The Healing Legacy of Ruth and Billy Graham

*Photo Courtesy of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Used With Permission. All Rights Reserved.*

By Ben Cox

After researching the history of the Graham family, and particularly after my interview with Will Graham, I wanted to learn more about Ruth Bell Graham, Billy’s wife.

The daughter of medical missionaries, Ruth aspired to be a missionary, too. She intended to train for and go to the mission field of Tibet after completing her education at Wheaton College, until she met Billy Graham who had already received a clear call from the Lord to be an evangelist in the United States.

Even when Billy proposed marriage, Ruth considered not marrying him because of her own calling, however, after much prayer, she felt she could fulfill her call to be a missionary through helping with Billy’s ministry. What they didn’t realize at the time was the special role her parents would play in helping support she and Billy in both their ministry and in raising their five children. With Billy’s long absences from home, Ruth’s parents lent a stability to the family that Billy and Ruth appreciated.

In fact, in Billy Graham: God’s Ambassador, the only authorized biography of him ever made, Billy says, “One of the great influences on our children when they were young was their grandparents, Dr. and Mrs. Bell, Ruth’s parents. They lived just across the street and, later, down the hill. Dr. Bell didn’t mind telling them exactly what was right, either. They kept them, they taught them, they loved them. They made it part of their ministry to help Ruth raise our children. They took them in many weeks at a time when we would be gone.”

The Bells

Dr. Nelson Bell and his wife Virginia began their medical mission work in 1916 at the Love and Mercy Hospital in Qingjiangpu, Jiangsu Province. According to Gary Lundstrom, International Vice President for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), Dr. Bell “was the one that developed a cure for the Black Fever and literally saved the lives of thousands of Chinese people.” The Bells served in China for 25 years until they and other Christian missionaries had to leave the country when the Communist Army fought for control of the Chinese government and Japan waged full-scale war against China.

With the turmoil of world events boiling over into a world war, the Bells must have wondered, What now? They obviously felt strongly about spreading Christ’s love through their medical mission work, but little did they know how much greater their impact would become through supporting the ministry of the American evangelist that their daughter Ruth would soon marry.

*The Bell Family in China (Ruth is standing on the left) Photo Courtesy of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Used With Permission. All Rights Reserved.*

The Early Years

Billy Graham preached his first public sermon in 1937 as a student from the Florida Bible Institute (now Trinity College of Florida) and was ordained as a minister in 1939. In 1940 he enrolled at Wheaton College outside Chicago where he met Ruth Bell whom he married following graduation from Wheaton in 1943.

The pair married at the Montreat Conference Center in Montreat, North Carolina where Ruth’s parents had settled after leaving China. After a honeymoon in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, they returned to Illinois, where Billy took the first and only pastorate of his long career in ministry.

Six years later, at 31 years old, Billy was thrust into the national spotlight as a result of his revival meetings in Los Angeles, California. The meetings had a huge impact on the city and resulted in great media exposure for Billy and his ministry.

It started with Jesus

In order to put the Graham family’s remarkable impact on the world scene into perspective, I’m compelled to consider where it started when God sent His son to be the savior of the world.

Jesus went to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. On the Sabbath day He went into the synagogue, as was His custom. He stood up to read a scroll which had been handed to him:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on Him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:14-21, NIV)

From that point on, Jesus traveled throughout the tiny nation of Israel proclaiming His good news and healing everyone who came to Him for healing. The lame walked, leprosy was healed, blind eyes were opened, and even the dead were raised.

But most of the religious establishment and the political powers of Jesus’ day weren’t responsive to His message. In fact, they were so engrossed in their own self-serving agendas that they were threatened by His message, His ministry, and the followers He attracted.

Immediately prior to Jesus’ crucifixion, He tried to comfort His distraught disciples with these words:

“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12, NIV)

Was Jesus actually serious about mere humans being able to do miracles like that? Yes, He was! Those are exactly the kind of miracles that you’d discover when you delve into the Graham family history.

*Billy and Ruth, in her original wedding dress, on their 50th anniversary Photo Courtesy of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Used With Permission. All Rights Reserved.*

Ruth’s Heritage

Through Ruth Bell Graham’s spiritual heritage as the daughter of medical missionaries, we see how healing the sick, clothing the poor, welcoming strangers, and reaching out with compassion to the downtrodden are central to the ministries they pioneered. These virtues that Jesus taught and demonstrated have been woven into the very fabric of Billy and Ruth Graham’s mission and purpose. Ruth and Billy Graham were known for being able to put anyone at ease. Their grandson, Will Graham, said it best when he said,

“My grandparents loved the unlovable. My grandmother could make a prostitute and a princess feel comfortable around each other at the same time. They were both real unique in helping people feel at home.”

— Will Graham

Ruth also had a great sense of humor. She wasn’t one to back down or shy away from telling Billy what she thought. Though she served alongside Billy faithfully throughout his entire career, she maintained her own sense of purpose and identity through it all. She offered strength and stability to the family.

Now, through the ministries of Samaritan’s Purse, World Medical Missions, and the BGEA, that dimension of the Graham’s legacy continues and is amplified in powerfully significant ways. The souls that have been saved, the lives that have been changed, and the nations that have been reached through Billy and Ruth Graham’s partnership in ministry has happened through the power of the Holy Spirit. This invisible, powerful presence has been at work in and through them, their parents, their children, their grandchildren, and hundreds of ministry associates and staff who have come alongside them since Billy’s ministry officially launched in the 1940s. Besides this, hundreds of thousands of others in the worldwide body of Christ have cooperated with them either directly or indirectly to spread the good news of Christ.

*Billy and Ruth on their front porch, 1972 Photo Courtesy of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Used With Permission. All Rights Reserved.*

Jesus brought grace and truth to this planet when He came to Earth over 2000 years ago. Today, via stories like those we share in this magazine, we see how He continues to bring grace and truth through the Holy Spirit who works in and through imperfect humans. I contend that just one Christ-centered person or family can join together with other followers of Christ to do even greater works than Jesus did just as He promised.

This article was originally written for the Winter 2017 Edition of The Journey magazine.

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