Stott on the Christian Life: Between Two Worlds

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"Fifty years ago, I became a Christian through reading John Stott’s Basic Christianity. Since then, Stott’s books and sermons have been my closest companions. If we could be allowed but one mentor to grow us into Christlikeness, John Stott would be at the top of my list. I am so very grateful to Tim Chester for summarizing Stott’s theological contributions in a manner that is exceptionally well done. Reading this book was a profoundly moving experience."

Derek W. H. Thomas, Senior Minister, First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, South Carolina; author, Let’s Study Revelation and Let’s Study Galatians

John Stott was, of course, an inspiring leader and Christian disciple. But what made his legacy so powerful was that he was also a master of the distilled theological summary, the result of his deep wrestling with the Scriptures. His crystal clarity was always hard-won. Tim Chester has achieved the almost impossible by distilling a lifetime’s ministry into a highly accessible and, above all, heartwarming book. We have so much to learn from Stott, and I am confident that this book will open up his legacy for a new generation. I am so grateful for Chester’s work and this book, and I thoroughly recommend it.

Mark Meynell, Director (Europe and Caribbean), Langham Preaching; editor, The Preacher’s Notebook: The Collected Quotes, Illustrations, and Prayers of John Stott

Why should anyone read John Stott these days? Tim Chester’s book provides abundant reason and motivation. While not a biography, it tracks the sources and maturing of Stott’s thinking along the historic contours of his immense lifetime’s ministry, and across the breadth of his spiritual passions and intellectual profundity. Thoroughly researched and meticulously documented, this is a superb introduction to one of the greatest yet most humble leaders God has ever gifted to his church—comprehensively worthy of the man himself while glorifying Christ, as he would have wanted. If you knew John Stott, relish the spiritual challenge and tonic of journeying with him through this book. If you didn’t, start here! You will be enriched, informed, and inspired.

Christopher J. H. Wright, International Ministries Director, Langham Partnership

John Stott towered over sixty years of global evangelicalism. This is the best examination of his theology of the Christian life, full of insight and practical helpfulness.

Julian Hardyman, Senior Pastor, Eden Baptist Church, Cambridge, United Kingdom

This highly readable book invites us into the life and teaching of John Stott. It interprets for us the social, ecclesial, and theological contexts Stott navigated through the course of his ministry. Drawing on a broad range of Stott’s writing, this book vibrantly conveys the central emphases and methods of his thinking, preaching, and institutional leadership—challenging readers to consider how the pursuit of Christlikeness takes visible shape in a life of service, obedience, and humility.

Laura S. Meitzner Yoder, Director and John Stott Chair of Human Needs and Global Resources, Professor of Environmental Studies, Wheaton College

Stott

on the Christian Life

Theologians on the Christian Life

Edited by Stephen J. Nichols and Justin Taylor

Augustine on the Christian Life:

Transformed by the Power of God,

Gerald Bray

Bavinck on the Christian Life:

Following Jesus in Faithful Service,

John Bolt

Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life:

From the Cross, for the World,

Stephen J. Nichols

Calvin on the Christian Life:

Glorifying and Enjoying God Forever,

Michael Horton

Edwards on the Christian Life:

Alive to the Beauty of God,

Dane C. Ortlund

Lewis on the Christian Life:

Becoming Truly Human in the Presence of God,

Joe Rigney

Lloyd-Jones on the Christian Life:

Doctrine and Life as Fuel and Fire,

Jason Meyer

Luther on the Christian Life:

Cross and Freedom,

Carl R. Trueman

Newton on the Christian Life:

To Live Is Christ,

Tony Reinke

Owen on the Christian Life:

Living for the Glory of God in Christ,

Matthew Barrett and Michael A. G. Haykin

Packer on the Christian Life:

Knowing God in Christ, Walking by the Spirit,

Sam Storms

Schaeffer on the Christian Life:

Countercultural Spirituality,

William Edgar

Spurgeon on the Christian Life:

Alive in Christ,

Michael Reeves

Stott on the Christian Life:

Between Two Worlds,

Tim Chester

Warfield on the Christian Life:

Living in Light of the Gospel,

Fred G. Zaspel

Wesley on the Christian Life:

The Heart Renewed in Love,

Fred Sanders

Stott

on the Christian Life

Between Two Worlds

Tim Chester

Stott on the Christian Life: Between Two Worlds

Copyright © 2020 by Tim Chester

Published by Crossway

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Cover design: Josh Dennis

Portrait: Richard Solomon Artists, Mark Summers

First printing 2020

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture marked NEB is from The New English Bible © The Delegates of the Oxford University Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press, 1961, 1970.

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Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-6057-6

ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-6060-6

PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-6058-3

Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-6059-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Chester, Tim, author.

Title: Stott on the Christian life : between two worlds / Tim Chester.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, [2020] | Series: Theologians on the Christian life | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019059550 (print) | LCCN 2019059551 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433560576 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433560583 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433560590 (mobi) | ISBN 9781433560606 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Stott, John R. W. | Church of England—Clergy—Biography. | Anglican Communion—England—Clergy—Biography. | Evangelicalism—Church of England—Biography. | Christian life.

Classification: LCC BX5199.S8344 C47 2020 (print) | LCC BX5199.S8344 (ebook) | DDC 283.092 [B]—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019059550

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019059551

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2020-04-29 11:08:12 AM

Contents

Series Preface

Introduction

1 An Evangelical Life

2 A Christian Mind

3 Preaching the Word

4  Satisfaction through Substitution

5 Repudiation and Surrender

6 Life in the Spirit

7 Embedded in the Church

8 Reaching a Lost World

9 Loving a Needy World

10 All of Life under the Lord of All

11 A Vision of Christ

Bibliography

General Index

Scripture Index

Series Preface

Some might call us spoiled. We live in an era of significant and substantial resources for Christians on living the Christian life. We have ready access to books, DVD series, online material, seminars—all in the interest of encouraging us in our daily walk with Christ. The laity, the people in the pew, have access to more information than scholars dreamed of having in previous centuries.

Yet, for all our abundance of resources, we also lack something. We tend to lack the perspectives from the past, perspectives from a different time and place than our own. To put the matter differently, we have so many riches in our current horizon that we tend not to look to the horizons of the past.

That is unfortunate, especially when it comes to learning about and practicing discipleship. It’s like owning a mansion and choosing to live in only one room. This series invites you to explore the other rooms.

As we go exploring, we will visit places and times different from our own. We will see different models, approaches, and emphases. This series does not intend for these models to be copied uncritically, and it certainly does not intend to put these figures from the past high upon a pedestal like some race of super-Christians. This series intends, however, to help us in the present listen to the past. We believe there is wisdom in the past twenty centuries of the church, wisdom for living the Christian life.

Stephen J. Nichols and Justin Taylor

Introduction

When I was nineteen, I attended a day conference where John Stott was the speaker. When we arrived, the friend with whom I had come went off to the restroom, and I was left alone and feeling a bit out of place. An older man noticed me, came over, and began talking to me, asking about me. When my friend returned, the man introduced himself, Hello, I’m John Stott. My jaw nearly hit the floor. I had been chatting with the great John Stott without realizing it.

That brief encounter made a big impression on me. Stott—the only speaker that day—had seen an awkward-looking teenager standing alone and had taken it upon himself to make the young man feel welcome. I met him a few times thereafter, and he always remembered my name. The private John Stott was just as impressive as the public persona: gracious, humble, and without affectation.

To be asked to write a book on Stott’s theology of the Christian life was an offer I could not refuse, and it has been a tremendous pleasure to spend an extended period of time with him through his writings in a concentrated way. At the same time, it has been a daunting prospect for a number for reasons. For one thing, I know many people who knew Stott well, far better than I did. I have comforted myself with the thought that I am not writing another biography.¹ I have not sought to unearth new material on Stott’s life or to provide some kind of psychoanalytic study of his motives. I have written about his theology, primarily as presented in his published writings, though also as exemplified in his life.

Writing about a historical figure often involves presenting that person’s thought in a more accessible way, simplifying the complexity of his or her ideas. But Stott is famous for the clarity of his thinking and the precision of his prose. There has been little scope for me to make him clearer than he already is! Instead I have presented a synthesis of his approach to the Christian life. In addition, I have attempted to identify something of the inner logic of his theology, locate his ideas in their historical content, and explore their abiding significance. I hope this book will encourage a new generation of evangelical Christians to benefit from Stott’s thought.

One of my first thoughts on approaching the task was to wonder whether Stott had a distinctive perspective on the Christian life. Was he perhaps simply an articulate advocate of mainstream evangelical orthodoxy? But the more I have explored his theology in its historical context, the more I have realized that it has been Stott, perhaps more than anyone else, who has influenced the evangelical world I inhabit. So it is not just that Stott reflects evangelicalism; evangelicalism reflects Stott. A contemporary evangelical understanding of the Christian life was not simply something Stott regurgitated; it was also something he significantly shaped. This is one of the reasons why he is such an important figure to consider. We are looking at ourselves in the mirror when we look at Stott; we are exploring our own story.

Moreover, Stott was far from simply an echo of the consensus. On a number of issues, he fought for the positions he held, sometimes countering opposite extremes simultaneously. On the doctrine of Scripture, for example, he battled both liberalism and fundamentalism. On missions, he fought an ecumenical missiology that neglected evangelism and a narrow evangelical missiology that neglected social action. Instinctively irenic by temperament, he brought together divided evangelicals on many issues. But he was also ready and willing to stand his ground. Scripture was always his ultimate authority, and he was willing to follow wherever it led. One of his books was originally entitled Christ the Controversialist. In it he draws lessons from Christ’s confrontations with the people of his day, making Christ’s approach a model for a contemporary willingness to stand firm on the truth. Certainly every right-thinking person will avoid unnecessary controversy, and we should steer clear of argument for argument’s sake. . . . But we cannot avoid controversy itself. ‘Defending and confirming the gospel’ is part of what God calls us to do.² So, for example, Stott defended substitutionary atonement at a moment when it might easily have been eclipsed, and he redirected evangelicalism away from a prevailing quietistic approach to sanctification.

Stott was a pastor-theologian, as am I. He was offered posts in academia on several occasions, but he chose to remain embedded in the local church. He took theology seriously and read widely. But he did not write like an academic theologian, nor did he engage in self-referential theological discussions. His theological work had to be squeezed around a full schedule of parish responsibilities, organizational commitments, and speaking engagements. But his theology is stronger rather than weaker as a result. He wrote from the church for the church—which is as it should be.³

Stott was also an expositor. This not only provided the foundation for his thought; it also ensured a balance in his ministry. He was not, and could not be, a man of limited theological interests. Inevitably, therefore, I have not covered everything Stott said about the Christian life. I have not included, for example, a sustained treatment of his teaching on prayer or the eschatological framework of the Christian life.⁴ Instead I have focused on what I consider to be his key emphases and distinctive contributions.

The Sunday after Stott’s death, I announced his passing to my congregation. I was aware that among them were people who had never heard of John Stott. So I tried in a few words to convey what he had contributed both to the wider church and to my own life. It was one of the few times I have broken down in tears on a Sunday morning.

I am grateful to Chris Wright and Ted Schroder, who both agreed to talk with me about this project; to Julian Hardyman and Mark Meynell, who both made constructive comments on the manuscript; and to the staff of the Church of England Record Centre for assisting me with access to the archive of Stott’s papers. I have also made use of an interview I conducted with John Stott for my book Awakening to a World of Need.⁵

1 See Timothy Dudley-Smith, John Stott , vol. 1, The Making of a Leader (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1999); Dudley-Smith, John Stott , vol. 2, A Global Ministry (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 2001); Roger Steer, Inside Story: The Life of John Stott (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2009); and Alister Chapman, Godly Ambition: John Stott and the Evangelical Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

2 John Stott, But I Say to You: Christ the Controversialist (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2013), 19–20.

3 For Stott’s own comments on this, see John Stott, The Epistles of John (London: Tyndale Press, 1964), 11. For an example of the difference this creates, see the contrasting analyses of 1 Thessalonians Stott provides in The Message of Thessalonians (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 19–20.

4 See, for example, the conclusion to John Stott, The Contemporary Christian: An Urgent Plea for Double Listening (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1992), 375–92.

5 Tim Chester, Awakening to a World of Need: The Recovery of Evangelical Social Concern (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1993), 22–24.

Chapter 1

An Evangelical Life

John Stott was born on April 27, 1921, into a privileged home. His father, Arnold Stott, was a rising doctor who would go on to become physician to the royal household. Stott senior had served in the First World War and would serve again in the Second, rising to the rank of major general. John was the longed-for son with three older sisters. It was a home with servants, including a succession of nannies. The one who stuck was Nanny Golden, a devout Christian, who taught the children Christian choruses. The Stotts lived in Harley Street, the area of London traditionally associated with doctors. And, as a child, Stott was taken to the nearby church, All Souls, Langham Place.

Early in his childhood John acquired a love of the natural world, encouraged by his father. Together they would catch butterflies using traps baited with treacle and laced with beer to make their prey drowsy. But when a sibling squabble led to a cushion landing on John’s butterfly box, John shifted his attentions to what became a lifelong fascination: bird-watching. Letters and diaries ever after switched easily between accounts of his work and birds he had seen.

School Days

Arnold Stott had been educated at Rugby, the elite private school that gave its name to the sport, and Rugby School is where John was destined. But first he spent a spell at Oakley Hall prep school. John was not always happy at Oakley Hall. Perhaps the ice that formed in the wash basins during cold winter days and the occasional canings from which Stott was not immune did not help. But it was not all hardship. John was not above a prank, a habit that continued throughout his life. His school friends referred to him as the boy with disappearing eyes because his eyes would narrow to a squint when he laughed.¹

Boarding school was a well-worn track for the children of the English upper classes. It was a route designed to instill not only a top-class education but also a stiff upper lip, a suppression of the emotions that Stott would come to lament. The first time his mother came to see him at Oakley Hall, he met her in the headmaster’s office, where he found her standing next to the headmaster and his wife. Without thinking, Stott advanced toward his mother, his hand outstretched, and said, How do you do, Mrs. Stott? The headmaster’s wife burst out laughing, but Emily Stott had the presence of mind to cover her son’s embarrassment by shaking his hand and replying, How do you do, Johnny?² It was an incident that encapsulated the confusion of a boy taken from a happy home to the stark surroundings of boarding school dorms. Nevertheless, Stott became head boy, the UK equivalent of class president, and won a scholarship to Rugby.

Conversion

Religion of a rather formal kind was part of the life at Rugby School. There was a brief service in the chapel each day as well as house prayers in dormitories at night. Stott later described feeling that if there is a God, I was estranged from him. I tried to find him, but he seemed to be enveloped in a fog I could not penetrate. This estrangement was coupled with a sense of defeat. He could not be the person he knew he should be.³ He would creep into the school chapel to read religious books and seek God, but to no avail.

What brought change was the testimony of another schoolboy. John Bridger, a year ahead of Stott, invited him to what today we would call the school Christian Union, but which was simply known as the meeting. It met each Sunday afternoon in one of the classrooms with Bridger leading and sometimes giving a talk (which astonished Stott, because his experience of religion to date had always been clerical). Then on Sunday, February 13, 1938, a few weeks before Stott’s seventeenth birthday, they had a visiting speaker, E. J. H. Nash, or Bash, as he was known. A few years previously Nash had joined the staff of Scripture Union to work with schoolboys, somewhat controversially focusing on elite schools with the aim of evangelizing the future leaders of the nation. He had developed a ministry built around vacation camps supplemented by support of Christian Unions during term times. The camps became known colloquially as Iwerne Camps (after the Dorset village of Iwerne Minster, in which they were held), or simply Bash camps. Bridger had been converted at just such a camp two years before.

Stott later wrote of Nash’s visit: He was nothing to look at, and certainly no ambassador for muscular Christianity. Yet as he spoke I was riveted. Nash confronted the boys with a question posed by Pilate, What shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? (Matt. 27:22), making clear that neutrality was not an option. In a way I can’t express, recalled Stott, I was bowled over by this because it was an entirely new concept to me that one had to do anything with Jesus.⁴ Stott would later write:

I used to think that because Jesus has died on the cross, by some kind of rather mechanical transaction the whole world had been put right with God. I remember how puzzled, even indignant, I was when it was first suggested to me that I needed to appropriate Christ and his salvation for myself. I thank God that later he opened by eyes to see that I must do more than acknowledge I needed a Saviour, more even than acknowledge that Jesus Christ as the Saviour I needed; it was necessary to accept him as my Saviour.⁵

After the meeting Stott approached Nash, who took him for a drive in his car to answer his questions. To my astonishment, says Stott, his presentation of Christ crucified and risen exactly corresponded with the need of which I was aware.⁶

As was his custom, Nash did not push for an immediate decision. But that night Stott made the experiment of faith, and ‘opened the door’ to Christ.

I saw no flash of lightening, heard no peals of thunder, felt no electric shock pass through my body, in fact I had no emotional experience at all. I just crept into bed and went to sleep. For weeks afterwards, even months, I was unsure what had happened to me. But gradually I grew . . . into a clearer understanding and a firmer assurance of the salvation and lordship of Jesus Christ.⁷

Stott’s diary entry a couple of days later reads: I really have felt an immense and new joy throughout today. It is the joy of being at peace with the world—and of being in touch with God. How well do I know now that He rules me—and that I never really knew Him before.⁸

Nash began to correspond with Stott, writing a letter once a week for at least the following seven or so years.⁹ Some covered theological topics, others contained ethical exhortations, while others offered practical guidance on issues like prayer. Soon Stott was inviting other boys to the Scripture Union camps. A friend called Peter Melly accepted his invitation (much to Stott’s surprise) and was converted at an Easter camp. By the summer of 1939 a dozen boys accompanied Stott from his school house to the camp. John became their de facto leader and pastor.

Meanwhile Stott had become head boy and also played the lead role in the school production of Shakespeare’s Richard II to some acclaim. The following summer Stott accompanied Nash on a mission with a small rural church in Staffordshire before attending the Scripture Union camp for two weeks at the end of August along with sixteen others from Rugby School. Three days after the end of the camp, Britain was at war, and the Stotts moved from central London to a house in the countryside.

University Days

Stott went to Cambridge University in October 1940 to study modern languages. Numbers were lower than normal with so many young men entering the army. John joined the first aid squad.

He was extremely disciplined, working nine or ten hours a day. He set his alarm for 6:00 each morning (later in life it would become 5:00 a.m.) to allow time for an hour and a half of prayer and Bible study before breakfast at 8:00. He routinely left events at 9:30 p.m. to get to bed in time to keep up this routine.

Stott threw himself into the life of the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU). CICCU itself was founded in 1877 to nurture students in the evangelical faith and to evangelize their fellow students. Technically, Stott never joined CICCU, having promised his father (who described CICCU as a lot of anaemic wets) that he would not do so.¹⁰ But Stott was a member in all but name, making a regular donation in lieu of a subscription. He routinely invited people to CICCU’s evangelistic lectures, and in his first term two of his contacts were converted. He took a lead in discipling young Christians and organized Bible studies. This is what we find in the passage, isn’t it? he would say.¹¹ Not all his attempts at evangelism were successful. Stott describes sharing the gospel with a fellow undergraduate. As he explained the free gift of salvation through Christ’s finished work, the student suddenly shouted, Horrible! Horrible! Horrible!¹² These were hard times to be an evangelical. Each college had a chaplain, who without exception was a High Church Anglican steeped in liberal theology.

Stott continued to be involved in Bash camps, quickly becoming Nash’s right-hand man and, in the process, turning the camps from a slightly amateur organisation into a well-oiled machine¹³—a far-from-straightforward task during wartime rationing. The camp ministry not only filled his holidays; planning and preparation also involved daily tasks throughout each term. Nash demanded a high level of commitment from camp helpers, but it was also a great training ground, and many future evangelical leaders were shaped first as campers and then as leaders. Nash was not slow to give young men the opportunity to speak. Stott himself wrote, Though I blush when I remember some of the naïve and even downright erroneous notions I taught, I can never be thankful enough that Bash pushed me into the deep end to sink or swim.¹⁴ David Watson, who would later become a significant British evangelist and church leader, reckoned he attended more than thirty-five camps in total (two at Christmas, two at Easter, and three each summer), learning how to lead people to Christ, answer common questions, disciple young converts, lead Bible studies, give talks, and so on.¹⁵ Nash’s high standards were more than matched by Stott’s meticulous organization. He was still only nineteen and in his first year of university study. Yet, in 1941, Nash wrote a memo expressing his desire that, if anything should happen to me, the work of the camps should be handed on to Stott.¹⁶

At the end of his second year, Stott got a first in French and a 2.1 in German.¹⁷ Being used to doing well academically, he was disappointed with the 2.1. But by this point he had decided to switch tracks and study theology.

Ordination

A month into his final year at Rugby School, Stott and a group of other boys were taken to a recruiting office to attest. Stott did not realize at the time that this was the equivalent of enlisting. Only later did he realize that he would be expected to report for duty on his twentieth birthday. Stott, though, was becoming a pacifist on the basis of his reading of the Sermon on the Mount. Nash, too, was a pacifist, and though it seems he did not shape Stott’s initial instinctive pacifism, he was happy to affirm it. Later Stott would adopt the theory of just war, a mainstay of Christian ethical reflection. But at the time, no one explained just war theory to him, and instead he was subjected to somewhat jingoistic propaganda that did little to convince him. Just as significantly, he was by now intent on ordination. Two obstacles stood in his way: his attestation and his father.

Arnold Stott was by now back in uniform. Despite being in his fifties, he had been recalled to the army and posted to France. Stott senior had been suspicious of his son’s conversion but had assumed it would prove a passing phase. Ordination was another matter. Arnold had always nurtured the hope that John would enter the diplomatic service. Moreover, he believed it was John’s duty to serve in the forces during this time of war. John, though, felt constrained by a higher duty toward God. What followed was a painful breach between father and son, conducted through letters and visits, sometimes mediated through Stott’s mother. Arnold declared he could no longer fund John’s university education, though he never quite carried through this threat. When John proved resolute, Arnold accepted his son’s decision. Am consenting but with great reluctance and unhappiness, Arnold wrote in a telegram. Nevertheless, as John wrote later, for two years he found it virtually impossible to speak to me.¹⁸

In principle those training for Christian ministry could be exempted from the military service, but they had to prove ordination had been their intent before the outbreak of war. Stott had in fact told his headmaster he wanted to be ordained six months before hostilities commenced. But it was still a protracted process to secure exemption, especially given the opposition of his family. Eventually he received the backing of the bishop of Manchester to become an ordinand of the Church of England and switched to studying theology at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, in October 1942.

Stott spent most of his time at Ridley studying on his own. He did not attend a single lecture in his final year. With the assistance of the vice-principal, Cyril Bowles, he ranged beyond the normal set reading. Stott’s intellectual development did not involve an unquestioning or simplistic acceptance of the orthodoxies in which his faith had initially been nurtured. During my three years of reading theology at Cambridge, he would later write, I wrestled painfully with the challenges of liberalism.¹⁹ Oliver Barclay comments:

I do not think others realized how acutely difficult John found this at times, just because he was so honest-minded. I well remember him sitting