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
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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.
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