A Chilling Discovery?

[Sons to Glory!]

Originally Posted by Ohio

I met Bill Freeman once when he visited us in Columbus ~1978. I remember chatting after the meeting about the Bible with a few brothers including Phil Comfort, who was not yet full-time. Out of the blue Phil asked Bill, "with so many good Greek language helps available, do we really need to study Greek?"

Bill looked at him with an assured smile, "God wrote in Greek." Simple as that.

With Bill's encouragement, Phil Comfort eventually went on to become a noted Textual Scholar in Greek, teach and writing, once he left the Recovery. Phil was always known as a "pure Wordist," using WL only as one reference among many. That upset a few higher-ups. Whereas TC viewed Phil Comfort as a threat, Bill encouraged him and I believe helped to initiate Phil's life-long work, post Recovery.

Years later another brother expressed some remorse concerning Phil, saying that perhaps the churches should have opened our hearts more to him. I said "no," that it was the "heart of TC which was not large enough for Phil and his ministry. The churches loved him."

Phil left "the work" in the early 80's after being badly abused by TC and others in Cleveland. Bill left a few years later after receiving similar treatment at that infamous elders' conference in Feb. 1986. Every publication in the Recovery, including Bill's The Christian, was abruptly halted by WL except, of course, for his own books. All brothers were forced by today's Blendeds to sign that "Letter of Allegiance" to WL. WL used NT examples like Barnabas and Apollos to condemn all those not "absolutely one" with his ministry.

Thanks much for sharing that! I always really enjoyed Phil - he was such an easygoing and sincere brother. I heard him share a few things in the Columbus gatherings when we lived there, and it was always a blessing to be recipients of his understanding of the word! I didn't know about the admonishments directed at him by Titus.

And regarding Bill, "The Christian" monthly newspaper circulated pretty widely among Columbus saints. Our family had our own subscription I think. Then one day it just stopped, and I don't think we had any idea why back then. However, I remember picking up a radio program of his on shortwave, all the way from the west coast. I still have that old multiband radio around somewhere, with a mark on the dial where we could receive the broadcast (shortwave can be hard to tune in precisely).

I didn't know Bill personally, as he and wife, Patsy, left in the "big blow-up" here in 1998. I came to the Scottsdale gathering exactly one week after that, I'm convinced that was the Lord's timing. Some time later, I stood up after a hearing a message about being grafted in, and said, "Bill Freeman got taken away, and then the Lord grafted me in the following week!" I think people had widely mixed reactions to that somewhat awkward pronouncement . . .

But I did get to hear Bill speak some in the early 90s. I had been transferred to Phoenix and we would frequently make the drive across the valley to Scottsdale on Sundays to be there. Bill's speaking was good and the place was hopin'! A few hundred were packed into the newly finished meeting place, and we often would have to sit along the back wall, in what was actually intended as the book sale area. Before getting to know anyone there, my work then transferred me to Denver. But I'm so thankful the Lord lead me back to the Scottsdale gathering about five years later, albeit without the Freemans there. As mentioned earlier, we all still benefit from Bill instilling effective study habits in several of the saints here!