R.C. Sproul Interview - 5 Things Every Christian Needs To Grow: Part 1

I previously mentioned that I had the honor of proof-reading this outstanding book. As I've done with a few other authors, I thought I'd try to interview Dr. Sproul. It turns out that Dr. Sproul is averse not only to e-mail but to computers in general. Consequently, someone on his staff printed out the questions, conducted an audio interview with Dr. Sproul, then transcribed the conversation and sent me an MS Word file. Wow, I'm very grateful that Dr. Sproul and his staff were willing to give so much time and effort for this interview. Given the length of some of Dr. Sproul's replies, I will post this interview as a three-part series. I'm told that a few You Tube videos will also be forthcoming; I'll be sure to post those as well.

CHEDIAK: So I heard you've got a new book out?

DR. SPROUL: Yes, I’m happy about one of the newest projects that we’ve been able to complete. My book called Five Things Every Christian Needs To Grow has been re-released through Reformation Trust Publishing. I want to tell you a couple of things about that before we look at the five things in particular.

In the original draft of that book, I used the number five because of the episode in the Old Testament of the battle between David and Goliath, which David saw as a battle between the people of God and an infidel. You know the story that when David went into battle against this giant, he went to a nearby brook, and he selected five smooth stones. He took those five stones as ammunition for his sling. When the story unfolded, it only required one stone for David to slay the giant. I was trying to draw the analogy there between David’s combat with the giant and our fight and struggle as Christians with the world, the flesh, and the devil. That introduction of the five stones was eliminated by the editor because they thought it had too much of a militaristic overtone. I was thinking: Well, the New Testament uses the metaphor of war and battle all the time for the Christian life. I wrote this book in the first place not as an academic study for theologians, but rather as a simple guide for the beginning Christian to help him or her understand what the means of grace are and the tools that God provides for each one of us to grow spiritually and to grow into conformity with Christ.

CHEDIAK: The first thing that you’ve identified is Bible study. Why is that one of the most crucial five things?

DR. SPROUL: I believe that a Christian is only as strong in his faith and in his spiritual life as his mastery of the Word of God. Jesus Himself said that we don’t live by bread alone but by every Word that proceeds forth from the mouth of God. When I was first converted, I joined a little prayer group in our college community. Maybe two or three weeks after I’d been converted they had a visitor on campus who was dating one of the girls in our group, and he was a seminary student. He pulled me aside in one of these prayer meetings, and he said to me, “R.C., get in the Book.” I never forgot that because I was nurtured in the Bible, not only in Bible classes in college, but every night I spent 45 minutes to an hour going through the Bible, book by book, and verse by verse, and I believe that the first virgin reading I had of the Bible from cover to cover had the greatest impact of my Christian life, then and on to this day.

I’m also convinced that when we’re studying the Bible, we are studying not the collected insights of ancient thinkers or prophets, but I believe that the Bible is nothing less than the unvarnished Word of God. Remember when Jesus encountered Peter after the resurrection, and he asked him three times, “Peter, do you love me?” And Peter, who had denied Him three times, now affirmed three times his profound affection for his master. But you could see that he was getting increasingly agitated as Jesus repeated the question. The answer each time when Peter said, “Yes, you know that I love you,” was “Feed my sheep.” His sheep are believers. And believers, in order to grow, need to be nurtured and they need to be fed. We get that feeding from our pastors and from our mentors and family circumstances, but at the same time, each person has to get deeply involved in the Word for himself or for herself.

CHEDIAK: The second category is prayer. You specifically discuss Kingdom-focused prayer. Can you please tell us what that is, and how you go about praying not so much for yourself, but for the Kingdom?

DR. SPROUL: I believe the second most important step for Christians to grow is to cultivate a deep and profound prayer life. I meet Christians all the time, who have been Christians for many years, but still sense a frustration about their lack of a powerful prayer life. One of my favorite little books on this subject is a book written by Archie Parrish called A Simple Way To Pray. What Archie does is he goes through the Scriptures and through church history and shows that the most powerful prayer that you can find anywhere are those prayers that focus not on our own private needs or desires, but prayers that focus on the Kingdom. We look, for example, at how Jesus taught his disciples to pray. He said, “When you pray, pray like this: Our Father, who art in heaven.” And that’s the address. The first petition that Jesus told us to pray about was that the name of God would be regarded as holy. “Hallowed be Thy name.” And then “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We know that the Kingdom has come in its fullness already in heaven, and God’s will is done with perfect obedience in heaven. Our petition is that Kingdom would be made manifest here. That people would reflect obedience to that Kingdom here on earth as it exists right now in heaven. One of the things that I found fascinating when I preached recently through the Lord’s Prayer is when I got to the end of it. “Thy kingdom come. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” I consulted ten commentaries, and nobody gave more than one paragraph’s attention to that. Yet I believe that the end of the Lord’s prayer, whether it was in the original or not, is one of the most important teaching guides on how to pray because we understand and acknowledge that the kingdom does not belong to us, that the kingdom belongs to Him. God’s work is not accomplished in this world by our power, by our programs, or by our ingenuity, because the power is His power, and obviously He will share His glory with no man. We have to be reminded when we pray that it is His glory that we are praying for. I believe that as we grow to a deeper understanding of prayer by studying what the Bible teaches about prayer, by studying the Psalms, for example, more and more of our time in prayer will be in adoration, and less and less in basic petitions for our own benefit.

Can I say one more thing about that? I think the most important thing about prayer, however, is that when we enter into prayer, that we remember two things. We have to remember Who it is we are speaking to in prayer, and we have to remember who we are. If we remember those two things, then there will be a natural sense of reverence and adoration and humility that will cover our prayer.

Related: Interview with R.C. Sproul - Part Two; Part Three; Short Videos