When a physical education teacher challenged her students to read the
Bible, she had no idea the worldwide impact the challenge would have.
When a physical education teacher challenged her students to read the
Bible, she had no idea the worldwide impact the challenge would have.
Thirteen-year-old Bill Tolar liked a challenge. So, when his
teacher said 99 percent of the people around the world never had completed reading
the best-selling book in history, he began to read.
“I began to realize that if this book was right, then
basically my life was wrong, because I was living without any serious regard
for the God that the Scriptures were telling me about,” Tolar recalls.
Sixty years later, the Louisiana native still is reading the
book. And as he retires this summer from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
after 36 years as a professor and administrator, he understands the important
impact the Bible and teachers have had on his life.
That first through-the-Bible reading caused Scripture to begin
“to make claims upon my life, and I realized I was going to have to dismiss
them some way, discredit them or stop reading – or have to deal with it
in a meaningful way,” Tolar says. “God seemed to have worked through
that Scripture reading to bring me to himself.”
Under conviction of his sins, Tolar says he realized he needed
a relationship with God. He visited a Baptist church where – for the first
time – he “heard a pastor take the Scriptures and apply them in an
intelligent and meaningful way,” he recalls.
Tolar made his profession of faith on Easter Sunday 1942. A
year later, he accepted the call to vocational ministry.
“I had a very profound sense that I wanted my life to
really count for God,” Tolar says. “If you were a minister, you would
be helping people all the time.”
After his salvation, another teacher helped him take his studies
seriously.
“I didnt know that I had a pretty good mind until
my conversion and a high school history teacher, a very good Christian and a
good teacher, came to me and challenged me to really give the best of my mind
to Christ,” Tolar says.
In 1945, Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, offered
Tolar a scholarship for placing second in an academic competition and for being
the states top high school running back. Louisiana Tech University in
Ruston, also offered a scholarship, but Tolar wanted to prepare for the ministry
at a Baptist school.
However, Baptist-related Louisiana College in Pineville, lacked
the resources to offer Tolar a full scholarship.
But once again, two educators helped out the young student.
His principal and football coach told Baylor University in Waco, Texas, about
Tolar.
“When Baylor learned that I had these full scholarships
to LSU (and) that I wanted to be a Baptist minister, they gave me a scholarship,”
he recalls.
At Baylor, Tolar excelled, especially in science classes. He
graduated from Baylor in 1950 and Southwestern in 1955. He then was pastoring
a church near Baylor, when an educator would again influence his life.
While visiting a friend at Baylor, Tolar saw the religion department
chair, who asked him if he would teach part-time. After receiving permission
from his church, Tolar accepted the offer.
“I fell in love with teaching,” Tolar says. And his
students fell in love with him.
The chair told him, “Your students are coming by telling
me how much they enjoy your teaching,” Tolar recalls.
A year later, he was offered a full-time position, which meant
resigning as pastor. After praying about it, Tolar accepted.
Later on, Tolar says he realized that “coincidental meeting”
was directed by Gods providence.
“Teaching just kind of opened in a way that I never dreamed
or foresaw, and had I not met that chairman in that hallway that day, chances
are I would never have become a teacher,” he says.
After teaching at Baylor for 10 years, Tolar and his wife,
Floye, went to Southwestern Seminary in 1965 to teach and complete his doctor
of theology work. Thirty-six years later, Tolar has done what educators have
done for him throughout his life – equip thousands of students for ministry
around the world.
At Southwestern, the distinguished professor of biblical backgrounds
has served as dean of the school of theology, vice president for academic affairs,
provost and acting president.
Tolar is “unique and gifted” and a man of integrity,
says former student Thomas Brisco, who has taught biblical backgrounds at Southwestern.
In addition to school duties, Tolar also has served as interim
pastor at almost 50 churches, including Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas,
when it was going through a difficult transition.
“Dr. Bill Tolar from the seminary should receive a great
deal of credit for preparing the church for a new pastor (and) for helping in
the healing process of a church that was wounded,” current Prestonwood
Pastor Jack Graham acknowledges.
However, despite all his accomplishments, nothing compared
to the moment when “I was able to lead my own father to Christ,” Tolar
emphasizes.
Tolar also says he is grateful to God for his wife, “who
is a loving, supporting (and) devout Christian.”
And although retirement gives Tolar more time with his family, he will not
stop teaching, because “the thing that I have enjoyed the most, of course,
is the classroom and the students.” (BP)