A Maston Remembrance

Dr. Maston had been retired for seventeen years by the time I arrived on the campus of Southwestern Seminary in 1980. He was still an active presence on the campus, however, as he worked in his office day by day. When I took my first course in Christian Ethics with Dr. Guy Greenfield, we were assigned two Maston texts--Biblical Ethics and Why Live the Christian Life?--for reading.
It was about then that I realized I had already come under the influence of Dr. Maston, even before I had gotten to Fort Worth. I had become a Christian my first year in college and a youth minister quickly put into my hands a little book published by the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention entitled God's Will and Your Life by T. B. Maston. I was challenged by reading chapters such as "His Will Applies to All" and "His Will is Always Best." That little book played an important role in my search for God's direction in my life and likely contributed to me ending up in Dr. Greenfield's class in Christian Ethics at Southwestern Seminary.
By that semester I had already sensed that I was to continue on in school for doctoral work to prepare for a ministry in teaching. But in what field? I vividly remember sitting in Roberts Library with a classmate who held up Dr. Maston's Why Live the Christian Life? and said, "You know, this is where it all comes together." Indeed, that is where it all came together for me and I knew that the field of Christian Ethics was to demand my attention and commitment from then on.
Dr. Maston died two years before I began my own teaching ministry. Today, thirty-five years after I was first introduced to his wisdom, I teach Christian Ethics at East Texas Baptist University in Marshall, Texas. I am still persuaded that the concerns and issues raised by Dr. Maston are "where it all comes together," still persuaded that "His Will Applies to All," and "His Will is Always Best." Those simple assertions are enough to answer the question "Why live the Christian life?"