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Portrait of Integrity @ 2004 by Mark S. Mitchell
Library of Congress Cataloging-in- publication
Data Online edition by special permission of Discovery
House Publishers. |
Dear Reader,
I loved Ray Stedman! And I am unashamed to tell you that tears exploded from my eyes as I read several passages of this book by Mark Mitchell. I literally sobbed with joy and gratitude to God for this one life-this God-centered, Christ-honoring, Spirit-filled life.
What I remember most about Ray Stedman: Ray was humorous. He was filled with the joy of the Lord. Ray was a real man. He was a man's man in every way. Ray was authentic. He loved you enough to firmly rebuke you when needed. His practical application of Scripture quickly shook your conscience. Ray Stedman made biblical exposition seem utterly simple! Over and over he used these three principles: observation, interpretation, application.
While serving as one of Ray Stedman's first two interns (Charles Swindoll was the other), I also grew to value his unique way of counseling. I remember Ray telling me: "Get past the facade, the smoke screen, and go straight for the soul. All man's problems stem from the ego-pride. The answers, of course, to the ego are Jesus Christ and Scripture, principle and truth-so lead them there." I have practiced ... that advice for years on TV, radio, and in personal counseling.
Ray loved his daughters to the point of tears of pain. He always believed they would one day walk with God in amazing ways. Ray's wife, Elaine, made Jesus Christ, their daughters, and the ministry her first priority. Ray never took that for granted.
Ray lived out the resurrected indwelling life of a Christian unlike any man I have known, and he taught us well.
Were there any weaknesses in Ray Stedman's life? Sure, he was human!! But of this I am quite certain: Ray Stedman was a faithful servant of Jesus Christ throughout his lifetime and will enjoy the Lord's "Well done!" for all eternity.
--Luis Palau
To my wife, Lynn, the one and only love of my life, and a portrait of integrity.
CONTENTS
Foreword by Howard
G. Hendricks
Introduction
Acknowledgments
1. A Father to Me
2. Learning the Ground Rules
3. A Soldier in Active Service
4. Equipped for Every Good Work
5. Laying a Foundation
6. A Steward of the Mysteries of God
7. The Winds of Change
8. Treasure in a Clay Pot
9. Contending for the Faith
10. Passing the Torch
11. Ready for Something Tremendous
Appendix
Notes (inserted in text)
Sources Consulted
Books by Ray C. Stedman
Photographs
EVERY YOUNG MAN WHO survives the challenge of a lonely childhood secretly embraces a hope that one day he will meet a soul brother, a kindred spirit, another guy who sees life the same way he does. So when I met Ray Stedman on the post-WWII campus of Dallas Theological Seminary, the two of us bonded immediately. In His all-knowing wisdom God sometimes designs a rocky path for spunky little boys, a maze of twists and turns with dark shadows and blank walls. When a man finally emerges, he spots another grown-up doggie right away.
From opposite sides of the North American continent, Ray and I melded together our permanent heart connection. Both of us were sure of where we wanted to go, and here was a comrade for the journey. We were marching in a war-weary world that was done with victory parades and monuments. Our generation was asking, "Now what?"
Ray brought his western outdoorsmanship, honed with military exposure and Pentecostal roots. I contributed my eastern conservatism polished with college disciplines and Presbyterian flavoring. Together we sat in classrooms absorbing ancient biblical truth; together we leaned against tree trunks and squatted in the shade of campus pecan branches to sort out what it all meant for the spiritual mixmaster where we found ourselves.
We hacked away at theological mysteries and proposed our solutions, pounding and kneading them, only then to discard them and start all over again the next day with altered assumptions. Our theological wrestling matches always ended with a win-win verdict. Each of us was clarifying in his mind what we knew God wanted in the years ahead. As graduation approached, our focus narrowed and we agreed to a split teamwork. Ray would go back to the West Coast and I would stay someplace east of the Rockies. Together we would trust God to incubate a new batch of young leaders to show mid-century USA the power of biblical belief and practice.
Now, it's been more than a decade since God called Ray home to heaven. His departure left a cavernous hole in my heart. I have missed him more than words can ever express. Our visceral linkage never detached, but always vibrated with a mutual love. Though we lived many miles distant from each other, every phone call or visit or hastily scribbled note started as if the previous one had simply ended with a comma and this was the continuation.
Ray's exceptional contribution was not only to me personally, but to his constantly expanding world. The life-changing message of God's grace in Christ had ignited his inner confidence in such a way that every fiber of his being was devoted to translating an accurate representation of Jesus Christ to our ever-more-secularized world. Consequently, every message he delivered was a carefully prepared feast for hungry hearts. He did his exegetical homework with diligence, but just as intently he scrutinized his society. And thus he engaged his listeners with logic and irrefutable data so compelling that any hearer had to respond. Whether he addressed two or three informally, or several thousand in a large meeting, Ray was always the same-conversational, confident, and magnetic.
Ray defied every stereotype. He was totally approachable, never wanting to be known as a condescending cleric. He spoke as an ordinary man, but his words seared permanently like a tattoo. He was affable, warm, yet exacting, but he never scarred an earnest seeker. He was spiritual but never churchy; he was impatient with pretense, angry with arrogance, but always at ease with the awkwardness of a crippled sheep seeking spiritual shelter.
Ray was rough-hewn but never abrasive; he was always a gentleman, never coarse or crude. He loved to laugh and learned to lay his deepest sorrows on his Lord, so that in the midst of disappointment he could still rejoice. His eye was fixed on an eternal objective.
I am a rich man for having had a companionship with Ray Stedman. My heart beats with anticipation to catch up with him in heaven. For those who know only the sweet aroma of his lasting fragrance, Mark Mitchell has crafted a remarkable literary likeness of Ray. Read it to meet one of the most attractive men who ever walked this earth. Like Abel, ': . . by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead. "
Ray was unique, impossible to encapsulate in words, but he was a man through whom God's Spirit brought light to darkened minds, a man totally devoted to serving our Savior, and solid proof that it is not the man but the message that makes the difference.
Howard G. Hendricks
Distinguished Professor
Chairman, Center for Christian Leadership
Dallas Theological Seminary
January 2004
The writer of Hebrews charges every new generation with the task of remembering past leaders: "Remember your leaders who first taught you the word of God. Think of all the good that has come from their lives, and trust the Lord as they do" (Hebrews 13:7 NLT).
Ray Stedman was one of the great pastors and leaders of a generation of evangelicals that is quickly passing away. From a secular standpoint, Tom Brokaw calls this "the greatest generation." Whether or not Ray Stedman's generation of evangelicals was the greatest, they certainly leave a legacy that today's generation cannot afford to neglect.
When asked why a biography of Ray Stedman should be written, Ray's longtime friend Howard Hendricks responded, "We're living in a generation in which the pedestals are empty. . . . One of the disadvantages of our generation is that it's called the 'Now Generation' because the past is irrelevant, the future is uncertain; therefore they live for the present. The result is they have historical amnesia and need to know the men of the last generation, upon whose shoulders we stand today. Ray certainly qualifies, I believe. He was a much more important leader in evangelicalism than most Christians would know, because of his incredible humility. He was never a self-promoter. He never sought high positions. But everywhere I go, to this day when I mention Ray Stedman's name I get an incredible response. . . . He would be a candidate, in my mind, for a position on the Mount Rushmore of evangelicals." ( Howard Hendricks, interview by author, Summer 200l.)
J. I. Packer also recognized Ray as one of those great leaders. In an endorsement of an expositional commentary written by Kent Hughes, Packer made the following reference to Stedman: "Throughout the Christian centuries, from Crysostom and Augustine through Luther, Calvin, and Matthew Henry, to Martin Lloyd-Jones and Ray Stedman, working pastors have been proving themselves to be the best of all Bible expositors." (R. Kent Hughes, Colossians and Philemon, The Supremacy of Christ, 2nd edition (Westchester: Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, 1995). Quotation is from the back of the book jacket.)
Is Packer right in placing Stedman among the likes of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin? Consider his legacy:
In 1948, when Ray Stedman came to what was then called Peninsula Bible Fellowship (later to become Peninsula Bible Church), he began what became a prototype for the first "seeker sensitive" church. When I arrived at Peninsula Bible Church (PBC) as a new Christian in 1974, it was packed with teenagers. Having been raised in a Roman Catholic home, this was the first Protestant church I had ever entered; yet I felt immediately at home. The building was simple, and the style of the worship service was casual. Blue jeans were the norm, and contemporary music filled the place with praise. Ray encouraged people to stand up and share about their struggles and sins so the body could "bear one another's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ." (Galatians 6:2 NASB)
In one important sense, however, Ray's ministry was unlike the modern seeker-sensitive movement, which often abandons biblical exposition in favor of topical preaching that seeks relevancy by focusing on "felt needs." Ray believed that nothing could be more exciting and more relevant to the needs of people than the Scriptures being taught as they should be. Throughout his ministry, he remained committed to biblical exposition, but did so in a way that communicated clearly even to those without any religious background. When Ray preached, unchurched people felt he was talking to them. In other words, Ray believed biblical exposition is the most seeker-sensitive thing a preacher can do!
Stedman's high regard for the Word of God and biblical exposition was at the heart of what he believed the church is all about. "I'm very much persuaded that the power of preaching is, by God's design, the most powerful motivation of a congregation that you will ever see," he said. "Nothing turns people on like God's truth, and when they see the remarkable plan of God for the functioning of His people, they can hardly wait to find opportunity to put it into practice. And much of the artificial prods that we use today to get people going are simply a confession on our part that we have not found the way to motivate people by the power of the preaching of the Word of God." ( Lecture at Glen Eyrie, unpublished article, n.d.)
Though conservative in his theology, Ray Stedman was a radical in the area of ecclesiology. At PBC, Ray birthed many of the things we take for granted in the evangelical church today and chronicled it all in Body Life, his seminal book on the church. In this book, which has sold thousands of copies since it was first published in 1972, Ray applied the New Testament vision of the church as the body of Christ to a new generation. He believed the work of the ministry should be done by people in the pews rather than by professionals and that the role of pastors is to equip the saints to use their spiritual gifts. In keeping with this conviction, Ray deplored all things ecclesiastical, even refusing to be called the senior pastor of PBC. He avoided anything that promoted hierarchical separation in the church, and he insisted that the church be led by servant-leaders (called elders) who were responsible to Christ, the Living Head of the body.
Ray's commitment to equipping the saints also extended to the training of pastors. He loved mentoring young men who desired to teach the Scriptures, and he believed that pastors should be trained in the local church rather than in the seminary. Along with David Roper, Ray started Scribe School, a two-year internship program with heavy emphasis on biblical languages, where many pastors were trained over the years. Ray's vision to train pastors also found expression in a successful pastors' conference where for years he and his colleagues taught the principles of Body Life to hundreds of Christian leaders. It is a testimony to the success of Ray's vision that when he retired there was no need to hire a pastor to replace him. Several men already on staff were well prepared to preach and lead the church. And today, many Scribe School graduates, including myself, minister throughout the nation and the world.
One of the men profoundly influenced by Ray Stedman was Charles Swindoll. At one point in his life, after he and several pastors had met with Ray, Swindoll reflected, ''As we said good-bye to Ray, I walked a little slower. I thought about the things he had taught me without directly instructing me and about the courage he had given me without deliberately exhorting me. I wondered how it happened. I wondered why I had been so privileged to have my 'face' reflected in his 'water' or my 'iron' sharpened by his 'iron' . . . I found myself wanting to run back to his car and tell him how much I love and admire him. But it was late, and after all I'm a fifty-five-year-old man. A husband. A father. A grandfather. A pastor. . . . But as I stood there alone in the cold night air, I suddenly realized what I wanted to be most when I grow up." ( Charles Swindoll, Of Servants and Mentors, unpublished article, n.d.)
It is my hope that this biography of Ray Stedman will provide a new generation of evangelicals a refreshing and relevant model of what to be when they grow up.
I WISH TO ACKNOWLEDGE the invaluable assistance and encouragement of Elaine Stedman, wife of Ray Stedman, and their four daughters, Sheila, Susan, Linda, and Laurie. This biography was written with their permission and support.
The Ray C. Stedman Library, maintained by Discovery Publishing on the Peninsula Bible Church Web site (http://pbc.org) and containing many of Ray's sermons and four of his books in their entirety, was also a tremendous source of information about Ray Stedman and his ministry. [Note: Since this book was published, the Ray Stedman Library has its own new web site, http://raystedman/org --ed.].
Joanie Burnside's unpublished history of Peninsula Bible Church from 1948 to 1998, A Stone's Throw, was an invaluable resource, as was Wade Whitcomb's unpublished homiletic biography on Ray Stedman, "Passing of the Torch."
I also wish to acknowledge Ruth N. Brandon for her tireless work in preparing the dissertation stage of this manuscript, as well as her assistance with the bibliography of Ray Stedman's writings.
I am grateful to Haddon Robinson for his encouragement and counsel in this project and for presenting the manuscript to Discovery House. And many thanks to Judith Markham at Discovery House for her skillful editorial work.
Thank you also to Jim Arthur and the kind people of Winifred, Montana, who gave me a deeper understanding of Ray Stedman's roots. It would have been hard to understand Ray without a visit to Winifred.
Gratitude also to those who were so generous with their time in granting interviews and/or helpful information via e-mail: Lambert Dolphin, Bev Forsyth, Doug Goins, Jim and Marian Heaton, Howard and Jeanne Hendricks, Bill Lawrence, Brian Morgan, Ray Ortlund, Jr., Luis Palau, Bob Roe, David and Carolyn Roper, David Smith, Wendell Sheets, Alan Stedman, Jimmy Stewart, and Steve Zeisler.
I am grateful to the people of Central Peninsula Church, whom I have served as Teaching Pastor since 1986, for giving me the freedom to pursue this project and putting up with endless sermon illustrations from the life of Ray Stedman. It is a joy to serve Christ with you.
Finally, I am deeply grateful to my family for their support, encouragement, good humor, and unconditional love. I wish to thank my wife, Lynn, and my three children: Anne-Marie, Kimberly, and Matthew. Thanks also go to my father, Stewart W. Mitchell, for always believing in me and encouraging me to set the highest goals.
Mark S. Mitchell
February 2004
IN FORTY YEARS OF PREACHING at Peninsula Bible Church, Ray Stedman rarely mentioned his parents. One could easily have gotten the impression that Ray showed up on this earth much like Adam: lovingly formed by his heavenly Father and placed in a garden called Montana, but without an earthly father or mother to nurture him along the way. Ray certainly had parents, but his childhood, like many, was not idyllic.
Ray's father, Charles Leslie Stedman, was born to Guy Samuel and Mary Jane Stedman in Woodstock, Minnesota, on July 21, 1889. Charles was the eighth of fourteen children. Traveling by covered wagon, the Stedman family relocated in Blunt, South Dakota, and eventually in Temvik, North Dakota, where they homesteaded and built a sod house. Then, in January 1907, Mary Jane died. Most of the details of Charles's early life are unknown to us, except for the fact that he was a young teenager when his mother died, and that about that time Charles went to work building barns, some of which still stand today.
On October 16, 1912, at age twenty-three, Charles married Mabel Clara Allen of Loyalton, South Dakota. Their first son, Alan Le Roy, was born on August 12, 1913, in Kapowsin, Washington; Raymond Charles Stedman was born in Temvik, North Dakota, on October 5, 1917; and Donald Homer Stedman was born in Denver, Colorado, on February 6, 1922.
We have little information about Ray's mother, but in recent years Ray's nephew, Alan Stedman, learned that she was a talented and published poet. Her poem "The Pines" was published January 13, 1924, in The Young People's Friend. Her other poetry was published in newspapers or in a poetry club publication. This was an interesting discovery, because Ray himself always loved poetry.
Life was not easy for the Stedman family. Charles worked as a carpenter, a mechanic, and a railroad worker, but was often unemployed and frequently moved his family from place to place. At different times, the Stedmans lived in North Dakota, Washington, New Mexico, and Colorado. Ray's single memory of his father was of a completely withdrawn man who came home from work and read the newspaper in silence. His mother battled chronic asthma all her life; and some people considered her a hypochondriac.(Elaine Stedman, interview by author, July 15, 2001, Grants Pass, Ore., tape recording.) Between his father's emotional detachment and his mother's distraction, Ray did not receive the nurturing a young child needs from his parents.(Wendell Sheets, interview by Susan Stedman, August 4, 1994, Grants Pass, Ore., tape recording.)
One startling incident reveals the lack of
stability and care in the Stedman home. When Ray was three years
old, he and his seven-year-old brother, Alan, traveled alone on
a train from Miles City, Montana, to Cimarron, New Mexico, a thousand
miles away, to join their parents, who had been living in New
Mexico for several months "in quest of health." We don't
know where or with whom the two boys stayed in Miles City while
they waited to join their parents, but this likely was just one
leg of a move the entire family made from Washington. When the
train reached Denver, it was held up because of flooding further
south, and the two children had to leave the train. Fortunately,
Fred W. Johnson, the district passenger agent for the American
Railway Express, was at the station to help them. Alan and Ray's
mother had asked Mr. Johnson to watch over the boys during the
trip, so he took them home with him. He and his wife cared for
them until they were able to continue their journey. At the time,
a Denver newspaper reported how the boys' plight had captured
Johnson's heart; he called them "about the best behaved children
I have ever seen." But the article, which included a photograph
of the two boys, also mentioned this poignant and telling fact:
"the younger of the two brothers" (Ray), followed Johnson
around and called him "papa." Although he was very young
at the time, Ray never forgot this event, or how this kind train
conductor took him home and cared for him.(Laurie Stedman, interview
by author, July 15, 2001, Grants Pass, Ore., tape recording.)
After living in New Mexico for a short time, Charles Stedman found a job in Denver, Colorado, working in a Burlington Railroad roundhouse. While the Stedmans were living in Denver, when Ray was about ten years old, his father vanished. To this day, no one knows why Charles Stedman deserted his family. Some speculate that it might have been the frustration of continually moving from one job to the next, or the effort of trying to support a chronically ill wife and three young sons. The family made many attempts to find Charles--all unsuccessful-and through the years Ray himself continued to search for traces of his father: "He looked for him diligently in every county we were in and never found him," Ray's daughter Susan remembers. "Somehow, the man disappeared off the face of the earth, and. . . that had a big impact on my dad." (Susan Stedman, interview by author, July 14, 2001, Grants Pass, Ore., tape recording.)
Soon after Charles abandoned his family, Ray's mother, Mabel, decided that she was unable to manage the strain of raising three boys. Ray was ornery, and his mother, suffering from asthma, would have to stop and rest in the middle of disciplining him to catch her breath.(Alan Stedman, letter to author, December 16,2003.) She decided to place Ray and Alan in an orphanage in Denver, keeping her youngest son, Donald, at home with her. No one knows exactly how long Ray and Alan lived in the orphanage, but it wasn't long before Mabel's sister Beulah and her new husband, Fred Sheets, came to visit the boys while traveling through Denver. Fred was a schoolteacher in Ayr, North Dakota, and he and Beulah decided to take Ray back to Ayr with them. At this point, Alan returned to his mother while Ray spent the rest of his childhood and teenage years with his aunt and uncle.
The lonely train ride when he was three years old, his father's desertion and disappearance, and his mother's placing him in an orphanage-these events left indelible marks on Ray Stedman. He never forgot how it felt to be abandoned, and he understood the relief of being cared for in times of need. Through the years, God used these emotions and experiences redemptively in Ray's life. "His father deserted him," says Ray's wife, Elaine. "These days, if you have that kind of dysfunctional parenting, you are a victim and you have to live out your life as a victim. Ray turned it into something totally redemptive. He became a father to others," (Wade Whitcomb, "The Passing of the Torch: A Homiletical Biography of Ray Stedman," [1998], photocopy, 18.) continually looking out for young men who were in need of fatherly nurturing.
God's sovereign care of Ray and His unwavering provision for his needs are evident in both the place where, and the people with whom, he spent the rest of his childhood. Fred and Beulah Sheets, churchgoing Methodists, were kind people with very high morals.(Elaine Stedman, interview, July 15, 200l.) Although they, too, moved frequently and eventually had two sons of their own, Lowell and Wendell, they provided a stable childhood for Ray. Being abandoned by his father also prepared Ray for a relationship with his heavenly Father. Not long after moving with his aunt and uncle to North Dakota, Ray attended an evangelistic tent meeting and heard the preacher speak about the "sins of the fathers" and how those sins affected later generations. He also heard of the wonderful promise of God to help and forgive. Ray decided that he did not want to live the kind of life his father had lived or was living. In response to the altar call, he went forward and knelt down to receive the Lord.
"This is the way I came to Christ," Ray said, when telling of his conversion. "I read the Bible and heard quoted from the Bible some wonderful promises. . . . As I heard these, hope flamed in my heart because this is what I longed to find. . . rest, fulfillment, supply, companionship, blessing, light in place of darkness. . . . And then I heard the story of. , . the cross in all its wonder and mystery. . . . I couldn't understand it fully-I was only a boy of about ten years of age when I heard this story and believed it. But I realized that here was a God who could do something about my problem, and I believed His Word. When I did so, the course of my life was altered the direction of my life changed. . . . I found a new capacity to love. I had a new dimension in my life-new attitudes that I didn't have before." (Ray Stedman, The Sons of God Among Men, sermon preached on October 24, 1976; online, The Ray C. Stedman Library, Discovery Paper #3520.)
Ray often spoke of those first few months as a Christian with his characteristic warmth and humor: "I had a wonderful time of fellowship with the Lord that summer and the next winter, and there were occasions when I just would be overwhelmed with the sense of the nearness and dearness of God. I used to sing hymns until tears would come to my eyes as the meaning of those old words reflected on the relationship that I had with God. Then I used to preach to the cows when I would bring them home. Those cows were a very good audience too, by the way; they never went to sleep on me." (Ibid.)
The reality of God's presence in Ray's life did not keep him from occasionally drifting in his walk with Christ or, as he phrased it, experiencing some "stop-and-go progress along the way." Ray came to Christ in the summer, and the following fall his family moved from Ayr, where he had Christian fellowship, to a nearby town in the Red River valley of North Dakota that didn't even have a church. Gradually, because of that lack of fellowship, he drifted away from a relationship with God and "into all kinds of ugly and shameful things-habits of thought and activity that I am ashamed of" (Ibid.) This period of Ray's life, when he drifted spiritually, lasted through his four years in North Dakota, into his high school years, and even into college.
Winifred
IN THE SUMMER OF 1931, when Ray was almost fourteen, the Sheets family moved to Winifred, Montana, where Fred had been hired as the superintendent of schools. "Montana and the West was an exciting place to me. Though I missed my grade school friends back in the Red River Valley of North Dakota, I now looked forward eagerly to my first year of high school, and what life in Winifred would be like."
In those days the frontier seemed close at hand, for the town of Winifred served as a center for a vast, sparsely settled area. "It was still primitive in many ways, having no electricity, no phones except one line from Turner's haberdashery to Lewistown. There was no modern plumbing and every house had its outside privy, even the high school, which sat at the top of the hill at the west end of Main Street. The nearest doctor was in Lewistown and though there once had been a drugstore, it had closed its doors during the Depression." (Ray Stedman, Memories of Winifred, July 30,1996; online, The Ray C. Stedman Library Index, Archives of Elaine Stedman.)
Ray spent his four years of high school in Winifred, living with the Sheets family in a small house in the center of town. During the summers he worked on various ranches in the area, often staying on those ranches for long stretches of time. Many of these family friends played an important role in Ray's life as they provided surrogate parenting for him. Throughout his ministry he peppered his sermons with warm, homespun illustrations from those years, revealing the great fondness and respect he had for Montana, the life he lived there, and the people he knew during those years.
One of the families who made a deep impression on Ray was the Dahl family. Ray's first job was on the Dahl ranch making hay " and branding calves for fifty cents a day. He describes the Dahls as "a rancher and his wife, who bore no relationship to me, but virtually adopted me as a son when I was in high school. I spent many happy hours there doing the usual work of a ranch. But I was especially drawn to the rancher, who was like a father to me. He taught me and modeled for me patience, fortitude, manliness, and humor. We spent so many happy times together." (Ray Stedman, What You See Is What You Can Be, sermon preached on May 16,1982; online, The Ray C. Stedman Library, Discovery Paper #3790.)
Ray also spent a great deal of time on the Murphy family's ranch, about five miles west of Winifred. (Today all that is left of this ranch is a few rotted fence posts and a crumbling foundation.) Bill and Cecilia Murphy attracted many young "strays" like Ray to their ranch, providing work, companionship, and excellent home-cooked meals. On one occasion, Ray and a friend sat down to eat a piece of Cecilia Murphy's chocolate cake when a fly lit on Ray's piece. Whereupon he proceeded to put the entire piece of cake in his mouth, fly and all!
Ranch work brought Ray into contact with the western cowboy culture, which would become another significant part of his identity. Not the romanticized cowboy life seen on the silver screen or in dime-store novels, but the real cowboy life of hard work and colorful characters. A gravestone in Winifred's cemetery marks the death of Bill Murphy in 1934 when Ray would have been a junior in high school and active on the Murphy ranch. (Dramatic local accounts say that Bill Murphy was attacked and eaten by one of his own pigs!)
Ray also spent several summers working twenty miles north of Winifred in a remote area called the Missouri Breaks, through which the Missouri River flows. During the Lewis and Clark Expedition, William Clark called this "the Deserts of America" and declared, "I do not think it can ever be settled." Meriwether Lewis described it as a "dry, barren country." The area is dominated by rugged, brown bluffs set off by the deep blue sky and blazing sun. It is still considered one of the most isolated parts of the United States, and Congress has designated it a Wild and Scenic River. Here, Ray worked on a small farm run by the Stanton family right on the river, driving a truck loaded with fruits and vegetables to Stanton's General Store in Winifred. It would have been a slow, hot, and torturous ride from the river through the Missouri "Breaks" and into Winifred.
Yet even in the midst of such grueling work, Ray managed to
have fun. Wendell Sheets, one of the younger cousins Ray grew
up with, likened him to a wild Montana mustang that couldn't be
tamed. Wendell recalls that just for fun Ray would ride a two-year-old
steer and let it buck him off He also tells of one Fourth of July
when Ray and his friends, at eleven o'clock at night, raced their
pickup trucks into Fort Shaw, an old Indian fort with a circular
track, whooping and hollering like Indians.(Wendell Sheets.)
This rough cowboy culture often clashed with Ray's Christian faith,
and at times he gave in to the temptations of cowboy life.(Elaine
Stedman, interview, July 15,2001.) And yet, despite his periods
of rebellion, Ray never lost a sense of God's presence in his
life. ''All through those seven years there was a relationship
with God I could not deny. Somehow I knew, deep down inside, that
I still belonged to Him; and there were things I could not do,
even though I was tempted. I could not do them because I felt
that I had a tie with God." (Stedman, The
Sons of God Among Men)
THOSE EARLY YEARS IN THE climate and culture of Montana influenced Ray in several ways. First, Montana nurtured in him an independent, adventuresome spirit. Part of this was the cowboy influence, but part of it was also a result of being raised by his aunt and uncle. Although Ray was included as part of the Sheets family, he always felt independent from them.(Wendell Sheets.) One indication of this is that Ray never forgot that when his aunt introduced the family, she first identified each of her boys as "my sons," and then would refer to Ray as "my sister Mabel's son Raymond." (Elaine Stedman, interview, July 15,2001.) This "distance" gave him a sense of independence that he never lost-an independence that also shaped his view of ministry. I recall Ray telling a group of interns that Peninsula Bible Church (PBC) was not his employer and did not pay his salary. Instead, he was a "servant of Christ Jesus" and the Lord was the one who saw to it that he was paid. This sense of independence also prompted Ray to expand his ministry beyond the local church, traveling extensively throughout the nation and the world as PBC's "apostle at large."
Second, the Montana in which Ray grew up was a man's world. As mentioned earlier, both of Ray's siblings were brothers, and both of his Sheets cousins were boys. Ray's summers as a cowboy were spent primarily with men. Through the years Ray took many young men under his wing and became their spiritual father. In a society sadly lacking models of godly maleness, Ray left a valuable heritage. He was a "man's man" whose most significant impact was in the lives of other men.,
Finally, the long, cold winter months in Montana nurtured in Ray a love for learning. Growing up during the Depression and living in a home without electricity, he never enjoyed the luxury of radio or telephone, much less television. As a result, Ray read everything he could lay his hands on: stories of the Wild West, books on Montana history, and even the Sears and Roebuck catalog. He would take books to bed with him and read under the covers with the aid of a flashlight, violating his bedtime deadline.(Ibid.) It was also in this environment that Ray received what he considered a first-class education, and he dreamed of one day becoming a surgeon.
"Though the school I attended was in an isolated town far from the fine amenities of civilization," he recollected of his high school years in Winifred, "the education I received was first-class. The knowledge I was given of classical literature was far beyond anything now taught in the high schools of California. Though we only had a primitive chemistry laboratory I went on from there to become so proficient in chemistry that my professor in college asked me to take over the class if he could not show up someday. The typing and shorthand that I learned at Winifred High School kept me employed through most of the Depression, and led to my serving as a Court Reporter in the Navy." (Stedman, Memories of Winifred,)
Although Ray had lost his father at a young age, he had been blessed with surrogate earthly fathers. He had also begun his committed life journey with his heavenly Father. But the Wild Mustang from Montana was still a long way from being tamed.
IN 1935, AT THE AGE of seventeen, Ray Stedman graduated from I high school. That fall, he and seventy-two other freshmen their college studies at Intermountain Union College in Helena, Montana.(Rocky Mountain College is the oldest college in Montana and represents the blending of three distinct religious traditions. In 1877, a small group of Methodists met in Bozeman to establish a school. After encountering roadblocks, another group from Deer Lodge, Montana, established the Montana Collegiate Institute in 1878. Four years later, the Presbyterian Church assumed control of the institute and chartered the College of Montana, with three brick buildings and a student population of 160. A few years later, in 1889, the Methodist Episcopal Church opened Montana Wesleyan University in Helena. In 1923 these institutions merged under the aegis of Intermountain Union College in Helena, which was renamed Rocky Mountain College in 1947. (College History & Heritage section, Web site of Rocky Mountain College, Billings, Montana.) College records reveal that Ray did not live in the men's dormitory, but rather at the Hotel Stevens, 213 1/2 Central Avenue, Room 12.
"That was a critical period in my life," Ray reflected years later. "Like so many young men facing college, I was not at all sure about what I was getting into. I had an outward appearance of confidence and the ability to handle anything that came, but within I had a deep sense of uncertainty. I was aware that I really did not know the ground rules of life. I pretended I did but I didn't, and inside I knew it. It was like trying to playa game when you didn't know the rules, but were trying to guess them as you went along. It was rough. I was baffled, as all young people are baffled, by the great questions of life." (Ray Stedman, God Is Light, sermon preached on September 18, 1966; online, The Ray C. Stedman Library, Discovery Paper #135.)
Earthquake at Intermountain
ON OCTOBER 17, 1935, soon after Ray entered college, a devastating earthquake struck Helena. The earthquake destroyed the buildings of Intermountain Union College, forcing the school to close for several weeks before relocating ninety miles north in Great Falls, where the Methodist church, the Presbyterian church, and the Deaconess Hospital all opened their doors to the institution. In those Depression years, college was a luxury. So although many students returned home until the school reopened, Ray decided to stay in Helena and work to earn some much-needed money.
The day after the earthquake Ray wrote to his aunt, describing the event and assuring his family that he was safe and sound. Although it is a long letter in which he marvels that no one at his school was hurt, Ray doesn't mention anything about God. Clearly his personal relationship with the Lord, though real, was not foremost on his mind at this period of his life. The letter closes with Ray asking his aunt to send the letter on to his mother.(Ray Stedman, letter to Beulah Sheets, October 18, 1935.)
The letter also reveals Ray's reckless, cowboy spirit. In one section he describes how, in the hours prior to the earthquake, a fight broke out after a football game. Ray and his six-foot-seven roommate (nicknamed "Tiny") stood in the door of Mill Hall with shovels to keep out the rioters. They even knocked down a couple of guys who threatened to wreck the hall.(Ibid.)
That same evening, as he and his classmates were celebrating at a school dance in the gymnasium, the earthquake struck. Ray tells how he and another fellow prevented panicked students from stampeding through the small doorway and organized other! to lead students two-by-two down the stairs by matchlight. Although the school newspaper does not mention Ray by name, it does attest to what Ray would later describe to his aunt: "The dance was well underway when a slight quiver caused everyone to stand still. As if it was gathering momentum the shake became harder and harder. Then the lights went out, and the west wall began to fall, leaving a big gaping hole and the students saw the dream of many years fall before their eyes. Under the sudden emotional stress the minds of the students were easily handled. Some cool person called, 'Take your time and go out one at a time.' In a few minutes everyone was outside and safe from the falling bricks." (Electric City Collegian, Great Falls, Montana, December 20,1935.) Whether this "cool person" was Ray Stedman we do not know, but he was certainly one of those students who kept his head and helped the others to safety. Later, he revealed more of his leadership qualities when he and five other students organized an emergency squad to deliver blankets to those without shelter, and for two hours, in the middle of the night, patrolled the damaged dorm area to keep people out.(Ibid.)
After the school was devastated with two aftershocks in the next few days, Intermountain Union College was forced to move its classes to nearby Great Falls. As a result, in January 1936, Ray evidenced his natural boldness and initiative when he wrote the following letter to Henry Ford at the Ford Motor Company in Michigan.
Mr. Henry Ford
Dearborn, MichiganDear Sir:
On October 18 and 31, two major earthquakes struck the little city of Helena, Montana, and left it a mess of ruined buildings, its population with nerves shattered, already overtaxed by previous shocks. Among those buildings which were ruined beyond use were those of Intermountain Union College, a little college built at the foot of beautiful Mount Ascension and within two blocks of the imposing Montana State Capitol Building.
Due to this disaster, the college was forced to move to the neighboring city of Great Falls. They located in the different churches about the city. Classes were carried on but under severe handicaps. This year is destined to be the last in the history of Intermountain unless by some means or other over five hundred thousand dollars can be raised in order to establish new buildings and create a starting budget.
This college, started by the West's most beloved missionary, Brother Van, has faced and overcome many obstacles before. It had never reached anything near financial freedom until the year 1935. Everything was going fine, the budget was balanced, the buildings had been redecorated and the college was "on its feet." And then came the earthquake!
Now, unless the necessary money can be raised this college, the only Christian College in the West from Denver, Colorado to Spokane, Washington, and Jamestown, No. Dakota, must close its doors. Its standards have always been high; its students among the finest. In order to perpetuate the standards of this college we are calling on you, as a man interested in the future welfare of American youth, for any contribution which you would like to make a worthy cause.
Respectfully Yours,
Raymond Stedman
It does not seem that a response was ever received from Mr. Ford. Nevertheless, the Intermountain Union College did survive and eventually relocated on the Billings Polytechnic Institute where the two institutions coexisted as affiliates. In 1947 the two institutions merged into a single college, which continues today on the same campus as Rocky Mountain College in Billings.
Ray finished out his freshman year at Intermountain Union College. The following summer, he worked at the Deaconess Hospital in Great Falls, still interested in pursuing his dream of becoming a doctor. During his entire time in Great Falls he lived with the Talcott family, who were active members of the Methodist church where the school had temporarily moved after the earthquake. This began his lifelong friendship with Burt Talcott, who later became a United States congressman from California.(Elaine Stedman, interview by author, July 15,2001, Grants Pass, Ore., tape recording.)
Whitworth
IN THE FALL, WITH Intermountain Union College still devastated by the earthquake, Ray transferred to Whitworth College, a Presbyterian-sponsored school in Spokane, Washington, for his sophomore year. During his year there, Ray gained a reputation for being wild. Years later, when he was speaking at The Firs conference center near Bellingham, Washington, Ray encountered the former Dean of Women at Whitworth. When she saw Ray and learned that he was the speaker for the conference, she announced to all, "Ray Stedman! We need to stand and sing, 'Amazing Grace!'" Another woman from Whitworth, when Ray met up with her several years later at Dallas Theological Seminary, told him that her prayer group at Whitworth had prayed for him because he was such a rebel on campus.(Ibid.)
In reflecting on these years, Ray described his spiritual condition: "I drifted away from that relationship with God, drifted into all kinds of ugly and shameful things-habits of thought and activity that I am ashamed of I even developed some liberal attitudes toward the Scriptures. I didn't believe in the inspiration of the Bible. I argued against it, and. . . was known as a skeptic." (Ray Stedman, The Sons of God Among Men)
Despite his drifting ways, however, Ray continued to be involved in a variety of worthwhile activities during his year at Whitworth, some of which were Christian in orientation. Ray and about fifteen of his Montana classmates formed a social group called the "Montana Club," which, as he told his family, "has the spirit of all Montanans." (. Ray Stedman, letter to his family, October 18,1936. He was involved with a volunteer fellowship group that held church services in small towns around Spokane, as well as a Christian Endeavor group. Ray also demonstrated an interest in writing and speaking; he had a column in the school newspaper and was a member of the debate team.(Ibid.)
Ray was a serious student at Whitworth. In keeping with his desire to become a doctor, he took courses in chemistry and biology. He also took courses in education and wrote to his uncle Fred about what was required to get a certificate for teaching in Montana.(Ray Stedman, letter to Fred Sheets, January 23,1937.)
As was so common with many in the Depression era, however, Ray struggled to make ends meet. He was forced to quit the football team and was prevented from playing basketball because of work. Initially he took a job as a janitor, but later worked about sixteen hours a week as both a stenographer and a general assistant in the business office of the school. By the middle of his sophomore year, Ray had decided to leave Whitworth at the end of the school year. On January 23, 1937, he wrote home and declared, "I don't have the slightest intention of coming here for another year. It cost more to go out here than it would have cost for me to attend the University of Montana. If I ever get this bill paid up out here, I'm going to attend college on a strictly cash basis. No more worrying all the time as to whether I will get my bill paid up or not. When I next go to school I will have the money to plunk right down on the desk for the whole year or else I won't go until I get it." (Ibid.)
From Disappointment to Appointment
IN THE SUMMER OF 1937, Ray returned to Montana to work in construction in a small town near Great Falls, where he met a young man named Hardy Thompson. Hardy had recently become a Christian and was excited about his newfound faith. As the two spent time together, Ray sensed his own need to turn his life over to the Lord, which began a period of sustained spiritual renewal when Ray's entire focus and direction changed.
Hardy Thompson was a member of the Assemblies of God church in Great Falls, and he insisted that Ray come to services with him. Although Ray would later reject most Pentecostal theology and practice, it was in this context that God brought reality and life to his Christian experience. It was also at this church that Ray met a girl named Elaine Smith. Elaine was several years younger than Ray, but this did not keep him from noticing her as she sang a solo.
"I visited a church in Montana and sat on a balcony one fateful Sunday evening, and from the Olympian heights from which I was seated, I saw a beautiful young girl with long, blonde hair, singing a solo. She had the most angelic voice I had ever heard. I said to myself, in the impetuosity of youth, 'There is the girl I want to marry.' But I felt a terrible sense of frustration, for I knew the next morning I was scheduled to leave for Chicago to make my residence there." (Ray Stedman, The True Lord's Prayer, sermon preached on April 26,1964; online, The Ray C. Stedman Library, Discovery Paper #64.)
Ray had to leave for Chicago in the fall of 1937 because he had obtained a job there through the intervention of a friend from Whitworth College and through his correspondence with the office of the Board of Christian Education of the Presbyterian Church (USA). This position, which was temporary and would end in May of the following year, would allow Ray to payoff some debt and further develop his clerical skills-skills that would later serve him well.
It was the midst of the Great Depression and Ray was happy to have a job, even though at the age of twenty he was apprehensive about leaving family and friends for the big city. But it was on that bus ride that Ray felt God speak to him in his uncertainty and say, "I will be a Father to you." (Elaine Stedman, interview by author, July 15, 2001, Grants Pass, Ore., tape recording.)
"I had never before visited a city as large as Chicago," Ray said years later as he described his cross-country bus ride from Montana to Illinois. "I knew only one person in Chicago, my uncle. I didn't want to show it, but I was scared. I was leaving all my friends. The town I came from was so small you could locate it right between the second and third Burma Shave signs! It was a thousand-mile journey by bus to Chicago, but all through that long trip I was strengthened and comforted by the sense that Jesus was with me. Although I was heading into the unknown, I look back on that as one of the most joyful bus rides of my life."
The uncle Ray refers to was his mother's brother, a very successful businessman and a professed atheist, who was neither kind nor generous to Ray during his stay in Chicago. Immediately after Ray arrived in Chicago, the city was blanketed by a blizzard that shut down transportation and businesses. "I had to sit alone in a hotel room for the duration of the storm," Ray said. "Looking back, however, my memory of that period is one of fragrant companionship with One who was with me, strengthening me, and helping me throughout." (Ray Stedman, The Incredible Hope, sermon preached on April 7, 1985; online, The Ray C. Stedman Library, Discovery Paper #3876.)
In fact, Ray's entire stay in Chicago, living in a spartan room at the YMCA, was a time of spiritual renewal. There, the Lord both assured him of His grace and began the process of revealing His call to ministry. Ray also taught a Sunday school class of high school boys, and he grew very close to several of the boys as they studied the Word and prayed together.(Ray Stedman, The Promise of Life, sermon preached on February 7, 1982; online, The Ray C. Stedman Library, Discovery Paper #3782.)
"I shall never forget the day. . . when that truth burst upon me in all its fullness. . . . How vividly it all comes back to me-the joy, the untrammeled joy, that filled my heart as, lying on my bed in my room, it dawned upon me that if anything happened to me I had nothing to fear in the future. I was forgiven. God had already judged me in Christ and I was forgiven-set free. The joy of. . . this great fundamental truth of Christian faith-that in Jesus Christ, and in His work for us, God took away my sins.(Ray Stedman, The Death of Death, sermon preached on April 14,1968; online on Peninsula Bible Church Web site, The Ray C. Stedman Library, Discovery Paper #275.)
On Easter Sunday Ray arose before dawn to attend a sunrise service at Soldier Field. ''As I was dressing in the darkness of that early morning, my mind went back to the account of the resurrection of our Lord and the women who visited the tomb in the early hours. . .. I remember feeling for the first time something of the tremendous reality of this event. It really occurred! It actually happened! Those women did make their way to the tomb that morning, and they were amazed to find the stone rolled away, and with beating hearts and incredulous minds they went to tell the disciples. All the marvelous events of that wonderful, unforgettable day actually occurred! Immediately my mind took in . .. the meaning of this in my life at that moment, and there came flooding into my heart a great consciousness of the presence of a living Lord. I shall never forget that morning. I stood by my bed weeping tears of joy as the thought flooded my heart that Jesus Christ was alive. It was a fact, an eternal fact." (Ray Stedman, The Fact of Facts, sermon preached on Easter [1967]; online, The Ray C. Stedman Library, Discovery Paper #177.)
This "great consciousness of the presence of a living Lord" also began to change the way Ray thought about his future, for at some point during that time in Chicago he surrendered to what he believed was the call of God to be a minister.
"When I was still a young, growing Christian, I wanted to be a surgeon.. . . Then quietly. .. I began to realize that God was moving in a different direction and that He was suggesting to me that I consider entering the ministry. At first I resented this and fought against it, resisting the insistent plea of the Spirit. But when the Spirit is after someone, He never gives up. Finally, in a moment of surrender and dedication, overwhelmed with the joy of what Christ meant to me, in my own room alone, I said to Him, 'All right, Lord, I'll be a minister, if that is what you want.'''(Ray Stedman, Soul and Spirit, sermon preached on March 17, 1963; online, The Ray C. Stedman Library, Discovery Paper #35.)
In a letter dated April 4, 1939, Ray wrote to his family, announcing his new direction in life.
"I am glad of this chance to come to Chicago away from all my friends and family for it has given me an opportunity to work some things out in my mind which have been bothering me for some time. In the first place I've decided to be a minister. This may seem like a rather sudden about-face from the study of medicine, but in reality it isn't, for it is something which I have been weighing and thinking about for a period of some years.... You will perhaps be surprised at the suddenness of all this-but it is sudden only because you have not known of it before, for I like to keep my thoughts to myself until such a time as I feel sure that they are what I want others to see in me and now that that time has come I am glad to let others know of my decision. The approaching crisis in world affairs demands men who have the courage of their convictions. Religion and morality are on the decline while paganism and immorality are on the upgrade. At such a time, those who would cleave to the time-tested truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ must make certain that their position is made unmistakably clear to all around them. Such is my desire, and so I have no hesitancy in making my decision known to, not only you, but to my other friends. . . . The world has yet to see what God can do with a man who is wholly consecrated to Him. By God's grace, I shall be that man."
In his candidness, Ray mentioned what he knew others might be thinking: "There are, undoubtedly, going to be those who will ridicule my position and point to things in my past life which are not commensurate with my present stand. To such I have no answer, other than that of Paul, who said 'putting all things behind me, I press on to the mark of the high calling of Jesus Christ.' It will be comforting to know that when folks make light of my decision, that you folks will be willing to 'take the stand in my defense,' as I feel sure you will do, but whether you do or not I can not retract for 'he that puts his hand to the plow, and looking back, is not fit for the kingdom of God.'
". . . This decision is no commendation to me, and God forbid that I boast in having taken such a stand, but rather it is 'my reasonable service,' to a Master who has done more for me than I could ever tell, and whose service, though it be hard, is yet the only thing left for me to do." (Ray Stedman, letter to his family, April 4, 1939.)
The Young Preacher
RAY'S JOB IN CHICAGO came to its appointed end, and in the summer of 1940, after spending some time in Montana, he moved to Denver to help support his mother and brothers. Ray's older brother, Alan, was living with his mother and studying engineering in Denver, and Ray's income would help his brother finish his degree.(Allen Stedman had changed the spelling of his name from Allen to Alan after an incident at the orphanage in Denver when he was mistakenly called Helen Stedman. (Letter from his son, Alan Stedman, to author, December 16, 2003.)) Despite Ray's efforts, his communication with Alan always remained awkward. Donald, five years younger than Ray, was presumably still at home. Ray and Donald maintained good rapport until 1945 when Donald was killed in battle in Germany.(Donald Stedman served with the 9th Armored Division, 52 Armored Infantry Battalion, A Company, Second Platoon of the US Army. He was killed on March 27,1945, near Limburgh, Germany. After the war, a fellow soldier/medic, Elmer M. Orr, wrote to Mrs. Stedman, explaining how Donald had died and expressing his own joy at finding a fellow believer in the midst of a war. Orr assured Mrs. Stedman that Donald had said that he was ready to meet the Lord should he be killed. (Letter from Ray's nephew, Alan Stedman, December 16,2003.)
The continuous financial pressure under which he lived during these years made Ray doubly conscientious. While still in Chicago, he had sent his family a detailed accounting of his budget, including comments on the dollar or so he could afford to send home each week. Once he was in Denver, he wrote to his aunt and uncle about his eagerness to payoff a debt he owed to Whitworth College. "I owe a small amount of money to Whitworth College in Spokane (about $150) and it may be the Lord would have me work here this winter and start out next spring with a clean slate in full-time evangelistic work. I know I could never go back to business permanently as I am spoiled for that. My heart is in the Lord's work." (Ray Stedman, letter to his family, April 4, 1939.)
In Denver, Ray found full-time employment in the office of the Rio Grande Railroad, but his real passion was his volunteer work at the Denver Revival Tabernacle, where his primary job was publishing the tabernacle paper. On occasion he also preached in evangelistic rallies, hoping for a revival among the young people who attended these meetings.
"I have an office now, in the Denver Revival Tabernacle," he wrote to a friend. "It looks as if the Lord will have me work here this winter. I'm quite enthusiastic about it as there is a tremendous work to be done. . . . This work here is in a new stage and the time is about ripe for a real revival. . . . We hope to hold a youth rally of all the Pentecostal youths in the city. Then among the young people here in the Tabernacle there is a tremendous work to be done. There is a great need for a deeper consecration and a more yielded life among them. I wish I had a few young folks from Great Falls to show them what real consecration is." (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Smith, September 24,1940.)
These rallies were not Ray's only opportunities to preach. Some of his first experiences in preaching were in a nearby prison. "Our meetings at the prison are coming along grand," he wrote in December. "There are several young men out there who have given every indication of having received genuine salvation. In our last meeting over 25 raised their hands for prayer. I preached on 'light out of darkness' and the Lord really blessed." (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Smith, December 30,1940.)
Ray's messages were steeped in the Pentecostalism that had marked him since his days at the Assemblies of God church in Great Falls, and the Denver Revival Tabernacle had the same Pentecostal roots. This resulted in certain pressures being placed upon Ray to amend what he called his "Full Gospel" message, especially by prison authorities. As he expressed in one letter, "Certain pressures are at work to get me to compromise my message in favor of a little more of the world and a little less of God but as God enables me I have sworn to do my very best in preaching the entire Full Gospel message." (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Smith, January 10, 1941.)
A Kindred Spirit
NOW THAT RAY HAD settled into a job and a ministry, he began to correspond with Elaine Smith, the young woman who had caught his eye at the Assemblies of God church in Great Falls in the summer of 1937. Ray had returned to Great Falls for a visit in the summer of 1940, and while he was there he met Elaine and asked her if she would allow him to write to her. Ray began writing to Elaine shortly after he returned to Denver in August 1940, finding in her a kindred spirit with whom he could share the details of his growing walk with God and his burgeoning ministry. In his first letter he explained why he had asked to write her:
"You are probably wondering why it was that I asked to write to you. I'll admit it did seem awfully peculiar. I hesitate to try to explain myself for fear you might think me girl-crazy, which I'm not at all. However, from the first time I saw you from before I went to Chicago I wanted to know you better and while I was in Chicago I often wished that I had known you long enough to write to you, so when I saw you again this summer I decided I wouldn't let this chance slip by even at the risk of making a fool of myself I never felt that way about anyone before but I sure am glad I did it. I hope you'll forgive me for being presumptuous and if you don't care to continue this correspondence any longer I won't feel hurt tho I will be disappointed." (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Smith, August 28, 1940.)
Over the next six months, Ray wrote Elaine four long letters to which she also responded. Despite their relative unfamiliarity with one another, they were often bluntly honest in their correspondence. For example, Elaine rebuked Ray for being too dependent on a mutual friend's estimation of him. "My head is bowed in meekness and shame over your rebuke about my dependency on Hardy's attitude towards me," he responded-and then proceeded to lecture Elaine for her similar dependency on another mutual friend!(Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Smith, September 24,1940.) Three months later, Ray was once again candid: "Elaine, when you write to me why don't you break down a bit and be a little more friendly-not so cold and distant. I'd like to hear more about you, where you go, what you do, etc. Don't think I don't appreciate your letters but they are a little formal." (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Smith, December 30,1940.)
Ray was smitten with Elaine, but she was four years younger and not quite prepared to respond with similar affection. "I sure would like to see you again, Elaine," he wrote in December. "I wish I could have had more time this summer to get to know you better. I think you're well worth knowing." (Ibid.) The following month he wrote, "Last night I borrowed my friend's car and went up on Lookout Mountain where Buffalo Bill is buried and watched the lights of Denver. It really was a relaxation but I wish you could have been with me. Now, that's a funny thing to say, isn't it because you never have been here with me but really, that's what I thought." (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Smith, January 10, 1941.)
More than anything else, however, these letters reveal that Ray sensed a kindred spirit in Elaine when it came to the things of God. In one of his letters he shared lines from a favorite hymn which he kept in his scrapbook:
Oh, for a faith that will not shrink
Though pressed by every foe!
That will not totter at the brink
Of any earthly woe!
Lord, give me such a faith as this
And then, what e'er may come,
I'll taste e'en now, the blissful joys
Of an eternal home
(Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Smith, September 24, 1940.)
Despite his growing affection for Elaine, Ray's letter of January 10,1941, was the last he would write to her for almost two years. Having been swept off his feet by romance, in the summer of 1942 he would be swept into life-altering events that involved the entire world. Later that year, the United States entered World War II and young men eagerly joined the war efforts. Ray was no exception.
But the Ray Stedman who entered the war efforts was a very different person than the one who had entered college. The Wild Mustang from Montana was being tamed by the living God, and his immense energies were being harnessed and directed for the work of God's kingdom.
3. A Soldier in Active Service
In September 1940, Congress approved the Selective Training and Service Act, authorizing the first peacetime draft in United States history, and requiring all men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five to register. Ray Stedman originally received a deferred draft classification because of his intention to enter full-time Christian service, but with the Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the twenty-four-year-old requested that his classification be changed so that he might join the war effort. Ray wanted to enlist in the Navy, but one of the requirements was correctable vision, and after a physical examination he was declared ineligible because of astigmatism.
At that time it was not unusual for young men to be rejected from Selective Service. In fact, prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor more than five million men were rejected for physical, emotional, or educational deficiencies. The rejection rate was so high that in 1941 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt convened a national conference to investigate the matter. The conference concluded that the main reasons men were being rejected from service were bad teeth and bad eyes, both of which could be traced to the lack of basic medical care and adequate nutrition during the recent Depression. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, far fewer men received deferments or rejections.(Ronald H. Bailey and William K. Goolrick, ed., World War II. The Home Front (USA), vol. 8 (Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books Inc., 1978), 45.)
After being rejected by the Navy, Ray decided to serve his country as part of the civilian labor force. World War II affected every aspect of life in the United States. Industry, education, agriculture, transportation, and even the entertainment business enlisted for "the duration." U.S. industrial war production was a major factor in deciding the outcome of the war, and the War Manpower Commission, organized in April 1942, was in charge of recruiting workers for defense industries.(Maurice Isserman and John Bowman, gen. ed., World War II (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1991),76.) Ray Stedman was hired to work on the paint crew of a company responsible for building facilities for the armed forces in the Hawaiian Islands.
In the summer of 1942, "after a long, wearisome trip by bus across the great deserts of Utah and Nevada," Ray arrived in Oakland, California.(Ray Stedman, letter to Beulah Sheets, July 5,1942.) While he waited for his ship to be ready to sail for Hawaii, he and a friend traveled across the bay to San Francisco and saw the sights. Meanwhile, Ray's hotel bill at the Hotel San Pablo was paid by the military. They also paid him seventy cents an hour plus two dollars a day for spending money. "This is the softest job I've ever had," Ray told his aunt Beulah.(Ibid.)
Not long after arriving in Hawaii and beginning his work as a painter, Ray once again immersed himself in ministry whenever he could, and by December he was preaching at a church in downtown Honolulu.
"Tomorrow [Sunday] I have to preach downtown," he wrote to Elaine on December 26. "Sometime, if you're kind to me and answer my letters, I'll tell you my dreams for a real gospel work here in Honolulu. And they're in the making now." (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Smith, December 26,1942.) Just a few months later, Ray and some friends began producing a radio broadcast called "Hymn Time," which aired from 9:30 to 9:45 each Sunday morning. It featured a hymn, the story behind the hymn, a short message, and an invitation to accept Jesus as Savior.
"I have been much gratified with the success of the program thus far," Ray glowed in his report to Elaine. "The station manager told us it was by far the best gospel program on the air, of local origin, which was encouraging, though only so many words if the program fails in its efforts to reach souls for Christ. Pray for it, will you?" (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Smith, February 15, 1943.)
A Dream Come True
DESPITE HIS FRUITFUL MINISTRY, Ray still longed to be in full-time work, and in the spring of 1944 it seemed that God was finally opening the door. By this time, Ray's study of the Scriptures resulted in his moving away from Pentecostalism, and he made Olivet Baptist Church his home church and place of ministry. One of the leaders of Olivet Baptist Church indicated to Ray that they would like to ordain him and find him a pastorate in Texas where he could also attend the Southern Baptist seminary in Fort Worth. Ray was ecstatic and immediately sought to have his draft classification changed to allow for the move. His letter to Elaine about the matter reflects both his excitement over the opportunity and his concern that his patriotism not be in question: "Personally, I cannot help but feel that it is the Lord's moving. There was only one reason, it seemed to me, for hesitating. I am not a slacker and I recognize my duty to my country. . . . there are still several obstacles to overcome, but I sincerely hope and pray that the moment for which I've waited 5 years might be at hand. I honestly feel that he who preaches the gospel from a pulpit in America is fighting full force for the same ideals and liberties for which sailors and soldiers are dying abroad." (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Smith, March 27,1944.)
Within a few days, however, Ray once again had to surrender his future to the Lord as the church decided to license him rather than ordain him. "This is a disappointment to me," he confessed, "but I fancy the Lord will see the matter through." (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Smith, April 12, 1944.) On the positive side, the entire incident served to ignite a renewed hope that he would indeed one day enter full-time ministry.
During the following weeks, another opportunity was presented to Ray: an office job with Libby, McNeil, & Libby. He accepted, and his new employer quickly recognized his abilities and offered him a position as a junior executive. This was a tempting offer for Ray, who had lived with financial pressure for so long, but he turned it down for another opportunity closer to his heart. Ray had developed a close friendship with a Navy officer named Ed Phillips. Ed was involved with the work of the Navigators, an interdenominational organization active with military personnel, and he was eager for Ray to join him in leading the thriving Navigator ministry. For Ray, this was a dream come true.
"This is the work I would love most to do in all the world," he told Elaine. "It is close to the servicemen, with a definite Navy atmosphere; is extremely important from the standpoint of both Christian service and patriotic endeavor; and is a work in which I could labor without reserve." (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Smith, May 12, 1944.) Years later, Ray would reflect on this period as being the most carefree time of his life.
The Navigators had been active in Hawaii for years, but when Dawson Trotman, founder of the organization, visited the island in April 1940, he found the work in a sad state. Then came the attack on Pearl Harbor, which created a tremendous spiritual hunger among servicemen, and attendance at Bible studies soon swelled. When Trotman returned to Pearl Harbor in January 1945, he found the largest Navigator work anywhere in the world, and Ed Phillips and Ray Stedman were two of the "faithful men." Ray and Ed even arranged a meeting for Dawson with the chief of Navy chaplains, who was passing through Honolulu on his way to the war area.(Betty Lee Skinner, Daws (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, 1974), 163-164,260-261.)
"It was my privilege and delight to be a close friend of Dawson Trotman, to have spent a good deal of time with him and to come under the influence of his teaching and his methods," Ray said years later, describing his involvement with the work of the Navigators and his friendship with Daws. "The Navigators in those days did a great work in the Navy throughout the whole of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, and hundreds of young men were led to Christ through their efforts during the war years. I used to attend a Navigator group which met in Honolulu on Sunday afternoons. Sometimes two or three hundred sailors, all of them Christians, would be there. We had some great meetings and great times together. It was a glorious work." (Ray Stedman, Behind Divisions, sermon preached on March 19,1978; online, The Ray C. Stedman Library, Discovery Paper #3572.)
But after spending time in Hawaii in 1945, Dawson Trotman became convinced that too much emphasis was being placed on group meetings and not enough on "man-to-man" time, when men could be taught to teach others according to the pattern of 2 Timothy 2:2. ''All key hands have been made to see that for the most part meetings, meetings, meetings have practically robbed all of them of time alone with men. Remedies are being made gladly." (Skinner, Daws, 262-263.) Ray took this counsel to heart, and the Navigators' emphasis on personal Bible study and one-on-one discipleship influenced him tremendously. He would later apply this method in his years of ministry at Peninsula Bible Church.
RAY'S INVOLVEMENT WITH THE Navigators and with Ed Phillips soon brought more changes in his life and even in his theology. Ed strongly urged Ray to enlist in the Navy so that he could reach fellow servicemen who were facing the very real possibility of losing their lives in the war. As an officer, Ed was able to help Ray enlist in June 1944 as a Second Class Petty Officer without having to go through boot camp. Both men had a passion to disciple servicemen in their walk with Christ. Recognizing the gulf that existed between officers and enlisted men, they agreed that Ed would focus his work on officers and Rayon enlisted men. Many of these enlisted men would naturally look up to Ray who, at age twenty-seven, commanded their respect.
During his next two years in the Navy, the clerical skills Ray had developed during his year in Chicago served him well as he worked in the Ships Service Department and in the legal office of the Navy as a court reporter.(Elaine Stedman, interview by author, July 15,2001, Grants Pass, Ore., tape recording.) Yet Ray always viewed his enlistment as an open door for ministry.
''Although I was unsure whether I was doing the right thing or not, I felt I ought to join," Ray would later say about his enlistment. "What I did not understand or realize was that the action I took would open a door which gave me what was perhaps the greatest opportunity I have ever had to teach the Scriptures to those who were in desperate need of such teaching. I was stationed at Pearl Harbor, and through that great port there passed from time to time all the sailors of the Pacific Fleet, many of them Christian young men who had won others to Christ aboard their ships. Along with others, I had the opportunity to have great Bible classes, with hundreds of sailors involved. All this was opened up to me because I was a member of the United States Navy myself" (Ray Stedman, Can We Trust Government? sermon preached on November 21,1982; online, The Ray C. Stedman Library, Discovery Paper #3812.)
But along with the light of God's leading came some challenging moments of conflict in his ministry. In the summer of 1945, Ray became involved with a group of men who brought serious allegations of intimidation, pride, financial misdealing, lying, and gossip against Dawson Trotman. Although many of the allegations were true, one does detect in Ray's letters a strong note of spiritual pride as well.
Many painful letters were exchanged between Ray, Ed Phillips, and others and Dawson.(Ray Stedman, letter to Dawson Trotman, July 26,1945.) Even though Dawson wrote a letter to these men in Hawaii saying, "I am guilty," Ray and several others believed that his actions revealed that he had not truly repented. Finally, a mimeographed open letter addressed to "The Church," presenting proof of Dawson's guilt and calling on him to repent, was sent to hundreds of people. In time, Dawson would come to see this as God's needed chastening in his life, and Ray would come to deeply appreciate Dawson's ministry, but it would take two years for the air to be cleared between Ray and Dawson.(Skinner, Daws, 267-270.)
Changing Theology
ANOTHER SIGNIFICANT CHANGE FOR Ray during this time was in the area of theology. As he studied the Scriptures, he began to question much of the teaching and practice of the Pentecostal church, and the teaching he received at Olivet Baptist Church only bolstered his developing convictions. To put it another way: "He studied himself out of the Pentecostal perspective." (Elaine Stedman.)
When Ray described his opportunity with the Baptist church and his hope of eventually attending seminary in Texas, Elaine expressed her concern: "I feel that affiliation with this denomination would permit you to minister a glorious salvation message, but would it not prove a 'bushel' to the light on the baptism of the Spirit?" (Elaine Smith, letter to Ray Stedman, April 5, 1944.) Ray responded with a lengthy letter describing his shift in thinking, as well as his concern that somehow this issue would prove to be an obstacle in their relationship.
"I made a change from the Pentecostal to the Baptist church after much, much deliberation and prayer," Ray wrote to Elaine. "That change was made because I found myself increasingly at variance with Pentecostal methods. I have many sincere and valued friends in Full Gospel churches and I have never regretted the time I spent in such churches. It has given me a depth of understanding and tolerance I could have gained in no other way. I hope to share a lifelong fellowship with Pentecostal people, but I personally cannot work under their banner. I detest denominationalism thoroughly and irrevocably and have little patience with men who constantly blow a denominational trumpet. Nevertheless, I recognize the fact of denominations and recognize that for the sake of harmony and fellowship a man should associate himself with a denomination that will allow him to preach as he understands the Bible and does not interpose obstacles in the form of church behavior to which he cannot agree. For that reason, I have chosen the Baptist church and since I have made that choice I have been much happier and have found a greatly broadened field for my preaching message." (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Smith, April 12, 1944.)
Although the day would come when Ray would challenge the very core of the Pentecostal understanding of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, at this point his issues had more to do with practical matters:
"Let me make it clear that I do not differ as much in doctrine as I do in practice. I most definitely recognize that the Bible teaches a Baptism of the Holy Spirit as a second work of grace. I recognize the Spirit's power and His presence and the Lord's command that each believer should be filled with the Spirit, but I often feel that Full Gospel churches are often guilty of quenching and grieving the Spirit by their insistence on only one form of His manifestations. As a pastor of a Baptist church or any other church, I shall definitely stand forth with regard to the necessity of the Spirit-filled life but I will place emphasis upon receiving the Spirit Himself and leave to Him the manner in which He makes Himself manifest." (Ibid.)
Another important change in Ray's theological development at this time grew out of the influence of the Navigators. Ray's description of a "typical Navigator" offers a telling clue: "You could always tell a Navigator because. . . he had a Scofield Reference Bible tucked under his arm. This Bible was pushed by the Navigators, and everybody had to have one. Since I was working at that time in the ship's service department in Pearl Harbor, we ordered great quantities of these Bibles. They were hard to get in those war years, and every shipment that came in went out like hotcakes. Every Navigator had to have a Scofield Reference Bible; that was the only Authorized Version. (Stedman, Behind Divisions.)
The Scofield Reference Bible played a significant role in Ray's developing dispensational theology. Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (1843-1921) pastored a small Congregational church in Dallas, Texas, and in 1907 he began to lecture at the Correspondence Bible School in Dallas (later to become Dallas Theological Seminary). Scofield was an avid proponent of dispensationalism. Although dispensationalists would later influence Pentecostals, especially in the area of prophecy, they stood against the traditional Pentecostal teaching on the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the normalcy of what they called "sign gifts" (tongues, healing, miracles) for the church. Scofield and other dispensationalists taught that the baptism of the Holy Spirit took place in a believer's life upon conversion and that the sign gifts had ceased after the first generation of Christians died. The Scofield Reference Bible, first published in 1909, consisted of Scofield's annotations and explanations, which incorporated this doctrine.(Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People, vol. 2 (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, a division of Doubleday, 1975), 279-280.)
Ray's dispensationalist theology would become more refined later when he trained at Dallas Theological Seminary. But his initial shift away from Pentecostal theology and practice took place in Hawaii through his study of Scripture, as well as through the influence of the Navigators and the Baptist church.
A Man in love
SOMETHING ELSE OF SIGNIFICANCE occurred during Ray's time in Hawaii-a rekindling of his relationship with Elaine Smith. Soon after arriving in Hawaii, he wrote to her for the first time in two years.
"Do you mind if I write to you?" he said. "I know that the last time I saw you or heard from you was over two years ago, but, if I remember correctly, I owed you a letter then-so here it is. Besides, out here sometimes I get lonesome and would like someone to talk to. I hope you don't mind." (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Smith, December 26,1942.)
This began a correspondence that continued for the next two years, and their letters are marked by an increasing affection, warmth, and intimacy. In April 1944, Ray proposed marriage, but Elaine wanted to wait until he returned from Hawaii to determine her response. Ray was a man in love and used all his long-distance persuasive powers:
"You're a perfectly wonderful person and you don't know how greatly I long to see you. Time drags with leaden feet when I allow myself to dream of what the future may bring. . . .I hope to tell you someday how the very thought of you has been a steadying influence on me. Please know, dear, that I love you sincerely, honestly, wholly and only you. I feel that between you and me there is a sense of mutual understanding deeper than can be accounted for by our short personal acquaintance and our correspondence. I'm not going to put you on the spot again by asking a direct question, because I know and fully understand and agree with your attitude about it, but I want you to know, nevertheless, that if you should change your mind and not want to wait till I return and we see each other again, that engagement ring is still waiting and will be sent " posthaste at your request.(Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Smith, April 21, 1944.)
Interestingly enough, Dawson Trotman played a role in moving Elaine one step closer to accepting Ray's proposal. In January 1945, when Dawson arrived in Hawaii, he noticed a photograph of Elaine on Ray's desk and inquired about it. Ray explained that Elaine was not only his sweetheart but also a secretary for the Montana Branch Manager of the Standard Oil Company of New York. Daws asked Ray if she might be willing to come work for him in Los Angeles as a secretary on the Navigator staff. This request proved to be providential, as Elaine had by now begun her own journey out of the Pentecostal church.
"There were questions raised in my mind about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit," Elaine recalls, "because I had been listening to The Old Fashioned Revival Hour, and Dr. Fuller was doing this wonderful series on the Holy Spirit. I had never heard anything like it! I was intrigued by it. But, of course, we'd always been told that we had the ultimate experience; so I really felt very guilty about it, and I told myself. . . that I was just listening to it for the music, because the music was so wonderful." (Elaine Stedman.)
The Old Fashioned Revival Hour was a nondenominational, fundamentalist radio broadcast begun in 1923 by evangelist Dr. Charles E. Fuller.(Martin E. Marty, "The Electronic Church," in Eerdmans' Handbook to Christianity in America (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983),478.) Although it had broad appeal, it was considered heretical by the Pentecostal movement because Fuller did not align with their teaching on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. As a result, Elaine's pastor put her on trial for heresy. "He didn't want me listening to anyone but him," Elaine recalls, "and was highly offended when a friend told him I was listening to The Old Fashioned Revival Hour. When he called me before the church elders, he presented a list of mostly made-up accusations. I had been virtually a volunteer assistant pastor, and he said I could continue to attend the church but could have no more ministry. He was later found to have embezzled money from the church, and soon after he resigned died of a heart attack." (Elaine Stedman, e-mail to author, November 11,2003.)
Elaine's own growing uneasiness with Pentecostal theology coincided with Ray's prodding her to join Dawson Trotman and the Navigators in Los Angeles. When she finally accepted the position and began working for the Navigators in February 1945, she lived with the rest of the staff and the Trotmans at a large home in South Pasadena provided by, of all things, The Old Fashioned Revival Hour! Elaine's new office was at the old Willard Hotel, which served as both an office for the Navigator staff and a meeting place for the Church of the Open Door, soon to be pastored by Dr. J. Vernon McGee. Elaine also immediately benefited from a visiting teacher, Dr. Jack Mitchell, who was teaching the Navigator staff on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
Elaine's work with the Navigators proved to be the catalyst she needed to further her relationship with Ray. In September 1945, after finally accepting Ray's marriage proposal, she moved to Hawaii to continue working for the Navigators and to get to know the man with whom she had been corresponding for five years and with whom she now planned to spend the rest of her life. Upon her arrival in Hawaii and prior to their wedding, Elaine stayed in the home of Pastor Victor Koon of the Olivet Baptist Church where Ray served as a deacon. Elaine also worked as a secretary for Harold DeGroff, who was in charge of the Navigator Home in Hawaii.
Meanwhile, the leadership of Ray's church had been urging him to attend the Southern Baptist seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and even offered to finance his education. But Ray was beginning to have doubts about Southern Baptist polity, and an incident involving Elaine brought it to a head. Before Elaine could become a member of the church, she was required to be rebaptized. Although Ray himself had been allowed to become a member without being rebaptized, the church had since transitioned from a mission church to a denominational church and they now required all members to be baptized in a Southern Baptist church. Ray stood on principle against this.
"Ray would come to pick me up for a date," Elaine remembers, "and he'd be downstairs having some long debate with the pastor over this issue, while I'm upstairs in my room wondering, 'What in the world is going on?' because I wasn't invited into the debate. And I remember kneeling on my bed and saying, 'Lord, is this the man you want me to marry?' and as clear as though it were an audible voice, He said, 'Yes, and this is the way it's going to be."'(Elaine Stedman.)
Ray and Elaine were married on October 22,1945, in a beautiful garden wedding at the campus of the Olivet Baptist Bible Training School. When they left Hawaii in May of 1946, they left as soldiers who had been in active service for Christ. Now, as they made plans for the future, they were looking for their Master's orders as to where they could best serve Him next.
4. Equipped for Every Good Work
God's calling to preach the gospel was clear to Ray, but the specific arena of ministry he was to be involved in was not. The Navigators offered a Personnel Classification and Allocation Program through their publication, The Log, to counsel men on schooling and possible fields of service, and Ray took advantage of this offer.(Betty Lee Skinner, Daws, 270.) The Navigators enthusiastically recommended a ministry called the China Inland Mission, founded in 1865 by Hudson Taylor as the first truly interdenominational foreign mission,(Harold H. Rowdon, "Hudson Taylor," Dr. Tim Dowley, ed., Eerdmans' Handbook to the History of Christianity (Hertz, England: Lion Publishing, 1977), 554.) and for some time Ray felt led to serve in China. He had even begun to study Chinese at the University of Hawaii while he was still a civilian there. And in the spring of 1946, as Ray and Elaine sailed from Hawaii to San Francisco on the USS Arthur Middleton, they studied Chinese language flashcards to prepare for future service in China.(Elaine Stedman, interview by author, July 15, 2001, Grants Pass, Ore., tape recording.)
Closed Doors
UPON ARRIVING IN SAN FRANCISCO, Ray and Elaine immediately made plans to visit the Los Angeles headquarters of the China Inland Mission to apply as candidates. But two obstacles closed this door for the young couple. First, since Ray still had not received an undergraduate degree, the mission required that he get more education before being accepted as a candidate. The second obstacle was even greater: Ray and Elaine began to doubt that CIM was the right mission under which to serve. Their major concern was the mission's requirement that children be separated from their parents and sent to mission schools. Ray and Elaine felt that they simply could not comply with this regulation and thus began to investigate other avenues of service.
But no matter what direction they explored, Ray's lack of a college degree was a major concern, so they began to examine educational alternatives. The GI Bill made it possible for servicemen like Ray to attend college, but which school should he attend? Many of his fellow-servicemen from the Navigators were attending undergraduate schools like Moody Bible Institute and the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (Biola), but for some time, Ray's Navy friend, Ed Phillips, had encouraged him to consider Dallas Theological Seminary, located in Ed's hometown. Ray's own inclinations also drew him to DTS, and he applied to the seminary. Then he and Elaine returned to Great Falls, Montana, to wait for an answer. Meanwhile, Ray worked for the railroad, as he had in Denver, and Elaine worked for the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company, which later became Mobil Oil.
Ray became increasingly convinced that Dallas Seminary was the school he should attend. But as the summer of 1946 drew to a close and he still had no word about his application, Ray made a characteristic decision. Throughout his ministry when Ray was convinced he should do something, he threw caution to the wind and just did it. Ray was so confident that Dallas was where they belonged that he and Elaine quit their jobs, packed their bags, and headed for Texas. It was a decision they would never regret.
Dallas Theological Seminary
DALLAS THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY HAD opened in the fall of 1924 under the leadership of the founder, noted Bible teacher Lewis Sperry Chafer, who would be president of the seminary until 1952. The first class of thirteen students was the result of Chafer's passion to train men in expository preaching of the Scriptures from a dispensational perspective. In 1935 the seminary pioneered the four-year Master of Theology (Th.M.) degree, which required a year longer than most seminary programs. This additional year of study provided time for emphasis in systematic theology, Hebrew and Greek exegesis, and Bible exposition.("A Rich Tradition: A Brief History" section, Web site of Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.)
Lewis Sperry Chafer was an ardent dispensationalist, as were all teachers at the seminary, and Chafer was the first theologian to organize a complete dispensational theology in his eight-volume Systematic Theology, published in 1948. Dispensationalism shares much in common with conservative Protestant theology; however, it is unique in the way it divides sacred history. A dispensation is defined as "an epoch in history characterized by a covenant or agreement made between God and humankind, or some segment of humankind." This agreement defines what is required of humans to receive salvation during that particular era. Most dispensationalists adhere to seven eras, but the number can vary from three to seven.
At the forefront of dispensationalist thinking is the verbal and plenary inspiration of the Bible and the need to interpret it in the most literal way possible. Dispensationalists also teach premillennialism, believing that this present age will end in judgment and the historical kingdom of Christ will be established on earth for a thousand years. However, many dispensationalists have added other distinctive elements to historic premillennialism, especially concerning the role of the church.
Dispensationalists teach that the church age is a unique dispensation that began at Pentecost and will end at Christ's second coming. This second coming will take place in two stages. In the first stage, called the Rapture, true believers will be caught up in the air to be with Christ. Thus begins seven years of tribulation, culminating in Christ's return to earth with His raptured saints. Then He will restore the nation of Israel as His chosen people and set up His earthly kingdom in Jerusalem for a thousand years. Dispensationalists teach that the true church is a spiritual entity that crosses denominational lines and consists of true believers.(C. Norman Kraus, "Dispensationalism," Mark A. Knoll, ed., Eerdmans' Handbook to Christianity in America (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983), 327-330.) Dallas Seminary, in the forefront of this teaching, was the school to which Ray thought God was calling him.
When he and Elaine arrived in Dallas, they promptly sought out the school's registrar, Dr. Nash, and were delighted to learn that Ray had been accepted to the school. Dr. Nash then explained why they had not heard from him. During a recent trip to Denver, Dr. Nash's briefcase had been stolen. Ray's application form, along with his address, had been inside the case, leaving Dr. Nash with no way to contact him. Ray and Elaine could plainly see that in the providence of God He had led them to make the long trip to Dallas without knowing if they were accepted.
Because Ray did not have an undergraduate degree, he was accepted as a non-degree student. As such, he would take every course required of a regular Th.M student. The only difference was that four years later when Ray graduated, he would receive a Certificate of Graduation rather than a Th.M degree.
Before long, however, Ray distinguished himself as an honor student and an outstanding thinker. He was a natural student of the original languages, especially Hebrew, and he loved to engage in dialogue with professors, questioning them to get to the heart of an issue.
Howard Hendricks, a fellow student who became a close friend of Ray's, recalls, "We always highly respected Ray because he had an incredible mind. . . I used to kid him and say, 'Ray, I think you've got a photographic mind. I had one once, but I ran out of film.' Ray would be the first guy out in every single test he ever took. If it was an hour test, he'd be out in thirty minutes, maximum. And he always aced it. I used to think, 'How in the world could a guy get all this stuff in his head?'''(Howard Hendricks, interview by author, March 15,2001, Gleneden Beach, Ore., tape recording.)
Life was not financially easy for most students at Dallas Seminary in those days. Ray was fortunate to receive a Navy pension of $90.00 a month, but their monthly rent alone was $92.50. To make ends meet, Elaine worked in the seminary office and typed doctoral dissertations while Ray worked at a variety of jobs, including counseling at a camp for needy boys and selling programs at local football games.
"We lived very frugally, very frugally," Elaine recalls. "Our big treat on the weekend was to drive to a Seven-Eleven-type store and have a Milknickel--it cost a nickel--if we could afford it. And I wore clothes out of the missionary barrel from Scofield Church. I had a nice wardrobe when I left my job and went to Hawaii, but after the war they changed the fashions. Skirts, which had been knee-length, were now mid-ankle length. I had nothing left to wear!" (Elaine Stedman, interview by author, July 15, 2001, Grants Pass, Ore., tape recording.)
In this setting, Ray and Elaine learned some powerful lessons about God's provision--lessons that would remain with them for the rest of their lives. Years later, Ray reflected on one incident that proved to be a great encouragement to the young couple.
"I'll never forget the day, in our extreme poverty, when there was a letter in my mailbox from a man whom I had never met, but whose name I knew. When I opened it there fell out a ten-dollar bill and a note from him that said he had heard about our ministry among the servicemen during the war, teaching the Bible. He said he wanted to help us financially and was praying for us. To this day I can recall the immense feeling of gratitude that I felt because some man, unknown to me, had thought of us, and was praying for us, and wanted to help US." (Ray Stedman, The Power You Already Have, sermon preached on September 29,1991; online, The Ray C. Stedman Library, Discovery Paper #4308.)
Ray and Elaine lived on campus, along with seventeen other families, in a place affectionately nicknamed "Trailerville." This "village" was simply a group of seventeen trailers under a grove of pecan trees, located at the place where Chafer Chapel stands today. Life at Trailerville was anything but glamorous. There were no washing machines or dryers, so all laundry had to be hand-washed. Wooden boards served as walkways, but were often lost beneath the accumulated mud after heavy rains. These seventeen families also shared two toilet-and-shower facilities. With characteristic humor, Ray would often sing out the old hymn as he waited in line: "Why do you wait, dear brother? Why do you tarry so long?" (Elaine Stedman.)
But during their four years at Trailerville, Ray and Elaine's life was enriched by the deep friendships they made there, such as Don and Bea Campbell, who lived in a trailer directly behind the Stedman's. (Don would later serve as the president of Dallas Seminary from 1986-1994.) Howard and Jeanne Hendricks lived in the adjoining row of trailers, and Howard and Ray became the best of friends--a friendship that would remain rock-solid through the years.
"I have no brothers or sisters," says Howard Hendricks, "and Ray became my brother. For some reason we were just instinctively drawn to each other, and we spent hours and hours and hours of time together. Many of those hours were spent sitting under a pecan tree developing what Ray called 'nutty theology.' We would go over and over the stuff. We'd change sides--he'd be Premill, I'd be Amill--and then we'd switch sides just to test our thinking. It was there that we hammered out our philosophy of ministry." (Howard Hendricks.)
One of the other qualities that drew Ray and Howard together was their shared sense of humor. Howard affectionately named Ray "the Mayor of Trailerville" when Ray failed to show up at a Trailerville board meeting. From then on, whenever anything went wrong within the Trailerville facilities, Howard would stick his head out of his trailer and yell, "Stedman! Where's the mayor?" (Ibid.) Howard and Ray also dubbed Trailerville "Conception City" because of the number of babies born to the young couples who lived there.
Along with the great friendships he made at Dallas, Ray was also strongly influenced by several professors at the seminary. Dr. Charles Feinberg, his Hebrew professor, had a great affinity for Ray because he was so adept at learning the language. Years later, after Dr. Feinberg moved to Talbot Seminary, he would have a part in bestowing on Ray the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1971. Ray also admired the keen mind of Dr. John Walvoord, who would succeed Dr. Chafer as Dallas Seminary president in 1952.
But the professor who had the most profound impact on Ray Stedman was Lewis Sperry Chafer.
"We were one of the last classes that Dr. Chafer taught," remembers Howard Hendricks. "He was in his eighties and was teaching a course on the spiritual life. The guy would teach the thing, come to an end, get up, and nobody would move. He'd go over and flip the light off, and walk out, and we'd be sitting there, absolutely stunned." (Ibid.) Chafer's teaching on the doctrines of the Holy Spirit, eternal security, and the grace of God marked Ray forever. Chafer believed so deeply in God's grace that he gave all his students an "N' so they could see the principle of unearned favor in action. Chafer's teaching on grace also impacted Elaine, who credits Chafer's book, Grace, published in 1922, as the catalyst that set her free from the legalism under which she had been raised.(Elaine Stedman.)
But it was not just Chafer's teaching that had a profound effect on Ray. Having no children of his own, Chafer would often select certain students as his "favorite sons." Ray Stedman was blessed to be one of these sons. Chafer's affection for Ray was such that he crossed the normal boundaries existing between students and professors. After Ray's second daughter was born, Chafer could not bear to see her return to the stark conditions of the trailer in Trailerville, so he and his wife took the Stedmans into their home.(Ibid.)
These expressions of fatherly care and concern had a profound effect on the fatherless boy from Montana. But the incident that marked him most took place while Ray was an intern at the Emmanuel Baptist Church in California during the summer after his third year of seminary.
"I will never forget an incident in my own ministry when I was a young man," Ray remarked. "I was still a student at Dallas Seminary, but was spending my summers in Pasadena. I was working one summer as a youth minister in a church there, when Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer. came into town and was gracious enough to spend an afternoon with my wife and me."
Ray showed Dr. Chafer around the church where he was working, an impressive and beautiful building. When Ray told Dr. Chafer that the congregation was without a pastor and was seeking one, Dr. Chafer said to him, "Do you think you might end up here in this church?"
"I don't know," said Ray. "Who knows what God will do? I don't have any particular plans for that."
"I don't know either," Dr. Chafer said, "but it would be a good place for you because I believe God is going to give you a great ministry."
Ray later said, "I do not know what he had in mind by that. . . . But his words have been a great encouragement to my heart. Many times as a young man I remembered that Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer had seen something in me that was an encouragement." (Ray Stedman, Wage the Good Warfare, sermon preached in 1981; online, The Ray C. Stedman Library, Discovery Paper #3767.)
Years later, in his own ministry, Ray would become known as a man who showed the same kind of affection for his own sons in the faith. Just prior to his death, I wrote to him in much the same vein as Ray had spoken of Chafer: "You have been a wonderful model of a pastor to me. But, more importantly you have given me something that I desperately needed--your blessing. In various ways you have shown me that you believed in me, or at least in God's presence in me. You have blessed me by seeing something of God's call upon my life even when I wasn't sure it was really there. I'd like to say that I'm beyond all that now--that I know who I am and don't need that blessing. But I know that I do and nobody reminds me of this like you." (Mark S. Mitchell, letter to Ray Stedman, August 1992.)
Opportunities for Growth and learning
SUMMER BREAKS FROM SEMINARY provided opportunities for Ray to learn from experienced men and to grow in the practical aspects of ministry. After his first year at Dallas, in the summer of 1947, Ray served an internship with Dr. J. Vernon McGee at the Lincoln Avenue Presbyterian Church in Pasadena, California.
During that time, Elaine's father became quite ill, and she spent the summer in Great Falls while Ray worked in Pasadena. This was a difficult separation for the young couple, particularly as Elaine was expecting their first child. On May 20, he wrote to her from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, as he was driving to Pasadena: "Honey, I miss you an awful lot and would sure give an awful lot to have you with me right now. Bachelors are awfully unhappy people!" (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Stedman, May 20,1947.) Throughout his correspondence with Elaine during this time, Ray affectionately referred to their unborn baby as "Bruce."
Ray was eager to have children, and the minute it seemed a pregnancy was likely he went around Trailerville proudly announcing it. He wrote to Elaine, "I can't wait to get my hands on that little tyke, Bruce, so please hurry him along if at all possible. Does he still upset your stomach considerably or are things leveling out somewhat?" (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Stedman, June 7, 1947.) It would be six months before the "little tyke" was born on January 3,1948, and much to Ray's surprise, "Bruce" would be Sheila!
"Though I think he was surprised to have a girl baby," Elaine recalls, "she quickly won his heart, and mine, too, of course."
When Ray arrived in Pasadena, he discovered that his ministry was to be primarily with the young people and that he would have the opportunity to speak at two youth camps.(Ibid.) As the days passed Ray began to see himself as a catalyst for change in the youth ministry at Lincoln Avenue, moving them more in the direction of outreach to unchurched kids.
''Just now had a long talk with the sponsor of the C.E. for High School and Jr. High who has a real problem," he wrote to Elaine in mid-June. "I believe Young Life tactics are the answer and they are willing to try them. We are very near a Jr. College and a Jr. High School and I believe they can be reached. That project calls for your prayers." (Ibid.) Less than two weeks later, he told her that the transition to an outreach-centered Young Life model was progressing well.(Ray Stedman to Elaine Stedman, June 18, 1947.)
Being in Pasadena also placed Ray in close proximity to Dawson Trotman and allowed for some much-needed healing between the two men. Daws lived in the Los Angeles area, and Ray and Daws met together several times. They "had good fellowship together" (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Stedman, May 24,1947.) and began to experience some healing in their relationship. One of the valuable lessons Ray learned from these painful encounters was how to work through disagreement without compromising the standards set forth in God's Word.
"I had dinner at 509 again and afterward Daws and I thrashed out our difficulty. I had told you I was willing to admit there were questionable features about that mimeographed letter [the letter sent in 1945 regarding Dawson's misconduct] if and when Daws was ready to admit his backbiting and lordly attitude. Well, last night he did so, saying that the Lord had dealt with him a great deal and from our talk I was convinced that it was genuine. Accordingly, I promised to give him a statement he could print in the Log if he cared about the letter. We still differ somewhat about his treatment of H-- and some Navigator practices but those are pretty much differences of opinion and hardly call for discipline. I am glad the hatchet is buried and peace reigns again." (Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Stedman, June 7, 1947.)
After his second year at Dallas, Ray returned to Pasadena, this time accompanied by his wife and daughter. One of the struggles Ray had to contend with each summer was how to finance the trip and make ends meet during their first few weeks before receiving a paycheck in Pasadena. They had very little cash to work with and it took all their savings to buy gasoline to make the trip. As Ray said, "We always arrived absolutely flat broke." Through this experience, however, he gained a powerful illustration of redemption.
"Usually we had spent the last of our money four or five hundred miles back and had gone without a couple of meals and slept in the car. There would be a week, or sometimes two, until my first check arrived. And so I always had to pawn something. The only thing of value I had, beside my wife, was my typewriter. So the first thing I did in Pasadena was to take my typewriter down and pawn it. (The pawnbroker and I became good friends as the summers went by.) We would live on that money until my first check came. Then I'd redeem the typewriter. Now, for that two-week period the typewriter was absolutely useless to anyone. No one could use it. I had no right 'to use it; the pawnbroker had no right to use it. He couldn't sell it to anyone else. It was in hock, in pawn. It was useless, absolutely useless. . .. When I bought the typewriter back, redeemed it, it was restored to usefulness." (Ray Stedman, Liberated! sermon preached on August 13, 1972; online, The Ray C. Stedman Library, Discovery Paper #3003.)
During Ray's second summer at Lincoln Avenue, he completely immersed himself in ministry with the youth. ,He also continued to observe Dr. J. Vernon McGee, whose faithful exposition of God's Word would influence Ray's preaching in years to come. Like McGee, Ray preferred preaching through the books of the Bible; and like McGee, his preaching was marked by simplicity, a conversational tone, and homespun stories and humor. Yet with a powerful model like McGee came a powerful temptation, as Ray confessed years later.
"When I graduated from seminary, I thought that the power needed for a ministry lay in the man of God--so I studied men. I followed them. I saw men that were being used of God, and I said, 'What is it that is the secret of their power?' When I thought I found it, I tried to imitate it, and to adapt it to myself. I caught myself aping men--talking like them. . . . coming fresh from the influence of the ministry of Dr. J. Vernon McGee, I used to talk like him. I wore bright red shirts, because I thought that was the hiding [the secret] of his power. I finally realized that the power did not lie in the man." (Ray Stedman, False Consecration, sermon preached on July 22, 1962; online, The Ray C. Stedman Library, Discovery Paper #12.)
The following year, Dr. McGee left Lincoln Avenue Presbyterian Church to become pastor of Church of the Open Door in downtown Los Angeles. So Ray spent his third seminary summer once again doing youth ministry at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Pasadena.
By this time, Ray and Elaine were expecting their second child, and their daughter Susan was born during Ray's fourth and final year of seminary on January 25, 1950.
The man who expected to have four sons was now well on his way to having four daughters. Elaine confesses that she didn't know Ray's true feelings about this: "There was one overall deficit in our marriage, and that was communication. I think I could write a book about that. For instance, if Ray felt any disappointment about having all girls rather than the four boys he planned, he never expressed it to me, and certainly not to them. . . . I truly do not know whether he just stuffed any disappointment he may have felt or whether he genuinely received it as God's gift--perplexing maybe, but good nevertheless. I still marvel at the irony, that God should assign a house full of females to a man who had so much perplexity about women. But I never heard a complaint after any of our daughters' births. And when he announced the last to the congregation at PBC he said, 'I guess I'm just destined to live my life surrounded by beautiful women.' " (Elaine Stedman, e-mail to author, November 11, 2003. 244)
FOR RAY, THE HIGHLIGHTS of those Dallas years "were the visits of special expositors who came for two weeks at a time and lectured to the students. One of them was. . . Dr. H. A. Ironside, the long-term pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago.a great Bible teacher." (Ray Stedman, "Why I Am An Expositor," Theology, News and Notes XXXII, no. 4 (December 1985): 4.) Ray loved Dr. Ironside's teaching, and he quickly took the initiative to try and develop a relationship in a very practical way. Noting the older man's deteriorating eyesight, Ray offered to assist with writing out Dr. Ironside's notes, putting to good use the typing and shorthand skills he had learned in Chicago and Hawaii. As a result, Ironside developed an affinity for his eager student and asked if Ray would travel with him as his chauffeur and assistant during the summer after Ray's graduation from Dallas. Although this would mean separation from his wife and two young daughters, Ray could not resist the opportunity to spend time with a man of Ironside's stature. So while Elaine and the children spent the summer of 1950 with her parents in Great Falls, Montana, Ray accompanied Dr. Ironside in his travels and speaking engagements. Dr. Ironside's widow wrote of Ray's contribution to the publication of her husband's book on Isaiah:
In December 1949, Dr. Ironside gave lectures on the Book of Isaiah at Dallas Theological Seminary. One of the students, Ray C. Stedman, made wire recordings of the classroom lecture.
Mr. Stedman also did a great deal of secretarial work for Dr. Ironside during his stay at the seminary. He was so efficient and helpful that Dr. Ironside asked him if he would be willing to travel with us during the summer, and help with the writing of his exposition of the Book of Isaiah, which had long been delayed on account of his failing eyesight.
Mr. Stedman joined us in June 1950, after his graduation from the seminary, and for two months served not only as chauffeur, secretary, and companion, but as a "brother beloved" was so helpful in all the varied activities of the itinerant ministry that we came to love him as a son. Without his help and cooperation the publication of Dr. Ironside's "Isaiah" would have been impossible.
Traveling constantly, Dr. Ironside's reference library consisted of M. A. Vine's Isaiah--Prophecies, Promises, and Warnings; F. C. Jennings' Isaiah; a one-volume Bible encyclopedia; and J. N. Darby's New Translation of the Holy Scriptures.
As Dr. Ironside was unable to read at all during this time, except with the aid of a powerful magnifying glass, his method of working under this handicap may be of interest. Mr. Stedman writes:
"In general our procedure was as follows: I would read to him the portion chosen for comment, out of the Authorized Version--a portion which had previously been read to him and over which he had been meditating. He would take a moment or two to gather 'his thoughts and then would begin dictating, seldom pausing for rephrasing or changes. I would then read the next section and he would dictate on that until an entire chapter had been covered. After that I would read through the next chapter, usually from Darby's "New Translation" and also the corresponding portion from Jennings and Vine. This would form the basis for this meditation in preparation for the next day's dictation.
"Occasionally we would discuss interesting sections of the chapters together and he would ask me to look up certain words in a one-volume Bible encyclopedia he carried. I was always amazed at the way he kept his comments from simply being a "rehash" of Vine and Jennings, but always managed to bring out some interesting sidelight which the others had overlooked."
When Mr. Stedman left us to go to the pastorate of the Peninsula Bible Fellowship at Palo Alto, California, the first thirty-five chapters of Isaiah were completed and typed.
That summer proved to be another turning point for Ray as he carefully observed both the life and teaching of this seasoned pastor. One of the treasures he brought home with him three months later was a card file he had made of Dr. Ironside's illustrations.(Ray Stedman, letter to Elaine Stedman, June 8, 1950.) (Providentially, this would be his last chance to glean from the great expositor, because Dr. Ironside died the following fall.)
"It was a great and choice privilege to be with Dr. Ironside for three months," Ray said years later, reflecting on that life-changing summer. "It was a fascinating time for me. Because he was almost blind with cataracts in both eyes, I was his constant companion. I was his chauffeur, his secretary, and his companion. We lived, ate, bled and died together for three months. Because I was young I listened to him with great interest, and watched everything he did. I saw his great strengths as a Bible teacher. I saw his warmth and compassion as a human being, and I saw some weaknesses. . . . He made an unforgettable impression upon me." (R
