Stephen Nichols, Crossway, 371 pages, 4 of 5 stars

I was in college when my parents received a flyer from Ligonier Ministries. The first teaching series I ordered was on the Five Solas. I was hooked. I’ve loved Sproul ever since.

It was with great excitement that I read Sproul’s bio written by Stephen Nichols. The book is balanced, inciteful, warm, and loaded with doctrine and humorous stories. For a full summary of the biography, look HERE.

I thought I knew the man well. But did you know that Sproul…?

1. Said he was the only person in church history to be converted by reading Ecclesiastes 11:3.
2. Earned a doctorate from the Free University of Amsterdam, even though he never wrote a dissertation.
3. Would speak Dutch to Cornelius Van Til as they sat on the man’s porch outside Philadelphia.
4. Married Tim and Kathy Keller, who were also students at the Ligonier Valley Study Center.
5. Wrote all through the night the 19 affirmations and denials of the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, after the person assigned to the task failed to produce them.
6. Had 18,000 students and 800 resident students pass through his study center in 1977, only the sixth year of the school.
7. Was aboard the deadliest crash in Amtrak history, where 42 of the 202 passengers were killed.
8. Described the Evangelicals and Catholics Together affair as the most difficult time in his life.
9. Wrote vows for the board members and faculty of Reformation Bible College, to be recited annually, which included the Apostles’ and Chalcedonian creeds, the five solas and the consensus of the Reformed confession.
10. Within a few days after his death, had over 17,000 responses from around the world respond to the prompt from Crossway: “I am grateful for R.C. Sproul because….”

I love biographies and this does not disappoint. I only wish Nichols had added more stories and details about his family. For propriety sake, however, I can understand why they didn’t.

This is a book in which pastors can wade and children and lay people can swim. God used R.C. Sproul to serve the church by helping her to love and better understand apologetics, inerrancy, music, sovereignty, friendship, humour, economics and especially the holiness of God. May the Lord raise up more like him.