PR-Jones Sr

A BJA Profile -

Bob Jones, Sr.

President - 1927-47
"The Founder" - 1947-68

Early Life
In 1883, Robert R. Jones was the 11th of 12 children born to an Alabama cotton-farmer family. As a child his father had him memorize long passages of Scripture and poetry, which he was to recite for visitors. He was embarrassed doing it but later realized it was good training for him. When he was 6, he spoke to his mother about being saved but was considered “too young.” At 8 he participated in a Children’s Day service and “really preached a sermon” according to records of Beulah Church, where the family attended.

At age 11 he was converted in a Methodist meeting. Soon after his conversion, he would go to various homes and ask if he could preach to them. The family would invite neighbors, and Jones would preach. At 13 he built a brush arbor about 2 miles from his home and preached in it for 2 weeks. About 45 people were converted during his first “evangelistic campaign.”

During high school he was called to pastor the five churches of the Headland Circuit of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He preached funerals, performed marriage ceremonies, comforted the bereaved, but refrained from giving marital counsel to ladies. During his 2 years in that position, over 400 people made profession of faith and joined the churches. As a teenager he became known as “the boy preacher” and was much sought after to preach throughout southeast Alabama.

The boy preacher

By 15 Jones, Sr. had preached in several southern states, but because he was not licensed, it “didn’t really count” in the opinion of some people. He sought to be licensed by the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Some on the committee were concerned: “Are we to start ordaining boys to preach?” An elderly committee member asked Jones to leave the room, and then asked a high-ranking Methodist Bishop to preach a sermon to the committee. Then Jones, Sr. was asked to preach a sermon to the committee. That day Jones, Sr. was ordained to preach.

By the time he was 18, both of his parents had died and he was on his own. He enrolled in Southern University, a Methodist school in Greensboro, Alabama. On weekends he would preach in various churches. The attendance at nearby churches would plummet as people flocked to hear him. His summers were filled with two- to three-week evangelistic campaigns.

The Methodist denomination assigned ministers to various positions. Jones, Sr. had not been assigned to any specific ministry. Some church officials were not pleased with his evangelistic ministry and were very critical of him and the methods he was using.

While in college, during a summer campaign in Louisiana, he remembers being constrained to get up, kneel by his hotel bed, and pray, “All right, Jesus, you win. . . . You’ve been blessing my work and the doors are open. You know I can’t help it if they do cuss me.” He later said that this call to evangelism was “as definite as anything that ever happened in my life.”

The money he made preaching and from various odd jobs did not always cover his educational expenses. But invitations to conduct two- to three-week revival campaigns were growing. Although a good student, Jones, Sr. finished only three years of college. He left to become a full-time evangelist.

The Young Evangelist

Typical evangelistic tabernacle of the early 20th century - A 1917 Bob Jones campaign ran for 8 weeks during which he preached 102 times to over 266,000 people.

In his early 20s, Jones, Sr. was conducting city-wide evangelistic campaigns similar to those held by Billy Sunday, Charles Finney, and Dwight L. Moody. Sponsored by the orthodox churches of an area, these campaigns would generally last 3 to 12 weeks and would have thousands in attendance at evening services. In the early 1920s, his ministry spread north, and he became widely known as a gifted preacher.

Journalist Sam Small summarized Jones, Sr.’s reputation: “Bob Jones is a crusader, not a crank. He accepts all science that is science; but he refuses to believe or teach what is yet nebulous; negative of revelation, and not fully proven. His religion is foundation-solid and fool-proof. Hence the magnetism of his leadership and the popularity of his protagonism.” Later Sam Small became an evangelist, and Jones, Sr. asked him to write the Creed for BJC.

Jones, Sr. was active when he spoke, as these 1921 newspaper cartoons show. In Florida and Tennessee, he was known to run back and forth on the chapel platform to emphasize points. When radio was introduced, his pulpit activity was more subdued, but as one faculty member commented, “The message was the same.”

Between 1917 and 1930, Jones, Sr. preached to over 15 million people. In that period he had over 3000 converts (before he stopped counting). At the time he was a widely known in the eastern part of the United States.

In his early 40s, while at the height of his evangelistic career and earning a comfortable income, Jones Sr. was led to found a school. That would change everything.

Florida Chapels
Dr. Henry Morrison, a Methodist preacher and president of Asbury College, advised Jones, Sr. to “keep the chapel platform hot” rather than letting it become a “quiet devotional period” as it was in many schools. When on campus Jones, Sr. spoke in chapel and students recall his doctrinally sound, imminently practical, and enthusiastically presented messages. Fervent preaching, however, was not the only way the chapel platform was kept hot.

Mary Sue Nottingham (née Larking), a 1928-9 BJA student, recalls Jones Sr. preaching against a record that students had been playing on the Victrola in the campus clubhouse. It made fun of a hymn “Thine Be the Glory” by changing its words to “Hallelujah! I’m a Bum.” Jones quoted the words of the hymn to a perfectly silent student body and told them the parody was the work of the “Slimy Serpent.” Nottingham recalls that “After the message he broke the record to pieces in front of the student body to impress upon them the evil of sin.”

During one chapel the singing of “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” was poor. Jones, Sr. stopped the song. “Wait a minute! None of you seem to know this. I want every one of you—faculty and student body—to memorize this, and day after tomorrow, we’ll sing it again. I want everybody to know it.”

One year, during the first week of school, Jones, Sr. told the students that they all had to perform something oral or musical in chapel on a given day. Following each performance he publicly critiqued it.

Early in the school’s history, discipline problems were often addressed in chapel. The percentage of students shipped (campus term for expelled) was high, and the reason for the expulsion was explained to the student body. Jones, Sr. later said, “We were trying to help the fellow who wasn’t shipped by showing him the danger.”

While probably not what Dr. Morrison meant, these practices did keep the chapel platform hot.

Chapel Sayings

Jones, Sr. was a plain-spoken, down-to-earth man. Lively illustrations made the scriptural doctrines he preached easily applicable to everyday life. His preaching was filled with simple, practical, memorable statements that reflected the Biblical truths he was preaching. These became known as his “Chapel Sayings.” Students frequently told of how a particular Chapel Saying had inspired them or helped them make Christ-honoring decisions even long after they had graduated.

Chapel Sayings started as reminders on chalkboards, became bulletin board posters, and then lettered wooden plaques in classrooms. In 1953 the newly formed Academy Inter-society Council decided which of the Chapel Sayings should be made into plaques and hung in Main Building classrooms. Today Chapel Saying plaques are still found in many classrooms.

Jones, Sr. approached the chapel pulpit differently than he did Sunday morning services or his evangelistic meetings. His “Chapel Talks,” as he called them, often had a more familiar tone. He was speaking to his “boys and girls” even when the chapel platform resounded with a clarion call to a Christian virtue or with a sharp, but needed, rebuke.

Dr. Bob in Chapel

Below are 1 - 2 minute audio clips of Dr. Bob, Sr. addressing biblical truths with his "boys and girls" in chapel. As a young evangelist he often spoke to large crowds with no amplification, which greatly influenced his pulpit manor. He used memorable language and stories in a preaching style developed during his early carrier. The chapel excerpts below parallel concepts BJA seeks to instill in today's students.

A 1956 chapel message on Saul's Rebellion. (32 min)

It was during the school's sojourn in Cleveland that Jones Sr. preached some of his most famous Chapel Talks: “Rabbit Chasers,” “Too Lazy to Plough,” “Feeling Your Way Along,” and “The Secret of Success.” Receiving many requests, he published Things I Have Learned, a collection of his Chapel Talks, in 1944. The first four Chapel Talks in this book contain challenges regarding many of his Chapel Sayings.

CIn 1950 Dr. Bob addressed the founding and the history of BJU in 2 Chapel Meetings.

“The Founder”
Bob Jones College moved to Greenville in 1947. At that time BJC became BJU, and at age 64, Jones, Sr. relinquished the presidency to his son. Jones, Sr. became known on campus as “The Founder.” On a reduced scale he continued his evangelistic ministry and was a regular speaker in chapel and at Sunday morning services on the campus. He also broadcast a live, 15- minute, daily devotional challenge called “The Founder Speaks” on WMUU, BJU’s radio station. These brief, personal messages dealt with eternal truths related to current conditions. They were recorded and rebroadcast until the radio station was sold in 2018.

Dr. Bob on the Radio

Dr. Bob, Sr. was one of the first preachers in the U. S. to use the radio for spreading the Gospel and teaching Biblical truths. His demeanor on the radio was considerably different than his pulpit style. In the 1920s he recorded a series of 52 radio messages entitled "The Fundamentals of the Faith." In his later years he recorded a year of weekly radio messages entitled "Word of Truth." As the introduction, a BJU choir sang a hymn dealing with that day's topic. These recordings were used by an extensive network of radio stations. Below are a few of the 15 minute programs.

Toward the end of his life, an addition to the faculty wing of the campus hospital served as an apartment for him. Currently this room is part of the Brown Building of the Academy Quadrangle, near the Academy Gym and the Hutto Building. He died there in January, 1968, and was interred on the island in the front campus fountain.

Jones, Sr.’s interment on the campus. (1968)

Information about Bob Jones, Sr. is also found in:

The Founding of BJC and BJA - Why Found A School

For more information about Bob Jones, Sr. see:
- Builder of Bridges. R. K. Johnson
- Dr. Bob: Bob Jones Sr. (1883-1968), Evangelist and College Founder. J. Matzko (unpublished manuscript)