Beware of Vain Philosophy
Ultimately with R.C. Sproul
Ligonier Ministries
4.9 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 12 June 2024
⏱️ 3 minutes
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Summary
Since the Holy Spirit is the One who converts hearts, should we even bother presenting to people a reasoned defense of the Christian faith? In this episode, R.C. Sproul expresses the value of apologetics in our interaction with unbelievers.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I hear Christians all the time saying I don't want to study philosophy because the Bible says beware of vain philosophies. |
| 0:17.0 | How in the world can you beware of something that you're not first aware of? As reform thinkers, we believe that nobody comes to Christ and is converted |
| 0:29.2 | until first God the Holy Spirit changes the disposition of their soul. |
| 0:35.0 | And that all of the arguments and all of the reasoning and all of the |
| 0:39.5 | testimonies that we bring to bear in Christian outreach will be to know avail unless or until God |
| 0:48.0 | the Holy Spirit brings the increase unless he changes the heart of the hearer. |
| 0:54.0 | So though apologetics is a task that is given to us and we are to be responsible in the handling |
| 1:00.0 | of the truth claims of Christianity, it's the situation that Paul speaks of where we may |
| 1:05.6 | plant the seed and somebody else may water it, but only God can bring the increase. |
| 1:11.6 | Now, some people believe that since it is the Holy Spirit's task to |
| 1:18.0 | convert and not our task since it's beyond the realm of our power. |
| 1:25.0 | People say, well, then we don't need to be engaged |
| 1:28.0 | in a defense of Christianity. |
| 1:30.5 | In fact, to give arguments for the truth of Christianity to give reasons for our faith |
| 1:36.3 | would be in fact to undermine the spiritual work of God the Holy Spirit. I hear Christians all the time saying I don't want to study |
| 1:45.0 | philosophy because I don't want to get in the way of the Holy Ghost and the Bible |
| 1:50.2 | says beware of vain philosophy and I say to those people how in the world can you |
| 1:55.2 | beware of something that you're not first aware of and if you're unaware of these pagan philosophies, sometimes you can be seduced by them and be sent |
| 2:08.1 | in the wrong direction as Christians because you haven't paid attention to what's going on. |
| 2:14.0 | You've been listening to ultimately with R.C. Sproll, a podcast from Ligonier Ministries. |
| 2:24.4 | If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe or leave a review |
| 2:27.1 | in your favorite podcast app. |
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