Truth For Life 30th Anniversary Interview

Bob Lepine: Welcome to a thirtieth anniversary conversation with Alistair Begg, as we’re going to take some time today to reflect on the thirty years that Truth For Life has been on the radio—back in 1995, the beginning of Truth For Life—and then look forward to what we are hoping God will do in the days to come.

And Alistair, I was thinking as we came in here today—I was thinking about the biblical warrant for what we’re doing. I was thinking about the scene in Joshua where God instructs the children of Israel to gather stones from the riverbed and to create a memorial of stones of remembrance so that the children don’t forget the good things of God.[1] And then I thought of Psalm 78, where we see that pattern happening, where the psalmist says, “We’re going to pass this on to our children’s children so nobody forgets the goodness of God.”[2] And that’s what we want to do in this conversation: look back and look at all that God has done. And it’s right and appropriate for us to do this, biblically, right?

Alistair Begg: Yeah, I think so. The tension in it, of course, is—if there is a tension—is that sometimes, looking back becomes a sort of forlorn gaze at what was, and it prevents us realistically from looking around and looking forward. I know that’s not what we’re trying to think about just now.

But, you know, you put the Scripture with Scripture, you realize the many times that God tells us not to forget things. And then you have the apostle Paul, who’s grounded in, you know, his background in the history of God and his dealings with his people. And he writes to the Philippians, and he says, “I’m forgetting those things which are behind in order that I might press on,” you know, “towards the goal.”[3] And of course, I think the notion there is forgetting things that would either be testimonies to how well we’ve done and would inflate our ego or would be reminiscences on times when we haven’t really made a very good job of it. And so we do need to keep on. But the backward look is vital, and it is as we reflect on things that we make discoveries that I think help us to go forward.

Bob: I’m thinking back to 1995, and at that point, there was not anybody, I think, who was expecting God to do the exceeding abundant things we have seen him do over the last thirty years. As you think back to those days, you certainly didn’t think, “Well, I imagine one day I’ll be on eighteen hundred radio stations, and we’ll have a ministry worldwide, and all of my sermons will be listened to by people twenty-four hours a day.”

You put the Scripture with Scripture, you realize the many times that God tells us not to forget things.

Alistair: No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. I mean, I think the journey is… Sometimes, when I wake up in the middle of the night and I try and go somewhere, I literally walk with my hands out in front of me in the dark in case I should encounter something that I wasn’t expecting. And there is a real sense in which when we began this venture, the people around me, I think, were far more forward-looking than I was, far more expecting God to do things. But yes, no, it was definitely a journey of faltering faith.

Bob: And it was not something that you had the vision for. It was people who came to you proposing that your Bible teaching needed a broader audience than just the congregation of Parkside Church.

Alistair: Absolutely. And it’s funny, but almost thirty years ago to the day, I had arrived back from Australia. And one of the men who was at the forefront of, you know, kind of pushing us in this direction I met with there, and with two other men who didn’t have much of an idea of who I was or what it was we were planning on doing. And out of the seeds of that very strange conversation came another step forward.

And, yeah, I feel very strongly about most of these things, that… I mean, why would I ever want to hear my voice? I was pretty convinced that we had the Christian radio market completely covered with John MacArthur and Chuck Swindoll and Charles Stanley and everybody else. Why another squeaky voice from Scotland? So, yes, if it were not for those people, then we wouldn’t be talking today.

Bob: When the idea was proposed to you—I don’t know if you remember the first person who came to you and said, “Have you ever thought about putting your sermons on the radio?”—did that appeal to you, or was it so foreign that you just had to process it for a while?

Alistair: No, I don’t think it appealed to me. I think it was strange to me—definitely was strange to me. I actually still think it’s pretty strange. I met a man last night who had come into town to go to the Cleveland Clinic, and he came to say hello to me, and he said, “You know, I’ve listened to you on Truth For Life for twenty-five years.” That’s a staggering thought! And it’s a very humbling thought.

So, no, I like the surprise that’s involved in this. I like the fact that I think it was you or Bob thought it’d be a good idea to even have this conversation. Otherwise, without the initiative coming from you, we wouldn’t be talking.

Bob: As you look at what God has done over the last thirty years, would you say there are certain things that have been the biggest surprise for you? Are there areas that you had no expectation, and you’ve just seen God move in some ways that you never anticipated?

Alistair: I’m doing a very bad job of answering these questions, I feel, because I think the answer to that is “all of the above”—that from the very earliest days of receiving invitations or challenges to broaden the footprint, if you like, of Truth For Life, it’s always been a tension as to “Why would we do it?” and “How would we do it?” and “How would people underpin it?” I think that the encouragement of the church at Parkside has mattered foundationally in all of that—that I have never felt that I was sort of out on a limb, trying to drag my fellow elders along with me, but that from the very beginning of the daily program, at least, they had taken a substantial part in saying, “Yes, let’s go forward in faith.” And I wasn’t surprised by that, but I was greatly helped by that, and that has continued right up until today.

Bob: And we should say that the work of Truth For Life—while it has been amazing to see what God has done, you have remained over the last thirty years first and foremost a local church pastor. That has been your daily assignment, and the work of Truth For Life has been ancillary to that, right?

Alistair: Yes, without question. Because that’s the calling on my life: to be a part of what God is doing in his church. And so I’ve always regarded anything that flows from that, whether it’s outside speaking opportunities or anything at all, as being supplemental but not fundamental to what I’m doing.

And that’s why we’ve tried from the very beginning of the program to be very, very clear that we want to… We want to be, if anything, a second breakfast—you know, in terms of Tolkien’s little creatures who had a second breakfast—but that we would not be seeking to supplant or take the place of any local church. Why would I do that? Because that’s what I do, and that’s what I want to encourage people to do and to be involved in. So it’s been very clear and very important.

Bob: And maybe we should take just a minute—’cause I know you run into listeners all the time who will express frustration about the opportunities for local church involvement in their community, and they say things to you like “You’ve become my pastor” or “Truth For Life has become my church.” And you’re always grateful for how God’s using you, but you’re quick to admonish them that that’s not what Truth For Life ought to be.

Alistair: Yeah, it’s a pretty standard reply to many of the letters that say just exactly what you’re saying. I understand why a voice from a box that you can switch on and switch off is probably a lot easier to handle than sitting in your seat in church and working your way through all the privileges and challenges of local church involvement. But God’s purpose for his people is that uniting us to Christ, he unites us to one another. The assembling of the people of God to listen to the Word of God, to give praise to God is foundational to our Christian living.

And so, yeah, sometimes I’m fearful of discouraging people by my response, but I think it’s vitally important. I would want other fellows to do the same for me. I mean, if folks from Parkside were writing to somebody else to say, “You’ve become my pastor,” one, I’d be disappointed by that, and two, I would want to try and recoup them.

Bob: Back in 1995, when this was beginning, I remember being in a meeting where somebody in that meeting—this was not a Truth For Life meeting; I was in another meeting—but I remember someone in that meeting, we were talking about the emergence of the internet. And somebody looked at us at the end of that meeting and said, “Who uses the internet anyway?” I mean, that’s how new this whole idea of being online and of websites and portals and all of the technology that we have become so accustomed to… But the advent of the development of the internet has given the reach and the scope of Truth For Life—it has removed boundaries that were in place. And I’m thinking of the worldwide audience that is connecting to your teaching that the internet’s made possible. Again, we didn’t imagine that back in 1995, because there was nothing to imagine then.

Alistair: It’s funny you should say that, because I remember—it’s embarrassing, even, to reflect on it—but I remember telling the congregation, “You have not communicated with me if you’ve sent me an email. I don’t deal with emails. If you don’t have a pen and a piece of paper, you know, just don’t worry about it.” And I think that lasted for about a week and a half before I realized just what you’re saying—this, you know, overwhelming shift in the way in which instantaneous communication can take place.

I mean, I remember back on the day that we were so excited—at least I was—when at Parkside here, we got a fax machine. And I thought it was so cool, you know, that you could do this. I had hit the high point at that stage, and… But now, yeah, it is amazing. Again, in this most recent trip to Australia, I met many people from not only Australia but people who are involved in missions around the world. And a young Chinese couple came to talk to me. And the fellow said, “I hear you in China.” “I hear you in China.” And, well, wow! I mean, who did that? How did that get there? I don’t know. What it does is, of course, it reminds us of the vast purpose of God in reaching the nations, in the idea of every tribe and nation and people and tongue being brought together on that day.[4]

The assembling of the people of God to listen to the Word of God, to give praise to God is foundational to our Christian living.

And, you know, as we think about artificial intelligence as well, it occurred to me the other day… Because people always ask, you know, “Well, so what language do you think will be the heavenly language? What language will we speak in heaven?” And the thought occurred to me: I think we’ll all speak our own language, but that we will all actually understand each other without having to speak a new and separate language. Well, how could that possibly be? Well, we’re already in a situation like that by just reaching for our phones and speaking in English and sending it to somebody who is receiving it in Italian. It’s exciting! God is sovereign over all these things.

Bob: Yeah, and when we look at the metrics today and think, “There are millions of people every day hearing Truth For Life on more than eighteen hundred radio stations domestically” (now international radio that has begun to emerge)—and then I think the number is more than a million people a month downloading sermons, or a million sermons downloaded—and I know you’re particularly encouraged when you meet pastors who say, “I’ve been downloading your sermons, and it’s been helping me as I prepare to preach, as I get ready to preach”… You have a special burden for pastors to be effective in their local church.

Alistair: Yeah, I do. I mean, I think sometimes they download it to see how not to do it. But, yeah, we encourage one another in that way. I enjoy the times that we are able… And we’ve, you know, ventured into this a little bit in the last twelve or eighteen months, in making opportunity for us to be together as a small group of pastors, just to exhort one another, encourage one another, and essentially to encourage each other to keep doing the basics—to make sure that we don’t lose sight of the essential charge which has been given to us by the Lord Jesus in shepherding the flock and in feeding them and seeking to lead them. And, yeah, the future of the gospel—in America, around the world—is tied directly to God’s purpose for the church.

Bob: I know this puts you on the spot a little bit. We didn’t plan for this, but as you look back over the last thirty years—messages, letters, emails, communication you’ve received from listeners—any stories that stand out for you that have just been used by God to encourage you and to demonstrate for you the effectiveness of this gospel ministry?

Alistair: Wow. Yes, I’m sure there have been. But as you say, putting me on the spot to just pull…

Bob: To pull one up, yeah.

Alistair: Pull out of my failing memory!

I mean, I think the most recent letter that was striking to me was a letter from a retired doctor in the UK who became a Christian as a medical student. He’s seasoned in the gospel. He and his wife are members of their local church in Hampshire. And yet he wrote just to say, “You, through the Bible, by the Holy Spirit, are making a difference in our aging lives.” And he’s not a speculative kind of soul. You can’t imagine him roaming around social media looking for something—a settled, seasoned Christian who writes to say, “Young man, keep on,” you know? And I’m thinking, “Young man? I’m seventy-two years old! How old is this doctor?” But little things like that happen all the time. And I don’t take them for granted for a moment.

Bob: I want our listeners to know how sly you are. You and I were together in September at the Sing! Conference in Nashville. As we were preparing for that conference to take place, we were having a conversation just about ministry and about life, and I remember asking you, “Have you started thinking about when you might step away from the pulpit at Parkside?” And you gave me kind of a nebulous answer about “Oh, you know, I want to do it at the right time, and…” But what you knew that I didn’t know is that that decision was already cast; you just hadn’t had the communication that needed to be had with a number of people. But you announced to your congregation, I think, a week later—you gave your twelve months’ notice as the lead pastor at Parkside. And that’s still the plan: that you’re going to be stepping away from your role at Parkside in September of this year. Can you talk a little bit about what went into that decision making and why at seventy-two you’ve decided to unplug from those responsibilities?

Alistair: Well, actually, it’s your fault. I wasn’t thinking about it until you started stirring that up. And then I went away, and I had a coffee, and then I said, “Now, that’s a great idea that Bob’s just given me, I think.” And then the following Sunday I told the congregation.Now the truth is out: It’s Lepine that caused it!

No, in all seriousness, I was within days of doing what I did. And the genesis of that, without going vastly round things, was just thinking about the future—not for myself, particularly, but in terms of the future of the local congregation—recognizing that transitions are important, that you have to, if you have the opportunity, be purposeful in things like that. I’d watched different circumstances.

And funnily enough, I was on the receiving end of a number of things that on their own didn’t really mean particularly much, but put together, it started to speak to me—like an invitation from a friend to go with Sue to join ten other couples, and I thought, “Well, that was a nice thing.” And then they said, “And perhaps you could speak to the issue of finishing well.” And I thought to myself, “Well, I haven’t finished well.” And so that was in the back of my mind. I watched as certain people had drawn to a close their involvement, whether it would be, you know, something as far removed from me as the departure of Klopp as the manager of Liverpool. And all these different things began to filter into my mind.

And then I thought, “Well, I’d rather be at the initiating end of this than on the receiving end of it.” And one of my friends in Scotland, when he heard what I had said to the congregation, he wrote to me to say, “That’s a good idea, Begg. Jump before you get pushed!”

And so, yeah, what led to it? Nothing in particular—just the thought that I have less in front of me than I have behind me. I have tried as best I can to serve the congregation here as well as I can. I don’t think that I will be able to continue at the same level that I have. And so, maybe it’s time for somebody else to take up the challenge and the opportunity and give to it an energy and an engagement that would be akin to, perhaps, what I brought to it, you know, forty-two years ago, when I began at the age of thirty-one.

The future of the gospel—in America, around the world—is tied directly to God’s purpose for the church.

Bob: And doing it here gives you an opportunity to be an ongoing Paul to whoever the Timothy is that God’s going to raise up to be the lead pastor at Parkside. You’ll be able to continue to mentor and counsel whoever God is raising up in that role to the extent that that person is looking to you for help, right?

Alistair: Yeah, well, certainly we want to make sure that things go forward in a way that is honoring to God and beneficial to the congregation. And to the extent that I have a part in that, I’m committed. But I also have watched as folks in my situation have perhaps taken more of an interest in things that they’re supposedly leaving behind. And I recognize that there is a tension in that. But we’re still a few months away from the middle of September, and we just continue to look to the Lord.

Bob: And as you think about these remaining months… I’m thinking about all that you preached in the series that… You’ve been through large chunks of Scripture, but there are some you’ve left unpreached. You’ve got six months to kind of finish the task. What are you preaching in your last six-plus months? Do you know?

Alistair: Well, we’ve been in John 17 for, like, a hundred years now, and the congregation are desperately waiting for it to be finished. And I have slowed my pace down, in part because I’m loath to leave this amazing prayer of Jesus, but also because I have that question unanswered in my mind. It’s a strange sensation, Bob, as you would imagine. You know, I’ve always thought about “Well, what’s the next series?” without a terminus. But now I’m thinking, “Well, what am I going to do, given that I only have, you know, twenty-five or twenty-six Sundays left to preach?” That’s a whole different question. And so, the answer to that as of this morning is: I don’t know.

Bob: Okay. Well, we’ll all wait expectantly to see how the Lord leads you in that regard.

And we should say that while you’re unplugging from the responsibilities at Parkside, you are not buying a motorhome and you and Sue heading out to see the national parks for the next several years, right?

Alistair: That’s a funny picture! Yeah, I’ll go see the parks in a motorhome as long as you drive it for me. But no, that’s not about to happen—at least, it’s not on the horizon as I think about it.

No, without being a confounded nuisance to the people here at Truth For Life, I hope that my commitment to what is happening here and what might happen through Truth For Life, looking to the future, will be representative of my ongoing and deepening partnership with the team here to see what God has in store for us.

So, being freed from Sunday by Sunday by Sunday is not to be freed from ministry. It’s just to be freed from the privileged responsibility of studying the text and then delivering it. It is, as you know, Bob—because you do this—it is an immense privilege, and it is a significant burden. And so, relieved of that, I’m keen just to see what the open road in front of us will look like.

Bob: There are opportunities that you had to, in the past, say, “Well, I can’t do that because of my responsibilities as a local church pastor.” Now you can say, “Well, maybe I can do those things, because I’ve been relieved of those responsibilities.” Are there any of those things that are forefront in your mind? We’ve talked about working with local church pastors, and you’ve already started doing some of that. Is that kind of at the forefront of what you hope to be putting your shoulder against moving forward?

Alistair: Well, again, it’s as the initiative comes from outside. I mean, I’m very loath to clothe myself with the mantle of, you know, the aging prophet who’s able to encourage, you know, other fellows. If those opportunities emerge—if there is a sense in which I’m able to bring, under God, something to that—then yeah, I’d be keen to do that.

I think I’ve always wanted to do things outside of Parkside that are obviously multiplicatory in their impact. So you speak to students, and they have a whole future in front of them, under God. You speak to missionaries—the small groups of missionaries, but they make an impact around the world. You speak to pastors who in turn are influencing those in their congregation. And so, those kind of opportunities are uppermost in my thinking.

Bob: I’m wondering how you’re thinking about the new rhythms of life. Part of the rhythm of your life over the last forty-two years has been pretty much weekly preparing an expository message that you will deliver to a congregation, and I know in that process, just going through and doing the study has been personally rewarding and edifying. It’s been spiritually enriching in your own life. You’re about not to have that responsibility in front of you week in and week out. Do you think you will still do series preparation and message preparation—something that’s just been like riding a bicycle for you for the last forty-two years?

Alistair: This question is probably the scariest question of all, because I don’t know the answer to that question. I mean, who is it, Thielicke, who says that the pulpit draws the preacher the way that the sea draws the sailor? And so, you know, it won’t be the same—it can’t be the same—that somebody invites me to go and give two addresses to a university somewhere that I know is going to happen, you know, in five weeks hence or whatever else it is. I don’t know what that’s going to be like. I do know that it’s going to be vitally important for me to set myself a challenge to be preparing for something or preparing for someone. I mean, our elderly friend Dick Lucas, when he relinquished his charge in London, began just working through the Psalms, just to focus his mind and give him something to do. And I don’t know how that’s going to be, quite honestly. I’ll tell you better in October, if we talk again.

Bob: Yeah, I’ll be interested, because I know personally that the rhythm for me… I’ve been the greatest beneficiary of my study, more than the congregation that I lead. And so when I think about that not being an imposed rhythm in my life, I’m thinking, “Well, something will be missing from my own personal spiritual development that I want to keep alive.”

Alistair: Well, yeah. I think what we would both want to say, though, surely, is: First of all, I’m a Christian, and then I’m a pastor. And so the privileges of knowing Jesus and benefiting from the Word of God—the rhythm of our own daily devotional life—if that were to take a back seat, then we ought to be really alarmed. So we take that as a given: that the things that we want to encourage others to do we’re doing ourselves, not because we’re pastors and we have a pulpit but because we’re Christians and we need the food of the Word of God. Maybe there will be things that find their way into print more than into pulpits. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Bob: Well, I know you have been—you have always been—somewhat loath to be a self-promoter, to be ambitious with your own work. It goes back to thirty years ago. It had to be others who were recommending to you that there might be a benefit to your ministry being broader than just the congregation at Parkside. Now, as you look to the future and we think about the stewardship of what you’ve created, what you’ve developed… I’m thinking about things like the Martyn Lloyd-Jones Trust, where we still have access to his Bible teaching for years to come. I’m thinking about the repositories of that kind of work. And I know you’re not sitting thinking, “My work needs to stand for centuries.” But by the same time, there is a stewardship responsibility to think: If God would have a purpose for this in the coming years, how can we best make that possible for a time that you and I will not see?

Alistair: Yeah, these are strange thoughts, aren’t they? You know, we plant. We water. God makes things grow.[5] We cast our bread on the waters[6] in the awareness that, you know, it will return as God intends. And, yeah, again I think that the people around me, whether it’s those who are my colleagues here leading this ministry—they probably have a better angle on this than I do, or the board that oversees everything here at Truth For Life. I’m sure they are exercised on these things.

We recognize there’ll be a last time for every journey. There will be a last time you reverse your car out of the garage. And whether that’s short or long, as Richard Baxter says, “Lord, it belongs not to my care whether I [live] or [die].”[7] We can leave that with the Lord. And what happens after us will happen after us.

Bob: Well, I’m a little disappointed that in this conversation, you’ve yet to quote either Lennon or McCartney or Paul Simon. So Richard Baxter, I think, is okay and appropriate, and Dick Lucas and others. But you’ve stayed with theologians and not with pop song writers.

Alistair: Yeah. Well, let’s just say,

There are places I’ll remember
All my life, though some have changed,
Some for good, not for better;
Some are gone, and some remain.

All these places have their moments,[8]

with good friends like Bob Lepine. Here is a moment.

Bob: There we go. That’s a fitting place for this conversation to wind up.

But I want to make sure our listeners understand that while your transition from Parkside is a change, your involvement in Truth For Life remains robust going into the future, and that we can expect from you not only ongoing initiatives, but there’ll be fresh content along the way. We’ll be hearing more of your… Bible teaching is not stopping for you, and Truth For Life does not end when you step away from the pulpit at Parkside.

Alistair: No, absolutely not. And all the things that I’ve said about it being supplemental is moderated now by the fact that it doesn’t become supplemental to me; it becomes foundational to me. Because this is the venture that I can really commit myself to and will keep me honest and hopefully humble me and keep me productive and thinking in the company of, again, the team here, who I know are exercised about this—some of them probably fearfully so. “How often do you think he’s going to show up?”—that kind of question.

But it’s exciting. I mean, I’m just a jumble of emotions as it relates to it, because the uncertainty of it in the absence of the pulpit is cautionary, and yet the freedom from the pulpit is actually filled with possibilities. And certainly my commitment to the ongoing work of Truth For Life, it will not diminish; I think it will increase.

Bob: Well, I imagine your wife has said to you what my wife has said to me, which is “As you’re considering these opportunities for the future and the new, expanded opportunities that will present themselves to you, let’s make sure we’re intentional about some time with the grandkids and making sure we’re…” You have opportunity for investment in your family going forward that, in some ways, the pulpit has moderated for you, that now you can have a little more robust engagement.

Alistair: Yeah, that actually is a huge part of things. I didn’t mention it earlier, but as I… I’m sure we all do this as grandparents. You do the mathematics. You take your age, you take their age, you take the age of the youngest, you add ten years to it, and you realize how decrepit you’re going to be by the time you think you’re going to be teaching them how to drive a manual car. But that is actually… That is one of my… That’s one of my goals. I’d like to be able to teach my grandchildren how to drive a car properly. It doesn’t seem like a great goal, but it’s significant to me.

Bob: I think as we wrap up, it’s important for us to acknowledge that many of the folks who are listening to this conversation are people who have made the ministry of Truth For Life possible through their financial support, through their prayer support, by sharing with their friends what they’ve heard on Truth For Life, passing things along. And we don’t take that for granted, that partnership that exists with so many of these listeners who have been faithful to fund this ministry through the years.

Alistair: Yeah, it is a phenomenal panorama of God’s grace and goodness. And the consistent, prayerful financial engagement of so many people over such a long period of time is a humbling thing and also is a reminder to us of how not simply our dependence upon God but our accountability to the people who have invested themselves in many, many ways in seeking to support the outgoing proclamation of the gospel to the conversion of people and the encouragement of churches and so on—that is such an amazing reality that I think that if we could get all of those people together and they met one another, they would be astounded to see one another and to realize that every individual commitment to this is part of this amazing, kaleidoscopic impact of faithful souls living out the gospel and seeking to encourage those who encourage them.

Bob: And when someone comes up to you and says, “I just want you to know I’m a Truthpartner; I support the ministry”—and I know you are humbled by that; you are grateful for that. But there’s a real sense of partnership. We’re together in the advancement of the gospel. We’re arm in arm in their involvement in the ministry of Truth For Life.

Alistair: Yeah. I mean, it’s the New Testament at work: “If God has given you the grace of serving, then serve. If he’s given you the ability to teach, then teach”[9]—the picture of the body: that each part does its work, and therefore, there’s forward momentum. And, you know, Truth For Life is a testimony to that—people that, probably, most of us will never meet in this lifetime, and yet we’re invested together in seeing unbelieving people becoming followers of Jesus.

[1] See Joshua 4:1–7.

[2] Psalm 78:4–8 (paraphrased).

[3] Philippians 3:13–14 (paraphrased).

[4] See Revelation 7:9.

[5] See 1 Corinthians 3:6.

[6] See Ecclesiastes 11:1.

[7] Richard Baxter, “Lord, It Belongs Not to My Care” (1681).

[8] John Lennon and Paul McCartney, “In My Life” (1965). Lyrics lightly altered.

[9] Romans 12:7 (paraphrased).