[1]NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–The late Adrian Rogers loved a turn of phrase and had a special gift of “sound-bite wisdom,” his wife, Joyce Rogers said. Now a collection of his sayings is available in the new book “Adrianisms: The Wit and Wisdom of Adrian Rogers,” published by Love Worth Finding Ministries, which he founded.
“Some are original. Some he gleaned from reading or hearing others say — he may have even forgotten who said them originally,” Joyce wrote in the book’s foreword. “He was just programmed for that type of thing. They stuck to him, and he just remembered them.”
Joyce also noted her husband’s gift of application and illustration, how he knew exactly when to use a certain quip or story to make a sermon come alive. In her opinion, his most memorable phrase was “Come to Jesus,” which she made the theme of his “graduation to glory” last November.
“His preaching ministry centered on this climax to every sermon — his plea to ‘Come to Jesus,’” Joyce wrote. “I think it was the way he said it, the passion behind the plea.”
The leather-bound book, compiled by the Love Worth Finding staff, includes his spiritual wisdom on a number of topics:
— On the character of God, “God only wants for us what we would want for ourselves if we were smart enough to want it.
[2]— On the lordship of Christ, “If I put things between me and Christ, it is idolatry. If I put Christ between me and things, it is victory!”
— On the Word of God, “If you have a Bible that’s falling apart, you’ll have a life that’s not.”
— On prayer, “Pray and doubt; you’ll do without. Pray and believe; you will receive.”
Rogers also used the gift of humor to engage his audiences while imparting biblical truths, and the book captures his wit:
— On attending a large church, “Just sit somewhere in the first 10 rows and don’t look back.”
— On acting religious, “It’s like a pig. You can scrub him clean, brush his teeth, and dress him in a pink ribbon; but he will go right back into the mire. A scrubbing on the outside doesn’t change his inner nature.”
— On grumpy folks, “Some people brighten up a room just by leaving it.”
— On relationships, “If you marry a child of the devil, you’ll get the devil for a daddy-in-law.”
The Love Worth Finding staff “scoured through scribbled notes in flyleaves of Bibles, received lists containing collected sayings, read and listened to numerous messages, and perked up [their] ears as people have inevitably said, ‘As Pastor would say …,” Bill Skelton, president of LWF, wrote in the preface to the book.
“He had a way of taking common things and saying them in such an uncommon way so as to make you think through them all over again,” Skelton wrote. “And conversely, he could take uncommon things and put them in unusually common terms.
“But neither his wit nor his wisdom ever overpowered the message of the Gospel; rather, it complemented it — just little snippets sprinkled in to season the message.”
Visit www.adrianisms.org to hear audio clips of some of Rogers’ quoted phrases or to order a copy of the book. The LWF staff is also putting together a second edition of Adrianisms, and submissions may be given at the website. Call LWF at 901-382-7900 for more information.
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