September 24 2009 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Charles Simeon, a great man of God whose 54-year ministry at Holy Trinity, Cambridge (1782-1836) had such a remarkable impact on the work of the gospel in this country and much further afield.
At the time of his conversion as a first-year undergraduate, there was only a handful of evangelical ministers in the Church of England, but, by the time of his death, it is estimated that a third of Anglican pulpits were occupied by evangelicals, as many as 1,100 of whom had been profoundly influenced by Simeon at Cambridge. What can we learn today from his teaching and example?
1. Let the Bible speak
Simeon could be described as the father of modern expository preaching, both exemplifying the practice himself and teaching many others to do it through his published sermons and regular Friday evening sermon classes for undergraduates. His goal in preaching was clear: ‘My endeavour is to bring out of Scripture what is there and not to thrust in what I think might be there. I have a great jealousy on this head: never to speak more or less than I believe to be the mind of the Spirit in the passage I am expounding’. The fundamental principle he taught his students was the importance of letting the thrust of the text shape the sermon rather than imposing a meaning on it from outside or focusing on a minor point within it. He urged his students: ‘Take for your subject that which you believe to be the mind of God in the passage before you’; the passage should so govern what the preacher says, ‘that no other text in the Bible will suit the discourse’.
