John Stott is one of the world’s leading and most loved Bible teachers, preachers, writers, pastors and mission-leaders. He is the author of many books including the best-selling Basic Christianity and The Cross of Christ. He is Rector Emeritus of All Souls Church, Langham Place, London, President of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, and Founder-President of the Langham Partnership International. He was awarded the C.B.E. in the Queen’s 2006 New Year honours, and named by Time magazine in 2006 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
27 April is John Stott’s ninetieth birthday. Among the enormous range of his achievements, two things stand out for many of his friends as probably his most enduring legacy: his writings and the ministries of the Langham Partnership International. From his first book (Men With a Message, 1954 – a book introducing the main writers of the New Testament), to his last (The Radical Disciple, 2008), John wrote approximately 50 books (‘approximately’ since some went through various forms of revision and combination). They have been translated into many languages and are read all over the world.
All of John Stott’s writing had a common purpose – to help people understand the Bible and to insist that we must engage our study of the Bible with the realities of contemporary life in the world. This driving ambition is seen even in the introduction to his first book, where we read (in 1954), ‘There is no greater need among Christian people in our generation than that we should allow our minds to be conditioned, and our lives reformed, by the Word of God.’ He would doubtless say the same today.
It was in 1969, at the age of 48, that he founded The Langham Trust, to provide funds for evangelical men and women from the developing world to study for doctorates and then return to teach the Bible and theology in seminaries in their own countries – and thus raise the standards of training for pastors and preachers. And it was in 1971 that he founded the Evangelical Literature Trust, recycling the royalties of his own books into a fund to provide books for pastors all over the world, where good Christian books are so scarce. And in 2001, at the age of 80, he travelled with Chris Wright (International Director of Langham Partnership International) to lead preaching seminars in Peru and Argentina, which led to the formation of Langham Preaching.
Happy Birthday, Uncle John!