Tim Reynolds

R.C., Me and the Maverick Molecule

by | Dec 15, 2017

When I met R. C. Sproul, I was spanking new to this theology thing.
We were at Westminster Seminary in California, it must have been 1996, and had just finished an evening seminar on the Providence of God. I came after work to join Fikret for R.C.’s class on God’s rule over the universe, and how it kept human responsibility and culpability but did not allow for free will.
 
In the lecture he explained to us his famous analogy of the Maverick Molecule. But I still was not convinced.
 
After class I waited for my turn to speak with him and told him this sovereignty thing doesn’t work.  “Look at Ezekiel 33:11 and 2 Peter 3:9,” I said.
 
He explained how we have to look at context. Ezekiel was speaking to Israel…and he went into detail about that passage. Then he said the “everyone” of 2 Peter 3:9 has to mean something that coincides with the rest of Scripture.
 
I stopped him mid-thought. I said, “You can’t twist words to make the Bible say what you want it to say.”
 
The people around us gasped. I really had no idea who R.C. Sproul was. All I thought was “this guy” is disregarding those verses for the sake of his idea.
 

“I’M NOT TWISTING WORDS….”

…I can still hear his raised-voice (but humored) appeal echoing through the years.
 

Quite the contrary. That arrogant snipe I was got struck with the non-existence of the maverick molecule. And R.C.’s teaching got lodged into our hearts and minds.

 

We soaked up tape series after tape series, graduating to video tapes. Eventually we got the DVDs and kept learning more and more of the God R.C. had been trying to tell us about. The God who IS. And HOW he is.

 

They talk about ships that pass in the night. One moment in time forever changing me and my husband. It was a slow change, but this was the moment. For me at least. Lucky Fikret had full-time of this amazing thing at Westminster Seminary with other teachers like Peter Jones and John Frame and Robert Godfrey.

Me, I had R.C. Sproul. Until I met John Gerstner a few years ago.

Ships that pass in the night, but he gave some precious cargo. For that–for his being ready and willing to be used by God for dispersing that cargo–I am eternally grateful to God.

I am not the only one who is writing today about R.C. I am reading over and over of other people whose stories were like mine.  The way he chose to live his life really changed the world.

Benjamin Franklin once said,

“If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.”

R.C. Sproul’s life and death reminds me of this. His principle of working as long as it is today is summarized in these loaded words:

“I’ll retire when they pull my cold dead fingers off my Bible.”

May we all be as diligent. May we all invest ourselves in such a way. Ten-fold. So when the Lord returns he says to us:

“Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with little, I will put you in charge of much” (Matt 25:23).