In John’s gospel, we read these familiar words:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:16–17)

These two verses are filled with optimism and encouragement. But John goes on to record Jesus’ next words:

“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:18–21)

Churches around the world observe Maundy Thursday each year. Many also conduct what is called a Tenebrae service, a service of darkness, because of the events that occurred that Thursday evening in Jerusalem. It was a full moon that night before the Passover. And yet that was the darkest night in the history of the world.

As Jesus was meeting in the upper room with His disciples to celebrate the Passover one last time, two of the men at that table would betray Him in the coming hours: one by selling Him to His enemies for thirty pieces of silver (Judas), and the other by blaspheming and denying publicly that he even knew Jesus (Peter).

Many significant events occurred that night. First, Jesus delivered the longest discourse that we find in Scripture regarding the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Second, He instituted foot-washing for His disciples. Third, he announced His last will and testament, saying to them before His departure:

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. (John 14:1–3)

Fourth, he reassured them: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27). And fifth, Jesus prayed what has been called His High Priestly Prayer, praying that He might enter again into the glory He had with His Father from before the foundation of the world. But principally, He focused the prayer on intercession for His disciples (ch. 17).

When all this was finished, the meeting ended with the singing of a hymn, and they left the upper room to go to the garden of Gethsemane. Keep in mind that all these things started that evening after the sun had set. Twenty-four hours later, Jesus would be dead and buried. In anguish in Gethsemane, He prayed alone to His Father, saying: “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).

The disciples couldn’t stay awake with Him for even one hour. They fell asleep while He was wrestling with the Father in prayer. And the Father obviously gave the answer to His Son, saying, in effect: “No, I’ve set this cup before You. This is Your destiny, and You must drink it to its bitter dregs.”

Then there was a sound of a tumult as a huge contingent of armed soldiers arrived, led by Judas. Judas kissed Jesus with the kiss of death, identifying Him for the soldiers, that they might arrest Him. So dark was that night.

The soldiers had a job to do. It was a matter of urgency that they arrest Jesus and bring Him bound to the Sanhedrin so that He might be subjected to trial by the Jewish authorities. Why the hurry? It was inappropriate, improper, and illegal for a capital trial to be carried out at night. It was also illegal to have a capital trial that did not last at least two days, since it was incumbent on the prosecution to interrogate several witnesses.

But this was a kangaroo court. It took place in the dead of night. The Jewish leaders had to get their decision finalized because they could not execute a criminal on the Sabbath, which would begin at dusk the next day. Since the Jews were not permitted under the law of their Roman occupiers to carry out the death penalty, they first had to convict Jesus among the Jewish Sanhedrin and then take Him to Pontius Pilate for the secular judgment. Pilate would hold court only in the mornings, so all their business had to be done that night.

John 3:19 says, “This is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” One of the things we read in Revelation about the new heaven and new earth is that there will be no night there. There will be no sun, moon, or stars, or any artificial light, because the Lamb’s radiance and refulgent glory will supply the light for heaven. There is no darkness in heaven because darkness is the context preferred by the wicked.

Think for a moment how many diabolical acts in the world today take place after sundown and before sunup. We, in our fallen condition, are by nature children of darkness. We prefer the darkness so that we can do those evil deeds that can’t stand the scrutiny of daytime. To have a kangaroo court driven by expediency to convict the perfect, sinless Son of God is not something that could possibly have taken place in the light of day.

And so they dragged Jesus first to Annas. Annas had formerly been the high priest, but he had been deposed by Pontius Pilate’s predecessor, even though the high priest normally maintained that position for his entire life. But in the minds of the Jews, Annas was still the leading authority, and they went to him first. Annas interrogated Jesus regarding His claims to be the Messiah.

When Jesus asked Annas for the testimony against Him, He said:

I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them; they know what I said. (John 18:20–21)

In other words, Jesus was saying: “I teach where there are a multitude of witnesses. Where are your witnesses?”

The only “witnesses” they had were false witnesses who had been hired to tell lies about Jesus. The witnesses for the defense were not allowed to speak. When Jesus raised that question, one of the officials slapped Him across the face and snarled, “Is that how you answer the high priest?” (John 18:22). Jesus responded, “If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong; but if what I said is right, why do you strike me?” (John 18:23).

Annas had had enough. He had heard all that he wanted to hear, so he directed that Jesus be sent to Caiaphas, who was his son-in-law and the reigning high priest. Jesus then had a second trial that night with the Jewish authorities, who accused Jesus of blasphemy because He claimed to be the Son of God. Yet even that accusation was a violation of Jewish law. Blasphemy required that a person use the name of God in a profane way, and Jesus had never done that.

The Jewish leaders were convinced that Jesus was guilty of a capital offense, but they also knew that Rome would never execute Him for blasphemy because Rome didn’t care about that. So they sent Him to Pilate with the charge that Jesus claimed to be king: “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king” (Luke 23:2).

Pilate immediately understood that this was a Jewish problem, so he sent Jesus to Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee. After that encounter, Herod sent Jesus back to Pilate, and during that trial, Pilate proclaimed, “I find no guilt in him” (John 18:38). Nevertheless, to appease the Jews, Pilate delivered Jesus over to be flogged. After the crown of thorns had been placed on Jesus’ head, after He been whipped and spit upon, Pilate announced, “Behold the man!” (John 19:5). The night was over, and dawn had broken. And in the light of day, they took Jesus away to be crucified.

Good Friday, which commemorates the suffering and death of Jesus, has long been celebrated in the Christian church. The historical record is unclear regarding how the church came to call this day “Good Friday” since the term is not mentioned in Scripture. Some have posited that it was originally called “God’s Friday” and later morphed into “Good Friday,” but most linguists find that theory untenable. It’s more likely that the term comes from an antiquated meaning of “good” as “holy”—in other words, “Holy Friday.”

Regardless of how this term developed historically, the fact remains that Christians do see Good Friday as good in the way we understand the term today—a fact that some people might find puzzling. Why would Christians call “good” a day that saw their leader experience horrific injustice at the hands of corrupt religious rulers and put to death by the Romans on a shameful torture device?

At first glance, there appears to be nothing good about this day at all. Jesus’ followers certainly didn’t see it as good when they mourned His death that Friday and Saturday. The disciples who had given up their livelihoods, believing they would be key players in a messianic kingdom that would overthrow the rule of Rome, had their hopes and dreams dashed. Indeed, if Jesus’ death on that dark day had been the end of the story, people would rightly view Christians as objects of pity (1 Cor. 15:17–19).

Why, then, do Christians call Good Friday “good”? The answer is that Resurrection Sunday interprets and transforms Good Friday. We see woven throughout Scripture the pattern of “not good” later being reinterpreted as God sovereignly uses it to bring about what is good.

For example, consider the story of Joseph in Genesis. There is nothing inherently good about being betrayed by one’s own brothers, sold into slavery in a foreign country, and—just as things seem to finally be getting better—being falsely accused, thrown into prison, and forgotten by a fellow prisoner turned freeman. It would be natural to stamp “not good” over these parts of Joseph’s story. Yet in God’s mysterious but wonderful providence, He fashions good from these “not good” raw materials, using Joseph and his eventual position of authority in Egypt to save not only Joseph’s family from starvation but the entire region. In retrospect, Joseph can say of his brothers’ evil betrayal of him, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Gen. 50:20, emphasis added).

So it is with the evil events of the crucifixion and death of Jesus. As the Apostle Peter makes clear in his sermon at Pentecost, Jesus was indeed “crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23) who “killed the Author of life” (Acts 3:15). It was evil for these people to knowingly sentence to death an innocent man who was also God incarnate. But over all these events, God was sovereignly working out a plan that had been prophesied through the ages to bring about the greatest good from the greatest evil. What was the good that God was working in the death of Jesus that Friday?

Scripture makes clear that humankind is in a predicament. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). The evil and ugliness of sin separates us from the glorious, perfect, and holy God, who in His righteousness and justice must judge sin (Rom. 2:5–6; 5:9–10; 1 Thess. 1:10). What hope do we have as we hurl toward a future of eternal separation from the love of God, and instead face His righteous wrath against our sin? We lack the righteousness that is required to stand in God’s presence and can’t pay the debt we owe for our sin.

There would be no hope apart from the triune God’s plan in eternity past to bring us a salvation that we cannot secure for ourselves. The second person of the Trinity, the Son, took on human flesh and lived the perfectly righteous life that we all fail to live. On the cross, according to God’s own plan (Acts 2:23), Jesus faced much more than the wrath of the Jewish leaders and Roman soldiers. He faced and satisfied (or “propitiated”) the wrath of God Himself for the sins of all those who belong to Him (Rom. 5:9–10; Heb. 2:17; 1 John 2:2). The Old Testament sacrificial system pointed forward to Jesus, who is both the perfect High Priest and the perfect sacrifice (Heb. 9:12, 26). His perfect life and substitutionary, sacrificial death satisfied God’s righteous wrath and judgment against the sins of all who trust in Christ alone for salvation. Jesus, the perfectly righteous One, took the punishment for our sins upon Himself, and we who deserve eternal punishment for our unrighteousness receive the perfect righteousness of Christ.

Therefore, Good Friday is good because through His death, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, so that we might receive adoption as sons (Gal. 3:13–14; 4:5). Because Jesus bore our sins in His body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24), we have redemption through His blood and the forgiveness of our trespasses (Eph. 1:7). We are ransomed with the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18–19). We are justified, saved from the wrath of God, and reconciled to God (Rom. 5:9–10).

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead on the third day validates all that He accomplished on Good Friday, revealing that death has no ultimate claim on Him (Acts 2:24). His triumph over death in His resurrection shows that He has the power and ability to secure our justification (Rom. 4:25). The resurrection proves that He really is God (Rom. 1:4) and that God’s wrath was indeed satisfied by Christ’s atoning death. Because Jesus bore God’s wrath for the sins of all who would trust in this provision by faith alone, Christians will never face the wrath of God against their sins or be separated from God, for they are united to Christ in His death and in His life.

In short, Good Friday is good because on this day, the greatest exchange took place: “For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). May we then declare with the Apostle Paul, “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” (2 Cor. 9:15).¹

What do you do when you struggle to pray?

Every Christian knows this struggle. We recognize our staggering privilege to address our holy God and to approach His throne of grace. Yet we struggle to remain consistent. Other priorities crowd in, our minds wander, and we do not know what to pray for (Rom. 8:26).

Even the disciples, who walked with the Lord Jesus Christ throughout His public ministry, needed to ask, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1).

When I need to regain focus in my prayer life, I find renewed direction by remembering the purpose and significance of prayer.

Ligonier’s founder, Dr. R.C. Sproul, emphasized the importance of prayer because he emphasized the character of God. He reminded us that prayer is more than a spiritual habit. It is worship. It is communion. And, in God’s providence, prayer is one of the primary means that the Lord uses to accomplish His purposes in the world.

R.C. said: “If we want to reach the world with the gospel, we must recover a vital understanding of the place and importance of prayer. If we are to live transformed lives and seek reformation in the church, we must begin with prayer.” This conviction drove Dr. Sproul’s teaching ministry, and it shapes the discipleship outreach of Ligonier today.

Your prayers and generosity are vital to the spread of the gospel and the support of the church. Thank you for extending a theological lifeline to help Christians know God deeply and live in grateful dependence upon Him. This month, when you give a donation to Ligonier, we’ll send you The Valley of Vision.

Dr. Sproul identified this book as a great aid to his own prayer life. I received a copy in my college years and return to it often. It is a treasured collection of written prayers from various Puritans, wise pastors and theologians who excelled at praying with both doctrinal precision and soul-penetrating depth.

These devotional prayers help us keep our eyes fixed on who God is. He is faithful. He is sovereign. He is holy. He is glorious. They model a way to approach the Lord with reverence and humility, resting our confidence in His steadfast grace. It is crucial for us to regain our focus in prayer, because the church’s vitality—as well as yours and mine—has always been tied to dependence on God.

By God’s grace, Ligonier strengthens the church’s reliance on the Lord by providing faithful Bible teaching that calls Christians to earnest prayer. Every day, we strive to advance the kingdom of God by proclaiming who He is—and He is worthy of our endless adoration. Everything we are and all we have depends on the Lord’s gracious provision. Thanks be to God, we can always draw near to His throne of grace with confidence because of Christ (Heb. 4:16).

Day by day, the Lord is using your support of Ligonier to equip His people and further His kingdom. As you serve alongside us through your generous giving, you make it possible to:

• Proclaim the holy character of God clearly on Renewing Your Mind, YouTube, the free Ligonier app, and many other digital platforms.
• Strengthen Christian discipleship by publishing new books, releasing video teaching series, and holding in-person teaching and training events​.
• Equip Christian leaders worldwide by providing pastors, prison chaplains, and military chaplains​ with the teaching resources they need.
• Expand global church support and release additional teaching every week in the world’s 20 most-spoken languages.
• Mobilize Christians to pray for awakening and the spread of the gospel until Christ is glorified among every tribe, people, and nation.

None of this happens apart from prayer. Unless the Lord builds the house, we labor in vain (Ps. 127:1). Every outreach we undertake depends upon His blessing. Every door He opens is an answer to prayer (Col. 4:3). Every mind renewed and life transformed is the work of His grace alone.

That is why your partnership in the gospel matters so much. Our sovereign God uses means to accomplish His purposes. And in His providence, your prayers sustain the work of Ligonier, and your financial support extends it—placing trusted Bible teaching into the hands of Christians hungry to know God.

Give today to accelerate outreach, and you’ll receive a special gift edition of The Valley of Vision in the mail. I hope these biblically rich, God-centered prayers from our forefathers in the faith will encourage you to pray with worshipful reverence.

Additionally, we would be honored to pray for you. If you would like us to bring your request before the Lord, please contact the Ligonier team. You can email your prayer request to service@ligonier.org or call us at 800-435-4343.

Thank you for committing to pray for Ligonier and its kingdom work so that the church may be strengthened and the nations may rejoice in the Lord.

Many Protestants have attended churches that have had focused worship services on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. However, in Protestant churches that do not strictly adhere to the liturgical calendar and do not celebrate Maundy Thursday, some may be unfamiliar with the terminology and practice of Maundy Thursday. Historically, the Christian church celebrated Maundy Thursday at the beginning of the Triduum (i.e., the three days of Christ’s suffering). The Christian church has done so in commemoration of Jesus’ institution of the Supper, His washing the disciples’ feet, and His giving the new commandment in the upper room on the night He was betrayed.

The word Maundy comes from the Latin word mandatum, which, in English, simply means “mandate.” In the upper room (John 13–17), Jesus gave His disciples the new commandment (i.e., the new mandate) after washing their feet. This new commandment is found in John 13:31–35. Having set an example by washing their feet, the Lord Jesus told the Twelve: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

It has not been uncommon for believers to misunderstand the symbolism of the foot washing and Jesus’ subsequent new commandment. Christ was not instituting a practice of foot washing as a sacrament in this act; neither was He teaching us that we fulfill the new commandment by literally washing the feet of other believers. Rather, He was acting out in His service of His disciples a parable regarding what He would do on the cross. Jonathan Edwards helpfully explains:

There were . . . symbolical representations given of that great event this evening; one in the passover, which Christ now partook of with his disciples . . . another in this remarkable action of his washing his disciples’ feet. Washing the feet of guests was the office of servants, and one of their meanest offices: and therefore was fitly chosen by our Savior to represent that great abasement which he was to be the subject of in the form of a servant, in becoming obedient unto death, even that ignominious and accursed death of the cross, that he might cleanse the souls of his disciples from their guilt and spiritual pollution.¹

By rising, stooping, and rising again, Jesus was acting out His incarnate humiliation and subsequent exaltation (cf. John 13:3–14; Phil. 2:1–11). In the new commandment, Jesus is giving His disciples—who would become the foundation stones of the new covenant church—a mandate to serve and care for the spiritual good of His people. As Christ would die on the cross to wash the filthy souls of those He came to redeem, so He commands His disciples to follow His example in caring for the spiritual needs of others. This command is fulfilled in the preaching of the gospel and the calling of sinners to the Savior. By way of application, believers are also to care for the temporal needs of other believers. Since Jesus is the Savior of soul and body, so He calls elders and deacons to care for the spiritual and temporal (i.e., material, physical, etc.) needs of His people.

The commandment to love and serve others is not unique to the New Testament. In the old covenant law, God gave His people the command, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). What is distinct about the “new commandment” is that Jesus is fulfilling it in His sacrificial life and death for the redemption of His people. No one but Christ had ever so kept the command to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Through His sacrificial service, Jesus fulfilled Leviticus 19:18 for the redemption of His people and set the example of what it means to love and serve others.²

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Christianity makes bold claims. Among its boldest: the world was created in six days by a triune God who has no beginning. The second person of the Godhead became man, being born of a virgin. He walked the earth two thousand years ago. Then He died. But perhaps the boldest claim of Christianity is what happened next: He walked again.

It’s quite interesting that people who give little thought to the bold claims of Christianity are willing to darken the doors of a church on the day we focus on one of its boldest claims. Instead of following the modern Sunday routine to which they are accustomed, they’re now in a pew singing ancient songs, observing an ancient meal, and hearing an ancient story. Perhaps it’s nostalgia, tradition, guilt, curiosity, or some combination of these that compels them to come and observe this covenant rehearsal of God’s people. Whatever the motive, they find themselves in the tension between skepticism and faith, between the comforts of a secular worldview and the possibility that Jesus Christ really did walk out of the tomb that early Sunday morning. They are on the precipice of eternity when their natural flesh is wired to look no further than their present happiness. This makes for an awkward collision of the unspiritual with the spiritual.

To the unspiritual mind, believing in and celebrating a dead man’s coming back to life is pure fantasy. It is the height of foolishness. But to the spiritual mind, it is of first importance: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3–4). What matters most, Paul argues, is that Jesus died for our sins and then rose from the dead, just as the Old Testament said He would. This bold claim is the most foundational truth of Christianity. But the Apostle knows well that the natural person will not—indeed, cannot—accept spiritual things: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).

The unbeliever who comes to church on Easter cannot accept the things of the Spirit. And yet he’s confronted with a profoundly unsettling problem: Is Jesus really who He says He is, and if so, what are the implications of that for my life? Or was Jesus a fraud? The Scottish preacher “Rabbi” John Duncan (1796–1870) referred to this predicament as the trilemma. C.S. Lewis popularized this trilemma in Mere Christianity: Jesus must be either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. Lewis famously writes:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. . . . Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.

When the unbeliever enters the sanctuary on Easter morning, he too must make a choice: Who is Jesus? When he looks at the liturgy, observes God’s people worshiping Him in spirit and in truth, and sees the setting of the table of the risen Lamb, he is confronted with this dilemma afresh.

Churches and Christians also have a choice. We can water down the bold claims of Christianity, making them more palatable and less awkward, or we can embrace the awkward and proclaim the whole counsel of God. In doing so, we trust the Spirit to convince unbelievers of their sin and misery, enlighten their minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renew their wills, persuading and enabling them to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to them in the gospel (see Westminster Shorter Catechism 31). If this work is to happen, it is to be a supernatural work of the Spirit. He gives spiritual eyes to the elect as His people boldly proclaim the gospel of Christ.

The boldness of the early Christians caused the world to brand them as topsy-turvy world-turners (Acts 17:6). Are we, too, willing to be branded as weird and disruptive? The gospel and its doctrines are, in fact, weird for the natural and unspiritual man. But this didn’t compel the Apostles to gut the Christian gospel of its supernatural components. The earliest Christian preaching was not merely about ethical living and self-improvement. It was about an unusual historical event: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses” (Acts 2:32). The first Christians did not risk their lives because they found Christianity inspiring; they died because they were convinced through eyewitness testimony that Jesus is alive. They were persuaded that He is the risen Lord before whom every knee must bow (Phil. 2:10). They did not, therefore, soften the blows of Christianity.

At the moment when we’d expect the Apostles to evade the offensiveness of the gospel, the Spirit empowers Peter instead to lean into that very offensiveness after he healed a crippled beggar: “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well” (Acts 4:8–10, emphasis added). The chief priests and Sanhedrin were confronted with the same dilemma that unbelievers face when they make their unique visit to church on Easter: “This Jesus God raised from the dead. What say you?”

This confrontation, this tension, is awkward. But it’s also a glorious opportunity. It’s an opportunity for us not to shrink back (Heb. 10:39) but to boldly declare, through the ordinary means of grace that we attend to each and every Lord’s Day, that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. As Lord of all, He demands faith and repentance, and we are His instruments to proclaim repentance for the forgiveness of sins in His name (Luke 24:46–49). May we joyfully embrace the awkwardness of this collision and glory in the resurrected Savior.¹

Of all the Old Testament images that foreshadow Jesus, the Passover lamb was perhaps the clearest in foreshadowing Jesus’ saving work at Calvary. According to God’s own appointment, God promised to remove His judgment from His people when He saw the substitutionary blood of a spotless lamb painted on the doorposts of the Israelites’ homes in Egypt. The Passover was a sign of God’s covenant with His people in the Old Testament, indicating the way in which He would one day satisfy His wrath through the sacrifice of Christ.

After sin entered the world, Scripture immediately tells us that Abel gave an animal sacrifice to offer acceptable worship to the Lord (Gen. 4:4). The infinitely holy God only accepts as righteous those who come to Him by faith in the promised Redeemer, who would Himself be the atoning sacrifice for sin (Heb. 11:4). The blood of the substitutionary sacrifice is an essential element of Christian doctrine and practice. As the writer of Hebrews explains, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb. 9:22). The blood of the God-appointed sacrifice typified the substitution of one party for another in the execution of God’s judgment. If “the wages of sin is death,” then only a substitutionary death can deliver a sinner from the righteous judgment of God (Rom. 6:23). This principle was signified clearly in the details surrounding the institution of the Passover lamb. Like its bloody counterpart, circumcision, the Passover lamb was an old covenant sacrament—a sign and seal of God’s gracious dealing with His people through atonement.

The Passover served as a sign of God’s covenant promise of redemption in Christ. The Lord gave instructions about the Passover at the time of the exodus that pointed to various aspects of the redemption that He would provide in Christ (Ex. 12; 1 Cor. 5:7). The Passover was instituted at the time of the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn. The Lord had graciously distinguished between Israel and Egypt with the first nine plagues. However, there was no distinction in this tenth and most terrible plague. If the Israelites did not follow the Lord’s instructions regarding the Passover, they would be subject to the same judgment as the Egyptians. This indicated that Israel, no less than Egypt, deserved God’s wrath and judgment because of their sin.

When He instituted the Passover, the Lord gave His covenant people highly specific instructions about the Passover lamb (Ex. 12:1–28). They were to recalibrate their calendars to the first day of the new year at the institution of the Passover (v. 2). Each household was to have a lamb (v. 3). The people were to share the lamb with their neighbors if there was too much for one household (v. 4). The lamb was to be free of any imperfection (v. 5). They were to put the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of the house (v. 7). The people of God were to roast the lamb in herbs over fire before partaking of it (vv. 8–9). They were to eat the lamb in haste, dressed and ready to depart on their spiritual pilgrimage as soon as the Lord told them to depart. Not one of the bones of the Passover lamb was to be broken (v. 46).

These specific details in the instructions concerning the Passover typified various aspects of the saving work of Christ:

• Jesus is the Passover Lamb who brings about the true exodus (Luke 9:31; 1 Cor. 5:7).
• By His sacrifice, Jesus brings about the new creation—a spiritual new creation—raising His people from spiritual death to spiritual life (2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 2:5).
• Every home needs the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ for God to deliver those belonging to it from the judgment of God (Acts 16:31).
• Believers are called to share the good news of Christ with others (1 Peter 3:15). We must feed on Him by faith (John 6:53–58).
• Jesus is the sinless sacrifice, the “lamb without blemish and spot,” who offers Himself to God (1 Peter 1:19).
• Jesus was consumed by God’s wrath as the sacrificial Lamb (Isa. 53:4–7; Rom. 5:8–9).
• Sinners are to waste no time in trusting in Christ; rather, we are to follow Him as pilgrims through the wilderness of this world (Luke 12:35–47; 1 Peter 1:13).
• God did not allow any of Christ’s bones to be broken on the cross (John 19:36).

In these and many other ways, the unfolding of the history of redemption reveals how the Passover was a sign of God’s gracious covenant, in which He would provide the greater exodus from sin, Satan, and death by the sacrificial death of Christ. Believers confidently confess that “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7).¹

The Bible teaches us that God is the Creator, and this fact allows us to draw several conclusions. This article does not present an exhaustive set of conclusions, but a comprehensive set. These conclusions are to be drawn from observation and reason and confirmed by Scripture.

God as Creator means the universe is not eternal.

The universe had a beginning. Some atheists conclude the universe always existed. Can something come from nothing? Logic requires a negative answer. Humanity has observed throughout history that the universe displays amazing orderliness. Are we to believe that this orderliness came from its own disorder? No. This orderliness is from God bringing forth order in what He created ex nihilo, “out of nothing.”

God as Creator means creation was the result of intelligent design.

Intelligent design is suggested by creation’s orderliness, as mentioned above. I have often thought about the complexity of the human body and how it functions. The body is a masterpiece. Take the eye for example. How could an eye form with all its complexity on its own? There had to be an intelligent designer.

God as Creator means He is self-existent.

Genesis 1:1 says that God created the heavens and earth in the beginning. His self-existence explains the sustained existence of everything else. Since He created “in the beginning,” He existed before the beginning and has no end. He is eternal. This is confirmed by Psalm 90:2, where Moses wrote, “From everlasting to everlasting you are God.” There will never be a time when God does not exist. His self-existence means He is also self-sufficient. He is not dependent on any of His creatures. Paul explained in Acts 17:24–25 that the “God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth” is not “served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”

God as Creator means He owns everything.

When an artist creates a work of art, it is understood that the artist owns it until he transfers ownership by selling it or giving it away. This is confirmed by Deuteronomy 10:14, “Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.” Another text to this effect is Psalm 24:1:

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein.

The Lord created the universe, and everything is under His sovereign reign, including you and me. This means everything we have ultimately belongs to Him. We see in God’s Word that He calls us to be good stewards of our material blessings.

God as Creator means we are called to obedience.

As His creatures, He knows us, and we are to obey Him. In an imperfect comparison, if a person creates a company, that person’s employees know that they are to work according to the directives of their employer. In like manner, if a married couple has children, the children are to learn from and obey their parents. Adam and Eve, being created by God, initially understood this. God put Adam in the garden of Eden “to work it and keep it,” and the Lord gave him a command (Gen. 2:15–16). After he and Eve rebelled by eating the forbidden fruit, the weight of God’s authority came crashing down upon them. God put them and all their posterity under the curse (Gen. 3:1–19). All unregenerate people want their autonomy. They do not want to obey God. Psalm 14:1 reads, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” The rest of the verse presents the moral corruption of such fools, showing that the denial of the Creator leads to immorality.

God as Creator means He has a plan.

We can only discover God’s plan from the Bible, which demonstrates that He created with a redemptive purpose. In Paul’s discourse with the philosophers in Acts 17, he tells them that he is proclaiming the “God who made the world and everything in it” (Acts 17:23). He then proceeds to answer four basic questions philosophers have dealt with throughout the ages: Where did I come from? Why am I here? Who am I? Where am I going? The answer to the fourth question is found in verses 30–31:

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:30–31)

Paul began with God as Creator and concluded with Jesus as Judge. The answers to those four questions would be meaningless if Paul had not started with God’s creating the world and everything in it. The entire discourse demonstrates that God created with redemption in mind. Ephesians 1:4 also shows that God created with a redemptive purpose. The text explains that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.

God as Creator means that nothing is too difficult for Him.

There was a Christian medical doctor who struggled to believe the virgin birth because of his knowledge of the intricacies of conception. He decided to leave his medical practice in a big city to practice medicine in the Appalachian Mountains, aspiring to provide medical care to people who could not afford it. He attended a country church, and one Sunday the preacher explained that creation is really the only miracle because if one believed it, one could believe all the other miracles. The doctor, being a creationist, suddenly realized he had no reason to doubt the virgin birth. Likewise, Luke 1:26–38 records Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would bear a son. She asked, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (v. 34). Gabriel responded, “Nothing will be impossible with God” (v. 37).

God as Creator means that He is to be worshiped.

Revelation 4:11 presents the twenty-four elders worshiping God the Father by saying,

Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.

The more we contemplate the vastness, majesty, and orderliness of creation, the more we should be in awe of the Creator. While worshiping the Creator, we should be mindful that He created with a redemptive purpose. In Revelation 5, Jesus is worshiped as the sacrificial Lamb who was slain, by whose blood the people of God were ransomed. The worship scenes in Revelation 4 and 5 join creation and redemption together.

The above conclusions are not exhaustive. What is important to ponder is the connection between creation and redemption. The answer to Westminster Larger Catechism question 121 describes these as “a short abridgment of religion.” This is because creation and redemption condense God’s relation to His people. This means we owe Him everything, especially obedience and worship, all for His own glory.

With the donkey and colt secured, Matthew tells us that the disciples laid their cloaks on the animals and Jesus mounted the donkey (Matt. 21:1–5). In no other place in all the Gospels is Jesus ever spoken of as riding a donkey, or any animal for that matter.

Why did this happen? It doesn’t appear that Jesus was injured or unable to walk. There’s no indication that He was sick or wearied or needed the support of an animal. Something more significant was happening.

Jesus made a deliberate choice not to walk but to ride into the Holy City. This choice was intended to make a statement, signaling to all who could see it that the King had come. This is certainly Matthew’s point when he quotes the prophet Zechariah:

Say to the daughter of Zion,
“Behold, your king is coming to you,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.” (Matt. 21:5)

The long-awaited King, the Messiah, with crowds lining the highway in a long procession anticipating His coronation, rode into the Holy City on a donkey.

Do not all the great men of history have a trusty horse? There was Alexander the Great and his beautiful black stallion, Bucephalus. There was George Washington and his white-coated Arabian, Blueskin. But here Jesus is riding a donkey. It’s almost comical—can you imagine Alexander the Great on a donkey? From the world’s vantage point, it’s ridiculous. But every move Jesus makes is filled with purpose.

He is not like the Alexanders and the Julius Caesars of the world. He is a different kind of ruler. One who comes in humility, not in pursuit of worldly ambition or men’s accolades. Jesus comes to fulfill a divine mission: “Not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28).

Rounding the eastern slopes, Jesus caught a glimpse of the city in the distance. The streets were filling with pilgrims. Some laid down their cloaks, others cut leafy branches, but everyone shouted, “Hosanna . . . ! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Matt. 21:9). This is a quote from Psalm 118:26, and it makes sense that these words would be on their lips. It was Passover, after all, and Psalms 113–118 were the traditional psalms sung by Jewish pilgrims coming to Jerusalem for Passover.

The Greek word *hosanna *has behind it the Hebrew word hoshiah na, which means, “Save us!” Traditionally, it was a cry for help. But as words often do, the connotation shifted over time. Less a cry for help, the exclamation hosanna grew into a hopeful shout of expectation. The people were saying, “Save us!” but what they meant was, “Salvation has come!” The coming of Jesus Christ on a donkey to Jerusalem signaled an answer to prayer: God has brought salvation to His people.

Can you imagine how Jesus might have felt? What encouragement and joy He must have experienced, looking into the hope-filled eyes and hearing the hope-filled cries of His people?

Nothing could be further from the truth.

With the Kidron Valley before Him, Jesus saw the whole city of Jerusalem stretched out in front of Him—a truly magnificent sight. It’s at this very moment that Luke tells us something that the other Gospel writers omit. In Luke 19:41, we read, “And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it.”

With palm branches waving and loud hosannas ringing, tears filled Jesus’ eyes. As He wept, He cried:

Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation. (Luke 19:41–44)

Behind the celebration and fanfare, Jesus saw the deep spiritual darkness overshadowing the city. It appeared that they saw the day of visitation, but in reality, they did not. Sure, they saw Jesus, but they did not see Jesus. They saw who they thought He was. They saw who they wanted Him to be.

Jesus did not come to recover the glory days of Israel, to reestablish David’s earthly throne in a political sense. He came, rather, to save the people from sin and death. He did not come to destroy Rome and free Jerusalem from Roman oppression. Ironically, Jesus was coming to save Rome as well.

Jesus was the deliverer they needed. But in the end, He wasn’t the deliverer they wanted.

Within forty years, Jerusalem would be destroyed. Everything that Jesus prophesied came true. In AD 70, Roman legions besieged the city of Jerusalem—leaving not one stone upon another.

All of this now takes us back to Psalm 118—to a different section than we quoted earlier. Before the refrain in verses 25–26, “Hosanna . . . ! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” we read these familiar words:

Open to me the gates of righteousness,

that I may enter through them
and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord;
the righteous shall enter through it.
I thank you that you have answered me
and have become my salvation.
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone. (Ps. 118:19–22)

Paul tells us in Romans that the crucifixion of Jesus is for those who disbelieve “a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense” (Rom. 9:33). This is exactly what we see, is it not? In just a week’s time the shouts of hosanna are replaced with the cry, “Crucify, crucify him!” (Luke 23:20).

Jesus was the Savior they needed, but He wasn’t the Savior they wanted.

Palm Sunday presses us with a question: Do you follow Jesus for Him to build the kingdom you want? Or do you follow Jesus to be built into the kingdom He wants? If we come to Jesus for the kingdom we want to build, then our lives will ultimately be unbuilt—not one stone will be left upon another. But if we come to Jesus to be built into the kingdom that He wants, then we become living stones, made into a spiritual house, built on the Cornerstone, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus is coming again, and when He comes, He will not come on a donkey but on a white horse. He will come as a King leading the armies of heaven, exercising justice, and ushering in the consummation of the ages.

It’s closer now than it’s ever been.¹

There are many figures in the Bible whom we know well: Paul, Peter, or John, just to name a few. Prominent personalities like these tend to get all our attention, and for good reason. But it is important to remember that the early church was not composed primarily of ancient celebrities. Paul himself in several places takes the time to highlight lists of ordinary, faithful saints in churches such as Colossae (Col. 4:7–18) and Rome (Rom. 16:3–16). Most of these figures we know almost nothing about. It reminds us that the early church was full of normal people, normal relationships, normal problems, and a normal need for reconciliation. The church in Philippi was no exception.

In the final chapter of his epistle to the Philippians, Paul addresses a problem between two women he mentions by name: Euodia and Syntyche (Phil. 4:2–3). Neither Paul nor any other biblical writer mentions these women in any other place, so we do not know a great deal about them or their work. However, because Paul gives their names, they must have been well known to the congregation there, and he mentions that they, along with someone named Clement, were all “fellow workers” with Paul. They joined him side-by-side, as it were, in the work of ministry, so Paul apparently knew them well. He also states that their names were written in the book of life, thereby indicating that they are genuine believers (see Rev. 3:5; 20:15; Ex. 32:32).

Paul exhorts Euodia and Syntyche to “agree in the Lord” (literally, “to think the same thing in the Lord,” Phil. 4:2). It seems that there was some kind of disagreement between the two of them that had come to Paul’s attention. This discrepancy must have been rather significant if Paul heard about it all the way in Rome, probably by the mouth of Epaphroditus (Phil. 4:18). The names of these two women are rather ironic given the situation, since Euodia means “good way” and Syntyche means “pleasant acquaintance.” The situation seems anything but a pleasant meeting between them. In Philippians 2:2, Paul had already informed all his readers to “be of the same mind,” using the same expression as in Philippians 4:2, and points them to the example of Christ becoming a servant in His humiliation (Phil. 2:5–11). Paul is gently admonishing Euodia and Syntyche for their divisiveness and wants to see them united “in the Lord.”

There are a few observations for us to draw from this brief account of Euodia and Syntyche.

1. Paul views a resolution between these women as a specific instance of his broader exhortation to all.

First, Paul addresses these women within his broader discussion of the Christian life. Paul calls the Philippian Christians, “my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown,” to “stand firm . . . in the Lord” (Phil. 4:1), and then immediately addresses Euodia and Syntyche. The context indicates that Paul views a resolution between these women as a specific instance of his broader exhortation to all. Indeed, shortly after, he writes, “Let your reasonableness be known to everyone” (Phil. 4:5), which is the broader principle that he is applying to Euodia and Syntyche’s relationship.

2. Paul takes conflict within the church seriously.

He mentions it consistently in his letters to other churches as well. Paul warns about divisions among the Corinthians (1 Cor. 1:10) and in Crete (Titus 3:10–11). He attributes strife and divisions to the works of the flesh (Gal. 5:19–21), and James points specifically to jealousy and selfish ambition as the causes of quarrelling (James 3:16; see also Phil. 2:2–3). The work of God is hindered by conflict—especially between fellow laborers in ministry.

3. Paul raises the matter only as an opportunity to move directly into promoting their unity in Christ.

Finally, Paul does not place emphasis on the disagreement between Euodia and Syntyche. In fact, he barely mentions the issue itself. Perhaps he thought that giving the details about the dispute would be distracting at best, and his readers probably knew about the quarrel anyway. Instead, Paul raises the matter only as an opportunity to move directly into promoting their unity in Christ. After all, Christians should “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:1–3).

Believers today should see the emergence of conflict not as an opening for bitterness, suspicion, or fracture, but rather as an occasion for nurturing the church’s unity and peace.

The Apostle Peter is the only other Apostle who can be said to be Paul’s equal in terms of significance for the history of the early church. His given name was Simon (Matt. 4:18; Mark 1:16; Luke 5:4), but he would become most well-known as Petros, the Greek translation of the Aramaic nickname Cephas (meaning “rock”), given to him by Jesus (Matt. 16:18). His prominence in the early church is anticipated by his special naming by Jesus and would develop in light of his association with the church at Rome (1 Peter 5:13). Here are five things about Peter that can help explain his prominence among Christ’s Apostles.

1. Mark likely wrote his gospel based on Peter’s account of Jesus’ ministry.

Most scholars today understand Mark’s gospel to be the first written among the four accounts. The early church historian Eusebius reports testimony from Papias that Mark wrote his account based on Peter’s teaching concerning Jesus. According to Papias: “Mark became Peter’s interpreter and wrote accurately all that he remembered, not, indeed, in order, of the things said or done by the Lord. For he had not heard the Lord, nor had he followed him, but later on, as I said, followed Peter, who used to give teaching as necessity demanded but not making, as it were, an arrangement of the Lord’s oracles, so that Mark did nothing wrong in thus writing down single points as he remembered them.”

2. Peter was the first among Jesus’ disciples to identify Him as the Messiah (Matt. 16:16; Mark 8:29; Luke 9:20).

This is the occasion where Jesus designates Simon as “the rock” (Peter). However, Mark and Matthew also demonstrate that Peter likely had not yet grasped how that identity would contradict prevailing expectations of God’s kingdom and its coming. Indeed, in the very next passage where Peter rebukes Jesus for speaking about His betrayal, death, and resurrection, Jesus responds by rebuking the newly named Peter as “Satan” (Matt. 16:21–23; Mark 8:31–33). Both Peter’s first sermon in Acts (Acts 2:14–36) and the opening blessing of his first epistle (1 Peter 1:3–5) demonstrate that he would eventually never forget that moment’s lesson on the centrality of Christ’s death and resurrection for the coming of God’s kingdom.

3. Peter was also among the first two Apostles to witness the empty tomb (Luke 24:1–12; John 20:1–10).

Like Peter’s recognition of Jesus as Messiah, this event also demonstrates the inability to grasp the full significance of Christ’s death and resurrection apart from Jesus’ own teaching and the work of the Holy Spirit. In Luke’s gospel, it is only after Jesus instructed Peter and John in the Scriptures about Himself and signified it in the breaking of bread that they understood (Luke 24:25–35). In John’s gospel, they leave the empty tomb not yet understanding (John 20:9). It is only later when Jesus appears to them that He then breathes the Holy Spirit upon them to equip them for their upcoming gospel mission (John 20:21–23).

4. Peter is the first among the Twelve to witness and confirm the conversion of the gentiles in Luke’s second volume, the Acts of the Apostles.

This happens in an ironic fashion that seems to echo Peter’s initial resistance to Jesus’ death and resurrection message, as well as his behavior at Christ’s crucifixion. Peter receives his famous vision wherein three times he’s resistant to Jesus’ command and is then corrected by Him (Acts 10:1–16; 11:5–10). It is during the next moment when three men visit Peter and he is explaining the significance of his vision to them that the Holy Spirit falls upon them, confirming that they too should be baptized as Christians (Acts 10:17–48; 11:11–18).

5. Finally, the Apostle Peter is the only human author of Scripture within his own inspired work to refer to Paul’s letters and associate them with Scripture.

At the conclusion of his instruction concerning the coming day of the Lord, Peter reminds his readers to be patient, just as Paul had also written them concerning these things (2 Peter 3:14–15). In an encouraging example of humility, and a demonstration of growth in God’s grace for one who in the past was slow to understand, Peter recognizes that there are some things about these matters in Paul’s letters that are hard to understand (2 Peter 3:16a). Thus, Peter warns his readers to avoid the teaching of some who seek to twist Paul’s words and the other Scriptures to deceive them (2 Peter 3:16b–17).

While many more things could be said to explain Peter’s prominence among Christ’s Apostles, the points outlined above compel us to focus on a common theme: the redemption and transformation that comes by faith in the risen Lord Jesus Christ despite our own weakness.¹

“Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him” (1 Cor. 7:17). This is a foundational text for what the Bible teaches about calling, or, to use the Latin version of that word, the doctrine of vocation. God assigns each person a life and calls each person to that life. So, yes, each person has a calling.

And yet, though a Christian and a non-Christian may lead the same kind of life and perform the same kind of task, there is a difference.

We usually think of vocation and calling in terms of a job or profession, but it means much more than that. According to Luther, who recovered the doctrine of vocation after centuries of neglect, God designed three estates for human life: the family, the state, and (for Christians) the church. Human beings have vocations in all of the estates.

Notice that he doesn’t mention the workplace, as such. For Luther, that comes under family—that is, what the family does to earn a living. In his day, whether you were a peasant farmer, a middle-class craftsman, or a king, you mostly worked at home, and your whole family was involved in the work.

Vocation is an aspect of God’s providence. In His care and governance of His creation, He has chosen to work through human beings. He creates new humans by means of the vocation of mothers and fathers, whom He has brought together in the vocations of marriage. He protects us by means of the lawful magistrates of the state. He proclaims His Word by calling pastors.

Every time we thank God for our food, we acknowledge God’s providential care for us by means of farmers, food processors, warehouse workers, clerks, and whoever prepared our meal. Working through them all is the Lord God, who gives us our food at the proper time (Ps. 145:15).

Vocations are channels through which God gives us what we need. God heals by means of the medical vocations, makes our lives easier by means of engineers and factory workers, gives us shelter by means of construction workers. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). Though God can give His gifts directly through miracles of His power, He usually gives them through vocation.

Was the farmer who grew the grain for my toast this morning a Christian? Or the factory workers who made my computer? Or the carpenters who built my condominium? Or the doctor who cured my latest ailment? I hope so. But even if they aren’t, God, in His providential power, worked through them anyway.

And yet, being a Christian does make a huge difference in vocation. The word call normally signifies someone speaking with language, often loudly, to another human being.

God calls us by His Word. When we hear the Word of the gospel of Christ read, preached, or told, the Holy Spirit can create faith in our hearts. Reformed theologians speak of an “effectual calling.” Christians console themselves that “all things work together for good,” but often stop before the next phrase, where we see that this promise applies to vocation. The text then connects vocation to the whole plan of salvation. Here is the entire passage:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Rom. 8:28–30, emphasis added)

This calling to faith calls us into the estate of the church. The other kinds of callings are temporal, having to do with this life that passes away. Those are important to God, to be sure. But the calling of the gospel is eternal.

For the Christian, it’s also foundational for the temporal callings. We are called by God’s Word to love God and to love our neighbor (Mark 12:30–31). We love God by faith. We love our neighbor by vocation. According to Luther, the purpose of every vocation—in the family, the workplace, the state, and the church—is to love and serve the neighbors that the vocation brings into our lives: in the family, our spouse and children; in the workplace, our customers; in the state, our fellow citizens; in the church, our fellow Christians.

Nonbelievers can get married and have children, customers, and citizenship. But Christians can fulfill these vocations in faith. They can realize that God is working through them and that as they love their neighbors, God’s love is flowing through them. God’s Word can shape how they carry out their tasks. Christians can see all of these relationships as the life God has assigned to them and to which He has called them.

How is a disciple of Christ to maintain integrity while working under pressure? You may have been given a difficult task with an urgent deadline; your boss may be demanding and cruel; your co-workers may be unpleasant and unhelpful; or you may lack the tools, training, and experience to tackle the job at hand. Where do you turn?

Turn to the Lord, of course, and to His Word for guidance. In fact, Scripture unveils for us a behind-the-scenes tutorial from such an experience and a pattern for navigating hard situations of all kinds.

A young Hebrew exile named Nehemiah found himself in a very tight spot around 450 BC. Born into slavery in Babylon among the Jewish captives, Nehemiah flourished with God’s favor in the household of King Artaxerxes. With a winsome personality and a reputation for loyalty and trustworthiness, he rose to the position of personal cupbearer to the king.

Then, one day, a heavy burden was laid on his shoulders. The small remnant of Jews left in Jerusalem were in great trouble, the wall of the city of God was broken down, and its gates destroyed by fire. Would his master, the Persian king, send aid? What could Nehemiah do in such a time as this?

Nehemiah’s first response was a dedicated time of crying out to God in prayer: “As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven” (Neh. 1:4). Confessing his and his peoples’ sins, searching the Scriptures, and pleading God’s covenant promises, Nehemiah laid out his plight before the Lord, asking for success in approaching the king. We, too, are invited to cast our anxious burdens on the Lord, knowing that He cares for us.

Confirmed in his calling, Nehemiah boldly but humbly approached the king with a plan: “Send me to Judah . . . that I may rebuild it” (Neh. 2:5). The king granted his request, by God’s grace, along with letters of passage to the kings of the regions he must pass through and a letter of credit for supplies from the keeper of the king’s forest.

Commit your work to the Lord,
and your plans will be established. (Prov. 16:3)

Ask big, seek boldly, knock in detail. God knows your needs, and He promises to supply them within His will.

Upon arrival in the desolate city, Nehemiah secretly surveyed the scene on horseback by night, carefully analyzing the scope of work. Confirmed in his plan, Nehemiah rallied partners among the priests, the officials, and the rest who were to do the work. Having devised a workable sequence of small steps to be accomplished, each household was commissioned to lay the beams, set the doors, and repair the bars of the gate nearest their own homes. Having a team of invested and like-minded brothers and sisters is vital to success. We are instructed,

Without counsel plans fail,
but with many advisors they succeed. (Prov. 15:22)

Don’t think you can do it alone.

As often happens, Nehemiah’s work progressed fairly smoothly until unexpected opposition arose from some powerful naysayers. Sanballat and Tobiah, two city officials, were very displeased that someone had come to restore the welfare of the people of Israel (Neh. 2:10). Sanballat in particular was greatly enraged, and he threatened the Jews (Neh. 4:1). Even worse, a Jewish brother, Shemaiah, accepted a bribe to betray Nehemiah with a deceptive lie. He told Nehemiah that their enemies were plotting to kill him and that he should flee from the city or go into hiding in the holy place within the temple. But Nehemiah persevered against such threats, trusting God’s protection for his life and heeding God’s word that no one but the high priest could enter the most holy place and live.

When tempted to quit or when deeply discouraged by opposition, draw near to the throne of grace to find help.

Another common setback, and more discouraging, is the behavior of the “godly” ones who behave in very ungodly ways. “There arose a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers” because the workers were being financially abused by their own people (Neh. 5:1). Nehemiah spoke up to put away sin: “I was very angry when I heard their outcry . . . and I brought charges against the nobles and officials” for exacting interest on supply loans from their brothers (Neh. 5:6–7). Nehemiah’s righteous sense of justice was offended, so he spoke up, knowing that

Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor
will himself call out and not be answered. (Prov. 21:13)

After many setbacks and diversions, Nehemiah’s great task of restoring the defenses of the city was eventually completed. The wall had been built and the doors and gates hung, so Nehemiah could turn over Jerusalem to Hananiah, its governor, “for he was a . . . faithful and God-fearing man” (Neh. 7:1–2). How should he now mark the grand occasion? He determined to praise God publicly for carrying them faithfully to the end, summoning Israel to worship. “And all the people assembled as one man into the square before the Water Gate” to hear Ezra the priest read the Law of Moses, gratefully praising and blessing the Lord (Neh. 8:1–2, 5–6). Centuries later, the commentator Matthew Henry would note, “What we win with prayer, we must acknowledge with praise.”

Does the biblical record of Nehemiah’s faithfulness under pressure mean that our every challenge will be met with great success? Of course not. In God’s wise and mysterious providence, there is no guaranteed formula for overcoming all obstacles and securing desired victories. Only the Lord Jesus Christ perfectly completed the task set before Him. Instead, Christ teaches His followers that we must say, with the servant who did what he was commanded, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty” (Luke 17:10). Leave all the glory to God, and He will direct you in the day of trial.

The doctrine of irresistible grace says that the Holy Spirit never fails to bring His own to faith. A clear grasp of this doctrine is sorely needed today. The contemporary church is in the midst of a crisis of confidence concerning biblical preaching and the diligent use of the means of grace by which the Holy Spirit works irresistibly in the lives of sinners. The church needs to reaffirm her faith in the invincible power of the Spirit-applied Word of truth.

Grace teaches us that the salvation of hell-deserving sinners is the work of the triune God alone. When Calvinists say that grace is irresistible, they mean that the Holy Spirit never fails to call, regenerate, and save those whom the Father has elected and Christ has redeemed.

The efficaciousness of this grace is defined in the Canons of Dort (Head III–IV, Art. 11):

When God accomplishes His good pleasure in the elect or works in them true conversion, He not only causes the gospel to be externally preached to them and powerfully illuminates their mind by His Holy Spirit, that they may rightly understand and discern the things of the Spirit of God; but by the efficacy of the same regenerating Spirit, pervades the inmost recesses of the man; He opens the closed, and softens the hardened heart, and circumcises that which was uncircumcised, infuses new qualities into the will, which though heretofore dead, He quickens; from being evil, disobedient, and refractory, He renders it good, obedient, and pliable; actuates and strengthens it, that like a good tree, it may bring forth the fruits of good actions.

The Westminster Confession (10.1) reminds us that God’s irresistible grace does not save people against their wills but by “renewing their wills . . . so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.” Unfortunately, the term irresistible can suggest capricious force or violence to a sinner’s will. If you are a believer, you know that when grace took hold of you, it brought you willingly and lovingly to what God had predetermined for you.

God must work within the sinner to make him willing to come to Christ. John 6:44 says that unless the Father “draws” him, a sinner will not believe the gospel. The original word for draw implies an effective power (John 21:11; Acts 16:19; James 2:6). We may kick against the gospel before we are made willing to receive it, but not after our wills are so changed.

Another term for irresistible grace is effectual calling. Two calls need to be distinguished. With the outward call, the gospel is preached and a call to salvation is extended to everyone who hears the message (Isa. 45:22). But this outward call will be resisted (Acts 7:51). It will not bring sinners to Christ because men by nature are dead in sin and enslaved by the devil (Eph. 2:1–3).

To bring sinners to salvation, the triune God must extend to them a special, inward, irresistible call in addition to the outward call contained in the gospel message. The electing Father is the great Inviter who does this calling. Romans 8:30 tells us, “Whom he did predestinate, them he also called” (KJV). But the effectual call is also God’s living voice in Jesus Christ. Jesus says in John 10:27, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” And the Spirit is involved in drawing men to Christ through the Word (John 16:13–14). Scripture describes this Spirit-wrought change as a new birth by the Spirit (John 3:5), a passing from death to life (John 5:24), an opening of the heart (Acts 16:14), a spiritual resurrection from the dead (Eph. 2:4–5; Col. 2:13), and a regeneration by the Holy Ghost (Titus 3:5).

Two implications follow from irresistible grace and effectual calling. First, God’s gracious calling is monergistic, or one-sided. It is not synergistic, or two-sided, involving God and us (Gal. 1:15). Second, grace comes to us at enormous cost. The good news of the gospel is that the cost of our sin was paid by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not by us. It is given at the expense of the Son of God’s incarnation in the womb of Mary and His obedience in suffering the law’s just condemnation on the cross. When God shows us grace, He is faithful and just to do so because of the saving work of Jesus Christ alone.

Salvation is due to the spontaneous, extravagant love of God. If you are to be saved, it must be by the operation of God’s irresistible grace in your life. Pray that God would save you from your sins. Then, as He answers your prayer and you believe in Christ as He has commanded (Acts 16:31), you will recognize that your believing was because of His working in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). Be encouraged, for “salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:9, KJV). And give all the glory to God.¹

Nothing in life is certain but death and taxes. Given the human condition, however, this adage needs an upgrade: Nothing in life is certain but death, taxes, and original sin. Think about it. People are cruel to each other, say unholy things, and think unseemly thoughts. We know this about ourselves and we see it in others, in our relationships, on social media, in the news—everywhere. Someone once said, “The doctrine of original sin is the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith.” An exaggeration, but a point well made.

The reality of sin pervades the biblical narrative. Already in Genesis 4, Cain killed his brother Abel out of envy (Gen. 4:9). Lamech, the bigamist, bragged about his sinful exploits (Gen. 4:23–24). Things got so bad in early history that God wiped out humanity with a flood—except for Noah and his family—because “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and . . . every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). Basically, the rest of Scripture displays God’s showing mercy to people who cannot stop sinning.

In the fourth century, a theologian named Pelagius disagreed. He claimed that some people in the Bible were sinless, including Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Job. Even the Roman Catholic Church teaches that Mary, Jesus’ mother, was sinless. However, Scripture says nothing of the kind. Abel could hardly be sinless if he offered sacrifices (Gen. 4:4), nor could Mary, who praised God as her Savior (Luke 1:47). Scripture’s consistent testimony is that “no one is righteous, no not one” (Rom. 3:10; see also Ps. 14:3). As Paul writes, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

Like metastatic cancer, sin pervades each of us inside and out. In the Reformed tradition, this sinful disposition is sometimes called total depravity. It is not that I’m as bad as I could be, for that would clearly be untrue, but that no part of me is untouched by sin. This reality, in turn, implies a total inability: Apart from Christ, nothing I do is spiritually good. I can do outwardly “religious” things, or acts of civil righteousness, but I cannot please God without faith (Heb. 11:6). Our good deeds are like filthy rags (Isa. 64:6). We are dead in our transgressions and sins (Eph. 2:1). This moral pollution in every human soul is one half of the doctrine of original sin—call it original corruption. You are not a sinner because you sin; you sin because you are a sinner. Every human being, except Jesus, sins because of original corruption.

To understand why everyone has this original corruption, we must go back to Genesis 1 and 2 when God made the heavens and the earth. Everything He created was “good” (Gen. 1:10, 12, 18, 21, and 25) and “very good” (Gen. 1:31). Given God’s holy character (Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8), creation must have been free from sin at the beginning because it came from the Creator. Adam and Eve were therefore sinless, only to then disobey God’s direct command not to eat from a tree in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:1–6; see also 2:17). This disobedience gave birth to original sin. In Paul’s rundown of the tragedy, “sin came into the world through one man,” namely, Adam (Rom. 5:12).

The key to understanding original sin is in Romans 5:12–21, where Adam’s fate and ours are irrevocably bound together. Paul is incessant on this point: “Many died through one man’s trespass” (Rom. 5:15); “The judgment following one trespass brought condemnation” (Rom. 5:16); “Because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man” (Rom. 5:17); “One trespass led to condemnation for all men” (Rom. 5:18); “By the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners” (Rom. 5:19). We all sin and die physically because of Adam’s first sin (1 Cor. 15:21–22).

But we can go deeper still. Notice that throughout Romans 5:12–21, Paul stresses the symmetry between Adam and Christ: Adam’s disobedience brings sin, condemnation, and death, while Christ’s righteousness brings justification, righteousness, and eternal life. What’s going on? Adam is a representative or “federal head” of humanity—as it goes for Adam, so it goes for all his descendants. This notion can be difficult for modern, Western individuals to accept over against many non-Western societies still inclined toward patriarchs and matriarchs. When Adam sinned, God counted all his descendants as guilty of the first sin; in other words, He imputed the sin to every human being. This imputed sin, sometimes called original guilt, is the other half of original sin. God considers us culpable for a sin that only Adam personally committed. Why would God do that? Because Adam acted as our federal head.

The doctrine of original sin—original corruption and original guilt—is deeply mysterious. It is difficult to wrap our minds around, but without it we are even more mysterious to ourselves. While it may feel depressing, it is in fact the very reason for the gospel. Original sin is the dark shadow, and Christ is the bright light. If we don’t like Adam representing us in sin, then we can forget about Christ representing us in righteousness! For all the misery Adam inflicted on us, Jesus shines brighter with the gift of salvation and eternal life. God counts all true believers as possessing Christ’s righteousness. The Father imputes His Son’s righteousness to us—as it goes for Christ, so it goes for believers (Rom. 5:12–21). Once we grasp how dire our situation was without Christ, God’s astonishing grace comes fully into view, like the sun rising at dawn.

A small body of Christian believers has faithfully maintained a century-long gospel legacy in the heart of the teeming city of Jakarta. Planted by Dutch missionaries during the colonial era, the Reformed Chapel has gracefully shown forth the love of Christ to the world’s largest Muslim nation in both word and deed. Though many of the members of the congregation had only recently been oppressed, tyrannized, and sent fleeing from their family homes on the island of Sumatra, they responded quickly to the tsunami disaster that swept many of their former persecutors into a horror of death, destruction, and loss. They have collected money for relief. They have sent doctors, nurses, technicians, and engineers to help. They have mobilized whatever help they could possibly muster. They have been quick in such a time of need to care for men and women they knew to be their enemies—and the enemies of God.

That is the gospel in action. It is the very essence of the missionary impulse. It always has been. It always will be. It was the sort of thing that Patrick of Ireland would have understood only too well. Indeed, it was in fact, the story of his life.

Patrick was a younger contemporary of Augustine of Hippo and Martin of Tours—the fifth century heroes of the faith who laid the foundations for the great civilization of Christendom. He was apparently born into a patrician Roman family in one of the little Christian towns near present day Glasglow—either Bonavern or Belhaven. Although his pious parents, Calphurnius and Conchessa, nurtured him in the Christian faith, he later confessed that he much preferred the passing pleasures of sin. One day while playing by the sea as a teen, marauding pirates captured Patrick and sold him into slavery to a petty Celtic tribal king, named Milchu. During the next six years of captivity he suffered great adversity, hunger, nakedness, loneliness, and sorrow while tending his master’s flocks in the valley of the Braid and on the slopes of the Slemish.

It was amidst such dire straits that Patrick began to remember the Word of God his mother had taught him. Regretting his past life of selfish pleasure-seeking, he turned to Christ as his Savior. Of his conversion he later wrote,

I was sixteen years old and knew not the true God and was carried away captive; but in that strange land the Lord opened my unbelieving eyes, and although late I called my sins to mind, and was converted with my whole heart to the Lord my God, who regarded my low estate, had pity on my youth and ignorance, and consoled me as a father consoles his children. Every day I used to look after sheep and I used to pray often during the day, the love of God and a holy fear of Him increased more and more in me. My faith began to grow and my spirit was ardently stirred. Often, I would pray as many as a hundred times in a single day — and nearly as many at night. Even when I was staying out in the woods or on the mountain, I would rise before dawn for prayer, in snow and frost and rain. I felt no ill effect and there was no slackness in me. As I now realize, it was because the Spirit was maturing and preparing me for a work yet to come.

Amazingly, Patrick came to love the very people who humiliated him, abused him, and taunted him. He yearned for them to know the blessed peace he had found in the gospel of Christ. Eventually rescued through a remarkable turn of events, Patrick returned to his family in Britain. But his heart increasingly dwelt upon the fierce Celtic peoples he had come to know so well. He was stunned to realize that he actually longed to return to Ireland and share the gospel with them.

Though his parents were grieved to see him leave home once again, they reluctantly supported his efforts to gain theological training on the continent. His classical education had been interrupted by his captivity, so he was far behind his peers academically. But what he lacked in knowledge, he made up for in zeal. Before long he had secured a warrant to evangelize his former captors.

Thus, Patrick returned to Ireland. He preached to the pagan tribes in the Irish language he had learned as a slave. His willingness to take the Gospel to the least likely and the least lovely people imaginable was met with extraordinary success. And that success would continue for over the course of nearly half a century of evangelization, church planting, and social reform. He would later write that God’s grace had so blessed his efforts that “many thousands were born again unto God.” Indeed, according to the early-church chronicler W. D. Killen: “There can be no reasonable doubt that Patrick preached the gospel, that he was a most zealous and efficient evangelist, and that he is entitled to be called the Apostle of Ireland.”¹

We know that the kingdom of heaven belongs to “those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness” (Matt. 5:10) and that great “blessings” and “rewards” eventually await those who have been “insulted,” “slandered,” and “sore vexed” who nevertheless persevere in their high callings (Matt. 5:12–13). We know that often it is in “afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, sleeplessness, and hunger” (2 Cor. 6:4–5) that our real mettle is proven. Nevertheless, we often forget that these things are not simply to be endured. They actually frame our greatest calling. They lay the foundations for our most effective ministries. It is when, like Patrick, we come to love God’s enemies and ours that we are set free for great effectiveness.

Jesus said, “Bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who persecute you (Matt. 5:44); and again, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” (Luke 6:27). Therein is the missionary impulse. Patrick’s life, like that of those selfless believers in Jakarta, provides us with a stunning reminder of that remarkable gospel paradox.

Wherever this year takes you, Ligonier’s digital discipleship resources make it easy to incorporate trusted, in-depth Bible teaching into your daily routine.

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A couple of years ago, our garbage disposal broke. I’m not a handyman, so I called a plumber. In the course of conversation, he said, “As a pastor, all you have to do is keep a smile on your face and treat people nicely.” He added that I was nothing but a salesman. I told him I don’t always have a smile, and I don’t always treat people nicely. Why? Because life is harder than that.

There are discouraging events, trials, tribulations, and difficult people. It isn’t my calling to paste a smile over those realities. As Christians, we shouldn’t whitewash difficulty. We call evil evil (Isa. 5:20), and we acknowledge pain and loss for what they are. We do not pretend all is well when it is not. We are not Stoics trying to rise above suffering by sheer resolve. Life in a fallen world is often hard (John 16:33). There is real suffering. As Christians, we acknowledge it, grieve it (Rom. 12:15), and sometimes feel deeply discouraged by it (2 Cor. 1:8). Yet we neither wallow in it nor deny it (1 Thess. 4:13).

God’s people suffer because we live in a world marked by affliction. Sin entered through one man (Rom. 5:12). The devil prowls (1 Peter 5:8). Creation groans (Rom. 8:20–22). Death remains an enemy (1 Cor. 15:26). In fact, Christians should not be surprised by hardship. This world is not our home (Heb. 13:14). As our Lord was persecuted, so His people will be persecuted (John 15:20).

Yet our affliction unfolds under the sovereign eye of God. He sets its boundaries (Job 1:12; 2:6). Suffering is not endless; it has an expiration date. There is a determined measure of affliction the church must endure before Christ returns (Acts 14:22; Rev. 7:14).

In Revelation 6:9–11, the martyrs cry out, “O Sovereign Lord . . . how long?” They are told to rest “until the number of their fellow servants . . . should be complete.” Their suffering is neither accidental nor infinite. There is a number known to God. Hardships are real—but they are not ultimate. They will end.

So, we seek to endure.

You may say, “But you don’t know what I’m going through.” That’s true. I don’t know it as you do. In 2 Corinthians 4:8–10, Paul writes, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed . . . always carrying in the body the death of Jesus.” Everything seemed touched—his body, ministry, and circumstances (2 Cor. 11:23–28). The Christian is identified with Christ in His death (Rom. 6:5; Phil. 3:10). If suffering marks your path, you are walking in His footsteps (1 Peter 2:21).

But we are not only identified with Him in death. We are identified with Him in resurrection: “He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also” (2 Cor. 4:14). The suffering Savior is now risen and reigning (Rev. 1:17–18). And He is with you (Matt. 28:20). Because He lives, you can endure (John 14:19).

The help we need comes from One who has suffered. The eternal Word became flesh (John 1:14). Christ bore our griefs and carried our sorrows (Isa. 53:4–5). He suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous (1 Peter 3:18). We do not have a high priest unable to sympathize with our weaknesses (Heb. 4:15). Our pain is not foreign to Him.

How do we know this? Because “He . . . did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Rom. 8:32). God demonstrates His love in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8). The cross settles the question of His heart toward His people. He is for you. Therefore, you can endure.

Endurance, however, is not easy. Paul admits, “Our outer self is wasting away,” though “our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). There is real attrition. Bodies weaken. Energy fades. But God strengthens the inner man. His grace is sufficient (2 Cor. 12:9). As suffering increases, so does His comfort.

Without Christ, even small afflictions can overwhelm. With Christ, even heavy burdens can be borne. Your trial is not greater than His grace. Your losses are not greater than His love.

Paul reminds us, “The things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). Hardships are temporary. God is eternal. Keep looking to Him (Heb. 12:1–2). Keep walking by faith. Keep serving Him steadfastly.

“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17). That does not belittle hardships; it puts them in perspective. A lifetime of hardship cannot compare with eternal glory (Rom. 8:18; 2 Cor. 5:1).

Yes, this season feels hard. It may feel long. But while “weeping may tarry for the night,” know that “joy comes with the morning” (Ps. 30:5). His mercies are new every morning (Lam. 3:22–23), and an everlasting morning is on the horizon (Rev. 21:4).

So, we do not deny hardship. We name it. We grieve it. We sometimes stagger beneath it. But we do not surrender to it. The Son of God who suffered for us now reigns for us (Heb. 1:3). And because He is for us, we can endure.

By God’s grace, your prayers and support of Ligonier’s global outreaches are bearing fruit worldwide. We are both excited and encouraged by the ministry momentum we’re seeing, and we’re prayerful that the Lord will continue to strengthen His people through this Bible teaching ministry throughout 2026.

Here are some of the notable milestones that the Lord has enabled Ligonier to meet so far this year through your faithful support.

Serving in the Top 20 Languages

• Through Ligonier’s dedicated-language websites, our current global reach has exceeded 158,000,000 people worldwide.
• Chinese editions of The Holiness of God and Lessons from the Upper Room are now available in audiobook format online.
• Dr. R.C. Sproul’s 35-part video teaching series The Consequences of Ideas is now dubbed in Chinese and available on Ligonier’s Chinese website and YouTube channel.
• Two newly translated titles from the Crucial Questions booklet series, What Is the Gospel? and Can I Trust the Bible?, are now available in Hindi and on our dedicated-language website.
• Two timely books have recently been translated into Spanish and will be released on March 17: A Field Guide on Gender and Sexuality and Abortion: A Rational Look at an Emotional Issue.

Furthering Study Bibles for the World

• So far, Ligonier has distributed more than 165,000 Reformation Study Bibles to pastors worldwide.
• Lord willing, we plan to distribute another 5,000 study Bibles this summer in Madagascar. We are also planning a large-scale distribution in Kenya later this year.

Equipping the Next Generation

• Last month, we saw hundreds of young Christians turn out for Ligonier’s recent Always Ready youth conference in Panama City Beach, FL.

As we look out upon the remainder of 2026, I’m struck by the overwhelming demand we’re seeing for sound biblical teaching globally. Please join with us in praying for the following outreach opportunities:

• For new study Bible distribution opportunities around the world and for skilled, godly Bible translators to partner with.
• That pastors receiving the Reformation Study Bible would be equipped to proclaim God’s Word to Christians in their churches.
• For the two additional Always Ready events planned for this year. We pray that God will strengthen young Christians to stand firm in an increasingly hostile culture.
• For new opportunities for conferences and events around the world to serve Christians in every age, stage, and nation.

Thank you again for your prayerful and financial support of Ligonier Ministries. May we continue to see the global church strengthened and God’s people equipped for the work of gospel proclamation.

What difference does theology make in the Christian life?

At first glance, the study of doctrine may seem like an abstract discipline reserved for pastors and scholars. But knowing God is vital for every believer—theology shapes how we think, worship, and live before the One who saved us.

In his new 36-part video teaching series, Theology for All, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson draws on a lifetime of theological study and pastoral ministry to unfold the core doctrines of the Christian faith, demonstrating why they matter for every believer.

Get lifetime digital access to this video teaching series when you order it today.

In Theology for All, Dr. Ferguson explores the whole range of systematic theology, revealing how a deeper knowledge of Scripture strengthens our love for God, enriches our hope in His salvation, and guides us to live according to His will.

36 Messages, Including:

• Why Theology Is Important
• The Doctrine of the Word of God
• The Nature of Sin
• Chosen in Christ
• Christ’s Church
• And More

Watch the first message for free to start your study.

Several Teaching Series Formats Available

• Digital teaching series
• Ligonier Connect course
• Digital study guide

Preorder the DVD Edition and Paperback Study Guide

You can also be among the first to receive the DVD edition and paperback study guide for Theology for All 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 enjoy complete streaming access to our teaching series library? If you’d like to stream Theology for All and 230+ other series online and in the Ligonier app, partner with Ligonier today.

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

Can you imagine a world filled with Christians who know God deeply and live with single-minded devotion to make His glory known?

Men and women would embrace their dignity as people created in God’s image. Families would thrive by reflecting divine love. Nations would prioritize true righteousness.

That is not the world you and I inhabit—not yet, and it won’t come without deliberate, faithful discipleship in the truth.

Ours is a fallen, sinful world plagued by animosity toward God and ignorance of His revelation. Into this darkness, the Lord Jesus Christ sends His church to form disciples in the truth of His Word (Matt. 28:18–20). Ligonier Ministries seeks to strengthen the church for this Great Commission by providing trusted Bible teaching for the whole Christian life and for the whole world.

Dr. R.C. Sproul expressed the comprehensive mission of this teaching fellowship with a stirring statement: “I want to flood the world with knowledgeable and articulate Christians.” By this, he meant Christians whose minds are shaped by Scripture, whose lives are marked by holiness, and whose witness is anchored in truth. This tidal wave of clear, courageous faith requires serious education in the Word of God.

Thank you for your generous support of this movement to strengthen discipleship in the historic Christian faith. Your prayerfully considered donation this month can help Ligonier advance four vital initiatives throughout 2026. I’ll explain those below.

Making disciples of Jesus Christ is the responsibility of the whole church (Eph. 4:15–16). This calling requires every Christian to know the faith deeply and to express it clearly to others. Yet around the world, faithful Christian teaching is lacking:

• Many pastors cannot afford trusted discipleship resources to help them study God’s Word and to feed their congregations with life-giving truth.
• The next generation is inundated with lies about their identity and purpose, often leaving young believers feeling under attack and alone.
• Christians in many countries lack access to study materials in their language to help them understand and apply the whole counsel of God.

With your generous support, we can provide trusted theological instruction for people of every age, at every stage of the Christian life, and in every nation.

Below are Ligonier’s 2026 outreach plans. I’m updating you on these four initiatives so you can know how to pray and where to give as we seek together to strengthen the global church throughout this year and beyond.

INITIATIVE #1: Strengthen the whole Christian life through an unparalleled arsenal of Bible teaching, expanded discipleship resources, and additional in-person training. Your support can help to:

• Develop in-depth Bible studies for all 66 books of sacred Scripture, providing tools for Christians of all ages to be mastered by God’s Word.
• Release more resources for families and children, including the Spanish and Chinese translations of the Growing in God’s Word Bible curriculum for children.
• Produce new focused content and teaching events for teenagers, college students, and young professionals, applying timeless truth to the formative stages of life.
• Extend online courses through Reformation Bible College to provide a rigorous theological education for global students and prison inmates.

INITIATIVE #2: Expand media and digital platforms to give Christians constant access to God’s truth in a noisy, confusing world. Just as R.C. and the early Ligonier staff pioneered the use of emerging technology, we now use digital channels to spread truth and counter the tsunami of lies online. To support strategic outreach improvements, you can help:

• Increase the impact of Renewing Your Mind by making it a full-video daily podcast and holding live online events from the newly built Renewing Your Mind studio.
• Release more short-form video content to enhance Christian discipleship and provide clear, trusted answers to eternal questions on platforms increasingly shaped by distraction, distortion, and falsehood.
• Develop upgrades for RefNet (our free 24/7 radio app) with more teaching to serve the whole family and set a soaring standard for Christian internet radio programming.
• Revolutionize the free Ligonier app to deepen the study of God’s Word through increased personalization, more teaching in more languages, and an intelligent search assistant that delves into our extensive library.

INITIATIVE #3: Equip 500,000 global pastors with the Reformation Study Bible. The Study Bibles for the World campaign has already blessed more than 150,000 pastors who lack formal theological training and have little access to study materials. Every $25 given to this initiative helps place a Reformation Study Bible into the hands of one pastor, furthering Ligonier’s plans in 2026 to:

• Gift 4,000 study Bibles to the Anglican Church of Kenya in the coming months. As this theologically conservative denomination has more than 5 million members, each minister equipped with the Reformation Study Bible can have a wide-reaching influence.
• Furnish 5,000 pastors in Madagascar this summer, serving the largest Presbyterian denomination in this impoverished island nation with study Bibles. We’re eager to help these church leaders further after meeting many of them last year.
• Fuel additional major study Bible distributions around the world throughout 2026, supporting the church where the need is greatest and faithful teaching is least available.

INITIATIVE #4: Unleash a deep theological library for 80% of the world. As Ligonier entered 2026, you helped us cross the starting line to release weekly Bible teaching in the world’s top 20 languages. Now, decades of translation and production lie ahead, with a potential reach of 6.5 billion souls and rising. Your support today can:

• Deepen our library in these 20 most-spoken languages with translated teaching from Dr. Sproul, the Ligonier Teaching Fellows, and other gifted teachers from the global church.
• Form partnerships with native-language publishers to produce additional discipleship materials in the 60+ languages in which Ligonier is already active.
• Establish long-term launchpads for ministry with dedicated Ligonier staff members providing support to the church in Southeast Asia and the United Kingdom.
• Host more international conferences to bring Christians from every nation to the biblical riches of Reformed theology.

Our great God is worthy of great endeavors. This is His work, empowered by His grace and accomplished for His glory alone. Please pray with us for His continued provision.

R.C. outlined a vision for comprehensive discipleship outreach because the need for biblical truth is universal. Everyone needs to know who God is, and every Christian must be deeply anchored in the gospel to bear faithful witness to His glorious grace.

Ligonier presses on to serve the global church because the Lord is blessing our Great Commission outreach. In His astonishing mercy, the Lord has multiplied the reach of Ligonier fivefold in the years since R.C. went to be with Him, using ordinary means—faithful teaching, careful stewardship, and gospel partnership—to serve the global church. As long as God keeps us faithful and opens more doors for ministry, we will trust and follow Him through.

Your prayerful and generous support can help accelerate this work as the Lord provides. Our team is committed to stewarding your generosity to form knowledgeable and articulate Christians worldwide.

The nations await. Thank you for your prayers and thoughtful generosity in service to the Great Commission.

R.C. Sproul devoted his life to helping Christians grow in their knowledge of God and His holiness. **This week only, explore a special collection of more than 100 discounted books, teaching series, and other discipleship resources **from the founder of Ligonier Ministries.

With his signature ability to bring clarity to complex theological subjects, Dr. Sproul’s timeless teaching continues to make the deep truths of the Christian faith accessible to people around the world.

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What do you want your Christian life to look like 12 months from now?

We all desire to grow in the Lord:

• Greater, fruit-bearing love for God and for our neighbor,
• More wisdom to guide our relationships and responsibilities,
• Deeper faith that rests in Christ through every joy and trial.

Spiritual growth requires perseverance. It needs direction. And it happens one day at a time.

Invest in your growth with Tabletalk, the monthly Bible study magazine from Ligonier Ministries. This week only, get 12 months of guided study for only $12.

R.C. Sproul created Tabletalk to help Christians grow in their faith as they read God’s Word, think deeply about its meaning, and apply its teaching to everyday life.

When you subscribe for only $12 with this offer, you’ll receive Tabletalk in the mail each month.

Over the next 12 months, you will:

• Study most of the New Testament General Epistles (from 1 Peter to Jude)
• Explore 12 edifying themes (such as love, the early church, and the English Bible)
• Take in 912 pages of clear, practical theology (2 or 3 pages a day)
• Read the whole Bible (if you follow the Tabletalk Bible reading plan)

What will your Christian life look like in a year? For only $12, devote the next 12 months to pursuing daily growth with Tabletalk. Secure your discount before it ends on February 13.

To be a Christian is to be a citizen of the kingdom of God.

The Lord Jesus taught that His arrival signaled the inauguration of His reign as the heavenly King. Every Christian, therefore, lives as a subject under Christ’s lordship, using their talents and vocations to proclaim the gospel and further God’s kingdom in the world.

Join us on November 6–7 for Ligonier’s 2026 Southern Ontario Conference, Thy Kingdom Come. Register today and save with the early-bird rate.

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
• Q&A Session

As we gather around the Scriptures at this conference, we’ll explore what it means to live as citizens of God’s kingdom. With speakers like Tom Ascol, Robert M. Godfrey, Derek Thomas, and more, we’ll reflect on the profound significance of both Christ's inaugurated rule in this present age and our hope in the consummation of His rule in the age to come.

We’ll also host a pastors’ pre-conference event, Standing Firm in the Truth, on November 6, 2026. This additional event invites pastors to reflect on Paul’s second letter to Timothy, offering guidance for ministers in Christ’s church as they seek to remain faithful to their calling.

PRE-CONFERENCE SESSIONS:

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

We look forward to returning to Ontario for this conference, and we hope you can join us in November for a time of mutual edification as we reflect together on how Christians can use their talents and vocations to proclaim the gospel and advance God’s kingdom in the world.

Register today and save with the early-bird rate.

Do you remember when you first came to grips with the sovereignty of God?

Many people come to embrace the truth of our sovereign God through the teaching of Ligonier Ministries and Dr. R.C. Sproul. Request your special edition of R.C.’s cherished book on divine sovereignty in salvation when you support Ligonier’s mission with a donation.

For some Christians, the doctrine of predestination has always been part of their reading of Scripture. For many others, however, it is a truth embraced only after honest struggle. That was certainly my experience.

It was also the experience of Dr. Sproul. As a theology student, R.C. initially resisted the truth of God’s sovereign and unconditional election, fearing that it threatened his personal freedom. But as he labored over the Scriptures—text after text, argument after argument—he wrote a simple but decisive note to himself:

“You are required to believe, to preach, and to teach what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true.”

That resolve proved transformative. R.C. eventually concluded that his objections could not withstand the plain teaching of Scripture. Rather than defeated, he found his heart warmed. For he finally realized, in his own words, that this truth “begins and ends with grace.”

The fruit of that hard-won clarity is Chosen by God, one of the most influential books of R.C.’s ministry. For forty years, the Lord has used this book to awaken countless believers to the reality that our salvation rests not on human initiative but on God’s sovereign mercy. It remains a core resource in Ligonier’s discipleship arsenal and one of the most widely used introductions to the doctrines of grace in the church today.

Ligonier Ministries seeks to be the first to serve Christians worldwide who are growing in their knowledge of our sovereign God. Generous friends like you help to extol the glorious riches of Reformed theology among the nations. To thank you for your gift of any amount this month, we’ll send you the exclusive new 40th-anniversary edition of Dr. Sproul’s classic book.

Why does the doctrine of God’s sovereign grace so often unsettle us? Because it dethrones our pride. It dismantles every form of self-made religion. Salvation that begins and ends with the Lord’s unmerited mercy confronts the world’s obsession with self-exaltation.

Yet opposition to the doctrines of grace is not found only outside the Christian community. Vast swaths of the global church are influenced by false teaching and man-centered theology. We see it in the devastating prosperity “gospel.” We see it in the fusing together of Christianity with demonic animism. The enemy has designed all of this to hide the Lord Jesus Christ.

The beauty of divine grace is too amazing to be left concealed. Praise the Lord that amid widespread error, the true church is striving to be faithful in contending for the gospel (Jude 3). However, many pastors and laypeople around the world lack basic training to help them delve into God’s Word and proclaim it clearly. Ligonier seeks to address that problem with your timely support.

Following our founder’s determination to proclaim the truth of Scripture, Ligonier provides biblical teaching to edify disciples worldwide. In our mission to reach as many people as possible, we’re building a global pipeline of Reformed theology to strengthen the church with God-centered truth.

Your generosity strengthens Ligonier’s stride to be the first to serve people around the world with trusted Bible teaching through our vast discipleship library. With your help:

• Ligonier translated 8.5 million words and 5,700 minutes of dubbed teaching in 2025. Now books, video teaching series, articles, and other resources are available in 63 languages, with more planned as God provides.

• Following the launch of four new dedicated-language websites last year, Ligonier has committed to releasing new teaching every week in the world’s top 20 languages. Decades of translation and partnerships with local churches lie ahead, Lord willing.

• We seek to translate foundational resources widely so books such as Chosen by God are available on every continent. Church leaders are eager to use our children’s curriculum, Growing in God’s Word, once Spanish and Chinese translations are finished.

• And we continue to gather Christians for in-person teaching and training at events around the world. Chosen by God is the theme of our London Conference in September, with additional opportunities in Southeast Asia, Canada, France, and Switzerland.

In all our Great Commission outreach, we want to see the nations glorify our sovereign King. The truth of His reign does not breed complacency; instead, it fuels mission. Understanding that our salvation is all of grace, initiated by God’s electing love for us in Christ, gives clarity and assurance to our faith (Eph. 1:3–14). Divine sovereignty brings comfort in trials, renews hope in the fight against sin, and gives rise to reverent worship.

As R.C. said, “The credit for your redemption is to be given to God. To God alone is the glory.” This truth is transformative and must be proclaimed far and wide. Imagine how the church’s witness would be strengthened if millions more Christians were anchored in this doctrine. In God’s providence, this ministry’s impactful outreach requires substantial financial support to execute. Your donation today can help take the God-exalting truths of Reformed theology to the ends of the earth.

Out of deep gratitude for faithful friends like you, Ligonier has prepared a special anniversary edition of Chosen by God. I hope you will receive it for your own encouragement—or place it in the hands of someone who needs to discover the depths of God’s sovereign grace. We’ll send it to you when you give a gift of any amount to Ligonier.

Thank you for joining Ligonier in proclaiming the truth of God’s sovereignty to the world.

With great joy in the Lord, Ligonier Ministries has appointed two new teaching fellows: Rev. Joel Kim and Dr. Michael Reeves.

This decision, made prayerfully and carefully by Ligonier’s board of directors, reminds us of this ministry’s roots. Dr. R.C. Sproul always envisioned Ligonier not as the ministry of one man but as a movement with a guiding mission.

From the early days of the Ligonier Valley Study Center to today’s global discipleship ministry, this teaching fellowship is united in one focused endeavor: to proclaim the holiness of God, teach Scripture with faithfulness and clarity, and strengthen the church with Reformed theology for generations to come.

Rev. Kim and Dr. Reeves are already familiar names to many of you. In addition to leading pastoral and theological training institutions, both Rev. Kim and Dr. Reeves have proclaimed God’s Word at Ligonier’s conferences, recorded video teaching series, and written articles for Tabletalk magazine. In one sense, their appointment as teaching fellows formally recognizes the service in which they are already engaged.

“The teachings of Dr. R.C. Sproul and the ministry of Ligonier have been constant companions in my pastoral and teaching ministries. I am especially grateful for Ligonier’s focus on supplying the global church with sound theological resources, and I am honored and excited to participate in advancing this mission by serving as a teaching fellow.” —Rev. Joel Kim

“I owe a profound debt of gratitude to Dr. Sproul, who shaped my convictions at a formative time for me. Since then, it has been a pleasure and an encouragement to teach and partner with Ligonier. I am delighted to step into this new role and help Ligonier respond to the increasing global opportunities for the faithful teaching of God’s truth.” —Dr. Michael Reeves

Ligonier’s extensive discipleship library features the teaching of hundreds of gifted theologians, pastors, and Bible teachers. But in various seasons of ministry, the board asks some teachers to take on a more prominent role in advancing the mission.

By God’s grace, we welcome Rev. Kim and Dr. Reeves to help Ligonier respond to its accelerating momentum. Demand for in-person teaching and theological formation has grown steadily, creating opportunities that exceed our current capacity. Adding these teaching fellows enables us to meet that demand with integrity and foresight as Ligonier’s outreach continues to expand.

We must bring God’s truth to every nation and every generation. Ligonier’s teaching fellows serve as ambassadors for the historic Reformed faith, lending their voices and scholarship in service to the church through clear and faithful Bible teaching.

Join us in praying for Rev. Kim, Dr. Reeves, and the teaching fellowship of Ligonier Ministries. We thank the Lord and rely on His providence as we strive alongside you to reach people of every age, every stage of the Christian life, in every nation with the truth of our holy God.

Thank you for joining in this mission and for praying for its faithfulness to the glory of God alone.

As I reflect on the past year, I am astonished to consider the many lives God’s truth is impacting through Ligonier Ministries. The team tells me that our reach exceeded 150 million souls in 2025. We consider it a profound privilege to stand alongside friends and supporters like you to proclaim God’s holiness around the world every hour of the day.

What will 2026 hold for this teaching fellowship? As we look back with gratitude on the gospel’s advancement, we see tremendous opportunity and an overwhelming need for trusted Bible teaching in the year ahead.

Will you join us in praying that God will continue to strengthen His people through Ligonier’s discipleship outreach in 2026? Please lift up these areas of ministry:

Serving in the Top 20 Spoken Languages

• Thank God for the launch of our Hausa and Marathi dedicated-language websites in the final weeks of 2025, achieving our goal to enable Ligonier to begin releasing weekly Bible teaching in the top 20 languages.
• Ask the Lord to guide and strengthen our efforts as we seek to expand our theological library and reach even more people in 2026.

Furthering Study Bibles for the World

• Thank God for allowing us to equip 150,000+ pastors in 75 countries with study Bibles to date.
• Ask the Lord for wisdom, provision, and open doors as we work toward our goal of equipping 500,000 pastors—or 10% of the world’s pastors—over the next ten years.

Equipping the Next Generation

• Thank God for enabling Ligonier to publish our first children’s curriculum, Growing in God’s Word.
• Pray for the wide adoption of this resource among churches and families. Also, please pray for timely translations—Spanish is underway, and Chinese will follow as funding allows.
• Thank God for allowing us to grow our Always Ready youth conferences to help disciple the next generation of Christians.
• Pray that God will enable us to serve 15,000 students worldwide over the next three years through these apologetics training events.

Enhancing the Ligonier App

• Thank the Lord for our free Ligonier app, which provides immediate access to a vast library of trusted teaching.
• With major updates to the app underway, pray that God will grant us to leverage new technology to serve millions more people in the coming years and deepen their engagement with the Word.

Thank you for joining us in prayer for the Lord’s blessing on Ligonier’s outreaches in the coming year. And thank you also for standing with this ministry founded by Dr. R.C. Sproul as we accelerate this work, by God’s grace, seeking to strengthen God’s people in the fight for truth.

If there is any way we can pray for you, please let us know. You can submit prayer requests to service@ligonier.org or forward them to a member of our Advancement Team. We would be honored to pray for you.

Lastly, I wanted to let you know about a devotional resource on awakening that we shared during our online year-end event. You can download Fight the Good Fight: A devotional on Awakening for free. We hope it’s an encouragement to you. Feel free to share this resource with friends and family to encourage them as well.

Even as we pray and give thanks for you, in dependence on the Lord, please pray for His blessing as the Word goes forth through Ligonier. “Unless the  Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1).

Marriage is one of God’s greatest gifts.

He instituted marriage not only for our blessing but also as a powerful reflection of Christ’s love for His church. Yet in a world stained by sin, happiness in marriage can feel elusive.

In her new book, A Happy Marriage, Rebecca VanDoodewaard weaves together Scripture, theological truths, and stories of Christian couples from around the world. She illustrates the joy that comes from modeling marriage according to God’s design––joy that even the darkest trials cannot steal away.

Order your copy today.

Read real-life stories addressing topics such as:

• Handling marital conflict
• Navigating major life transitions
• Struggling with infertility
• Trusting God amid suffering
• And more

A Look Inside the Book

“For the Christian, happiness in marriage is due to God’s design and His blessing on that design as two redeemed sinners seek to serve Him together.” —Rebecca VanDoodewaard

Read a sample and order your copy today.

The Gospel Is for Every Christian Marriage

This hardcover book and its accompanying digital study guide are valuable resources for church small groups, premarital and marriage counseling, or anyone looking to strengthen their marriage according to God’s design. Purchase copies today for you and your friends.

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

Many people are setting goals for the new year. However, Christians are called to a higher level of commitment than just exercising more or organizing the closet. We are called to live with a dedication to truth as ambassadors for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our King has covenanted for our salvation, resolving to love His people to the end (Matt. 28:20; John 13:1). Since Christ is faithful, let us strive to serve Him faithfully this year in thought, word and deed. And may we be resolved to build one another up in our most holy faith.

I pray that our monthly updates uphold this resolution, even as Ligonier Ministries seeks to impart sound words that build people up in the truth (Eph. 4:29; 2 Tim. 1:13). And I believe a similar resolution drives friends like you who financially support this unique teaching fellowship.

As a supporter of this ministry, you help bring truth to Christians worldwide. Thank you for your generosity in spreading trusted Bible teaching to more people. When you step forward to support Ligonier with a donation this month, we’ll send you four books from Ligonier to extend your personal ministry in the cause of truth.

As we begin a new year, we confront a world ensnared by deception. We see it in the commitments people make and the resolutions that govern their lives.

• The resolution to reject accountability before God, resulting in atheism.
• The commitment to overthrow the authority of God’s Word, yielding cults.
• The demand to worship a god made in our own image, leading to false religions.
• The drive to self-indulge and deny God’s good design, culminating in sexual sin.

What underlies each of these corrupted priorities? Lies about who God is and who we are as people made in His image. Their deception promises pleasure and fulfillment—yet it results only in sorrow, corruption, and God’s righteous judgment.

To a world enslaved by deception, our faithful Savior proclaims: “The truth will set you free” (John 8:32). As Christians prepare to reach out to our neighbors in the coming year, we need renewed resolve to know God’s truth so we can share it effectively and confront the false ideas that surround us.

Ligonier’s beloved founder demonstrated this holy resolve by God’s grace. Dr. R.C. Sproul said, “To be uncompromising with the truth of the gospel is a virtue and is demanded of all who would be servants of Christ.”

R.C. contended for the faith without being contentious. While he remained unyielding when the gospel was threatened, he was kind to people who came with honest questions, displaying Christlike compassion for sheep without a shepherd (Matt. 9:36). Following this example, Ligonier is resolved in 2026 to help build up Christians in the truth so they can answer the lies of this world with God’s liberating truth.

You share in this holy resolve through your financial support. Your generosity helps to equip God’s people for the work of ministry (Eph. 4:12) as you propel crucial Bible-teaching outreach:

• Empowering the next generation at our Always Ready youth conferences. Over the next three years, we plan to reach 15,000 teenagers worldwide, demonstrating to students that they are not alone and encouraging them to stand courageously for Christ.

• Gathering disciples around the truth at many other training events and conferences globally. In a few short months, our 2026 National Conference will focus on the theme of Crucial Questions to embolden Christian witness in the world. (Will we see you there?)

• Providing an unparalleled Bible study platform with enhancements to the free Ligonier app. We seek to provide even greater access to the ministry’s wealth of digital teaching resources to arm Christians with truth for the spiritual battles they face.

• Expanding our multi-language discipleship library now that Ligonier is releasing new teaching weekly in the world’s top 20 languages. To prepare for years of ministry and training, Lord willing, we’re increasing our strategic focus on Africa and Southeast Asia.

With every outreach, Ligonier seeks to extend the ministry of Christians so they may think biblically, live faithfully, and fight falsehood courageously with the truth.

Yet “unless the Lord builds the house,” all our efforts are in vain (Ps. 127:1). Above all, our efforts rely on His gracious provision and blessing. Please resolve to pray for Ligonier throughout 2026 so that God will grant this ministry fruitfulness.

In God’s providence, your donation today accelerates outreach in 2026. When you give in support of Ligonier, we’ll send you four books from our library: two copies of A Field Guide on False Teaching and two copies of A Field Guide on Gender and Sexuality. I trust these timely resources will help extend your personal ministry this year, equipping you and a friend to engage the lies of our culture with God’s life-changing truth.

Let’s run our race with renewed resolve for the gospel of Christ that frees souls.

In a world of confusion, we need young men and women who can think clearly, live faithfully, and stand firm in the truth of God’s Word.

That’s why Dr. R.C. Sproul founded Reformation Bible College.

RBC educates students in the Reformed classical tradition so they can know, serve, and worship God in all of life. Through rigorous theological coursework designed by Dr. Sproul and intentional faculty mentorship, students gain Christian wisdom and courage for their callings.

On-Campus Degree Programs:

• Bachelor of Arts in Theology | Biblical Studies or Christian Thought
• Associate of Arts in Theology
• Certificate in Theology

Online Degree Programs:

• Certificate in Theology
• Course Auditing

Why Reformation Bible College?

Our world is in a state of continual crisis. But the historic Christian faith provides an anchor to help the next generation weather any storm.

At RBC, you’ll study theology as a framework for all of life, developing a steadfastness that the world cannot imitate and preparing to serve in your calling to the glory of God. As you become deeply rooted in Scripture and sound doctrine, you’ll be formed by the Word of God, not the currents of the moment.

Serving the Church for Generations to Come

RBC continues to expand its academic offerings to serve the needs of Christ’s church.

• Students can pursue an accelerated pathway to Christian counseling, earning a B.A. in Theology from RBC and a M.A. in Counseling from Westminster Theological Seminary in as few as five years.
• RBC offers a Minor in Reformed Classical Education, equipping future teachers through hands-on training alongside experienced educators.

If you’re seeking a serious, Christ-centered education, apply today or share RBC’s information with a prospective student.

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.