Author Description

Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871-1952) was the founder and first president of Dallas Theological Seminary, and an influential founding member of modern Christian Dispensationalism. Ordained in 1900 by a Council of Congregational Ministers in the First Congregational Church in Buffalo, in 1903 he ministered as an evangelist in the Presbytery of Troy in Massachusetts and became associated with the ministry of Cyrus Scofield, who became his mentor. During this early period, Chafer began writing and developing his theology. He taught bible classes and music at the Mount Hermon School for Boys from 1906 to 1910. He joined the Orange Presbytery in 1912 due to the increasing influence of his ministry in the south. He aided Scofield in establishing the Philadelphia School of the Bible in 1913. From 1923 to 1925, he served as general secretary of the Central American Mission. In 1933, Dallas acquired the periodical Bibliotheca Sacra and began publishing it in 1934. Chafer wrote many hundreds of articles for this journal. His other works include: True Evangelism; or, Winning Souls by Prayer (1911), Kingdom in History and Prophecy (1915), Salvation (1917) and Satan (1919).