Early Years and Education

Tony Crisp’s ancestral roots run deep in the Southern Appalachian Mountains of Western North Carolina and East Tennessee. His first remembrances of childhood were of his family living and working as tenant farmers and moving from farm to farm almost yearly. The family was broken in the early 1960’s and Tony and his two older brothers spent their remaining growing-up years with his maternal grandmother. An ever deepening poverty followed. His pre-teen and teenage years were characterized by rebellion, aimlessness and hopelessness. At age 19, after descending to the depths of despair and hopelessness, he came to the end of a long search for God and the peace, purpose and direction that had heretofore eluded him. He became a follower of Jesus Christ and his life was forever changed. He immediately devoted himself to the study of the sacred scriptures that had brought him knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth.

Within months, he determined that the God who had changed his life had called him to devote himself to sharing the life-changing message of Jesus Christ with the world. Realizing he needed training to be the most effective in his life work, he moved to Dallas, Texas and began his formal studies at the Criswell Bible Institute (now Criswell College). At the college he studied Hebrew and Old Testament Studies at the feet of Dr. H. Leo Eddleman. He and Dr. Eddleman developed a very close relationship and as the relationship grew Dr. Eddleman asked his young student to study with him in Israel. Through their relationship and that first trip to Israel, Dr. Eddleman instilled into his young “Timothy” a love for the people of the land of Israel, both Jewish and Arab, as well as a love for the uniqueness of the land itself.