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First Person is produced in cooperation with the Far East Broadcasting Company, who rejoice in the stories of changed lives through the power of Jesus Christ. Learn more at febc.org. We're never going to be properly related to each other until we're properly related to ourselves, and that's never going to happen until we find our self-worth in Christ, the hope of glory, and translate the love and life of Christ through our lives to those around us.
He has been in ministry for more than 50 years. O.S. Hawkins is our guest on this edition of First Person. Welcome, I'm Wayne Shepherd. Dr. Hawkins has written over 50 books and will talk about his latest on the theme of reconciliation and forgiveness. First Person is a weekly conversation introducing you to people who tell their personal story of faith and calling. Sometimes you may recognize their name and sometimes not, but everyone you hear gives honor to God for leading their life.
and we've stored all past programs online for listening at your convenience. Just go to FirstPersonInterview.com and click the red Listen Now button for the complete list. We also have a free smartphone app, which you can download from your app store called First Person Interview.
OS Hawkins is the author of the well-known series of code books, including his latest, The Connection Code, a study of the book of Philemon in the Bible, with his focus on forgiveness and rebuilding trust in relationships. As we connected online, I asked him to begin with his own personal story of faith. Oh, thank you, Wayne, for saying that. You know, I'm a firm believer in the power of God.
a personal testimony, and that's how I came to know Christ. A young man, 17 years old, after a basketball game, witnessed to me in Fort Worth, and first time I'd ever had anybody share the gospel with me. I grew up in a really moral home, but we weren't church people. I'd never heard a prayer in my home, never seen the Bible open in my home. I was 17, and to be honest with you, grew up in Fort Worth,
where the largest seminary in the world was at that time, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. But I didn't even know Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were books of the Bible. I was three months away from graduating. And a young man after a basketball game shared Christ with me. I thought he was, I didn't know what to think about him, but I couldn't get away from what he said. And the next Sunday, he took me to the Sycamore Hill Baptist Church. Fred Swank was the pastor there for 43 years. He later became like a father to me.
And it was the first time I ever heard the gospel preached, January 3rd, 1965. And I came to know Christ that morning and talk about an immediate,
transformation. Old things passed away. It all became new. Wayne, it was probably, I don't know, weeks or months after that before I ever heard the word repentance. But I know I repented that day because immediately I started hating what I used to love and loving what I used to hate. Places I used to like to go on Friday night, I had zero desire to go anymore. And
Things I never thought I'd find joy in doing, hanging around a bunch of church folks and reading the Bible. I found my greatest joy in doing. And so Christ came into my life at 17, radically transformed my life. And that's the way I began the Christian journey. And it continued. I went to TCU. I was a pre-law student.
went through the business school summer before my senior year when I was studying to take the LSATs for law school. I'd been a Christian three years and had really grown in the faith. And a hurricane came through Mexico, wiped out a part of the Levy area. A teenage buddy of mine by the name of Jack Graham, who's a pastor at the Presbyterian Church. He was there the day I was saved. We got on a
Trailways bus and rode down to Brownsville and crossed over the border and lived with those people for a couple of weeks and helped them rebuild their lives and share the gospel with them. And it just opened my heart. And coming back on the bus that night to Fort Worth all night, I just sensed God calling me into ministry and have never looked back and know that he did.
And I went ahead and finished with the BBA, and I went on to Southwestern Seminary after that. Well, that's an amazing story. I love to hear how God moves in people's lives and how He reaches out and calls them. And He definitely called you, OS. It all began in Fort Worth. You haven't wandered too far away from home then, have you? Well, actually, I met my wife, Susan, and we were married. And then our first pastor was in Oklahoma.
Oklahoma, southwestern Oklahoma. Oh, you went across the border, yeah. Went across the border to Hobart, Oklahoma. Actually, Jack Graham, I just mentioned, when I left Hobart, he went to be pastor of Hobart. Is that right? And I went from there to Ada, Oklahoma, and then God called us down to First Baptist Fort Lauderdale for 15 years. We had an incredible ministry, saw God just...
do so many miraculous things there in 15 years. And then I was called to the First Baptist Church in Dallas, where I succeeded Dr. Criswell and was pastor there for several years before going on to Guidestone for 25 years. So it's been a long life's journey. Well, following W.A. Criswell, I know you're writing a book on his life, and we're going to have you back in the spring when that book comes out, because I really want to hear that story. But I know your admiration for the man, but it must have been just a little intimidating to follow him.
Well, actually, you know, he sort of adopted me back in the 80s when I was at Fort Lauderdale. And Susie and I, my wife, would vacation with he and his wife, Betty, every summer. We'd go to London, the Middle East, all over the world, literally. And so we had a real father-son relationship for 10 years before I ever...
ever went to succeed him. And he was my biggest asset and, and, and, and greatest encourager and supporter when I was there. Oh,
I look forward to having you back here in the spring, and we'll talk about the life of W.A. Chris Wells. What was really intimidating, Wayne, was the fact that in that church, it's the most biblically literate church I've ever seen there in Dallas. And I preached every Sunday morning to Charles Ryrie, who was there every Sunday, the Ryrie Study Bible, Gene Merrill, the leading foremost authority in Semitic languages in the
world, all those DTS professors and everything. So there was no such thing as getting up on a Sunday and winging it at first. It really, really drove me into my study, I'll say that. Yeah, I had the opportunity to attend Dr. Rowery's Sunday school class one time and had to pinch myself where I was and who I was hearing from in a Sunday school lesson.
Yeah.
Gone into my bedroom on my nightstand was his book, Basic Theology. For years, I would read three or four pages of that every night before I went to bed. Charles was one of the greatest men I've ever known. Mm-hmm.
Well, you've known many. God has really gifted you and put you in the place of many of these men to learn from them. And you're passing those lessons on to us now, O.S., so thank you so much. You mentioned Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary there. You now serve as chancellor, so you really have come full circle from student to chancellor. That's for sure. And I really love engaging with these young preachers, and I'm also teaching an evangelistic preaching and persuasion course right now.
And it's really engaging and love what God is doing on the campus there at Southwestern Seminary now. And just to fill out the biography, of course, you're serving as president emeritus of Guidestone Financial Resources. Tell me just about the mission of Guidestone. We're not going to talk a lot about that, but it really is interesting to me. Well, I spent 25 years there, Wayne, as president and CEO. And it's the largest Christian mutual fund in the world. We've managed $22 billion. Wow.
of serve hundreds of Christian universities and hospitals, dozens of thousands of churches, evangelical churches with all their financial needs, retirement needs and endowment investment needs. And we have a mission there and a ministry called Mission Dignity.
And we're on a mission to bring dignity to some forgotten people. And that's pastors and widows. They pastor out in the highways and hedges, mainly forgotten, way out, never made enough to live on, much less prepare for retirement. And then they had to retire vocationally. Most of them lived in a church-owned home, had to get out of it. They had
Had very little to live on. And through Mission Dignity 10 or 15 years ago, we could give them $50 a month. That helped them a lot. But now the neediest get $750 a month. And one pastor's widow, 87 years old, wrote me some time ago. And she said, I get to eat at night now. And it's not just the people.
So that's what moves us. We're on a mission to bring dignity to those people. And one of the reasons we've been able to bless to give them so much is all the royalties to all of my code books, devotional books go to support mission dignity. And God has blessed them with over three million in sales in the last few years. And so all of those royalties and proceeds have gone to mission dignity. It's an admirable mission. It really is.
And in the last few years, you have written a series of code books, which have become very popular. I think I've read something over 2 million copies altogether have been sold. I think it's over 3 million now. Is that 3 now? Wow. I stand corrected. That's amazing. It really is. It started with the Joshua Code, didn't it? It did. You know, Wayne, I got to, you know, 12, 13 years ago when I wrote the first of the Joshua Code. I listened one day to my little
eight-year-old grandkid quote a whole psalm from memory and it dawned on me that people are not memorizing scripture anymore adults i'm talking about and so uh joshua 1 8 as you know says this book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth but you shall meditate on it day and night in order to do all that is written therein then you'll make your way successful and uh
So I decided that people come to Christ and we put them in the Bible. If they start in Genesis, by the time they get to Leviticus, they don't know what they're reading and they're a little bogged down. If they start in the New Testament, immediately in Matthew 1, they're introduced to dozens of names they can't pronounce. So I picked 52 verses that I believe every believer ought to know in the Bible and gave outlines and devotional thoughts on it, to memorize one a week for a year.
It's called the Joshua Code, 52 Scripture passages every believer ought to know. And it took off. The essence of it, Wayne, I'm not trying through the code series. I'm not trying to get the people into the Bible, into the Word of God. I'm trying to get the Word of God into the people. And so it started with the Joshua Code. And then briefly, after it took off and became a bestseller,
I was devotionally reading through the Gospels, and it dawned on me Jesus was always asking questions. He was omniscient. He had all the answers, but I counted over 150 questions in the New Testament he asked. So I wrote the Jesus Code, 52 scripture questions every believer ought to answer, because I believe there are 52 questions every believer ought to answer. And so it...
It piggybacked on the Joshua Code, and then we just continued on. The Bible Code, finding Jesus in every book of the Bible. The Prayer Code, 40 Bible prayers every believer should pray. The Promise Code, 40 Bible promises every believer should claim. And now the newest one is a book on relationships called The
Connection Code, Relationship Advice from Philemon. So I'm just blessed that God has blessed these books and they've been a blessing to so many people. There's more we can learn from the life and writings of Dr. O.S. Hawkins and we'll continue the conversation in just a moment.
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My guest is Dr. O.S. Hawkins, and his latest book is The Connection Code, a study of the book of Philemon. Twenty-five verses in this book of the Bible, and yet you get so much out of this. How did you do that? It's a book about relationships and forgiveness and reconciliation. It's a case study. Only 25 verses, five paragraphs, basically. But every one of those five paragraphs is
Hold the key to our relationships. You know, Wayne, I wrote this book because I was concerned, for example, at the seminary. We teach these young preachers homiletics and hermeneutics and systematic theology and church history and everything you can think. And then they get out in the pastorate. Some of them don't know how to relate to people because we don't really teach anything about religion.
people business, the relationship business. And it's true at home and
In our relationships at home, it's true at the office, it's true everywhere. All of life is about relationships. And this is exactly what this little letter to Philemon that Paul wrote is all about. It's about relationships. For those who don't know this story, just summarize it for us briefly. Paul was on a journey one time and he came to a city called Colossae. And he led a man to Christ, a wealthy landowner there by the name of Philemon.
And Philemon grabbed a hold of the gospel, started a church in his home, and Paul went on on his journeys and was later incarcerated, put in prison in Rome. Back home in Colossae, Philemon died.
Had a had a servant there by the name of Onesimus who ripped him off, stole from him and left and made his way to the bright lights of the city of Rome. And somehow he got arrested himself and found himself in the same cell with Paul.
Paul leads Onesimus to Christ, and now he's sending Onesimus. The first thing Onesimus wants to do is go back and make restitution, make things right with Philemon. So Paul writes a letter to Philemon to, in essence, tell Philemon, look, I'm sending him back to you. He's like my own flesh, and I want you to receive him back no longer as a slave, but as a dear brother.
And I can only imagine what Philemon thought when he picked up and read that letter. So it's all about relationships. And Wayne, we only have three relationships in life. There's an outward expression where we relate to each other in the office, at home, in the social arena. We're made to connect with each other. Then there's an inward relationship we have with ourselves, self-worth, self-respect, whatever we want to call it. Much of what goes on in our frayed outward relationships is because something's going wrong in the
with us inside. But then there's one other relationship we have that separates us from all the other created order.
It's an awesome thought. We have the capacity not just to have an outward relationship, an external relationship, an inward relationship, an internal relationship, but an upward relationship, an eternal relationship, and come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ and know him in the intimacy of father and child. So the bottom line is, we're never bottom line to this whole book.
We're never going to be properly related to each other until we're properly related to ourselves. And that's never going to happen until we find our self-worth in Christ. What Paul said, Christ in me is the hope of glory and translate the love and life of Christ through our lives to those around us. And that's the essence of what Paul is trying to say to Philemon. Well, these relationships are key to every aspect of life. Anyone who's lived very long understands that, uh,
If you fail in a relationship, you're just not doing what the Lord wants you to do. Now, forgiveness is a major theme here in this book, of course. Can you imagine this owner, this servant owner was, as you say, was ripped off. His slave ran away and he had to forgive this man. Right. And you know, Wayne, I was a pastor for decades.
and dealt with a lot of people with broken relationships. And forgiveness and mended relationships, there are two things in play here.
There's an offending party, one whose offense brought about the break in the relationship. And there's an offended party, one who was offended and is the recipient of the broken relationship. And to be honest with you, there's a little bit of both in all of us in relationships. But so two things have to happen on the part for reconciliation, on the part of the offending party.
The one who's brought it back. There must be a spirit of true repentance that they truly not just sorry for what they did. Repentance is not remorse. The rich young ruler went away sorrowful, but didn't repent. It's not regret. Pontius Pilate washed his hands and regretted what he did, but he didn't repent. It's not.
resolve or reform. Judas did that. He took the 30 pieces of silver back. Repentance is a genuine change of mind that affects a change of volition, that affects a change of action. So if you're going to have real reconciliation, the offending party must have a
truly repentant spirit. And the offended party must have a receptive spirit, must be able to forgive and to move on. And most of the relationships I've seen, Wayne, that never got mended, it wasn't because the offending party wasn't truly repentant. It was because that offended party somehow just could not bring themselves to forgive.
And to move on. And so there's a whole section in this book on the importance of forgiveness. Yeah. And rebuilding trust and confidence in each other. And that's going to take some time, but it's necessary. And if somebody's truly repentant, it'll take place. Yeah. You don't rebuild trust overnight. No. But you know what I love about this book? Now, he's going to drop a bomb on Philemon about halfway through.
book when he says, I'm sending him back Onesimus. Wow, that rip-off. And Paul says, listen, he's like my own son. So he starts the letter, though, by saying in the first paragraph,
Philemon, your love has given me great hope and encouragement because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints. We see what Paul's doing, don't we? Oh, absolutely. All of us have gotten letters before in the past. And if I get a letter from somebody and the first thing they're compliment affirming me on something, I want to read that whole letter. It makes you feel good. And so that's what exactly what...
Paul was the greatest people strategy separate. You know, affirmation is one of those powerful influences. It changed my life.
I had a high school English teacher that changed the way I thought about myself with one simple pat on the back by letting me know she believed in me. And this is what Jesus did. He went around just affirming people, met a woman at a well, hadn't heard a word of affirmation in years, I'm sure, and told her of living water, met a woman taking an adultery, said, listen, I don't condemn you. Go and sin no more. Rich John patted her on the back and
And on the cross, he reached over and patted that thief on the back, said, today you're going to be with me in paradise. And so affirmation. Now, you know, I just challenge people that are listening right now to find somebody today and give them a genuine pat on the back, because I'll promise you not many people are being affirmed for anything today. Good point.
What do you have from the book of Philemon about conflict resolution? Where there's people, there's going to be conflict. So what do we learn from this little book of the Bible? You know, in conflict resolution, there's a time to back off. There's a time to stand up. There's a time to give in. There's a time to reach out.
And we just need to figure those times out and do it. And, you know, God resolved our conflict with him through Jesus Christ. And that's the whole theme of the Connection Code. And Wayne, if people want to know more about Mission Dignity or more about any of the code books, they can go to OSHawkins.com.
And there's information there. Plus, there are hundreds of free leadership and ministry resources there at OSHawkins.com also. Yeah. And we'll put that information in our program notes at FirstPersonInterview.com as well. In conclusion, you say that this little 25-verse book of the Bible is a model for how we live in community with each other.
Exactly. Because it has to do with the importance of affirmation. It has to do with the importance of accommodation of each other, that win-win principle. It has to do, as we've talked about, with forgiveness. It has to do with commitment. Commitment is one of the lost words in relationships today. And there's a whole paragraph in here about how…
how we can commit ourselves to one another. But I love the way he ended this letter way. Okay. He says to Philemon at the end, by the way, get the guest room ready. I'm going to come by and visit. Well, when Philemon read that, you know what he said? He's coming by and check on me. He's coming by and check up on me and see if he's going to hold me accountable and see if I've done what he told me to do. And accountability is one of the largest,
lost words in real Christian relationships. So this book carries the gamut of it and hope it'll help people really live in strong relationships at home, the office, wherever they are. That's Dr. O.S. Hawkins, the author of The Connection Code and many other helpful books aimed at growing our faith in Christ.
Millions of copies of his books in this series have been sold and are helping people cope with life's challenges. We'll place a link to Dr. Hawkins and his books at FirstPersonInterview.com. That's FirstPersonInterview.com. Hearing the stories of how people have come to faith in Christ and followed his leading is the whole purpose of this program, and we enjoy the opportunity to share them with you each week.
Our partner in this effort is the Far East Broadcasting Company because FEBC believes in the power of story to change hearts and lives. If you don't know about FEBC, I hope you take a few minutes to learn more at febc.org. febc.org. Now, with thanks to my friend and producer Joe Carlson, I'm Wayne Shepherd. Join us next time for First Person. First Person.