Presbyterian Minister R. C. Sproul, one of the most influential spreaders of reformed theology since the late 20th and early 21st centuries, entered the enjoyment of his Lord and Savior on December 14, 2017, after complications of emphysema, was 78 years old.
Because Sproul preached all of God’s counsel and wanted to empower God’s people to live before a holy God, he often taught suffering and death during his five decades of ministry.
He openly admitted his fears when he died
I recently heard a young Christian say, “I’m not afraid to die. “When I heard that comment, I thought, “I wish I could say that. “
I’m not afraid of death. I believe that death for the Christian is a glorious transition to heaven; I’m not afraid to go to paradise. It’s the process that scares me, I don’t know how I’m going to die, this can be because of a process of suffering and it scares me.
I know even that shouldn’t scare me. There’s a lot of things that scare me and I shouldn’t be afraid. The scriptures declare that perfect love takes away fear. But love is still imperfect and fear continues.
He wrote what it would be like to be in heaven and identify with Christ:
You can cry for me the week before I die, if I have fear and pain, but when I sigh for the last fleeting breath and my immortal soul ascends to heaven, I will jump over the fire hydrants in the golden streets, and mine. the biggest concern, if I have one, it will be my wife who will suffer.
When I die, I will be identified with the exaltation of Christ, but now I am identified with your anguish.
And in an article titled, doesn’t death have the last word?[Death doesn’t have the last word], he wrote:
When we close our eyes on death, we are still alive; rather, we experience a continuation of personal consciousness.
No one is more aware, more attentive, and more alert than when moving from the veil of this world to the next.
Far from falling asleep, they awaken us to glory in every way
For the believer, death does not have the last word; death has been given to the conquering power of the One who has risen as the firstborn of many brethren.
RC Sproul’s mission, passion and life purpose were the same as those of the Ligonier Ministry, the paraeclesial organization he helped found in the 1970s:?Proclaim the holiness of God in all its fullness to the greatest number?He saw his work as filling a gap between Sunday school and seminary, helping lay Christians renew themselves as they learn Christian doctrine, ethics and apologetics, all at the service of Coram Deo’s life, in front of the face of God.
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Robert Charles Sproul, recalled by his parents RC Sproul III, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on February 13, 1939, the second son of Robert Cecil and Mayre Ann Sproul.
A fervent Steelers and Pirates fan [1], sports were a big part of his life, but at age 15, R. C. He had to drop out of high school to help his family, as his father, a World War II veteran, suffered a series of debilitating strokes. RCSproul II, the most important person in your son’s life, died in his senior year of high school at RCHs his last words were: “Son, I fought the good battle, I finished my career, I kept my faith. ” RC, who had seen his father read the Bible faithfully, had never read it and did not recognize it as a quote from the Apostle Paul. He deceived his father: “Don’t say that!” Shame, that would be the last thing Sproul would have told his father.
R. C. was born again in September 1957, the first weekend of his first semester at Westminster College, a progressive Presbyterian school an hour north of Pittsburgh. Following the advice of a freshman, RC and his roommate (with whom he played baseball in school) wanted to leave his campus without drinking to go drinking to a nearby town. When they arrived at the parking lot, RC Rebused in his pocket and realized he had run out of Lucky Strike cigarettes. They went back to the bedroom, which had a cigarette machine.
When he started putting his pieces on the machine, the best player on the football team invited them to sit with him. Sproul started asking questions. They ended up talking for more than an hour about God’s wisdom. What an impact this had on R. C. for the first time in his life, while listening to someone who seemed to know Jesus personally. The footballer cited Ecclesiastes 11. 3 (?Will he stay there to tear down the tree to the south or north, wherever it falls?) And RCsaw itself as this truth: dead, corrupt and rotten. He went back to the bedroom that night and begged God to forgive him. He later noted that he was probably the only person in church history who was converted by this particular verse.
R. C. was biblically and theologically ignorant. During the first two weeks of his Christian life, he read the entire Bible and was awakened for the first time to the holiness of God, especially through the Old Testament.
In February 1958, RC’s girlfriend Vesta, whom you met in the first year of school and with whom you flirted since the beginning of high school, came from her university in Ohio to visit him. After attending a prayer meeting with RC, she also gave her life to Christ.
During the summer following the penultimate year at Westminster and the graduation of Vesta, RC and Vesta married on 11 June 1960.
The following year, Vesta worked at the school while RC wrote his doctoral thesis on “The Existential Implications of Moby Dick” and saw his beloved pirates win the World Series.
In August 1961, the first daughter of the Sprouls, Sherrie, was born and RC enrolled in the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, which was affiliated with the United Presbyterian Church of the United States (the largest presbyterian church in the United States of America, the largest Presbyterian Denomination in the United States (America at the time).
During the seminary, he began taking classes with John Gerstner (1914-1996), a 47-year-old church history teacher and conservative Calvinist at the Progressive School. strongly opposed reformed theology
I challenged Gerstner in class over and over again, becoming a plague; I resisted for over a year. My final surrender was in stages, painful steps. It started when I started working as a pastor studying in a church, I wrote myself a note that I kept on my desk in a place where I could always see it.
YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE, PREACH, AND TEACH WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS IS THE TRUTH, NOT WHAT YOU WANT THE BIBLE TO SAY IS THE TRUTH.
The note haunted me. My last crisis occurred in my senior year; I took a three-credit course in Jonathan Edwards’ studio; we spent the semester studying Edwards’ most famous book, Freedom of Will, under Gerstner’s tutelage; at the same time, I took a course. in Greek exegesis in the book of the Romans. I was the only student in this course, it was just me and the New Testament teacher. I couldn’t hide anywhere.
The combination was too much for me. Gerstner, Edwards, the New Testament teacher and especially the Apostle Paul, were too formidable a team to resist.
Sproul, the reluctant Calvinist, came to embrace Reformed theology and saw Gerstner as a theological mentor of life.
Although R. C. Gerstner wished to enter the pastoral ministry, he encouraged him to carry out doctoral work at the Free University of Amsterdam under the direction of GC Berkouwer (1903-1996), the leading Dutch theologian in the reformed world. The Sproul family moved to the Netherlands in 1964 to start the RC program.
But already in the second semester of college, in the spring of 1965, RC was granted a year’s leave to return to the United States, as Vesta was pregnant with her second child and RC’s mother was pregnant. She was sick. He was appointed to teach philosophy in his alma mater [2], Westminster College, during this recess. That summer, on July 1, his mother came to glory. And that same day, Robert Craig Sproul (RCSproul Jr. was born. ), your only child. Two weeks later, R. C. was ordained a pastor at the United Presbyterian Church in the United States (in 1975, he joined the PCA?Presbyterian Church of America: Presbyterian Church of America).
Instead of returning to the Netherlands, Sproul remained in the United States, where Sproul taught at Gordon College, Massachusetts, and later at the Conwell School of Theology in Philadelphia. He continued his studies with Berkouwer from a distance and returned in 1969 to take exams. that allowed him to receive the diploma of “Drs”. (doctorandus) is equivalent to a master’s degree, which would allow him to start writing a dissertation. But the effort of the ministry prevailed, and he never completed his thesis and therefore did not obtain a doctorate from Amsterdam. (Later, he received a doctorate from whitefield Theological Seminary without guarantees, based on all his writings for the church. )
From 1969 to 1971, R. C. was Associate Minister of Theology and Evangelism at College Hill Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. One person influenced by this ministry was Dora Hillman, a 65-year-old widow of an industry tycoon in Pittsburgh.
In February 1970, Ms. Hillman visited RC and Vesta in Cincinnati to propose a plan in collaboration with other Christian leaders in the Pittsburgh area: a Christian study and conference center on 52 acres of land an hour east of Pittsburgh at Vale Ligonier, with RC as the leading theologian teaching with other team members.
The Sproul accepted this call and, in 1971, moved to the small town of Stahlstown, an hour east of Pittsburgh. The Ligonier Valley Study Centre was partly inspired by the Ministry of Housing in Francis Schaeffer, Switzerland. Students ate and slept at Sprouls house and other houses in the complex, while teaching was formal and informal during the week. A new audio ministry developed rapidly and RC began traveling across the country to teach at seminars and conferences.
The 1970s saw the beginning of the R. C. writing career. The first titles show the scope of their teachings and interests: The symbol: an exhibition of the apostles?Creed [The Symbol: An Exhibition of the Apostles’ Creed] (P
The volume on inerrance is the result of a conference on the inspiration and authority of the scriptures, held in Ligonier in the fall of 1973, with more than 100 guests The speakers of the conference were John Gerstner, JIPacker, John Frame and Clark Pinnock. RC wrote Ligonier’s Statement on Biblical Inerrance, which was further refined and developed , culminating in the 1978 Chicago Declaration on Biblical Inerrance.
On May 6, 1977, the Vale Ligonier Study Center launched a monthly newsletter, called Tabletalk, after a period of informal teaching on Martin Luther. The newsletter eventually became a magazine, with readers estimated at a quarter of a million people in 50 countries.
In 1984, the Ligonier Valley Study Center was renamed Ligonier Ministries and transferred to Orlando, Florida. RC, who taught four months a year at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, became the first university dean of orlando’s RTS campus, which began in 1989.
In 1985, Tyndale House Publishers in Wheaton, Illinois, published “The Holiness of God,” which is perhaps his most important book.
In 1986, Tyndale published “Chosen of God,” which affirmed a Calvinist understanding of divine predestination.
Later, I would say that if anyone could read anything about it, I would recommend these two books.
My biggest concern in writing all the books I have written is helping people understand who God is and who we are.
I believe that these two books, first of all, indicate the transcendent majesty of God and, secondly, the sovereignty of God.
These two ideas inform our understanding of God, Christ, ourselves and the full spectrum of Christian thought, which is the fundamental material I use to present these things to people.
One of the great distinctions of RC’s teaching style was the use of the whiteboard, even though technology has advanced far beyond this class tool, which allowed lay people to feel as if they were in a classroom of Professor Sproul, who refused to speak to them in a simplistic way, citing Latin phrases in their lectures , but in such an attractive way that listeners were more likely to be aware of what to ignore. As a teacher, he combined honest sobriety with the obvious joy of material and convincing his audience to follow his line of discussion. Often his eyes shone, anticipating the “aha!” moment, when everything fit together. It gave the impression that while it was extremely serious in this case, it was never taken too seriously.
He once talked about his teaching style with Tim Challies
When we talk about teaching style, I think some people think of a carefully choreographed style of communication. I never have. My teaching style is just an expression of who I am. My concern is always to get my message across. The idea of walking and using a whiteboard began with my philosophy and my biblical teaching as a teacher at a university.
I’ve used slate and chalk a lot, and even today I prefer them to whiteboards and brushes, I like the dynamics of pictures. You can easily delete them and there are actions involved.
I remember once teaching in college and my mind became empty, why didn’t I use notes or notes in these classes?And I didn’t know where he was. So I turned around and headed for the board, at that moment I didn’t know what to say, I took the chalk and drew a long line, then I put an exclamation point at the end.
I turned around and said to the class, “Do you know what that means?And they looked at me with great bewilderment. I said, “Let me tell you what it means: I forgot where I was and needed to do something, so I just drew that line on the board. But now I remember, can we go on?.
The daily radio show Renewing Your Mind first aired in 1994
That same year, the ecumenical declaration “Evangelical and Catholic Ensemble” was revealed?[Evangelicals and Catholics together]], backed not only by Catholic leaders such as Avery Dulles and Richard John Neuhaus, but also by friends of Sproul such as Chuck Colson and JIPacker. RC saw the document as a danger to the gospel, which undermined the essential truths of justice imputed solely by faith.
In 1995, RC was editor-in-chief of the New Geneva Study Bible (now revised and published under the title The Reformation Study Bible), after seven years working with more than fifty researchers.
In 1997, the new small congregation of the Chapel of San Andrés called R. C. to become its chief minister of preaching and teaching. He then became the co-pastor with the appointment of Burk Parsons. The church sought to stand firm in the reformed tradition, but without the influence of denominational government, although its pastors were ordained in the PCA. From their first meetings in the Ligonier recording studio, to a local cinema, they finally established their first temple in 2001.
R. C. called this ministry of preaching “the highlight of my life. “The greatest regret of his life was that he waited until he was 58 to proclaim the Word of God in the pulpit week after week.
In 2011, Ligonier launched Reformation Bible College, seeking to redefine what can be a bible college by combining reformed theology and piety with a strictly academic curriculum.
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A businessman once asked R. C. Sproul, “What is the great idea of the Christian life?” He answered:
The great idea of Christian life is Coram Deo. Does Coram Deo capture the essence of Christian life?
This expression literally refers to something that happens in the presence or face of God.
To live Coram Deo means to live your whole life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, for the glory of God.
Today, RCSproul, a sinner saved by grace alone, by faith alone in Christ, based on Scripture solely for the glory of God alone, is seeing his Savior face to face and hearing the words we all want to hear: “Very good. . , good and faithful servant? “Enter into the joy of your master?
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1: Football and baseball team, respectively? New Testament
2: Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase that can be translated as “the mother who feeds or feeds”. In the United States, is this term commonly used to refer to a university or college with a degree?N. r.