Ravi Zacharias, one of the most effective apologists and communicators in the Christian world, died yesterday at the age of seventy-four.
He was born on March 26, 1946, in Chennai, India. His family went to church and observed Christian rituals, but he said he never heard the gospel. “I attended more Hindu festivals and celebrations than I did Christian ones,” he wrote in Christianity Today.
As a young man, Zacharias attended a Youth for Christ rally, where he responded to the invitation with what he later termed “a kind of half-hearted commitment.” At the age of seventeen, in response to poor academic performance that he felt brought shame on his family, he took poison to kill himself.
He was rushed to the hospital, where a representative of Youth for Christ left him a Bible opened to John 14 and Jesus’ statement, “Because I live, you also will live.”
“Jesus,” he prayed, “if you are the One who gives life as it is meant to be, I want it. Please get me out of this hospital bed well, and I promise I will leave no stone unturned in my pursuit of truth.”
God answered his prayer, and Ravi Zacharias kept his promise.
“Let My People Think”
Zacharias received a bachelor of theology degree from Ontario Bible College (now Tyndale University College and Seminary in Toronto) in 1972 and a master of divinity degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, four years later. In 1984, he founded Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM).
Zacharias preached the gospel in more than seventy countries. He wrote or edited more than twenty-five books about theology, apologetics, comparative religion, and philosophy. RZIM has grown to about two hundred…
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