John Stott

During much of my college years I was convinced that God was calling me to an academic life rather than to pastoral ministry in a local church.  I enjoyed study and was decent at it, and this aspect of my personality seemed so different than the few pastors I knew.  But then a couple of books changed my perspective.  The first was Preaching and Preachers by Martyn Lloyd-Jones.  I can't remember where or why I bought this book but I'm so thankful I did.  Here I saw a great preacher--one of the greatest of the 20th century--who was devoted to study.  I don't know how many times I read the section on what books preachers should be reading (just the kind of books I liked to read anyway).  Lloyd-Jones showed me that I could be bookish and intellectual and still be a pastor.

So I decided to audit a class on preaching.  Our main text was Between Two Worlds:  The Challenge of Preaching Today by John R. W. Stott.  Here I saw much of what I had seen in Lloyd-Jones, only more of it.  He irreversibly convinced me that there is only one legitimate way to preach, what is called expository preaching.  Expository preaching is to take a text of Scripture (usually one text, but not always) and simply explain it and apply to the hearts of the congregation.  This means that what the preacher says is what God has already said in his Word, not the preacher's personal thoughts and opinions on (fill in the blank).  Between Two Worlds explained with wonderful clarity and conviction how to preach God's Word (and, happily for me, it meant the pastor had to read widely and voluminously).

John Stott was born in London in 1921.  He was converted while a student at Rugby School and soon felt called to pastoral ministry.  A few years later he became a curate (Anglican-speak for "intern") at All Souls, Langham Place, the central London church where he was raised.  His obvious gifting propelled him to a larger leadership role when the pastor's health declined.  At the pastor's death he became the rector (pastor) of All Souls.  This was in 1950, and he served the congregation until 1975, when he took the title rector emeritus in order to devote himself to his now global ministry.

And he wrote lots of books.  Many people have found encouragement or even conversion in his great work in defense of the credibility of the Christian faith Basic Christianity, oddly one of Stott's books I haven't read.  In grad school I read The Cross of Christ, a fantastic exposition of the penal substitutionary view of the atonement, the idea that Jesus' death on the cross was penal--it paid the penalty for sin against God--and that Jesus died as the substitute for sinners.  I don't know of a better book that explains why Jesus died.

Stott never married.  He wanted to and always assumed he would (doesn't everybody?), but one day he looked around and realized that it just wasn't going to happen.  It was God's way of calling him to celibacy.  The good news about his singleness was that it afforded him so much time to write and travel all over the world for various preaching engagements.  These travels made him increasingly concerned for the Third World (I guess that's not the right term anymore--"Global South," is it?).  He created a foundation to train pastors from these countries in English and American universities and seminaries for ministry and then send them back home.

On one of his many travels he came to speak at a retirement home in Carol Stream, Illinois.  This was in 2007 I think.  I was in school in Wheaton, just a few minutes drive away.  I sat with a hundred or so people much older than me and listened as Stott preached God's Word and encouraged everyone to support international missionary work.  He had to be helped onto the speaking platform, and at one point lost his train of thought (which he turned into a bit of self-effacing humor), but otherwise it was clear and compelling exposition.  I still have the sermon notes.  Afterwards I went up to him and told him how influential he had been to me.  "Are you a pastor?" he asked.  "Not yet, but I hope so one day," I said, or something like that.  Then I asked him to sign my copy of Between the Two Worlds, which he humbly obliged.  I felt like a kid getting a favorite star's baseball card autographed.

A few years later, when trying to decide what to name our first son, my wife and I easily settled on the middle name:  Stott.

John Stott died today.  He was 90 years old.  He wasn't a perfect man, but he was faithful.  He loved the gospel of Jesus Christ, and was the exemplary preacher of God's Word.  I thank God for him.