Dr. Larry Spargimino is truly one of the most talented and busiest people I know in any walk of life. I am thankful to God that Larry chose to bring his tremendous energy and his talents to the Lord’s work in general, and to God’s prophetic work in particular. On a personal note, I’m humbly gratified to call him one of my closest friends.
Larry Spargimino was born into a Roman Catholic family in New York City. He went to parochial school and attended Mass, but was not very serious about issues of ultimate concern until his teen years.
As a teenager, he became engrossed in a search to know God. One day he picked up a Roman Catholic Study Bible and noticed that the notes at the bottom of the page seemed to contradict what the text of Scripture was saying. This threw him into confusion and led him to become an agnostic. “If the ‘experts’ who write the study notes don’t know what the Bible is teaching,” thought Larry, “how can anyone really know anything about God and how to get to Heaven?”
In his early twenties, Larry met a Chinese foreign student named Ming-Joan, whom he later married. Jennifer (her English name) shared the Gospel with him, and then gave him a Bible that her aunt had given her before she left Hong Kong for study in America. Larry began to study the Bible in depth but had many questions that Jennifer could not answer.
The young woman then introduced Larry to a Chinese pastor in New York City who had done much reading and was strong in apologetics. He was a Christian Reformed pastor who had studied with Cornelius Van Til at Westminster Seminary.
Larry was amazed at the logical consistency of Scripture and how a mind held captive by the Word of God came to have a depth of knowledge and understanding that was beyond natural reason. He also came to realize that human righteousness counts for nothing with God.
Larry put his faith in Christ and became a member of the Christian Reformed Church. He accepted a covenantal view of history and embraced amillennialism.
After much study, however, Larry felt that the amil position was not reflected by the Bible. He embraced postmillennialism for a time, but came to see that the only view that does justice to all of Scripture is premillennial dispensationalism. Larry believes that “all Scripture is for us, but not all Scripture is about us.” He believes that if the interpreter fails to carefully divide the Word of God on the basis of principles taught by the Bible itself, we will end up judaizing the New Testament and allegorizing the Old.
After his conversion, Larry received the M. Div. and Ph. D. degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He has been pastor of local churches, dean of a Bible College, seminary professor and Christian school principal.
Larry is currently the associate pastor and editor with Southwest Radio Church Ministries, and is regularly heard on Southwest’s “Watchman on the Wall” broadcast. He is also editor of The Bible in the News magazine.
He has written several books. His Anti-Prophets was the first full-length critique of preterism from a dispensational, premillennial viewpoint.
He has also written Religion of Peace or Refuge of Terror? and Is Muhammad in the Bible? His latest book, Suddenly No More Time, relates the exponential curve to Bible prophecy, all published by Hearthstone.
Larry has contributed a chapter to The End Times Controversy: The Second Coming Under Attack (Harvest House).
In addition to his work at Southwest Radio Church Ministries, Larry currently teaches graduate courses at the American Christian College and Seminary in Oklahoma City. He and his wife are members at the Trinity Chinese Baptist Church, where he teaches a college and career Sunday school class and preaches on a regular basis.