A Sober Scare

A couple weeks ago, Reggie Kidd was clobbered by a drunk driver who ran through a red light going 65 mph. On the right side of my blog page, there is a link to Reggie's homepage, and he has put up a picture of the now totaled car he was in when he got hit.

Reggie teaches NT at RTS-Orlando. I had the great privilege of being his teaching assistant during my last semester at seminary, in addition to taking a number of classes with him as part of the MDiv program. In addition to being a formidable scholar (his work on the Pastoral Epistles is first rate), he also has a great talent and passion for music and worship. His recent book With One Voice is a very thoughtful and irenic treatment of worship written for a wide audience. Put simply, while Reggie is not a "big-name" scholar, he is every bit as much of a gift to the church as a Frame or Carson.

Reggie has made a critical impression on my Christian walk. If someone has done their homework, he/she knows that Reggie is on the ball as a Christian thinker. He's one of those guys who you know knows a lot more than you ever will. Yet, when you meet him, he immediately impresses with his humility and gentle spirit. Reggie is not afraid to speak his mind at times, and to say some provocative things that sometimes need to be said. But he's not in the business of pulling power-plays on people, and given his pedigree, that's an extraordinary characteristic. During my time with him, I found him to be very patient and kind. He solicited my opinions, and even more impressively, he respected them even though the distance in maturity and intelligence between him and I was far as east is from west. Many others who have had the privilege of knowing Reggie would probably offer similar testimonies.

It was, therefore, unnerving when I learned that Reggie was on the receiving end of a brutal wreck. As I learned during my time at RTS, seminary is not the place to go if one is seeking a respite from the tragedies of the real world. To the contrary, there was not a single semester when I was there that the seminary community wasn't galvanized by at least one crisis or tragedy that had intruded. What I came to learn was that as hard and difficult as it was, things like Reggie's scare actually deepened our ability to live out RTS's mission of having "A Mind for Truth. A Heart for God."

I am thrilled that Reggie is on the mend. I am thankful that God mercifully protected Reggie and allowed him to walk away from a wreck that could have been fatal. I am pleased that God obviously thinks that his church continues to need Reggie at this point in her history. For my part, fewer things are more obvious than that.