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 As
one thinks of all the great Baptists
one could include in these biographies, he might overlook
a man like A.T. Robertson. In fact, as great a work as Timothy
George's Baptist Theologians is, it excludes Robertson. Of
course George could not include every Baptist and we are thankful
for his great contribution; but A.T. Robertson stands near
the top of influential Baptists for many reasons. A.T. Robertson
was born in the worst possible of times in the South.1
It was 1863 and the Civil War was already taking a bad turn
for the Southern cause. A.T.'s father was a country doctor
and plantation owner who lost the majority of his fortune
during and after the war. After suffering the devastating
effects of Reconstruction, the family moved to Statesville,
North Carolina to work a small farm. There on the farm, A.T.
learned to make things grow. He would spend most of his life
making the Word of God grow in the hearts of people around
the world.
Because
there was no Baptist church in Statesville, the family attended
a Presbyterian church three weeks out of the month and a small
Baptist mission one Sunday of each month. Soon a Baptist church
was formed by Rev. J.B. Boone and Rev. A.C. Dixon of Asheville.
Dixon would later become the pastor of Spurgeon's Tabernacle
in London. Not long after the formation of the new Baptist
church, Robertson was baptized in March of 1876 and soon announced
God's call on him to preach.
In
1879, A.T. headed off to Wake Forest to attend College. At
the age of sixteen he had little formal education and even
less money. Due to the generosity of a friend, A.T. had enough
money for his train ticket with $2.50 left over when he arrived
on campus. Seminary students face many financial challenges
to this day but they were even greater then. Few families
in the South had any funds to support children as they headed
off to college and seminary and most students could barely
scrape by.
Once
at Wake Forest, it appeared that Robertson was made for school.
He quickly established himself as a brilliant student. In
spite of having no high school education at all, A.T. graduated
from Wake Forest in six years as Valedictorian. From Wake
Forest, the young scholar headed for The Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He was already
so advanced that he took Senior Greek his first year and within
two years was a Greek instructor under the great Dr.
John A. Broadus. On November 22, 1894, A.T. married Broadus'
daughter and sadly helped his wife bury her father just four
months later.
Robertson
exemplified the Baptist tradition of preaching scholars. He
was no bookworm academic. During seminary days he worked in
an inner-city mission, supplied in various pulpits, and learned
to be a soul-winner during a D.L. Moody crusade. No matter
how great his fame grew as a world-renowned Greek scholar,
Robertson never lost his love for preaching. To him, preaching
was a far higher calling than holding a chair in a seminary.
He once said; "Get into close grip with Christ, if He is tugging
at your heart to put you into the ministry. If Christ puts
you in, you will stay in and not be sorry, but count it your
chief glory to have been counted worthy of that high dignity."
2
This aspect of Robertson explains why there have been so few
Baptists considered to be great theologians in the wider Christian
community. Most Baptist theologians of the past were first
and foremost, preachers, pastors, and teachers. Because of
this emphasis on close contact with laity, many men who were
great thinkers and theologians made their writing and ecumenical
ministry secondary to their first calling. One needs only
to hear Robertson himself to feel his passion for preaching:
"The
demand for ministers of the Gospel today is just the same
as it was in the first century. Nor has preaching lost its
power over the hearts of men ... no printed page can permanently
supply the place of the man who has looked into the face of
sinful men and presses home with burning words the sense of
sin and the redemption in Jesus Christ." 3
None
of this is to say that Robertson did not have a broader ministry
because he did. A.T. made major impacts on the world through
two very different avenues. The first avenue was his contact
with Baptists and evangelicals worldwide. In the early 1900's,
AT. was a founding member of the Baptist World Congress now
known as The Baptist World Alliance. In 1914 his ministry
was also broadened through a series of summer Bible conferences
with D.L. Moody and F.B. Meyer, introducing Robertson to thousands
of pastors and layman alike.
A
second avenue of broader ministry came in the books which
he wrote. In all Robertson wrote 41 books ranging from great
grammars to simple character studies. Two of those works stand
out as hallmarks of A.T.'s love for God's Word. His "Big Grammar"
was the result of nearly twenty-six years of preparation.
In 1912 the first issue of his 1400 page grammar of the Greek
New Testament was published and remains to this day, the consummate
work on the Koine Greek language which the New Testament was
written in. Consider the accolades given to the "Big Grammar"
by Robertson's contemporaries. B.B. Warfield called it "monumental".
G. Campbell Morgan said it was "the final on the New Testament".
And Mr Baptist, George W. Truett exclaimed, "I would exchange
a billion dollars for it." Robertson's six volume work, Word
Pictures in the New Testament, has been used by
preachers, scholars, and layman to this day.
If
ever a man exhibited Christlikeness, Robertson did. He knew
when to be tough and when to be tender. He was a kind man
but a bear of a teacher. One student wrote, "He felt called
of God to take the strut and conceit out of young preachers."
4 W.A.
Criswell studied under Robertson as a seminarian and said
that he was "the greatest scholar under whom it was my privilege
to study. His way of teaching did not inspire me so much as
it frightened me into hours and hours of studying." 5
A.T.
Robertson's intensity came from his intense love for the Word
of God. He revealed what being a Baptist is all about when
he exclaimed, "How can they expect to preach the Book unless
they know it?" One student wrote: "lectures were never dull,
but sparkling with wit ... He made the New Testament live.
One could feel his depth of loved for the Lord and for students..."
6
That
insight and wit was legendary among the students at Southern
Seminary during Robertson's teaching days. Here are just a
few of insightful sayings:
-
"The
greatest proof that the Bible is inspired is that it has
stood so much bad preaching."
-
"There
are so many young Spurgeons, but so few of them grow up."
"It is easier to preach than it is to talk, because when
you talk you have to say something."
-
"Give
a man an open Bible, an open mind, a conscience in good
working order, and he will have a hard time to keep from
being a Baptist."
It
is appropriate that A.T. Robertson had just finished teaching
when he went home to be with His Lord. He had taught that
day on Matthew 14:21 on the feeding of the five thousand.
He himself had brought little to God when he entered college
not having even attended high school. God multiplied A.T.'s
abilities a thousand fold enabling millions to feed more richly
on God's Word because of him. After his death, Moody Monthly
wrote of Robertson; "What a treasure he has left behind him
for the coming generations of Christian teachers and preachers.
What a debt the church will ever owe to him through the grace
of God."
Return
to Portraits Page
1
A.T. Robertson by Evertt Gill, New York: The MacMillan Co.,
1943. (The majority of our background information is drawn
from this source).
2
Review and Expositor, Winter 1985, (p.80).
3
The Glory of the Ministry by A.T. Robertson, Fleming H. Revell
Co., 1911, pp. 68-69.
4
A.T. Robertson, p. 111.
5
Review and Expositor, pp. 21-29
6
Fundamentalist Journal, Dec. 86, pp. 31-32.
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