What Is the Significance of Ligonier Ministries’ Mission?

What drove R.C. Sproul to found Ligonier Ministries 50 years ago in 1971? Today on our 100th episode, W. Robert Godfrey reflects on the critical need for people around the world to know God and His holiness.

NATHAN W. BINGHAM: This week I'm joined by the Chairman of Ligonier Ministries, Dr. W. Robert Godfrey. Dr. Godfrey, 2021 marks Ligonier's fiftieth anniversary, and this episode is our hundredth episode of the Ask Ligonier podcast. So I'd like to ask, What is the significance of Ligonier's mission to proclaim, teach, and defend the holiness of God and all of its fullness?

DR. W. ROBERT GODFREY: I'm so excited to be part of Ligonier as it celebrates fifty years because of its faithfulness to its mission to teach the Scriptures, to make the work of Christ as revealed in the Scriptures known to the world. And now this hundredth episode of Ask Ligonier is so well-timed with this celebration of faithfulness. And I have such great confidence that Ligonier will go on being faithful to the mission that R.C. set for us.

R.C. Sproul was one of those rare individuals who's both a profound scholar and really understands philosophy and theology and history"and at the same time is a great teacher, an effective communicator. And bringing those two skills that the Lord had given to R.C. together, he saw that what the church most needed and what the world most needed was to really think about God. That the holiness of God, the greatness of God, the glory of God"the God who is separate and distinct from the creation that He has made, the God that the angels in the heavenly temple cry out to, "Holy, holy, holy,"" that God is the God that needs to be known. And the holiness of God was R.C.'s way of talking about understanding the reality of God, the weightiness of God, the truth of God. And it is so easy for us to turn the God of the Bible"even when we read the Bible"into an idol rather than letting the Word of God reshape our minds to understand who God truly is. And so the task of Ligonier to make the holiness of God known to the world is such a great task, such a worthy task, and such a vital task in our time, where too often God is not known as He is in Himself. So I'm hopeful that these fifty years are but the beginning of the opportunity to make the true God of the Bible known.