Ps 56:13-” For you have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of life.”
I have attended Presbyterian churches since 1970, which was the year I began my college experience. I have been very blessed to have had contact with many great theologians- in person, or on VHS, in print or via the web. One of my favorites, for both challenging my thought processes, and enjoying his way of presenting truth, is R.C. Sproul. Let me share some of his biography and life with you. Of course, if you wish to learn more, just Google him and enjoy the ride.
R.C. Sproul was born February 13, 1939, married his 1st grade sweetheart in 1960 and, due to respiratory problems, passed away in 2017.
The first college he attended was Westminster College, a progressive Presbyterian school. He and his roommate were on their way to the next town to get a drink, but R.C. had forgotten his cigarettes. Back in the dorm, the star of the football team invited them to sit and talk with him. He had never really read the Bible, but when he committed his life to God that September of 1957, he read the complete Bible in 2 weeks!
The list of schools are as follows: B.A. at Westminster in 1961, M. Of Div. from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 1964, Vrije University in Amsterdam in 1969 and Whitefield College and Theological, 2001.
In 1961, at Pittsburgh, he took classes with Professor John Gerstner (1914-1996) who was a conservative Calvinist in a progressive school. Dr Gerstner was another favorite of mine.
Mrs. Dora Hillman, the widow of an industrial tycoon in Pittsburgh, approached Sproul about starting a Christian study and conference center on 52 acres east of Pittsburgh in Ligonier Valley. In 1984 the study center was moved to Orlando Florida. It was modeled after Francis Schaffer’s L’ Abri ministry in Switzerland.
[Note: R.C. was a PCA Pastor and the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries (named for the Ligonier Valley just outside Pittsburgh, where the ministry started as a study center for college and seminary students) and could be heard daily on the Renewing Your Mind radio broadcast in the United States and internationally.]
Here are some of his other accomplishments: 1977- Table Talk magazine began, he has also written over 60 books as well as children’s books. Renewing Your Mind radio broadcast began in 1994. He was the general editor of the New Geneva Study Bible (1995).
If you have not heard Sproul speak, be ready to be challenged in your thought processes, but also be ready to be taught by a man who can also laugh and thoroughly enjoy what he is talking about.
Walk before God (Ps 56:13) in Latin is coram DEO, or before the face of God…a phrase important to Ligonier Ministries. Also applies to Sproul’s experience of faith