Born: February 8, 1865, Yates City, IL.
Died: September 1, 1936, Santa Barbara, CA.
The summer air hung heavy at Mountain Lake Park, Maryland, as hundreds gathered under the camp meeting tent in 1899. Among them sat a 34-year-old YMCA worker, pencil in hand, doing what he always did during sermons – listening. Not just for spiritual nourishment, though that too, but for something more. Lewis Edgar Jones had trained his ear to catch those divine sparks that could become songs.
When the preacher’s voice rose with passion about “the power in the blood of Jesus,” something stirred in Jones’s heart. The words weren’t just theology; they were music waiting to be born. Before the dust had settled on that Maryland camp ground, Jones had written what would become one of Christianity’s most beloved hymns. How could this modest man have known that his “hobby” would echo through churches for over a century?
Lewis Edgar Jones entered the world on February 8, 1865, in Yates City, Illinois – born into a nation just beginning to heal from civil war. His parents, Lewis Wesley and Frances Taber Jones, soon moved the family to Iowa, where young Lewis would spend the next two decades on a farm outside Davenport.
Farm life has a way of teaching both humility and hard work, and Jones absorbed both lessons well. While some might have chafed at the endless routine of plowing, planting, and harvesting, Jones seemed to find contentment in the rhythm of rural life. Twenty-one years he spent there, learning the value of patience – a virtue that would serve him well when waiting for sermon inspiration years later.
But God had plans beyond the cornfields for young Lewis. At twenty-one, he left the farm for “business” – though he never specified what kind. Perhaps it was this brief venture into commerce that taught him the world needed more than profit margins. Whatever the reason, business life didn’t hold him long.
The path from Iowa farm to Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute might seem unlikely, but God specializes in unlikely paths. At Moody, Jones found himself in remarkable company. His classmate? None other than Billy Sunday, who would become one of America’s most famous evangelists.
Can you imagine those two young men, studying side by side, neither knowing the impact they’d have on American Christianity? Sunday would go on to preach to millions; Jones would give those millions something to sing. Different callings, same source.
The education at Moody did more than fill Jones’s head with theology – it shaped his heart for service. Here, among dedicated Christians preparing for ministry, Jones discovered that serving God didn’t require a pulpit. Sometimes it just required paying attention.
After Moody, Jones found his calling not in a church but in the YMCA. For thirty-six years – longer than many pastors serve in ministry – Jones dedicated himself to the Young Men’s Christian Association. From Davenport to Fort Worth to Santa Barbara, he served wherever needed.
The YMCA of Jones’s era was a different creature than today. It stood at the intersection of physical fitness and spiritual development, part of the “muscular Christianity” movement that sought to prove faith wasn’t just for the weak. Jones spent his days organizing programs, mentoring young men, and building character through both basketball and Bible study.
All the while, he carried a peculiar habit. “Since I began this work,” Jones would later write, “I have always been listening for some such inspiration.” Every sermon he heard, every devotional he attended, Jones sat with an ear cocked for that perfect phrase that might become a hymn. His fellow workers might have thought it odd, this YMCA secretary always scribbling during services. Little did they know they were witnessing the birth of songs that would outlive them all.
Back to that Maryland camp meeting in 1899. Camp meetings were the spiritual festivals of their day – part revival, part reunion, part emotional release valve for communities that worked hard and prayed harder. The preacher that day spoke on the power in Christ’s blood, drawing from Leviticus: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood.”
Jones didn’t just hear a sermon; he heard a song. The words came in questions and answers:
Would you be free from the burden of sin?
There’s power in the blood, power in the blood!
Each verse posed a spiritual problem – sin’s burden, passion and pride, the need for cleansing, the call to service – and each time, the answer rang out the same: there’s power in the blood of the Lamb.
Jones wrote both words and music, a rarity in his day when most hymn writers partnered with composers. The melody he crafted was simple enough for any congregation to sing, yet memorable enough to stick in the heart. Within a year, Henry Lake Gilmour had purchased the manuscript, and with William James Kirkpatrick, published it in “Songs of Praise and Victory.”
While “There Is Power in the Blood” became Jones’s signature, he was far from a one-hymn wonder. Over his lifetime, this “hobbyist” penned more than 200 hymns. “I’ve Anchored in Jesus,” “Lean on His Arms,” “The Old Book Stands” – each one born from a sermon phrase, a scripture, a moment of divine inspiration.
Curiously, Jones sometimes published under pseudonyms: Lewis Edgar, Edgar Lewis, even Mary Slater. Why hide behind other names? Perhaps humility, perhaps a desire to let the songs speak without the weight of a reputation. Whatever the reason, it speaks to a man more interested in the message than the messenger.
What makes Jones’s story remarkable isn’t fame or fortune – he had neither. When asked about his life in 1932, he called it “uneventful.” Uneventful! This from a man whose hymn had already been sung by millions, whose words had comforted the grieving, strengthened the weak, and called sinners to salvation.
But that’s exactly the point. Jones never sought the spotlight. He worked his YMCA job, retired to California (“where all bad weather is unusual,” he quipped), and died on September 1, 1936, in Santa Barbara. No grand funeral processions, no monuments – except the ones built from melody and lyric in churches around the world.
There’s even confusion about his grave. Some poor soul in Altoona, Alabama, has Jones’s name carved on their tombstone, claiming to be the hymn writer. But Jones rests in Santa Barbara Cemetery, as unassuming in death as in life.
Here’s where Jones’s “uneventful” life proves anything but. “There Is Power in the Blood” refused to stay within church walls. By 1913, labor activist Joe Hill had adapted it into “There Is Power in a Union,” proving that a good tune transcends its original purpose. Dolly Parton, Marty Robbins, Alan Jackson, Bill and Gloria Gaither – artists across generations and genres have recorded Jones’s hymn.
Why does it endure? Perhaps because it addresses the universal human need for cleansing, for power beyond ourselves. In an age where some churches shy away from “blood theology,” Jones’s hymn remains a bold declaration of Christianity’s central message: redemption comes through sacrifice.
Too often we measure lives by their drama, their visible impact, their “eventfulness.” Jones reminds us that God often works through the ordinary, the consistent, the faithful-in-small-things. A YMCA worker with a notebook, listening for inspiration in other men’s sermons – hardly the stuff of legend.
Yet what came from that simple practice? Songs that have lifted millions of hearts, words that have expressed what struggling souls couldn’t articulate, melodies that have carried the gospel across cultures and generations. Jones spent thirty-six years serving young men at the YMCA, thinking his hymn writing just a “sideline.” God saw it differently.
Next time you sing “There Is Power in the Blood,” remember Lewis Edgar Jones. Remember that God can use your “hobby,” your careful attention, your willingness to listen. Remember that “uneventful” lives can produce eternal echoes. Most of all, remember that there’s power – wonder-working power – not just in the blood of the Lamb, but in the ordinary faithful who carry that message forward, one song at a time.
“Would you do service for Jesus your King?” Jones asked in his hymn. He answered that question not from a pulpit or mission field, but from a YMCA desk, pencil in hand, ear tuned to heaven. May we all serve so faithfully in our own “uneventful” lives.
