Baptist Worship, Ordinances, and Preaching — Unit 7: Great Baptist Preachers: Bunyan, Spurgeon, Broadus, and Preachers of the Majority World

Key Verse

"Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct." (Hebrews 13:7, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain why Baptists study the lives of earlier preachers without treating them as saints or as infallible.

2. Describe the life and preaching of John Bunyan and name what he teaches about preaching under pressure.

3. Describe the ministry of Charles Haddon Spurgeon and name three lessons a pastor can take from it.

4. Describe the work of John A. Broadus as a teacher of preachers.

5. Name preachers of the majority world, and explain why a local pastor should record the preachers of his own region.

The Voice of This Unit

This unit is written from inside the Baptist tradition for Baptist pastors. It is conservative and evangelical. When it speaks of great preachers, it does not say that they were perfect. It says that God used ordinary and flawed people to proclaim His Word, and that we can learn from them. Where historians disagree about these men, or where they made mistakes, we say so fairly. The wider Baptist story is told in Course 1, and we do not repeat it here.

Why Study Preachers of the Past?

Baptists do not pray to saints, and we do not teach that any preacher has special merit before God. Why then spend a unit on people who are dead? Scripture gives the reason. The writer of Hebrews tells the church to remember its leaders, "who have spoken the word of God to you," and to follow their faith (Hebrews 13:7). The same letter, in chapter 11, tells the stories of men and women of faith so that we will run our own race with patience (Hebrews 12:1). We remember them in order to follow Christ more closely, not to place them beside Him.

There is also a practical reason. A young pastor often feels alone, with no senior preacher to show him the way. Biographies let him sit with older men who faced the same fears. We admire what is faithful, and we do not copy what is mistaken.

John Bunyan (1628-1688)

John Bunyan was born in Elstow, near Bedford, in England, and worked as a tinker, a man who mends pots and pans. He had little formal schooling. After a long and painful struggle over his sins, he came to peace through the gospel, and he told this story in Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, published in 1666. He joined a Baptist-style congregation in Bedford and began to preach.

After the monarchy was restored in England in 1660, preaching outside the Church of England without a license became a crime. Bunyan was arrested and spent about twelve years in the Bedford jail, from 1660 to 1672. He refused to promise to stop preaching. He wrote in prison. After his release he served as pastor of the Bedford congregation. In 1678 he published the first part of The Pilgrim's Progress, and a second part followed in 1684. It became one of the most widely read books in the English language, and it has been translated into very many languages, including those of the majority world.

What Bunyan teaches preachers.

Scripture saturates the message. Bunyan's writing is full of the Bible. He thought in its words and pictures. A preacher whose mind is filled with Scripture will find that his speech is too.

Plain speech reaches ordinary people. Bunyan was not a learned scholar, and he did not use hard words. He spoke through pictures, journeys and everyday objects. Plain speech is a gift to hearers who are poor, who have little schooling, or who speak the preacher's language as a second language.

Conscience cannot be forced. Bunyan went to prison because he would not stop preaching at the command of the state. His suffering belongs to the Baptist witness to religious liberty. Course 2 treats this doctrine, and Course 1 tells how Baptists paid for it.

A matter on which Baptists differ. Bunyan led a congregation that allowed believers to join and share the Lord's Supper without requiring immersion, and he wrote in defense of this practice. Many Baptists in later years, including those we follow in Unit 5, disagree and hold that baptism comes before the Supper. We honor Bunyan's gospel preaching while disagreeing with him here. This is how a mature Baptist reads history: he receives the good and tests the rest by Scripture.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)

Spurgeon was born in Essex, in England, and grew up in a family of Christian ministers. At fifteen, in 1850, on a snowy Sunday, he went into a small chapel in Colchester because he could not reach his own church. The preacher that day was a simple man who spoke from Isaiah 45:22, which calls, "Look to Me, and be saved." Spurgeon looked in faith and was converted. He was baptized the same year by immersion and began preaching almost at once.

In 1854, still a teenager, he became pastor of a London congregation that was then small. It grew so quickly that larger buildings were needed, and in 1861 the Metropolitan Tabernacle opened, with seating for several thousand. He preached there for about thirty years. His sermons were printed every week and were read widely across the world. He founded a college to train pastors, an orphanage, and many other works. He wrote a commentary on the Psalms, The Treasury of David, and gave talks to his students that we know as Lectures to My Students.

What Spurgeon teaches preachers.

Christ is the center. Spurgeon preached the cross of Christ in nearly every sermon. He believed that a sermon with no Savior in it was no sermon at all. He held the doctrines of grace, and he called sinners to come to Christ with real urgency. Course 2 describes how Baptists have debated the relation between election and the free offer of the gospel, and Spurgeon's own practice shows that both sides can pray and plead for lost people.

Prayer and study go together. In his lectures he urged young men to pray much, to read widely, and to keep their hearts warm. He believed the preacher's private life with God was the source of his public power.

Hard work and cheerfulness. Spurgeon worked at a pace that few could maintain, and he used humor in his sermons and talks. He also suffered. He wrote openly about periods of deep discouragement and bodily pain, and he did not hide them from his students. A pastor who is weighed down by sadness should know that great preachers have walked the same road, and that it does not prove he is out of God's will.

A controversy. In the 1880s Spurgeon grew alarmed at teaching in some Baptist churches that, in his view, weakened the authority of Scripture and the atonement of Christ. This dispute is called the Down-Grade Controversy. In 1887 he withdrew from the Baptist Union of Great Britain. Historians differ about it. Some say Spurgeon acted rightly to defend the gospel when others would not. Others say he acted too sharply and left the denomination weaker and more divided. The Baptist answer is to see that he acted from conviction about the gospel itself, and that he paid a heavy price in friendships and health. His principle stands: where the authority of Scripture and the substitutionary death of Christ are denied, no fellowship in the gospel is possible.

John A. Broadus (1827-1895)

John Albert Broadus was born in Virginia and became a Baptist pastor and then a professor. He was one of the first teachers at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which opened in 1859 in Greenville, South Carolina, and later moved to Louisville, Kentucky. He later served as the seminary's president, from 1889 until his death in 1895.

Broadus was not mainly known as a pulpit star. He was a teacher of preachers. His book On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, first published in 1870, has been used in classrooms for well over a century, and later editors have revised it more than once. This is the textbook that CTS uses alongside its separate course on preaching, and Unit 8 refers to it again.

What Broadus teaches preachers.

Preaching can be taught and improved. Broadus believed that careful training helps a preacher grow, and Baptists have built seminaries and Bible institutes on that belief.

Serve the text and the hearer. His book pays attention to both the passage and the people who listen. A sermon must be true to the Word and clear to the congregation.

An honest note. Broadus lived and worked in the slaveholding South. The seminary he served was founded by men from that world, and some of them defended slavery or took part in it. Southern Seminary itself has published a report about this part of its history. A Baptist teacher should not hide this. Scripture teaches that every person is made in God's image, and slavery was sin. We can use Broadus's teaching on sermon preparation with thanks while confessing that his time and region had grave moral blind spots.

Other Baptist Preachers Worth Knowing

George W. Truett (1867-1944) was pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, from 1897 until his death. He was known for plain, warm preaching and a strong witness to religious liberty. He also served as president of the Baptist World Alliance in the 1930s.

Preachers of the Majority World

Most Baptists today live in Africa, Latin America and Asia. A list of great preachers that includes only English and American names would tell a false story. Here are two early examples, and a task for you.

George Liele (about 1750-1820). Liele was born into slavery in the American colonies and was freed. He preached to African American congregations in Georgia. About 1782 he went to Jamaica, where he preached and organized Baptist work among enslaved and free people. He was one of the first Baptist missionaries from North America, years before William Carey sailed for India.

Lott Carey (about 1780-1828). Born into slavery in Virginia, Carey bought his own freedom, became a Baptist minister, and sailed to Liberia in 1821 as a missionary. He preached and served the settlers there until his death.

These men remind us that Baptist preaching has always crossed borders and cultures. In Nigeria, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico and many other lands, Baptist churches grew through preachers who were born in those places and spoke the languages of their people. This course does not list them, because the records are scattered and a local pastor knows them best. Your task is to write them down. Ask the older members of your association about the first preachers in your region. Record their names, their churches, their sermons that people remember, and the sufferings they bore. In this way the story of your people will be kept for the next generation.

Objections and Our Answers

Objection 1: Honoring great preachers leads to hero worship.

Some believers worry that books about famous men can make a church follow a man instead of Christ. Paul rebuked the Corinthians for saying, "I am of Paul," and "I am of Apollos" (1 Corinthians 1:12).

Our answer. The warning is right. But Hebrews 13:7 tells us to remember our leaders and follow their faith. The difference is in the object. We follow their faith in Christ, not their persons. Baptists keep no relics, hold no feast days, and pray to no one except God. Every preacher in this unit would say the same.

Objection 2: These men had serious faults, so we should not learn from them.

Critics point to Bunyan's open membership, Spurgeon's sharp words in controversy, and the slaveholding world of Broadus.

Our answer. The Bible itself tells the faults of David, Peter and others, and still uses them as examples. We do not hide failure, because only Christ is without sin. We take the faithful principle and leave the error. Honest teaching about the faults of the great also keeps young pastors from despair about their own.

Objection 3: Their style is too old to help us.

Victorian sermons were long and formal. Today's hearers, especially young ones, want shorter and simpler speech.

Our answer. We do not need to copy the length or the style. We learn the principles: preach the Scripture, preach Christ, speak plainly, pray, prepare, and care for people. Methods change from place to place. The gospel does not.

Objection 4: A list of famous names ignores the real work done by humble pastors.

Most Baptist pastors in the world serve small congregations, and few have ever been known beyond their district.

Our answer. This is true, and it is why we ask you to write the story of your own region. A faithful village pastor is as dear to the Lord as the preacher of a great tabernacle. Greatness in the kingdom is measured by faithfulness (1 Corinthians 4:2), not by the size of the crowd.

Pastoral Application

A pastor in a mountain town has been preaching for five years in a church of thirty people. He reads about Spurgeon's crowds and feels like a failure. On Sunday afternoon he mentions this to an older deacon. The deacon says, "My father was baptized by the first pastor of this church, and he never preached to more than fifty. But he taught my father to read the Bible. Without him, I would not be a believer."

The pastor decides to do three things. First, he asks the deacon to tell him the story of that first pastor, and he writes it down. Second, he reads a short biography of Bunyan and notes how a poor, uneducated man stayed faithful for many years in prison. Third, he begins to read a chapter of Spurgeon's lectures each month, taking from it only what helps him pray, study and care for his people. He no longer compares his congregation with Spurgeon's. He measures his work by faithfulness.

Summary

Baptists remember their preachers in obedience to Hebrews 13:7, to follow their faith and not to worship them. John Bunyan, a tinker from Bedford, preached under threat, spent about twelve years in prison, and wrote Grace Abounding and The Pilgrim's Progress; he teaches Scripture-filled, plain preaching and the freedom of conscience, though Baptists differ with his open membership. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, converted in 1850 through Isaiah 45:22, pastored the Metropolitan Tabernacle and teaches Christ-centered preaching, prayer and perseverance through suffering, and his role in the Down-Grade Controversy is debated by historians. John A. Broadus, a founding teacher of Southern Seminary, taught that preaching can be learned, and his book of 1870 is our companion textbook; his time also reminds us to speak honestly about the sin of slavery. George Truett, George Liele and Lott Carey show that Baptist preaching spans nations. Every pastor should record the preachers of his own region. We answer the objections of hero worship, faults, old styles and neglect of humble pastors with the Bible's call to follow faith and to be found faithful.

Further Reading

• John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666) and The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), public domain.

• Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students (public domain).

• John A. Broadus, On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons (first published 1870), the CTS companion textbook.

• Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Treasury of David (public domain).

• Course 1's reading list, for the wider Baptist story, including McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (1987), and Bebbington, Baptists Through the Centuries (2010).

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