medieval Roman Catholic theology. The Reformers rejected the Roman Catholic teaching on the nature of justification and the place of individual saving faith. They also rejected the Roman Catholic claims about the authority of the pope, asserting that the Bible alone held the place of final authority in discussions of doctrine. Further, they rejected the Roman Catholic understanding of worship and the place and meaning of the sacraments of baptism and communion.

Today, when the term Reformed theology is used, it often refers to something less historical. Often it refers to a theology that acknowledges the doctrine of predestination and holds to a high view of the Bible as God’s inerrant Word. Sometimes it is also identified with the so-called five points of Calvinism: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. These are all important teachings of the Reformed tradition, but they do not fully encapsulate or describe Reformed theology.

A better starting place is five statements that have been called the five solas of the Reformation. These five solas (sola is the Latin word for “only” or “alone”) are sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), sola fide (faith alone), sola gratia (grace alone), solus Christus (Christ alone), and soli Deo gloria (God’s glory alone). Put together, these solas clearly express the central concerns of the Protestant Reformation, which was about worship and authority within the church as much as it was about individual salvation. The “alone” in each is vital, and they emphasize the sufficiency of God’s Word and the gracious nature of salvation, received by faith alone, in Christ alone. The last of the five solas, soli Deo gloria, is the natural outworking of the first four. It reminds us that Reformed theology understands all of life in terms of the glory of God. To be Reformed in our thinking is to be God-centered. Salvation is from the Lord from beginning to end, and even our existence is a gift from Him.

Beyond the five solas, there are two more aspects of Reformed theology to highlight. The first is the doctrine of the covenant. In the Scriptures, we see that God works out His saving purposes by means of successive covenants. In fact, the Bible speaks of an overarching “eternal covenant,” centered on the cross of Christ (Heb. 13:20). Covenants provide the biblical framework for understanding God’s work in Christ and His dealings with His people throughout history. The centrality of this covenantal structure in the Bible and the Christian life can hardly be overstated, and the ramifications for recognizing this central theme in the Scriptures are quite significant. Indeed, this is one of the reasons why merely emphasizing predestination, or even the five points of Calvinism, does not do justice to what it means to be a Reformed Christian. Reformed theology is whole-Bible theology, and the covenant is the biblical framework that shows the unity of both the Old Testament and the New, centering on the Lord Jesus Christ.

In addition, all vibrant and enduring expressions of Reformed Christianity have confessions of faith that give expressions to their convictions. The best known of the mature Reformed confessions include the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort (which together are called the Three Forms of Unity), and the Westminster Confession of Faith, which has its own catechisms. From its earliest days, it was assumed that Reformed theology would be expressed in confessions of faith. Therefore, to be Reformed is to be confessional, and to be a Reformed church is to be a place in which one of these historic confessions is professed, taught, and followed.

What is Reformed theology? It is a theology that 1) affirms the five solas with all their implications; 2) recognizes the centrality of the covenant in God’s saving purposes; and 3) is expressed in a historic and public confession of faith.

Reformed theology is a blessing to God’s people. In our salvation, in our worship, in our churches, and in our families, God is sovereign, and He is at work accomplishing His purposes. To God alone be all the glory.²

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

“For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Rom. 11:33–36)

Judges is a book of history. Much of the Old Testament recounts the checkered history of lsrael, beginning with its patriarchal ancestry, to its birth as a nation, to its national demise under foreign rule. When we read Old Testament history, it is important to remember that there is more to it than simple facts about dates, characters, or events. The Apostle Paul underscored this when he wrote to the Roman Christians that “whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction” (Rom. 15:4) and similarly to the Corinthians that what happened to Israel was an example “written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Cor. 10:11). Psalm 78 shows that this was not just a Pauline assessment. The psalm recounts Israel’s history from the exodus to David’s monarchy. Before the historical account, however, the psalmist said, “I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old” (Ps. 78:2). In other words, the facts of history pointed to something below the surface. Certainly, biblical history is reliable and accurately records facts about real people, places, and events, but its purpose is to communicate spiritual lessons and to call for a spiritual response. In the Hebrew Bible, the placement of Judges and other historical books in the section of the canon called the Prophets suggests that there was more to the stories than what appeared on the surface.

So in reading Judges, we must discern the spiritual purpose, which is going to be in keeping with Scripture’s overall redemptive purpose. Genesis 3:15, the protoevangelium (the first gospel), is the key to discerning God’s purpose in Old Testament history—indeed, of all history, including modern history and the history that is yet to happen. Immediately after Eve yielded to the serpent’s temptation and Adam plunged humanity into the curse of sin by joining her in eating the forbidden fruit, God announced to the serpent His unfailing plan to reverse that curse:

“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.” (Gen. 3:15)

Redemptive history traces the tension and hostility between the two seeds and the certain success of the Seed of the woman, Christ. Much of Old Testament history reveals Satan’s relentless attempt to thwart the gospel and God’s unstoppable resolve to fulfill His purpose in the gospel. There is a sense in which all Old Testament history is progressing unfailingly and steadily from the fall to the fullness of time when Christ will come to reverse the curse. Old Testament history, including Judges, is conclusive proof of God’s unfailing purpose and plan. In many ways, the book of Judges is dark and distressing. At many points during the period of the judges, it appeared that the darkness would prevail, threatening and jeopardizing the progression of God’s redemp­tive plan. But there was a light to shine in the darkness. Even the dark days of the judges assured, “Here comes Jesus.”

When regarding Old Testament history, we always face the challenge of the gap between the ancient account and the modern setting. On the surface, some things in the Old Testament appear to be without value or rel­evance to the church, being either outdated, such as how to offer sacrifices, or even offensive, such as the divine command to destroy the Canaanites. But bridging the gap between the “then” of Judges and the “now” of today is not particularly difficult. There are many obvious parallels between then and now with both collective and individual implications. The closing statement of the book sums up modern society as well as ancient Israel: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 21:25). The subjectivity of “truth” is the mantra of our day. The common advice is to be true to yourself. Those who are guilty of the most heinous and perverted lifestyles or behaviors are lauded for “doing their personal truth.” There is no sense of absolutes. The account of the Levite and his concubine in Judges 19 exposes the lewd immorality that characterizes the period of the judges. Today, pre­marital and homosexual relationships, public immodesty, and all sorts of indecency are accepted norms with no reference to God’s law. Israel’s war with the tribe of Benjamin in chapter 20 parallels the civil discord, unrest, and divisiveness that plague much of life today. Deborah’s reference to abandoned highways and travelers’ taking back roads (Judg. 5:6), seemingly to avoid robbery or violence, hints at the kind of crime, chaos, and lawlessness that characterizes our day. There is hardly a safe place to escape the rampant violence. Cities are war zones, schools are easy targets, political protests threaten peace, and crimes of all sorts defy the rule of law as greater sympathy is shown for criminals than for victims. The similarities between then and now are disconcerting and almost eerie. Certainly, the parallels highlight the relevance of Judges for our consideration. Judges is an ancient book with a modern message.

Undeniably, Judges portrays the dark ages of Israel’s history, but the darkness is only part of the story. The title of the book is itself a harbinger of hope and a ray of light shining into the darkness. For us, the thought of judges conjures up images of black-robed magistrates sitting behind elevated benches rendering decisions on civil or criminal matters and maintaining order in a court of law. Yet the Old Testament judges were not arbiters or judicial officers but leaders who had the necessary skills to deliver the nation from foreign oppression and domination. Judges 2:16 gives a functional definition: “Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them.” Thus, the judges played a vital role in God’s redemptive plan and purpose. Although it appeared that the sins of the Israelites and their subjugation to hostile forces jeopardized the progression of God’s promised plan, there had to be an Israel for there to be the Christ. The Apostle Paul expressed this link between Israel and Christ unequivocally: “They are Israelites . . . To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen” (Rom. 9:4–5).

God equipped and used the judges to preserve Israel and thus to vouchsafe His promise of the coming Curse Reverser even in the darkest of times. Neither Israel’s sin nor outside opposition could thwart the divine promise. The recurring cycle of rebellion (sin), retribution (servitude), repentance (supplication), and restoration (salvation) heightens the fact of the Lord’s resolve and unwavering faithfulness to keep His word and to advance His kingdom. The book of Judges illustrates well the chorus of the hymn “His Mercy Is More”:

Praise the Lord, His mercy is more.
Stronger than darkness, New every morn.
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more.

The book of Judges testifies to the amazing truth that where sin abounded, grace superabounded (Rom. 5:20). The events and characters in the pleasant book of Ruth date to the period of the judges, testifying to the brightness of the light shining into the darkness.

The dual themes of Israel’s recurring sins and God’s persistent faithfulness justify the title of my book: Light in the Darkness: The Message of Judges. Judges speaks to both society and individuals. There is no modern nation that equates to the ancient covenant people, but God’s assessment of and dealing with that ancient nation is illustrative of how He holds all nations to account and uses even pagan peoples to accomplish His purposes. There are significant lessons for individual believers as they struggle against the sins that impede their sanctification and enjoyment of divinely intended blessings. This book will seek to highlight the spiritual lessons from the sordid yet shining history of the judges. This is not a commentary that addresses every section of the book in sequence. There are both modern and old com­mentaries that are most helpful for sequential in-depth study. Although some passages will be considered in detail without being overly technical, an overview of the book’s message will highlight themes, principles, and examples of the salient lessons to learn from Judges. Not the least part of the message of Judges is what it reveals about the coming of Jesus. According to the inter­pretational guideline given by the resurrected Christ to those on the road to Emmaus, He is the theme of the whole Old Testament: “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Therefore, to miss seeing Christ in the prophetic book of Judges is to miss the principal message: Christ is the Light in the darkness.

The setting of the book of Judges is all too familiar. It was a world marked by religious apostasy and pluralism, civil unrest and chaos, lewdness and licentiousness, lawlessness and violence, and selfish pursuits. Evil was the norm of the day, and good was rare. Truth was relative, since everyone did whatever he wanted, whatever was right in his own eyes. In many ways, the era of the judges was the dark age of Israel’s history. The book of Judges pointedly portrays the desperate human condition, which has not changed over the many centuries between then and now. If there is any book of the Bible whose ancient message touches modern life, it is Judges. Truth has fallen in the streets (Isa. 59:14) and is being trampled by academic processions, political machinery, and popular protests and parades. Today is a day of religious pluralism when every imaginable religion is off limits to mockery except for Christianity. Today’s darkness can be distressing and even debilitating. It appears that Christ’s promise to build His church is in jeopardy and that progress is stagnant. Survey polls show that religion in general and Christianity in particular are professed by ever-shrinking minorities. Christianity’s influence seems to be less than its numbers would indicate. Christianity is viewed as the enemy of progressive agendas and is blamed for all the ills of society. For certain, we are living in a dark age.

Yet as dark as the days of the judges were, the book is filled with glimmers of hope and bursts of light. Because of Israel’s unfaithfulness and gross sins of every sort, God chastised the people by giving them over to pagan powers who oppressed them both militarily and economically. It appeared in every way that Israel’s place in the progress of redemptive revelation was in jeopardy. But not even the sins of His covenant people or the power of pagan potentates could frustrate God’s unfailing purpose of redemption that had chosen Israel to be the physical channel through which the Savior would come (Rom. 9:4–5). This truth has been stated more than once, but it is a crucial truth of redemptive history that is foundational to understanding the whole Old Testament and certainly the book of Judges: There had to be an Israel if there was going to be the Christ, and nothing would or could prevent the coming Jesus. As much as Judges exposes the unfaithfulness of Israel, it highlights the faithfulness of God. Malachi 3:6 is the banner over the entire era of the judges: “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.” For every period of sin and subjugation mentioned, there was a corresponding deliverance from that oppression. God’s faithfulness to His covenant and His people countered their faithlessness by raising up judges to deliver them from their troubles. Each of these pre-Jesus deliverances was a step toward the fullness of time when Jesus would come.

These judges were ordinary men, imperfect and flawed, whom God enabled to accomplish extraordinary things. The common adage that God can use only clean vessels doesn’t hold true in view of the judges whom He used to do His work. That in no way justifies or excuses their flaws, but it does point out that the success of God’s work does not depend on any human. God chooses those who are foolish, weak, low, and despised so that no human can take credit (1 Cor. 1:27–29). None of the judges were able to effect a peace that lasted; it was not long after their respective judgeships that sin and its consequences surfaced again. This is a sober warning against elevating personalities. In the good providence of God, He raises up individuals with exceptional charisma to serve the church. For them we should be thankful. But personalities come and go just like the judges, and far too often, the influence of their ministry goes with them. It is imperative to keep our eyes on the Lord Himself and not just on the instruments He uses.

Notwithstanding their personal flaws, each of the judges, by virtue of his or her calling and office, was a type or picture prophecy of Christ as the ideal Judge/Deliverer who was coming. Each of the judges, by virtue of his or her temporary accomplishments, intensified the anticipation for the ideal Judge/Deliverer whose judgeship would fatally and irreversibly crush the head of the enemy (Gen. 3:15).

The application of the message of Judges to the church is manifold. As we come to the end of our survey of the book, here are some takeaways that are timelessly relevant:

1. God uses and manipulates nations as the agents of His providence to accomplish His will.

In Judges, God used pagan nations as His instruments to chastise Israel and then turned the tables by using Israel to defeat them. Although the globe is the same, nations and borders are different today than they were then. Just like individuals, kingdoms come and kingdoms go. It certainly is not the case that the United States of America is the modern equivalent to the ancient covenant nation. Nonetheless, it is still true that all nations are under God’s sovereign administration. That should be a source of encouragement to every believer that regardless of how out of control the world seems to be, it is not. God is on His throne. It is imperative as we live in this seemingly out-of-control world that “in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation” we “shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15). As we shine in the world, we must replicate John’s mission “to bear witness about the light” (John 1:8)—the true Light, Jesus Christ.

2. God uses weak and flawed people in the service of His kingdom.

This truth has two implications. On the one hand, it gives hope to all believers whose introspection tends to discourage them into passivity because they recognize their insufficiency. On the contrary, insufficiency is a qualification for service. On the other hand, it is a preventive against pride. If we are being used in service, it should remind us of what God thinks of us; He regards us as the foolish, weak, low, and despised. Our boast must be in the Lord and not in ourselves.

3. God is ready and willing to forgive.

The psalmist said, “For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you” (Ps. 86:5). The book of Judges repeatedly illustrates this truth. Israel sinned again and again, but every time the oppressed people cried to the Lord, He heard and restored them. This gives hope to every backslider that God is willing and able to forgive even when the person falls into the same sin over and over again. Hosea’s admonition is on point:

Come, let us return to the Lord;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. (Hos. 6:1)

4. God cooperates with active faith.

Faith is not passive. Faith rests on the sure Word of God and acts based on that certain Word. God gave assurances that He would be with the judge and guaranteed victory over the oppressors. Based on that word, the judge actively fought against the oppressors. The enemies did not voluntarily surrender. Israel’s conquest of the land and efforts to retain it picture the believer’s progress in sanctification. God has promised the believer victory over sin through Christ, but the believer must actively resist temptations (see Rom. 6) and put on the God-given armor for the conflict (see Eph. 6). Every Christian must be enlisted in the spiritual battle against self, Satan, and the world.

5. God’s redemptive plan cannot be altered or frustrated.

Genesis 3:15 predicted that there would be an agelong conflict between the serpent ( the devil) and his seed and the woman and her Seed, the Christ. The whole history of the world before the fullness of time when Christ would come (Gal. 4:4) was shaped by hostility between the two seeds. Satan did everything within his power to thwart the gospel work that God had decreed. The book of Judges records a chapter of that hostility. The redemptive plan appeared to be in jeopardy, but nothing can or could block God’s plan. Even though Christ did come in the fullness of time, the hostility persists. But thankfully, God’s redemptive plan is still on course. There is a second fullness of time yet to come when Christ “will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Heb. 9:28).

There is a sense that the message of Judges is the gospel. It would not be much of a stretch to refer to the book as the “Gospel According to Judges.” Judges tells an ancient story with a modern message. There was light in the darkness. If this survey of the book has helped readers see something of that relevant message and that light, I give my humble thanks to the Lord.

If we were to create a hall of fame of the greatest educators of all time, some debates would take place as to who should be included. Yet if anyone qualified for the hall of fame of educators, it would be Socrates. Socrates stands as a giant in the history of educational philosophy. In this article, we will explore the importance of Socrates and his ideas—not only for ancient history but for today.

This gadfly of Athens did not just pop up overnight in the streets of Greece. He was a man with a mission, passion, and profound concern. Socrates in his mission (for which he was ultimately executed by poison) was driven by a kind of salvation, but not in the religious sense. Socrates was trying to save Greek civilization.

Why was Socrates concerned about saving Greek civilization? In his day, a dreadful crisis had emerged that posed a danger to the ongoing stability of Greece. This crisis centered on education. To understand that crisis, we have to back up a little bit and go back to the sixth century BC, which is usually considered the beginning years of the science of Western philosophy in what is called the pre-Socratic era.

The earliest Greek philosophers were not simply abstract dreamers or speculative thinkers. In addition to being philosophers, they were also the leading scientists of the period. They were concerned about questions of biology, chemistry, astronomy, and above all physics. They didn’t make an absolute distinction between the study of physics and the study of metaphysics. The word metaphysics refers to the study of things above and beyond or underneath the realm of the physical.

The pre-Socratic philosophers were looking for ultimate reality. The Greek word that captures the essence of their quest is archē. If you’ve ever read the New Testament in Greek, you are familiar with that word. The beginning of the gospel of John says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Or in a Greek translation of the Old Testament, the book of Genesis begins with the words “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). The Greek word that is used in both passages for “beginning” is this word archē.

But archē does not simply mean “beginning.” It can also be translated into English as “chief ” or “ruler.” Here’s how we see it come into the English language. You’ve heard of bishops and archbishops. You’ve heard of angels and archangels. You’ve heard of heretics and arch-heretics. You’ve heard of enemies and archenemies. Here, archbishop means a chief bishop, one who stands at the head of supreme importance.

The Greek philosophers were looking for not just true ideas but the archetypal truth—the arch-truths of ultimate reality, the truths that would explain every subordinate truth that we study in science. Thales, for example, tried to find the ultimate stuff out of which everything in the universe is made—the archē principle or the driving force behind everything. He came up with the conclusion that it was water because everything in this world is either liquid, solid, or gaseous. So he looked for some substance that had the capacity to manifest itself in all three forms, and the most obvious was water. To our minds, that seems primitive and perhaps naive, but if you look carefully at the analysis that Thales gave to this subject, it was profound, to say the least.

So the philosophers in the beginning debated among themselves over this archē principle. What is ultimate reality? An impasse came when the best thinkers, people such as Parmenides and Heraclitus, failed to agree on what is ultimate truth. As a result of that impasse, a new school of thought emerged in Athens. To describe this school of thought, we would say that its adherents were first of all skeptics. That is, they reasoned something like this: if the greatest minds of our culture, people such as Parmenides, Heraclitus, Zeno, Anaximander, Anaxagoras, Thales, and Anaximenes, can’t agree on what ultimate truth is, then it must mean that ultimate truth is beyond the scope of possible human learning.

The only knowledge that we can possess, this school stated, is the knowledge of what we can see and taste and smell and touch and hear—the knowledge of this realm, the knowledge of the immediate presence in which we live. We don’t know whether there are absolute truths of morality or of being or of anything else. That’s the philosophers’ dream. What really matters is the day-to-day experience of living, and so we must direct our attention away from this quest for ultimate truth and toward an understanding of practical living.

Greek education thus shifted away from a pursuit of truth for truth’s sake to a pursuit of technique, methodology, and ways that the person’s practical concerns could be strengthened. The name of this school of thought was Sophism. The word behind this naming of the school comes from the Greek word sophia, which means “wisdom.” In fact, the very word philosophy comes from that root and contains the idea of “love of wisdom.” Before the Sophists, the prevailing view was that wisdom was limited to problem-solving in this life and in this world and was not to be involved in a quest for ultimate truth.

Words have come into our language from the Sophists such as the word sophomore, which simply describes a person in his second year of high school or college in America. When this word becomes an adjective, however, it takes on a negative connotation. Somebody who is behaving in a sophomoric way is not being mature and enlightened, but rather he’s puffed up with one year’s worth of study and now he thinks he knows everything. There’s also the word sophisticated, which in our culture has a fairly positive connotation. When we say that people are sophisticated, we might mean that they’re well-rounded, that they have an appreciation for the fine points of life, that they’re cultural in their orientation, and so on. Yet to be called sophisticated by Socrates would have been a gross insult.

The word that carries the most negative baggage from this group is sophistry. You may hear that word bandied about in the halls of political debate when one side says, “You’re just engaging in sophistry.” Sophistry is superficial, uninformed, or simplistic reasoning, a reasoning that doesn’t ascend to the higher principles. The Sophists started schools such as “how to get along in business without really trying,” and the most important feature of their school was instruction in rhetoric, which had to do with public speaking. Initially, the concern for rhetoric was that people master the craft of vocabulary and the proper use of words in public speech and expression, which is a perfectly legitimate enterprise. Along with the concern for rhetoric in the Sophist stream was training in the art of persuasion.

Remember that the Sophists were people who believed that truth itself is unknowable, so they created a disjunction between proof and persuasion. Think about this for a moment. Proof involves the presentation of solid evidence by cogent reasoning whereby the premises are demonstrated by their logical conclusions, whereas persuasion has to do with an emotional response in which a person may acquiesce to a position without ever really thinking it through. In other words, instead of responding to carefully conceived and constructed arguments, people are responding to slick forms of persuasion. This is where Madison Avenue was born—not in New York City but in Athens. The Sophists concluded: It doesn’t matter whether our speech is true. What matters is this: Does it work? Will it sell?

Socrates came into this environment and said that if sophism triumphs in our culture, it will be the end of civilization because this kind of skepticism, this kind of superficial persuasion, rips life out of the context of truth. Nothing could be discerned as true, and ultimately, according to Socrates, it will destroy ethics and moral norms by which people determine what is good and what is evil. If we cannot know the good, Socrates warned, ethics will disintegrate and civilization will resort to barbarianism.

Socrates argued that the first step for anyone to acquire knowledge is the admission of ignorance. Knowledge and learning don’t happen in a vacuum. They occur when we realize that we don’t know all there is to know but that we want to know truth—and that there is such a thing as truth. We decide that we do not want to determine what is true just by polling people, by reading the bottom line to see what people purchase, or by seeing what ads work in terms of sound bites and impression.

We must begin with an understanding that even if we don’t know what the truth is, there is such a thing as truth. To deny that there is truth affirms that there is such a thing as truth, because to say that it isn’t true that there is such a thing as truth means that something else must be true, so there must be truth. This is the kind of discussion that Socrates would provoke with his students. He made them think deeply and not be satisfied with a mindless skating over the surface of life. For that approach, he was executed.¹

William Tyndale (1490s–1536) was an English scholar and linguist who is best known for his courageous and tireless efforts to translate the Word of God into the vernacular, so that both prince and pauper could read and understand the gospel for themselves. He was not the first to undertake this task. John Wycliffe (c. 1330–1384), who preceded Tyndale by about 140 years, had already worked to translate the Bible into English. Wycliffe based his translation on the Latin Vulgate. Tyndale sought to walk a similar path to Wycliffe’s, but he based his English translation of the Bible not on the Vulgate but on the languages in which it was originally written. Tyndale’s focus on the original languages underlined his interest in returning to the primary sources to provide the people with greater clarity regarding both the substance of their faith and the soundness of their piety.

The Bible was originally written in three distinct languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. The Old Testament was composed primarily in Hebrew and Aramaic, both of which belong to the Northwest Semitic branch of the larger Semitic language family. The term Semitic is derived from the name of Noah’s son Shem, while Northwest Semitic refers to a group of languages that developed in the region now covering modern-day Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Syria, and Jordan. This language group includes other ancient languages such as Ugaritic, Phoenician, and Moabite, as well as others.

The great majority of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew. Though smaller in scope, but no less important, the Aramaic portions of the Old Testament appear in Daniel 2:4–7:28 and then in Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26. Although Hebrew and Aramaic remained distinct languages, the growing influence of Aramaic during and after the exile to Babylon led Hebrew scribes to adopt the Aramaic square script, which is the form that characterizes the Hebrew text to this day.

While Hebrew continued to be used among the Jewish people, Aramaic had become a common feature of daily life in Palestine among Jews into the New Testament period. Jesus Himself spoke Aramaic, and a number of Aramaic words and phrases are preserved in the Gospels, such as talitha cumi (“Little girl, I say to you, arise,” Mark 5:41), Abba (“Father,” Mark 14:36), and Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mark 15:34).

The New Testament was written in the Greek language. This particular form of Greek is known as Koine Greek, which means “common.” This simplified yet flexible Greek came into widespread use in the wake of Alexander the Great’s military conquests. Alexander led his armies eastward against the Persian Empire and, by 326 BC, had forged an empire stretching from Macedonia and Greece to Egypt in the south and into the borders of India. His campaigns proved instrumental in spreading both Greek culture and language across the known world of his day. Just as Aramaic had earlier become the common tongue of the Ancient Near East, Greek now became the shared language of the Mediterranean world, often serving as a second language for many conquered peoples.

The linguistic dominance and widespread usage of Koine Greek did not fade when Rome later conquered Greece and established its own supremacy. By the first century, Greek remained the language of commerce, administration, and intellectual life throughout the Roman Empire’s eastern provinces. It was the language of documents, letters, and ordinary conversation on the street. It was also the language of the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles, and the book of Revelation. The New Testament writers’ use of the common language of the people was one means by which the message of the Christian faith expanded beyond the confines of its original Jewish context to reach the broader gentile world. This was a language perfectly suited to be understood not only by specialists or a rarified priestly class, but by everyone from the prince to the pauper.

The story of these three languages—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek—reminds us that the God of Scripture has always been willing to speak in the ordinary tongues of His people. He did not wait for a sacred or specialized dialect. He addressed shepherds, exiles, fishermen, and tentmakers in the living languages of their day. Tyndale’s labor to return to those primary sources was driven by the simple conviction that the Word of God belongs to the whole church and not merely the province of a learned few. When we read the Bible today with the help of the Holy Spirit, whether in a careful English translation or with the original languages open before us, we are still hearing that same clear and living voice, a voice that continues to make the substance of the faith and the path of true piety plain to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

What do people in the United Kingdom really believe about God, the Bible, and salvation?

For the second time since 2018, Ligonier Ministries UK has sought to find out through The State of Theology survey. This nationwide survey takes the UK’s theological temperature, exposing what people actually believe—both outside and inside the church.

The results are in, and they reveal great opportunity and great need.

There is some reason for encouragement. Many churches appear to be welcoming newcomers, and 28% of UK evangelicals say they began attending Sunday church services for the first time as adults within the past two years.

Yet the findings also reveal significant theological confusion among professing evangelicals and widespread uncertainty among the wider public:

• 63% of UK evangelicals believe that most people are good by nature.
• 39% of adults in the UK are unsure about who God is.
• 57% of ‘new evangelicals’ think the Bible contains ancient myths but is not literally true.

An Opportunity for Discipleship

As new people enter churches, there is a significant opportunity to ground them in God’s Word through faithful teaching and discipleship. At the same time, widespread uncertainty about religious matters within Britain points to the need for faithful gospel witness throughout the country.

Ligonier Ministries UK exists to support the church in this opportunity by equipping Christians with trusted Bible teaching anchored in the historic Christian faith. To that end, we hope The State of Theology can equip you with insights for discipleship in your community.

Respond to the Results: Free Study Guide

Gather a group from your church or community to discuss the significance of these results from the UK State of Theology survey. A free digital study guide can be found at the bottom of the webpage. Each section includes discussion questions and biblical insights to guide your conversations.

Engage with the UK State of Theology Survey:

• View key findings.
• Explore complete survey results.
• Take The State of Theology survey to compare your responses.
• Create a private group survey for friends or members of your church.

The Bible is a big book. It can be intimidating to read, so many of us prefer reading books about the Bible. And if we do read the Bible, we can sometimes treat it like a mere instruction manual. We use it if needed, but otherwise we try to do things ourselves. It reminds me of trying to put together IKEA furniture without a manual. Unfortunately, as many of us have experienced, the instruction manual needs to be respected and read properly. Otherwise, our furniture may look disjointed in the end. Things are similar with the Bible. Failing to read it properly can lead to all kinds of trouble.

As we know of course, the Bible is much grander than any IKEA instruction manual. It’s a book with heights and depths, poetry and prose. Reading it requires even more purposefulness than reading other books. As I’ve read the Bible over the course of my life, here are a few things I’ve learned that have helped in my understanding it.

1. Believe.

It’s important to remember that understanding the Bible requires faith. We have to believe it. Augustine challenged us, “Believe so that you may understand.” Augustine said those words because he himself never properly understood the Bible until he believed. The Bible is much like polarized lenses that fishermen use. Without polarized lenses, the water has an intense glare. But with polarized lenses, one can see into the water. The Bible requires faith for us to see its depths.

2. Pray and meditate.

Prayer is often an afterthought, but we can’t understand anything spiritual unless God helps us and reveals it to us. We may have faith, but we still need help. We should pray that the Holy Spirit will help us understand His Word. As we pray, we remember our dependence on God for insight and wisdom. We should also take our time to meditate on God and His Word as we move through Scripture. Just like it takes time for a tree’s root system to soak up water, so our souls need time to be nourished by God’s Word. As we meditate, we can pray God’s Word back to Him. Psalm 119:18 describes such a petition: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” We need His Spirit to illumine His Word so that we might see the “wondrous things” He has written there.

3. Read in context.

Just because we believe God’s Word and pray about it doesn’t mean that we’re immediately given comprehensive understanding of Scripture. We have to adopt wise ways of approaching the text. So, to start, we should read in context. We shouldn’t forget what came before the section we’re reading. We wouldn’t start reading chapter 13 of Pride and Prejudice and simply expect to know what’s going on in the story. Neither should we expect the same when we read the Bible. We should also remember what genre we’re in. If it’s a letter, we should remember that the structure will lend itself to certain modes of expression. The same is true of poetry, historical narrative, and other genres.

4. Have a plan.

If we’re reading the Bible regularly, it’s best not to open the Bible to a random place every day. Nor is it always good to go wherever our whims take us. This is because randomness disallows us from reading the Bible in any coherent order—and reading the Bible in some kind of order helps us understand it better. Moreover, going where our whims take us often means we never read certain portions of Scripture—and we need all of God’s Word. Many people choose to read the Bible in a year, and there are many good plans out there. I simply mark three places in my Bible with sticky tabs: one in the Old Testament, one in the Psalms, and one in the New Testament. I read a chapter or two from each section every day. I eventually cover the whole Bible, but I don’t keep track of how long it takes. In the end, it doesn’t matter too much what plan we choose. We should just find one that works and stick to it.

5. Look up your questions.

I remember Dr. R.C. Sproul said that when he first started reading the Bible, he wrote down questions he had as he went along. He went back and answered those questions eventually. Nowadays, it’s pretty easy to look up questions on particular verses via Ligonier.org or Matthew Henry’s Commentary online. Many other good commentaries are accessible today as well. Regardless of how you get your questions answered, do get them answered by a reliable source. Reading the Bible is about more than simply reading—it’s about understanding. Some of my most profitable times of study have come after I asked a question of the text and pursued the answer.

These are just five tips for studying the Bible effectively. If we follow them, we’ll grow in our understanding slowly but surely. Lord willing, with that growth in understanding will come sanctification. God will use His Word and Spirit to shape us into the people He’s called us to be—men and women who love God with all their heart, soul, and strength and love their neighbors as themselves. May God bless our reading of His Word.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on September 22, 2021.

Even amid our failures, God remains faithful.

The book of Judges records one of the darkest times in biblical history—and its pattern is familiar. Like ancient Israel, our world today rejects God’s authority and does what is right in its own eyes. Yet, when His people cry out for mercy, the Lord proves faithful.

In his new book, Light in the Darkness, Dr. Michael Barrett reveals the enduring relevance of Judges, reminding us of God’s faithfulness, our weakness, and the hope of Christ, who never fails His people.

A Look Inside the Book

“To miss seeing Christ in the prophetic book of Judges is to miss the principal message: Christ is the light in the darkness.” —Michael Barrett

Read a sample and order your copy today. 

What Others Are Saying

“This book is what I call a ‘gripper’—that is, neither a superficial survey nor a dense technical tome but a study that gives the reader a real grip on the book of Judges. And Dr. Barrett believes in ‘overspill’—he constantly points out implications for the believer’s life and always has his eyes fixed on Jesus. Ideal for church study groups.” —Dr. Dale Ralph Davis, Professor of Old Testament (Retired), Reformed Theological Seminary

Finding Strength in God’s Character

This hardcover book underscores how the Lord’s mercy and faithfulness shine brightly even amid human failings and sins. Each chapter concludes with study questions for personal reflection or group discussion, making this an ideal resource for small groups or Sunday school.

Purchase copies today for yourself or for your study group.

It is two o’clock in the morning. A Christian man stands in a hospital hallway as his wife lies asleep in the room behind him. He’s holding a cup of coffee in his hands, unable to summon the strength to sip. Only hours before, the doctor came into the room and used words like “aggressive,” “stage 4,” and “months, not years.”

Underneath the glow of fluorescent bulbs, that man understands why theology matters.

Although the word theology likely doesn’t cross his mind, he finds himself thinking about God, which is the meat and marrow of theology. He believes God is there. God hears prayers. God is good. God can do something about the suffering. Those convictions sprouted long before the cancer diagnosis, in times of prayer, study, and worship, and they now uphold him in his grief.

R.C. Sproul rightly taught that everyone is a theologian. The question is never whether we will have thoughts about God. The question is whether our thoughts are true.

Consider four reasons why theology matters.

1. Theology matters because God matters.

Everything else flows from this most basic fact: God matters. Theology is not a hobby for the intellectually inclined or academically apt. Because theology’s subject is the only true, living God, it is for every man, woman, boy, and girl.

Jeremiah knew that people are prone to boasting. Sinful man exults in fleeting things—wisdom, strength, and wealth. “But let him who boasts boast in this,” the prophet declared, “that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord” (Jer. 9:24). The Lord calls us not to know simply about Him. We are to know Him. Jesus spoke similarly. While praying on the night of His betrayal, He showed that theology stretches to eternity: “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

Far from being a mere part of the Christian life, theology is paramount. It is the mind and heart’s action of bending toward God as a plant leans toward the light. Hosea’s summons still rings, calling us to “press on to know the Lord” (Hos. 6:3).

2. Theology matters because false doctrine is dangerous.

Job’s friends were theologians, solemn and studied. After days of watching Job sit in misery, they came with a coherent doctrinal system: God is just, and all suffering is punishment for sin. Every premise sounded reverent. Each pronouncement aimed to vindicate God. Yet, the Lord’s verdict on their well-reasoned counsel was that they had not spoken rightly of Him (Job 42:7).

Thoughts, ideas, and beliefs about God are not static realities. They fashion and form. This is why false doctrine is so dangerous. The woman who is convinced that God’s love is conditional will read every difficulty as withdrawal. The man who has been taught that faith guarantees prosperity will interpret his layoff as divine rejection. The child who believes religious performance earns blessing will despair when sin remains.

Paul charged Timothy to watch his life and his doctrine closely, promising that in doing so he would save himself and his hearers (1 Tim. 4:16). Nothing less than salvation depends on sound doctrine.

3. Theology matters because worship requires it.

Meditation on God fuels adoration of God.

The Apostle Paul reveals that rhythm over and over. Take Romans, for example. Paul spends eleven chapters laboring through some of the weightiest truths in Scripture—sin, election, propitiation, the mystery of Israel—and then, without warning, his writing breaks into worship: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Rom. 11:33). The doxology is no break from the theology. Viewed rightly, doxology is theology matured into its fullest expression.

Shallow thoughts about God hollow out a congregation’s worship. Give the church a small God, and she will return tiny praise, but raise her view of God’s glory and her worship will swell with joy and awe.

4. Theology matters because ordinary days need it.

A Christian’s typical day has no small number of mundane tasks: folding laundry, answering emails, sitting in traffic, engaging a teenager who does not want to talk, paying a bill that arrived earlier than expected. Theology shapes how you suffer, forgive, parent, and die. The doctrine of providence means the delayed flight is not random. The Spirit’s intercession means prayer has power even when you are too weary to utter words. Justification means criticism should not destroy your heart, because the verdict that matters has already been announced.

God’s truth enables the Christian to “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord” (Col. 1:9–10) from sunup to sundown.

Your Hallway Is Coming

Theology really does matter. So, study. Read and mark your Bible. Wade into deeper waters of doctrinal instruction. Sit under preaching that stretches your soul. Think about God carefully and listen to Him faithfully.

A hallway of some sort is coming for all of us, and when it comes, let us lean on the Lord we’ve come to know, believe, and trust.

The word Bible comes from the Greek word biblos, which means “book.” However, although the Bible is bound up in one volume, it is not a single book; rather, it is a collection of sixty-six individual books—a library of books. Since there are so many books that together make up the sacred Scriptures, how do we know that the right books have been included in this collection or library of books? That question falls under the issue of canonicity.

We get the word canon from another Greek word, kanōn, which means “measuring rod” or “norm.” To call the Bible “the canon of Scripture” is to say that its sixty-six books together function as the supreme measuring rod or authority for the church. The Bible often has been described as norma normans et sine normativa. A form of the word norm appears three times in that expression. Norma normans means “the norm of norms,” and sine normative means “without norm.” The Bible is the norm or the standard of all standards, and it is judged by no other standard.

Extent of the Canon

There are many misconceptions about the canon. Critics argue that, given the large number of books—more than two thousand, they claim—that could have been included in the Bible, it seems probable that some books should have been included but were not, while other books that were not qualified for inclusion made their way in. However, the overwhelming majority of the books considered for inclusion in the canon were quickly and easily dismissed by the early church because they were so obviously fraudulent.

In the second century, Gnostic heretics, claiming Apostolic authority, wrote their own books and disseminated them widely. However, these books were never seriously considered for inclusion in the canon, which is why it is misleading to say that there were more than two thousand potential candidates. If we consider the historical selection process undertaken by the church, a process governed by great caution and careful investigation, we see that only three of the excluded documents were given serious consideration for inclusion in the New Testament: the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the First Letter of Clement of Rome. These documents originate from the late first or early second century, and it becomes clear if one reads them that the writers were conscious that their work was sub-Apostolic and post-Apostolic. They thus submitted to the authority of the Apostles and of their writings.

The excluded documents are important and useful for the church, and they have been so throughout church history, but there was never a struggle over whether to include them in the canon. Most of the controversy over the canon in the earlier centuries concerned not what was excluded but what was actually included. Debate went on for some time about whether to include Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation.

The Canon Established

Others take exception to the authority of the canon because it was not established until the fourth century, long after the life and death of Christ. Establishing the canon was a process that took place over a period of time; however, that does not mean the church was without a New Testament until the end of the fourth century. From the very beginning of the church, the basic books of the New Testament, those that we read and observe today, were in use, and they functioned as a canon because of their Apostolic authority. The issue that provoked the establishment of the canon was the appearance of a heretic named Marcion, who issued his own canon. Under the influence of Gnosticism, Marcion believed that the God portrayed in the Old Testament is not the ultimate God of the universe but rather a lesser deity called a “demiurge” who has a nasty disposition, and that Christ came to reveal the true God and to deliver us from this mean-spirited deity. As a result, Marcion expurgated everything in the New Testament that could link Christ in a positive way to Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament. The gospel of Matthew and much material from the other gospels were cut, as was any reference that Christ made to God as His Father. Marcion also eliminated some of Paul’s writings. He ended up producing a small, abridged, and edited version of the New Testament. This heresy spurred the church to give an authoritative, formal list of actual biblical books.

The Marks of Canonicity

In order to determine canonical authenticity, the church applied a threefold test. Some are troubled by the fact that there was a selection process, but the thoroughness of the process should reassure us.

The first mark or test used to verify a book’s authority was its Apostolic origin, a criterion that had two dimensions. To be of Apostolic origin, a document had to have been written either by an Apostle or under the direct and immediate sanction of an Apostle. The book of Romans, for example, was not in question because everyone acknowledged that it had been written by the Apostle Paul and thus bore Apostolic authority. Likewise, neither the gospel of Matthew nor the gospel of John was questioned because they were written by Apostles of Jesus. The gospel of Luke was not questioned because Luke was an associate of Paul and traveled with him on his missionary journeys. Likewise, Mark was seen as the spokesman for the Apostle Peter, so the authority of Peter stood behind the gospel of Mark. From the very beginning, there was no doubt about the Apostolic authority and biblical canonicity of the four Gospels or of the basic corpus of Paul’s writings.

The second mark for acceptance into the canon was reception by the primitive church. The epistle to the Ephesians is an example that fits this criterion. The assumption is that Paul intended this letter for an audience broader than just the church at Ephesus. It was written as a circular letter, one designed to be disseminated to all the churches in the region around Ephesus. That was true not only of the Ephesian epistle but also of the other epistles of Paul. The Gospels were widely circulated among first-century congregations as well. As a matter of historical reconnaissance, the church, when considering what to include in the canon, took into account how a particular document had been received and quoted as authoritative from early on. In the First Letter of Clement, which was not recognized as canonical, Clement cites Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, showing that 1 Corinthians had been received by the early Christian community as authoritative. In the Bible itself, the Apostle Peter makes mention of Paul’s letters as being included among the category of Scripture (2 Peter 3:16).

The third mark of canonicity was the cause of most of the controversy. The books deemed to be Apostolic or sanctioned by an Apostle, and also received by the early church, made up the basic core of the New Testament and were accepted into the canon without any real controversy, but there was a second level of books about which there was some debate. One of the issues concerned the compatibility of the doctrine and teaching of these books with the core books. This is the issue that provoked some of the questions about the book of Hebrews. A portion of this epistle, Hebrews 6, has often been interpreted as indicating that those redeemed by Christ can lose their salvation, a teaching out of sync with the rest of biblical teaching on that subject. However, that chapter may be interpreted in such a way that it is not out of sync with the rest of the Scripture. What finally swung the debate regarding Hebrews was the argument that Paul was its author. The church in the early centuries believed that Paul was the author of Hebrews, and that landed the epistle in the canon. Ironically, there are few scholars today who believe that Paul wrote it, but there are even fewer who would deny that it belongs in the canon.

The Scope of the Canon

A dispute arose in the sixteenth century between the Roman Catholic Church and Protestants over the scope and extent of the Old Testament Scriptures, specifically over the Apocrypha, a group of books produced during the intertestamental period. The Roman Catholic Church embraced the Apocrypha; the Reformation churches, for the most part, did not. The dispute centered on what the first-century church and Jesus Himself had accepted as canonical. All the evidence from Palestine indicates that the Jewish Palestinian canon did not include the Apocrypha, whereas many in Alexandria, the cultural center for Hellenistic Jews, did include it. However, more recent scholarship suggests that even the Alexandrian canon recognized the Apocrypha only at a secondary level, not at the full level of biblical authority. So the question remains as to who was right, the Roman Catholic Church or the Protestants? In other words, by what authority do we determine what is canonical?

According to the Protestants, each book found in the Bible is an infallible book, but the process undertaken by the church as to which books to include was not infallible. We believe that the church was providentially guided by the mercy of God in the process of determining the canon and thereby made the right decisions, so that every book that should be in the Bible is in the Bible. However, we do not believe that the church was inherently infallible, then or now. By contrast, the Roman Catholic formula says that we have the correct books because the church is infallible and anything the church decides is an infallible decision. In the Roman Catholic understanding, the formation of the canon rests on the authority of the church, whereas in the Protestant understanding, it rests upon the providence of God.

I would commend to you further study of the development of the canon. Let me emphasize in conclusion that even though there was a historical sifting process, I believe that God led the church to her final conclusion, and that we have no reason to be anything but fully assured that the right books were included in the canon of sacred Scripture.

Who wrote the Bible? God did. To put a finer point on it, God is the divine author who used various human authors to write exactly what He wanted written. That is, God is the primary author and the humans are secondary authors. This type of dual authorship is assumed throughout the Bible. For example, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord [primary author] had spoken by the prophet [Isaiah, secondary author]” (Matt. 1:22; see also Mark 12:36; Heb. 3:7 with 4:7; 2 Peter 1:21). Traditionally, God’s effecting the Scriptures to be written is termed inspiration, which means that God breathed out the Scriptures (2 Tim. 3:16).

Primary Authorship

In addition to straightforward passages that declare God as the author of Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16), there are other types of intriguing biblical passages confirming divine authorship. Let us look at three.

There are passages where the Scriptures are functionally equated to God. In Romans 9:17, Paul is quoting from Exodus 9:16, where Moses is told to declare God’s words to Pharaoh. But Paul does not write, “God says to Pharaoh,” but instead, “Scripture says to Pharaoh.” Obviously, Paul means that God spoke to Pharaoh, but God’s speaking and Scripture’s speaking are intimately related to each other in Paul’s mind. Similarly in Galatians 3:8, within an argument showing that the doctrine of justification by faith existed in the Old Testament, Paul notes the forward-looking aspect of Genesis 12:3 intended by God. But in referring to this, Paul does not write, “God foreseeing,” but “Scripture foreseeing.” Again, God and Scripture are intimately related.

There are also Old Testament passages where God does not appear to be the speaker, but He is denoted as the speaker by a New Testament writer. Hebrews 1:5–13 includes seven Old Testament quotes. These quotes include passages in which God is the direct speaker but others in which He is not. However, all the quotes in Hebrews are prefaced by some form of “God says” or “he says.” Thus, whether the Old Testament context includes God’s explicitly speaking or not, the author of Hebrews considers all of Scripture to be God’s speaking on some level.

Consider 1 Corinthians 9:8–10. Paul, in a discussion concerning the propriety of financially supporting ministers, argues that he is not basing his conclusion on a “human authority,” but on “the Law of Moses.” He goes on to quote Deuteronomy 25:4, which concerns feeding oxen while they work. Following the quote, he rhetorically asks, “Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he [God] not certainly speak for our sake?”—meaning yes, God is concerned for oxen, but how much more is He concerned for men in similar situations. Paul equates “it is written in the Law of Moses” to God’s “concern” and God’s “speaking.” This is opposed to “human authority.” Although Moses was obviously human, Paul does not consider him a human authority. Why not? Paul clearly believes that Deuteronomy ultimately has a divine author.

Secondary Authorship

Without doubt, biblical writers believed that humans wrote the Scripture. Many times, one biblical writer refers to another by name. For example, Daniel affirms Jeremiah’s authorship (Dan. 9:2), Jesus affirms Mosaic authorship (Mark 7:10), and Peter affirms Paul’s authorship (2 Peter 3:15–16). In addition, often (but not always) the biblical writer explicitly mentions himself—for example, Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:1–3), Paul (Gal. 1:1), and Jude (Jude 1).

For the inspiration of the Scriptures, how did God interact with the human author? This is certainly a mystery, but we do get a few hints from the Bible. Only occasionally do biblical writers explicitly say that God dictated to them the words they wrote (Ex. 34:27; Jer. 36:4; Rev. 2–3). Often the biblical writer simply says that “the word of Lord came to” him (Hos. 1:1; Mic. 1:1; see also Gal. 1:12; Rev. 1:1). Sometimes a writer gives information regarding where he gathered information for his book (Num. 21:14; Josh. 10:13; 1 Kings 11:41; Luke 1:1–4). Except for the occasional dictated sections, God’s use of the human writer matched aspects of his personality, background, and writing style. Solomon had unusual wisdom (1 Kings 3), and his proverbs have been preserved (Prov. 1:1; 25:1). Ezekiel was a priest (Ezek. 1:3), and his book has many temple analogies (Ezekiel 40–47). John’s writing style and vocabulary are consistent in John, 1–3 John, and Revelation. Paul was educated in the Pharisaic tradition (Phil. 3:5), and he had much to say about the law (Rom. 3:21; Gal. 2:16; 1 Tim. 1:9–10). God’s use of writers in consistency with their own traits is often termed organic inspiration. God did not treat the human writers as inert objects (non-organic) but as living beings (organic) with their own unique traits. Yet at the same time, every single word was what God wanted written down.

Who wrote the Bible? Yes, God did. He is the divine, ultimate, and primary author. But in His providence He used humans, the secondary authors.¹

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It appears that many Christians have a bit of prosperity gospel philosophy within them. It is easy to assume that because we are now Christians, life will be one of ease. It comes as a major shock to their system that this is never promised in Scripture. Indeed, quite the opposite is true.

In John 15:18, Jesus tells His disciples, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.” The immediate reference is to hostility and persecution from people who reject Christ. But this human enmity is only one strand of a wider truth Scripture teaches: Since the fall (Gen. 3; Rom. 8:20–22), the whole created order is under the curse of sin and death. Christians face not only persecution but also sickness, poverty, and the ordinary miseries of life in a broken world.

I have been a Christian and a pastor for over fifty years. During that time, I have seen many godly Christians suffer greatly. I think of one dear lady who, at thirty-three years of age, developed stage 4 colon cancer. She was a wife and a mother of three young boys. She suffered immensely for four years before the Lord took her home. During that time, her faith was her strength. She kept her eyes firmly focused upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

In addition, I’ve known pastors who have been falsely accused and treated unfairly. It would have been easy for them to just throw up their hands and cry out, “Why me, Lord?” but instead they persevered. Something in their life kept them focused on finishing the race well. I think that it was a strong belief in the power, sovereignty, and providence of the God we serve. I’ve often heard people say, “I don’t know how someone faces an issue like this without the Lord.” I would go a step further and say that I don’t know how anybody can face certain situations in life without the assurance of God’s sovereignty and power.

I remember hearing R.C. Sproul say something years ago and reading it in several of his writings:

If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God’s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled. Perhaps that one maverick molecule will lay waste all the grand and glorious plans that God has made and promised to us.¹

This has been a source of encouragement to me over the years, whether I was going through something personally or ministering to someone who was suffering and struggling.

The truth is that God is sovereign and He is in control no matter how difficult the circumstances may seem. Scripture affirms this truth over and over. Our problem sometimes is that we focus on the circumstances and merely glance toward God, when we should be focusing on God and glancing at the circumstances.

In Ephesians 1:11, Paul says that everything unfolds “according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” To know that God has a purpose and a will that He is actively working out in the world should bring comfort for persevering in the Christian life.

God is eternal and omniscient, and He loves those who are His. David declares in Psalm 37:25,

I have been young, and now am old,
yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken.

Our Father is ever caring for His children—those who are righteous not of their own doing but because they are standing in the righteousness of Christ by God’s grace. In Philippians 3:9, Paul describes righteousness as that which is “not . . . from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God.”

But of course, perhaps the greatest encouragement to persevere is found in Paul’s unshakable conviction in Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” The Puritan minister Thomas Watson, in his exposition of this verse, emphasizes “we know.” He states:

It is not a matter wavering or doubtful. The apostle does not say, We hope, or conjecture, but it is like an article in our creed, We know that all things work for good. Hence observe that the truths of the gospel are evident and infallible.²

The reality is, in this life we will suffer, struggle, question, and even doubt at times. But we have the assurance that our God is at work to sanctify us and make us more like Christ through all we encounter on this earth. We stand in the assurance of the psalmist when he proclaims, “The Lord reigns; he is robed in majesty . . . Your decrees are very trustworthy” (Ps. 93:1, 5). God will care for and protect those who are His. And as Jesus said, “This is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me” (John 6:39).

The close of summer can be exciting with the transition back to school. For many, it is a return to rhythm, goal setting, and friendships. Those heading to college may be excited about a new adventure, which will bring with it new questions: Who will my roommates be? What will I be involved in? When will I study? For Christians, the question to begin with is, Where will I go to church?

Foundational Questions

There is much to say about why students should go to church in college. Suffice it to say, God’s call on all Christians is to actively live within the church. The local church is vital to the Christian life, so the question that needs to be asked is, How do I find a church? As simple as the question sounds, in some ways it has become increasingly difficult to answer. We no longer live in a time (if we ever did) in which one can assume things about a church from the outside. One cannot necessarily assume that because the church is in the “Bible Belt” it means one thing, nor can one assume that because its name includes key Christian words that it means another. Many false teachings, for example, use familiar language that can delay the impulse to ask foundational questions. Instead of assuming, begin by asking two vital questions when looking for a church away from home.

The first question is of utmost importance: Does this church believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as the true Son of God, sent to save sinners who repent and believe in Him alone for salvation? The second question is closely connected: Does this church believe the Bible to be inerrant, infallible, inspired, and therefore the authoritative and sufficient Word of God? In other words, is the Bible the central truth that is communicated and the standard by which everything is measured? If the answer to either of these questions is no, then it is not a true church. Believing that Jesus is the Son of God and the only way of salvation, and that the Bible is the rule of faith and practice, is necessary. If the answer to both questions is yes, we can proceed with investigating a few other areas. Believing that Jesus is the Son of God, the only way of salvation, and that the Bible is the rule of faith and practice is necessary.

What to Look For

Often there are secondary areas that require observation and discernment. Living in a social-media-crazed age, it is important that popularity or various forms of celebrity do not become the leading reason we choose a church. Big churches and big names may have big platforms that can be attractive to college students. Programs can be useful, but there must be more to a church than its programs. Because church is vital to the life of a Christian, the leaders of the church will be held accountable to speaking the truth and living the truth (see James 3). The church is always to be about the Man, Jesus Christ, and not a man. Jesus must be central in the teaching and living of the leadership of any true church.

For many college students, excitement can be joined with confusion. Questions can arise in regard to fellow students’ beliefs or lifestyles, the teachings of professors, the judgments of the administration, and making major life decisions. Additionally, college students are inundated with all sorts of advertisements and recruiting mechanisms, making them vulnerable. The church should be clear on the truth, aware of the threats against truth, and willing and able to answer questions when they arise. The church should preach the truth and not shy away from the truth while welcoming and thoughtfully answering questions about the truth.

Doctrine is important. Convictions about doctrine are important. Seeking out a church’s confessional standards or statement of faith will clarify what kind of doctrine the church professes. Additionally, the church’s disposition is important. We see the practical outworking of doctrine in how the people of the church live. College students should seek to meet church members of all generations and backgrounds, then ask themselves: Does the church come off as prideful or speak unkindly about others, or are they gentle and compassionate? The church should display the truth it teaches.

One of the chief things that recruits college students is community. To be sure, the college campus will provide all kinds of communities, some that are good and some that are not. There will likely be a host of campus ministries offering the same. None of those, however helpful they may be, can replace the church. Yet the church can be mindful of college students in their area and be intentional about involving them in the life of the church.

Students must prioritize Lord’s Day worship. Corporate worship—as well as Sunday school, prayer meetings, and opportunities to serve—offers a full picture of community rather than being influenced only by one’s own “age and stage.” While Lord’s Day worship should be prioritized, there is more to being involved in a church than just corporate worship. Ask the following questions: Does the church pray and fellowship together? Are there other opportunities that allow you to serve and to use your gifts? The church should have avenues to pursue multi-generational Christian fellowship.

Conclusion

These qualities, however simple they might sound, are often hard to discern in just one visit on a Sunday morning. Perhaps you have looked at the church online and still aren’t sure. God’s Word shows us what we should be looking for—it is the ordinary church and the ordinary means of grace. Look for devotion to the Apostles’ teaching. That is where the Apostolic church began (Acts 2:42). As you look for a church, ask these questions: Are they preaching through the Bible? Do you see the centrality of the Bible in other areas outside of the sermon? Are they praying the Bible, confessing the Bible, singing the truths of the Bible? Does the church show its dependency upon God in prayer? Do they pray for the people of the church, their community, and the work of the gospel in the world?

College students should approach this question of how to find a church in college with discernment and not simply as consumers. The church should be a home away from home. For many college students who hear the gospel for the first time in college, their involvement in church is a life-changing experience. The local church is the greatest place for Christian growth and discipleship. It is the vehicle through which God extends His glory throughout creation. So, as simple as the question may sound, it carries with it great significance. Finding a church might be the most important decision you make while in college. It is why we visit, pray for discernment, and ask questions. The goal is not to find a perfect church—that exists only in glory—but a faithful church, standing solely on the Word of God and focused on the worship of God.¹

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.¹

“Amazing Grace” is perhaps the most well-known and best-beloved hymn in the history of the Christian church. But the remarkable story of its author, John Newton, is not so well-known. Who was the man behind the most famous hymn in church history?

John Newton (1725–1807) was born in London. His father, John Newton Sr., was a sea captain and a hard man who, though he loved his son, struggled to express affection. Newton’s mother, Elizabeth, was an extraordinary woman of deep spiritual devotion. She sought to teach her son the Scriptures, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and the theology of the Puritans. Sadly, she died when he was only six years old, but many years later God would bring fruit from the seeds she sowed in her son’s young heart.

As Newton entered his teenage years, he became increasingly wayward. By the time he was eighteen years old, he had become an altogether immoral, dissolute, and debased young man. Around this time, Newton was press-ganged into service, which officially commenced his naval career at sea. As a midshipman in the Royal Navy, Newton continued his moral decline into all forms of sin, especially drunkenness, blasphemy, and sexual immorality. He became so sinful that even his naval colleagues grew weary of him.

Eventually, Newton was transferred to a slave ship bound for West Africa. He would make a living in the slave trade for the next decade, eventually captaining several slave ships. On various ships, Newton participated in and witnessed extreme cruelties toward African slaves.

While aboard one slave ship, Newton became known for such flagrant expressions of lewdness, blasphemy, and immorality that, once again, many of his fellow sailors felt scandalized. Newton was so disliked among the crew of his ship that he was eventually abandoned on the west coast of Africa and forced into slavery under an African princess who treated him cruelly. He was abused, starved, and often forced to engage in degrading activities with other slaves.

In 1747, after nearly two years in Africa, Newton was rescued by a ship whose captain had been asked to look for him at the request of Newton’s father. It was on the voyage back to England in 1748 that Newton was converted. The ship and crew were caught in a violent storm that threatened to sink the ship. Newton woke in the middle of the night to find his room rapidly filling with water. In the midst of this panicked scene, he cried out to God for the first time in years, asking the Lord to be merciful to him. He remembered many of the texts his mother had taught him when he was a small boy and then pleaded them before God. For the rest of his life, Newton marked that day, March 21, 1748, as the beginning of his conversion to Christianity. Though greatly damaged, the ship survived the storm and the crew returned safely to England.

In the years after his conversion, Newton became zealous and matured through studying the Scriptures and taking in sermons from leading evangelical preachers of the day. He was especially taken with George Whitefield, who became an informal mentor to Newton and profoundly influenced Newton’s own aspirations to pastor and preach.

Within a few years of his conversion, Newton married his childhood sweetheart Mary Catlett, left the slave trade, and settled in Liverpool. By 1764, he published a popular account of his conversion story under the title An Authentic Narrative, which was an immediate best seller and did much to establish him as a transatlantic evangelical celebrity. In that same year, Newton took his first pastorate in the market town of Olney, located about sixty miles north of London. He would carry on a faithful pastorate there for over fifteen years. During those years he developed a significant reputation as a great letter writer, publishing collections of his letters to edify and encourage believers. He also collaborated with the poet and hymn writer William Cowper to produce one of the leading hymnals of the evangelical movement titled Olney Hymns. This hymnal included many of Newton’s hymns that are now regarded as classics, such as “Amazing Grace,” “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken,” and “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds.”

In 1780, Newton moved to London to pastor St. Mary Woolnoth. He would minister there until his death in 1807. These were remarkably fruitful years for Newton as a pastor. Yet the most notable contribution he made during this period was to befriend and mentor a young evangelical member of Parliament named William Wilberforce. Wilberforce had been thinking of leaving politics and pursuing pastoral ministry. However, Newton convinced him to stay in Parliament in order to promote the cause of Christ in the public sphere and specifically to bring about an end to the slave trade. Wilberforce would ultimately be successful in his campaign to end the British slave trade, relying heavily on Newton not only for wise counsel but also to provide expert testimony before Parliament that contributed to the defeat of the slave trade.

In the waning days of Newton’s life, he reflected, “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.” This summarized the theme of Newton’s life and ministry. He was a man amazed by the surpassing grace of God toward needy sinners—grace that not only saved a wretch like him, but grace that finally led him home.

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You only have a few days left to save on your registration for our 2026 Southern Ontario Conference, Thy Kingdom Come. The discounted rate ends this Saturday, September 12. Register now before this offer ends.

Join us on November 6–7 as we discover what it means to live as subjects under Christ’s lordship, using our talents and vocations to further God’s kingdom in the world.

CONFERENCE SESSIONS:

• The King and His Kingdom
• Preaching the Gospel
• Speaking the Truth in Love
• The World as God’s Mission Field
• Obedience and Rest
• The Kingdom to Come

We’ll also host a pastors’ pre-conference event, Standing Firm in the Truth, on November 6. This additional event seeks to encourage pastors to endure adversity, guard the gospel, and faithfully preach the Word both in season and out of season.

PRE-CONFERENCE SESSIONS:

• Fan into Flame
• Guard the Deposit
• Endure Hardship
• Preach the Word

Register today to save before the discounted rate ends on Saturday, September 12.

I want you to meet Pastor Moses.

In the small West African country of Togo, he serves at the only gospel-preaching church in his village. Many members of his congregation have come out of generations of animism and voodoo. To this day, ancestral worship and other idolatry shape daily life in the surrounding community.

In the face of so much spiritual darkness, Pastor Moses seeks to shine the light of Christ. Yet as he labors to proclaim God’s Word and disciple his congregation, he faces a challenge shared by millions of pastors worldwide:

• Many Christians in the church have never even owned a Bible.
• Trusted theological resources are scarce and financially out of reach.
• Meanwhile, the influence of false teaching is rampant.

By God’s grace, Ligonier recently supplied Pastor Moses and his church with the Reformation Study Bible and other trusted discipleship tools. His congregation is now better prepared to stand as a beacon of light in a sea of darkness. Yet in many places around the world, falsehood threatens to drown out the true gospel.

The global church needs our help. I’ve seen it firsthand. We thank God for the supporters who share Ligonier’s commitment to strengthen His people. Will you join us to bring trusted Bible teaching to even more Christians? Your donation today can help equip pastors for a lifetime of faithful ministry and spread the light of God’s Word among the nations.

A pastor like Moses carries a calling of eternal weight. Day after day, he sacrificially shepherds God’s people: admonishing the idle, encouraging the fainthearted, and helping the weak. He must give an account for every soul under his care and for every word he teaches them (Heb. 13:17; James 3:1). All his labors will prove fruitless if they do not rest on the authoritative Word of God.

Yet today, of the roughly five million pastors worldwide, 95 percent lack formal theological training. Most pastors have limited access to trusted resources to help them study and teach the Bible. They’re unprepared to form disciples who can grow strong in the faith amid an unbelieving world. All the while, false teaching abounds; the darkness is rising.

These challenges are not new to our time. Five centuries ago, the church was shrouded in another cloak of spiritual darkness. When preachers and teachers courageously took up God’s Word and proclaimed it faithfully, the Protestant Reformation dawned. God dispelled the darkness in many places, delivering hearts from sin, hopelessness, and superstition.

Post tenebras lux. “After darkness, light.” This Reformation rallying cry sounds through the Bible-teaching outreach of Ligonier Ministries as we seek to spread the light of God’s truth throughout the global church. Dr. R.C. Sproul led the charge when he launched Ligonier’s study Bible distribution to pastors in need. He understood that a renewal of the historic Christian faith starts with leaders thoroughly equipped for the work of the Word (2 Tim. 3:14–17).

When a pastor receives the Reformation Study Bible, he gains a trusted, lifelong companion to enhance his teaching ministry through:

• Exhaustive verse-by-verse commentary from 75 distinguished scholars,
• Dr. Sproul’s clear and precise notes covering the whole scope of theology,
• And two millennia of historic Christian creeds and confessions of faith.

And when pastors are better equipped for their calling, the whole church benefits from the light of God’s Word.

We seek to equip 500,000 pastors with the Reformation Study Bible by 2035. God has blessed this outreach; our pace is quickening, and we’re already 40 percent of the way to this goal. Last month alone, Ligonier’s supporters enabled the equipping of tens of thousands of church leaders throughout Africa. I was privileged to see their profound gratitude and renewed encouragement firsthand.

Yet I also glimpsed the depth of the problem. Prosperity preachers are flooding Africa with containers filled with false teaching. The cults are there too. Darkness remains across the continent. To counteract this, we must accelerate the distribution of study Bibles to spread the light of God’s truth. 

Reaching our goal to equip half a million pastors still requires significant funds. Your support today can accelerate this outreach while fueling multi-year translations of the _Reformation Study Bible _into Arabic, Russian, Chinese, and other major languages.

All of Ligonier’s outreaches exist to serve the global church, from our newly upgraded app, to the expansion of RefNet, to YouTube and satellite TV broadcasts, to Tabletalk Bible studies and translated books, to conferences and training events around the world. Your prayerful and financial support can further each of these outreaches and strengthen pastors to shine the light of God’s truth.

Dr. Sproul said of Ligonier’s study Bible outreach, “We’re talking about an investment that has long-lasting impact in the lives of people.” Your gift today will help place study Bibles in the hands of pastors like Moses and accelerate worldwide Bible-teaching outreach.

Thank you for joining Ligonier to strengthen the church, equip the saints, and proclaim God's holiness among the nations.

We all long for the church to be marked by joyful unity. But what should we do when division, rivalry, and discouragement threaten genuine gospel fellowship?

In Sinclair Ferguson’s new video teaching series on Philippians, discover how Christ’s example of humility can renew our churches with steadfast faith, joyful fellowship, and unity in the gospel.

Get complete streaming access when you order the series today.

In My Joy and Crown, Dr. Ferguson explores the theology and pastoral wisdom in Paul’s affectionate letter to the Philippians. Start studying today to discover how the gospel provides a firm foundation for Christian living and fellowship with other believers.

12 Messages, Including:

• A Joy and Crown Congregation
• Lessons on Prayer
• The Wonder of God’s Providence
• The Secret of Humility
• How to Think as a Christian
• And More

Watch the first message for free to start your study.

Several Teaching Series Formats Available

• Digital download
• Ligonier Connect course
• Digital study guide

Preorder the DVD Edition and Study Guide

You can also be among the first to receive the DVD edition and paperback study guide for My Joy and Crown when they become available. Preorder Dr. Ferguson’s DVD teaching series and study guide for yourself or a loved one today.

Watch Now as a Ministry Partner 

Did you know that Ligonier’s Ministry Partners get streaming access to our entire teaching series library? Unlock My Joy and Crown, along with Ligonier’s entire catalog from dozens of teachers, when you partner with Ligonier today. 

Your prayers and monthly donation will help fuel gospel outreach so more Christians worldwide can benefit from this biblical teaching.

You only have a few days left to save on your registration for our 2026 London Conference, Chosen by God. The discounted rate ends this Saturday, 29 August. Register now before this offer ends.

Join us on September 25–26 as we discover how the doctrine of election reveals the riches of God’s mercy, the certainty of His purposes, and the ultimate hope of eternal fellowship with Him.

CONFERENCE SESSIONS:

• Before the Foundation of the World by Mark Johnston
• The Potter and the Clay by Sinclair Ferguson
• Chosen for Holiness by Conrad Mbewe
• Christ, the Chosen Cornerstone by Ian Hamilton
• The Golden Chain of Redemption by Michael Reeves
• God’s Purpose in Election by Paul Levy
• A Chosen Race, a Royal Priesthood by Sinclair Ferguson
• Several Q&A Sessions with our speakers

We’ll also host a pastors’ pre-conference event, Shepherding and the Sovereignty of God, on September 25. This additional event is designed to help pastors reflect on their calling as shepherds of God’s flock serving under the ultimate authority of Christ, the Chief Shepherd.

PRE-CONFERENCE SESSIONS:

• The Chief Shepherd’s Reign by Paul Levy
• Strength in Weakness by Sinclair Ferguson
• Preaching Christ with Conviction by Paul Levy
• The Steadfast Pastor by Conrad Mbewe
• A Q&A Session with Ferguson, Levy, and Mbewe

Register for the 2026 London Conference today to save before the discounted rate ends on Saturday, August 29.

To help reach as many people as possible with the truth of our holy God, we’re making R.C. Sproul’s entire teaching series library permanently free to stream online and in the Ligonier app.

Now Freely Available:

• 170+ audio and video series from R.C. Sproul’s decades of ministry
• 1,400+ messages on the Bible, theology, church history, and more
• 500+ hours of teaching to help you grow in your Christian faith

Start Watching Series like These:

• Dust to Glory: Study the whole Bible
• Foundations: Apply theology to your life
• Defending Your Faith: Answer common objections

Access This Teaching Anywhere

Learn from R.C. Sproul’s teaching series at any time in the Ligonier app. We’ve recently enhanced our app to make trusted teaching even more accessible, and more new features are coming soon. Make sure you update the app for the best streaming experience.

Thank You to Our Ministry Partners

This could not happen apart from your faithful support. As demand for this trusted teaching is rising in the Philippines, India, Nigeria, and around the world, Ligonier’s Ministry Partners are helping to equip the global church. Thank you.

Spread the Word

Tell your friends and members of your church about these free teaching series in the Ligonier app so they can study God’s Word with Dr. Sproul too.

For a limited time, you can enter to win two free registrations ($500 in value) to the 2027 Ligonier National Conference.

How to enter the giveaway:

• Follow @Ligonier on Instagram.
• Complete the giveaway form.
• Who would you like to bring to national conference? Tag a friend in the comments of the Instagram post—each tag counts as an additional entry.

Already registered? You can still enter the giveaway. If you win, we’ll reimburse you, or you can apply the value toward an additional registration.

Entries close August 31 at 11:59 ET. Enter today, and we will contact you via email with the results.

We hope to see you in Orlando as we gather with like-minded Christians to rejoice in the glorious attributes of God.

This giveaway is available to U.S. residents only. No travel costs included. To learn more about this giveaway, view the full terms and conditions.

Who were your heroes growing up?

No matter our age, we admire those who reflect qualities we want to see in ourselves. But the Christian life calls us to look higher.

Heroes of the Christian Faith is a new book with teaching from R.C. Sproul that introduces imperfect yet faithful servants of God from the Bible and church history.

Order your copy today and discover how courage, perseverance, and obedience are not traits reserved for the extraordinary. They’re marks of all who follow Christ, our true and perfect Hero.

A Look Inside the Book

“I’m convinced that all of us pattern and shape our lives after models that we observe, often from our youth onward. The Bible not only calls us to imitate Christ and to be in conformity to Him, but frequently calls attention to the patterns of life evidenced by some of the great saints of Scripture.” —R.C. Sproul

Read a sample and order your copy today.

Follow in the Footsteps of the Faithful

This book from R.C. Sproul presents saints of the past whose lives point—not to their own greatness—but to the great God they served. Learn from figures throughout redemptive history, such as:

• Moses
• Isaiah
• Mary
• Paul
• Polycarp
• Athanasius
• Jonathan Edwards
• And More

Surrounded by a Cloud of Witnesses

God has given His people a great cloud of witnesses—men and women throughout the Bible and church history who lived with steadfast faith and bold conviction.

Order this book today to explore how the stories of God’s people encourage us to live faithfully in our day.

Ordering from Canada? Place your order through Reformed Book Services to receive the lowest shipping rate.

By God’s grace, faithfully studying Scripture bears fruit over time.

Tabletalk, the Bible study magazine from Ligonier Ministries, can help you remain rooted in God’s Word for years to come.

Each month’s issue provides:

• Daily Bible studies guiding you passage by passage through God’s Word
• Themed articles to give you focused study on theological topics
• A Bible-in-a-year reading program, helping you engage with all of Scripture
• Thoughtful columns to aid you in applying God’s truth in your daily life

For a limited time, when you subscribe to Tabletalk magazine or renew your subscription, you can receive two years for the price of one. That’s 24 months of Tabletalk for only $1.25 per issue.

Upcoming issues will explore:

• How Christians can be sure they’re saved
• The connection between faith and work
• Our ongoing responsibility to put sin to death

In addition to 24 months of print issues, you’ll also receive unlimited access to current and past issues online at TabletalkMagazine.com. This time-limited offer ends soon, so subscribe or renew today.

Today only, you can save on more than one hundred discipleship resources—with many available for just $5.

Fill your library with video teaching series, books, audio resources, and issues of Tabletalk magazine that can help you saturate your mind with God’s truth.

These resources are ideal for back-to-school gifts or for your personal growth. Explore the collection and save before the sale ends tonight.

My other favorite Reformer, partly because I love his name, is Johannes Oecolampadius. His name literally means “house lamp,” but he was a brilliant language scholar. He wrote a Hebrew grammar. He wrote a commentary on Isaiah that became the model for Luther, for Calvin, and for all the Old Testament work of a whole century of scholars. Every time we pick up our English Bible, we know that a boatload of scholars made that possible. Some of them gave their blood for us to have an English Bible. Oecolampadius was one of those guys. He died young, but he filled his life as much as he could. And what a great name!

This text doesn’t literally mean we should never do anything other than pray. It’s clear the Scriptures call us to all sorts of other things. But prayer should be a regular, recurring part of our whole experience, such that there are not only, perhaps, set times of prayer for us but that we turn to the Lord throughout the day. We don’t have to pray at great length all the time, and I think that’s part of the reminder here. This text calls us to cultivate a sense of the presence of God with us, along with us turning our hearts, minds, and cares to Him regularly throughout the day.

It’s an encouragement to think of ourselves as a prayer-filled people. That’s the call, and it’s a valuable call for us to hear.

To know who you are already in Christ is invaluable. You belong to Him. Any persecution you experience, any demeaning you experience, yes, it will be sore, but you can look up to Him and say: “Lord, I belong to You, I’m Yours, and I know this is about You. You will help me cope with it.”

The other thing I would say is really get to know your Bible. Psalm 119 was written for people your age. That’s why it says, “How can a young man keep his way pure?” (Ps. 119:9). Psalm 119 teaches us that if we hide God’s Word in our hearts, it will not only protect us from sinning, but it will make us wiser even than our teachers. That doesn’t mean you’ll know more than a rocket scientist, but it does mean that you have the clues to the meaning of life and that you learn in Scripture first principles that will enable you to negotiate your way through life. That is such a tremendously stabilizing force.

I would also advise that you really seek to understand Christian doctrine. Understanding Christian doctrine gives you a framework of reference, and most of your peers have no idea of their framework of reference. They don’t have any roots. They don’t have any first principles of which they are conscious. They are awash. They’re blown around, as Paul says, by any teaching that comes along. There is “cool” teaching that you’ll come across—for example, it’s cool to be an atheist today just like it was cool to smoke fifty years ago. But just like it was cool to smoke fifty years ago, being an atheist is going to kill you.

There is a tremendous strength in the Christian gospel, and one of the things our conference time does for youngsters is give them a sense that the gospel has its own intellectual power, and we don’t need to be ashamed of it.

There are people in the visible church—that is, they attend church and may even be members of the church—but they are not members of the invisible church. They may even make a profession of faith, but we don’t know the heart. We can’t see into the heart. In some denominations, in order to be a member, you have to have a credible profession of faith. They are looking for evidences, but even then they don’t know if someone is genuinely saved.

To sum it up, false converts are not converts who then become not converts. They were never converts. This is not something that’s new for us; it’s there in the epistles of John and in the New Testament church.

I started reading the Bible when I was nine. I had read John 5:39–40 before, but I was fourteen when it hit me. That verse applied to me in this way: I thought being a Christian meant reading the Bible, saying prayers, helping old ladies cross the street, and doing good things, but that verse hit me like a hammer. I thought: “This is exactly where I am. I’ve been searching the Scriptures and reading them diligently. In five years, I’ve probably missed only five days of reading the Bible.” It really came to me with great power and awakened me. It didn’t convert me; it awakened me. A number of months afterward, I was brought to a living faith through John 8:12: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Those are reasons why I love John’s gospel from my mid-teens, but there are many other reasons. One of them is simply because of the sheer wonder of the portrayal of Christ in it. There are also sections of it that I particularly love. Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve loved John 13–17 particularly, but there is no part of it I don’t love. Every time I read it or preach on it, I think, “This is absolutely endless.” The early fathers used to say that John’s gospel was like a sea that an elephant could swim in and in which a lamb could bathe—it’s just so rich for all believers. So, I think my favorite book of the Bible is John’s gospel.

I remember when I was converted as a high school student and first found myself worshiping amongst the Dutch Reformed, we always prayed the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” We can debate the translation, and it can go either way, but I think our Lord is reminding us that He withstood temptation for us and overcame the evil one. We pray that He will continue to preserve us so we don’t face temptation as He faced it and that we would be delivered from the evil one to live for Christ. I think that’s at least part of what’s going on in the Lord’s Prayer.

REEDER: I love the translation, “Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” I actually think it’s a better translation because that’s exactly where this is aiming: we are reminded of Christ having endured temptation for us, and therefore, we are delivered through His faithfulness in all of life under the assault of the evil one.

On the other hand, the notion of testing itself is not evil. On the contrary, God uses testing. Further, God can sovereignly take that which the world, the flesh, and the devil would use to ensnare us, and the Lord can use it instead to disciple us and develop us. But we are to flee temptation. I’ll make two comments.

First, Christians make a big mistake in this area by saying that we resist temptation and flee Satan. I think the Bible would have us do the opposite. The Bible does not want us to flee Satan; the Bible wants us to resist Satan, and he will flee from us. But that which is designed to ensnare us into sin, we are to flee that temptation and pursue the environment of holiness and the means of grace that build us up.

Second, having said that, when God brings tests, they are not designed to ensnare us. Rather, they are designed to edify us. A test from the divine hand does three things. It’s kind of like my algebra teacher in the eighth grade. I was convinced she gave me tests to flunk me. I have always told people: “You never have to worry about prayer in school. As long as you’ve got algebra tests, you’ll have prayer in school, I can promise you.” But a test in the hand of the Almighty is there to show us what we know, to show us what we don’t know, and to show us what we need to know. That is from the hand of the Lord. But we flee that which is designed by the world, the flesh, and the devil to bring us down.

PARSONS: I think it is confusing for everyone when we hear that translation. Part of the issue with the way it’s translated into English and the way we understand that portion of the Lord’s Prayer is that it’s a bit of a Hebraism. It’s a way of speaking. It’s a manner of getting a point across to say: “When we are tempted, Lord, lead us away from it. Get us out of it. Help us to flee it.” I know that sounds like the opposite of what it is saying, but that is the way the Hebrews thought and spoke. We see Hebraisms throughout the Gospels, and I think that’s what it’s getting at.

The second thing I would say is that many Christians have been taught to have prejudices against the Reformed faith, but often they don’t know what it is. However, if they are really the Lord’s people, there is one person they are not supposed to have a prejudice against, and that is the Lord Jesus. So, immerse yourself in the teaching of Jesus.

Our late friend, James Montgomery Boice, once preached a sermon on the radio, which I think was called “Was Jesus a Calvinist?” He got more bad press for that sermon than for anything else, but that is actually quite a good question because we can get prejudices about “isms,” but if we are the Lord’s people, we love the Lord Jesus. We know even at the instinctive and emotional level that if He taught it, we should listen, and if He believed it, we need to learn to believe it.

So, a great tool for us in keeping friendships and helping our friends is our own study of the way in which Jesus Himself taught about the grace of God, the depravity of man, the nature of the atonement, and the sovereignty of God. It’s all in the Gospels. I think that will enable you to maintain friendships, or if you lose them, they will be lost because alas, people won’t listen to Christ Himself. That is very sore, but I think it does mean that you have not been the offensive one. That’s one thing that I’ve found helpful.

The Spirit primarily does two things in us, and if you understand these two things, you’ll understand how the Spirit helps us pray. First, the Spirit illumines us. He opens our eyes to see who God is truly, and we then find our minds turned. We have a complete misunderstanding of what God is like, and then the Spirit opens our eyes, and it’s a mighty aha moment that carries on as we carry on being educated by the Spirit. So, the Spirit renews our minds as we think: “Oh, that is what God is like. I did not think God was like that.”

Second, by renewing our minds, the Spirit transforms our hearts. He takes away a heart of stone to give us a heart of flesh. That is an initial work that He does, but it’s also an ongoing work. The Spirit gives us a new mind and a new heart, but He also ongoingly educates us and affects us. In regard to prayer, that means that as the Spirit works in me, my mind is enabled to know what to pray for.

As a young Christian, I naturally tended to have a prayer life like a shopping list of blessings for me, my family, and my friends, and it was pretty self-centered. And then I’d remember that I ought to do some less self-centered prayers. But as the Spirit works in me and transforms my mind, and I see reality differently, as I start seeing the centrality of God and not me, then my prayers start following that change. My prayers start becoming more God-centered and less me-centered. That’s the Spirit’s re-education work.

Further, through the Spirit’s re-education work, He is also transforming my affections and desires. It’s not merely as the Spirit works in me that I know, “Yes, I really ought to be more God-centered and less self-centered.” Rather, the Spirit is doing a deeper work. He’s actually making me want to be and enjoy being God-centered so this just becomes natural to me. I’m not trying to work at it. It just comes out of who the Spirit is making me to be. Therefore, I begin to desire to pray God-centered, God-loving, and God-adoring prayers.

The Spirit educates and affects me such that I begin to desire to pray, to desire long communion with God in a way that I did not think about before. Initially, prayer was just one of those things that I ought to do every now and again. But the Spirit’s work runs so deep that I begin to enjoy communion with God.

So, it’s those two things that the Spirit does. He educates me, transforming my mind, and He transforms my affections so that I enjoy prayer and begin to pray more intelligently and more Christian prayers.

The basic principle is to make sure that you have space in your day, then space in your week, and then space in your month set aside for reading. I remember the late John Stott saying that he tried to read one hour a day, a morning a week, a day a month, and a week a year. If you keep that up, or some such program, even though it seems slow, you will eventually get through a lot of books over a longer period of time.

This is not a matter of setting a pattern or a standard for everyone. Some of us read very quickly, and some of us read more slowly. Some books should be read quickly. Others should be read slowly. I think the thing that helps is breaking the back of our sloth and indifference and saying, “Even if I have to start small, I will do it.” And if you keep going, it’s amazing how much you can get through.

I would also recommend paying attention to the style. If you read something and think, “That is really good,” then don’t just go on to the next thing. Look back and ask yourself: “Why is this really good? How is this person doing this?” Then, see if you can build some of these principles into your own use of language. I think we often forget that we use language in ministry, and the better we can use it, the better it will be. In a sense, the better our language is, the better we will be able to glorify God with words—not just cheap, easy words and slang but words that exalt God and lift the spirits of those who listen to us.

In the ministry of Christ and the seventy, when they came back from their mission, Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18). An aspect of Satan’s control over the world was affected by the ministry of Christ, His death and resurrection, and the day of Pentecost, which suggests that now the gospel is to be preached in all the world.

That being said, Satan is still referred to as the “prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). He still has power. He does not have as much power as he did under the old covenant, but he is still to be reckoned with: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). In his Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis said something along the lines that you can make too much of the devil, but you can also make too little of him. He hasn’t yet been cast into the bottomless pit that the book of Revelation speaks of in Revelation 20. So, he is very much to be reckoned with, even in the new covenant.

GODFREY: I certainly agree, but we have to be very clear: Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords now. I think Lewis is exactly right: we can’t make too much or too little of Satan. On the “too much” side, sometimes we talk about Satan almost as if he were a minor god. He is a finite creature, which means he can’t be everywhere at once. He can’t be the Holy Spirit, so he has minions who serve him.

Sometimes we talk as if there is the Holy God and then there is the evil god, Satan. Satan is not God. He’s a finite creature. He’s limited by his finitude as well as by God’s sovereignty. He is a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, but he is chump change compared to the sovereign God. He has been defeated, and he will be destroyed. Our calling is not to let him destroy us before he is destroyed.

FERGUSON: We all try to answer questions by saying the same thing in different ways, and there are two things I’ve found helpful in this context.

The first is what Bob has alluded to in Matthew 28:18–20. Jesus is saying in Matthew 28:18–20 that as the second man and the last Adam, He has won back the dominion on earth that Adam lost. Adam lost his dominion. He fell to the tempter. Christ has overcome the tempter so that He now says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” We might instinctively think, “He’s the Son of God—of course all authority in heaven and on earth is His.” But Jesus is speaking in a particular context, saying that the dominion Satan won in the garden of Eden has been overthrown, and that authority is now His.

The second is to pick up what Derek said: the limiting context of the expression regarding the binding of Satan is that he would no longer deceive the nations. It isn’t just a general statement, “Satan is bound,” but that Satan is bound in this particular respect: until the resurrection of Christ, the sending of the Holy Spirit, and the coming of the last days, Satan was deceiving all the nations except the one nation God was undeceiving in His mercy. On the day of Pentecost, the crowd that gathered was analogous to the crowd that gathered to build the Tower of Babel in an attempt to pull God down. God judged the nations at Babel and committed them to the deception of Satan. But from the day of Pentecost onwards, the nations are being undeceived by the preaching of the gospel. That is symbolized by the gatherings of the people at Pentecost and has now been experienced for two thousand years.

This is just another way of saying that we always need to look at the context in which phrases are used. We don’t just see a phrase and then make up ourselves what it means. In specific ways, the Scriptures help us to see these statements within a particular grid and context. So, when the Scriptures say that Satan is the god of this age, we realize that those who are not Christians are living in this age. However, the end of the ages has dawned on believers, and the preaching of the gospel continues to invade this age to bring people into the new age, which will continue until the Lord comes. And then, whatever your eschatology, comes the end.

I was seventeen in 1965, a first-year student at university, and I encountered the first reprints of John Owen’s works. They were big—six hundred pages per volume, and there were twenty-four volumes. I was able to buy them for fifteen shillings a volume, which is about eighty cents or something like that. When you are Scottish and young and you can get six hundred pages for under a dollar, you buy it. Of course, I’m being humorous. But when I started to read him, I realized this was a different order of teaching altogether. Owen’s works were so theologically rich and spiritually profound that they made some of the other things I was reading seem very superficial. So, that was how I started reading John Owen, and I have kept reading him ever since.

If somebody asked me, “Which theologian taught you to think?” I would say John Calvin because I bought his Institutes when I was a teenager as well.

BINGHAM: Was it expensive or cheap?

FERGUSON: I got them cheap. However, they were more per volume than John Owen. I probably got my first set of Calvin’s Institutes for about $4.50. But Owen helped me to apply theology and to see the way biblical theology flows out into the experience of the church and the Christian life.

Some of Owen’s books in particular helped me, and the one I have treasured most is his book Communion with God, which focuses on communion with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are also helpful volumes in his complete works. He talks about Christ in volume one, sin in volume six, and justification in volumes four and five. There are twenty-four volumes. I go back to reading him and sometimes think, “Why do I bother reading anybody else?” It is so rich. He is not an easy read, but it’s worth persevering.

The world takes confidence in all sorts of things. It takes confidence in its own accomplishments. It takes confidence in the various ways it avoids having to think about reality. It’s sometimes prideful. Sometimes it’s just indifferent. Christian confidence, on the other hand, is attuned to the Word of God, the promises of God, and the assurance of what God has said.

Recently, I was talking to some friends about a dear saint in our church who is on her deathbed. They reported that she is full of confidence that Jesus has eternal life for her and that death is not the end. It is critical that we have confidence like hers as we face the struggles, difficulties, and from our limited perspective, uncertainties of life. We can have confidence that God’s promises that will prove true.

Machen was a brilliant scholar. He had a bachelor’s from Johns Hopkins, was Princeton-trained, and then became a Princeton professor. Machen lived during the time of modernism in American culture, as the twentieth century was a time of optimism and growth. Of course, it had World War I, but that influenced Europe far more than it did America because it took place on European soil. France lost 2 million people in World War I, while America lost 170,000 soldiers, which is terrible, but the differences are known. But it was still a time of modernism, and Machen lived during the “Roaring Twenties,” as we call it. It was a culture that was ready to move away from God. That’s modernism: “We don’t need God anymore. We built skyscrapers, and He is holding us back.”

Much of the church didn’t want culture to keep moving past them, so they said: “Hold on, you don’t have to leave just yet. We’ll make our doctrines a little more palatable. If you don’t like sinful man, let’s say that humanity is basically good. If you don’t like the idea that Christ had to die and you must have a substitute, let’s turn Christ’s death into just an example that you are empowered to follow every day. Isn’t that beautiful?” That’s liberalism. It compromised the doctrines that actually define Christianity in order to stay at the “cool table” of culture.

Along came Machen, and he wrote a book, Christianity and Liberalism. He essentially said: “This is not Christianity. This is a Christianity without a cross, which is not Christianity. Christianity without the message of sin is not Christianity. Christianity without an authoritative Bible standing over us that we are accountable to is not Christianity. If you don’t have those things, you don’t have Christianity. You are American. You are free to believe whatever you want to believe. We love liberty, but you can’t believe something that’s the total opposite of Christianity and call it Christianity.” Machen took a bold stand.

I mention all of this because I think it’s true of the story of American Christianity, which is a tale of two cities. We love our culture in America. Sometimes, we want to be a part of it so much so that we’ll compromise our convictions. It has happened. We all saw it. It’s happening right now. Whole denominations are selling their birthright to keep up with culture. That’s one city. Or, we can be a church of conviction that says, “No, we are going to follow God’s Word.” Machen is a good example of being a Christian of conviction.

So, that is one incident I find interesting and informative.

Later on, I used a different pattern and then I started using the kind of “Through the Bible in a Year” type pattern and there are various forms of that. I have used one that was written by Robert Murray M’Cheyne, Scottish minister in the nineteenth century that is very well known. You read four chapters a day from Old Testament, New Testament. You get through the Old Testament once and the New Testament twice in the year. And so, getting through the whole Bible each year I think is a helpful practice.

I’ve also, in addition to that, focused from time to time on certain books and given them more concentrated study. The material I actually recommend, I think I find myself recommending most, is actually Tabletalk, Nathan, for two reasons. One is because it does give you that help of a disciplined program of Bible reading. It gives you help in the notes that help you to expound and understand and apply the text, and there are also some great articles that go along with it. And it’s a terrific bargain. So, product placement is Tabletalk.

I know people who have used the same pattern all their lives. I have tended to vary the patterns I’ve used just because knowing the way I’m wired, that’s what I’ve found most helpful. And then, I have surrounded that with various things. You know sometimes I’ll have used some kind of prayer book just to help me, you know, to get the engine started. Sometimes I would sing.

Last year I did something I had never done before. I’m a speed reader and I felt I was speed reading instead of meditating, and so I started chanting the Psalms to myself, now not quite in the old Anglican way, but what I found in the English Standard Version was I could slow myself down by chanting out loud. And one of the things, I think, both my wife and myself have found is that speaking the Bible out loud is a very good help to Bible study because it was actually written to be heard and not just to be read.

So, those are some of the things that I have found helpful.

For those who want to pretend that God doesn’t exist and want to act as if He doesn’t and claim that He doesn’t, I still say to begin with Him. At the end of the day, people are not converted by the way in which we evangelize but rather by God who works in their hearts. So, objectively, begin with God. Begin with His standard, His character, who He is, and what He demands.

At the same time, I would also say that it depends on the conversation. I am engaged in conversations with non-Christians all the time, whether at restaurants, where I am in the community, at the gym, and so on, and it’s fascinating to me: people are incurably religious. They are religious at the very core of their being. Even people who don’t go to church, who are not a part of any organized religion, are religious. We see it every Sunday: clubs, communities, people coming together, being spiritual, being people of faith, whatever they are. So, start wherever they are. In one sense, you can meet people where they are. If they’re thinking about their children, if they’re thinking about their situation, if they’re worried about things, if they have guilt, if they feel the pressures and the anxieties of life, start there.

I would also say this: engage in conversations with them as human beings in a genuine and authentic way because you actually care about them. Yes, you want to communicate and proclaim the gospel to them—but communicate with them because you care about them.

That’s one of the things we see Jesus doing in His ministry. We see the Apostles doing that in their ministries. They have a love for people and a care for human beings. It’s true that their love for God and their desire to glorify God exceeds all of that, but they actually do care about people. They engage with people because they care about them. They care about their souls.

We evangelize not so that we can tell our Christian friends that we have evangelized; we evangelize for the glory of God and for the sake of the souls of those to whom we speak.