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Meanwhile, half a world away in Lebanon, a young man named Sam Moore attended an evangelical school where he heard the basics of the Christian faith. Early one morning Sam discovered the body of a murdered friend under an olive tree. Shaken, Sam placed his faith in Christ with the help of a Christian neighbor.
In 1950, the nineteen-year-old Sam Moore came to America with an intent to pursue medical training. He had $600 and his father's advice to "work hard, be honest, and don't be afraid to take risks." To pay his way through college at the University of South Carolina and later Columbia Bible College, Sam began selling Bibles door to door.
Just as Thomas Nelson dreamed at age eighteen of putting Christian books into the hands of ordinary folk throughout the United Kingdom, God would kindle a similar dream in the heart of young Sam Moore on behalf of America.
In 1958, Sam founded the National Book Company. Three years later, he incorporated Royal Publishers, Inc., a Bible publishing company. He sold stock in 1962 to about 250 people including Morrow Coffey Graham, mother of noted evangelist Billy Graham.
The company published its first Bible in 1963. And for the next five years it experienced a 100 percent annual increase in sales.
One of the company's first projects was a beautiful Family Bible. "I had a dream," Sam recounts. "It was to publish a better, more useful Bible than anyone had ever produced before." The Bible became the first major seller for Royal Publishers.
Sam's publishing ventures were so successful that The Thomson Organization (Nelson's Parent Company) took notice, approaching him in 1969 to head Nelson's ailing U.S. operations. After praying about the offer, Sam surprised the Thomson representatives by offering to buy their company instead. Thomson's assistant told Sam, "Son, Lord Thomson doesn't sell. He buys." Sam responded, "Sir, God made it such that sometimes we all have to sell."
On March 7, 1969, Sam Moore owned a new publishing company. Because he had a love and appreciation for the company's heritage, he kept the name Thomas Nelson and assumed the rights to the well known house logo.
When Sam took ownership of the company, he humorously noted that Thomas Nelson was, at that time, "the tenth largest Bible publisher out of eight." But Sam and his associates possessed a determination to reclaim, guard, and nurture the original vision. And Sam possessed an ability to attract skilled men and women who were dedicated to the same mission.
So in 1976, Thomas Nelson launched the creation of the New King James Version, crafted by a team of more than 100 Bible scholars. Over the next 25 years with Moore at the helm, the NKJV rose in prominence to become one of the most popular Bible translations worldwide. During this period, Nelson also experienced extraordinary growth through product diversification, acquiring new authors and publishing a wide variety of products with a Christian message and worldview—from gift items to fiction and from Christian living titles to children’s books.
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