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TITLE:   "THE WORD OF LIFE"

"A Book of Sermons and Articles"

***** Please see pictures for Preface & Table of Contents *****

AUTHOR:   Edited by Franklin Camp.

Contributors: Franklin Camp and F. W. (Frank William) Gould.  See bio sketches below for both.    

DATE PUBLISHED:   Not dated. Published by Proclamation Press.  

BINDING:   Paperback

PAGES:   277

CONDITION:   Very Good+. Text is clear/clean. NO marks!! No previous owner's name.

Please email me with any questions you may have about this books condition or contents before buying. 

LOC/BCB/SOP/25

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Joseph Franklin Camp

Franklin Camp, a much-loved and respected student and teacher of the word of God died Monday, May 21, 1991 after a brief illness. He was 75 years old. News of his death saddened Christians across the nation. This brief account will note some milestones in the life of this faithful Christian whose work influenced so many through more than fifty years of preaching and writing.

Joseph Franklin Camp was born June 9,1915 near the foot of Cheaha Mountain at Hopeful, Alabama. His family moved to Munford in 1921. His father, Benjamin Franklin Camp, preached at Munford and ran a store there. As a youth, Franklin heard the preaching of S. P. Pittman (who baptized him at age 14), S. H. Hall, Gus Nichols, and others who came to preach in gospel meetings. These brethren were guests in the Camps' home during those meetings.

Franklin entered David Lipscomb College in the fall of 1934, where he formed a friendship with Willard Collins that would last a lifetime. Franklin Camp preached his first sermon June 9, 1935, at Campbell Crossroads, Alabama. The following Sunday he preached at Munford.

On February 27, 1937, brother Camp married Hazel Howell. They walked hand in hand for more than 54 years. The Camps had four children -- Frank, Vivian, Paul, and David It was also in 1937 that brother Camp began preaching regularly at Munford. That yea, brother Gus Nichols came to Munford for a meeting, and brother Camp learned that brother Nichols studied about five hours a day. He decided that he needed to study six hours a day, and for most of fifty years, he woke up early to get to the study where he did the work that enriched his life and preaching. At Munford he worked in his father's store, and ran it after the elder Camp died. In 1938, he started preaching daily on WHMA in Anniston. Many were converted, and congregations were established as a result of that program. Those were the days of "brush arbor" and tent meetings, and brother Camp preached frequently in those open-air gatherings. One account sent to the Gospel Advocate told of crowds sitting in the rain to hear the gospel preached by brother Camp. He preached in stores and houses, wherever the opportunity arose. Congregations in Talladega, Lineville, Piedmont, Pine Hill, and other communities were established as a result of brother Camp's work during those Munford days.

In 1947, Franklin and Hazel Camp moved to LaGrange, Georgia where they worked for two years. In 1949, they moved to East Gadsden, Alabama, to work thirteen years with the church there. Many were converted as a result of radio preaching in Gadsden. A dark page of the Camps' life was written at East Gadsden was on September 13, 1951, when their daughter Vivian died after being burned in an accident.

In 1962, the Camps moved to Birmingham to work with the Shades Mountain Church of Christ. Brother Camp preached there until 1971, when he left local work to devote full time to writing and lecturing, supported by the Adamsville congregation and others. In 1976, he began working with the Adamsville church, teaching a Bible class beginning in Genesis designed to trace the scheme of redemption through the Bible. He continued that class when, at nearly seventy years old, he returned to East Gadsden in 1985 for another two and a half years in the pulpit. He left Adamsville with a standing invitation to return, which he accepted in mid-1987. Brother and sister Camp moved to Moody, Alabama (near Birmingham) where they spent the remaining years of their life together. His class at Adamsville continued through 1 Timothy chapter one, when he taught for the last time on May 5, 1991. He also preached that Sunday morning at Adamsville.

Brother Camp wrote several books and tracts. He wrote regularly for brotherhood papers. He edited three papers. He was an annual favorite on the Freed-Hardeman and Lipscomb lecture programs for years, and he spoke regularly on many others. It is probably not possible to count how many meetings, radio programs and sermons he preached. The two works that brother Camp believed were his most important were the tapes of the Adamsville Bible studies, and his Monday preachers' classes. The classes began in 1955 at East Gadsden and moved as he moved from place to place through the years. The class met at Leeds for the last four years, and met for the last time on Monday, May 6, 1991. Three generations of gospel preachers were helped and encouraged by this class during the 36 years it met.

After open heart surgery in 1981, brother Camp enjoyed relatively good health during the last ten years of his life. He gave careful attention to exercise and diet. In the last two years, he experienced some difficulty with his sinuses that caused him to cancel some speaking engagements. He entered AMI Brookwood Hospital in Birmingham for lung surgery Monday, May 13, 1991. After the surgery, he remained in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit for eight days. He died early Tuesday morning, May 21. His funeral was conducted at Munford Wednesday, May 22. His body was laid to rest in the family plot of the old Munford cemetery.

At the 1981 Freed-Hardeman College lectures, brother Camp was honored with an appreciation dinner. Many speakers told about different parts of his life, including his nephew Winfred Clark, to whom we are indebted for many of the early details of brother Camp's life related here. In his remarks at the end of the ceremony, brother Camp was typically humble, crediting his wife, family, friends, his preacher students, and congregations where he worked for encouraging him. He said he was grateful for what had been said honoring him, and that he wanted to lay that honor at the Lord's feet. He said, "My life's ambition is to be able to meet Jesus Christ the Son of God in the world beyond, and lay it all at his feet. . . I would be happy if you would forget about me, and think about the Savior, who came to live and die, and love, and teach us all what life is really about" We who lived with him, learned from him, and loved him will honor his request to give God the glory, but we will never forget Franklin Camp.

-- Michael B. McElroy, World Evangelist, Vol. 19, No.12, July, 1991, p.1,19,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Frank William Gould

1907-1994

The Life of F.W. Gould

Frank William (F. W.) Gould was born in Vienna, Illinois, November 8, 1907. When he was twenty-two he obeyed the gospel under the preaching of the venerable I. A. Douthitt. During the next ten years he studied at Draughon's Business College, Paducah, Kentucky, and at Freed-Hardeman College, Henderson, Tennessee.

As a student at FHC he was privileged to learn from some of the greatest Bible preachers and teachers of his time. Men like H. Leo Boles and N. B. Hardeman became his mentors.

Gould married Anna L. Corzine and began a ministry that would continue 62 years at his home town of Vienna in 1932. He moved to Benton, Kentucky, in 1939 and worked with the church during the dark days of World War II. In 1945, he and his family (now consisting of Frances Ann, Laurel Anoia, and Iris Joan) moved to Mt. Vernon, Illinois, where he preached until 1949.

The Pyburn Street Church in Pocahontas called Gould in 1949. The elders of the church authorized his ministerial credentials in June of that year.

F. W. GOULD, MINISTER
Church of Christ, June 1, 1949, Pocahomas, Arkansas

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
This is to certify that the Church of Christ, Pocahomas, Arkansas, recognizes F. W. Gould as a faithful gospel minister and qualified to attend to all the duties involved in the work of the ministry.
/s/ E. L. Perrin, For the Elders, Filed in my office this 1st day of June, 1949.
/s/ Bob Harvester, County Clerk1 (1 Randolph County Book 1. p.2.)

Gould enjoyed a successful ministry as an effective pulpit preacher, editor of The Noble Searcher, radio evangelist, teacher and debater. During his early years at Pocahontas he conducted a men's training class in which several men, Lowell Blasingame and Cecil Wilson among them, became acknowledged preachers. Gould also represented the church in a debate with Jame Ivy on the subject of "Salvation and Apostasy" in the old stock barn at the Randolph County Fairgrounds in 1950.2 (2 This writer remembers being present at the debate with his father, Cecil Wilson. See: Preachers of Today (1952), p. 137.) Gould's success as a gospel meeting preacher led him to conclude that he could do more good as a full-time evangelist than he could as a located minister. To this end he dedicated himself beginning in May, 1952.3 (3 Ibid.) This, however, did not work out as he had hoped. Gould returned to Pocahontas as the Pyburn Street minister and remained until 1955.4 (4 Preachers of Today ( 1959). p. 165. See: E. W. Stovall, "Gould To Return," The Noble Searcher (Oct. 18, 1957): 180. Hereafter referred 10 as "Gould To Return.") Summarizing his ministry of the 1950s, Gould wrote that he had preached over seventeen radio stations in eight states; conducted two hundred and twenty-five gospel meetings; assisted in establishing a number of congregations; and, baptized, among others, his father, mother, one brother and three sisters.4 (Preachers of Today. (1952; 59).

The Clements Street Church of Christ in Paducah, Kentucky, called him as pulpit minister in 1955. After remaining there a couple of years, he received and accepted an invitation to return to Pyburn Street in Pocahontas. In the October, 1957, issue of The Noble Searcher, E. W. Stovall stated that Gould had agreed to return to Pocahontas a third time. "Brother Gould who has worked with this congregation twice already wrote that he would consider the work again, and the elders in business meeting Sunday afternoon decided to use Brother Gould again," wrote the editor. "This arrangement," Stovall said, "has some advantage, since Brother Gould and family will not have the task of getting acquainted, as would a new man. Brother Gould is plenty able to do the work that is in progress here ... we hope for the church and the Goulds a great work together."5 (5 "Gould to Return.") Gould decided against returning to Pocahontas. however, and remained with the Paducah church for twelve more years. 6 (6 "Gospel Meeting Brochure," prepared by Michael L. Wilson, for Gould's meeting with the 5th and Pine Church of Christ, Rector, Arkansas, March 22-28, 1970.)

In 1970 Gould returned to Pyburn Street in Pocahontas as minister, and later as an elder and minister. After a number of busy years, and with age and health becoming negative factors, he stepped down from the Pyburn Street pulpit and discontinued his service as an elder. He continued to teach the auditorium class even though his hearing had become seriously impaired.

Gould continued to preach in meetings and do what he could to serve area churches. The last congregation for which he preached on a regular basis was Grassy lead in Clay County. But his health would not allow him to continue the work he loved so well.

On July 28, 1994, eighty-four year old F. W. Gould laid his earthly mantle aside and went to be with the angels. His memorial service was held in the Pyburn Street building, August 1, before a large crowd of mourners, and conducted by his long-time friend and brother in Christ. G.W. Allison, his son-in-law, Jim Phillips, a grandson, Mel Futrell, and a grandson-in-law, Mitch Walton. Phillips, Futrell and Walton are preachers.

The old soldier's body was interred in Randolph Memorial Gardens in East Pocahontas.7 (7"F. W. Gould," Pocahonts Star Herald, 04 August 1994, p. 7.) His beloved Anna remains at home. The great library that Gould had amassed over the years was distributed equally to his preaching family memb

  Dr. Michael L. Wilson, Arkansas Christians:A History of the Restoration Movement in Randolph County, Arkansas 1800-1995, c.1997, Delight: Gospel Light Publishing Co., pages 215,216

 



 

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