Theology Central

Paul Greene was already into his mid-eighties before I met him. Our relationship remained distant and casual until I began to plant a church near Dallas, Texas. To my surprise Paul and his wife Mildred quickly identified with that small congregation, later becoming charter members of and pillars within the resulting church.

They had been married for nearly six decades. The two of them courted during the Great Depression, with Mildred working in Denver while Paul still lived in Texas. On Friday he would hop a freight train in Dallas, hobo his way to Denver, spend a day with Mildred, then hop another train back to Dallas to be home in time for work on Monday.

After marriage, both Greenes went into education. Mildred taught elementary school for forty years. Paul became a high school football coach, then eventually a principal. God gave them three children, one of whom became a pastor and evangelist.

The Greenes had a gift for encouraging people. I don’t mean simply that they encouraged their pastor, though they certainly did that. They were concerned for people whom they knew to be experiencing trials or who they knew had needs. Paul and Mildred could be counted on to seek these people out, to offer kind words and (as needed) tangible help, and to bolster sagging spirits.

That was partly because Paul was one of the most persistent and determined men I have ever known. I don’t mean that he was stubborn. The word stubborn connotes unreasonableness. Paul was an intelligent, thoughtful man who was always open to persuasion, but he was not a man who would allow obstacles to stand in his way. Once he decided that a thing was worth doing, he would keep after that thing until it was done. He simply did not quit, and he expected the same endurance from those around him. No circumstances, however bleak, could discourage him.

That mindset made him an irreplaceable member of the church planting team. After visiting our little congregation and becoming convinced that a new church was worth planting, he gave himself to the task. Sometimes the congregation lacked a meeting place. Sometimes it lacked resources. Sometimes it faced opposition or even betrayal. Whatever the challenge, Paul Greene would be part of the solution. He made it his mission to permit no discouragement within the church.

Paul also loved to fish, but given his age Mildred refused to let him take the boat out alone. Occasionally he would phone in an evening and ask, “Pastor, do you want to go fishing in the morning?” I always made it a point to accept. Fishing with Paul was an adventure. He knew every old bois d’arc snag in every lake around Dallas. We’d drop the boat in the water at dawn, then he’d be off from one drowned tree to the next. He didn’t just fish, he hunted the fish. And he caught them—enough of them that every year he would host the entire church to a fish fry, complete with his own hush puppies.

Those fishing trips were times when I got to know Paul, to hear his spiritual heartbeat. He would reminisce about the past. He would discuss the challenges of the present, whether for his family, himself, or his church. He would open his heart about his hopes and fears for the future. Those future concerns included his children and grandchildren. One son had a benign but debilitating brain tumor. The other had a proclivity to chase eccentric ideas and wild financial schemes—and that concerned Paul.

It also concerned me. That son was in ministry, and he exercised some influence over members of our church. At one point he tried to get us involved in the “unregistered church” movement, essentially a group of tax protesters. Another time he tried to get our church to “invest” its missions and building funds with a business that was doing arbitrage through offshore banks. Yet another time he encouraged us to donate our surplus budget to an outfit that was minting its own gold coins, assuring us that the mint would donate more than double the amount back to us within six months.

In every one of these connivances, Paul would seek me out and warn me against the scheme. He made it clear that he loved his son, but that he thought no good could come of such hare-brained stratagems. He worried that eventually these maneuvers would cause serious trouble.

That’s why a turn of conversation caught me by surprise one evening. Paul and I had been visiting about other things, when out of the blue he remarked that he had given his son five thousand dollars to invest in his latest obsession. To me, that was a huge sum. Astonished, I asked, “Do you think this one’s going to work?”

Paul replied, “No.”

“They why did you give him the money?” I asked.

“Well, he’s lost most of his own money on schemes like this, and it’s never taught him a thing. But I know he loves me. He’d never do anything that he thought would hurt me. I figure that if he loses my money—and lots of it—it might shake him up enough so he won’t listen to people like this anymore.”

Paul never told me what the result was. I do remember walking away thinking that this was an unusual demonstration of parental love. Here was a father who knew that his child was wrong, but who was willing to let himself bear the hurt so that his child could be made right. I’ve never forgotten it.

The last time I saw Paul and Mildred was when my wife and I stopped in to visit with them on our way through Dallas. We had been warned that he had Alzheimer’s, so we were prepared for the worst. Surprisingly, Paul knew who we were, even if what he said did not always make the best sense. Mildred was trying to protect him by carrying the conversation herself, but she needn’t have bothered. All we wanted was to offer encouragement to them as they had to us. We hoped to be a blessing even if only for a moment. To us, the time was not wasted.

Now they both are in heaven, and we will not see them again until death or the Rapture. Yet decades later, I still bear the marks of knowing Paul Greene. He was the man who showed me just how determined love can be.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Hark! Ten Thousand Harps and Voices

Thomas Kelly (1769–1855)

Hark! ten thousand harps and voices
Sound the note of praise above;
Jesus reigns and heav’n rejoices,
Jesus reigns, the God of love.
See, He sits on yonder throne;
Jesus rules the world alone.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

Sing how Jesus came from heaven,
How He bore the cross below,
How all pow’r to Him is given,
How He reigns in glory now.
‘Tis a great and endless theme—
O, ‘tis sweet to sing of Him.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

King of glory, reign forever!
Thine an everlasting crown.
Nothing from Thy love shall sever
Those who Thou hast made Thine own:
Happy objects of Thy grace,
Destined to behold Thy face.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

Savior, hasten Thine appearing;
Bring, O bring the glorious day,
When, the awful summons hearing,
Heav’n and earth shall pass away.
Then, with golden harps, we’ll sing,
“Glory, glory, to our King!”
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

(NOTE: This essay first appeared in August of 2016 under a different title. It is reprinted here because of the contribution it makes to the topic.)

Every once in a while, God sends a person into our lives whom He uses as a means of grace. A person like that is more than an acquaintance, more than a friend. By their mere presence such individuals show us that God is working in our behalf. They spur us toward greater sanctification and service. They change us, often without our even realizing it. Later on we can look back on such acquaintances and see ways in which God specifically used them.

Beach Whitson was that kind of person in my life. Actually, Beach was his middle name. His first name was Fred, but during the time I was his pastor I never heard anybody call him that. Beach and his wife Chloye were sent into my life at a challenging moment. I was, as it were, sojourning in Egypt, held captive in Babylon, doubting whether I would ever return to vocational ministry. In a very black moment, Beach was the one who said, “Brother Bauder, if you ever decide to start a church, would you please let us know?”

Not long after, the church that we were both attending simply disintegrated. I was left pondering what to do next. In the absence of any alternatives, I decided that the Lord wanted me to plant a church—and that is when I remembered Beach’s request. I could not possibly have envisioned then what the Lord was about to do.

Beach was in his seventies when I met him, and he had lived a colorful life. During the Second World War he had served in the Pacific, where he commanded a tank recovery crew. He also had a hand in raising the Zeros that had been shot down over Pearl Harbor.

At the time of the war, Beach was already a believer. He saw his military mission as more than combat. He used his tanks to transport chaplains to minister in the interior of the Pacific islands, especially New Guinea. Once, when he was reminiscing, Beach told me how a lone sniper began firing at his tank from a palm tree. Perhaps naively, I asked, “What did you do?” Beach replied, “We used the .50 caliber to coax him down.”

Unlike some Texans, from the moment I met him Beach welcomed me. I once asked Beach how he, as a Southern gentleman, could be so cordial to a Northern boy. He replied, “Well, I met a few Yankees when I was in the army. Some of them were alright.”

Because of his responsibilities, Beach came out of the war with a very high security clearance. His expertise gained him a job with Texas Instruments in Dallas. There he held multiple job titles, but his real responsibility was to courier papers and small parts to military installations around the world. He could never tell his family when or where he was going—he might leave for work one morning, then not return for days or even weeks. The one constant in his life was the orange-brown Samsonite brief case in which he carried his materiel. Decades after his retirement from TI, the FBI would still show up at his door. Beach remarked, “They just want to be sure I’m not losing my mind and blabbing any secrets.” He never did.

Among his other interests, Beach was a pilot. In fact, one of the perks of working at TI was that he could take off from work in a Cessna 150, then fly to his home in rural Wylie. He would land on the gravel road, enjoy lunch with his wife, and fly back to work. Beach flew bigger planes, too. He once landed a Convair 240 in Buffalo during the winter. The snow was piled higher than the plane on both sides of the runway. Beach commented, “It was like landing in a canyon.”

I never quite knew what story Beach might hint at. One day at an airshow we were standing in the cargo bay of a C-5 Galaxy. Marveling at the size of the thing, I remarked, “You could drive a truck through here.” Beach replied, “Well, I once had to turn a truck around in one of these things.” For a moment I thought I was listening to Hap Shaughnessy, but Beach was serious. I never did get the story, though.

When he retired from TI, Beach was far from finished with work. He bought a combine and a fleet of semis. His crew would start on the Mexican border and follow the harvest north into Canada. When I got to know him, he had retired a second time and was just selling off the last of his equipment.

Beach and Chloye were present for the second Sunday of what became Faith Baptist Church in Sachse, Texas. The little fellowship started out in northeast Dallas, then quickly moved to Garland. We met in homes for a few weeks, then in a community center for a couple of months. We finally found a small, vacant bank building in Garland. The owners were asking far more than we could afford, but Beach said, “Make them an offer.” We did, and they took it. The vault made a great nursery.

From the beginning, one of our concerns was to have a building of our own. Beach and Chloye donated ten acres in rural Wylie, which we were able to barter for five acres in the (then) small town of Sachse. The church moved into a strip mall in Sachse for a couple of years, then began to put up a church house. Beach was active in the project, swinging a hammer with the rest of us. His Dodge Ram with its Cummins diesel proved invaluable more than once. Beach personally towed the construction trailer to the building site. He even built a platform on the back of the pickup and we stood on it to put the first rows of shingles on the roof.

It was about this time that Beach started to experience heart trouble, which eventuated in bypass surgery. Through the whole process, he was a model of equanimity. That was typical. When crises came, whether in church or in his personal life, Beach was prepared to face them with endurance, faith, and hope. His trust in God had already been tested, and he knew that God was going to do what was best. That is why I knew I could always count on Beach—he was a godly, faithful man.

Two years ago, Beach Whitson went home to heaven. I don’t begrudge it a bit. That heart surgery was twenty years ago. He lived for two decades more than we thought he might. Beach was well into his nineties and ready to go home. He lived a long and colorful life. More than that, he lived what could be called a sacramental life. It was a life that ministered the grace of God to others. God used Beach to lead me into church planting, and I am grateful beyond words.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Lord, I Deserve Thy Deepest Wrath

Basil Manly (1825–1892)

Lord, I deserve Thy deepest wrath,
Ungrateful, faithless I have been;
No terrors have my soul deterred,
Nor goodness wooed me from my sin.

My heart is vile, my mind depraved,
My flesh rebels against Thy will;
I am polluted in Thy sight,
Yet, Lord, have mercy on me still!

Without defense to Thee I look,
To Thee the only Savior fly;
Without a hope, without a friend,
In deep distress to Thee I cry.

Speak peace to me, my sins forgive,
Dwell Thou within my heart, O God;
The guilt and pow’r of sin remove,
And fit me for Thy blest abode.

I met David Keith in January of 1974. He had just been discharged from the Army (where, as company clerk, he was reputed to have awarded his whole unit a Good Conduct Medal). He rode his Honda 350SL from Panama City up the Pan American highway through Central America and Mexico, then as far as Kansas City before the engine blew. We spent the spring semester rebuilding the engine in our dorm room. The last day of class, Dave rode that bike down College Avenue, standing up on the saddle and saluting with both hands.

Dave wasn’t really supposed to room with us that semester, but he just kind of moved in. There were already four of us in the room. Dave had a big pillow that he threw on the floor and used as a mattress. Around campus he made quite an impression, wearing an ankle-length, brown leather coat with a double row of brass buttons. For headgear he donned a long-billed straw cap that he’d found in Panama. In the dorm he would occasionally carry a pair of bright machetes that he’d picked up in Guatemala. None of us had ever seen anybody like Dave, but his grin, his quick wit, and his sheer audacity won us over.

I was eighteen and Dave was twenty-three. At that age, five years is a big difference, and Dave took it upon himself to tutor me in certain aspects of masculine maturity. He introduced me to cap-and-ball revolvers, one of which he kept in the dorm. He introduced me to Honda motorcycles and eventually sold me a 350SL—it was a great wheelie machine. He also demonstrated the value of a high quality stereo system with really big speakers, though the music I’ve played over those speakers has changed through the years.

We were in a Bible college, and Dave was training to be a pastor. Most of our peers—and most of the faculty—had trouble believing that Dave was serious about it. For that matter, they had trouble believing that Dave could be serious about anything. I knew better. During my sophomore year we had a room to ourselves, which meant that we had plenty of opportunity to observe each other’s priorities, struggles, and growth. I knew that Dave’s walk with God meant something to him, and I knew that he wanted to see me walking with God in a more consistent way than I was. Years later I came to understand that God was using him as an instrument of grace in my life.

Eventually we graduated, married, and moved in different directions. For a short time Dave was an assistant pastor in a small church. That turned into an unpleasant episode when Dave had to confront the dishonesty of his senior pastor. Dave never returned to the pastorate. I went away to seminary in Denver, then eventually returned to a pastorate in Iowa. During those years in Iowa I saw Dave regularly. He worked a succession of jobs. Among others he brokered equipment for machine shops, then sold accounts for a debt collection agency. He would often stop by my home or call on the phone (he’d always greet me with, “Hey, Kevvy!”) and we would discuss his dissatisfaction with the work he was doing. He seemed unable to find a job where he fit.

Dave took this matter seriously. He wanted to provide well for his family and he wanted a stable occupation. Then he hired on with FedEx Ground, where he discovered his vocation. He started out driving a delivery truck, eventually working his way up to terminal manager and region safety manager. As a driver he set a record for deliveries which, last time I asked, still stood unbroken. Within FedEx Ground, he was Super Dave.

With advancement in the company came moves to Oklahoma, Texas, and eventually South Carolina. During those years his daughters grew and married, his grandchildren were born, and Dave’s hair turned white. Through all the changes, Dave’s heart remained constant. Even though Dave was not a pastor, he never saw his biblical training as wasted. His relationship to God was his priority. Over time it came to be the organizing principle under which the rest of his life was conducted. It is what led him to be a faithful husband, a loving father and grandfather, a steadfast friend, and a loyal employee. David’s love for God permeated and redefined all of his other loves.

Dave had an odd sense of humor—like the time he swiped his wife’s favorite CD, gift-wrapped it, and put it under the Christmas tree. He said he wanted to give her a gift that she was sure to appreciate. On another occasion he joined a queue of husbands who were waiting for their wives in a women’s shoe store. After several minutes, he found a pair of red shoes and began to click the heels together, intoning, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.”

Did I mention that Susan was an exceptionally longsuffering wife?

Dave also loved to be the center of attention, and he wasn’t self-conscious about how he got it. He once decided to compete in a roping event at a local rodeo. On his way out of the chute, he managed to lasso the tail of his own horse. The crowd roared—it was the most memorable event of the day. Far from being embarrassed, Dave appreciated the humor of the situation and took his bow with satisfaction.

Over the last few years I heard from Dave less and less frequently. Something was wrong with his voice. Then on January 16, 2016 he texted, “Found out I have Stage 4 cancer. If anything happens to me I am requesting you to speak at my funeral.” My first thought was, “This is a really bad joke.”

Earlier, I had thought the same thing on the day he called and told me that he wanted to leave FedEx and open a hotdog stand. He had a plan to make big money. I thought he was joking then, but he really meant it. And he wasn’t joking about cancer.

Months later, on the day that Dave was told his cancer was terminal, he wrote these words to me: “One thing has not changed. I have always been in Our Father’s hands. As I look back over His grace and mercy in my life I am thankful.”

Dave passed away just over a year ago. He was more than a friend. God used him to challenge me when my Christian commitment had reached a low ebb. Then he was the person who showed me that a believer can be devoted to God, truth, and ministry while also thoroughly enjoying life. Dave was full of the joy of living, but he was even more full of the joy of the Lord. He taught me something about both.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

I Hear the Words of Love

Horatius Bonar (1808–1889)

I hear the words of love,
I gaze upon the blood,
I see the mighty sacrifice,
And I have peace with God.

’Tis everlasting peace,
Sure as Jehovah’s name;
’Tis stable as His steadfast throne,
For evermore the same.

The clouds may go and come,
And storms may sweep my sky;
This blood-sealed friendship changes not,
The cross is ever nigh.

I change—He changes not;
The Christ can never die;
His love, not mine, the resting-place;
His truth, not mine, the tie.

My love is oftimes low,
My joy still ebbs and flows,
But peace with Him remains the same;
No change Jehovah knows.

Where is the line between ordinary and extraordinary men? A man may be quite ordinary in most aspects of life, yet quite exceptional in others. If the unique aspects of his life are seldom noticed, he may be remembered only as an ordinary person.

David Nettleton was such a man. I cannot claim that I was Nettleton’s friend—he was already a college president before I reached my teen years. I met him when I was 13 years old, delivered his newspaper for a couple of years, and attended high school with one of his daughters. I later enrolled as a student in the college over which he presided. By the time I had matured sufficiently to appreciate Nettleton’s perspective, geography had divided us. Our correspondence was sporadic and ad hoc (quotations in this essay are from his letters).

Still, I observed David Nettleton rather closely over a span of a quarter of a century. I saw him respond to both success and defeat. I watched him lead and I watched him follow. I witnessed his treatment of people during seasons of sweet agreement and upon occasions of sharp disputation. He embodied the essential qualities of Christian leadership more completely than almost anyone I’ve ever known.

David Nettleton never professed to be a scholar, but his study of the Scriptures gave him an exegetical depth and theological insight such as few pastors possess. He had a unique ability to communicate complicated ideas in simple ways. Those who chose to debate theology with him could rarely maintain the level of discussion that he set.

While Nettleton was not a scholar, he could recognize scholarship when he saw it. He valued the contributions that scholars could make. As president of a Bible college during a decade when student rebellion was widespread, he accepted the responsibility of turning muddleheaded teenagers like me into thoughtful people. He aimed to make his campus a stronghold for conservative Christian scholarship. The young professors that he recruited became the backbone of that institution for a generation.

Nettleton was a man of some culture. His appreciation of both creation and the human capacity for invention showed itself in his varied interests. He had a passion for chess and he collected chess sets. He loved sailing so much that he once planned to navigate the Bermuda Triangle alone (he was providentially hindered). One of my earliest memories of him involves his explaining some fine point of astronomy while allowing me to examine the magnificent telescope in his office. The fact that he played the saw (and played it well) did not preclude his communicating some sense of taste for serious music. At the very least he stood as convincing evidence that one did not have to be a yokel in order to be a good preacher.

Nettleton’s greatest strength was his preaching. Early in his ministry he apprenticed himself to the eminent Presbyterian pulpiteer, Clarence Macartney. Expository preaching became his passion. To declare God’s Word faithfully, to bring out the meaning of the text, to illustrate it gracefully, and to apply it so that it gripped listeners and led them to a decision—that was David Nettleton’s great love. He had few peers among fundamentalists as an illustrator, and none for decorum in the pulpit.

The pastorate was Nettleton’s life. Even when he was a college president he made himself a pastor to his students, and his special burden during those years was to equip men for pastoral ministry. He experienced the heartbreaks that come with leadership and ministry, but he never allowed those things to harden him. He somehow found ways to remain a gentle man even in the face of pressure, difficulty, and opposition. He learned from his failures and used them to make him stronger. After he left the academic world and returned to the pastorate, he became an effective counselor and encourager of younger pastors.

Rarely has fundamentalism produced a more irenic spirit. Nettleton prized the role of a peacemaker. He was grieved by the splintering of the various fundamentalist camps. He thought that leaders who believed the same great truths should learn to walk together peaceably, and he maintained that even the strictest fellowship could leave plenty of room for liberty. He refused to manipulate people or to abuse power to get his own way. That cost him the friendship of some who wished that he would exercise power in a fashion more favorable to their policies. His earnest endeavor was to behave himself as a Christian statesman rather than an ecclesiastical politician. He came near to succeeding.

That is not to say that Nettleton was irresolute in his beliefs. On the contrary, he held strong convictions and he argued for them eloquently. Yet he acted with such fairness and impartiality that he found himself repeatedly thrust into positions of leadership. As he put it, “I am strong on the sovereignty of God and wrote on it. Yet, they elected me as chairman of the [GARBC] council. I oppose cheap worldly music. . . . I try to make my speech as grace but not without salt.”

While strong in his beliefs, Nettleton was temperamentally opposed to adopting extreme positions. When he was a college president, he tried very hard to keep his school “in the middle of the right-hand lane.” But middle-of-the-road situations are hazardous, in whatever lane one travels. Nettleton knew as much. He recognized that a time might come when “healthy discussion is stifled and the only result will be more misunderstanding and even ignorance.” In fact, he lived to see the whole highway lurch to the left. Only his death spared him from having to decide whether he would take the exit ramp.

It would not have been an easy choice. On the one hand, he argued in print that, by the nature of the case, a Christian must limit either his fellowship or his message. On the other hand, he was firmly convinced that Christians should not stand alone. The only way he knew of to avoid isolation was to become involved in some form of organized fellowship. He understood that such fellowships necessarily involved an element of compromise, and argued against some of his peers that compromise was not always a bad word. “We must find enough common ground,” he wrote, “and then agree to disagree the rest of the way. But toleration does not mean silence. If something should be opposed, let us oppose it.”

It was this combination of strong convictions and commitment to toleration within defined limits that made him exceptional as a leader within his generation of American fundamentalists. One need not always agree with such a man in order to respect him. Many did disagree with Nettleton over a wide range of issues, but he held the respect of his friends and his opponents alike.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Sing, My Tongue, the Glorious Battle

Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus (c. 540–600); tr. John Mason Neale (1818–1866)

Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle;
Sing the ending of the fray.
Now above the cross, the trophy,
Sound the loud triumphant lay:
Tell how Christ, the world’s Redeemer,
As a victim won the day.

Tell how, when at length the fullness
Of th’appointed time was come,
He, the Word, was born of woman,
Left for us His Father’s home,
Blazed the path of true obedience,
Shone as light amidst the gloom.

Thus, with thirty years accomplished,
He went forth from Nazareth, 
Destined, dedicated, willing,
Did His work, and met His death;
Like a lamb He humbly yielded
On the cross His dying breath.

Faithful cross, true sign of triumph,
Be for all the noblest tree;
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit your equal be;
Symbol of the world’s redemption,
For the weight that hung on thee!

Unto God be praise and glory:
To the Father and the Son,
To th’eternal Spirit honor
Now and evermore be done;
Praise and glory in the highest,
While the timeless ages run.

In the fall of 1979 I began my first semester as a student at Denver Baptist Theological Seminary. One day the missions professor, Dick Tice, asked if I might be interested in a pastoral staff position. I had been asking the Lord for something like that, and I told him so. That night he drove me two hours south to Woodland Park, where I met Pastor Garry Rhoades.

Garry was a graduate of Denver Baptist Bible College. He had served in a staff position with a prominent fundamentalist pastor in Colorado. The experience soured him on Baptist fundamentalism, so he accepted the pastorate of an evangelical community church. Once in an evangelical, interdenominational environment he began to discover how much of a Baptist fundamentalist he really was. He started to preach and teach along those lines, and he wanted an assistant pastor who could be counted on not to undermine his leadership.

Sitting at his table that evening he went through a verbal job description. He wanted somebody to do youth and music, but also to pitch in wherever needed. He envisioned that my wife and I would drive down after work on Friday and stay in his home through the weekend, returning to Denver after church on Sunday night. The church couldn’t pay much, he said, perhaps not even enough to cover expenses. Still he was convinced that God would make up the deficiency in other ways, perhaps ways that I might never even perceive.

Money was the last thing I was interested in. I was so eager for pastoral experience that I’d have paid the church to let me minister, and that’s what I told Garry. I still remember the surprised look on his face. It was the beginning not only of a staff relationship, but of a friendship that would endure until the Lord took Garry home.

In some ways Garry and I were opposites. He was extroverted and outgoing; I was (and am) an introvert who sometimes tries to act like an extrovert. He was big and tough: he’d trained as a Ranger and a Green Beret, and he’d fought in Viet Nam. I’d never served in the military and had never even been particularly good at athletics. His gifts lay outside the academic realm, while I was beginning to realize that I loved the life of the mind. Opposites though we were in some ways, each of us respected what the other represented. We each saw the opportunity to learn from the other, and we both treasured the relationship.

As my senior pastor, Garry treated me more like a kid brother than like an employee. My wife and I lived in his home every weekend. He took me with him everywhere and let me see everything he was doing. He was as completely transparent as anybody I’ve ever met.

That’s how I learned about giving. I’ve always understood that giving is part of the Christian life, but I confess to being naturally stingy. Garry was the opposite—if anybody ever had the gift of giving, he did. If he owned something and he sensed that somebody else needed it, he’d give it away. Sometimes he gave away money or other things that he really needed for himself. I was the only one (other than his wife) who knew that, but it taught me a lesson. People were blessed when the Lord used Garry to meet their needs. Garry was blessed when he was used to meet their needs. Then he was blessed again when the Lord met his needs. With so much blessing in the air, I decided that I wanted a piece of it—and began to give more, in imitation of Garry, than I’d ever given before. And God blessed.

That pastoral relationship only lasted for about six months before Garry left the church. Our friendship went on for decades. Garry was a Colorado native, and he showed how to make the best use of the Rocky Mountain State. He trained me to hunt coyote and antelope on the high plains. He taught me how to trek into the mountains after mule deer and elk. Later on, when he was a pastor in Alaska, Garry was the one who took me to Denali, then camping in the bush. He exposed me to a rough-and-tumble enthusiasm for life—especially life in the outdoors—that I have seldom encountered elsewhere.

Garry also taught me important lessons about being strong. I watched him when he was deeply hurt and treated contemptuously, saw him forgive, and observed him endure. He was a big man and a trained fighter, but he habitually exercised restraint in the face of challenges, opposition, insults, and even betrayals. There was a rough and tough side to Garry, but he deliberately chose to treat people with great gentleness.

I’d grown up in a fairly narrow circle of Baptist fundamentalism, but Garry introduced me to a wider ecclesiastical world. He was my first introduction to Jack Hyles (who was not yet all that he later became). He took me to my first conference with Bill Gothard. His best friend was evangelist Lloyd Spear. We would occasionally stop by the home of Charlie Clay, a singer whose records featured a Christianized version of cowboy music. It was through Garry that I got to know Bill Anderson, president of the Christian Booksellers Association, and Bob Cornuke, a police officer who would become something of a Christian Indiana Jones. While I don’t identify with the circles in which these people move, I am richer for having known them.

During his service in Viet Nam, Garry was regularly exposed to Agent Orange. As he entered middle age, it became clear that the chemical was beginning to affect him. He developed tumors in his lungs and he began to lose the use of his legs. For the last decade of his life, Garry spent most of his time being helped between his wheelchair and his bed. He continued to pastor and to serve as a Civil Air Patrol chaplain as long as he could. He attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the CAP (the highest rank that chaplains could earn in those days), and his efforts in ministry were recognized with the award of a Doctor of Divinity diploma. He finally moved back to his home town, where I visited him a few times during his last years.

Garry died while I was traveling in Florida. I wasn’t even able to go to his funeral, which was preached by Lloyd Spear. He was laid to rest in his home town of Eaton, Colorado.

Not many people remember Garry Rhoades, but I’ll never be able to forget him. He was an ordinary guy, an average pastor, but his ministry made a tremendous difference in my life. He was a true comrade, the kind of friend one makes only rarely. Friendship with Garry changed me by helping me to refine my vision of what a Christian man and a servant of God ought to be. I thank God for ordinary men like Garry.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

My Song Is Love Unknown

Samuel Crossman (ca. 1624-1683)

My song is love unknown,
My Savior’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I, that for my sake
My Lord should take, frail flesh and die?

Sometimes they strew His way,
And His sweet praises sing;
Resounding all the day
Hosannas to their King:
Then “Crucify!” is all their breath,
And for His death they thirst and cry.

Why, what hath my Lord done?
To cause this rage and spite?
He made the lame to run,
He gave the blind their sight,
Sweet injuries! Yet they at these
Are why the Lord most High so cruely dies.

Here might I stay and sing,
Of Him my soul adores;
Never was love, dear King!
Never was grief like yours.
This is my Friend, in Whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend.

Elmer Jahn went home to be with the Lord on February 10, 2018. He had lived 88 years. I am privileged to have called him my father-in-law, and he had a profound impact on me, his other relatives, and many, many others. How did this man with very humble origins come to be used by God in the lives of so many? In a word—grace. He knew how desperately he stood in need of grace, and once saved, he manifested the gift of grace to everyone he met.

Elmer grew up in difficult circumstances. His parents were nominal Catholics, but his family never went to church. His alcoholic father physically and verbally abused him, his mother, and his three siblings. It is quite a wonder, really, that he graduated from high school. But he did, and he married Joanne, his high school sweetheart, two years later. The Lord gave them two boys, but they had great difficulty carrying future pregnancies to full term. Since they loved kids, they decided to take in foster children and they cared for over 20. But foster care was not the same as having children of their own, so they decided to adopt. And God added two girls to their family, one of whom would become my wife, Elaine.

During those early years of his marriage, Elmer worked at the post office and by his own admission he was a lazy and dishonest worker, taking advantage of the system to gain every possible advantage. Though he and Joanne went to mass regularly, they did so only out of obligation, and their lifestyle as a whole reflected Paul’s description in Ephesians 2:3: “We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

But then when Elmer was 43, God came calling. Woodcrest Baptist Church hosted a VBS that summer, and the canvassing efforts of a teenager from the church resulted in Elaine and her sister attending the VBS. Amazed by how much Bible the girls learned at VBS, Elmer and Joanne responded to an invitation to attend evangelistic meetings held at the church. And both Elmer and Joanne heeded the invitation to repent and believe in the gospel.

God’s work of grace in Elmer’s life was evident to all who knew him. The verses God used to save Elmer were Ephesians 2:8−9, “For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works lest anyone should boast.” And he was still quoting these as his favorites as he lay in hospice care prior to his death.

What distinguished Elmer in the years following his conversion? God’s grace filled Elmer’s heart with love which he poured out in service to the church, in care for people, and in dedication to his Savior. His example in each of these areas provided me with a wonderful model in the 35 years I was privileged to know him.

Elmer was an active member in three different churches during his 45 years as a Christ-follower. He was expert in teaching junior age children in Sunday School, often creating vivid object lessons to explain the important truths of the Bible. The pastors at each church appreciated his loyal support and faithful service as a deacon. In his later years he actively participated in small group Bible studies and served as the greeter at the Wednesday evening church-wide meals.

Elmer loved people. When I first met him, I was amazed at how kind Elmer was to me. At first I figured this was special treatment reserved for the man who was dating his daughter. He would regale me with stories about his adventures serving subpoenas (he had purchased a process serving business in his early 40s), and I couldn’t believe that one man could have so many amazing tales. But his accounts and special treatment weren’t just for me. After seeing him interact with other visitors to his home, I realized he treated everyone with Christian grace and love. He had a way of speaking with you that made you feel like you were the most important person in the room.

Space requires that I limit myself to three stories showing his love for others. During my engagement to Elaine, I accidentally drove my car into Elmer’s new fiberglass garage door, creating a large, ugly crack. But Elmer refused to take payment from me to repair it; instead he smiled and said, “As long as you marry Elaine and never leave her, you don’t have to pay for it.” When Elmer sold the house 30 years later, the door with its crack was still there.

Elmer and Joanne showed their love for others in opening their home not only for morning conversations around their table but for extended periods of time. His son’s family of 6 lived with them for nearly a year and his other son’s family of four for several months. When their granddaughter lost her parents, they took her in for five years. Besides the foster children mentioned earlier, they also took in parents with children for months at a time. Yes, Elmer knew how to obey God’s command to be hospitable and to meet the needs of the saints (Rom 12:13).

He also knew how to show concern for the poor and unlovely. Elaine recalls a time when as a young girl riding in the car with Elmer, they drove by a drunk man who was passed out and lying on the roadside. Elmer stopped the car, helped the man into the car, and drove him to a place where he could be helped.

Elmer loved to talk about Jesus and loved sharing new insights he had heard about Him from his favorite radio preachers. He also showed his love for Christ by living out the truth of Ephesians 4:32 when he led his family in granting forgiveness to his other son-in-law, who tragically murdered Elmer’s other daughter in 1995. Despite this horrific act, Elmer extended the grace of forgiveness to this man before repentance could even be evidenced. Furthermore, Elmer loved Christ by caring for his wife of 50 years when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He took those five years of her sickness in stride, even smiling when she inadvertently hid his car keys or called the police to report an intruder (him!).

I learned much from Elmer Jahn, an ordinary man who loved and served and was transformed by an extraordinary God.

This essay is by Jon Pratt, Vice President of Academics and Professor of New Testament at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Holy Trinity, Thanks and Praise to Thee

Lorenz T. Nyberg (1720–1792)

Holy Trinity, thanks and praise to Thee,
That our life and whole salvation
Flow from Christ’s blest incarnation
And His death for us on the shameful cross.

Had we angels’ tongues, with seraphic songs,
Bowing hearts and knees before Thee,
Triune God, we would adore Thee
In the highest strain for the Lamb once slain.

The first time I met John Javaux was on the gridiron. He was playing linebacker; I was a tight end. We got acquainted when he decided to blitz the quarterback. I met him with a cross-body block, then slipped down into a crab block. He was bigger and stronger than me, but somehow I got just the right leverage, shoved a bit, and sat him down hard.

That’s when I started to worry. I’d never met a linebacker who took kindly to being knocked down, and John was very obviously a bull of a man. As we got up, I braced myself for what was about to come. To my surprise, John shot me a big grin and said, “You’re pretty good at that, aren’t you?”

As I would learn, that kind of relaxed, self-effacing, down-home response was typical of John. We were at the beginning of our freshman year in Bible college. I came from ten miles up the road; John came all the way from Idaho. We were destined to see quite a bit of each other. Our paths crossed in intramural athletic competitions. We shared several classes. We were also in a men’s choir together. The more I saw of him, the more I realized that John was just a genuinely nice and caring guy. When the choir went on tour during the spring semester, John and I shared a room. That’s when we became friends.

At the time I didn’t realize that John was still a new believer. He had trusted Christ as Savior only a short time before coming to Bible college. He accepted the stringent rules that our little college laid down (or most of them), but displayed a talent for finding loopholes. For example, we were supposed to be in the dorms by 10:00 every night, but John noticed that the school had no rule about how early we could leave in the morning. So John began to plan outings that began shortly after midnight.

During our sophomore year, John and I worked together at an auto parts warehouse. When the school year ended, we kept our jobs and roomed together through the summer. I was courting the woman whom I would eventually marry, and John would sometimes join us with a date—though never the same one. John had already decided whom he wanted to marry. He was just waiting for her to catch on. That December John was in my wedding.

Susan eventually consented to marry John, and I was in their wedding the following July. She was the love of his life. He never deviated in his affection for her. Indeed, if one word characterized John, it was the word faithful: he was faithful to his marriage, faithful to his friendships, and faithful to his Lord.

After graduation John and I moved in different directions. He stayed in our college town, found a job, and reared a family. I went away to seminary in another state, then went on to minister in a variety of locations. Distance kept us apart, but whenever John knew that I was in the area he would take the initiative to look me up. His greeting was always warm. He was the sort of guy whose friendship did not require a big investment. I could go years without seeing him, and then he would pick up exactly where we had left off.

I last saw John about six months ago. His pastor invited me to preach in their church. With a crowd of people around, John waited patiently for his turn, and then offered to take Debbie and me to dinner. We were delighted with the opportunity to catch up, and when we arrived at the restaurant we discovered that John had also invited other people from our past. It was a characteristically thoughtful thing for him to do.

About a month ago I was out walking on a cold Saturday morning. While walking I phoned my parents, and my mother answered. Almost the first thing she said was, “Did you know that John Javaux died?” I was stunned—in fact, I thought she must have got the news wrong. But when I reached home and checked, it turned out to be true. John had been diagnosed with an advanced and aggressive cancer only a month before. During the rapid progress of the disease, neither he nor his family had time to let me know what was happening.

I wondered who might attend John’s funeral, and I realized that I knew little of his life since our paths had gone different ways. I’d met his children, of course, and I knew he was proud of them. I also knew that he’d mainly worked blue-collar jobs, usually more than one at a time, to provide for his family. But I didn’t know about other friendships or relationships that he had built.

What I discovered was overwhelming. He had been a member of a medium-sized church in a suburban setting. The crowds for both his visitation (which was the night before the funeral) and the funeral itself were overwhelming. As I talked with people, I began to understand why.

John was gifted at building relationships. He formed friendships easily and he used those friendships to minister to others. He invested time and interest in those around him. He never seemed to be the kind of person who wanted anything from others, but he was always the guy who was willing to go the extra mile. He cared about people and he gave his time and energy to them.

He was especially interested in college students. John would show interest in them, bring them into his home, befriend them, and mentor them. His easygoing ways made them feel at ease with him, and he counseled them as they faced the challenges of coming to maturity.

Furthermore, John’s faithfulness to his local church was exemplary. The skill of his hands and the strength of his back were always available for the jobs that needed to be done. He and Susan loved to work in the children’s ministries. John also served the church as a deacon for years. Again, his life touched people and changed them.

John Javaux was just an ordinary guy. He never had what most people think of as a career. He never won a Nobel Prize and was never a captain of industry. He wasn’t even a pastor or missionary. He was just a faithful man whose life affected an extraordinary number of people. He built himself into others, including me. His life is a testimony to how God can use an ordinary man.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Psalm 91

James Montgomery (1771–1854)

Call Jehovah thy salvation,
Rest beneath the Almighty’s shade,
In his secret habitation
Dwell, and never be dismay’d:
There no tumult shall alarm thee,
Thou shalt dread no hidden snare,
Guile nor violence can harm thee
In eternal safeguard there.

From the sword at noon-day wasting,
From the noisome pestilence,
In the depth of midnight blasting,
God shall be thy sure defence;
Fear not thou the deadly quiver,
When a thousand feel the blow,
Mercy shall thy soul deliver,
Though ten thousand be laid low.

Only with thine eyes the anguish
Of the wicked thou shalt see,
When by slow disease they languish,
When they perish suddenly:
Thee, though winds and waves be swelling,
God, thine hope, shall bear through all;
Plague shall not come nigh thy dwelling,
Thee no evil shall befall.

My parents were led to the Lord by a church planting missionary in Freeland, Michigan. I was only three or four years old. When that missionary left, the church went through a series of pastors. Some were more qualified and some less. The congregation finally called a church planter from the Fellowship of Baptists for Home Missions. He is the pastor who baptized me and who began to train me in the faith. His name was Robert Weckle, but the first time I met him he told me, “Kevin, just call me preacher!”

Preacher Weckle was not a great pulpiteer. His presentation emphasized biblical content over style. But he delivered content! In those days, everybody preached from a King James Bible. Preacher Weckle’s Bible was a Scofield Reference Bible, and he encouraged everybody to get one. He would sometimes announce his text by its page number in the Scofield Bible.

Of course Preacher Weckle was a dispensationalist. He owned a big dispensational chart, painted on canvas. Every few years he would hang it from a wire and stretch it across the front of our church auditorium. Then he would teach through the dispensations, usually on Sunday nights. I was fascinated with that chart, its pictures, and its intricacies. I loved to hear him teach as I kept one eye on the chart and the other eye on the notes in my father’s Scofield Bible.

Preacher Weckle fascinated me. He had more books than anybody I’d ever met. He knew more about the Bible than anyone I’d ever heard. As an adult I was surprised to discover that he had only a three-year diploma from Practical Bible Training Institute. He was one of the few people who could openly correct my father—an impressive feat in my childish eyes. Most of all, he cared deeply about his people and looked for opportunities to help them grow.

For example, he once took me fishing with his son. While we drowned worms in the Quaniccasee River, he spoke continuously of spiritual things. I also got to observe his character when his son accidentally locked the car keys in the trunk.

Our church bought a little bus that Preacher Weckle drove every week to pick up people for Sunday School. He would invite me to go with him, and he let me work the door. I was often in his home and he was often in ours. He taught me far more during those informal moments than I ever learned in church. That is saying something, because between the regular services and the special youth times, I could expect to be in some church activity no less than six hours every week.

During the summers, Preacher Weckle would drive that bus to Bible camp in northern Michigan. The camp had been one of Al Capone’s hideouts during the 1930s. Michigan Baptists bought the property during the 1950s. My father helped to erect the dining hall, many of the original cabins, and many of the first recreational facilities. My parents would take their vacation to work as counselors or kitchen help. When I was old enough, I attended as a camper.

Most of the week at camp was pure fun: games, swimming, handicrafts, and other forms of recreation. Preacher Weckle was almost always there, often volunteering to work in the kitchen. The spiritual emphasis was strong, with both morning and evening chapel services plus times for cabin and personal devotions, missionary presentations, and other spiritual activities. It was during one of those camping weeks that I first understood that the claims of Jesus Christ upon my life were truly absolute. At that point, I made the conscious choice to devote my life to whatever Christ wished. Preacher Weckle was there to take me aside and pray with me (and, as I recall, buy me pop at the canteen).

During the school year, the fundamental Baptist churches in our area would cooperate to sponsor a once-a-month youth rally on Saturday night. Between the camps and the youth rallies I slowly became aware that not all churches were just like ours. In those meetings I heard preaching that could electrify, encourage, and convict, but also some that could wound and bruise. While I couldn’t have described the difference then, many of those sermons were short on biblical content and long on opinions and stories. Some of them were manipulative. A few were even abusive. I didn’t know it, but I was experiencing the tension between different versions of fundamentalism, and these sometimes left me perplexed.

For his part, Preacher Weckle was usually careful about what he would allow in our church. For example, our church would host a one-week missionary conference and an evangelistic conference every year. For two years running, we had an evangelist who was a country-and-western singer and who had starred in a movie or two. He brought Hollywood-style publicity and techniques to his evangelistic meetings, and our auditorium overflowed during every service. People would stream forward at every invitation. Preacher Weckle, however, became deeply uncomfortable with the man’s approach. After the second year, the evangelist was not invited to return. So far as I can remember, none of the people who made decisions under that man’s preaching continued with our church.

Preacher Weckle was just an ordinary guy. He had no advanced academic preparation, little personal electricity, and hardly any showmanship. What he did have was a knowledge of the Bible, a willingness to pour his life into (often ungrateful) people, and a determination to keep on serving the Lord through difficult circumstances. I now know that I probably learned more Bible, more Christian doctrine, more philosophy of ministry, and more Christian character from Preacher Weckle than from nearly any other person. God used this ordinary man in an extraordinary way in my life.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Go, Labor On

Horatius Bonar (1808–1889)

Go, labor on; spend, and be spent,
thy joy to do the Father’s will;
it is the way the Master went;
should not the servant tread it still?

Go, labor on; ’tis not for naught;
thine earthly loss is heav’nly gain;
men heed thee, love thee, praise thee not;
the Master praises—what are men?

Go labor on; enough while here
if He shall praise thee, if He deign 
thy willing heart to mark and cheer;
no toil for Him shall be in vain.

Go, labor on while it is day;
the world’s dark night is hast’ning on.
Speed, speed thy work, cast sloth away;
It is not thus that souls are won.

Toil on, faint not, keep watch and pray;
be wise the erring soul to win;
go forth into the world’s highway,
compel the wand’rer to come in.

Toil on, and in thy toil rejoice;
for toil comes rest, for exile home;
soon shall you hear the Bridegroom’s voice,
the midnight cry, “Behold, I come.”