When Jesus called twelve men from among His disciples, what was He calling them to? From his sermon series in the gospel of Matthew, today R.C. Sproul considers the authority Christ delegated to His Apostles and the writings they produced by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Get R.C. Sproul’s commentary on the gospel of Matthew for your donation of any amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3939/donate 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
Chapter 1: What significance did the apostles hold in the early church?
You'll notice in this list of apostles that are given to us here that about half of them you know a lot about because they appear frequently in the record of the New Testament, but the other half you hardly recognize. Their activities as apostles in the early church remain, for the most part, obscure. And yet these 12 men to whom the Lord Jesus delegates this authority turn the world upside down.
I think that we could extract from Winston Churchill an evaluation of the importance of these 12 men that never have so many owed so much to so few.
All believers are called by God, but the calling of the disciples and the commissioning of the 12 apostles was unique, and it came with authority that resulted in, as you just heard R.C. Sproul say, the world being turned upside down. Welcome to the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind, where each week we feature the preaching ministry of R.C. Sproul.
Today marks the beginning of a new series in the Gospel of Matthew. We'll be in this Gospel for several weeks, but if you'd like to study it in greater detail, you can request Dr. Sproul's commentary on Matthew when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org before midnight tonight. So what can we learn from the calling of the apostles, and what authority did they have?
Here's Dr. Sproul in Matthew chapter 10.
And when he had called his twelve disciples to him, he gave them power over unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease. Now the names of the 12 apostles are these. First, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother,
James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector, James the son of Alphaeus and Lebaeus, whose surname was Thaddeus, Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.
We look at a list of names like this, and it's hard to get excited about the revelatory import of it, but beloved, this incident in the life of Jesus by which he commissioned these 12 to be his apostles is one of the most important and lasting significant things that our Lord did during his earthly ministry. So let's receive this record as it comes to us from God himself.
At the end of chapter 9, we heard Jesus admonish his disciples to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send out laborers to bring in the harvest because the harvest was great, but the laborers were few. And immediately following that mandate to pray, Jesus himself takes action to send out laborers into the fields. And we read in chapter 10 that he called his 12 disciples to him.
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Chapter 2: How were the disciples uniquely called by Jesus?
Amen. That was R.C. Sproul, beginning a short series in the Gospel of Matthew. This is the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. As you interact with people outside of the church, you quickly discover that unlike other topics, many people have opinions about Jesus, even though they've never read about Him or even read His words.
So being familiar with the Gospels yourself and being able to encourage a non-Christian to read one of the Gospels can be so helpful in evangelism. So today is your opportunity to get one study help to aid you in navigating your way around the Gospel of Matthew.
When you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org, we'll send you this hardcover volume, which is based on all of Dr. Sproul's sermons through Matthew. Your generosity helps keep Renewing Your Mind freely available to countless Christians around the world. Plus, you'll receive a resource designed to help you in your spiritual growth.
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