There were two features of…[his] preaching which I remember in particular. The first is to do with its simplicity. It was not that he strove for popularity and delivered trivia. On the contrary. It was the simplicity of the master craftsman, who could analyse the text of Scripture and by carefully tracing the development of its thought, help his hearers to be better readers. We could see what he could see, and we could be inspired to believe that we too could read the Bible for ourselves.
The second feature was the basis of the first ”“ he was a scholar. I don’t mean that he had a PhD or taught in a university. He was beyond such measures. I mean that he had mastered the arts needed for biblical exposition and he gave the time and energy to make sure of his results. You can only achieve true simplicity by working very hard. That is what he did. Our debt to him, under God, flows from his willingness to give time and energy and thought to the study of Scripture in the light of modern thought and modern needs and to pastor us through his preaching.
In this, as in much else besides, he was a Prince amongst God’s people.
John Stott made many trips to Australia and has inspired many, particularly in the diocese of Sydney. A whole generation were conscious of the debt they owed him.
The Archbishop writes:
[blockquote] “The biblical preaching of my youth would start characteristically from a verse, sometimes taken out of context and used as a starting point for an extended Christian homily with exhortation.
Our first hand experience of John Stott was different. He took passages rather than texts and gave rigorous attention to the context and the meaning of the passage taken as a whole. And he spoke with such spiritual vibrancy that you could immediately tell that the biblical text was shaping and informing his faith and his walk with God….” [/blockquote]
This style of expositional preaching is both distinctive and resilient.