The biggest challenge in the church today is it’s fidelity to the person and work of Christ. There are many issues: the authority of the Scriptures, the truth of the Gospel. But at the core of it is our commitment to the full humanity and deity of Christ, and all that He accomplished in His ministry.

I’ve often spoken of my love and respect for Dr. R.C. Sproul and the ministry he founded. I was recently given the opportunity to interview Dr. Sproul and turned to the readers of this site to see what they would like to ask him. Over the next two days I will share a transcript of the interview I conducted. In today’s installment I ask Dr. Sproul about his new book, his teaching style, his view on Creation, how he determines where to place boundaries in cooperating with other Christians, and a lot more.

What motivated you to write The Work of Christ? Was it an area in which you perceived a lack of theological understanding among Christians? Was it motivated by pastoral concern?

Well, the very first series that I did in the field of adult education was in 1969 at a church in Philadelphia, and the series was on the work of Christ. That was such an exciting time for me. It really was pivotal because I acquired a taste, indeed a passion, for adult education as a result of that experience of working with the laity in the church. I saw how they responded when they gained a deeper understanding of all the things that Jesus did in His ministry. So that passion was born in 1969. It’s never really left me.

Recently we did that series in a new setting with a new audience, and out of that grew the inspiration for this book. I think it’s extremely important, because at the heart of the Christian faith is Christ—who He is and what He has done. This is so often overlooked in the church. It’s amazing to me, but yet it’s of critical importance for us as Christians to come to a deeper understanding of what Jesus has done.

From the beginning of your ministry, your teaching style has always included pacing around the lectern and across the platform, as well as regularly writing key terms on a chalkboard. Can you tell us how your teaching style developed and share your insights on the nature of presentation in teaching others?

When we talk about teaching style, I guess some people think about a carefully choreographed style for communication. I’ve never done that. My teaching style is just an expression of who I am. My concern is always to get my message across. The idea of walking around and using a blackboard started in my teaching of philosophy and Bible as a professor in a college.

I made ample use of the blackboard and chalk, and even to this day, I much prefer them over whiteboards and felt pens. I just like the dynamic of chalkboards. You can erase them easily, and there’s action involved. I remember once I was lecturing in the college and my mind went blank—because I didn’t use notes, or very few notes in those lectures—and I didn’t know where I was. So I turned around and walked over to the blackboard—at that point, it was blank—and I took the chalk and wrote a long line and then put an exclamation point at the end of it.

I turned around and said to the class, “Do you know what that means?” And they looked at me with dumbfounded bewilderment. I said: “Let me tell you what it means. It means I forgot where I was, and I had to do something, so I just wrote this line on the blackboard. But now I remember, so we can continue.”

So there’s a dynamic involved. I don’t think that a lecture should be something that is boring for people. It should be an activity that is engaging. Of course I learned from Dr. John Gerstner when he was my professor in seminary. He used to do what he called “dialecture.” It was a combination of dialogue and lecture. He jammed those two words together and coined the phrase “dialecture.”

What that meant was he lectured and we died when he involved us in conversation. But he always got us engaged in the material. That left an impact on me, so I naturally took off on that.

Of all the books you’ve written, which are the two or three you would recommend that people read before any of the others?

If you’re going to read two, I would recommend The Holiness of God and Chosen by God—those two.

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