Jerry Bridges, who died on 6 March in Colorado Springs, was a leading light in the work of the Navigators and the author of over 20 popular Christian books on discipleship.
Gerald Dean Bridges was born on 4 December, 1929 in a cotton-farming home in Tyler, Texas to Christian parents, six weeks after the stock market crash that led to the Great Depression.
He was born with several disabilities: he was cross-eyed, he was deaf in his right ear (which was not fully developed), and he had spine and breastbone deformities. But given his family’s poverty, they were unable to afford medical care for these challenges. As a youngster growing up in the church he responded to altar calls three times, but later realised he had not been born again. His mother died when he was 14.
‘I want Christ, whatever it takes.’
In August 1948, the 18-year-old student was home alone one night in bed and acknowledged he was not a Christian, but prayed: ‘God, whatever it takes, I want Christ to be my Saviour’. Back at college, at the University of Oklahoma, he began to read the Bible that his parents had given him and pursued Bible reading every day for the rest of his life.
He served as an officer in the US Navy in the Korean War and joined the Christian discipleship organisation The Navigators in 1955, where he served as administrative assistant to the Europe Director, office manager for the HQ, secretary treasurer and vice president for corporate affairs, before moving to a staff development position with the Collegiate Mission. On his blog, Justin Taylor of the publisher Crossway says: ‘He saw this ministry as developing people, rather than teaching people how to do ministry.’ One of the great turning points in his life was his sudden grasp of the doctrine of election, which previously he had thought was heresy.
