Last month, one of our elders shared with me a post about Pastor Robert G. Raymond (1915-1990). Dr. Rayburn was a very significant hero of American Presbyterianism.
You can read a short bio on Dr. Rayburn produced by the PCA Historical Center, a quirky labor of love sponsored by the Administrative Committee of the PCA and directed by quirky scholar, Wayne Sparkman. Wayne is a master of all things PCA history; I’m not ashamed to admit that I have reached out to Wayne several times to pose challenging questions about how the PCA works. It just so happens that Wayne was recently interviewed on the blog, I heart the PCA. He was also recently honored by historian, David Calhoun, in the dedication of his new book, Swift and Beautiful.
Dr. Rayburn was a heroic minister in so many ways. He was a dedicated chaplain to service men and women, first in 1944-1946, just after receiving his doctorate, and then again in 1950-1952 during the Korean War. As to the latter, he wrote a book, Fight the Good Fight: A Book for Servicemen. In between his service to our country, he was pastor of a church that would one day become very dear to me, College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, which must have been a strange experience to him arriving in Wheaton given that he graduated from Wheaton College not even eight years earlier. It must have also been a strange experience leaving this church to serve in Korea. College Church is a non-denominational church where I experienced my call to ministry. Dr. Rayburn was also the first president of Covenant College, originally located in Pasadena, California but quickly moved to St. Louis, Missouri (and finally Lookout Mountain, GA in 1964). And he was the first president of my seminary, Covenant Theological Seminary, serving the school for 21 years, retiring in 1977 but teaching homiletic courses (i.e. preaching) until 1989. Finally, Dr. Rayburn was a strong advocate in 1982 for the merging of two wonderful denominations, his own (known as the RPCES) and the PCA.
I look forward to meeting this great man in heaven. Of the many reasons to admire Dr. Rayburn (and there are many), I love that he earnestly used the pulpit of Jesus to offer the good news of Jesus. He says to young ministers,
“If you are concerned to please God in your preaching you will be careful to make your preaching pre-eminently evangelistic. By this I mean that you will be continually presenting a Savior to sinful men. No ordained minister has a nobler function than this. Jesus came to save sinners, to preach the gospel to the poor. To be evangelical one does not need to be traditional, but he must be informed and intelligent.”
