Among his many writings, I would have to call the Adult Biblical Education Series (ABES) his magnum opus. The first volume appeared in late 1977 and since that time we have continued to print and reprint those studies.

While attending the 39th General Assembly of the PCA last week in Virginia Beach, I received word along with a request for prayer from John Thomas Scott that his dad Jack was near death. We requested prayer from the General Assembly and Jack Scott revived a bit; however, Monday afternoon 12:45 pm, Jack was called home to be with the Lord.

I need not remind those who knew him, Jack Scott was an amazing man of God. I have had the privilege of knowing him for many years and then the special privilege and honor of having him on our CEP staff of over seven years. When I began serving the PCA as the Coordinator of CEP, Jack Scott was on that committee. At that time he was professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. (Jack was one of the founding professors of RTS). We had been together on several previous occasions, Bible conferences, various committee meetings, etc.

Part of my desire from the beginning was to develop an adult Bible study series that would help people in the church to better know the English Bible. As I shared my vision at that first CEP Committee meeting in January of 1977, Dr. Scott responded with appreciation for the vision. My response was “Jack, I really need someone to help me actualize that would you consider being that man?” To my surprise his response gave me encouragement.

After a period of prayer over the next couple of weeks, we continued to talk and early 1977 Jack left RTS and joined our CEP staff. He shared both the concern and vision for such a curriculum. He and his precious wife Eleanor Casslick Scott joined us.

At that point he began writing a 26 volume curriculum for studying the English Bible, including two outstanding surveys of the Old and New Testament. Over the next six years Jack wrote that curriculum with great diligence. Of course when I say English Bible, he was a brilliant linguist, having mastered the Hebrew language for which he soon received his PhD. Among his many writings, I would have to call the Adult Biblical Education Series (ABES) his magnum opus. The first volume appeared in late 1977 and since that time we have continued to print and reprint those studies. (I had the privilege and responsibility of writing the early leaders’ guides which required reading each one. What a spiritual educational and blessing!).

Jack Scott was an exemplary husband and father, a faithful brother in Christ, an outstanding Bible scholar, and a servant leader with an obvious pastor’s heart. Jack loved his family, his friends, as well as his Lord, and that was reflected in every aspect of Jack’s life.

His love and care for Eleanor, his children, Ed, John Thomas, Carolyn, and Ann modeled a real covenant family for all of us.

Having begun as a missionary in Korea where he met and married Eleanor, to pastoring churches in Kentucky and Mississippi, to the faculty of RTS, then CEP and the Bible Department at Belhaven College. Jack demonstrated his commitment to Christian education as the fulfillment of God’s great commission.

His love and counsel sustained me through many hard and frustrating times in our ministry together. Jack modeled a consistency in his Christian life that has been a challenge to us all. Kennedy Smartt, a former classmate of Jack’s at Davidson College, prior to serving together later in the PCA, said to me this morning, “my fondest memory of Jack is teaching himself Hebrew while in college.”

We continue to reprint many of his writings, especially the ABES series which PCA churches have been using now for over 25 years. Though Jack did not like for me to say it, I had to because it was true, namely, “when you read Jack Scott’s material, you have read the best of biblical scholarship.” It was my privilege to write a chapter in a book honoring Dr. Jack B. Scott three years ago, Interpreting and Teaching the Word of Hope, Essays in Honor of Jack Brown Scott on His Seventy-Seventh Birthday.”

Jack was a gifted man of God and his life has blessed us in so many ways.

We join with Eleanor, Carolyn, Ed, Ann, and John Thomas in remembering Jack Scott and we do so with the confidence of the Apostle Paul’s words, “…To depart and be with Christ, for that is far better,” Phil. 1:23 “And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: “Blessed are the dead, who die in the lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Sprit, “That they may rest from their labors, for this deeds follow him,” Rev. 14:13.

Charles Dunahoo is a Teaching Elder in the PCA and has been serving as the Coordinator for the PCA Christian Education and Publications Committee since 1977.

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An obituary, along with funeral service plans, follows:

Jack Brown Scott, 83, went home to be with the Lord, June 13, 2011, shortly after celebrating his wedding anniversary with his wife of 57 years, Eleanor.

He was born January 2, 1928, in Greensboro, North Carolina, to Lacy Albert and Mamie Brown Scott. He married Eleanor Lier Caslick of Paris, Kentucky, in 1954. He is survived by his wife Eleanor Caslick Scott of Jackson, their children, Ann Wiley Scott of Ridgeland, Edward Allen and Charlotte Anderson Scott of Ridgeland, Caroline Brown Scott of Chattanooga, TN, and John Thomas and Holly Roub Scott of Macon, GA, seven grandchildren, Antigone Davoulas of Lookout Mountain, GA, Blake and Austin Scott of Ridgeland, and Will, Mark, Andrew, and Katie Scott of Macon, and his brother Lacy Pershing Scott of San Diego, CA.

Jack Scott graduated from Greensboro High School in 1945, from Davidson College with a B.A. in 1949, from Columbia Theological Seminary with an M.Div. in 1952, and from Dropsie University in Philadelphia with a Ph.D. in 1976.

He served as a church planting missionary with the Presbyterian Church in South Korea from 1952 to 1957, where he met his bride, Eleanor, who was serving as a medical missionary with the Presbyterian Church. The two married and had two children while in Korea before returning to the United States in 1957; the couple returned to Korea for several weeks in 1979 in honor of their 25th anniversary, and he preached at many of the churches he had helped start in the 1950s.

He served as the pastor of the Springfield Presbyterian Church in Springfield, KY, from 1958 to 1960 and the Mt. Salus Presbyterian Church in Clinton, MS, from 1961 to 1966. He was a founding faculty member of Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson and served as Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew until 1977. From 1977 to 1986 he worked as a writer for the Christian Education Committee of the Presbyterian Church in America

He also wrote a weekly Sunday School lesson for the Clarion-Ledger for four decades from the 1960s to the 1990s.

In 1986 he accepted the position of Chair of the Department of Biblical Studies, Christian Ministries, and Philosophy at Belhaven University and served in that capacity until his retirement in 1992; upon retirement he was named Professor Emeritus.

After retirement, Scott continued to teach and preach across the southeast and the world, travelling as far as Malaysia in the early 1990s. He was a founding member of the Presbyterian Church in America in 1973 and a long time member of the Mississippi Valley Presbytery. In 2005 many of his former students and the General Assembly of the PCA honored him with resolutions, honorary dinners, and a festschrift entitled Interpreting and Teaching the Word of Hope. In recent years he and his wife have attended Pear Orchard Presbyterian Church in Ridgeland where he has taught the Reflector’s Sunday School Class on a weekly basis.

Jack Scott loved the God of the Bible, his Savior Jesus, and the Word of God, the Bible. He lived his life following the call of Psalm 1:2: “[The man of God’s] delight is in the law of the Lord; and on his law doth he meditate day and night.” In his passing, his family and friends are comforted by the promise of Psalm 116:15: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”

In lieu of flowers, the family requests individuals make a donation to Wellspring of Life, a Christian ministry to the people of Korea; send donations to: Wellspring of Life (http://wellspringkorea.org), 16 Stoney Fork Road, Barnardsville, NC 28709.

The funeral service will be at 10:30 am on Thursday, June 16, at First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Miss. with visitation at the church on Weds. from 5-7pm and Thursday starting at 9:30am. Rev. Curtis Presley, pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church, Oxford, MS, will be presiding with Rev. Billy Joseph of First Presbyterian Church, Jackson assisting.