Graduate Profile: David Norman

I came to a Reformed understanding of the faith in my late teens as my father was introduced to these truths by a local friend. By God’s providence, I was not afforded a place to hide from what the Scriptures taught through my father’s constant listening to messages on God’s sovereignty, and talking about this good news, tears streaming down his face.

Over the years, I knew this to be true, but did not think about it much. But as God worked out his plans for my life, his rule became increasingly obvious to me, especially when things did not work out the way I planned them. I learned to say in response to questions about my future, including even my studies at RBS, “This is my plan based on my limited wisdom, but God is going to do whatever good thing he has planned!”

In my secular career, God was equipping me for public speaking and for teaching. I had spent 20 years learning how to communicate difficult concepts in everyday language before I ever began studying at RBS. Again, God had his plans.

In 2007, I joined a church that had just recently changed theology dramatically from Charismatic Arminian to cessationist Reformed Baptist. God had worked miraculously in the lives of those church leaders to show them the truths of his Word. They found themselves desperate to teach the truth while still figuring it out for themselves. The pastor told me once, with little irony, that the most important thing in church planting is "to know what you believe about everything."

This impossible task rang in my ears even as God overcame my stubborn heart to embark on formal theological studies. This need for consistent views on the Bible is the basis for me choosing the Systematic Theology stream. In our fallen state, we will never understand theology perfectly, but my desire is to know it and teach it as faithfully as I can. I have a very long way to go.

God blessed me with an incredibly supportive wife (2011) and daughter (2013). They have both had to sacrifice as I have completed my three years of study while working almost full-time and while helping to home-school our daughter. Even as my time at RBS comes to a close, God is opening doors of opportunity to minister in the church plant we have joined in our new town.

As our family looks to the future, people have been asking what happens next. My desire is to be more involved in church planting in my part of the world, which needs the Gospel as much as anywhere. But as I've learned to say, God will do whatever good thing he has planned.

David Norman