The Life of Isaac Backus
Isaac Backus was born in a Connecticut farmhouse in 1724. His family was Congregationalists and it was that faith in which he was raised throughout his formative years. He was just reaching denominational stature as the American Revolution began. His thoughts and beliefs are echoed in much of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Backus was a spiritual child of the Great Awakening and his conversion is directly linked to the work of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield.
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The Life of John Bunyan
John Bunyan was born in Bedforsdhire, England in 1628. Bunyan came from the working class and understood poverty early in life. Bunyan came to Christ in 1656, and it was not long before Bunyan's willingness and drive to preach the gospel everywhere got him into trouble. By 1660, Anglican royalists had stepped up their attacks on non-conformist preachers (Baptists, Congregationalists, and Puritans in general). It became illegal to preach in non-sanctioned places. So on Nov 12, 1660, John Bunyan was arrested for preaching in a field near a farmhouse.
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The Life of Christmas Evans
Known as the "one eyed Bunyan of Wales", Evans remains an unusual and yet very useful sevant on God's army. Due to the circumstances of his life, Christmas found himself illiterate and irreligious at the age of eighteen. Finally, sick of his condition, Evans ran away from his abusive uncle and the life which held him in its snare. In God's sovereignty, a revival was waiting on Evans when he arrived at his new home town. It was there that he was converted and came to know the Lord.
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The Life of Adonirum Judson
Adonirum Judson was born in 1788, the son of a devout Congregationalist minister. From early in his life he excelled in everything he touched. So excellent was young Judson's scholarship that he was enrolled at Rhode Island Christian College at the age of 16. Unlike many other missionaries, Adnorium did not have an early call from God or love for Him. In fact, Judson fell in with a number of atheists, chief of which was James Eames who became his dear friend.
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The Life of Asahel Nettleton
During his years at Yale he justly gained the respect of his classmates as having unmixed sincerity in his devotion to Christ and earnestness in his desire for the salvation of his friends. Beyond the necessary study of the liberal arts curriculum, he gave his time to theological study and the development of a capacity for spiritual discernment. During a revival in 1807 at Yale, Nettleton was effective as a spiritual counselor. His career at Yale prompted the judgment from Yale's President, Timothy Dwight: "He will make one of the most useful men this country has ever seen."
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The Life of A. T. Robertson
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.
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The Life of J. P. Boyce
J. P. Boyce was a man of deep doctrinal convictions. His good humor and gentle spirit were coupled with a tenacious desire to uphold the truth. Sometimes he could reprimand other's faulty thinking with a bit of a joke. It was well known among the students that Dr. Boyce was quite the seamstress. Once at a Southern Baptist Convetion, a colleague lost a button. Boyce offered to sew it back on. When thanked for the kind act, Boyce replied, "Ah, Brother - I only wish I could mend your theology as easily."
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The Life of William Carey
Just as both Bunyan and Spurgeon rose from rural obscurity, so did William Carey. His parents were rather plain people who belonged to the accepted church. Soon after his conversion William Carey began to speak at various Dissenting churches and soon felt called to pastor among the Baptists. If Carey's future success had been judged by his early days in preaching he would have been deemed hopeless for the ministry. He was never considered a good speaker. Carey was slight of build, prematurely bald, and crude in his speech.
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The Life of Andrew Fuller
Andrew Fuller was born on February 5, 1174 in Wicken, Cambridgeshire, England. He was the son of poor Baptist farmers. Because Fuller ministered during the same era as George Whitfield and the Wesley brothers it would be easy for his name to get lost in their giant shadows. He pastored two congregations during his life at Soham (1775-1782) and at Kettering (1782-1806).
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The Life of John Gill
Dr. John Gill stands as one of the most important and yet misunderstood of our Baptist forefathers. His spirituality and intellect were only matched by the intensity with which others loved him or reviled him. Tom Nettles says of Gill, "He has doubtless been judged more harshly and even maliciously than any man of comparable repute in Baptist history."
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The Life of R. G. Lee
Robert Green Lee was born in a three room log cabin in South Carolina on November 11th, 1886. He was the fifth child of David and Sarah Lee and a distant relative of General Robert E. Lee. While having such a famous forefather these Lees were a poor family, barely making it as sharecroppers. When Robert was born the black midwife (a former slave) who attended Lee's birth cried out, "Praise God! Glory be! The good Lord has done sent a preacher to this here house." Indeed a preacher had been born!
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The Life of A. W. Pink
At the turn of the twentieth century, the major Baptist bodies were Arminian, to the extent that most people had forgotten that originally most Baptists were Calvinists. It is against this background that the Lord raised up a mighty voice for the old Puritan truths of Scripture. Enter Arthur Walkington Pink (18861952), who was converted in 1908 and simultaneously called to the gospel ministry. In 1910 he left England and enrolled at Moody Bible Institute and began reading the works of Jonathan Edwards, John Calvin, Augustine, Ralph Erskine, Andrew Fuller, and Robert Haldane. The rest, as they say, is history.
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The Life of Charles Spurgeon
Like many young people of his day, Charles struggled over his relationship with God for a number of years. It was common in those days for children to be encouraged to seek after God with their whole heart. There was no such quickness to get people "to make a decision" as we see in many of our churches today. Just as John Bunyan struggled against God, Spurgeon remembered how he fought against the idea of giving into Christ's Lordship.
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