Remembering my Professors at Grace Theological Seminary

When John J. Davis recently died, I realized that he was the last of my Grace Seminary professors to pass into glory. Davis’s death, as well as Ron Manahan’s and David Slusher’s previously, led me down memory lane and to this post.

Beverly and I moved to Winona Lake IN to attend Grace Theological Seminary five days after we were married in 1971. We lived in the area until 1976, moved back in 1979 for doctoral studies, and joined the faculty in 1980. There were some great years, and some not-so-great, but there’s no doubt I was formed and transformed by the faculty of the seminary.

This is not an exercise in maudlin nostalgia. I’m trying to honor those to whom honor is due, people who worked hard in the Word and doctrine, faithfully passing on the truth they had received. I hope it’s a bit like the inspiring account of the faithful people of God in Hebrews 11, or even like the recollection of key Rabbis in the Mishnah Tractate Pirkei Avot 1-2.

Several of my fellow students from those days who went on to academic ministry could share similar memories—people like Dick Averbeck, Ardel Caneday, Skip Forbes, Don Fowler, Ted Hildebrandt, John Lawlor, Gary Meadors, Gary Phillips, Brent Sandy, and Kevin Zuber. Maybe other GTS alum’s will have something to add. I hope so. Please add your thoughts by using the comments feature at the end of the post.

So, where do I begin?

Charles Ashman (1924-2012)

I wasn’t happy when Prof Ashman’s classes turned out to be seminars where we were responsible to dig out information on pastoral ministry and teach ourselves, but Ashman observed and evaluated our efforts with seasoned wisdom. “A pastor’s heart” is a bit of a cliche, but Ashman embodied and modeled it to us. I still haven’t forgotten our field trip to the funeral home, which included a visit to the embalming room.

S. Wayne Beaver (-2016)

Prof. Beaver brought a wealth of experience from his ministry in the Central African Republic. Like my late GRTS colleague Paul Beals, Beaver had been there and done that, so he taught missions with credibility and insight derived from working long days in the vineyard during the heat of the day. I enjoyed his wry smile and dry sense of humor. [Does anyone have a link to Prof Beaver’s’s obituary?]

S. Herbert Bess

Dr. Bess would casually stroll into the Old Testament Backgrounds classroom with his Hebrew Bible and ask “where were we?” Someone would say something like “you were telling us about Šuppiluliuma and the Hittites,” and off he would go without a pause. He was a master of ancient near eastern history and the Hebrew Bible. Looking back, he was too easy on us in Beginning Hebrew, but I didn’t mind that at the time. [Does anyone have a link to Dr. Bess’s obituary?]

James L. Boyer (1911-2003)

 At first I hated Dr. Boyer’s Greek Exegesis of the Johannine Epistles class, but eventually I came around. Boyer exposed my once saved always saved easy believism by expounding John’s teaching that authentic love for God led to obedience to God’s commandments. You wouldn’t guess from his quiet, unassuming demeanor, that he was a pioneer in computer-assisted analysis of New Testament Greek syntax. His articles on this topic in the Grace Theological Journal are still being cited favorably today. Dr. Herman Hoyt fondly recalled being Dr. Boyer’s classmate at Ashland College.

John J. Davis (1936-2026)

 Dr. Davis taught Old Testament and later took on administrative roles, eventually succeeding Dr. Kent as president of the school. Davis was an autodidact and a polymath (look it up), a prolific author, a talented musician, and an avid fisherman. I didn’t appreciate his absence from class to announce Fort Wayne Komets minor league hockey games, but I later realized that he got Christ’s teaching about being salt and light in the world much better than I did at the time. Davis made some very tough decisions during his presidency.

Paul R. Fink (1930-2013)

Dr. Fink taught Homiletics like a Bible prof, and that wasn’t a bad thing. First day of class he gave us a quiz—write out the books of the Bible in order. You had to do the quiz again the next week if you didn’t get them all right. It took me three weeks to pass it. I had taken a hermeneutics class in college, but I first learned how to do exegesis when I worked on the assignments for those homiletics classes. Dr. Fink believed in expository preaching; he went so far as to require that the points in the sermon manuscript correspond to the Hebrew or Greek syntax of the sermon text. I still think that was a tad too rigid, but I’m still thankful for the discipline that requirement spawned.

Ivan H. French (1925-2013)

 It was clear that Prof. French was first and foremost a faithful pastor and an eloquent preacher (including from 1975-1992 at Pleasant View Bible Church), but he held his own academically. He told great stories, some very funny and some very convicting. Despite his nit-picky quizzes, his Life of Christ and theology classes were as spiritually edifying as they were intellectually challenging. I’ll never forget his description of discipleship as signing a blank contract and handing it back to Jesus to fill in the details, or his line about following Christ, “lead where it may, cost what it might.”

S. Lewis Johnson (1915-2004)

 Dr. Johnson came to Grace as a summer adjunct to teach postgraduate students about the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. This class opened my eyes to the continuity of the Bible and showed me how to study it with this in mind. Johnson showed us that typology, rightly understood, was not a dirty word. He decried specialization, insisting that we be competent in both the Old and New Testaments, including the original languages. He was a true southern gentleman who wore his Calvinism on his sleeve, and that was all right with me.

Homer A. Kent Jr. (1926-2020)

Dr. Kent was like Dr. Boyer, a man whose modesty came across more prominently than his depth of learning. Many remember him as the reluctant president of Grace from 1975-1885 but to me he was a great Greek teacher who modeled analytical exegesis and synthetic exposition. I remember his dry sense of humor, shown by his writing “HAVEYOUEVERSEENABUNDANCEONTHETABLE” on the blackboard to teach us how to read ancient Greek manuscripts. I was honored to contribute a chapter to New Testament Essays, a festschrift that celebrated Dr. Kent’s career, edited by my colleague and pickin’ buddy Gary Meadors.

Robert F. Ramey (1930-2018)

Prof. Ramey taught us Christian Education. He was a kind man who taught at several Bible colleges. He was active in the assemblies associated with Emmaus Bible College (now Emmaus University) in Dubuque Iowa. I best remember Ramey for his line, “Telling is not teaching; listening is not learning.” At the time I didn’t believe him, but it didn’t take long after graduation for me to began to realize he was right.

James Rosscup (1934-2020)

Dr. Rosscup was a summer adjunct who came from Talbot Seminary to teach postgraduate course on abiding in Christ and final judgment. He was an earnest, prayerful man who took 2 Corinthians 5:10-11 very seriously. He made me realize that Christ’s Bema judgment was much more than a heavenly awards chapel.

Charles R. Smith (1935-1990)

̶D̶r̶.̶ ̶S̶m̶i̶t̶h̶- Chuck was the first theology prof I ever had who made me realize that theology wasn’t over—there was still work to be done. Semper reformanda! His bent to refinement got him in trouble with some of the more conservative students who simply wanted to be indoctrinated in Dr. McClain’s syllabi, which were still being used in the classroom. Chuck left Grace in 1986 to become the Dean of a new school in California called the Master’s Seminary. Like my recently deceased friend Dan Treier, Chuck was a non-smoker who died young of lung cancer. Those two pills are hard to swallow.

John A. Sproule (1927-2014)

Dr. Sproule loved his teacher S. Lewis Johnson and modeled his own teaching after Johnson’s. Sproule’s classes were very analytical—not surprising for a former professional engineer—but he had a warm heart for the Lord and the Scriptures and preached widely. Once in class John asked me to parse the Greek verbs in Romans 8:29-30, which are all the same—”third person singular aorist active indicative.” After the third one I impatiently blurted “ditto.” John gave me a dirty look, but moved on unscathed.

Harry A. Sturz

Dr. Sturz was another summer adjunct for postgraduate students from Biola/Talbot. He was a meticulous, exacting scholar of New Testament Textual Criticism, but he was kind and patient with us newbies in the discipline. Unlike most of his peers in the field, Sturz believed the Byzantine text-type (the larger manuscript family of the Textus Receptus, the basis of the King James Version) deserved a hearing, and he wrote a fine book about it. Evangelical textual critics David Alan Black and Dan Wallace both acknowledge their debt to Sturz. I owe my appreciation of New Testament textual criticism to that class with Sturz, but I’ve had little success in persuading others to get involved in that area of study. [Does anyone have a link to Dr. Sturz’s obituary?]

John C. Whitcomb Jr. (1924-2020)

I went to Grace Seminary largely due to Dr. Whitcomb’s influence, that and the recommendation of my college Greek prof Dr. George Lawlor, himself a Grace Seminary grad. Whitcomb taught senior theology, apologetics, and of course the book of Genesis. In Genesis class, he lectured the first half of the semester on Genesis 1-2, inculcating the seven literal 24-hour days of creation. The second half on the semester was about Genesis 8, insisting that Noah’s flood was universal, not local. More than anyone I have ever met, Whitcomb had the whole Bible at his command—when teaching in one book of the Bible, he regularly called up texts from all over the Bible. The concept of entropy, which basically means everything is falling apart, was huge in his thought. He used it to argue that the earth was young and that all human institutions, including Christian colleges and churches, would inevitably decline. A constant outspoken critic of anything he viewed as compromise, Whitcomb sadly was dismissed mid-semester for his public criticisms of the Grace administration and fellow faculty members.

George J. Zemek (1942-2023)

George and I began studies at Grace the same year. Soon God preserved him through serious chest surgery. When I returned to Winona Lake for doctoral studies, he was teaching in the college and assisting with both Greek and Hebrew exegesis classes in the seminary. George asked me to help him with videoing and evaluating homiletics students. That’s George and me (right to left, like Hebrew) in the bad picture above in the seminary homiletics lab upstairs in McClain Hall circa 1980. George was committed like no one else I have ever known to linking every aspect of seminary studies and pastoral ministry to biblical exegesis. He called it doing God’s business God’s way. George went on to teach at the Master’s Seminary and the Expositor’s Seminary. View a former student’s tribute here.

( z”l) Zichronam Livracha/זיכרונם לברכה

As I learned to say with Jewish students at Hebrew Union College, May their memory be a blessing! This comes from Proverbs 10:7, “the memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.”

Rabban Jochanan Ben Zakkai said אִם לָמַדְתָּ תוֹרָה הַרְבֵּה, אַל תַּחֲזִיק טוֹבָה לְעַצְמְךָ, כִּי לְכָךְ נוֹצָרְתָ —”If you have learned much Torah, do not claim credit for yourself, because for such a purpose were you created.” (Pirkei Avot 2.8). As we remember our teachers and assess our own learning, we are reminded that God created them and us to be stewards and teachers of the mysteries of God (1 Cor 4:1). May he find us faithful!

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 Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:7-8 NIV)

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The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. (1 Timothy 5:17 NIV)

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You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.  And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer. Similarly, anyone who competes as an athlete does not receive the victor’s crown except by competing according to the rules. The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops. Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this. (2 Timothy 2:1-7 NIV)

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* In the GTS seminary faculty picture, from left to right:

Kneeling: Brent Sandy, Steve Strehle, Larry Overstreet, Dan Wallace, John Davis. Standing: Wayne Beaver, Chuck Smith, James Boyer, George Zemek, Don Fowler, Don Ogden, Bob Ibach, Jim Eisenbraun, John Whitcomb, Ivan French, Bill Male, Lee Jenkins, Homer Kent, Lee Kantenwein, John Sproule, Dick Averbeck, David Turner, Wayne Knife