the man nobody knows

A TRIBUTE TO DR. ROBERT WOODARD
by Jack Williams, publications editor
Free Will Baptist Bible College

When 66-year-old Bob Woodard turned in his office key at Free Will Baptist Bible College this past May, he closed out a 27-year career as a Bible teacher and packed away a few surprises most of his students never knew. They had no idea that quiet, soft-spoken Dr. Robert E. Woodard graduated as the U.S. Marine Corp’s top recruit on Parris Island at age 20.

Only close friends knew that the gentle theologian who served for 11 years as director of pastoral studies at FWBBC planned to be a military pilot. He applied for and was accepted into pre-flight school with the U.S. Air Force, began training at Lackland AF Base, and later received an honorable discharge when he changed his mind.

Turning Point

The steady, certain biblical scholar who taught the same Bible course (Ephesians-Colossians) 40 times was once a restless 18-year-old who changed his college degree program twice in five years, dropping out of North Carolina State University as an engineering student his junior year.

Reflecting on his unsettled early 20s, Bob said, “God was at work through it all—the Marine Corps, the wild Air Force aspirations, growing dissatisfaction with my job, early church experiences when we crowded 100 youth into Sunday night League (now CTS). My life turned around in 1965, the year I answered the call to preach at age 27 and enrolled at FWBBC.”

Long Road to Nashville

Bob sensed early on that his life work would not be pastoring, quite unusual for a minister at that time. “I remember a 1965 conversation when I told Pastor Frank Davenport that God had something other than pastoring for me,” Woodard said. Although he did pastor 10 years, Bob kept an open mind to God’s will.

Four years after graduating from FWBBC, he carried a hammer to Bob Jones University where he invested five years earning his M.A. and Ph.D. He used the hammer and his carpentry skills to feed his wife and four children.

In 1978 President Charles Thigpen asked Bob and his brand-new Ph.D. to join the FWBBC faculty. At last he understood God’s plan—teaching Bible to college students. Twenty-seven years later, Dr. Woodard’s shining legacy is a career that poured his life into thousands of undergraduates, left his thumbprint on hundreds of pastors, and saw him teach three years in the FWBBC Graduate School.

Looking Back

 “If I could do it again,” Bob said, “I’d spend more time with students outside the classroom mentoring them, listening to them, socializing with them. And I’d spend more time reading the Bible than reading books about the Bible.”

His one regret: “I was in college and graduate school nine years while my children were small. I regret not spending more time with them when they were younger.”

Every teacher recalls one course that was especially difficult. Bob said, “The hardest course I ever taught was the book of Isaiah my first year.”

His favorite course? Biblical Interpretation. “No Bible course is more basic or more important to understanding the Scripture than a course in hermeneutics.”

Man of Surprises

Surprises still trail Bob as he heads toward retirement. Like the fact that after his conversion in 1953 he joined a Presbyterian church, then worshipped in a state Free Will Baptist church in North Carolina before landing in Goldsboro with Pastor Frank Davenport.

He wants to visit Switzerland, and you should ask about his five years as a lab technician with Carolina Power and Light Company. Bob claims A.W. Tozer as his favorite author. He considers his brush with greatness the 1988 Congress on Biblical Exposition in Houston, TX, when he took his place among 100 of the world’s greatest biblical expositors.

So Long—Well Done

That’s Dr. Robert E. Woodard—Bible teacher, carpenter, father, Sunday School teacher, preacher, Marine and Air Force veteran, a husband who likes to “buddy around” with his wife—and who just might pick up a pen to write the next chapter in his life.

FWBBC President Matt Pinson said it best when he heard about Bob’s retirement, “It will be hard to say goodbye.”