“Seek Yahweh while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to Yahweh, and He will have compassion on him. Turn to our Elohim, for He will abundantly pardon.”
Isaiah 55: 6-7
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J. Vernon McGee: Part 2
A few days ago, I wrote a SnyderTalk editorial titled “Yahweh Used J. Vernon McGee’s Thru the Bible in My Life”. If you haven’t read it, I urge you to read it now. If you have read it, I think you should read it again. It’s not very long.
As I said in that editorial, Yahweh used J. Vernon McGee in my life at a critical time. When I went to the University of Virginia, I thought my mission would involve politics. During my first year at UVA, I invited Jim McIntyre to visit me in Charlottesville and talk with my strategy classes. Jim is from Vidalia, GA. It’s about 30 miles from where I grew up in South Georgia. I knew Jim.
My first semester at UVA was the fall semester of 1979. Jimmy Carter was president, and Senator Ted Kennedy was challenging him for the Democrat Party’s nomination for president in 1980. It was a brutal inter-party battle for control of the party’s agenda. At that time, Jim was Director of the Office of Management and Budget and a member of President Carter’s cabinet. The fight between Carter and Kennedy required all hands on deck. That meant every higher-up in the Carter administration was running full speed talking with as many Democrats as they could.
Jim was Carter’s man where the U.S. budget was concerned. His time was in great demand. When word got out in Charlottesville that Jim McIntyre was coming to town to talk with Neil Snyder’s classes at UVA, the Charlottesville Democrat Party machine had several questions. This was their first question: Who is Neil Snyder?
I was new in town, a nobody, an assistant professor. Charlottesville Democrats were stunned when they learned that a guy they had never heard of, a person who was just beginning an academic career, was able to land the OMB director for a speaking engagement at a critical time in Carter’s campaign. They were chagrinned when they learned that Jim didn’t have time to meet with any of them while he was in town. He was coming to Charlottesville to meet with me and my classes. That was it.
Right away, 3 people with the Charlottesville/Albemarle County Democrat Party machine reached out to me to touch base. They were Mary Ann Elwood, George Gilliam, and Bruce Rasmussen. Thanks to them, I was introduced to the Democrat Party and was accepted by them as a player in the local party. Bruce was head of the Albemarle County Democrat Party.
In 1981, Chuck Robb was elected Governor of Virginia. His administrative team including David McCloud, Robb’s chief of staff, and Tim Sullivan, Robb’s executive assistant for policy, asked Bruce to recommend someone who could help them with an important item on Robb’s agenda: regulatory reform. Bruce recommended me, and I was appointed the Governor’s Policy Advisor for Regulatory Reform. I held that position throughout Robb’s term as governor, and thanks to that role, I learned a lot about government at the state and federal levels.
In 1985, Gerald Baliles, a Democrat, was elected Governor of Virginia. He served as Virginia’s Attorney General while Robb was governor. I got to know Baliles and a couple of his closest confidants (Mary Sue Terry and A.L. Philpott) while I worked for Robb. Philpott was Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates while I worked for Robb, and Mary Sue was a member of the House of Delegates. Mary Sue eventually served 2 terms as Virginia’s Attorney General.
When Baliles became governor, I was offered a position in his administration. I said, “Thanks, but no thanks.” I didn’t turn him down cold, though. I agreed to chair a Governor’s Conference of Small Business for him. It would be held in Roanoke, VA very near a house that Katie and I bought on Smith Mountain Lake.
Truth be told, I had never been involved in politics before I moved to Virginia, and I was not interested in pursuing a career in politics, especially a career in Democrat Party politics. By 1985, I knew all I needed to know about the Democrat Party, and I knew that I wanted no part of its agenda.
I wasn’t interested in becoming a Republican, either.
While I worked for Robb, I got to know George Allen very well. He was a Republican and a member of the House of Delegates representing Charlottesville. I was involved in helping to set up a Competitiveness Council in Virginia, and I reached out to George to help me get it started in Central Virginia. In 1991, George won a seat in the U.S. Congress, and the Albemarle County Republican Party recruited me to run for the seat in the House of Delegates that he was vacating.
Eventually, George became Governor of Virginia and a U.S. Senator from Virginia.
When I met with the search committee, I asked them why they were interested in me. They knew me as a Democrat, but George and the people who worked closely with him knew a lot about my positions on issues. They referred to me as a “nominal Democrat”. They thought I was right on economic and other issues that are important to the Republican Party, and they thought I could help them win over some members of the Democrat Party who liked everything about the Republican Party except its position on abortion.
I told the search committee, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
While I was a Democrat, I worked hard to change the party’s position on abortion, but I failed miserably. They were as fixated on abortion as male dogs are on bitches in heat. Democrats will allow nothing to stand in the way of their unwavering support for abortion on demand at any stage of gestation and even beyond birth as we now know. Facts don’t matter to them, especially the fact that unborn babies are unique human beings with unique DNAs. Almost all the time, abortion is legalized, premeditated murder. As far as I was concerned, the search committee was barking up the wrong tree.
As I discussed in “Yahweh Used J. Vernon McGee’s Thru the Bible in My Life”, in the mid-1980s, I was transitioning from institutional church to developing the kind of relationship with Yahweh that He wants and expects. By that time, I had learned all I needed to know about politics, too, and I was ready to move a step closer to the things Yahweh told me in the 1970s I would do for Him. That included writing fact-based books and opinion pieces addressing issues that are important to Yahweh.
In 2004, I retired from UVA, and I have spent the last 18 years focusing on Yahweh’s agenda. A few weeks ago, Yahweh brought J. Vernon McGee to my attention again. This time, He wanted me to see what a man can do after he has been humbled and brought low by infirmities.
At the end of his life, McGee retired from institutional church ministry and focused his attention on developing a 5-year program to take people through the whole Bible. He was racing against time to complete it, because he had cancer. Before McGee died, he completed his Thru the Bible project, and it’s now available to the whole world for free in more than 130 languages. I downloaded the Thru the Bible app from the Apple app store, and I have been going through it as quickly as I can.
I don’t agree with everything McGee says, but I can tell you without hesitation or reservation that he is spot on most of the time. Of paramount importance to me, McGee understands that Yahweh doesn’t need us to accomplish His mission. He will fulfill every promise He ever made with or without us. Stated another way, Yahweh is not dependent on anyone for any reason to accomplish anything.
We should consider ourselves blessed to be a part of Yahweh’s plan. He didn’t choose us because we are so special and so talented. He chose us because we have faith in Him, and because we are willing to do what He tells us to do even if there are obstacles in our path. Along the way, He shows us that He can do things through us that we could never accomplish on our own and that He can do those things despite all sorts of infirmities that cause most people to stop dead in their tracks.
McGee had cancer to contend with. Despite that infirmity, he finished his work, and it’s just now beginning to really take off. He died in 1988. Thirty-four years later, his work is beginning to produce fruit for Yahweh that he would not have imagined. I love the Thru the Bible motto: “The Whole Word to the Whole World”. You can learn more about Thru the Bible at THRU the BIBLE with J. Vernon McGee.
Now that I’m on the final leg of my journey, I can appreciate what McGee went through on the final leg of his journey. The most important thing to him in the closing years of his life was completing Thru the Bible. My mission is different, but I feel the same sense of desire to complete it. Instead of ramping down, I’m ramping up and preparing to make changes in my life that most people my age refuse to even consider. I don’t dread those changes. I look forward to them.
As Jewish people like to say, “Next year in Jerusalem.” When I say that, I’m not just talking. I mean it, and I want it more than I can explain. The last leg of my journey takes place in Jerusalem. I’ve known that since the 1970s. To do the job I have been given, I must learn that I am totally and completely dependent on Yahweh. That’s what McGee had to learn, too.
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“I am the good shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me — just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father — and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to My voice, and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd. The reason My Father loves Me is that I lay down My life — only to take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from My Father.”
John 10: 14-18
