Devoted to Jesus - J. C. Ryle

At my church, in January, the sermons are shorter, and they add a biography talk. Last Sunday, I got to give one, and I picked J. C. Ryle as I am a bit of a fan. Below is mostly what I said, which is really a cut-down version of a previous talk I had given. That link has all the footnoting.

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In 2008, I was asked to give my first Sunday sermon. It was on the persistent widow from Luke 18. So like any new preacher, I googled sermons on Luke 18 about prayer, and I found one called: A Call to Prayer by J.C. Ryle. What I heard really cut me to my heart about prayer. I was really challenged to pray more, and I appreciated how this guy was very direct and clear.

So after that, I looked up this Ryle guy up, and I found out that the person I was listening to wasn’t J.C. Ryle, it was some random who was reading from an old track from the late 1800’s, as Ryle had been dead for like 110 years.

And so that sparked my interest in this guy even more. Now I could go on about J.C. Ryle, but I really want to briefly comment on the three things I like about him, to encourage you to check him out as well. I appreciate that is he was an equipper, he is an Anglican, and his mission zeal.

Equipping

Even though Ryle wrote in the 1800’s he is still very much accessible today. He could be considered blunt or direct. If he thought the Bible said something, well then he believed it and said so, no matter the fallout.

After Ryle became the first Bishop of Liverpool, a story goes that an older lady went to church to hear him speak. Afterwards, she said, “I never heard a Bishop. I thought I’d hear something great. . . He's no Bishop. I could understand every word.” Ryle took that as a compliment.

Ryle saw it as an important task of the church to equip everyone in the church. He lamented once that it seems like the laity had taken their seats on the right train, and are told only to sit quietly while the clerical engine drives them to heaven. In his first parish, at Helmingham, the population was only 287, and Ryle tried to visit everyone, every week. He would distribute reading material to one family and then pass that on to the next family when they were done with that.

One of the things he wrote was Expositional Thoughts on the Gospels, which were originally aimed at families to do as a devotion together. He would slowly go through each of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, taking around 12 or so verses at a time, point out a few things from the text and then ask a probing question or give an encouragement. As he went through the gospels, his footnotes got more and more extensive, and they sort of turned into a technical commentary where he would show his thinking, leaning on past theologians.

Not only did he produce these commentaries/devotions, but he also produced many tracks. These were mostly sermons converted into a readable format for wider distribution. It is estimated that perhaps 12 million copies of his tracks were printed over his lifetime. Today, some of them have been collated into books.

In all Ryle’s tracks, he would specifically aim to address three types of people: non-believers, the confident believer and those weak in the faith or who are about to come to Christ. Ryle’s heart was for the lost and for the building up of believers. And this really is the main strength or influence Ryle has today. He is on about forcefully applying Biblical truth to believers and non-believers. In short, he was an Evangelical.

After I discovered Ryle, I found out that the main book he is famous for is Holiness.

When J. I. Packer was asked about the most influential books in his life, first he listed Calvin’s Institutes and then Holiness by Ryle. Hannah gave me a copy of this on our honeymoon. That’s love, right?

This book is a big challenge to people who say they are Christian but lax in what they believe and how they behave. Ryle looks you in the eyes and tells you to pull your socks up and to enter the fight against sin, for how you live your life will set the pattern for your life everlasting.

He doesn’t sugarcoat the Christian life. On counting the cost of following Jesus, he addressed the “light” believer and said sternly:

"What does your Christianity cost you?" Very likely it costs you nothing. Very probably it neither costs you trouble, nor time, nor thought, nor care, nor pains, nor reading, nor praying, nor self–denial, nor conflict, nor working, nor labor of any kind. Now mark what I say. Such a religion as this will never save your soul. It will never give you peace while you live, nor hope while you die. It will not support you in the day of affliction, nor cheer you in the hour of death. A religion which costs nothing is worth nothing. Awake before it is too late. Awake and repent. Awake and be converted. Awake and believe. Awake and pray. Rest not until you can give a satisfactory answer to my question: "What does it cost?"

That should give you a little sense of his style.

Anglican

Now Ryle was an Anglican. While Holiness is Ryle's most well-known book today, back then, Knots Untied was Ryle’s most popular book. This was because it dealt with some contentious issues of the day. A while back, I couldn’t find this book in print, but for one of my birthdays, Hannah found some place that would print it for me. Again, if that is not love, what is?

In Knots Untied, I can’t say I agree with him on everything, but that is ok. He touches on infant baptism, the lord’s supper, the use of the Sabbath, the 39 Articles and other Anglican points of doctrine.

Ryle praised the Anglican system when it went well, but was also blunt when he thought the system got in the way of evangelism or was frivolous.

This is not a major point, but I did find it helpful and comforting to know that in the tradition that I was swimming in, it had room for the likes of Ryle. That he, and many like him, were fiercely evangelical, and they could think, act and operate as such

Mission

At the age of 64, Ryle became the first Bishop of Liverpool, England. And this presented a massive mission field for him. Liverpool had rapidly expanded with the Industrial Revolution. The building of the railways and large docks meant an increase in production and caused a massive gap between the rich and the poor. Church attendance in the area was considered abysmal, with estimates of about 80% of the area being unchurched of any denomination. The local paper once said, “look at the problem which way you will, the Man in the street will not, and never will, go to church."

The population of Liverpool was around 1.1 million. This was a big change from Ryles's last rural parish of about 1500 people. In this new diocese, he inherited 340 clergy. For comparison, the diocese he came from had about 1160 clergy for a population of 660,000.

Faced with these challenges, Ryle was undaunted. He said that the person in Liverpool would be saved the same way as they were in his old parish, that is, by the proclamation of the Gospel.

His basic plan was to set about not building buildings, but by building up more people who could proclaim the Gospel. He broke up parishes into smaller areas of 3,500 people and deployed a team of three people (with at least one woman on the team) to that area. They were to go door-to-door proclaiming the gospel and to plant a church that could be self-sufficient within five years[17]. This meant he was sending people into some priest’s turf. But Ryle saw that gospel priorities should trump church regulations. He lamented having many church events that weren’t useful. Real church work, he said, was when the people pursued holiness, neighbourly love and direct personal effort to convert sinners.

In the 20 years of being bishop of Liverpool, Ryle ordained 535 deacons and 541 priests, set up around 44 new churches and 85 “mission rooms”. He failed to build a cathedral (he had lamented that the money could be better spent on churches and mission halls[20]). He also set up a pension fund for clergy and supported around seven social groups that were aimed at helping the poor.

Us now

And here at Lanyon, we can learn from Ryle, in his simplicity and boldness. People are saved here same way they are anywhere: by telling them the Gospel. Jonathan, Skye, Lochalan and I only have one mouth each, and that might not be enough mouths to tell the gospel to our whole valley. We need more.

Our mission field consists of 18,100 people who only have a choice between two churches in their local area. Our task is still the same as it was in the apostles' day, and the same fight against sin and the devil is still going on. Ryle would say that our task as churchmen (and women) is to pursue personal holiness, show love to others and speak the gospel. May it be so.