Don’t settle for quick answers on a text. Think bigger and take stock of how your text fits into the author’s larger argument. In this way, you may find your Bible study more enriching, encouraging, and enlightening than you expected.

Last week, I argued for the value of “thinking bigger” in your Bible study—of seeking to grasp how your text fits into the book’s larger argument. In this post, I’ll give some examples to show the payoff of such bigger thinking.
Proverbs 2
First, a rather simple example. Upon studying Proverbs 2, you may recognize that this poem describes how to become wise. All you have to do is passively receive wisdom and actively seek it, and the Lord is just waiting to dole it out.
So much, so good. But how does this chapter fit into the book’s argument?
As a whole, Proverbs 1-9 serve as an extended introduction to the book. In the long poems there, the sage poet explains the fundamentals of how wisdom works, what it does, and why it’s worth it. Chapter 2 on how to get it fits right in with the other fundamentals.
And all those fundamentals are to be assumed when we read chapters 10 and beyond. Therefore, to read particular verses of proverbs as points of secular business, finance, or relationship advice is to miss the entire point. Proverbs 2 plays a crucial role by explaining that God is the only source of wisdom and that he is generous in giving it to those who seek him. Recognizing this role enables us to perceive the weightiness of chapter 2 and the importance of constantly returning to it to help interpret the wisdom found in the rest of the book.
The Fruit of the Spirit
We love to give Sunday school children their coloring pages to help them learn about the cornucopia described in Galatians 5:22-23. But what role do those verses play in light of the letter as a whole?
Gal 2:16 could perhaps summarize the main point of the whole letter: “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.”
Paul makes his case first through his autobiography (Gal 1-2) and then by drawing out the tension between law and promise (Gal 3-4).
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While there is no quick fix for immorality. No singular or simplistic response that will eradicate the influence of the plethora of cultural idols that shape our imaginations and calibrate our desires, forming in us a distorted vision of the good life.  There is an answer. It’s not new. It’s not quick. It’s not glamorous or perhaps exciting, but God’s answer is the gracious gospel call to a virtuous life in a covenant community. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 2:8 that “…being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves…” Perhaps it seems too simple, too obvious, but the starting point of a virtuous life is the local church.

The Church Is Still the Answer
All too often we hear of platformed evangelicals who have succumb to the “schemes of the devil” and the disordered “desires of the flesh” living as if they were unaware that the “passions of the flesh… wage war against your soul” (Eph. 6:11, 2John 2:16, 1Pet. 2:11).  Inevitably, blogs are written, situations dissected, and reflections offered.
However, it may be a good time to reflect on the broader issue of sanctification, and the call of a plodding virtuous community life for every single disciple of Christ. The truth is, we all struggle with idolatry.  In Colossians 3:5-6 we’re exhorted to ‘Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.’ 
Paul warns us about the pull and power of disordered desires that not only want, but actively pursue sexual pleasure, power, possessions and/or consumption. He describes these as “earthly” and ‘idolatrous’ things that we want more than God, even if they are good things, like work, family or sex. Calvin described these desires as ‘inordinate desires’, where we want good things too much, and those desires become disordered desires recalibrate our loves so we willingly or neglectfully disobey God. 
We often see these disordered desires prevalent in young Christian girls who date non-Christian boys, and young Christian boys who ask and pressure girls for inappropriate or even explicit photos on Snap Chat. These disordered desires are evident in widespread immorality, ubiquitous pornography, as well as the endless stupidity and triviality that is consumed in alarming daily doses of death scrolling and streaming media. They are evident in the married men who break almost every single commandment in an illicit affair, seemingly oblivious to the truck load of pain they will inevitably dump on their family, friends and church community. Then there are the ‘acceptable’ sins of greed and pride that redirect the good of work from provision and service to careerism and materialism. Not all such sins will get publicly dissected and discussed, but they are prevalent in almost every congregation in Australia, weakening and undermining gospel communities and their witness.
Augustine in his famous book ‘City of God’ pictured the spiritual battle between the two spiritual forces, the city of man (flesh) and the city of God (spirit).
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Written by R. C. Sproul |
Monday, February 6, 2023
So the first point in response to the question, “Does prayer change things?” is simply this: Yes, indeed prayer changes things. If nothing else, it changes us. When we come into the presence of God in conversation with him, one of the immediate benefits of that conversation is what happens to us.

One of those perennial questions that all Calvinists face from time to time and that you hear quite frequently is: If God is sovereign, then why pray? If that is the case, would not prayer be a superfluous activity, at best an exercise in meditation or some form of inspiring soliloquy? I am sure we have all had to wrestle with this question at times. Moreover, I think that it is not unlike a similar question that Calvinists also hear frequently. That is, if God is sovereign and predestination is true, why should we be involved in evangelism?
Why Pray? Why Evangelize?
In seminary I had the privilege of being in one of Dr. John Gerstner’s classrooms when he was holding forth on the subject of predestination. After he had given his lecture, he began his Socratic method of discourse and started to ask us questions. That class was a seminar of about eighteen men, and we were in a semicircle. I was sitting on one end, and he started on the other end by asking that gentleman, “Now, sir, if predestination is true, why should we be involved in evangelism?”
The student looked up at Gerstner and said, “I don’t know.”
Gerstner went down the line to the next fellow, who said, “Beats me.”
The next student said, “I always wondered about that myself, Dr. Gerstner.”
Our professor kept going around the semicircle, knocking us off one by one, and I was sitting over there in the corner feeling like Socrates in one of Plato’s dialogues. Plato had raised the difficult question. He had heard from all the lesser stars. Now Socrates was to give the lofty answer to the impenetrable mysteries of the question that had been raised. I was frightened. Finally Dr. Gerstner came to me. “Well, Mr. Sproul, if predestination is true, why should we be involved in evangelism?”
I slid down in the chair and prefaced my answer with all kinds of apologies, saying to him, “Well, Dr. Gerstner, I know this isn’t what you’re looking for, and I know that you must be seeking for some profound, intellectual response which I am not prepared to give. But just in passing, one small point that I think we ought to notice here is that God does command us to be involved in evangelism.”
Dr. Gerstner laughed and said, “Yes, Mr. Sproul. God does command us to be involved in evangelism. And of course, Mr. Sproul, what could be more insignificant than the fact that the Lord of glory, the Savior of your soul, the Lord God omnipotent, has commanded you to be involved in evangelism?” I got the point in a hurry! So it is with prayer. One reason to pray is that we are commanded to pray. But in addition to being commanded to pray we are also given the privilege of prayer. Prayer for the Christian is both a duty and an unspeakable privilege.
About ten years ago, I had an experience with another theologian—Dr. Nicole—regarding this question. At that time, whenever students at Gordon College asked me questions about prayer, I would say to them, “Well, the way I do it is this: I preach like a Calvinist, but I pray like an Arminian.” I said this in Dr. Nicole’s presence, and I looked at him to see what he would say. He looked at me in his warm fashion and said, “Brother Sproul, I think perhaps that God would be more pleased if you would preach like a Calvinist and pray like a Calvinist as well.” I did not forget that! And I thought I had better learn what it means to pray like a Calvinist.
When I began to pay attention to what Calvin had written on the question of prayer, I noticed something very unusual. As I turned to the Institutes, I found that Calvin prefaces his treatment of the doctrine of election and predestination (Book III, chapter 21) with a lengthy treatment of the nature and significance of prayer. I have always required that students in my courses on Calvin read Book III, chapter 20, of the Institutes before they even start the first chapter of Book I, so that they should be disarmed of the host of prejudices that surround the figure of John Calvin and that they might see the warmth of his heart and the passion that he had to converse in dialogue with his Creator and Lord.
Let me give a brief quotation from that chapter. Calvin writes, “But, someone will say, does God not know, even without being reminded, both in what respect we are troubled and what is expedient for us, so that it may seem in a sense superfluous that he should be stirred up by our prayers—as if he were drowsily blinking or even sleeping until he is aroused by our voice?
But they who thus reason do not observe to what end the Lord instructed his people to pray, for he ordained it not so much for his sake as for ours.”[1]
So the first point in response to the question, “Does prayer change things?” is simply this: Yes, indeed prayer changes things. If nothing else, it changes us. When we come into the presence of God in conversation with him, one of the immediate benefits of that conversation is what happens to us.
The essence of prayer is adoration, confession, and thanksgiving. What happens to a person who comes daily and regularly to the throne of grace with a broken and a contrite heart? Does God’s forgiveness change him? What happens to the heart that experiences gratitude and in the posture of prayer is able to recall what God has done for him? Does a grateful heart change a person? Certainly. People are changed through spending time with God.
Excerpt taken from Chapter 11: Prayer and God’s Sovereignty by R.C. Sproul, Our Sovereign God edited by James Montgomery Boice.
[1] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill and trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), 852.
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