A nice short bio of Dr. Earnest Pickering and the new ed. of "Biblical Separation"

Excellent article and a reminder of a true soldier of the faith. And yet, Dr Pickering achieved that balance of soldiering with love.

Dr Pickering was our deputation director when we started with Baptist World Mission. Two things stand out in my mind.

We shared two missions conferences with Dr Pickering within just few weeks. He was the featured speaker at both of them. In Allen Park, MI the church crowd was full of upper class folks and it was full of seminary students. I don't remember the message now, but was impressed with his ability to speak with intellectualism and clarity.

Just a couple of weeks later we were together at a church in Murfreesboro, TN. Here the church was composed of farmers and working people. Many of them had not finished high school, much less college or seminary. He had us to turn to the same text as at Allen Park and I thought, "Doc, you can't preach that message to these dear folks." As he proceeded I his love and compassion showed through. He preached the same message, but he was able to adapt it to a while different crowd. I learned a few valuable lessons that day. One was that the Holy Spirit is not bound by "classes" of people. The other was that a loving preacher is able to sense the needs of his hearers and meet them where they are. The amazing thing is that he did this with out any kind of condescending attitude.

The other great impression he made on me was the last time I heard him preach at a BWM annual meeting in Sellersville, PA. The cancer had already begun to take its toll. The was blind and feeble. I wondered as he was led to the pulpit if he or the mission board knew what they were doing. In spite of his blindness his opened his Bible and boldly, clearly, and succinctly proclaimed God's word.

I learned a lot from Dr Pickering. I learned that I can love and still be a fundamentalist. I learned about Bible balance. I learned about meeting people where they are when I preached. And I learned about faithfulness.

I don't believe in human heroes, but if I did Dr Pickering would be one of mine.

 

Great take on Dr. Pickering's life. He was a gracious, gentlemanly, scholarly, strong fundamentalist. I am reminded of a description I once read in a western novel about the hero: "He was strong enough to be gentle." We were blessed to have him at BWM as long as we did, as my colleagues 4His_Glory and Roger will agree. :applause:

 

How true. I would contend that we do not know God if we do not love.