Background
Thomas Gilmore Apple was born on November 14, 1829 in Easton, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the seventh son of Andrew and Elizabeth (Gilmore) Apple (or Appel), came of German, English, and Irish ancestry.
Thomas Gilmore Apple was born on November 14, 1829 in Easton, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the seventh son of Andrew and Elizabeth (Gilmore) Apple (or Appel), came of German, English, and Irish ancestry.
He graduated at Marshall College, Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, in 1850, under the presidency of the celebrated theologian, Dr. John W. Nevin.
During his college course and for several years thereafter he studied theology and in 1852 was ordained as a minister of the (German) Reformed Church in the United States.
In 1865 he became president of Mercersburg College, a new institution, established upon the physical foundations of old Marshall College, which in 1853 had been merged in Franklin and Marshall College at Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
On June 27, 1871 he was elected professor of church history and New Testament exegesis in the Theological Seminary, which in this year was also moved from Mercersburg to Lancaster.
In 1877 he was elected president of Franklin and Marshall College and assigned to the chair of philosophy, which he occupied for twelve years in conjunction with his professorship in the Theological Seminary. From 1868 to the end of his life he was editor of the Mercersburg Review, later changed in title to the Reformed Church Quarterly Review as the organ of the denomination for Christological, historical, and positive theology. In its pages will be found his most important writings, particularly his contributions to the system of thinking which in this country came to be identified with the institutions at Mercersburg and hence was called "Mercersburg Theology. "
He also took an active part in the legislative and executive affairs of the church, and was instrumental in the organization of some and the reorganization of other enterprises which profited by his administrative abilities.
He was a member of the committee which framed the Order of Worship (1866). He was a leading member of the so-called "Peace Commission" which finally settled the liturgical question upon a satisfactory basis in the form of a Directory of Worship, authorized for use in 1887.
In the matter of doctrine, he drew a sharp line between religion as a challenge to faith and theology as a science.
He had a constructive mind. His writings were marked by clear thinking, intellectual honesty, and lucid expression.
Quotes from others about the person
"He held firmly to the historic faith of the church, and yet he never refused to accept any new light that was shed upon the old faith by modern critical research. "
On August 27, 1851, he married Emma Matilda Miller, of Easton, Pennsylvania, by whom he had eleven children.