Beeson podcast, Episode 404
Dr. Frank Thielman and Dr. John Woodbridge
August 7, 2018
https://www.beesondivinity.com/podcast/2018/Remembering-Billy-Graham

Announcer:	Welcome to the Beeson podcast coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now your host, Timothy George.
Timothy George:	Welcome to today's Beeson podcast. This is a little different kind of podcast, because we have a three-way conversation going with Dr. Frank Thielman, my colleague who teaches New Testament here at Beeson Divinity School, and with Dr. John Woodbridge, who is a great church historian, teaches at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School near Chicago. Welcome Frank and John to the Beeson podcast.
Frank Thielman:	Thank you, it's good to be here.
John Woodbridge:	Thank you so much, Timothy.
Timothy George:	Now, what are we going to talk about? We could talk about almost anything, but the three of us have had a special relationship with one of the Lord's great servants in our era, Dr. Billy Graham, who went home to be with the Lord earlier this year, on February the 21st, 2018. He was 99 years old. It would have been 100 years old had he lived 'til November. But this was like a seismic earthquake, Dr. Graham's passing away. Many, many thousands of articles written about him. 
	But I wanted us to talk about him really in the way that we knew him and his contribution to the Lord's church, a great evangelical statesman of our time. And I think I will begin with Frank, because Frank of the three of us, I think you maybe had the most up close and personal connection to Dr. Graham from the early years of your own life.
Frank Thielman:	I grew up in Montreat, North Carolina, where the Grahams had their home. Montreat is a small town. For a long time while the Grahams were living there, it wasn't even incorporated as a town. It was actually just the conference grounds of the old Southern Presbyterian Church. Mrs. Graham's father, Dr. Nelson Bell, had been a missionary, a medical missionary in China for many years. He had a home in the States in Montreat, and so when Dr. Graham and Mrs. Graham married, they made their home in Montreat. 
	My father came to be the pastor of the one church in Montreat, the Montreat Presbyterian Church back in the early 1960s. So, he was really Mrs. Graham's pastor and Dr. Graham was in church when he was in town. So, we grew up, our family grew up with their family as part of the wider community.
Timothy George:	Now, I think Billy and Ruth Graham married in 1943, so they had lived in Montreat a few years before your family moved there.
Frank Thielman:	Right. 
Timothy George:	But you grew up somewhat with some of their children, didn't you, in the neighborhood?
Frank Thielman:	I did, yes, I knew Ned their youngest child, and Ned's brother Franklin. I really knew all the children in various ways, but I knew Franklin and Ned the best, and really Ned the best. He and I were close in age and we played together when we were little. And sort of lost touch at high school, sort of high school and college. But we were good friends in our early years together.
Timothy George:	Now I want to mention something that probably not anybody on our listening audience knows, but I know. I'm going to reveal it right now, here on the Beeson podcast. And that is the fact that you, Frank, were at one time a radio announcer.
Frank Thielman:	I was, yeah.
Timothy George:	For a radio station, I think, connected to Billy Graham or to the Montreat ... Tell us about that.
Frank Thielman:	That's right. Dr. Graham had, and the Graham organization still owns, a radio station called WFGW. Its companion FM station is WMIT. WMIT is actually a very historic radio station. It's, I think, one of the very first, if not the first, FM radio station in the country. 
	Early on, the Grahams saw the need for Christian radio stations and Christian broadcasting. So they set up an organization called The Blue Ridge Broadcasting Corporation, and my father was on the board. When I was in high school and looking for a job, dad put my name in and said, "Well, if you can use Frank down at the radio station, he would love to do that."
Timothy George:	Well, you do have a good radio voice,-
Frank Thielman:	Well ...
Timothy George:	... and if you've heard Frank's voice before, it's probably 'cause he introduces the Beeson podcast every week. So you're a familiar voice anyway. If people don't know you, they know your voice.
Frank Thielman:	Well, you're very kind. I'm not sure how good a radio voice I actually have, but I did have a very loving dad who was looking out for his son when he needed a job.
Timothy George:	There you go. 
Frank Thielman:	Yeah, and the management down there was kind enough to hire me, and I used to sort of sub in for announcers from time to time. I did that for about 10 years-
Timothy George:	Yeah, yeah.
Frank Thielman:	... in the summers and-
Timothy George:	How about that?
Frank Thielman:	... it was a great experience.
Timothy George:	And you've mentioned your father a few times. I had the privilege of meeting him. He actually preached for us here at Beeson Divinity School once or twice. His name was Dr. Calvin Thielman, a wonderful preacher of the gospel, a great pastor, and of course, a very special friend to Billy Graham and his whole family. 
	What was it like to have the Graham family in Montreat Presbyterian Church, Billy sitting there listening to your dad's sermons?
Frank Thielman:	Well, the church met in a very small space, Gaither Chapel. And so, it was not a large area. In fact, the church didn't even own the chapel. It rented it or leased it from Montreat College. So this was a small space, and when Dr. Graham was there, pretty much everybody knew he was there. But the community was respectful of his private space. 
	He would often arrive a few minutes late to the service on purpose, because he didn't want to create a ruckus. And he would frequently sneak out a little bit early for the same reason. I think his concern was as much just not creating a stir within the church as anything else.
	My dad also was careful not to call on him spontaneously to pray or to speak. He tried very hard to be respectful of the Graham's privacy and need for time together. Dr. Graham was out of town a lot, and so the time with his family, the time in church with his family was very important. So, I think dad and the whole community, the session of the church worked hard to preserve their need to worship as a family.
	But, at least once a year on Christmas, Dr. Graham would call down to the house, usually, and tell dad that he would like to give a report on his ministry that year. He just did it year to year. It wasn't sort of an organized set up thing, but dad would always hope the call would come, and it always did.
	So the Sunday before Christmas, Dr. Graham would typically speak at our church, he would give a report on his ministry, he would usually have a brief sermon on a scripture text, and then he would stay as long as anyone wanted to talk to him in the community. And he would stay for a long time in the back of the church, shaking hands, signing people's autographs, talking, visiting with people that he didn't normally get to see but knew. That was a very special time in our church every year.
Timothy George:	What are some things you may have learned about Dr. Graham's character, his ministry, from being that kind of close affiliation with his family and his children?
Frank Thielman:	You know, I only have good memories of Dr. Graham. He was a wonderful person, and I did know him fairly well, just at the level of being in his home and being there when Ned and I would be hanging out together at their house. I remember him fixing us lunch once.
	Dr. Graham I remember as a very kind person, he was quite thoughtful. I remember him as an excellent listener, which I think is one of the keys, perhaps, to his leadership abilities. He listened carefully to people. It didn't matter who you were. If you had his ear, he listened quite carefully to you.
	And he never forgot names. He knew people's names, I think better than anyone I've ever known. If he met you, he knew your name. He was very able to connect with people at a personal level. And I think a lot of people respected him for that.
	Dr. Graham was also a person of real integrity, and did a lot of good in our little community, lot of wonderful things that people, I think, probably never knew about. Families that were poor that he helped. I remember a poor mountain family once, that my dad called about, who needed a home. They were living in a place that just had a dirt floor. The father in the family was very ill. There were a lot of little children. They were just in really bad shape. And immediately, Dr. and Mrs. Graham got together, they found a house for them. I think it was somewhere on some property they had. They made sure this little family was taken care of. 
	And that was not a rare thing for them. They had a heart for the poor and the needy. I think they communicated that heart to Franklin, their son, who runs Samaritan's Purse. I think he has that same burden for the poor and the needy. They were really a wonderful family. I have wonderful memories of them all.
Timothy George:	That's great. Now John, you and I didn't grow up in the neighborhood with the Graham family, but you've known Mr. Graham for a long time and your connection, including that of your father with Billy Graham at Fuller Seminary. Say a little bit about how you came to know Mr. Graham and his work.
John Woodbridge:	Well, I came to know Mr. Graham through his work, more through I guess, my dad. And more through Mr. Graham on occasion coming up to Word of Life Camp up in Northern New York. Dr. Graham was a great friend of Jack [Wertz 00:10:59], and so I saw him as a kid up at Word of Life and met him. And my father and he played golf together up close by the camping situation. 
	Then, on one occasion, the closest real contact I had with him, I just so loved listening to what Frank was saying, his firsthand experience. I happened to be in the home of the dean of Trinity where I teach, and his name was Dr. [Conser 00:11:27], and Dr. Conser was down in Latin America, and I was grading papers, which I've spent most of my life grading papers. 
	Anyway I was grading them, and the phone rang. And the person said, "Is Dr. Conser there?" I said, "No, he's down in Latin America." And then he said, "Who is this?" and I gave him my name. And then he said, "This is Billy Graham." And I said, "Oh, hello Dr. Graham." And apparently Dr. Graham had counselors throughout the world, and these counselors would sometimes give him advice, and Dr. Conser must have been one of them.
	So Dr. Graham had on his Day-Timer half an hour. So he decided to spend it with me. But in this instance, since I didn't know him too well, he did the talking. I have to say that that was one of the most remarkable conversations I've ever had, because I realized something which I'm glad we can talk about on this program, is as Frank indicated, Dr. Graham was the real deal. There was no disconnect between his formal presentation of himself in public and who he was privately.
	And in that particular instance, he was talking with me, of all things, about the issue of sexual purity. He was a little bit upset that a particular person had said something as a Christian, that he had a little bit leeway in his thinking than probably he should have had. And Dr. Graham said, "How could any Christian man say something like that?" Well, I could imagine how that could happen, but he couldn't. I began to realize and as I studied his life and got to know him more and more, that one of his great traits was, he took the Bible very, very seriously. He took sin very seriously, and consequently, one of the areas in which we was very, very careful was his thought life. And he expressed that to me.
	And as I reflected about his remarkable ministry over the years, I think that part of his quote-unquote success was due to the fact that listeners would know he was telling the truth. He wasn't making up stuff, he wasn't counterfeit, and so forth. 
	And in particular in his thought life, he was very, very careful. And particularly in today's world, that's one of the reasons I'm bringing this up, it's so important for evangelical Christians to be like Mr. Graham and not have a distinction between their private life and their private thought life and what they say. And all I can do is say, you know, I'm not a very good at exegete but it says, "The pure in heart will see God." I think Mr. Graham really did encounter God, because of the purity of his heart. 
Timothy George:	That's wonderful. Now, each of you has talked about Mr. Graham's humility and his integrity. And those are just shown through in his life and ministry. He came really into national prominence in the late '40s, really early '50s, culminating in the great New York City crusade of 1957. 
	What was happening in evangelical life at that time? Maybe John, you want to answer this, that gave that opening for a person like Billy Graham, who would be so marvelously used by God to speak to the whole nation, and really to the whole world?
John Woodbridge:	Yes, that's a really good point. Billy comes out of North Carolina, obviously. He comes from a dairy farmer background, he goes eventually to Wheaton College in the early '40s. He had already made the great commitment to serve the Lord when he was at a Bible school in Florida. He wanted to be an ambassador for Christ.
	But when he got to Wheaton, not only did he meet the love of his life, Ruth, he on occasion ... and one of his roommates has talked about this recently. He on occasion would get down on his knees in his room and say, "Oh Lord, oh Lord, keep me from doing anything that would betray you. I want to serve you." And so, as it turns out, he joined the Youth for Christ and went overseas and so forth. 
	But as you intimated, particularly in the late '40s, when there was in some regards a bad reputation that revivalism had, that Graham came to the fore with the crusade that took place in L.A. in 1949. And the key point, and I think it's very important for us to note in our discussion today, is that before the crusade in L.A. in '49, he'd had doubts about the authority of scripture. And he walked off into the woods up at Forest Home in the mountains around California, made a commitment to the authority of scripture, and that would become a real clue to why he's so effective in ministry. 
	He put his dependence upon the word of God. And as you're suggesting, when '49 comes around, the revival breaks out, he becomes a national figure. By '54, he becomes an international figure. By '57, he has the New York crusade. And he's a person who presidents want to deal with, but his impact is enormous.
Timothy George:	Absolutely. You know the three of us were together at a Billy Graham event in Amsterdam in the year 2000. It was called Amsterdam 2000, and it was one of a series. I think the culminating conference of a series of meetings that Dr. Graham hosted for evangelists around the world. And we produced a document, all three of us worked on it, I think, called the Amsterdam Declaration. 
	As you all think back on that meeting, do you have any particular memories you want to share? Mr. Graham, we should say, was not able himself at the last minute to come to Amsterdam. He was sick in the hospital. We had a relayed video message from him. I remember that was very powerful. But do you have any memories of being together at that great Amsterdam evangelism conference in the year 2000?
Frank Thielman:	I remember the very encouraging cross-section of people from all sorts of cultures and societies and all kind of languages across the world meeting for communion in that last wonderful service.  And I thought, "This must be a little tiny taste of what heaven will be like."
Timothy George:	Yeah, led by our friend Richard [Buse 00:18:03].
Frank Thielman:	That's right.
Timothy George:	He was the minister on that occasion. We were all on our knees, we were all celebrating together the real presence of Christ in that communion service. 
Frank Thielman:	Yeah, it was a wonderful time, very edifying. I also remember sitting around the table with others working on the confession of faith that we drafted together. That was a very memorable occasion for me as well.
Timothy George:	You helped us a lot not to misquote the Bible.
Frank Thielman:	I was just glad to be there. I felt like a student, but it was a wonderful occasion.
Timothy George:	What about you, John?
John Woodbridge:	Well, I think, Timothy, that you're bringing that conference up is terrific. Because in some regards, that was a conference that marked evangelical history. As many people have commented afterwards, hardly anybody else could have ever called a conference like that to which so many people would come, and it was Billy Graham who could do it. And 13,000 evangelists came. I don't think we'll probably know until we get to heaven what the full impact of that conference was. But just to imagine, with all that wonderful singing, as Frank said, the other things that took place. 
	For me personally, I was really struck by the speaker who called upon Africans and people who came from other countries who had been evangelized by Europeans, for him to say to them, "Please return to Europe and evangelize," and so forth. I thought that conference was absolutely amazing. 
	My sense is that we just don't have a full feel of what the conference accomplished, but we'll know in heaven. 
Timothy George:	Now, I'm often asked a question. I want to pose it to each of you to see if you have a better answer than I do, 'cause I don't have a good answer. That question I'm often asked is, who is the next Billy Graham? Who will succeed Billy Graham? Is there such a person, and how would we know if there were?
Frank Thielman:	Well, I remember people coming to Montreat and thinking they were the next Billy Graham and showing up at the Graham's office there, or somewhere. A lot of times, they would send the person to my dad, who was sort of a ... ran interference for the Grahams sometimes. 
	And dad would usually say, he would try to be kind to the person, but somehow indicate probably there is not going to be another Billy Graham. There was a fairly unique set of circumstances that God in his providence brought together and used Dr. Graham, who would be the first to say it wasn't his human speaking abilities or oratorical prowess that brought so many people to faith in Christ. It was the Holy Spirit. So, I'm not sure that there will be another Billy Graham. There may be lots of people that are inspired by him to proclaim the gospel faithfully in their own cultures. But there may not be anyone else exactly like him.
Timothy George:	John?
John Woodbridge:	Well, Billy took a shot at answering that question. I don't know if you remember that. In 1989, he wrote a letter to Dr. Conser, who was a dean, again, once at Trinity. And this was a question they were reflecting on, the very one you raised, Timothy. Dr. Graham give this response. I have it in front of me. "I keep remembering the words of someone I heard years ago. 'God buries his workman and carries on his work.' I do not think any of us are indispensable, whatever field of the Lord's work we are in. I am convinced that there are thousands of evangelists throughout the world that are more faithful and more capable than I am. They may not be Americans, and they not have big organizations, but they have the anointing of the Holy Spirit."
	I think, you know, he had a supposition or a thought that, perhaps, the next person who might fill his place, if that could possibly take place, would not be an American, but would be someone from overseas. And so, consequently, we don't know exactly who that next person will be. But I remember you, Timothy, saying that when Moody died, people thought there could be no person to replace Moody when Moody died in 1899. But this little baby was born in North Carolina not too many years later, and he was Billy Graham.
Timothy George:	So the Lord works in surprising ways, and he doesn't always reveal to us his technique before it happens.
John Woodbridge:	That's right. 
Timothy George:	But I think we would all three of us say what a blessing it was to be around Billy Graham,-
Frank Thielman:	Yes.
Timothy George:	... to know him in the way that we did and to see the evidence of God's grace in his life. Such an example to us. And to then see how God used this really very humble person. Being in the presence of Billy Graham, the times I was with him, I was always ... he could have said anything, done anything. But he comes across just as a Christian deeply committed to Jesus Christ. As Frank said, very interested in other people and what they were doing. That probably made as much of an impression on me as anything else he said publicly just to know his heart a little bit and to be inspired by his life. So what a privilege to have had him among us for these 99 years. And now I think heaven has got to be rejoicing a little bit that he has joined the heavenly choir up there.
	Well, thank you so much. My guests on the Beeson podcast today have been two good friends, Dr. Frank Thielman and Dr. John Woodbridge, both outstanding scholars in the Lord's church and both with a special relationship to Billy Graham. Because we're still, in a sense, both mourning his loss but also rejoicing in his legacy, we wanted to just share that conversation and those memories with you today. So thank you both very much.
Frank Thielman:	Thank you, delighted to be here.
John Woodbridge:	Thank you, Timothy.
Announcer:	You've been listening to the Beeson podcast with host Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson podcast at our website beesondivinity.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational, evangelical divinity school, training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast will aid and encourage your work, and we hope you will listen to each upcoming edition of the Beeson podcast.