Thank God for Unknown Faithful Servants

Few people have had more of an impact on me than Ronald E. Wright. He was a professor of theology at Southern California College (now known as Vanguard University) from 1975-99.

I met him by accident. I needed a class my second day of college because the one I was enrolled in closed, and so I ran to my admissions counselor for a new one. He told me Introduction to Theology started five minutes ago so I ran from his office saying "Sign me up."

I had no idea that I was walking into a period of a little over 3 months that would radically transform my life, the ripple effects of which are still breaking on the shores of my life to this very day.

He was an eccentric older man who always wore very colorful shirts, but what drew me to Ron was how I left his classes loving Jesus more than when I walked in. I have never met a teacher that has had this kind of effect on me, and I pray I will emulate him in this respect some day.

Within a week of being in Intro to Theology I had moved from the back row to the front row and had purchased a tape recorder with dozens of 90 minute tapes because I could not believe his words were going into the air and disappearing forever.

By the end of my time at SCC I had taken 8 classes from Ron and sat in on another 3 or 4, never missing a day because each class had to be recorded. I also attended his Sunday school class until he passed away from a heart attack in March 2002.

I count it as a real gift of God's providential grace to me that He would cross my path with Ron Wright. He set the sails of my theological life, especially as it concerns the inerrancy of Scripture, the absolute sovereignty of God and His grace, the surpassing glory of Christ and the full provision and power of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.

I will write more about Ron later, but for now my only regret is that he wrote very little, keeping him relatively unknown today. He told me he planned on writing after he retired, but he never got the chance. However, it is my prayer that he will remain unknown no longer.

For the past two weeks I have begun digitizing all my class tapes, turning them into mp3s. From here, I hope to start a website that will promote the glory of God by the propagation of His Word through Ron Wright. So far, I've digitized his classes on Romans and Galatians (the best class I've ever taken) and Pneumatology (one of the best).

From here I plan on digitizing his classes on The Sermon on the Mount, The Prison Epistles, The Corinthian Epistles, The Pastoral Epistles and his classes on church history, Bibliology, Theology Proper, Anthropology, Hamartiology, Christology and Soteriology. His three-year exposition of The Book of Revelation on Sunday mornings is also planned.

While many of us gravitate to popular Christian heroes, living and dead, I thank God for His relatively unknown servants like Ron who faithfully teach His Word, train others to do the same and give up-and-comers a hero to emulate.