In thinking of John Knox and the preaching of the gospel we would like, not merely to take a historical look at John Knox as a preacher, but to consider something of the instruction and encouragement he gives regarding preaching in our own time

In his address to the 1960 Synod of the Free Church of Scotland, ‘John Knox: Central Figure of the Reformation’, Rev J P MacQueen said:

It is to be feared that his reputation as one of the most powerful and eloquent preachers of his day, with the fruit of widespread revivals, the edification, comfort and establishment of believers, and the salvation of sinners, has been considerably and, maybe, permanently eclipsed by his widespread and justly-enduring reputation as one of the world’s greatest Reformers.

Fifty years later a certain measure of rather grudged and qualified acknowledgment may still be made of what the nation owes to Knox for the impetus he gave to social and educational reform but, if his preaching is referred to at all, it is as that of a rabble-rousing fanatic.

To Mr MacQueen’s observation we would add the observation that what is often ignored, even by those who admire the work of the Reformation, is the fact that it was by his preaching of the gospel that John Knox was enabled to achieve what he did as a Reformer. Circumstances meant that he was necessarily engaged with monarchs and statesmen and in enunciating social and educational principles which would reflect the teaching of the Word of God and contribute to the maintenance of the Reformed Church, but even in these areas his success lay to a significant extent in the influence of his gospel preaching on those who held the levers of power and on the people as a whole.

In thinking of John Knox and the preaching of the gospel we would like, not merely to take a historical look at John Knox as a preacher, but to consider something of the instruction and encouragement he gives regarding preaching in our own time. In doing so we shall say a little about each of the following points, dealing with some more briefly than with others: (1.) The man who preached, (2.) His call to preach, (3.) His view of preaching, (4.) The content of his preaching, (5.) The method of his preaching, (6.) The manner of his preaching, and (7.) The outcome of his preaching.

1. The man who preached.
Ordained to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church, Knox seems to have functioned in semi-secular legal employment, and when we get the first really-verifiable glimpse of him he was acting as tutor to the sons of lairds in the Lothians, ‘whom certain years he had nourished in godliness’, as he puts it himself, describing the period prior to 1546. Knox is reticent about his early spiritual experience, but it would seem from these words that he had for some time been acquainted with the truth which he sought to teach these boys. It is said that he had been led to the study of Scripture by his reading of Jerome and to the doctrines of grace by his reading of Augustine. He is said to have first received ‘a taste of the truth’ from the preaching of Thomas Guillaume, a converted Dominican friar from East Lothian.

For a short time prior to the arrest and execution of George Wishart in 1546 he had accompanied this Calvinistic preacher on his missionary journeys around the Lothians and Dundee. His references to Wishart display affection and respect for him as a man and as a preacher. There is no doubt that, during their short association, Wishart exercised a great influence over him, introduced him to Reformed theology, church discipline and worship, and gave him, by example, a high view of preaching as the authoritative declaration of the Word of God. W. G. Blaikie suggests that ‘it seems to have been through Wishart’s preaching that the spark came that kindled his knowledge into a living flame’. Knox’s earlier classical education, his intimate acquaintance with the errors and evils of Romanism, his call by grace to the personal knowledge of Christ, his systematic study of Scripture for his own benefit and in order to teach his young charges, and his experience of powerful preaching, all made their own contribution to forming the man who was to become one of the most effective preachers of all times in Scotland.

There is no doubt that the obvious holiness and integrity of his character contributed to the influence of Knox’s preaching. Speaking in 1872 James Begg asserted: ‘That personal Christianity was the true basis of his character need not be repeated. Knox was a man of earnest piety.’ One of the pre-eminent features of his character, according to Begg, was ‘an entire submission of his mind and will to the authority of God in his Word’. Even The Catholic Encyclopaedia acknowledges that ‘it is to his credit that he died, as he had lived, a poor man, and that he never enriched himself with the spoils of the Church which he had abandoned’. W. G. Blaikie affirms that ‘the high reputation which Knox had among his brethren for personal holiness is another index to the character of his ministry’. He quotes the testimony of Richard Bannatyne, Knox’s devoted and admiring servant or secretary, who lived in close contact with him and who described him in his Journal as ‘a man of God, the light of Scotland, the comfort of the Church, the mirror of godliness and pattern and example to all true ministers in purity of life, soundness of doctrine, and boldness in reproving of wickedness’.

2. His call to preach.
The manner in which Knox became a preacher is well known. When in St Andrews’ Castle for protection, with his young charges and their parents, his tutoring took the form of a systematic study of the Gospel according to John, to which others were admitted as hearers. He was also involved in public disputations with local churchmen. This convinced the Protestant congregation within the Castle and their preacher John Rough, who felt his need of assistance, that Knox had gifts which could be well employed in the work of the gospel ministry. He tells us that, when he was urged by some of the leading men to take up the work of preaching, ‘he utterly refused, alleging that “he would not run where God had not called him”‘.

However, the congregation resolved to call him to this work and, when they were met on one occasion, Rough preached a sermon in which ‘he declared the power which a congregation, however small, had over anyone in whom they perceived gifts suited to the office, and how dangerous it was for such a person to reject the call of those who desired instruction’. Rough then addressed him:

In the name of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ, and in the name of these that presently call you by my mouth, I charge you that ye refuse not this holy vocation, but, as ye tender the glory of God, the increase of Christ’s Kingdom, the edification of your brethren and the comfort of me, oppressed by the multitude of labours, that ye take upon you the public office of preaching, even as ye look to avoid God’s heavy displeasure, and desire that he shall multiply his graces upon you.2

Knox, who gives this report, records his reaction:
Whereat John Knox, abashed, burst forth in most abundant tears and withdrew himself to his chamber. His countenance and behaviour, that day till the day he was compelled to present himself to the public place of preaching, did sufficiently declare the grief and trouble of his heart; for no man saw any sign of mirth in him, neither yet had he pleasure to accompany any man for many days together.3

Thomas M‘Crie comments on how the weight of the ministerial function is demonstrated
when men of piety and talents, deeply affected with the awful responsibility of the office and with their own insufficiency, were with great difficulty induced to take on them these orders which they had long desired and for which they had laboured to qualify themselves . . . [He adds:] The behaviour of Knox serves also to reprove those who become preachers of their own accord, and who from vague and enthusiastic desires of doing good, or a fond conceit of their own gifts, trample upon good order and thrust themselves into employment without any regular call.

The necessity for good order and a regular call is emphasised in The First Book of Discipline of 1560, to which Knox was at least a major contributor. The right of the people to elect their ministers is enshrined in that book. However, it would not normally take the form which Knox’s call did in the unique circumstances of that time, but the election would be of men whose calling and gifts had been examined and approved by the ministers and elders of the Church, who would then be admitted or inducted at a public service with an appropriate sermon and charges to minister and congregation. ‘The lack of able men shall not excuse us before God if by our consent unable men be placed over the flock of Christ Jesus.’

At the same time The First Book of Discipline emphasises the responsibility of ‘all men to whom God hath given any talent to persuade by wholesome doctrine, to bestow the same, if they be called by the Church, to the advancement of Christ’s glory, and the comfort of his troubled flock’. Those among the men who were appointed to the temporary position of Readers of the Scriptures and Prayers, who
of long time have professed Christ Jesus, whose honest conversation deserveth praise of all godly men and whose knowledge also might greatly help the simple, and yet they only content themselves with reading, these must be animated, and by gentle admonition encouraged by some exhortation to comfort their brethren, and so they may be admitted to administration of the sacraments, that is, to the ministry of Word and sacrament.

It is significant that one of the functions of the weekly ‘exercises’ or ‘prophesyings’ or meetings for the exposition and discussion of Scripture, which were to be held in the main towns every week – out of which the district Presbyteries grew – was the discovery of men with a calling and gift for ministry:

And moreover men in whom is supposed to be any gift which might edify the Church, if they were well employed, must be charged by the minister and elders to join themselves with the session and company of interpreters, to the end that the Kirk may judge whether they be able to serve to God’s glory and to the profit of the Kirk in the vocation of ministers or not . . . For no man may be permitted as best pleaseth him to live within the Kirk of God, but every man must be constrained by fraternal admonition and correction to bestow his labours, when of the Kirk he is required for the edification of others.

One can see Knox’s own experience reflected here. In passing, one might ask if it would not perhaps be good for the Church were Presbyteries again to reflect something of the original Exercises out of which they developed.

3. His view of preaching.
Knox certainly regarded preaching as a divine ordinance and preachers as messengers sent from God. They were not merely orators who had biblical subjects as their theme but men whose function was to declare what God had revealed and to do so in the power of his Spirit. A week before he died, Knox gathered his elders and deacons into his room, along with James Lawson, his successor, and David Lindsay, one of the ministers of Leith. Among other solemn statements of the dying man was the following:
Whatever influenced me to utter whatever the Lord put into my mouth so boldly, and without respect of persons, was a reverential fear of my God, who called and of his grace appointed me to be a steward of divine mysteries, and a belief that he will demand an account of the manner in which I have discharged the trust committed to me, when I shall stand at last before his tribunal.

God is speaking through the preacher, communicating a message from his ancient Word which is applicable to hearers today. That is what gave Knox his authority and courage. That is what gave him his concern to convey accurately what is written in the Bible. He was not there to communicate his own wisdom but the wisdom of God. It was this view of preaching which warranted his conclusion in his Epistle to the Lords Professing the Truth in Scotland that ‘some spark of God’s true fear’ resting in the heart would lead a man ‘to reverence God’s messengers, heartily to embrace, and study to obey, the precepts and charges which they give’.4 In his Address to the Commonality of Scotland he said: ‘We require nothing of you, but that patiently ye will hear our doctrine, which is not ours, but is the doctrine of salvation, revealed to the world by the only Son of God’.5

John Knox lived to preach the gospel. From his place as a slave in the French galley, after being taken prisoner at St Andrews, he got a glimpse of the town. ‘I see the steeple of that place where God first opened my mouth in public to his glory; and I am fully persuaded, how weak soever I now appear, that I shall not depart this life, till my tongue shall glorify his godly name in the same place’. From his exile on the continent he recorded his prayer in a letter to Mrs Bowes:

And haste the time, O Lord, at Thy good pleasure, that once again my tongue may yet praise Thy holy name before the congregation, if it were but in the very hour of death . . . For a few sermons by me to be made in England, my heart at this hour could be content to suffer more than nature were able to sustain.6

It was not that he was satisfied with himself as a preacher. Commenting in a letter on the Lord’s command to feed his sheep and lambs, he wrote:

O alas! How small is the number of pastors that obeys this commandment. But this matter will I not deplore, except that I, not speaking of others, will accuse myself that do not, I confess, the uttermost of my power in feeding the lambs and sheep of Christ. I satisfy, peradventure, many men in the small labours I take, but I satisfy not myself. I have done somewhat, but not according to my duty.

During his earlier Edinburgh days he preached in his congregation twice on Sabbath and three times during the week and was often sent on preaching tours around the country.

Preaching was to be the main work of the gospel minister and the view he had of preaching determined the content of his preaching, the method of his preaching and the manner of his preaching.