At a young age I was adopted into a Christian home in Southern Arkansas. While in first grade, I meet the most beautiful girl in the world, who would later introduce me to Christ and eventually become my wife. We attended Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, AR. Upon graduation, Sadie, my wife, pursued a Masters of Science in Psychology at the University of Louisiana in Monroe while I taught Bible and Speech at Westside Christian High School.

In my wife’s last semester, our first daughter, Mattie Elizabeth was born. Now it was my turn to go back to school. I enrolled at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary while I served as a youth pastor at Fairfield Baptist Church in Cypress, TX. During this time, Kinnon Scott, my first-born son, entered into the world.

A couple of years later, I took an associate pastor job at an inner city church, Wilcrest Baptist Church, and also began teaching Greek at Houston Baptist University. After taking a pay cut and losing our health insurance, Aidan Paul (a.k.a. Cheetoh), my next son, thought it would be a great time to make his debut.

I have always wanted to have one foot in the church and the other in the University. In order to do this more effectively, we knew that I would need to get a Ph.D.  I applied to the program in Aberdeen, Scotland to study under one of the best New Testament scholars that I know, Simon J. Gathercole (http://www.theopedia.com/Simon_Gathercole). Although my learning curve was (and still is!) steep, Simon and the professors at Aberdeen patiently walked along with me in both scholarship and faith. In Scotland, the runt of my litter, Iain Roman Richard (a.k.a. KONG!) was born.

The last year of my program, I was offered a Guest Research post at the University of Tübingen, Germany. After a great year there, we spent the summer in Greece so that I could work on my Greek while my family worked on their tans.

That pretty much brings us close to the present. As I said elsewhere, I am teaching Bible and Greek courses at H.B.U. (link), serving as a pastor of Spiritual Formation at Grand Parkway Baptist Church (www.grandparkway.org). When I am not teaching, writing, and serving as a pastor, I travel and preach for both youth and adult events.

A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS

• Go Hogs Go! I am a die-hard Arkansas Razorback football fan (for better of for worse, usually for the latter!) I love to watch sports, especially College Football, and to play anything that involves competition.

• I like to read books written by dead men most people have never heard of.

• My wife and I like watching movies together after we put the kids to bed.

• My kids and I love to read and wrestle together, sometimes simultaneously!