James Smith Coleman was one of the most important Baptist leaders in 19th-century Kentucky
and left a tremendous legacy in the Bluegrass State. Born near Beaver Dam, Kentucky, on
February 23, 1827, he was the only child of Elisha and Susanna Coleman. As a boy he was
converted at the age of 11 while reading Isaac Watts's old hymn "That Awful Day Will
Surely Come" and baptized into the membership of the Beaver Dam Baptist Church. At age 15,
Coleman felt a call to preach but ran from the Lord and pursued a career in public service.
Serving first as county sheriff and then as brigadier general for his congressional
district, his political prospects for the future looked bright. Yet the call of God was
still on his life. Finally, in 1854, Coleman submitted to the Lord's will and was ordained
to the gospel ministry. He would spend the rest of his life strengthening the cause of
Baptists in his beloved Green River country in western Kentucky.
Besides pastoring at least seventeen different congregations, Coleman served as a
missionary of the Gasper River Association. In great demand as an evangelist, he was
regularly asked to preach revivals and often saw over 100 conversions in these meetings.
During a revival in Auburn, a boy named Boyce Taylor was converted. Taylor would grow up
to be the well-known pastor of the First Baptist Church of Murray. In 1878, he preached
an eleven-week meeting in Owensboro with nearly 300 conversions, and he saw the
reorganization of the Walnut Street Baptist Church. As a result of his efforts, Coleman
was able to organize over 60 new Baptist congregations, including the First Baptist
Churches of Madisonville, Greenville, and Hartford. During ministry he baptized over 5,000
believers. It is no wonder Baptist historian James R. Beller called him one of America's
greatest forgotten evangelists!
Coleman was a staunch Baptist and regularly emphasized Baptist peculiarities and
distributed Baptist literature. In 1857, Colman was challenged to a debate in Calhoun by
William Caskey, a Presbyterian preacher. Coleman's defense of scriptural baptism was so
strong that a young Methodist Sunday School teacher by the name of W. Pope Yeaman decided
to be immersed and become a Baptist. Yeaman went on to become a great Southern Baptist
leader in Missouri. As a result of his doctrinal preaching, Coleman baptized over a
thousand people from other denominations. In his own words, Coleman was a "Landmark
successionist, denying the validity of all other denominations."
Much more could be written about Coleman. He edited his own religious paper, The Green
River Baptist at Hartford, for a time. He served as moderator of local associations for
32 years and of the Kentucky Baptist Convention (then called the General Association of
Baptists in Kentucky) for 16 years. He introduced the first resolution during the Whitsitt
Controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention and was made chairman of the investigating
committee. All of the congregations he pastored prospered, proving that strict doctrine
need not diminish church growth. The "Old War Horse," as he was affectionately known, died
on March 29, 1904, after spending 50 years in the Lord's harness. His funeral was held at
his beloved Beaver Dam Baptist Church, as the largest crowd then ever gathered in Ohio
County bid him goodbye. “𝘏𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘪𝘮, 𝘞𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘵: 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶
𝘩𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘢 𝘧𝘦𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴, 𝘐 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘦 𝘳𝘶𝘭𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴: 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘫𝘰𝘺 𝘰𝘧
𝘵𝘩𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘥.” 𝘔𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘸 25:21
[From Ben Stratton. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
By Ben Stratton
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