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Co-Founder of Apple Computers, Steve Jobs, Passes On at 56

Co-Founder of Apple Computers, Steve Jobs, Passes On at 56

Last updated on: October 5, 2011 at 11:54 pm by editorconvergingzone

Co-Founder of Apple Computers, Steve Jobs, Passes On at 56 2011-10-05T23:54:31-08:00 editorconvergingzone

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ALERT: Co-Founder of Apple Computers, Steve Jobs, Passes On at 56

“Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve. His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.” –Apple, Inc.

Steve Shultz- Founder Elijah List on the passing of Steve Jobs: In February of 2011, I recounted an experience I had several years ago. Suddenly God put Steve Jobs on my heart. You can read about it by CLICKING HERE. Though I never met Steve Jobs, I felt God’s love for this man; I mean I felt it—literally with trembling, intensely shaking and tears. I had never experienced this before with a public figure. God used this man to help create some of the greatest technologies known so far. I daily use my iPod, or my iPad, or my Mac computer because of the ideas God put into Steve. His ideas could only have come through the “Father of lights.” Many of you can experience what we post daily on BCN, because of God’s gifting within Steve Jobs. Though my prayers for his healing some 3-4 years ago didn’t end the way I had hoped, I still cannot forget the experience of God’s healing love for this creative genius. I was brought to attention in a moment because God wanted my prayers (and I’m sure the prayers of countless others). My heart and prayers now go out to his family, friends, and co-workers for this great loss. –Steve Shultz (also born in 1955, the year of Steve Job’s birth)

**Apple Inc. reported tonight that co-founder Steve Jobs has died. He stepped down in August, after having beat pancreatic cancer and having undergone a liver transplant in earlier years. He noted when he resigned, “I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know.”

After attending Reed College in Oregon, he dropped out after a semester to form Apple Computers along with his childhood friend Steve Wozniak, in his parents’ garage. By the tender age of 25 he had become a multimillionaire, as he and Steve marketed the world’s first personal computer: the Apple II.

Jobs has been compared by some industry watchers to Thomas Edison, for his innovative ideas that literally changed the way the world communicates, listens to recorded music and uses computers.

An ABC News report states that he avoided the media in his private life, and only granted interviews regarding his products when it would benefit the company.

It’s interesting to note that Steve Jobs’ biological mother—unmarried at the time—gave him up for adoption. He was adopted by Clara and Paul Jobs of Los Altos, Calif., “a working-class couple who nurtured his early interest in electronics,” according to an AP report. Read more about Jobs and how he brought Apple to where it is today, by CLICKING HERE.

Text on Apple’s website Wednesday night read:

“Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.”

Apple has extended an email address for those who which to leave condolences for Jobs’ family: [email protected]

Steve Jobs’ Role Fulfilling the Great Commission by Dr. Michael A. Milton

Steve Jobs is now being eulogized as part P.T. Barnum and part Walt Disney. We might even add part Thomas Edison. There will be more comparisons but few will accurately portray the fullness of the man’s creative genius. There is a biography of him coming out soon and we will learn more about this rather secretive icon of our age.

But it is doubtful that we will learn he was a devout Christian.

I do not know his final moments and therefore I make no judgments, commending this man and his family to a God whose grace and love is greater and wider than we could ever imagine. Yet, in God’s common grace, He used this man’s innovation and creativity to build a new Roman Road to the world—a pathway through the extremities of a world still held in the tyranny of despots and dictators, poverty and radical religious fetters.

ITunes has become a beacon of hope by bringing the Word of God to the ends of the earth. At Reformed Theological Seminary, our classroom teaching, the very same courses by the very same professors—as well as sermons and teaching by some of the most notable pastors of our generation—are being downloaded onto Macs (and yes even PCs), as well as iPads and iPhones all over the earth. About five million of them, according to Apple’s reports to us, are resting on the portable, electronic “book bags” of believers, seekers, and pastors and pastors-to-be all over the world. And so the gospel is getting through to the most hostile places on earth as well as to the most hostile ideological places in the secularized Western world. So I thank God for the life of Steve Jobs.

His commencement speech at Stanford University will likely go down as one of the greatest. It is a testimony to a very spiritual man, not (at least at that time) a Christian man, who saw failures as the turning points in his life, which led to creativity. Our country needs to hear that great American story these days more than ever. Yet behind this brilliant and quite resilient man who changed so much of modern life, and whose destiny is now with His Creator, is really the figure of One who rose again from the dead. Through the creativity of Steve Jobs is a God using all means to reach His own.

We at Reformed Theological Seminary remember that his contributions and the contributions of his company, Apple Computer, became critical collaborators in seeking to fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus Christ. That sounds like an odd alliance, doesn’t it? But this is the God who raised an empire, the Roman Empire, that linked far-flung cities and territories with efficient governance, “super highways” of their day, and allowed St. Paul and an innumerable host of disciples of Jesus Christ to get on that ramp, and transport Christ’s message of hope and freedom to the ends of the world.

I will remember the legacy of Steve Jobs in a way that he might not have thought of, as the founder of an empire that linked the world in order to bring Christ to those who have never heard. Even as I write on this MacBook Pro this morning, I remember that God raises up Roman Roads in every generation to reach the lost, the broken, and the dying with a message that failure, indeed, is an eternal turning point to new life and even resurrection.

The Associated Press reported “Steve Jobs saw the future and led the world to it.” Maybe that is more eternally true than even Steve Jobs could have known or believed.

Dr. Michael A. Milton is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America. He is also the chancellor/CEO Elect of Reformed Theological Seminary, which serves the church by preparing its leaders through a program of graduate theological education based upon the authority of the inerrant Word of God and committed to the historic Reformed Faith.

Watch Steve Jobs’ influential 2005 Stanford Commencement Address below.

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