The Explicit and the Implicit
Renewing Your Mind
Ligonier Ministries
4.8 • 4.9K Ratings
🗓️ 2 January 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What should we do when we have difficulty understanding a Bible verse? Today, R.C. Sproul shows how to interpret these passages in light of others that are clearer.
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Meet Today's Teacher:
R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew's Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine.
Meet the Host:
Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of media for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, and host of the Ask Ligonier podcast.
Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When we read the Bible, sometimes the teaching is clear, but when it's not, we can get ourselves |
| 0:06.1 | into trouble. The problem comes when we deduce certain things from the Bible, from one |
| 0:13.3 | passage of Scripture, that then brings us into direct conflict with something that the |
| 0:19.6 | scripture teaches elsewhere very clearly and very |
| 0:23.2 | plainly. That's what we're trying to avoid, being careful with how we deal with implications. |
| 0:36.7 | So how do we do that? |
| 0:38.5 | How do we avoid the era of drawing from Scripture something that's simply not there? |
| 0:44.0 | Welcome to the Friday edition of Renewing Your Mind. |
| 0:47.1 | I'm Nathan W. Bingham. |
| 0:49.1 | This week, you've been hearing messages from R.C. Sproul's series Knowing Scripture. |
| 0:56.0 | Across 12 messages, he provides time-tested principles to help enrich your study of the Bible and to help you not draw |
| 1:02.0 | conclusions that are simply not in the text. If you'd like access to all 12 messages and |
| 1:08.0 | use the study guide to go even deeper in your study, you can request |
| 1:12.3 | access when you give a donation at Renewing Your Mind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343 |
| 1:20.5 | before midnight tonight. |
| 1:22.5 | And in addition, we'll gift you a 12-month subscription to Table Talk magazine. But be quick, only hours remain for this offer. |
| 1:31.5 | Today, we'll learn the difference between the explicit and the implicit. |
| 1:36.4 | Here's Dr. Sprole. |
| 1:40.0 | What I want to do in this session is to spell out a few more practical principles that we need to master if we're going to be able to understand the scriptures in a coherent way. |
| 1:52.2 | You'll recall that in the last session, I mentioned the importance of how we relate the historical narrative on the one hand with the didactic literature on the other, |
| 2:03.1 | the gospel and the epistle, and so on. And I mentioned at that time that we have to be careful |
| 2:08.6 | about drawing inferences from historical narratives that would be in conflict to the clear |
... |
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