Ravi Zacharias

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Ravi Zacharias

(Christian author and apologist)

Ravi Zacharias.jpg

Born March 26, 1946
India

Resident of Atlanta, Georgia

Died May 19, 2020 (aged 74)
Spouse Margaret Reynolds

Daughter Sarah Z. Davis

Religion Christian

Ravi Zacharias (March 26, 1946 – May 19, 2020) was a Christian apologist and teacher, the president of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM), headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. He also hosted the weekly radio program Let My People Think, heard on more than 1,500 stations worldwide. Chuck Colson described Zacharias as "the great apologist of our time".[1]

Zacharias was reared in a nominally Anglican family in India that attended a "liberal-minded" Church of England congregation, at which Zacharias stated that he "didn't ever recall hearing the gospel preached." He did not accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior until the gospel was presented to him after a failed suicide attempt in his late teenage years. He eventually transformed this second chance at life into a love for God and for the practice of apologetics.[2]

Zacharias was an ordained minister of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) denomination.

Zacharias became the first non-Mormon to address The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) at its signature pulpit in the Salt Lake City Tabernacle. The sermon was on "Who Is the Truth? Defending Jesus Christ as The Way, The Truth and The Life".[3]

Education

Education:

Ravi Zacharias Internation Ministries

Ravi Zacharias International Ministries is a Bible based ministry with the main focus towards worldwide evangelism undergirded by apologetics, reaching the thinker and opinion makers of the world. With a commitment to strengthening the church, the organization trains emerging leaders through its programs and leadership development curricula. RZIM recognizes that historically the benefits and ethics of any culture are powerfully influenced and molded by the intellectuals and entertainers of society. Moral values do not only enter through the door of reason, but also through the window of the arts and media. With this in mind, this ministry is geared to communicating the Gospel to people on their territory, and presenting the credibility of Christianity as the only reasonable option by which people should live. RZIM was formed in 1984 in Toronto, Canada, and currently headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

Death

Zacharias died at the age of seventy-four just two months after he had announced that a biopsy taken during back surgery revealed he had a malignant tumor on his sacrum, a rare form of cancer known as sarcoma.[4] The death announcement does not indicate where Zacharias died; however in the later years he lived in the Atlanta area.

Eulogies

At his funeral services at Passion City Church in Atlanta on May 29, 2020, Vice Predent Mike Pence called Zacharias:

The C.S. Lewis of our day [who] crisscrossed the globe to every Mars Hill he could find to answer skeptics, move obstacles of unbelief, armed with intellect, girded with truth and love.

He was a man for all seasons.[5] … God put him at my side at just the right time. The word of wisdom and kindness and encouragement that I’ll never forget. In the late Reverend Billy Graham, it’s been observed that God gave us the greatest Evangelist of the 20th century. In Ravi Zacharias, God gave us the greatest Christian apologist of this century.[6]

Former NFL player Tim Tebow, a subject of much persecution for his Christian beliefs, at the funeral discussed how the apologist had inspired him as a young man to proclaim the Gospel. "I don’t say that lightly besides talking about my dad I don’t know that I’ve really said that about anybody, that Ravi was a hero to me."[6]

Publications

See also

Notes

  1. The Evangelical Outpost: Bio of Ravi Zacharias
  2. Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith, Zondervan 2000
  3. DesertNews.com Evangelical preaches at Salt Lake Tabernacle
  4. Erin Coates (May 19, 2020). Ravi Zacharias Dead at Age 74. Westernjournal.com.}}
  5. "A man for all seasons," refers to the 16th century Christian intellectual and writer Sir Thomas More of England.
  6. 6.0 6.1 Michael Gryboski (May 29, 2020). 'C. S. Lewis of our day’: Tebow, Pence, family pay respects to Ravi Zacharias at memorial service. The Christian Post. Retrieved on June 27, 2020.

External links