He must have been doing something that God wanted to extend for an extra long time. Look at the life of Tillit Sydney Teddlie, and that’s what you might say about him. Not that many people live 102 years, so that piece of trivia alone is enough to make one curious about him. What was his lifestyle that allowed him to live so long? Do you have some passion that would propel you every day, as something must have in Teddlie’s life? Everyone who knew this songwriter, teacher, minister, and publisher would probably echo loudly ‘yes!’ The song “Worthy Art Thou” that he wrote in his mid-40’s (in 1930) is a window into Teddlie’s character. Let’s see what he was like.
Teddlie was a lifelong Texan (although he did spend some years in ministry in Memphis, Tennessee), in several roles that allowed him to touch thousands of people with God’s spirit. His musical family imprinted on him this trait that he carried throughout his century of life. He dedicated himself to God as a teenager, and also was teaching singing that same year, 1903. Over the next six decades, and by some accounts even longer, he taught singing, wrote some 130 songs, published 14 hymnals, and ministered in at least six churches (of Christ). It is said he was still occasionally guiding singing in churches and preaching at the age of 94. Imagine that, still a fire for worship in his mid-90’s! This fiery devotion in studying and proclaiming God’s message is said to be how the song “Worthy Art Thou” came into being. Apparently, Teddlie was preparing a message for a church service in Belton, Texas one day in 1930, and was poring over Revelation. A picture of the 24 elders worshipping at God’s throne in chapters 4 and 5 struck him, prompting him to scrawl the song’s words in the note pages of his bible (perhaps not too unlike the one in the picture here).
You think Teddlie’s method for his spiritual life was the key to his temporal longevity? It seems in Tillit’s experience, he wasn’t just a note-writer, or a whimsy poet. No, his song-writing was an appendage to his personal testimony about Him, and the result of study. The Word was ‘life’ for him, and it’s no accident that communicating this seminal truth with his being converted more than a thousand people over his lifetime, according to one source (a fellow blogger). Singing was a basic worship element that Teddlie must have recognized was key to a believer’s daily routine, a way to emotionally attach oneself to the worthy One. Perhaps that’s why he kept it up for so long, at least into his 90’s. Whaddya think? Is he still singing? Maybe that’s why God has someone compose…so he can still be singing, even after leaving the earth. It makes me wish I had met Tillit S. Teddlie before he departed. Hmmm, I think I might meet him anyway, someday.
Biographic information on the composer found in the following:
Also, here’s a link to a celebration of the composer’s 100th birthday:
See the below link to a story that tells how he developed the song “Worthy Art Thou”:
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