Marshall Keeble
by Hugh Fulford
Marshall Keeble (1878-1968)
Marshall Keeble was a famous African-American evangelist among churches of Christ who began preaching in 1897 and spent the entirety of his life in evangelistic meetings all across America. He preached in most of the major cities of the U. S. --north, south, east, and west -- as well as many mid-size cities and small towns. Whites, as well as Blacks, attended his meetings, and over the course of sixty years, Brother Keeble, by his own account, baptized over 25,000 people and established more than 200 congregations. I first heard him preach in the late summer or early fall of 1953 when I was 15 years old. He was preaching in a tent meeting in Sheffield, Alabama, and my father and I drove across the Tennessee River from Florence to hear him. I still recall that he preached on the story of David and Goliath and emphasized that as David went out to meet Goliath, he took “five smooth stones from the brook.” I will never forget Brother Keeble's application of the fact that those stones had been washed! During my student days at Freed-Hardeman College, I heard Keeble yearly during the annual Bible lectureship. He was always the final speaker of the series because the crowd would stay to hear him.
In subsequent years I continued to hear him at the lectures until the time of his death. He was an interesting and captivating speaker who, in his own words, spoke “promiscuously” (i.e., without a manuscript or an outline, but a sort of “stream of consciousness” style of preaching in which he would weave in many stories, illustrations, and parables from everyday life, always backed up with Scripture). People flocked to hear him! In the winter of 1967, we invited Brother Keeble to come to the Madison Street church in Clarksville, Tennessee (where I was serving as a minister) to speak on a Wednesday night. Snow was on the ground, and the crowd was small. We invited him to return later that spring to speak to an area-wide gathering of churches from throughout Montgomery County. Over 1,000 attended this service at Madison Street, where five were baptized into Christ, and five were restored to the Lord. This engagement by Brother Keeble “primed the pump” for an eight-day meeting that began the following Sunday with Batsell Barrett Baxter. During the Baxter meeting, fifteen more were baptized. A year after his Clarksville engagement, Brother Keeble died at the age of 89. In 1931, B. C. Goodpasture published the Biography and Sermons of Marshall Keeble. My father owned a copy of this book for many years, and I read it with much delight.
One of my favorite sermons in the collection was titled “Been to Worship but Wrong” (the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch, Acts 8). Another was titled “Five Steps to Church and Seven to Heaven,” explaining the five steps one must take to be saved and added to the church (Acts 2:47) and the seven steps one must take to remain saved and go to heaven (the Christian graces of II Peter 1:5-11). Brother Keeble converted thousands of people from denominationalism to the simplicity of New Testament Christianity. He would call the names of denominational churches and expose their false teaching by the Scriptures. He was sometimes criticized for calling names, but he defended it on the basis that Jesus called names. Keeble said, “Jesus called names. He called Lazarus by name. If he hadn’t called him by name, everybody in the graveyard would have "got’ up!" He stressed that Jesus warned that “every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted (denominational churches, hf) shall be rooted up” (Matthew 15:13). To drive home the point, he would then say, “If you don’t believe that just wait around “til rootin’ time!”
In a California meeting, a young man approached Brother Keeble and said, “You have talked about every other church except mine.” Keeble said, “I don’t know what church you are a member of.” The young man replied, “The Latter Day Saints.” ”You’re too late!” Keeble shot back (too late to be the New Testament church). The next night, the young man was baptized! Keeble gave this report of a 1930 gospel meeting in Valdosta, Georgia, on August 21, 1930, in the issue of the Gospel Advocate:
“This meeting increased in interest until the close, and I consider it the best meeting of all my work. Brother Luke Miller and his good wife were of so much help in the meeting in every way. He led the song service. One Lord's day, I baptized fifty-nine precious souls into Christ. During the time of baptizing a hard rainstorm came up, but we went right on; and when the rain ceased everybody was soaking wet, and it was impossible to tell who had been baptized. White and colored stood in the rain throughout the time of baptizing. The following Sunday, Brother Miller and I baptized sixty-three before we came out of the water. One night, twenty-nine came forward at the invitation, all grown. There was great rejoicing. Eleven came from the 'digressives.' Total number of additions, one hundred and sixty-three.”
Keeble was uncompromising, but he was kind. On one occasion, a white man attacked him with a set of brass knuckles. Brother Keeble turned the other cheek and refused to file charges against his assailant. He often made this statement: “The Bible is right. You can go home and fuss all night about what I have preached, but the Bible is right. You can walk the streets and call Keeble a fool, but the Bible is right. You can go home and have spasms, but the Bible is right.”
From 1940 until 1958, Brother Keeble served as president of Nashville Christian Institute, a school for training young black men to become gospel preachers. In 1962, he traveled to the Holy Land and Africa with Willie Cato, a white gospel preacher. In Africa, Brother Keeble preached to large crowds. In 1968, his biography, Roll, Jordan, Roll by J. E. Choate, was released. On April 20, 1968, Marshall Keeble passed from this life at the age of 89. He was born in Murfreesboro, TN, on December 7, 1878. His funeral was conducted at the Madison (TN) Church of Christ, and 3000 people were in attendance. B. C. Goodpasture preached the funeral. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Nashville. There will never be another one like him.
