and I will never forget him.

After his death in 1976, my dad, who was his pastor, received Prof. Smith’s personal New Testament. Upon my dad’s death in 2007, I received this same New Testament. I find it marked up by Prof. Smith in personal ways.

For example, on the Romans 8 page, where the King James Version says, “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect?”, Smith jotted in the margin, “Not God!” And where it says, “Who is he that condemneth?”, he noted, “Not Christ!”

Does that seem too obvious to mention? To me, it is significant. Here’s how. Smith’s clear this-and-not-that way of thinking is categorical, even simple, and very apostolic. When I listen to some preachers, it’s not just that I disagree with their conclusions; it’s that I disagree with their mode of thinking. Not all considerations in theology are blindingly obvious. But then, when we preach, we do not make those more difficult matters our great message. We are not there to proclaim a grand maybe-ism. The apostles certainly weren’t. We are there, as they were, to declare a sure word of hope to desperate people for whom everything is on the line. They need to hear a word from God himself, through us, that this is what the gospel is, and that isn’t. Then their hearts can come to rest in the authority of it.

People need and deserve apostolic clarity.