When we think of church history’s greatest preachers, we naturally think of them at the height of their ministries: preaching to thousands, organizing conferences, publishing books. But no ministries begin like this. At one point, even the greatest of men were unknown and inexperienced, and they had many things to learn before they became the preachers we know.
Consider J. C. Ryle. As the Bishop of Liverpool in the 19th century, he would defend orthodoxy within the Church of England against modern theology, Anglo-Catholicism, and the growth of the Keswick Conference. But long before he became a bishop, in 1841, he worked as a curate in the district of Exbury within the parish of Fawley. Years later, his biographer Iain Murray called it “a dreary, desolate, solitary place” (57).[1] Though Ryle had been raised in a wealthy family and fine schools, he encountered a very different kind of people in Exbury:
A great number of the people had been brought up as poachers and smugglers, and were totally unaccustomed to being looked after or spoken to about their souls. . . . Drunkenness and sin of every kind abounded. (57)
The rector who supervised him was largely absent. Ryle wrote,
To continue...read the full-length post originally published on this site.
