‘A Joy and Satisfaction from No Other Source’

Retired professor who almost missed his opportunity to teach at Moody shares his thoughts over a long, fulfilling ministry career

by Eric Romero

“In 41 years of teaching, I did what God wanted me to do, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. . . . Now I wanted to do something different in ministry with my wife. I believe we have more to offer people now than in any other time in our lives.”

In 2022, longtime Moody Professor Ronald Sauer, 77, retired from Moody’s faculty after 35 years of faithful service. He was beloved by administrators, colleagues, and students alike.

Robert Lee ’19 is one of them. “During my time at Moody, Dr. Sauer not only taught me how to study my Bible, but also how to be a man of God,” says Robert, who graduated with a BA in Biblical Languages. “Besides my wife, no other person has made a greater difference in my life.”

Melissa (Wuthrich ’93) Hoppock adds, “Dr. Sauer and his wife have been like spiritual parents to me for the last 35 years. He has set a standard for ministering in my life and has taught me how to care for and mentor others!”

Raised in Mississippi, Dr. Sauer earned a master’s degree from Dallas Theological Seminary and sat under Bible scholar F. F. Bruce for his PhD at the University of Manchester in England. He taught Greek and other subjects at Liberty University and Moody Bible Institute for more than four decades. Before his teaching career, he served in the Marines in Vietnam. He and his wife, Sue, have been married for 53 years and are the parents of three believing children, one who is with the Lord.  

Since he retired from Moody, Dr. Sauer has served as the head pastor of Brynford Bible Church in Chicago. He also created a website, translatableinsights.com, featuring extended versions of his popular classroom devotionals. Now two years into this new chapter in his life and ministry, Dr. Sauer reflects on the inspiration for the website, his rewarding career at Moody, and how he’s spending his “retirement.”

It seems that Moody was a major influence in your life before you even started teaching here. 

Yes, I owe an awful lot to Moody. I was converted through a former Moody professor and got my interest in Greek from a former Moody professor. And so I felt that my time at Moody was a bit of a payback to the Lord for the beneficial impact the Institute has had on me.

What were the circumstances that brought you to Moody as a professor?

When I was finishing up my PhD work in England, one of my closest friends, Bill Thrasher, told me that he applied to teach at Moody and was hired. He was in his first year, and he really liked it. And he said when I finish in England, I should think about teaching at Moody. And I thought, Yeah, that’d be fine, because Moody had had such an impact on me.

When I came back from England, I interviewed at Liberty University and Moody, and they both offered me a job. Sue and I knew that God wanted me at Moody. But like Jonah, I went against God’s call and accepted the position at Liberty to please her parents as they lived close by.

Although teaching at Liberty was great and a good place to start, it just didn’t feel right. I was popular among the students and my classes were packed, but I knew I didn’t belong there. I wanted to be at Moody but thought I had lost my chance.

After teaching at Liberty for six years, Moody called me up out of the blue one day and said, “Six years ago we offered you a job. Would you reconsider?” So I started at Moody when I was 40 years old and stayed for 35 years. I knew I belonged—I was a fish in water, and I knew it.

Can you share what it was like to teach at Moody? And what impact did you have on the students you taught and interacted with?  

Moody brought me in mainly as a Greek teacher, replacing Kenneth Wuest. I also taught Pastoral Epistles, Psalms, Proverbs, Wisdom Literature, Pauline Epistles, and Hebrews. But I primarily taught Greek.

Several of my students who have graduated went on to earn their PhDs in New Testament Greek and started teaching that themselves. So that was very encouraging to see that their appetites were whetted somewhat in my classes.

Also, some of my students graduated and became pastors. I kept up with a lot of them. They’d say, “Thank you so much for teaching me how to study the Bible. When I get in the pulpit, it really takes off. I know the passage, and I feel competent teaching it.”

When I was in college, I never went to a professor's office. When I was in seminary, I went once. Although teachers never said it, I think they sort of implied that you have my time in class but don't bother me outside of class. I wanted to be different. So for my last 24 years at Moody, I spent about as much time outside class in my office counseling and mentoring students as I did teaching them inside class. I would tell students, “Look, I’m available; if you want to talk, please come talk. If you want to pray, need some advice, or have issues you want to talk about, I’m here.”

I understand Sue played a major role in helping you disciple your female Moody students.

Sue was a huge help to me. Several girls asked me to disciple them. I was just as concerned for our female students as male students, but I thought there was a better way to do it. I told them my wife's available if you want to talk to an older woman.

The Bible says, “Let the older women teach the young.” So I asked Sue to please give me one day a week to spend at Moody counseling young women. So for 24 years, I put a sign-up sheet on my office door every week for hourly meetings with Sue, who would meet with girls from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Sue and I would also meet with dating couples, engaged couples, married couples, and conduct premarital counseling in my office.

In all your interactions with Moody students over the years, is there one that stands out to you the most?

I distinctly remember one fellow who’s now an associate pastor of a church in Chicago. He just came to me one day in his senior year and told me nobody at Moody really knows him. Nobody knew the evil in his heart. So after 15 minutes of telling me all about his sins, he looked at me and said, “So that’s me—can you help?” So we started meeting weekly, and I just saw God bring him out of sin and strengthen him and cultivate maturity in him.

He graduated Moody and attended Wheaton College for his master’s degree. He and I continued to meet while he was at Wheaton. And he just grew and grew. And then God gave him this awesome wife, and today he's faithfully serving the Lord. I was glad the Lord was able to use me that way in his life.

Can you share with us about your role today as head pastor at Chicago’s Brynford Bible Church?

Sue and I enjoy serving at Brynford, which has several close ties to Moody. Even though I’m supposed to be retired, we’ve never been so busy. Rarely a day passes when I finish all the work that I want to do. And when we’re not at the church, we stay busy with people who have no relationship with the church.

How were you prepared to pastor a church so soon after completing such a lengthy teaching career?

In my 35 years teaching at Moody I also served as an interim pastor at 19 different churches. I really enjoyed that. My classroom ministry really benefited my pulpit ministry, and my pulpit ministry began to really benefit my classroom ministry. It whetted my appetite to be a pastor, and it was good preparation for leading a congregation.

When I would serve as an interim pastor, I would take Sue with me, and she was a huge help. On one occasion there was a church that needed an interim pastor. I and two other Moody professors were interested in the job, so the church had the three of us teaching on a rotating basis while deciding who would earn the position. After doing that for several months, an elder said to me, “Dr. Sauer, we’ve chosen you to be our interim pastor, but we must tell you that the other two Moody professors were better preachers than you. The main reason we've chosen you is we want your wife—the women in this church have fallen in love with Sue.” I couldn’t argue with that.

Tell us about the idea behind translatableinsights.com.

I started the website because I had years of class devotionals and thought maybe others might be blessed by them now for better understanding of the Bible. So I started working out some of the devotions I'd given in class, extending them. The ones available on the website are 10 to 40 minutes long. I received some feedback, and folks seem to be really enjoying them.

Those classroom devotions were a hit with your students during your time at Moody. Tell us about them.

It was my custom to begin most of my classes by giving them a 10- to 15-minute devotion on small portions of Scripture. I gave the students a handout with the Greek text and my English translation beneath it. I would then explain how the Greek helps us better understand the meaning and interpretation.

I would also look for appropriate applications for daily life and often incorporate my experiences to make the text relevant. I would do the same for the Hebrew text in the Old Testament. During my tenure at Moody, students would often tell me that my devotions were their favorite part of class.

That’s a creative way to start each class. Where did you get the idea for devotionals?

Shortly after I became a Christian in my junior year in high school, Kenneth Wuest’s short books on New Testament Greek fell into my hands; he was Moody’s Greek teacher at the time. These books stimulated my interest to master Greek. Wuest would take a verse or two and in a short chapter work his way through the Greek. And I thought, Well, if I ever teach, why don’t I give devotions in class like he did in that book? So that’s where I got the idea.

Then, in the providence of God, I ended up replacing Kenneth Wuest as the main Greek professor at Moody in 1987!

That’s great that a Moody professor you hadn’t met would guide your spiritual journey.

That’s not the only time. I became a Christian at 17 through the hymn At Calvary written by the former Moody professor William Newell. I thought I was a Christian because my mother took me to a Baptist church for a while, but I just couldn't understand the gospel. I thought, If I get to Heaven by doing good deeds, why did Jesus have to die for my sins? But through that hymn the gospel became very clear to me. And that’s when I believed savingly in the mercy of God.

Finally, what words of advice or encouragement can you share as you look back on your long and successful career in teaching and shepherding God’s people?

First, if I could give one piece of advice to anybody, this is what made the difference in my life: Be faithful in your daily quiet time, your “QT.” Make sure you are consistent meeting with God every day to nourish your soul on His Word and pour out your heart in prayer.

And secondly, whether you go into Christian ministry, but especially if you do, see yourself as a servant. That’s why Jesus walked on the earth. Because when God uses us to heal needy people, there comes a joy and satisfaction that we can get from no other source in life. Full-time ministry can wear you out, so you need to take breaks and withdraw to recharge your batteries. But serving God provides a satisfaction and contentment that you just can’t get anywhere else.

 

About the Author

Eric Romero is an editor for Marketing Communications at Moody Bible Institute.