R.C. Sproul

Now that man thought that he was answering the question, what is the will of God for my life?

And he said the will of God for my life is to establish a house of prostitution.

Where did he get that idea?

He didn't get it from thinking soberly or from thinking biblically.

He was confusing his own desire, his own internal motivation with the will of God.

That's a very easy thing to do.

And so, we have to look at those enterprises that serve the general welfare.

And again, what Paul is saying here in Romans is, as the church is a body, there are many different functions.

And all of the functions have to be performed for the ministry of the church to be effective.

Now here's the problem that we have in the church.

Here I am ordained to the teaching ministry.

My initial call was to teach in a Christian college, in a Presbyterian school, and the Presbytery ordained me as a teaching minister.

I didn't have a call to be a pastor in a local church, but they ordained me to that call because they recognized that there was a legitimate function in the church for full-time teaching.

They drew that inference from the Scriptures.

Now, my whole life focuses on the emphasis within the church of the importance of teaching, and I am very much concerned that Christians in the church be diligently studying the Scriptures and be deeply concerned about sound doctrine.

Now, other people in the church come up to me and say, well, R.C., I don't care about doctrine.

I don't think we need teaching.

The real task of the church is to do the work of evangelism.

And the only thing that really matters is preaching the gospel to win souls who are lost and bring them into the church in the first place, because the Bible puts a priority to evangelism.

I say, well, wait a minute.