BOB JONES, SR.
1883 - 1968
 

“The test of your character is what it takes to stop you.” 

Robert Reynolds Jones, best known as Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., was born October 30, 1883, the eleventh of twelve  children, in Skipperville, Alabama. Converted at age 11, he was a Sunday school superintendent at 12 and ordained to the ministry by the Methodist church at 15.

“Dr. Bob” was a Christ-exalting, sin-condemning preacher who first began preaching in the cotton fields, in country churches and in brush arbors. Later he held huge campaigns in American cities large and small and preached around the world. Billy Sunday called him the greatest evangelist of all time, saying, “He has the wit of Sam Jones, the homely philosophy of George Stuart, the eloquence of Sam Small and the spiritual fervency of Dwight L. Moody.”

He saw crowds up to 10,000 in his meetings, with many thousands finding Christ in one single campaign. But Dr. Jones was more than an evangelist.  As a pioneer in the field of Christian education, he founded Bob Jones University in 1927.

Behind every man’s ministry is a philosophy. Dr. Jones’s was spelled out in the sentence sermons to his “preacher boys” in chapels at the college. Who in Christian circles has not heard or read some of these: “Duties never conflict!”; “It is a sin to do less than your best.”; “The greatest ability is dependability.”; “It is never right to do wrong in order to get a chance to do right.” “DO RIGHT!” It was the philosophy that motivated his ministry, saturated his sermons and spearheaded his school.

His voice was silenced by death January 16, 1968. His influence lives on today, and Christians will for generations to come be challenged, as he said, to “DO RIGHT IF THE STARS FALL!”