My Story #103 -- A Teacher And Friend

 

My Story #103

A Teacher And Friend
Pastor Ronnie Wolfe

This week I would like to turn our attention to a pastor and teacher in Lexington, Kentucky. He was a teacher at Lexington Baptist College and had an influence on many students who took classes under him, and others. His name is Johnny Thompson. All the preachers will remember. He was quite a unique fellow.

In class he was very unorganized but taught us plenty from his vast knowledge of the Old Testament and of Bible places studied from the Old Testament. He drew maps on the blackboard and gave illustrations from his personal life that brought his classes to life. Once, when illustrating the Old Testament of killing by stabbing under "the fifth rib," he picked up my crutch and used it as a sword and had his enemy to stop and be still while he counted to the fifth rib before he slew him with the sword--that one I shall never forget.

Bro. Thompson loved planes and was a pilot. Some of the male students would try many times to get him on the subject of airplanes so he would forget that we were supposed to have a test that day. By the time he finished with his plane illustration, it was too late to give the test; it had to wait for the next class session.

Bro. Thompson taught in a two-room school, and I found that out from a lady who was once a member of our church here. I asked her how she knew Bro. Thompson, and she said that they both taught in the same two-room school in Irvine, Kentucky--small world.

Bro. Thompson became pastor of Devondale Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky, and he pastored there for several years. At one time I was a member of Devondale while he was pastor.

Eventually, this man, who was so knowledgeable on the holy land and so good at teaching, contacted Alzheimer's. When I heard of it, he was in a nursing home in Kentucky. I decided I wanted to visit him there, so I took my grandson, Eric, and we traveled to the nursing home to visit him.

When we arrived, I asked him if he remembered me, and he said he did, although he never mentioned my name. He said, "Who is this you have with you today?" I said, "This is my grandson, Eric." We visited for a while, and he kept asking me over and over who this boy was whom I brought with me today. I kept telling him it was my grandson.

While we were there, Bro. Thompson's wife came in. She told me that she visited him yesterday, and he was in his room with his Bible open to the first chapter of Genesis. She asked him what he was doing, and he answered "I am trying to figure out what this says."

Bro. Thompson is gone to heaven now, but many of us will long remember his fun-loving attitude and his helpful teaching. We are so thankful for the teachers we had at LBC.

-->To be continued<--