Gary’s Story

I have been a professor of New Testament since 1988 and an author, serving in the US and in Costa Rica.

I was raised in small-town New England in a family that had roots back to the founding of Rhode Island in the 1600s and to the Puritan movement in London in the 1500s. I grew up in the Baptist church and came to believe in Christ at the age of 6. Then as a teenager, a series of experiences led me to a deeper walk with God and a sense that he was calling me into ministry. After a number of years of education (culminating with a PhD in New Testament from Kings College, Aberdeen, Scotland) I served as a pastor and later as a seminary teacher.

In 1998 we moved to Costa Rica to learn Spanish, so that I could teach at ESEPA Bible College and Seminary in San José. I’ve written a number of articles and several books, including a Spanish-language commentary on 1 Corinthians (CLIE, 2021, also available in English from Logos Bible Software and from Amazon); a commentary on 1-2 Thessalonians for Zondervan (2012) and Andamio (2019); a commentary on Romans for a Latin American audience (Kairos); two books which are pending from CLIE. I have also served Wycliffe Associates part-time since 2015 as a consultant in Bible translation and an editor.

My wife is Karen, we were married in 1980. We have four grown children.