RTS Global

What RTS Global is

RTS Global is the umbrella for Reformed Theological Seminary's online and distance offerings, and it has two distinct halves. The free half is a large library of course lectures — full series taught by RTS faculty across biblical studies, systematic and historical theology, apologetics, and pastoral subjects — that anyone can stream or download, including through podcast feeds. The seminary has made this teaching freely available for many years, and a great deal of it first reached a wide audience through iTunes U. Listening to the free lectures gives you the teaching but not credit, grades, or a transcript.

The paid half is the accredited seminary itself. RTS is a long-established Presbyterian and Reformed institution, and through RTS Global it offers courses for credit and full accredited degree programs in online and hybrid formats. So the same body of teaching you can sample for free can also, in its credit-bearing form, count toward a recognized credential. That dual structure — free to listen, paid to be credentialed — is the defining shape of what RTS Global is.

Why Reformed learners turn to RTS Global

The single biggest practical difference between RTS Global's free lectures and a typical Bible-teaching channel is that RTS is handing you full seminary courses, in sequence, taught by its own faculty — not a curated set of short clips. You are not getting a five-minute take on justification. You are listening to the seminary's systematic theology lectures, one after another, the same teaching that sits inside its accredited degree. The school treats a free listener like an adult who is there to learn the discipline, not a viewer to be held for a moment.

That is what makes RTS Global the natural home for a learner who wants to go deep in the Reformed tradition specifically. The teaching is confessionally clear — rooted in the Westminster Standards and the Presbyterian and Reformed heritage — so a listener always knows exactly where the lecturer stands and why. And because the lecturers are working seminary faculty, the courses age like a syllabus rather than like a trend; the free audio is a serious, durable education, with an accredited credential available from the same school if a listener ever wants to make it count.

The free lecture library: a seminary's teaching, on demand

The free lecture library is the reason most people come to RTS Global, and it is deep. RTS has long recorded its courses and made a large portion of that teaching freely available to stream and download, including through podcast feeds. Many listeners first encountered these lectures through iTunes U years ago, and the collection has continued to circulate and grow since. As of writing, the free recordings span the core of a seminary education — Old and New Testament, systematic and historical theology, apologetics, ethics, and pastoral subjects — taught as full course-length series rather than as isolated talks.

In practice that means a listener can work through an entire course the way they would a podcast: in order, lecture by lecture, on a commute or a walk. What the free audio does not include is the credit-bearing apparatus — graded assignments, exams that count, instructor feedback, and a transcript. The teaching is free; the credential is sold separately. For a reader who wants to genuinely learn systematic theology or a book of the Bible from a Reformed seminary, that trade is usually the right one, and the depth of the back catalog means there is far more here than a single learner is likely to exhaust.

Confessional clarity: the Reformed Presbyterian frame

RTS is a confessionally Reformed seminary, standing in the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition and holding to the Westminster Confession of Faith and its catechisms. That commitment is not incidental to the teaching; it is the framework the courses are built on. When you listen to RTS lectures on the doctrine of God, on salvation, on the sacraments, on covenant theology, or on church government, you are hearing a specific, well-defined confessional position argued by people who hold it with conviction and can show their work from the text and the tradition.

For the right learner this clarity is a genuine strength. A reader who wants to understand the Reformed tradition from the inside — what it teaches, how it reads Scripture, why it lands where it does — could hardly ask for a better free source than a confessional seminary's own faculty teaching their own courses. A reader from another tradition can still learn a great deal, particularly from the biblical-studies and historical-theology material, while recognizing the points where the confessional conclusions differ from their own and weighing those alongside their community's reading. The lens is clear either way, which makes the teaching easy to situate.

From free audio to accredited degree: the dual structure

What distinguishes RTS Global from a pure open-courseware project is that the free lectures sit in front of a real, accredited seminary. RTS grants accredited degrees, and through RTS Global it offers courses for credit and full degree programs in online and hybrid formats for students who cannot relocate to a campus. The free audio and the accredited program draw on the same body of teaching, which makes the free side an unusually honest trial: you can spend real time inside the seminary's actual lectures before deciding whether to pursue credit.

That structure serves two different people well. The lay reader, elder, or curious pastor who simply wants to learn can stay on the free side indefinitely and never pay a cent. The prospective student who wants a credential — for ordination, for a teaching role, for the discipline of a graded program — can move from listening to enrolling at the same institution, with paid, credit-bearing courses and a recognized degree at the end. The free tier is not a teaser designed to force an upgrade; it is the teaching, given away, with the credential available to anyone who decides they need it.

Pricing

Where RTS Global falls behind

No credit from the free lectures. Listening teaches you the material but earns nothing transferable — no credit hours, no grade, no transcript. If your goal is an accredited M.Div. or a credential a denomination recognizes for ordination, the free audio is preparation and exposure, not a substitute for enrolling and paying.

A single confessional frame. The teaching is confessionally Reformed Presbyterian, rooted in the Westminster Standards, and that position shapes the conclusions throughout. The faculty are clear and capable, but a reader looking for a multi-tradition survey will get one well-defined voice here and should supplement with sources from their own community.

Audio-first delivery. Much of the free library is lecture audio rather than polished video. For listeners that is a feature — a whole course becomes a podcast — but visual learners who want slides, animation, or on-screen text get less from the free side than people who simply press play and listen.

Discovery takes patience. The free recordings span many years and more than one platform — the RTS site and podcast feeds among them — so assembling a complete course in the right order can involve some hunting. The depth is real; the path to it is not always one tidy click.

Self-direction required. The free lectures arrive without scaffolding — no deadlines, no graded checkpoints, no instructor following up. For a disciplined learner that freedom is a gift; for someone who needs accountability built into the format, finishing a multi-lecture course on willpower alone is the genuine challenge.

RTS Global vs. BiblicalTraining vs. DTS Free Courses

All three let you sit under serious seminary teaching for free, and all three are taught by real faculty. The differences are tradition, format, and how each one connects to an accredited school.

Different strengths. RTS Global is the confessionally Reformed Presbyterian option — a deep, long-running free lecture library taught by RTS faculty, with an accredited seminary behind it if you ever want credit. BiblicalTraining is the broadest free library — a wide bench of named evangelical scholars across many courses, three learning tracks, and a free certificate program, with no paywall and no single confessional line. DTS Free Courses lets you audit Dallas Theological Seminary's own classes free in a conservative evangelical, dispensational frame, with a clear paid path to credit at that school.

If you want to go deep in the Reformed tradition with an accredited degree available from the same institution, RTS Global fits best. If you want the widest free catalog of evangelical scholars and a free finish-line certificate, BiblicalTraining is the call. If you want to hear how DTS specifically teaches the Bible, audit DTS directly. Many serious self-directed learners sample more than one to hear a doctrine argued from different confessional homes.

Alternatives to RTS Global

BiblicalTraining★ 4.7The broadest free seminary library — a wide bench of named evangelical scholars across many courses, three learning tracks, and a free certificate program with no paywall.→Third Millennium Ministries★ 4.6Free, seminary-grade video curriculum translated into more than a dozen languages. Reformed evangelical in frame, built for pastors without access to a traditional seminary.→DDTS Free Courses★ 4.6Dallas Theological Seminary's own classes, free to audit online — strong Bible exposition in a conservative evangelical, dispensational frame, with a paid path to credit.→Ligonier★ 4.6R.C. Sproul's teaching ministry — long-form Reformed teaching series, the Reformation Study Bible, and a strong daily devotional rhythm. Much of it free, with a deeper paid library.→