E. W. Rogers

Spoken ministry irretrievably fades unless recorded, but written ministry lives on. This characterizes the exposi-tory teaching of our brother Mr. E. W. Rogers, who at the age of 84 departed to be with the Lord on November 10th, 1977. He was the author of several books and many expository articles. In particular, we have had the privilege of publishing in Precious Seed much of our brother’s written ministry, since he was always willing to help us even in his advancing years. Not many readers can recall the first issue of the magazine in September 1945, but the three articles published in that issue were “The believer’s responsibility in regard to the spread of the gospel" by E. W. Rogers, “The importance of New Testament church principles” by W. E. Vine, and “The church of God”, by William Trew, all three writers now being with the Lord. From the third issue, Mr. Rogers conducted a Quest-ion and Answer page.

He was very much at home on any scriptural subject. Many single articles were contributed by him, until the editors were encouraged to ask him for series. These were (i) “Future events”, (ii) “The Apocalyptic letters”, (iii) “Ephesians”, and (iv) “Paul’s pastoral Epistles”. Later, the prophetical articles were expanded to include a brief survey of the Book of Revelation, then published as one of our Precious Seed Publications, and still in print. More recently we used three of these past articles in our new book Treasury of Bible Doctrine, published six months ago, and although aging and not in good health, Mr. Rogers wrote four articles specially for the book, “God in creation and providence”, “The devil and his angels”, “Man as a sinner – sin and its synonyms" and “Quicken-ing, New birth, Regeneration, New creation’. The work of our brother thus lives on, and may the Lord’s people continue to profit from it.

Additionally, our brother’s service was marked by his ready availability to help local assemblies through his teaching ministry. This zeal of our brother to use for the Lord’s glory the expository gift vouchsafed to him by the Risen Lord is a feature that should be carefully assessed by younger brethren who aspire to serve the Lord faithfully. As a token of respect for our parted brother, and as a sign of our appreciation of his ministry, we reprint below his first article published in Precious Seed in September 1945.

J.H.