Ligonier Ministries Blog

1. Between Sunday School and Seminary: Keith Mathison on 30 Years at Ligonier

   How did you come to Christ? I was in high school, and there was an elderly gentleman on campus handing out little pocket-sized New Testaments. At the time, I was not a Christian and had not been raised in the church. I was polite, threw it in my backpack, took it home, threw it in my desk, and didn’t really think about it. But a few years later, about a year after graduating high school, I had reached a low point in my life, and for whatever reason, God caused me to remember that Bible that was in that desk. I stayed up all night reading it, and the Lord opened my eyes while reading the gospel of John and brought me to Himself. You began seminary as a dispensationalist. What made you begin to question that system, and what ultimately led you to Reformed theology? I had not been raised in any church, so I didn’t know where to go after becoming a Christian. I knew there was a Christian bookstore at the mall, so I went there and happened to grab some Hal Lindsey books. That’s what pushed me in the direction of dispensationalism, and for all I knew, that’s what the Bible taught. I ended up attending Dallas Theological Seminary, which was the Mecca of dispensationalism at the time. The first thing that really started the wheels turning was my first Old Testament class. Our professor told us, “If you preach a sermon from the Old Testament, you should be able to preach that same exact sermon in a synagogue without raising an eyebrow.” And I remember thinking: “Paul raised eyebrows when he preached in the synagogue. The only way I could not raise an eyebrow would be not to mention Jesus and the gospel. There’s no way that can be right.” Providentially, R.C. Sproul was invited to speak at Dallas in my first semester. At some point, somebody asked him, “What do you think of dispensationalism?” I don’t remember exactly what he said, but it was something to the effect of, “I just think it’s kind of silly.” That stuck with me. Then in 1991, John Gerstner published Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth, and that was the first time I had seen a systematic critique of dispensationalism. By the spring of my second year, I became convinced that dispensationalism wasn’t biblically defensible and that Reformed theology was taught in Scripture. I started looking for another seminary and found out where Dr. Sproul was teaching: Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. So, we packed up our bags and moved in the summer of 1992. Do you remember the first class that you were in with R.C.? It was the doctrine of Christ, and I remember doing something I should not have done, which was sit in the front row. Dr. Sproul wanted to teach students to think under pressure. One of the things he did, if you were foolish enough to sit in the front row, was he would plant his hands right in front of you, get his face just a few inches from yours, and start grilling you. I was not prepared for that. And so, I made sure from that point forward to show up early and sit in the back row. What was it about Dr. Sproul and the ministry of Ligonier that resonated with you? After I graduated, I found a nighttime job at Ligonier for the Tape of the Month; then I worked for Frontline, where we received incoming phone calls. What attracted me to Ligonier wasn’t just the fact that they were hiring. R.C. had always talked about aiming between Sunday school and seminary and wanting to get that deeper theology to the laity. That’s where I felt my gifts were: taking the academic stuff, bringing it down to a level that anybody can understand, and getting it out there. That was something that Dr. Sproul was uniquely gifted at—being able to teach those deep truths with clarity and conviction. When I read What Is Reformed Theology?, one of the chapters that struck me the most—and was the most unsettling initially, but the most helpful ultimately—was the chapter titled “Reformed Theology Is Catholic.” In my background, catholic meant Roman Catholic. The flags went up. But then Dr. Sproul defines his terms—catholic means “universal, ecumenical.” It’s the church around the world and throughout time; it’s not Roman Catholic. And then reading that section where he’s showing the connections and continuity of the theology of the early and medieval church with the Reformation and pointing out the fact that the Reformation isn’t just this completely new thing—it has precedents, it has continuity with the early and medieval church—that was mind-blowing to me. The 1990s were a time of enormous change in how people accessed information. How do you think the internet and social media have changed the way that Christians do theology? That’s one of the main things that changed in the ’90s for all of us who lived on both sides of that decade: the advent of the internet. It has really impacted a lot of these issues that might have been a little more containable before. With the internet, everybody has access to publish whatever they want and to read all of this material. Controversy happens, and it blows up and goes around the world in ten seconds. We have to be continually vigilant to maintain a no-compromise stand on the crucial doctrine of justification. I think social media has some benefits, but this is one of the downsides of the internet and social media. It’s one of the things I’ve tried to emphasize to my students in the classroom: If a lot of people doing this are seeking to glorify themselves—“Look at what a great internet debater I am”—and just ignoring the damage they might be doing to Christ’s sheep who come in and witness these things, they’re missing a very valuable element of traditional Reformed theology. If you go back and read those early Reformed theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they understood the connection between the head and the heart and the hands, to use John Calvin’s metaphors, and the relationship between theology and godliness. The character of the theologian is as important as the content of the theology. If you’re not growing in your sanctification, then you haven’t really understood the theology that you say you’re fighting for. Many of them picked up on Titus 1:1, with the “truth, which accords with godliness” phrase. That was something I believe R.C. emphasized: Theology isn’t just this academic game being played in journals. It involves real Christians with real issues in real churches. We need to do our theology with the understanding that this should not make us arrogant. It has to get from our head to our heart, where we meditate on the Word, and then it has to get to our hands—praise of God, service to the church, proclamation of the gospel. That was made really clear as we sat under the preaching of Dr. Sproul at Saint Andrew’s Chapel. He was taking this theology and delivering it to the people in the pews. So that’s been a huge influence on me as well, watching how he did that. You were still in seminary when the Evangelicals and Catholics Together controversy unfolded. What did you learn from watching R.C. respond to that controversy? Dr. Sproul and his wife, Vesta, came into the bookstore one day while I was working, and he was angry. I think it was very soon after the ECT document had come out. He was explaining to the people in the bookstore why this was so wrong and why he felt that he was going to have to do something. I believe that’s what led directly to his writing Faith Alone. A lot of what was happening in the background was the culture war that was going on. What they ended up doing was putting together this theological document, Evangelicals and Catholics Together, trying to find these points of agreement. One of the points they said they had agreement on was the doctrine of justification. You had this claim that both evangelicals and Roman Catholics believe in justification by faith and by grace, but they didn’t really carefully define the terms. So, it ended up being a very vague statement. That’s what bothered Dr. Sproul. He knew that they had to understand that Roman Catholics mean something different when they say “justification” and “grace.” So it’s not just a matter of using the same words. It left out a lot of the key elements of the Reformed doctrine of justification, such as “faith alone” and “imputation.” So just making this blanket statement that evangelicals and Roman Catholics both believe in justification by faith is not true if you actually define the terms. To say that we agree on that, you’re basically agreeing on audible sounds but not on the concepts behind them. That was huge in what Dr. Sproul talked to us about: the need to define our terms. He went to great lengths and made great efforts to convince his friends to recant of this because, in reality, they didn’t actually agree. It was not something that he was willing to compromise on, and he was willing to do that at the cost of friendships. If we compromise on that, there’s really no reason to remain Protestant. Honestly, if the gospel of justification by faith alone, by grace alone, is negotiable, then what are we doing? We’re not doing anything but being schismatic, if that’s the case. And Dr. Sproul said: “Nope. We can’t compromise on this. We need to be crystal clear.” This is a matter of life and death—eternal life and death. The Cambridge Declaration brought together a number of Reformed leaders around the five solas and a recovery of the gospel. Why does that message remain important today, thirty years later? I reread it recently. The discussion of the five solas is so central. During the seeker-sensitive movement, churches had lost the concept of the sufficiency of Scripture. It’s very well laid out in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1.6): Everything that is necessary for our faith and life either is expressly set down in Scripture or by good and necessary consequence can be deduced from Scripture. Scripture is sufficient for our Christian faith and life. Many churches forgot that and started looking to the culture, to consumerist ideas and marketing ideas from Madison Avenue, for how best to sell their services to unbelievers. If you’re basing what you do in church and your worship on what unbelievers want, rather than what Scripture dictates, you’ve got a serious problem—because unbelievers don’t want the truth. They’re suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. They want to be entertained. They want to be coddled. They don’t want to hear the hard truth of the law, and they don’t want the stumbling block of the gospel. And so I think James Boice was right. The issue of sufficiency had been a problem with Rome, but we transposed that issue into a similar problem. We’re acting like Scripture’s insufficient; we need to supplement it with modern cultural ideas. You now hold the R.C. Sproul Chair of Theology. What does that responsibility mean to you? I’m very grateful. I remember that faithfulness was one of the key things that R.C. emphasized about the school. He didn’t want the college to continue if it didn’t remain faithful. If we depart from Scripture and start teaching unbiblical ideas, there’s no point in continuing. So that’s the main thing that having the R.C. Sproul Chair means to me: remembering that call to faithfulness—not just for myself, but also reminding the other faculty of that. Given my history and how I first met Dr. Sproul, there’s a surrealness to it that’s kind of strange. Looking backward, the providence that worked through all of it is absolutely amazing. Even when I first came back to Florida, the gentleman who told me that my wife and I could stay in his home while I looked for an apartment lived on Wayside Drive, which is where Ligonier eventually ended up. Of all the thousands of roads in the Orlando area, that’s where we ended up, right across from the cemetery down the road. God’s providence is just astounding. It’s really remarkable to go from seeing R.C. Sproul as a guest lecturer, whom I’d never even heard of, to now teaching at the school he started and serving in this role. By God’s grace, I can remain faithful to his vision for the school. That’s what’s exciting about it. It’s an honor to be called to strive for my own faithfulness and to encourage others toward that same faithfulness—to the vision, to Scripture, and to our biblical theology. Many people may only know Reformation Bible College by name. If they were to visit the campus, what do you hope they would experience—not just in the classrooms, but in this special community that’s developed here? I’d want them to meet the students. We have such an incredible group of students from different backgrounds with different stories. If all you hear are the bad things about Gen Z and Gen Alpha, come talk to our students. They are passionate about the Lord Jesus Christ, about sharing the gospel, and about serving His people. These students go in groups to the beach, to downtown Sanford, to the abortion clinic, and they share the gospel face to face with people. So, if anyone came to this campus, I’d take them to talk to the students. What do you most want your students to take from their time at RBC? The generation coming into RBC has grown up with a phone in their hand—it’s all they’ve ever known. It’s a constant flood of notifications and information. So we need to remind them that the authority of the Word of God is their anchor point in the midst of so much change and chaos. Everything else may be fluctuating. But you have a stable anchor point—a stone in the middle of this storm that’s constantly around you. They’re going to have to learn how to depend on that, because unless the Lord returns, there’s no indication that this is going to stop anytime soon. Lord willing, as the gospel goes forth, people will be converted. But the enemy is also going to continue to intensify his attacks and seek to sow confusion. So, we have to have confidence in the authority of the Word of God and in the goodness of God—that He is sovereign over all of this. And I see that same confidence in my colleagues and in the younger people around us. When I talk to the younger people working at Ligonier now, or the twentysomething RBC graduates, and hear them express the same passion and vision that R.C. Sproul had for this ministry, and the same commitment to remaining faithful and continuing the work, that gives me a lot of hope and confidence. When I’m gone and this ministry is in the hands of that generation, I believe it will continue to remain faithful. The young people here at RBC and on the staff at Ligonier give me a lot of hope that the Lord is going to continue to do this work through the ministry that Dr. Sproul started.1 Footnotes Adapted and expanded from an interview originally published in Tabletalk magazine. ↩

2. From Age to Age: A Book by Keith Mathison

   Eschatology is defined as the “doctrine of last things.” But we won’t see the full significance of how God’s story ends if we start reading at the last chapter. When we trace each stage of development from Genesis to Revelation, we see that all God’s promises are fulfilled through the coming of Christ and His kingdom. View the whole span of redemptive history with From Age to Age by Dr. Keith Mathison. In more than 800 pages, this book shows us that eschatology is the ancient story of our future hope: the salvation of sinners, the defeat of evil, and the renewal of creation for God’s everlasting glory. A Look Inside the Book “The fulfillment of all of Israel’s eschatological hopes is found in Jesus. All of the ancient promises of redemption are to be realized in Him.” —Keith Mathison Read a sample and order your copy today. What Others Are Saying “Meticulously comprehensive, this veritable compendium of biblical theology from Genesis to Revelation examines every possible nuance of eschatological insight. Mathison has provided us with an invaluable reference tool, a tour de force unlike any other on this hugely significant topic.” —Dr. Derek Thomas, Chancellor’s Professor of Systematic and Pastoral Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary Our Hope Has a History Our great hope rests in the return of Jesus Christ and the perfecting of God’s redemptive plan—but this hope has a history. To understand the end, we must go back to the beginning and see the progression of God’s work of grace through all of Scripture. Order From Age to Age today to discover how God’s whole story and our whole lives culminate in the glory of Christ. Ordering from Canada? Place your order through Reformed Book Services to receive the lowest shipping rate.

3. What Should Protestants Know About the Early Church Fathers?

   Luther, Calvin, and the other “founding fathers” of Protestantism were disciples of the early church fathers. They had a special regard for one father in particular: Augustine of Hippo. Luther belonged to the Augustinian order of friars and found life-transforming resources of theology in his order’s patron saint. Still, the Reformers were widely read in the fathers generally. Calvin famously said to a Roman Catholic opponent, Cardinal Jacob Sadoleto: Our agreement with antiquity is far closer than yours. All we have attempted has been to renew that ancient form of the church, which was at first besmirched and distorted by uneducated men of undistinguished character, and afterwards disgracefully mangled and almost destroyed by the Roman pope and his faction. I will not press you so closely as to call you back to that form of the church which the apostles instituted (though it presents us with a unique pattern of a true church, and deviation from that pattern, even slightly, involves us in error). But to indulge you so far, I beg you to place before your eyes that ancient form of the church, such as it is shown to have been during those times in the writings of Chrysostom and Basil among the Greeks, and Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustine among the Latins.1 If we are Protestants, that very fact should give us a bias toward knowing the early church fathers. We are simply doing what the original theologians of the Reformation did. They considered the fathers to be much better interpreters of the gospel than the medieval theologians were. In a careful study of the fathers, they found weighty historical testimonies to the supremacy of Scripture and justification by faith, the twin pillars of the Reformation. But who exactly were the early church fathers? It is a name we give to the significant leaders and writers of the first few centuries of Christianity. Different historians suggest different timeframes, anywhere from the first three hundred years to the first six hundred. However, the name “father” isn’t automatically given to every Christian figure from this early period. It is normally reserved for those who came to be recognized as sound, reliable teachers. This means that the two most famous and influential theologians of the third century, Tertullian of Carthage and Origen of Alexandria, are often not acknowledged as “fathers,” owing to some of the more questionable aspects of their theology. This, incidentally, is the same reason they were never granted the status of “saint” by the Roman Catholic Church. Accepting these qualifications, the lives and writings of the fathers are well worth knowing. There is a noble spirit breathing through their words. These were people who—at least for the first few centuries—lived on the margins of their society. They belonged to a despised religious minority, always liable to being persecuted by the authorities of the pagan Roman Empire. Hollywood did not invent the spectacle of Christians being thrown to lions in the arena; it really happened. It gave the early Christians a deep sense of not belonging to this world, of being exiles and pilgrims, journeying to heaven. This can be challenging and edifying for us today. As the anonymous second-century author of the Epistle to Diognetus says of Christians: They live in their own countries, yet as pilgrims. As citizens they share in everything with their fellow citizens, and yet experience all things as if they were foreigners. Every foreign land is to them their native country, and every birthplace as a land of strangers. They marry, like everyone else, and beget children; but they do not kill the unborn. They share their food with all, but not their sexual favors. They live in the flesh, but not according to the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but are citizens of heaven. The fathers were also the first theologians of the church. The basic bedrock doctrines we often take for granted—the Trinity and the incarnation—were first hammered out by the fathers on the fierce anvil of controversy. Not a few fathers suffered exile, torture, and even death for giving a voice to these truths and seeking to define them more clearly when others in the visible church were undermining them. The great Athanasius, the fourth-century bishop of Alexandria, spent seventeen years in exile for his heroic championing of the doctrine of Christ’s deity, sometimes even having to hide in the trackless wastes of the Egyptian desert. Calvin would later hail Athanasius as “the principal defender of the orthodox faith, a divine writer worthy of immortal praise.” The understanding of the Trinity and the incarnation thrashed out by the orthodox fathers was expressed preeminently in two great creeds. These were the Nicene Creed (finalized at the Council of Constantinople in the year 381) and the Creed of Chalcedon (produced at the Council of Chalcedon in 451). To this day, the Nicene and Chalcedonian Creeds are honored among Protestants as the gold standard of a right biblical interpretation of the tri-unity of God and the two natures (divine and human) of the incarnate Christ. Reading the fathers on the Trinity and the incarnation immerses us in the rich, formative period of church life when those fundamental truths were first given clear and precise expression. The debt we owe to the early church fathers is thus incalculable. They were not infallible; but after the prophets and Apostles, they were truly our fathers in the faith.2 Footnotes John Calvin, “Letter to Cardinal Sadoleto (1539).” ↩ Editor's Note: This article was originally published January 19, 2024. ↩

4. Help God’s People Know the Truth

   You can’t stand for the truth unless you know the truth. “What is truth?” Pontius Pilate’s question still echoes throughout our world. Beyond questioning the truth, people today seek to redefine it. Following our Lord Jesus, who came to “bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37), Christians are called to bear witness to Christ in a culture that rejects His authority. But are we prepared? If the church loses confidence in God’s revealed Word, we have nothing to offer a confused world. This is why Ligonier Ministries exists and why your support matters. By God’s grace, you have helped establish His people in the historic Christian faith so they can bear witness to the truth in every generation. When you donate this month, we’ll send you Truths We Confess by Dr. R.C. Sproul. This comprehensive study of the Westminster Confession can deepen your understanding of Scripture and help you to strengthen others in the faith. The church today faces a danger greater than outside opposition: compromise within. Many evangelicals are wavering on questions of gender, sexuality, and the sanctity of human life. Why? Often, they’ve already failed to uphold the Bible’s divine authority. Moral drift flows from doctrinal drift. Ligonier’s recent State of Theology surveys in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom all reveal similar patterns. Wherever God’s truth is neglected, confusion follows. Faithful Christianity is confessional Christianity. Throughout church history, Christians have written summaries of the Bible’s teaching to pass down the faith, training the next generation to think from first principles so they can evaluate worldly ideas against the truth of Scripture. This pattern defined Dr. Sproul’s ministry. For decades, he taught through the Westminster Confession to establish Christians in the foundational truths of God’s Word. R.C. reminded us that we’re responsible not only to believe and proclaim the truth but also to contend for it. Ligonier Ministries provides biblical teaching to help Christians contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). Your thoughtful support is establishing children in the truth through the Growing in God’s Word curriculum, strengthening teenagers at Always Ready conferences, forming faithful students at Reformation Bible College, equipping pastors through Reformation Study Bible distribution, and edifying Christians worldwide with thousands of trusted Bible teaching resources. You’re also helping to make the truth of God even more accessible. Dr. Sproul’s entire teaching series library is now free to stream in Ligonier’s app, Grow, while new trusted Bible teaching is released every week in the world’s twenty most-spoken languages. God’s Word knows no bounds—even behind prison walls (2 Tim. 2:9). After receiving copies of Truths We Confess for inmates in Florida, prison ministry leader Rev. Chris Coppolo wrote to us: “These are more than just books—they are tools the Lord is using to deepen understanding, strengthen faith, and equip these men as they grow in their knowledge of God’s Word and Reformed theology.” Now, as Ligonier prepares for another year of ministry, your continued support will help establish more Christians in the truth so they can bear witness to Christ in a confused world. Give this month and receive Dr. Sproul’s book Truths We Confess. Spanning the doctrines of the Bible, this book shows how Christian theology directs our entire lives to the glory of God. Read it throughout 2027 to become further established in the teaching of Scripture. Together, by God’s grace, may we help more Christians know, love, and bear witness to the truth of our Lord Jesus Christ until He comes.

5. Study Scripture in the New Grow App

   How can you go deeper in your walk with Christ? By letting “the word of Christ dwell in your richly” (Col. 3:16). With Grow, the new app from Ligonier, you can study the Bible wherever you are. Read or Listen to the Bible Even when life is full, cultivate a habit of dwelling in God’s Word. Highlight passages for further reflection. Share verses to encourage others. Reformation Study Bible Notes See Christ in every passage and add depth to your daily study with 20,000+ verse-by-verse notes. Try this feature free for 30 days or become a Ministry Partner for unlimited access. How to Start Your 30-Day Trial Download the Grow app. Create an account and sign in. A notification will invite you to begin your trial. Already have the app? Make sure it’s updated to the latest version. More Ways to Go Deeper In the Grow app, find Bible teaching you can read, watch, and listen to every day to feed your faith. The Grow app lets you: Stream all of R.C. Sproul’s teaching series for free Access articles, devotions, and conference messages in one place Get answers to your Bible questions with the Ask Ligonier intelligent assistant