This week, Dr. James Parker went home to meet Jesus face to face! He was a blessing to all who knew him, and those who were able to take his seminary classes or meet with him for Bible study learned a lot, especially how to better love and serve Jesus.

One of the things shared by several of his students through the years is an interesting theological lineage that Dr. Parker was part of, and as a result I learned that I have a spiritual genealogy that traces directly back to John Calvin.

(This was originally written for students at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, however, Dr. Parker taught at the Criswell College before going to SBTS, where I was blessed to be able to take several of his classes.)

“The Distinguished Educational Genealogy of the students at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, showing a direct line to John Calvin (1509-1564)(originally partially compiled by Richard Gardiner, Class of 1995, at Princeton Theological Seminary).”

Phillip Way (while at Criswell College, Class of 1993) sat under the teaching of:

Dr. James Parker, III who is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary (1973). While a student at Princeton, he sat at the feet of:

Dr. Bruce M Metzger, who as a graduate of the seminary (class of 1933), was a student of:

Dr. John Alexander Mackay, who was also a graduate of the seminary (class of 1915), was a student of:

Dr. Benjamin B. Warfield, who was also a graduate of the seminary (1876), being a student of:

Dr. Charles Hodge,a Princeton Seminary graduate (1819) who, for many years, sat at the feet of:

Dr. Archibald Alexander, who was the pupil of:

William Graham, a graduate of the College of New Jersey (Princeton University) in the year 1773, and as such, was under the tutelage of:

Dr. Samuel Stanhope Smith, who was himself tutored in the same College by:

Dr. Jonathan Edwards, Jr., who obviously sat at the feet of:

Jonathan Edwards, the third president of Princeton, being educated at both Yale (A.M., 1773) and as an apprentice to his grandfather:

Solomon Stoddard, of Northampton, Massachusetts, who was educated at Harvard College (A.B., 1662) at the feet of:

Dr. Charles Chauncy, an immigrant to this country, having been trained at Trinity College, Cambridge University, at the feet of:

Archbishop James Ussher, the celebrated Hebraic scholar who was a pupil of:

Walter Travers, the Puritan divine at Christ’s College, Cambridge (an associate of Thomas Cartwright and William Perkins) who traveled to Geneva to come under the instruction of:

Theodore Beza, the heir of the Reformed movement of his mentor and friend:

John Calvin.

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1 See B.B. Warfield, letter to A.A. Hodge, printed in A.A. Hodge, Life of Charles Hodge (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1880), p. 588.

2 See Charles Hodge, Autobiography, printed in A.A. Hodge, op. cit., p. 18.

3 See John A. Mackey, Archibald Alexander: Founding Father,” printed in Hugh T. Kerr, ed., Sons of the Prophetic Leaders in Protestantism from Princeton Seminary (Princeton: Princeton University press, 1963), p. 6

4 See Richard A. Harrison, Princetonians 1769-1775 (Princeton: Princeton University, 1908), p. 290.

5 See Princeton University General Catalog 1746-1906 (Princeton: Princeton University, 1908), p. 48-48.

6 See The Memoirs of Jonathan Edwards, in The Words of Jonathan Edwards (Carlisle, P.A.: Banner of Truth Trust, 1990), Vol. L. p. xxxvi.

7 See Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana (Carlisle, P.A.: Banner of Truth Trust, 1979), Vol. II, p. 14 & 31.

8 Cotton Mather, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 464.

9 See Benjamin Brook, Lives of the Puritans (London, 1813), Vol. II, p. 329.

10 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 314. Also, Dictionary of National Biography, Leslie-Stephen and Sidney Lee, eds. (New York: Oxford, 1973), Vol. XIX, p. 1089.