To better understand how the Bible applies to us, we should consider how it applied to its first readers. Today, R.C. Sproul invites us to experience the vibrant and dramatic context of God’s Word. This week, we’re celebrating 30 years of Renewing Your Mind. With your donation of any amount, you can receive R.C. Sproul’s book Everyone’s a Theologian, plus lifetime digital access to 5 complete teaching series and digital study guides from Dr. Sproul: Chosen by God, Dust to Glory, The Holiness of God (original and expanded editions), Knowing Scripture, and What Is Reformed Theology?: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3619/resource-collection Never contacted Ligonier before? Request your free copy of R.C. Sproul’s booklet introducing the Bible’s message of salvation, The Great Rescue: https://renewingyourmind.org/rescue Meet Today’s Teacher: R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was known for his ability to winsomely and clearly communicate deep, practical truths from God’s Word. He was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Meet the Host: Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children. Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
The biblical characters are not fictional. They are not fairytale characters. They are real people, real flesh, real blood, and we need to be reminded of, even as the Scriptures themselves remind us from time to time, as St. James does in his epistles when he exhorts the people of God to pray. He reminds them. of the effectiveness of the prayers of Elijah.
And he said, remember that Elijah was a man like unto you. His passions were just like your passions. His heartaches were just like your heart. But it's so easy for us to so romanticize the heroes and the personages of Scripture that we forget that they were just as we are.
The Bible is far from being a dry book. Many of the stories are dramatic, and they are stories of real men and real women. I'm sure you could hear the passion in R.C. Sproul's voice in the preview of today's message. Dr. Sproul would teach his seminary students, future preachers, to always find the drama in the text.
And today, on this Wednesday edition of Renewing Your Mind, he'll explain why that principle can help us as we read and study the Word of God for ourselves. All week, we are celebrating 30 years of Renewing Your Mind, and you're hearing select messages from some of Dr. Sproul's classic series.
When you give a gift of any amount in support of Renewing Your Mind, an outreach that has been listener-supported for three decades will unlock six teaching series, the study guides, and send you Dr. Sproul's book, Everyone's a Theologian. Thank you so much for your generosity and for keeping Renewing Your Mind freely available to so many around the world.
Stay tuned as after the message, Chris Larson will put me in the hot seat to give you a behind-the-scenes look at how I came to serve at Ligonier Ministries and be the host of Renewing Your Mind. Well, here's Dr. Sproul with a message from his classic series, Knowing Scripture.
I want to look in this session at a very important principle that may be a little bit surprising to you as we begin, and that is the principle that we ought to read the Bible existentially. And when I talk about reading the Bible existentially, I am not using the word in the philosophical sense.
I do not mean that we ought to apply the philosophical method that is married to existentialism to the Bible, as many are doing. But what I mean by it is simply this. that we ought to read the Bible as people who are personally, passionately, and intimately involved with what we are reading. There is a link, of course, to existentialism at this point.
I think of the philosopher Kierkegaard, the 19th century thinker who was so important for the shaping of later philosophy in the field of existentialism, who looked at mankind and said that there are different stages along life's way, or what he called stadia along life's way.
And as he explained that to his readers, he made a significant difference between what he would call the aesthetic stage and the existential stage of life. The aesthetic stage is defined as that dimension of life whereby we stand on the fringes of human activity and we remain always and forever spectators. We're never personally involved.
And what Kierkegaard was calling us to was that particularly as Christians, we are called to be passionately involved in the affairs of life. We cannot afford as Christians to stand back on the fringes and merely be observers. Now it's that principle that I want to translate now to the reading of the Scriptures.
We are not to come to the Bible and simply remain aloof from its message, trying to reduce it to an objective bit of information that we are to dissect and analyze and record in our memory banks. But this book is a book that is filled with life.
It is addressing us in the midst of the stream of our own lives, and if it is going to speak to us, we need to step into its skin to read these stories in a certain sense as if they were written especially for us. I remember Adele Rogers St.
John wrote a novel a few years ago in which the hero of the story was a man who was puzzled about what the Christian faith was all about, and he had a casual acquaintanceship with it. He knew people who were Christians, but he had never been serious about investigating the content of the Christian faith.
And he was like many people who felt, well, religion is something that we do by way of institutions and by church attendance, but I'm not going to get too personally involved in it. But somebody explained to the hero of the story that if Christianity was going to be meaningful in this man's life, he had to see its personal ramifications.
So by way of experiment, what the man did was he went back to his office, he was a successful businessman, and he instructed his secretary to type up each of the epistles of the New Testament as if they were personal letters that were written just for this man.
And she even went so far as to address these letters, not as Paul to the Philippians or Paul to the Thessalonians or Paul to the church at Rome, but rather it was Paul to Hank so and so. And then they were put in an envelope and they were sent to this man's home, to his home mailbox. And he would go out every week and there would be a letter from the Apostle Paul addressed to him.
And what that little game did was that it forced him to read the Scriptures personally and existentially. The Bible is filled with drama, and to read it existentially means to try to bridge that gap between ourselves in the first century and the culture in which the Bible was written, and try to project ourselves into the life situation of the Scriptures so that we can feel it
as well as read it with our eye. There's some license that goes on here that preachers use all the time. It involves the task of reading between the lines. Again, it was Kierkegaard. who in his little book, Fear and Trembling, did this with a very poignant passage from the Old Testament.
We know that the 22nd chapter of Genesis, for example, records one of the most moving stories in all of Old Testament history. It's the story of God calling Abraham and telling him to take his son, the child of promise, Isaac, and to take him into a far mountain. And there Abraham was asked by God to deliver Isaac to that mountain and to offer him on an altar of sacrifice to kill his own son.
And of course, the narrative of that event comes very abruptly, very concisely and succinctly to us in the Old Testament where God comes to Abraham and He says, Abraham, take now thy son, thine only son, the son whom you lovest, Isaac. and take him to this mountain where I will show you." And so on goes the instructions.
And Kierkegaard was reading that on one occasion, and he himself had suffered greatly in his soul from the pangs of a broken engagement. In fact, so much of Kierkegaard's writings, his poetry and drama, focuses on that release of the anguish of his soul that he experienced from that lost love.
And so when he reads this story in the Old Testament of God asking Abraham to take the most precious thing in his life and give it away, Kierkegaard felt it in his own soul. And he began to muse on it and he tried to think what was going on in Abraham's mind. And the text says simply, as it continues, and Abraham rose early in the morning.
And when Kierkegaard got to that portion of the text, he stopped and he said, wait a minute. Why did Abraham rise early in the morning? The Bible doesn't tell us. In order to know it, we have to read between the lines. We have to try to project what it would be like to be in that life situation.
And so he began to muse on it, and he thought, well, maybe it's because Abraham was such a man of so vital a faith, so disciplined, so rock hard in his commitment to God that no matter whatever God asked him to do, Abraham reported for duty early. God, you want me to sacrifice my son in the altar? So let it be said, so let it be done. I'll set the alarm clock for 5 o'clock in the morning.
And I'll get up and I'll report for duty and I'll take my son and do exactly what you said. I won't miss a beat. I won't skip a step. I'll do whatever you want me to do. Well, that's one way we can understand the text. And Kierkegaard sets that forth for us. But then he said, wait a minute. Abraham was a man. Maybe he was the friend of God. Maybe he's the prototype of all faithful men.
Maybe he had faith such as to move mountains. But even Christ himself sweat beads of perspiration that were of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. And he was greater than Abraham. And Kierkegaard looks at the idea. He says, don't tell me that Abraham got up early in the morning out of a simplistic sense of obedience and duty to God. And Kierkegaard said, no, if that were I,
and God had come to me and said, kill my own son. I think the reason I would have woken up early in the morning is because I know I would have never been able to fall asleep. As soon as my eyelids grew heavy, the pain of that decision would intrude into my mind and I would begin to think, how could this be God? For me to sacrifice my own son, what kind of a God is that? Is he simply testing me?
Maybe at the last second God will deliver me, but then maybe he won't. And so the anguish of a soul wrestling with With his trust in God, the anguish of a soul hanging to faith by his fingernails was tormenting Abraham. And maybe, said Kierkegaard, that's why he got up early in the morning. We don't know. As I said, the Bible doesn't tell us. It's silent.
And of course, it can be a very dangerous and irresponsible thing for us to take too much license and intrude too much into the text. And we don't want to do that. I've already given a lesson on the dangers of subjectivism in interpretation. But that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about feeling.
what the people in the Scriptures are feeling, because the biblical characters are not fictional. They are not fairytale characters. They are real people, real flesh, real blood, and we need to be reminded of, even as the Scriptures itself remind us from time to time, as St. James does in his epistles when he exhorts the people of God to pray.
He reminds them of the effectiveness of the prayers of Elijah. And he said, remember that Elijah was a man like unto you. His passions were just like your passions. His heartaches were just like your heartaches. but it's so easy for us to so romanticize the heroes and the personages of Scripture that we forget that they were just as we are.
One of my favorite illustrations comes in the 10th chapter of Leviticus, where we have there the record of the death of the sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu. We read the text as follows, Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereupon. And they offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not.
And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. Now listen to that. Two verses, and we get the action. We don't get much explanation as to why they did what they did, but in two verses, Nadab and Abihu's act is recorded for us, and their deaths are recorded for us.
Very, very sketchy by way of outline, really not filling in the details in their fullness, but it's hitting the main point that you would find in the front page article of a newspaper. Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the Lord spoke. saying, I will be sanctified in them that come near me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace.
There's not a word in there about Aaron's reaction to the slaughter of his sons except what is implied. Now what do you think it was like for Aaron? Do you think Aaron, after he hears that his sons have been slain at the altar, casually strolled over to the tent of Moses and said, Moses, I have a theological question for you. Perhaps you can help me.
I'm just not quite sure why it is that God would take the lives of my two sons. Perhaps you can enlighten me. Do you think that's how it happened? You know that's not how it happened. When Aaron saw the bodies of his sons in front of that altar, he was tearing his hair out. He goes to Moses' tent. He's screaming, man, Moses! What's going on here? What kind of a God would do this?
I've served them faithfully day and night. Whatever He's asked me to do, I've done. I raised my own sons. I prepare them for the priesthood. One small little transgression and God destroys them. Why, Moses? And Moses says, Aaron, don't you remember that God made it perfectly clear? And he was serious. He said, I will be treated.
as being holy by those who approach me and by those who minister in my name." Don't you see, Aaron? God will not tolerate sacrilege at the altar, even if it comes from the hands of your sons. God won't tolerate it. And Aaron bowed his head. As the Scripture says, Aaron held his peace.
He held his peace all right, but it took every ounce of strength and energy that he possessed to hold his peace, because his peace was screaming to let go into warfare against God. This is a moment of passion. And I suggest that as you read the Scriptures in this existential way, that you look for the drama that's there. because the Bible's filled with drama.
And when the person comes to me and said, I break down in my Bible study because I get bored. I say, how can you get bored? The blood is flowing in the streets. The sexual impulses of men and women burn like fire throughout the scriptures. Anger, hatred, hostility.
Again, I think of Kierkegaard who said about his own age in the 19th century in the Church of Europe at that time, he said, my complaint is not that this age is wicked. My complaint is that it's paltry. It's dull. It lacks life. There's no elan. There's no verve. There's no excitement. He said, and so I am driven from time to time.
When I'm bored by my contemporary surroundings, I am driven back to the Old Testament where people are real. And they breathe life, they lie, they kill, they steal, they cheat, they commit adultery in a word. They are men, they are women. And that's what I mean, that we get in touch with the lifeblood of Scripture as we read. If we practice looking for the drama,
There's no way that we can be bored because I'm convinced, dear friends, that this book is the most dramatic book that has ever been written. I remember back in the 40s, there was a radio program borrowed from the best-selling book by Fulton Owsler entitled The Greatest Story Ever Told.
Hollywood has understood without any great desire to communicate the truths of Christianity that if you want to tell a story that has passion and drama, borrow from the themes of the Scriptures because the themes of the Scriptures lend themselves to this kind of drama. I can remember one last example that I'll give you later on in the book of Leviticus.
We read in the 13th chapter the following instructions. See how interesting Scripture is. And the Lord spoke unto Moses and Aaron, saying, When a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, a scab, or a bright spot, and it be in the skin of his flesh like the plague of leprosy. Then it should be brought unto Aaron the priest, or to one of his sons of the priest.
And the priest shall look on the plague in the skin of the flesh. And when the hair in the plague is turned white, and the plague in sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is the plague of leprosy. And the priest shall look upon him and pronounce him unclean. How are you doing? You still with me? It goes on. And the priest shall look again on the seventh day.
And if the plague be somewhat dark and the plague spread not in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him clean. It is but a scab. Then he shall wash his clothes and be skinned. But if the scab spread much abroad in the skin after the day, you read that. It goes on, ladies and gentlemen, for three chapters.
And I know the first 15 times I read those chapters in Leviticus, they gave me an excedrin headache. I couldn't wait to get past all these pedantic points of description of various illnesses and disease that was like reading somebody's book on anatomy. And I thought, that's got to be the most boring stuff. How could God the Holy Spirit waste His time inspiring stuff like that?
Then one day I was reading. And I'd just been talking to a friend who had gone to their doctor and the doctor had found some strange shadowy marks that were showing up in an x-ray. The doctor wasn't sure what was causing these images and the x-ray plates. Was it a harmless mass of scar tissue? A benign tumor? Or did it show the beginnings of a virulent cancer?
And so my friend then went to the hospital to have a biopsy performed. And then the tissue that was taken in the biopsy was sent to the lab to go through the various procedures of pathology that are involved in modern medicine. And do you realize what my friend went through while waiting? for the verdict that would come back from the lab.
Harmless, benign tissue or a fatal cancer that would snuff out their lives. That's what these people were going through when they went to the priest, when they saw a scratch on their skin, when they saw a scab form on their skin. In those days, they didn't just assume that it was a mosquito bite.
It could very possibly be the first clue of the advent of the most dreadful, dreadful disease that could afflict them, the disease of leprosy. Even go from the Old Testament to the New and think of the drama that surrounds Jesus' ministry to the leper. How the leper comes down the street and sees Jesus, and he cries out in a loud voice, Jesus, have mercy upon me.
And that wretched man is begging on the street and Jesus walks over and breaks all the laws that are set forth here about contamination and contact with somebody involved with the scourge of leprosy. Jesus comes over and touches him. What does that say to you about your Lord who will stoop down from his throne on heaven and place his hands
on the most wretched flesh of mankind to bring healing to a human life. How would we understand it if we didn't first take the time to see the drama even in Leviticus, even in the dietary laws as we read the dietary laws? And we say, oh, what could be more boring than whether we're supposed to eat things that chew their cud or how many cloves they have in their hooves and all of that business.
And then we see men like Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego who are taken away into captivity in a process where the Babylonians take not everybody from Israel into exile, but they take the cream of the crop, the best scholars, the best musicians, the best artists, the best businessmen, and they try to integrate them into the life of the culture of Babylon.
But the Jews don't want to give up their heritage. They want to remain Jews. They don't want to be assimilated into the Babylonian culture. And so the Jews refused to break their laws of kosher, the laws of diet that God had prescribed from heaven itself. They would not bow down to the images of the emperor.
And for that, Daniel goes to the lion's den and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego end up in a flaming, fiery furnace. We wouldn't understand the drama if we didn't understand the crucial role that the diet provisions have for the one who is chosen of God to be special. It's all there. It's there in passion. It's there in drama.
But for us to touch it and have it touch us where we live, we have to see the flesh, the humanity of the people in their existence and touch them. Let their existence touch our existence. That's what I mean by an existential reading of the Word of God.
That was R.C. Sproul from his Knowing Scripture series. Before I introduce a guest who is joining us in the Renewing Your Mind studio, I do want to remind you that for this special week of episodes, you can request lifetime digital access to six classic series from R.C. Sproul, their study guides, and a copy of his popular overview of theology, Everyone's a Theologian.
when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343. Your support this week will not only help sustain the outreach of Renewing Your Mind, but will also help expand its reach and all the media efforts of Ligonier Ministries. For example, this week we have launched a new Renewing Your Mind YouTube channel for those who prefer to listen there.
Show your support with a gift of any amount at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes. Well, we are joined by a very special guest who is a regular here in the Renewing Your Mind studio, the president and CEO of Ligonier Ministries, Chris Larson. Chris, it's so good to have you with us for this 30th anniversary week.
I'm so thankful to stop by and to mark this occasion of 30 years. It was soon after Renewing Your Mind started to air that I first heard Dr. Sproul's broadcast driving home from college class one night here in Orlando. And so this takes me right back to those early days. So I am enjoying this week's broadcast just as much, I'm sure, as our listeners are.
And I thought it'd be interesting to turn the tables on you, Nathan, a little bit. You're the one usually asking the questions here as the host. But I don't know how many of those listening are know that you're approaching 13 years serving here at Ligonier and your journey to come to Ligonier, it was a little circuitous. It was a little different.
And I'd love for you to tell a little bit of that story.
Well, Chris, I'm happy for you to turn the tables, but I already answered that question about 10 years ago as we were celebrating the 20th anniversary of Renewing Your Mind. We were in the studio with Lee Webb, yourself, R.C. Sproul, but pay attention because I'd only been in the U.S. for two years and my Australian accent was much thicker.
So how did I first discover Ligonier Ministries and then come to serve here in the U.S. ? That's a great question and an interesting journey that the Lord took me on. And it began with a journey from Pentecostal theology to Reformed theology.
And as a self-identified geek, as I was searching for biblical answers, it made sense to me to go on the Internet and to begin digging deeper into the Scriptures. And it wasn't long before... I discovered the ministry of Dr. R.C. Sproul, and my wife and I in Australia subscribed to the podcast, began listening to the Renewing Your Mind broadcast.
And the Lord used that to ground us in His Word and to convince us of the truthfulness of the historic Christian faith, Reformed theology. But there's a flip side to that. Not only did the Lord use technology to strengthen my faith and encourage us in His Word, He also used that to introduce me to the team here at Ligonier Ministries. It was through Twitter.
As I was preparing at that time for pastoral ministry, I had experience in social media, was heavily engaged in the Christian internet community, and I was offering my services and put a tweet out there, and Chris Larson and Burke Parsons from Table Talk magazine both read that tweet, and that began a dialogue more than four years ago, which resulted in early 2012, my wife and I with three children, five or under,
selling everything we owned, getting on a plane with 10 suitcases and flying halfway around the world and meeting the team here at Ligonier and Dr. Sproul for the first time.
And it's just been a wonderful privilege and opportunity to be able to serve alongside Dr. Sproul and the team here to help other Nathans that are on the internet searching for truth, hopefully discovering the podcast and other resources from Ligonier Ministries.
And not only did he bring himself and his family in suitcases, but he brought me a special gift, a boomerang. That's right.
I can remember being so nervous in that interview, Chris, but very thankful to be able to share that story.
That's a great story. Listeners will have heard that you didn't grow up as a Christian. Can you tell our listeners how the Lord brought you to faith?
Yeah, I did not grow up in a Christian home and was taught from a young age that evolution was true and that there was no heaven or hell. And I can remember even mocking Christians, thinking that those who believed that God could just forgive you for your sins, that this was just a crutch to help you get through life and never gave it any serious thought.
But a lot of people died in my life during my teen years. And so I really wrestled with the question, what happens to you after you die? I couldn't accept the fact that that was it. There had to be more. I longed for there to be something more, and I explored and looked into other religions, even New Age spirituality.
But I remember being in seventh grade, and I had a Pentecostal teacher who preached the gospel to me, and then I had another professed Christian who was actually part of a cult who was encouraging me to read the Bible. And he was encouraging me to read the King James Version of the Bible. And I can remember buying my first ever Bible at age 13, King James Version Bible.
And they were both asking me, are you reading the Bible? You're reading it every day. You're reading it every day. And I was trying to understand what I was reading. I was unregenerate. I didn't understand the language, just not being written in modern English. And I got really kind of stressed out about what do I do here? And so I can remember praying and saying to the Lord,
If you're real, can you come back into my life when I'm 18 and I'm more mature to be able to make a decision? I didn't know who to believe, this Pentecostal person, this other individual. I'm just like, I can't deal with this. I will have to address it when I'm 18. So I prayed that prayer, wrapped that Bible up and put it in the top of my closet.
I can remember one night I was with a friend and it was late into the night, early into the next morning. And he said to me, do you want to go to church with me tomorrow? I said, go to church with you? I had no idea that this individual professed to be a Christian. And he said, yeah, I play in the worship band. Like, we can go tomorrow. And I said, well, I don't know about that.
And he said, well, if you don't go and you die and you stand before God, you can never say you didn't have an opportunity. And I can remember at that moment, remembering this prayer I prayed when I was 13. I looked at my watch trying to figure out, am I 18? Like, how old am I? And realizing I'm 18.
And so I went to church that next day, and that began a serious exploration into the Christian faith. And the Lord did graciously save me, and very, very thankful for that. The sad news of that story is... is within about two months of being invited to go to church by that individual, he no longer professed faith. And to this day, I believe he is an ardent opponent of the Christian faith.
But the Lord used him as one of those means to draw me to himself.
It's an amazing story. It's beautiful. What's your favorite part of hosting Renewing Your Mind?
I think my favorite part is learning along with the listeners. I'm not in the studio just reading a script. I spend time in those messages. I'm learning along with them and really thinking about why should a listener take 25, 26 minutes out of their day to hear this message.
and reflecting on it, and having the opportunity to be able to sit under the teaching of Dr. Sproul and other trusted teachers week in and week out as we prepare and produce and distribute Renewing Your Mind is just an incredible privilege and opportunity, and thankful every day that the Lord has given me the opportunity to do that.
Well, you're doing it so well, and we're grateful for this season at Renewing Your Mind, and we're grateful for your stewardship of the program. So you've been hosting now for about a year and a half, and this was a transition that we had planned and discussed for many months, but there was something that happened in your life where you almost did not become the next host of Renewing Your Mind.
Would you like to relate that story?
Yes, yes. We really are going behind the scenes for our listeners. But I can remember we'd been talking about this for a couple of months, that perhaps this would be the next chapter for my season here at Ligonier Ministries. And we were thinking through, would this work? Is there a way that I could juggle these responsibilities along with some other responsibilities?
And I recall talking to you, Chris, and saying, you know, I actually think this could work. And the next day I got onto a plane and I went to California and we had a conference there and met with Ligonier friends. And before coming home, was involved in a serious car accident. I wasn't driving, someone else was driving, and a young man, recklessly driving, hit us head on.
And as a result of that, I had several months out of the office and then several more months recovering. And so we put a pause on whether or not I would be the next host. We didn't know, could I be the next host? What was going to be the outcome after that accident? But I'm thankful to report that... The Lord was so gracious, so kind.
I'm healthier today than I was before the accident, and thankful that this door remained open. But it did bring clarity, and I can remember in the days, weeks, and months after that accident being so settled in the reality and the truth that I had another season of service to the Lord. And that is true for everyone listening today.
If you have breath, it's because the Lord has a purpose for you on this earth. And so I was just reminded through that trial that I do have another season of service, and I didn't know whether it would be renewing your mind at that time.
But I am so overjoyed to be able to serve the Lord with gladness, to come into the office every day, come into the studio every week, and steward Renewing Your Mind and help other people hear the truths of God's Word. If it wasn't for R.C. Sproul and his instruction in my life regarding the sovereignty of God, going through trials like that would have been so much more challenging.
But knowing that through those great moments, those difficult moments, those painful moments, that the Lord is in control, that He's working all things together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose, just brings great comfort. I think it was Charles Spurgeon who said, the doctrine of God's sovereignty is the pillow upon which the believer lays their head.
And so, as we go through trials in life, as our listeners do, it is knowing who God is, and R.C. Sproul communicated that so clearly and so well, that takes us through those seasons. So I almost didn't become the host, but the Lord was in control and brought me through that season and thankful to be sitting here in the studio today.
That testimony of God's sovereignty and His grace and His goodness in your life is something I'm sure that all of our listeners can relate to. It's where we understand that theology is not a dry and dusty academic pursuit. Theology leads us to life, which leads us to worship.
And the way that you express that, I think this is exactly why we exist, is to help more Christians to discover the God of the Bible, so that they can be born up during these seasons of challenge and adversity. So if there is one thing that you think listeners of Renewing Your Mind need to know, what would that be?
It's a really good question, Chris. I would remind our listeners... that in some sense, there is nothing special about renewing your mind. A lot of people in podcasting and radio are trying to think, what is the latest gimmick, fad? How can we get this episode trending or go viral?
And what Dr. Sproul started 30 years ago and this ministry has maintained ever since is just proclaiming the Word of God and allowing God by His Spirit to work through that Word and with that Word to encourage His people to build them up. So the success that Renewing Your Mind has seen has been thanks to the Lord blessing His Word taught and preached. And we're not changing.
If the Lord tarries and people are sitting in their studio in 30 years' time celebrating 60 years of Renewing Your Mind, it will be because they've been faithful to the mission and have maintained that clear focus to proclaim and teach the Word of God.
Well, press on, brother, and I look forward to tuning in tomorrow. Thank you, Chris.
Thank you.