On the 18th October 1966 Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones gave an address on evangelical unity under the auspices of the Evangelical Alliance. The address was a plea for visible evangelical unity at the church level (instead of being exclusively through movements such as the IVF/UCCF). This call for putting gospel unity before denominational unity, and before the demands of a gathering ecumenism that fostered doctrinal indifference, was something of a watershed moment in British evangelicalism.More on this later. But for now let my give a big endorsement to the two volume authorised biography of Martyn Lloyd-Jones written by his one time assistant Iain Murray.
Volume 1 is a great story of how Lloyd-Jones left the world of medicine (he was assistant to Sir Thomas Horder the king's physician) to become an evangelist in a small mission hall in Aberavon during the time of the depression. The stories of conversions from those years are a thrilling testimony to the power of a preached gospel.
Volume 2 is a must read to have a grasp on evangelical history post WWII. For many years Lloyd-Jones was at the heart of the evangelical resurgence. He was the first chairman of IFES, president of IVF during the war years, involved in setting up London Bible College, the Evangelical Library, a great encourager behind the Banner of Truth, and so on.
In fact many of the great things that Reformed evangelicals enjoy today are his legacy.
3 comments:
I've only got Volume 2.
Should I read Volume 1 first or could I just dive straight into 2?
when I see the growing relationship between NFI and UCCF which is founded of course on the gospel, Lloyd-Jones seems to be the inescapable personal connection between the two - standing as he does strongly in Terry Virgo's thinking.
I'm working through Spirtual Depression at the moment, and have read a few other bit - his Romans 2/3 was brilliant.
Mike,
Dive into vol. 2. And buy vol. 1 for Christmas. I gather that Dick Lucas used to read vol. 1 every year.
Agreed. 40 years is a long time, and some of the issues are starting to look quite different now. One of the reasons for that is that there seems to be a pre-Keele mentality among Evangelicals in the C of E. Well at least some of them.
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