06/18/2025
MENTORS THAT HAVE SHAPED MY LIFE
The Rev. Dr. R. Edgar Bonniwell
6/15/25
Proverbs 27:17 “As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.”
One of the wonderful things that God does for so many of us is that He brings people into our lives, who really help to facilitate our spiritual formation. In my life I’ve had 8 great mentors. The goal of my sermon today is that you might want to become a mentor in someone else’s life. Mentoring is not achieved through a formula. There’s nowhere to go to be trained to be a mentor. A mentor is a person who wants to influence you for Christ, indeed bring out the best and finest within you for the glory of Christ. A mentor is one that will love you, warts and all, bring encouragement, and be that “friend who is closer than any brother.”
The Bible is full of mentoring relationships; old Eli and the young boy Samuel, Naomi and Ruth, Paul and Timothy. Jesus and the disciples is another great example of a mentoring relationship, not to mention Ahithophel and Nathan, mentors to young King David. And consider Elijah and his mentoring relationship to Elisha. Unquestionably Isaiah was a mentor to young King Hezekiah.
The Bible teaches us that some of the Kings of Israel, when they lost their mentor, lost ground with God. II Chronicles 14 introduces us to Asa, who was 44-99/100ths% pure. He had a mentor in a prophet named Azariah. The King listened to his mentor and precipitated a great revival in the land. But when Azariah passed off the scene, pretty soon Asa was making lots of compromises, and when God spoke to him through Hanani the seer, Asa in anger and enraged, put the old prophet in prison, thus a short time later Asa came to his grave, without fanfare or much applause. Indeed, he died under divine chastisement.
Another mentoring relationship is to be found in II Chronicles chapters 23 and 24. The history is complicated, but Israel’s true King, a little boy named Joash, was hidden away, and God raised up a great Priest, Jehoiada, who prepared the way to bring the young King to the throne. Not only did Jehoiada call the people to renew their covenant with God and one another, he also called for their loyalty to the new King. (II Chronicles 23:16) Thus the young King was seated upon the royal throne.
Then in II Chronicles 24:2, we read, “Joash did what was right in the sight of the Lord ... (now watch this) ... all the days of Jehoiada the Priest” (the young King’s mentor). This mentor had a great effect on the young King, but then we read, (II Chronicles 24:15) “Now Jehoiada reached a good old age and he died.” He was 130 years old at his death. Then other officials gathered to the young King, and led him down the highway to destruction. Before we know it we read in II Chronicles 24:18, “and they abandoned the house of the Lord and served idols”; so, the wrath of God came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this great guilt of theirs.
Then Jehoiada’s son Zechariah was raised up, and he withstood the King in his corruption. However, the King and his advisors conspired against Zechariah and they stoned him to death in the courthouse of the Lord. Notice II Chronicles 24:22, “so Joash the King did not remember the kindness which Zechariah’s father Jehoiada had shown him, but he murdered his son. Now the Bible speaks of reaping the due recompense of one’s iniquity, and a tad later we read that Joash’s own servants conspired against him because of the blood of the son of Jehoiada, and they murdered the King on his bed. We need to be very cautious whom we dismiss out of our lives, especially when they’re Godly mentors who seek only our best and finest.
Then consider II Chronicles chapter 26. Here the great charismatic King Uzziah came to the throne, and we read, (vs. 5) “He sought God in the days of Zechariah” ... now there was a great mentor. He was described as a man with understanding for the visions of God, and in the Word; and he poured into the young Uzziah’s life. As a result, the King took the nation to dazzling heights of prosperity, but then his mentor died. The Word says (II Chronicles 26:16) that the King grew strong to his corruption, and in pride he acted corruptly, usurping the High Priestly function, went into the Holy of Holies to make sacrifice, 80 brave Priests confronted the King, but the King withstood them, and God struck him with Leprosy and he remained a l***r the rest of his life. Too bad Uzziah didn’t extrapolate from his mentor’s life, riding out the contributions and key impartations that were given to King Uzziah. He certainly was the poorer for it.
Beloved, mentoring relationships are gifts from God. Recognize those that God is bringing into your life. Of course, you never will if you have a proclivity to size people up asking 'what they can do for you’, and then moving on quickly if it’s your perception that such people can’t advantage you. I have known celebrity preachers like that; how disgusting.
You don’t know the name of Milton Green; he was a common ordinary layman. He was at a big convention when he went upstairs and knocked on the door, the room, of the great evangelist James Robison. Robison opened the door but didn’t know him from Adam. Milton introduced himself, a pretty successful businessman, and said to Robison, “I love the Lord, I’m not a nut, God has sent me here to pray over you, because the Lord has much more ministry to bring to you.” Robison sat in a chair and Milton walked around him mumbling under his breath. He then thanked the evangelist, shook his hand and left.
Then Robison was manhandled by the Holy Ghost. He had been brought in to run all the charismatics out, but his own heart was filled with perfect love. A rich anointing came upon him the likes of which he had never known, and from that moment on he never wrote out another sermon. That night he humbled himself and apologized for all the horrible things he had said about charismatics. He opened his heart on his knees to an audience of thousands and shared so tenderly his own journey of faith as an abandoned little boy who was mentored by God. He gave an invitation and over 3,000 Southern Baptists came forward to repent of all kinds of things, and to be filled with the Holy Ghost. Milton Green and James Robison became very close, James loved him very much, and I loved James Robison.
James Robison came to Cincinnati and I spent 3 days driving him around as his caretaker. Then he came to Dayton and we took a busload over. Those who helped organize the crusade were to sit on the platform. I went behind the curtain to pray with Mr. Robison and others, he asked me to sit on the platform, “But,” I protested, “Brother James, I didn’t help to organize the crusade.” “No,” he said, “I want you sitting right on the front.” So I did.
The service started with prayer and praise, and towards the end of it a man sitting beside me put his hand on my knee and said, “Who are you?” I answered, “I’m a Pastor sir. I Pastor the Faith Christian Fellowship Church, I’m Dr. Ed Bonniwell.” He said, “Where did you go to school?” I told him Princeton Theological Seminary, and he asked me how I knew James. I just shared in a very succinct way. That man turned to me and said, “Your eye hasn’t seen, nor your ears heard, of the extraordinary things that are in front of you.” Then he touched my forehead, and I went out of that folding chair and down on the floor. Milton Green sat down back of me and held me. James Robison came over, that 6 ft. 5 in. Texas boy put his hand on my head, prayed and said, “Lord do more.” I felt like I was on fire. Since that time, mine has been an extraordinary journey, and for a while I got to walk with Milton Green, and for many years, until he died, he was at the side of James Robison. On many occasions I got to be with James, and he was precious. He spoke frequently of his dearest friend and mentor; Milton Green. We never know what a good mentor can throw into our lives, and the transforming effect it can have on us.
Let me tell you about my mentors.
1. My Grandfather, Otha Lunze Bonniwell, a farmer and fisherman on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and a Holiness Methodist. He taught me “God is always speaking”. As a little boy when things would happen, he would pick me up and sit me on the fender of his truck, he would say, “In light of what’s happened, this is what God wants you to know.” He could turn any event in life into a Bible lesson.
2. My second great mentor was my own father; my father was so humble and unassuming that in a big room with 7 people, he could vanish. He was a heavy combat veteran of the South Pacific in WWII. He graduated from the Newport News Apprentice School, then started moving up in his journey; ultimately, he became a professor at the Apprentice School, because he went back to college while I was in college and got his degree. Here’s what my father taught me, “Always live past your wounds; never live in them.” He would say, “Son, life is full of unfairnesses, you’re going to be slighted, but don’t let your wounds define your life. Live past them, never live in them.”
3. My third mentor was Ralph Marinacci. Perhaps one of the greatest influences in my life for Jesus Christ. It would take too long to describe his own resume, but when I met him, he was second in command to Demos Shakarian of the full Gospel Christian Businessmen’s organization. He walked into my life in mid-June 1975; I have a hundred stories about our times together, but here’s what he taught me. You see I’ve always been such a theological animal, I’m always looking at things through a theological lens, and sometimes I’d get anxious and troubled about certain aspects of charismata, but he continually kept saying to me; “It’s only about Jesus, Ed, it’s only about Jesus.” And then the next thing that He pounded into me was, “The Holy Spirit is the most present when Christ is the most honored.”
4. My fourth mentor was Bill Jenike, again a resume too long to share, but he was at one time senior Vice-President at the University of Cincinnati, and he gave it all up in June 1991 to be my associate. As an older teen he developed a relationship with Christ. His life was never advantaged by a teaching priest. I didn’t get to the city until 1983. In 1968 he would go weekly to College Hill Presbyterian Church and listen to a young would-be theologian who was on staff there with Dr. Jerry Kirk; and this young theologian was named, Dr. R. C. Sproul.
Weekly, Sproul would teach on Election and Sovereignty and Predestination, and Jenike would come home talking to himself and frothing. It got to the point that his wife Jewel said, “Don’t go anymore.” But for whatever reasons, he did. The next week he came home enraged, went stomping down the steps to the lower basement. Then he got real quiet. When he came up the steps, he knelt before his wife and looked like he had seen a ghost. He took his wife’s hand and said, “I’m sorry”, but he was shaking. His wife said “What’s wrong honey? He said, “God spoke to me, I heard His voice ... He told me Dr. Sproul was correct.” It changed his life. Here’s what Pastor Bill Jenike poured into my life; He called me to be teachable and educable, and that “those who teach best are always being taught themselves.” That hit me hard. Pastor Bill would press me, “Dr. Ed who’s teaching did you sit under today?” That was a great lesson. I have learned to be leery of teachers who will not allow themselves to be taught by others.
5. My next great mentor was Russ Coburn. Father of Carl Coburn, who has been with me since 1983. Again, it would take pages to describe my relationship to Russ. He was one of the most special men in my life and the ultimate man’s man, but so tender in Christ. This man became my associate in 1883. (He was an imminently successful insurance man.) Because of his vast reading of theology, I always considered him a seminary graduate. But he taught me, and pounded into me over and over that it’s God’s wisdom ... now listen to this ... “to always meet on a position of peacefulness.”
6. My sixth mentor is Dr. Steve Brown of Keylife Radio Broadcast. He came into my life in 1990, and he has been a father in the faith to me. Walking with him has been like walking with one of the Great Puritan Divines. What a character he is; a man that’s impacted thousands and thousands of people. He’s been a Pastor, a professor of preaching for over 25 years, a conference speaker all over America, and since 1990 this renown man has poured into my life. Here’s what he has taught me, “Be real, it’s okay to make messes, and every day cultivate your romance with Jessus Christ.” “Eddy,” he would say, “understand that we are not good, and we are not together, but we are His.” He taught me that there’s no pedestal that I can’t fall off of, that on my best day I’m a fellow struggler, and that as long as I do not lose sight of that, I will be useful to God.
7. Then there’s Dr. Rodney Dukes, the former Senior Pastor of Montgomery Assembly of God Church, and my own Associate Pastor for a few years, another great mentor in my life. He was an incredible man, full of love. He taught me, “God is in your audience, there’s no one else there; play your life to Him. Preach to him on Sunday mornings, pray to Him in your prayer closet. When you’re mentoring others, know that you’re talking to Him.” That’s a great lesson, and it shaped me. Most of my churches have been relatively small, and Rodney would say to me that is of no consequence; the only person in your audience is God. Then he would smile and say, “Well, God has to have some great men in small churches, so you were chosen.” Then he would laugh, and I would laugh. I’m hardly a great man. Interestingly enough, W. A. Tozer only preached to 50 people. Matthew Henry and many of the Puritan Divines would preach to less than 30, but those men knew God was in their hearts. I’ve come to know it too.
8. The last great mentor is the late David Seamands. I sat under his preaching in my graduate studies, I got close to his son, Dr. Steve Seamands, and we became buddies. He took me in, and later in ministry we were colleagues; he performed my marriage. He helped me so much. Through the years after seminary and ordination, we would have phone conferences, and he would always harken back, and it was his mantra to me; “Remember Ed, you take care of the depths of your ministry and you let God worry about the breadth of your ministry.” “You take care of the depth of your ministry, and you let God take care of the breadth of your ministry.” You know, in the main, I’ve done that. I actually posted the following on Facebook.
Some Pastors spent their week reevaluating last Sunday’s service, wanting this Sunday to be even more entertaining! Other Pastors spent 40 hours on their expositions so that this Sunday God’s voice would be exceedingly clear.
That’s me. I learned this from David Seamands. He went home to glory a year before my father died. What a gift Dr. Seamands was to my life, and what a mentor.
I want you to think about the people in your life that have had a powerful influence in your journey of faith. If you were to make a list, writing their names out, what could you extrapolate from their life that they taught you? Give some thought to it, but more importantly, wouldn’t you like to be a mentor to someone? I think it starts with Genuine friendship, praying for them, they may not even be a Christian.
I prayed for my friend John for 8 years, I liked him so much, and he was a pagan. I did my best to answer his questions. He was a very impressive man. Then one Saturday he called me and said, “I’m going to do it, and I’ll be there in 15 minutes.” He came in 15 minutes, and he did it – accepted Jesus Christ and was radically saved. For the next two years he got a free breakfast out of me, and we went verse by verse through the book of Romans, some of the best mentoring I’ve ever done in my life. We often pray, ‘Make me a blessing Lord’, why not tweak that prayer a little to – ‘make me a mentor Lord.’ In I Corinthians 4:14-15, Paul said the Corinthians had many tutors but very few fathers in the faith. Check it out. Think of how your father loved and cared for you, or for that matter your mother. Find somebody and love and care for them in that way. Show them Christ’s heart through your caring love. They may appear not to be very promising, but then old Jesse saw his youngest son David as a kid without promise. How wrong he was. That ruddy faced little boy, became the great King Daivid, and from the git-go, God gave him great mentors; Samuel, Ahithophel, Nathan. Men that loved him and poured into him.
Pray and go find someone. It could be the beginning of something incredibly beautiful. And don’t be a knucklehead. God has brought some people already into your life; maybe He placed them there, to mentor you.
You think about that! Amen.
