Rules for Godly Living by Brownlow North

In April 1959, my father the Rev John J Murray produced a little magazine called Eternal Truth.  For the next two years he produced it by-monthly until he went to work for the Banner of Truth and became editor of the Banner of Truth Magazine.  I am very hopeful to republish the bound copies of the magazine as a tribute to my Dad at some point but in the meantime I hope to put some of the articles from the magazines on my blog. 

The following is from the first edition in April 1959 and had the original title of 'Some Good Rules' by Brownlow North.  Used mightily by God, Brownlow North (1810 - 1875) lived a reckless life but was wonderfully converted during a card game after a violent seizure.  God used him during the 1859 Ulster Revival.  There is a longer account of Brownlow North's life and ministry in the Evangelical Times here.

1. Never neglect daily private prayer; and when you pray, remember that God is present, and that He hears your prayers (Hebrews 11 v 6).
2. Never neglect daily private Bible reading: and, when you read, remember that God is speaking to you, and that you are to believe and act upon what He says.  I believe all back-sliding begins with the neglect of these two rules (John 5 v 39).
3. Never let a day pass without trying to do something for Jesus.  Every night reflect on what Jesus has done for you, and then ask yourself, What am I doing for him (Matthew 5 vv 13-16).
4. If ever you are in doubt as to a thing being right or wrong, go to your room, and kneel down and ask God's blessing upon it (Colossions 3 v 17).  If you cannot do this, it is wrong (Romans 14 v 23).
5. Never take your Christianity from Christians, or argue that because such and such people do so and so, therefore you may (2 Corinthians 10 v 12).  You are to ask yourself, 'How would Christ act in my place?' and strive to follow Him (John 10 v 27).
6. Never believe what you feel if it contradicts God's Word.  Ask yourself, 'Can what I feel be true, if God's word is true?' and if both cannot be true, believe God's Word, and make your own heart a liar (Romans 3 v 4; John 5 vv 10-11).

Longing for Lament

It is not difficult to find tragedy.  It is everywhere.  

Recently, one of my fathers friends (in his early 80's) has just lost his son to cancer.  His son was 62 and died within 14 months of diagnosis.  This is the second son he and his wife have lost in 5 years as well as the death of a grandson in an accident.  

Recently I sat with a widow who had lost the love of her life on the cusp of retirement.  A lifetime of plans shattered with a cruel and debilitating illness. I could do little but weep with those who weep.

A couple in a small Highland village were recently overwhelmed with grief as their baby was stillborn almost at full term.  

Death, loss, shattered dreams and tragedy.  All events have a ripple effect to family, friends, children, churches and communities.  The effects are often felt for a lifetime.  People rarely 'get over' tragedy - they adjust to life but the pain often remains and can often remain very acute.  I have recently seen a very old man wrestle with grief as raw today as it was 40 years ago when he lost his 14 year old daughter to cancer.  

One of the reasons I am a Christian, is because as I read the Bible I see that suffering is not meaningless and that there is hope.  Much of the Bible is about suffering because the Lord knows we live in a broken and sinful world.  

This is the absurdity of many churches which preach the prosperity gospel, the very opposite of the true gospel.  Many churches make no room for lament in the midst of a world filled with tragedy and death.  As Christopher Ash says in his excellent commentary on Job; There is a version of Christianity around that is shallow, trite, superficial, ‘happy clappy’ (as some put it).  It is a kind of Christianity that, as has been said ‘would have been singing a chorus at the feet of Lazarus’.  We have all met it – easy triumphalism.  We sing of God in one song that ‘in his presence our problems disappear’, in another ‘my love just keeps on growing’.  Neither was true for Job…, and yet he was a real and blameless believer.  

The thing is, people see through the gushing emotionalism and desperate theological shallowness and long for a deeper gospel that speaks to their pain.  The widow I recently visited said she had lost count of the Christians who had said to her of her husband 'you shouldn't mourn - your husband is in a better place'.  Many were as helpful as Job's friends or have been conspicuous by their absence.  Why do people find it so difficult to weep with those who weep?  People going through deep suffering don't want 'cheered up' they want empathy.  They want people to walk with them through their brokenness.  Why can't we, as Christian's, lament in our sorrows?  Is this not why we were given the book of Psalms to sing?  It gives expression to the sorrow the Christian will experience in this life as well as the joy in God's love and mercy.

One of the largest books in the Bible is Job. The theme of suffering is in much of the Bible but there is a reality about the suffering in Job that is very stark.  As Tim Keller says: No other book in the Bible or, to my mind, in all of ancient literature, faces the question of evil and suffering with such emotional and dramatic realism yet also with such intellectual and philosophical deftness (Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, p 270).  Surely such a large book with 42 chapters about suffering should teach us that this is an issue we as the church should take seriously and preach on regularly?  The reality is that many people find Job quite a frightening book.  I have been hugely helped by Christopher Ash's book 'Job - The Wisdom of the Cross' (Crossway, 2014).  This a very readable commentary that will help you navigate your way this deep and important book.

We are told that Job was blameless (not perfect but genuine and authentic), upright, one who feared God and who turned away from evil (Job 1 v 1-5).  We are also told that he was very, very wealthy.  The first five verses of Job 1 read like a vindication of the prosperity gospel.  Job is righteous and is rewarded with peace and prosperity.  But things change quickly.  Job loses his sizeable wealth through raiding parties, he looses his children in an 'act of God' and he looses his health.  We find him in chapter 2 of Job sitting on the local landfill site scraping his infected and blistering skin.

When we face suffering in life, we often wonder why?  Why me?  The religious answer is often that we must have done something wrong or bad.  But Job was an example of righteous and innocent suffering.  The world may respond by saying there is no reason for suffering therefore God cannot exist and if he does he must be evil and cruel.  Job shows us that neither of these responses are true.  While the book does have a lot to do with suffering it asks an even more fundamental question: 'why do men serve God?'  Satan asks God to take everything away from Job to test if he will still love God.  Given Jobs greatness and goodness, it is almost like a test case.  If Satan can get Job to abandon God surely this will destroy many other peoples faith in God as well.  

God is undoubtedly refining Job - he is stripping everything away to strengthen Job's faith.  But his great problem is that he can't find God.  He cries in Job 23 v 3 Oh that I knew where I might find him?  As Christopher Ash says One of the strange signs of hope in Job is that he must speak.  The suffering believer cries out in suffering even when they have no sense of the presence of God.  Job looks everywhere.  As the Christian Standard Bible translates Job 23 v 8, 9; If I go east, he is not there, and if I go west, I cannot perceive him.  When he is at work to the north, I cannot see him; when he turns south I cannot find him.  Job experiences what every Christian will experience at some time, he looses God's presence.  He doesn't know where God is and he has no idea what God is doing.

Yet in the middle of Job's gut wrenching suffering what is his confidence?  We are told in chapter 23 verse 10; Yet he knows the way I have taken; when he has tested me I will emerge as pure gold (CSV).  Faith bursts through the darkness.  Faith goes beyond feelings.  In the midst of confusion and pain Job bows to God's sovereignty and trusts in God's wisdom.  In the furnace of divine suffering God is both proving/testing and improving Job.  He is purifying Job of all his impurities as he tries him in the furnace of redemptive suffering.  As Job suffers, he has a confidence that God's hand is on the thermostat and his eye is on the clock.  Job won't suffer a second longer than is necessary and God won't turn up the heat a degree further than is necessary.  

Job is a book of deep suffering.  The majority of the book is taken up with Job's friends and their long winded speeches.  But rather than helping they make things much, much worse.  As Ash comments they are like a dry wadi to a thirsty traveller.  This is what we find when we are suffering deeply.  The wisdom of this world is of limited help.  Often the wisdom of other Christian's can never reach our pain.  That is why we need the Champion or redeemer that Job lay hold of by faith. That is why we need the gospel.  To quote Ash again:

A world in which there is no such thing as redemptive suffering, suffering that brings glory to God, is a world in which there will be no comfort for the suffering believer.  It is a world without grace, and in the end it is world without love.  Human philosophy and all religions impose upon the human condition a simple framework of cause and effect in which there can be no such thing as suffering that simply and necessarily brings glory to God because it expresses the obedience of the believing heart that bows down to God simply because he is God.  And yet it is precisely this obedience, the obedience of the one man (Romans 5 v 19) that will bring the redemption of the world.  The sufferings of Job foreshadow the redemptive sufferings of Christ.

Job is a book of realism and hope.  There is a time for lament.  The Bible encourages it.  It is not rare or exceptional.  Some of the godliest people have experienced wave after wave of affliction.  But suffering for the believer is never wasted and never without hope.  We have a High Priest who knows what it is like to suffer (Hebrews 2 v 17,18).  Whatever you are going through at the moment, rest in God's sovereignty and trust in God's wisdom.  God know what he is doing.  As Dr Guthrie once wrote; 

We seem sometimes to forget, when we cower down before the tempest, and look before us with a fearful eye on the mighty billows that are rolling on. We seem to forget what the sailor boy said ‘my fathers at the helm'.  

The Ragged School of Theology

Imagine Billy, a former gang member and drug dealer, now leading a church plant in one of the poorest schemes in Scotland.  

Imagine Tina, who used to deliberately disrupt the youth group as a teenager, now lead it as an adult.  

Imagine Dean, once dead in sins and addicted to alcohol, now serving others with joy in the local church.  

Imagine Cheryl, former heroin addict, now working in full-time employment as a carer.  

Imagine Gary, once racking up huge debts through gambling, now giving sacrificially back to the church and community with his time, money and possessions.  

Imagine Stacey, who used to live for partying at weekends, now serving as a female gospel worker reaching vulnerable women and a community that hasn’t had a gospel witness in decades.

Seem too far-fetched?  Unrealistic?  Wishful thinking?  Think again.  God is at work in the schemes of Scotland.  While most of us desire these stories to be multiplied throughout our land, how will that happen?  After someone is saved by the grace of God, how does the church train these indigenous converts to become future leaders and workers in the church and in society?

This is where the Ragged School of Theology (RST) comes in.  Named after Britain’s ‘ragged schools’ of the 19^th century and made famous in Christian circles by Dr Thomas Guthrie, the RST is one part of an ‘all of life’ discipleship training program.  The RST has been established as a campus of Vocational Bible College, Australia - to train ordinary, everyday people (Acts 4:13) for the extraordinary work of spreading God’s Kingdom.  The RST offers Christian vocational training which will equip a person with foundational knowledge and skills to serve Christ through the local church and in the workplace.

Many indigenous converts from the schemes are unlikely to flourish in a Higher Education model of education.  Unlike many other Bible colleges, RST’s qualifications are delivered through the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector where training focuses on what you can do rather than what you have read and how many words you have written.

As a result, RST’s courses are delivered through a blend of small discussion groups and a ministry placement in a local church.  Assessments mimic ministry activities with presentations, simulations, reports and portfolios.

RST aims to provide Christian ministry training that suits those who learn best on the job.  Much ministry training today is academic and suits those who’ve been to university. RST is different.  RST training suits the gifts and abilities of people who love to learn practically and actively.  The sorts of people who often go straight into the workforce from school.

Converts from the schemes going into traditional models of higher education with a view to Christian ministry are nearly as common as a unanimous Brexit vote.  Rarer still are indigenous converts coming through traditional higher education models and choosing to invest their training in the most deprived areas of our nation.

The RST, working in partnership with local churches, seeks to train and equip indigenous scheme converts to serve wherever God calls them.  Hopefully, for many, that will mean serving in the poorest schemes of our land - whether that be as a church planter, gospel worker or an active serving member of a local church. 

Please partner with us in this - to God’s glory!

https://20schemes.com/get-involved/   

Article by Steven Hutchison, Principal, Ragged School of Theology 

Thomas Guthrie and Ragged Schools 20 Schemes Podcast

Almost 30 years when I worked for the Edinburgh City Mission I was involved in children's work down in Niddrie.  Some wonderful work had been done over the years but the little Mission Hall was struggling.  It was eventually reopened as Niddrie Community Church.  I spoke there 2 years ago to a thriving congregation of mainly local people.  I was amazed at the transformation in the church and the strong and rooted vision for healthy gospel churches in 20 schemes across Scotland.

I was delighted to hear that the church, in partnership with 20 Schemes has started the 'Ragged School of Theology' to train up local people, some of who might struggle in a formal Bible College.  The name came from Dr Thomas Guthrie and his 'Ragged Schools' started in Edinburgh.  I recently went down to Niddrie to chat to Mez McConnell about Guthrie and his vision to set up a school that would meet the needs of vulnerable children in Edinburgh.  It is great to hear (and visit) other church plants around Scotland and to hear what God is doing in schemes.  If you want more information about 20 Schemes or the Ragged School of Theology click on the link here.

Reformed Preaching by Joel Beeke

Many thanks to Andy Constable, Assistant Pastor at Niddire Community Church for this book review on Reformed Preaching by Joel Beeke.  Please buy from 10ofThose to avoid multi million tax avoiding book companies!

Reformed Preaching by Joel Beeke is a master piece. Its rich, biblical, Christ entered and soul refreshing. The subtitle to this book is ‘proclaiming Gods word from the heart of the preacher to the heart of his people.’ It his split into three parts. Part one gives a description of what Beeke calls reformed experiential preaching. This, Beeke explains, is preaching that has captured the soul of the preacher experientially and is then applied to the hearts of believers. Beeke summarises: “Reformed Experiential preaching receives God’s word into his heart and then preaches it to the minds, hearts, and lives of the people.” pg 41

Rev Joel Beeke

In part two Beeke takes us through some of the great reformed preachers throughout the centuries and shows how part one is illustrated through these preachers sermons. Beeke takes you from the Reformation to Lloyd Jones and gives a quick biography of their lives and shows you how they preached. There is quote after quote in these chapters that are gospel centered sound bites from these great men’s sermons. 

In part three Beeke looks at preaching today and some of the practicalities of reformed preaching like preaching with balance and preaching the gospel to the heart. Here Beeke takes part one and two and shows us how it is worked out in our preaching today. 

When I picked up the book to start reading I thought this was going to be a struggle to read. I thought it was going to be high brow theological stuff with no practical application. But what I loved about the book was how much it focused on the preacher’s heart. Beeke again and again talks about how we can’t preach effectively unless we have been moved by the text itself. On page 30 he quotes Robert Burns to make his point: “Christianity should not only be known, and understood, and believed, but also felt, and enjoyed, and practically applied.” This is not pie in the sky stuff. This book encourages the preacher to ground the bible in the lives of the preacher and the people. As Beeke writes: “The preacher of the word must ask: ‘Does my preaching help people to walk closely with God in real life? Or does it simply set up a beautiful world of ideas disconnected from their experiences?’ Page 50. Much preaching today in reformed circles can be up in the sky theologically without grounding it in people’s lives. This book sets the record straight. 

At the same time I also appreciated how Beeke encourages the preacher to be rich theologically. This was refreshing to hear because much preaching today is superficial garbage. At the heart of preaching we must unashamedly be men of the word. This includes knowing the word intimately and preaching the centre of the word the Lord Jesus Christ. In chapter 3 he reminds preachers that they need to preach Christ in all his glory: “What does the HS like best in a preacher? The Spirit most delights in the preaching of Christ.” page 63. Again and again this book seeks to exalt Christ and encouraged us to make much of him in our preaching. He also reminds us to preach the sovereignty of God and present a big God over all.

This book was also refreshing for the soul. I appreciated the fact that he encouraged the preacher constantly to watch their own hearts. He reminds us that as preachers that our holiness is God’s greatest weapon. This is so important because preachers can often be the ones at the front who think they have all the information and they need to tell everyone how to live according to the bible. But Beeke reminded me again that I need to stick near to Jesus and watch my heart. That the goal of preaching is not to make much of me but much of Christ. As John says: “I must decrease and he must increase.” Lastly he reminded me of the necessity of prayer in preparation and the fact that we need to preach with great passion! 

I think this is probably my favourite book on preaching I’ve read. The only criticism I would offer is that the section (part 2) on the different preachers was a bit long and repetitive. I think it would have served better to just look at a few. I also hope in the future they might print this book in three volumes to make it more accessible to people who read less. There wasn’t much practical advice on how to prepare a sermon but this is for other books like Saving Euytchus or Simple Preaching by Stuart Olyott. This book instead will equip you to be a better preacher because you will take God’s word seriously, apply it to your hearts, walk in step with the Spirit and preach Christ with all that you’ve got. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. Get a copy and give it a read. Let me end with 2 more quotes that are gold dust:

“The true reformed experiential preacher is a humble preacher, precisely because he is a true lover of Christ in pursuit of holiness, content to be nothing, if in that way Christ may be all in all.” J.Beeke, Reformed Preaching.

“The church today desperately needs preachers who continually remind themselves that awakening, heart engaging, life transforming preaching does not depend on eloquence or self generated passion BUT on the sovereign good pleasure of God operating thru the ministry of the HS.” J. Beeke, Reformed Preaching.

The History of the Free Church: The Disruption

The existence of the Free Church of Scotland is a testimony to the Kingship of Christ.  1843 was the year the Free Church was established.  It was not a new beginning: the Reformed Church in Scotland goes back to the Reformation.  But in 1843, the Free Church was forced to withdraw from the Establishment to testify that Christ is King in His Church.

I. The Background

The tragedy was that God had blessed the Church of Scotland.  The number of Evangelical ministers had steadily grown, so that in 1834 the Evangelicals became the majority in the General Assembly.  The Evangelical leader was Thomas Chalmers, who as Professor of Divinity at Edinburgh University was influencing a whole generation of young ministers.  These Evangelicals loved Scripture, preached the Gospel, and upheld the whole doctrine of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

The dominance of the Evangelicals allowed for an upsurge in the planting of new congregations, missionary work in cities, and foreign missionaries sent overseas.  One can read the Memoirs of McCheyne or Diary of Andrew Bonar to get a flavor of the excitement and Gospel urgency of these days.

But there was a problem: the Church of Scotland was established, its property was owned by the State, and Parliament had passed legislation that gave the patronage of vacant parishes to local landowners.  These patrons were not necessarily godly men, or even Presbyterians (many were more English than Scottish, and members of the Church of England).  The right of patronage for a parish was property, which could be advertised for sale in newspapers.

Sometimes it worked well.  For example, the proprietrix of the Isle of Lewis, Mrs Stewart Mackenzie, exercised the right of patronage on behalf of the Crown, and presented Evangelicals to four of the six churches on Lewis.  But in practice, the landlords more often chose nominees of social standing, men to whom they owed favours, and even where the candidates’ actual suitability was considered, they often preferred refined orators to godly evangelists.  All too often, they chose Moderates, men worldly in character, moralistic in emphasis, and to all appearances, spiritually dead.

II. The Doctrine

Christ is King in His Church; not the monarch, Parliament or any arm of the state.  We pray ‘Thy kingdom come’ (Mat 6:10).  It is He that builds His Church.  Consider His ownership: Christ purchased His Kingdom (Act 20:28).  He Reigns because He redeemed this Kingdom with the cost of His own life.  As a result, Christ instituted His Kingdom (Col 1:18).  He Reigns because He began this Kingdom.  As a result, Christ is the only source of authority in His Kingdom (Isa 9:7).  Christ is reigning, by means of His Word.  So, in that Word, Christ has defined the offices by which His Church is ruled, given the qualifications for them, and commanded the appointment of office-bearers on that basis.

The appointment of these office-bearers is thus a spiritual duty of the Church itself, and a function of the Kingship of Christ.  It is not just more fair, or democratic, or even prudent, to leave the appointment of office-bearers in the hands of the Church: it is nothing less than to let Christ reign.

Consider the scene in Acts 1 – the vacancy was identified; two candidates were nominated by the Lord’s people; they offered prayer that the Lord would show who should be elected; and then the choice was made: ‘They gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias’ (Act 1:26).  Some think that indicates a random choice, but the word ‘lot’, kleros, just means ‘portion or piece’ as in a piece of wood.  This was rather a vote, each individual making his choice, and the choice falling upon Matthias.  This was a spiritual duty, done spiritually, as unto Christ.

It is not a matter of indifference who chooses the minister of the congregation.  Ultimately, Christ does, and His choice is effected by His faithful people.  Patronage was an intrusion on the Crown Rights of King Jesus.

III. The Battle

The Evangelicals knew this, and patronage had previously caused splits in the Scottish Church in the eighteenth century.  By the 1830s, the issue had become a battleground between the Church and the law of the land as the Evangelical party tried to restrict the powers of patronage.

In 1834, two pieces of legislation were passed by the General Assembly:

Chapels Act – this provided for new churches to be planted in parishes that were too large geographically, or too heavily populated for effective ministry.  The new congregations were granted a full right of participation in church courts, free of patronage;

Veto Act – this gave the membership of congregations [specifically, male heads of households] the right to protest against the patron’s nominee for the vacancy.

These Acts were controversial; they were seen as evidence of the Church opposing the rule of Parliament.  It was w a matter of time before battle would be joined.

In Auchterarder, the patron’s nominee was opposed in protest by five sixths of the male heads of household.  The courts overruled the Church, and in 1839, the House of Lords upheld the rights of the patron, rejecting the Veto Act as unlawful.  In Lethendy, the patron’s nominee was rejected by protest, and the patron agreed to present someone else, but the nominee took legal action in his own name, and was found by the courts to have a legal right to the ‘living’, and to deserve financial compensation.  Worst of all, in Marnoch, the same thing occurred, and the court actually ordered the induction of the rejected nominee, John Edwards.  When the Presbytery, made up of Moderates, did so, the Assembly deposed them for contumacy, and inducted the congregation’s choice of minister, David Henry.  The result was an increasingly unsustainable situation in which two ministers were holding separate services in Marnoch, both claiming to represent the lawful Established Church of Scotland.

Consistently, the courts had upheld patronage as lawful, and the General Assembly’s position as unlawful.  The Veto Act could not function, as it was repeatedly overruled; the Chapels Act was struck down in 1842, removing the right of the chapel ministers to participate in church courts.  If put into effect, this would destroy the Evangelical majority, and leave the General Assembly ruled by Moderates who would accept the rule of the Courts.

What was the Church do? The Evangelicals gathered in the Convocation of 1842 in Edinburgh, and issued the Claim, Declaration and Protest, a demand for redress from the civil authorities.  But the Government refused to act. The Prime Minister, Robert Peel, was advised that only a handful of ministers would act on the Claim.

As the Assembly neared, all wondered what would happen.  Many thought only a few hotheads would actually follow through.  The 1843 General Assembly was constituted by David Welsh, who read a formal protest and deed of separation, and led the withdrawal of the true Church from the Establishment, walking out from St Andrew’s Church, Edinburgh, to Tanfield Hall.

Hundreds of commissioners followed him, and ultimately 474 ministers joined the Free Church.  They left behind manses, churches, and stipends effectively guaranteed for life.  Some were wealthy men: the great portrait of Disruption Assembly shows Patrick MacFarlan of Greenock West signing away the richest living in Scotland.

Some knew worse sufferings: Hugh and William Mackenzie, father and son, the ministers of Tongue, Sutherland, had to send their family away to Thurso, 42 miles away, the nearest place where adequate accommodation could be obtained in the face of the landowner’s hostility to their stand.  They lived together in a room-and-closet in a miserable cottage, to minister to the congregation of 750 people.  In these cramped, damp conditions, both fell ill.  Hugh died in June 1845, William in July.  Like a number of others, they gave their lives as effective martyrs.

The people suffered too.  The landowners often refused to grant sites, or even permission for worship on their property.  Many congregations had to worship for years in the open air: in some parishes there was no other private property at all.  In such cases, services were held on the public road, as thje only lawful place.  In a couple of remote rural parishes there was not even a road – in these cases, worship was held on the shore between the high and low tide marks, which land was lawfully considered as the sea.  In Strontian, a floating church was provided.  Eventually a Parliamentary enquiry was held, and most landlords buckled under the public pressure and gave sites.

The Disruption was a Testimony to Christ the King, but more, it was Actual Submission to His rule.  175 years later – we still confess the same truth.  Christ is King of His Church.

This address was first given in August 2018 at the US FCC Family Conference and reproduced by kind permission of Rev A.J Macleod.

Who was Dr Guthrie?

Yesterday I was delighted to visit the 'Ragged School of Theology'.  Based in Niddrie Community Church and in partnership with 20 Schemes, the school trains local men and women in theology through a practical and active learning style.  It was good to meet old friends and chat with the local Pastor Mez McConnell author of 'Church in Hard Places' which is well worth a read.  It stimulates thinking around poverty, the Biblical response and the desperate need for churches in hard places.  While I was there a young man spoke to me.  He had been hugely helped by a some books I had arranged to be sent to a prison about 5 years ago.  He is now a bright Christian and learning some great theology.  It did my heart good to meet him.  I was delighted to do a Podcast with Mez about Dr Guthrie which will be coming out over the next few weeks.  Mez was keen to hear about Dr Guthrie so people were more aware of the background to name 'Ragged School'.  Below is a quick summary of Guthrie's life for newcomers.  Please pray for the folks at Niddrie Community Church and the great vision to plant healthy gospel churches in Scotland's schemes.  

Dr Thomas Guthrie’s statue in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh epitomises what many of us in the Christian church are seeking to achieve; with a Bible in one hand and his other hand resting protectively on a ‘ragged child’ Guthrie’s life combined the two great priorities of the church; truth and love.  Despite his great achievements, Guthrie is almost unknown today either as a preacher or social reformer.  Not a single book of his sermons or his famous ‘Seed Time and Harvest’ remains in print.  This is surely a tragedy and the study of Guthrie’s life and ministry reaps a rich reward for anyone who takes the time and energy to find out more about this great man.   

Standing at 6”4 Guthrie was an imposing figure.  Born in 1803 in the town of Brechin to the son of a local merchant and banker, Guthrie went on to study at Edinburgh University at the tender age of 12.  As he himself comments in his autobiography ‘beyond the departments of fun and fighting I was in no way distinguished at college’ (Autobiography and Memoir, 1896, p 40).  Spending nearly 10 years at university and then a further 5 without a church prepared Guthrie in a unique way for the challenges ahead.  His sons comment in their Memoir of their father ‘these five years of hope deferred, however, afforded Mr Guthrie a profitable though peculiar training for the eminent place he was afterwards to fill.  His scientific studies in Edinburgh, his residence abroad, his experience of banking in his father’s banking-house, the leisure he enjoyed for enlarging his stores of general information, had all their influence in making him the many sided man he became’ (Autobiography and Memoir, 1896, p 225).

Evangelist and Preacher

Guthrie was no ivory tower theologian and his common touch made him radical (and successful) in both his social reform and his evangelism.  He says in his autobiography; ‘If ministers were less shut up in their own shells, and had more common sense and knowledge of the world, they would cling less tenaciously to old forms, suitable enough to bygone but not to the present times’ (Autobiography and Memoir, 1896, p 89).  He went on to prove this in his first charge in Arbirlot, Angus (1830-37) by abolishing two Sunday services.  They were replaced by a longer service at noon and an evening Bible Class for young people aged 15-25.  At the ‘Minister’s Class’ Guthrie would work through the Westminster Shorter Catechism, give a shorter, simplified version of the earlier sermon (‘abundantly illustrated by examples and anecdotes’) and test the knowledge of his students.  As Guthrie says in his autobiography; ‘None of the services and ecclesiastical machinery at work did so much good, perhaps, as this class’ (Autobiography and Memoir, 1896, p 127).

This ‘knowledge of the world’ infused Guthrie’s preaching style.  He combined solid reformed theology with a simple, accessible (if somewhat flowery) style.  He says ‘…I used the simplest, plainest terms, avoiding anything vulgar, but always, where possible, employing the Saxon tongue – the mother tongue of my hearers.  I studied the style of the addresses which the ancient and inspired prophets delivered to the people of Israel, and saw how, differing from the dry disquisitions or a naked statement of truths, they abounded in metaphors, figures and illustrations.  I turned to the gospels, and found that He who knew what was in man, what could best illuminate a subject, win the attention, and move the heart, used parables and illustrations, stories, comparisons, drawn from the scenes of nature and familiar life…’ (Autobiography and Memoir, 1896, p 130)  His great desire was to communicate the redeeming power of the gospel to those who were often shut out of the Scottish Church in 19^th century Scotland through pew rents and an ‘elder brother’ spirit.  Like Thomas Chalmers Guthrie followed the parochial system of systematic visitation in defined districts and the Biblical use of the offices of elders and deacons.  His evangelism was relational, low key but always with a long term vision for the transformation of the whole nation of Scotland.

Social Reformer

While Dr Guthrie was one of the finest preachers of the Free Church in the 19^th Century, his greatest legacy was surely as a social reformer.  This is summed up on his statue in Edinburgh which declares ‘a friend of the poor and the oppressed’.  Even in his first rural parish in Angus Guthrie was a great friend of the poor.  He established a savings bank and library; ‘The success of the bank and the library I attribute very much to this, that I myself managed them.  They were of great service by bringing me into familiar and frequent and kindly contact with my people’ (Autobiography and Memoir, 1896, p 113).  Guthrie believed that the minister should live and work amongst the people.  Writing while still in Arbirlot he said to a Mr Dunlop; ‘I have discovered from my own experience that the further the people are removed from the manse, the less influence has the minister over them: and if a man won’t live among the scum of the Cowgate [central Edinburgh] I would at once say to him ‘You can’t be my minister’ (Autobiography and Memoir, 1896, p 309). 

Arriving in Edinburgh in 1837 he became an associate minister at Old Greyfriars along with John Sym.  The city Guthrie arrived in was growing rapidly with the industrial revolution and poverty, drunkenness, vice and all manner of degradation were never far from view.  There is a famous story told in Guthrie’s book ‘Out of Harness’ that describes how Guthrie stood on George IV Bridge in Edinburgh just after he arrived in Edinburgh.  Looking down on his new parish known as the Cowgate he describes ‘a living stream of humanity in motion beneath his feet’.  A hand was laid on his shoulder and he turned around to find the famous preacher and reformer Dr Thomas Chalmers.  Standing in silence for a few moments Chalmers eventually exclaimed ‘a beautiful field sir; a very fine field of operation!’ (Out of Harness, p 126).  This was the field that Guthrie was to labour in for the rest of his ministry.

Guthrie was appalled by what he saw around him on the streets of Edinburgh.   Writing in 1872 Guthrie says; ‘Five-and-thirty years ago, on first coming to this city, I had not spent a month in my daily walks in our Cowgate and Grassmarket without seeing that, with worthless, drunken and abandoned parents for their only guardians, there were thousands of poor innocent children, whose only chance of being saved from a life of ignorance and crime lay in a system of compulsory education’ (Autobiography and Memoir, 1896, p 438).  Inspired by a cobbler from Portsmouth called John Pounds who saved 500 ‘ragged children’ from a life of neglect and delinquency, Guthrie became the Scottish ‘Apostle’ of the Ragged School movement.  There was already an Industrial Feeding School in Aberdeen pioneered by a Sherriff Watson in 1841 but the key difference was that Guthrie’s Ragged Schools were always attended by choice rather than coercion or as an alternative to custody.  Inspired by the Aberdeen school, and a similar school in Dundee established in 1842, Guthrie began to gather those of like mind to rescue thousands of children who, as he says of one poor boy were; ‘launched on a sea of human passions and exposed to a thousand temptations…left by society, more criminal than he, to become a criminal, and then punished for his fate, not his fault’ (Autobiography and Memoir, 1896, p 440).

The ‘Ragged School Movement’ was galvanised by the publication of Guthrie’s now famous book ‘Seedtime and Harvest of Ragged Schools’ which was revised and republished three times.  His great skills as a communicator were put to excellent use in this book and Guthrie powerfully put forward the compelling social, economic and spiritual arguments for Ragged Schools.  He argues that the schools harmonised the views of two of Scotland’s preeminent philanthropists; ‘Our scheme furnishes a common walk for both.  They meet in our school room.  Dr Alison [ William Alison, Professor of Medicine at Edinburgh, who advocated social and economic measures to alleviate poverty] comes in with his bread – Dr Chalmers with his Bible: here is food for the body – there for the soul’ (Quoted in Autobiography and Memoir, 1896, p 457).   Children were fed, taught how to read and write, taught practical skills to help them to get a job but most of all they memorised the scriptures, the catechism and instruction was given on all the main Christian doctrines.  What were the results?  The statistics speak for themselves.  The Edinburgh prison population in 1847 (the first year of the Ragged Schools in Edinburgh) consisted of 315 under 14’s (5% of the prison population).  By 1851 the figure was 56 out of 5,869 (1%) (Autobiography and Memoir, 1896, p 459). 

Guthrie was an outstanding preacher, a faithful pastor, a winsome evangelist and one of Scotland’s finest social reformers.  Guthrie’s legacy lives on in the provision that there is both in terms of welfare and education for rich and poor alike.  While Guthrie would be saddened at the secularisation there has been in the public school system, he would surely be pleased to see education being offered to every child free of charge. 

He died in the early hours of Monday 24^th February 1873 with his faithful Highland nurse and his family at his bedside.  It is said that with the exception of Dr Thomas Chalmers and Sir James Simpson, Edinburgh had not seen a funeral like it in a generation.  It was reported that 230 children from the original ragged school attended his funeral and sang a hymn at the grave. One little girl was overheard saying ‘He was all the father I ever knew.’  Amongst Guthrie’s last words he was overheard to say ‘a brand plucked from the burning!’  His legacy was that he through his vision and love for his Saviour, the Ragged School movement was established which in turn plucked thousands of little brands from a life of poverty and crime, and brought them to know the ultimate friend of sinners.