Billy Graham

The Man I Knew

Greg Laurie

• Publisher: Salem Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781684510597
• eBook ISBN:
  9781621579991
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies

Billy Graham Was the World’s Best-Known Evangelist—Loved and Admired by Millions. But Very Few Knew Him Personally.

Pastor and bestselling author Greg Laurie was one of those fortunate few, blessed with an insider’s view of Billy Graham’s world for more than two decades.

With the same painstaking research and eye for detail that distinguishes his previous biographies, Steve McQueen: Salvation of an American Icon and Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon, Laurie now turns to the life of his beloved mentor, offering the intimate perspective of a disciple and friend.

As a strapping North Carolina farm boy, Graham surrendered his life to Jesus at a camp meeting led by a blustery itinerant preacher, but he never lost the mischievous twinkle in his eye or his fun-loving air.

Laurie sheds light on Graham’s lesser-known struggles—such as a broken heart before he met the love of his life and a crisis of faith from which he emerged stronger than ever. From the evangelist’s private challenges and public successes to his disappointments and joys, Billy Graham: The Man I Knew provides a vivid portrait of one of history’s most remarkable Christian lives.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Chapter One: The Dairyman’s Son
• Chapter Two: No Angel
• Chapter Three: A Bespectacled Messenger
• Chapter Four: The Old Has Gone, the New Has Come
• Chapter Five: Rose-Colored Glasses
• Chapter Six: God’s Not Deaf
• Chapter Seven: New Horizons
• Chapter Eight: God Speaks, on the Eighteenth Hole
• Chapter Nine: Ready to Roar
• Chapter Ten: Knees Down! Chin Up!
• Chapter Eleven: The Twenty-One-Year-Old Freshman
• Chapter Twelve: Saved by a Bell
• Chapter Thirteen: A Marriage Made in Heaven
• Chapter Fourteen: It Takes a Village
• Chapter Fifteen: London Fog
• Chapter Sixteen: Evangelism Races, Education Plods
• Chapter Seventeen: Inexperienced, but Enthusiastic
• Chapter Eighteen: Two Evangelists, Two Crises of Faith
• Chapter Nineteen: Kissed by William Randolph Hearst
• Chapter Twenty: Cowboys, Heroes, and Mobsters
• Chapter Twenty-One: King of All Media
• Chapter Twenty-Two: Far East Man
• Chapter Twenty-Three: Yankee Spellbinder
• Chapter Twenty-Four: Shaking Hands with Mr. History
• Chapter Twenty-Five: Gabriel in a Gabardine Suit
• Chapter Twenty-Six: JFK
• Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Decade That Took Down a President
• Chapter Twenty-Eight: A Man I Never Knew
• Chapter Twenty-Nine: Revival in a Suitcase
• Chapter Thirty: The Son Also Rises
• Chapter Thirty-One: California Christians
• Chapter Thirty-Two: From Russia with Love
• Chapter Thirty-Three: Transitions
• Chapter Thirty-Four: Lion in Winter
• Photographs
• Afterword
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Selected Bibliography
• Sources
• Copyright