Peter Witkowski Church History, Discipleship

From Sermon to Life: The Powerful Story of Lloyd-Jones and Stott’s Reconciliaiton

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who led Westminster Chapel through World War II and a large part of the Cold War, was the epitome of biblical faithfulness in the pulpit. When a V-2 rocket exploded next to his church and anointed him and his congregation with a fine coat of ceiling dust, he brushed off the dust, took a quick break, and then continued with his sermon. Nothing could deter Lloyd-Jones from preaching the gospel of his Lord and Savior. As the Welsh pastor noted during a Cold War era sermon, “The greatest trouble in the world is not the nuclear bomb but humanity’s rejection of the Gospel.” As he said in another sermon, the gospel is “the one and only remedy that can cure the disease which is the cause of all our local and particular problems.” And so, he preached that truth in both the best and worst of times.

A Man of Integrity

What was true of the Doctor in his famous pulpit was also true of him in the quiet recesses of his home. As his reconciliation with the Anglican pastor John Stott would make clear, Lloyd-Jones lived out gospel convictions just as faithfully in private as he did in public.

In a sermon preached during his rise to fame in 1949, Lloyd-Jones warned his audience against the bitterness of unforgiveness. To illustrate his point, Lloyd-Jones recounted a story about two men who sought to be reconciled with one of their former pastors who was on his deathbed. Lloyd-Jones recalled:

So they took the journey, and they arrived at his house. His wife went up into the bedroom and told him they were there, but he refused to see them. I could not do that! How could I go out and face God in eternity and my whole eternal destiny and refuse to forgive a man who came to me with an outstretched hand?

In contrast to the man in the story, Lloyd-Jones understood that those who had been forgiven had to forgive.

When Lloyd-Jones preached this on 1 John 4, he was still more than thirty years away from his death and was enjoying a budding relationship with Stott, a minister who shared the Doctor’s passion for expository preaching, evangelism, and discipling the next generation. Lloyd-Jones so valued Stott’s friendship and insights into the Scriptures that the Doctor asked Stott to take over Westminster Chapel upon his retirement.

A Conflict

But then on October 18, 1966, their relationship unexpectedly soured. That night at the Second National Assembly of Evangelicals (NAE), Lloyd-Jones delivered a powerful address, calling for British evangelicals to exit liberal denominations that allowed for the denial of essential doctrines, such as justification by faith alone. As Lloyd-Jones noted, “To leave a church which has become apostate is not schism. That’s one’s Christian duty and nothing else.” Lloyd-Jones hoped his call for gospel unity built upon gospel purity would spark an evangelical revival. The Welsh pastor said, “If those of us who believe it [the Word of God] only come together … I believe we would then have the right to expect the Spirit of God to come upon us in mighty revival and re-awakening.”

Stott who shared the stage with Lloyd-Jones held the opposite view. The Anglican pastor believed that evangelicals should stay in their liberalizing denominations for the purpose of winning them back to truth.

When the Doctor’s address concluded, Stott rose to speak. But before turning to his official duties as chairman of the NAE, Stott broke professional protocol. He criticized the Doctor’s appeal, fearing that those pastors attending the NAE would, in Stott’s words, “go home and write their letter of resignation that very night.”

Stott offered the following critique of his friend:

I believe history is against what Dr. Lloyd-Jones has said…Scripture is against him, the remnant was within the church not outside it. I hope no one will act precipitately…We are all concerned with the same ultimate issues and with the glory of God.

With his words, Stott prevented the resignations he so feared, muted his friend’s influence in the British Evangelical movement, and shattered his close ties with Lloyd-Jones.

A few weeks later, Stott apologized to Lloyd-Jones for his lack of decorum. Though Stott claimed that he and the doctor maintained “a warm personal relationship,” in the years after 1966, the events of October 18 continued to nag at Stott. According to Lloyd-Jones’ wife, Bethan, Stott arrived at Lloyd-Jones’ hospital room two years later in tears. The Anglican pastor feared that his rebuke had contributed to Lloyd-Jones’ cancer diagnosis. Bethan quickly brushed off Stott’s fears as silly and guided Stott into the Doctor’s hospital room. Still, the events of that night and their subsequent fallout had in the words of one historian resulted in the marginalization of Lloyd-Jones’ voice within the evangelical movement. And they continued to occupy space in Stott’s mind.

From Illustration to Life

In 1978, Stott sensed that the window to restore his friendship with the Doctor was closing and once again sought out his old friend. In the words of Stott’s biographer, the Anglican pastor traveled to Lloyd-Jones’ home hoping to “build bridges and to repair a friendship.”

In so doing, he transformed Lloyd-Jones’ illustration into the Doctor’s reality.  Would he forgive?

When Stott arrived at Lloyd-Jones’ house, Bethan in concert with Lloyd-Jones’ wishes, escorted Stott into the Doctor’s study.

There, Stott encountered not coldness and anger but kindness and forgiveness. Stott said of his friend’s reception of him, “[Lloyd-Jones] could not have been more affable and welcoming.” After talking about their shared passion for the book of Ephesians (both preached through the book and would publish volumes on it), the two men waded into the old wounds of 1966. As they did so, Lloyd-Jones extended love and reconciliation to Stott. Lloyd-Jones told his old friend, “If God spares me, and we could be together, I’d say like Simeon, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.’” By God’s mercy, Lloyd-Jones proved himself to be the same man in his study at the end of his life as he was in the pulpit as he rose to popularity. As the Doctor said back in 1949: “This truth is given to me that I may live by it and that I may experience in my life in all the power and grace and glory.” And so by God’s grace, Lloyd-Jones lived what he preached in some of his most public of moments in some of his most intimate ones.

A Genuine Act

Though I have been able to pull out this thread of gospel faithfulness from Lloyd-Jones’ life, I doubt that the Welsh pastor was ever so self-aware. Lloyd-Jones preached thousands of sermons. Admittedly, he edited many of them for publication in his final years. But, he never turned his attention to his sermons on 1 John. His family would compile, edit, and publish those volumes after the Doctor’s death. I have no reason to think that Lloyd-Jones was especially aware of the contents of his 1 John sermons when he met with Stott for the last time. After all, the two friends talked about the book of Ephesians and not John’s epistle. Moreover, the accounts of Lloyd-Jones’ last visit with Stott originate from Stott and others and not with Lloyd-Jones. I believe, Lloyd-Jones saw his meeting with Stott as nothing more than a meeting between old friends.

Rather, I suspect Lloyd-Jones’ actions arose not from self-awareness but from his ever-deepening experience of God’s mercy and grace. As Lloyd-Jones told his friend and first biographer, Iain Murray, during the last weeks of his life:

When you come to where I am, there is only one thing that matters, that is your relationship to Him and your knowledge of him. Nothing else matters…Our best works are tainted. We are sinners saved by grace. We are debtors to mercy alone…God is very patient with us and very kind and He suffers our evil manners like He did with the children of Israel…The Love of God!

In other words, the man who had “For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified” written on his tombstone could not help but love others as he had been loved. In short, he was a man of the gospel.

Conclusion

May God grant us all such consistency. May we live out the gospel of forgiveness in private with the same fervency we speak of it in public. May all who pull the threads of our life find such faithfulness.

Peter Witkowski Apologetics, Discipleship, Ecclesiology

Renewed Congregationalism: A Cure for What Ails the SBC

To reverse the decline of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), I believe the platform (the leaders of the SBC) needs to rediscover the goodness of congregational piety.

Of Messengers and Leaders

To date, many of the SBC’s leaders seem to be distrustful and dismissive of the messengers who elected them or perhaps more accurately stated they distrust the messengers who elected the committee members who elected them.

The President of the SBC’s Executive Committee which runs the convention when it’s not in session, Jeff Iorg, recently blamed the decline in Cooperative Program giving and the “reshuffling of sectarian loyalties in the SBC” on the messengers. He laments that the messengers have been taken captive by the “fracturing influence of expressive individualism.” Or as Iorg notes elsewhere, they have fallen prey to “Our cultural proclivity for tribalism and sectarianism rooted in the sins of selfishness and self-promotion.” He then calls the messengers to return to their Baptist roots and embrace his vision for “messy cooperation.” He writes, “Part of doing this successfully is tolerating considerable diversity in our movement – doctrinal, methodological, strategic, and practical.”

And while readers might assume that Iorg thinks messiness would be confined within the doctrinal boundaries of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, Iorg’s actions indicate the opposite. Over the last few years, he (as well as other SBC leaders such as Kevin Ezell, the President of the North American Mission Board – NAMB) worked to defeat the Law Amendment which sought to strengthen the long-held Baptist belief that the office of pastor was reserved for qualified men. Iorg writes, “Let’s keep debating the issue of gender leadership roles in churches with the goal of persuading churches to change their position or practices rather than removing them from the SBC.” In other words, he invites churches to openly debate elements of the SBC’s doctrinal statement. Despite his embrace of doctrinal confusion, Iorg still blames the messengers for the state of the SBC. He calls them to embrace his undefined vision of messy cooperation or else be guilty of the sin of expressive individualism.

Similarly, a letter written in the defense the Ethics and Liberty Commission (ERLC) by ten former SBC presidents calls on the messengers to abide by the will of the platform and not to divisively vote for the disbandment of the ERLC. The presidents admit that the ERLC (the political wing of the SBC) lacks a clear mission. Still, the letter goes on to proclaim that the undefine mission of the ERLC is still “an important mission and should be kept in place.” The presidents then ask the messengers to trust that the ERLC’s trustees and its president will get this undefined mission right. Recall this is the same organization that has worked with George Soros funded foundations, opposed the abolition of abortion, and whose executive board recently fired its president only to then reinstate said president and force its chairman of the board to resign. Nonetheless, the presidents ask messengers to trust them, embrace the ERLC, and avoid the sin of being divisive.  

The Nature of Trust

While the leaders of the SBC should invite the messengers to trust them, the basis of that trust comes not from the possession of that office but from the faithful stewardship of that office in accordance with Scripture. As Jonathan Leeman notes, “our submission is never finally owed to other people. It’s exclusively and uniquely owed to God.” To quote the apostle Paul, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ (1 Cor 11:1).” In other words, the messengers should trust the leaders of the SBC entities in much the same way they trust their pastors and elders.

Trust & the Congregation

When Christians join a local congregation, they should anticipate that their elder board (or in some cases their deacon board) will hold itself to the teaching of Scripture, correcting one another’s sins and asking the congregation to only vote on wise motions and nominations. As Paul tells Titus, “For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach (Ti. 1:7).” If church members disagree with their elders over matters lacking biblical warrant, the members should usually submit to their elders, understanding that the “bar should be pretty high before disobeying an elder.”

Still, the elders of that church should recognize that the congregation’s trust is not ultimately given but won through preaching truth, calling for wise votes that align with Scripture or its principles, and through abandoning error and those programs that would harm the church. In other words, elders should invite the congregation to vet their nominations of church officers as well as their other motions to ensure that the elders’ vision for the church wisely aligns with the Scriptures. To quote Baptist Father J.L. Dagg, “The only rule which they [the pastors] have a right to apply is that of God’s word; and the only obedience which they have a right to exact, is voluntary.”

J.L. Dagg
J.L. Dagg

When elders violate the Scriptures or enact unwise policies that harm the church and the bar for disobedience is reached, the church’s members should speak up. Leeman writes, “Good loyalty says, “I’m committed to you and your successes as a leader and that means I cannot follow you into folly or unrighteousness.” This speaking up is not a defect of congregationalism but its glory. As Dagg notes the best way to prevent a church from falling into error is to have congregations “well instructed in the truth.” Since even the best elders and elder boards can err, the congregation must be prepared to stand for truth and wisdom even if their elders do not.

To quote Leeman again, “the final judicial court of appeal is the whole congregation.” And when the whole congregation speaks on behalf of the Lord and rejects the elders’ poor leadership, the elders should listen, repent, and correct their course. Like King David who at the behest of his troops refrained from battling Absalom, elders should heed the biblical wisdom of their congregation (2 Sam 18:2-4), recognizing that the Holy Spirit resides in the pew just as assuredly as he resides in the elder board.  

Congregationalism in Action

Caleb Morell’s book A Light on the Hill helpfully demonstrates the preservative power of congregationalism in the face of erring leadership. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Agnes Shankle, a long time Sunday school teacher a Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC), raised concerns about her church’s pulpit committee’s recommendation to install a moderate as the church’s next pastor. After she spoke, others joined her opposition. United in their defense of the truth, the congregation of CHBC defeated their leaders’ recommendation and thereby saved their church from theological ruin. CHBC continues “as a Bible-believing, Gospel-preaching church” in-part because a faithful member challenged her leaders’ unbiblical and unwise recommendation.  

Trust and the SBC

SBC Leadership Flow Chart

Similarly, the willingness of the messengers to challenge the unbiblical and unwise actions of their leaders is neither a defect nor a rejection of Baptist polity but one of its truest expressions. The SBC entity heads should listen to their boards as pastors listen to their fellow elders or deacons. Moreover, there is a good deal to be said for bringing about reform through the SBC trustee process (the process by which messengers elect the SBC President who nominates other men and women who upon their election by the messengers to the nominating committee nominate other men and women who upon their election to the various SBC boards then elect SBC entity presidents). But that level of accountability does not absolve the leaders of the SBC from being accountable to the messengers. The biblical concerns of the messengers should be heard and not dismissed as (to quote Vance Pittman, the President of the Send Network), “100% BS.” Moreover, no number of Baptist Press editorials in support of the platform will convince messengers to trust those leaders who have led the executive committee into financial ruin, who have muddled the witness of the SBC to the broader culture, and who have undermined the theological integrity of the SBC.

The Path Forward

If the trajectory of the convention remains unchanged, I suspect there will be more division…more need for groups like The Baptist Review, The Center for Baptist Leadership, and The Association of Churches for Missions and Evangelism (ACME) to form and more churches withdrawing from the convention. To quote Leeman, “If one belongs to a church where he cannot trust the elders to make biblical decisions, he should find another church.”

And in such cases, the fault will lie not with the messengers nor with expressive individualism but with the SBC’s leadership…with the platform. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones aptly says of the Reformation, the cause of the church’s division at that time (and I would argue that of the SBC today) was not the reformers like Luther but the “state of the Roman Church that was the tragedy.” Speaking of voluntary Baptist associations, Baptist father Edward T. Hoscox concurs. He writes that the only option left for those who disagree with the trajectory of their association is to “refuse to affiliate, and withdraw.” In other words, messengers who do not trust the platform should not and will not forever remain with the platform.

If the SBC is to reverse its decline, its leaders must win the trust of the messengers and once again embrace congregationalism. They must hear the concerns of the Agnes Shankle’s in their midst and allow the wisdom of the Scriptures to triumph.

At the 2025 Annual Meeting, I encourage the stage to abandon its criticism of the messengers and to welcome their biblical corrections. I encourage the stage to join with the messengers and to help us pass the Law Amendment, the motions for increased transparency, and any other reform that will better align the SBC with the Scriptures. In short, I encourage the platform to renew its commitment to congregationalism.

Peter Witkowski Apologetics

Why I Support The Law Amendment: Missions, Lloyd-Jones and the Danger of Pragmatism

Without question, the Law Amendment and its call to restrict the office of pastor to qualified men has capture the attention of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Pastors, SBC entity presidents, and even Dr. Mohler of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary have published videos, blogs, and essays in defense of or in opposition to this amendment. Though the vote on the amendment can rightly be viewed as a referendum on whether the SBC will permit women to serve as pastors, it also represents an even more basic and existential question: will the convention be defined by the Scriptures or by pragmatism?

What About Missions?

Most who oppose the amendment do not do so for hermeneutical or Scriptural reasons. Like the amendments’ supporter, they recognize that 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1 and the Scriptures in general limit the office of pastor or elder to qualified men. The line, “I’m a complementarian but oppose the Law Amendment because….” has been used by many. The issue is not what does the Bible say but whether obedience to the Bible on secondary issues will prove too costly.

Most oppose the amendment because they fear such actions will dampen if not outright extinguish the SBC’s heart for missions. They view the Law Amendment as an attack on both the financial and the human resources needed to evangelize our nation and the world. Only with the help of churches who employ women pastors can the SBC hope to fulfill the great commission.

But such concern should not be seen as the exclusive domain of those opposed to the Law Amendment. Those in favor of the amendment also possess a passion for missions and fear that getting the amendment wrong could hurt missions. The disagreement over the amendment turns out not to be over whether or not to do missions but over how to best do missions. In other words, is the gospel best advanced by associations bound together by shared doctrinal convictions and a heart for biblical fidelity even if said group is small? Or is the gospel best advanced by large associations united by minimal convictions that can be remolded and even jettisoned for the sake of greater results? Scriptural authority or pragmatism?

What Can the 20th Century Teach Us?

While this discussion may prove novel to this generation of SBCers, it is not a new development. During the twentieth century, our evangelical brothers and sisters in England faced a similar dilemma. Seeking to evangelize the rapidly secularizing culture of post WW2 Britain, men such as John Stott encouraged evangelicals to embrace those who held doctrines at odds with traditional evangelical convictions for the sake of missions. The argument then as it is today consisted of a call to expand the circle of cooperation for the purpose of reaching the world…to look the other way when discussing things such as women pastors and the inerrancy of Scripture so that the busy coal miner, the over worked mom, and the poor youth could be won for the gospel. Pragmatism for the sake of salvations.

Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones who pastored Westminster Chapel during those tumultuous years shared Stott’s passion for evangelism. But the Welsh doctor disagreed with his fellow evangelical’s methodology. He feared that big tent pragmatism as represented by the ecumenical movement of his day would not foster but rather frustrate missions. According to Lloyd-Jones, missions was, “highly doctrinal.” Given that salvation depended upon a person’s acceptance of the Scriptures as God’s word, the deity of Jesus, and his substitutionary atonement and resurrection, the Welsh pastor believed that the church’s ability to reach the lost depended on the church’s faithful proclamation of and adherence to the Scriptures. He wrote, “If you want to help others you must know your doctrine.” Lloyd-Jones also noted in a sermon on Philippians 4:3 that, “If the church is not right…she grieves the Holy Spirit, and if she grieves the Holy Spirit, she loses her power and she cannot be a missionary Church.” Or as he stated a touch more positively elsewhere, “Do not be concerned about numbers. If we stand for God’s truth, we can be certain that God will honor and bless us.” If a church embraced women preachers or pastors (an act which the Scriptures “prohibits:) it would not enrich by starve its missional output. For Lloyd-Jones, doctrinal purity was not a missional suppressant or limitation but there very means by which the church would fan missions into flame. He concluded, “The real understanding of doctrine leads to a heart’s longing and desire and prayer for the salvation of the lost.”

Is this A Matter of Faith?

For the sake of Christian charity, one must admit that the discussions around the Law Amendment as did the ones in twentieth century England prove secondary and not primary. It is a discussion among brothers and sisters and not one of enemies. The open defense of women pastors does not negate one’s hope in the justifying power of Jesus’s blood. Nor do such positions necessarily arise from duplicity. The SBC would do well to embrace the charity that Lloyd-Jones extended to his opponents and assert with him that, “We do not impute wrong motives to them. We grant them that they are as sincere as we are and as honest as we are, and that they believe the gospel as we believe it.” Christians can disagree about over such things.    

Does Ecclesiology Matter?

But they cannot disagree about ecclesiology and hope to effectively evangelize the lost. As Lloyd-Jones noted, “If we want revival we must start by considering this doctrine of the nature of the Christian church.” Expanding upon this idea, Lloyd-Jones proclaimed, “You can be a Christian and yet defective in your doctrine, but our concern and our endeavor is to have true doctrine presented in its fullness because we believe that it is only as this is believed and preached and propagated that men and women are going to be converted and added to the church. When a church has gone wrong in doctrine, she has ceased to be a converting influence.” In other words, the success of missions depended upon an affirmation of the essentials of the faith and upon a biblical ecclesiology. Without such supports, missions would slowly die. And any denomination that either willfully or passively adopted an ecclesiology that runs counter to the Scriptures and that willfully dilutes its adherence to its doctrinal statement will not increase but rather destroy its missional output.

Moreover, such changes to secondary or even tertiary doctrines will (if unchallenged) undermine more than missions. They will eventually reach the central tenants of the gospel and destroy the very institutions they claim to be saving.  Lloyd-Jones observed, “Every part because it belongs to every other part…if you make what appears to be a minor change somewhere on the circumference it will soon have its effect even upon the center.” If Christians accept that the rejection of the Scriptures can lead to more conversions, then no doctrine will prove essential or uneditable. Given enough time, uncontested, evangelical pragmatism will hollow out even the most cherished of doctrines of the SBC.

What Happened in England?

Though some followed Lloyd-Jones’s advice and have continued to thrive, most British denominations and their evangelical cohorts rejected the Welsh pastor’s appeals and embraced the big tent pragmatism of their day. Unfortunately, that choice has proved costly. If researchers’ predictions hold true, most of England’s historic denominations will disappear by 2050. Even Stott’s beloved Anglican church is on pace to disappear around 2060.  In other words, Lloyd-Jones has been vindicated: missions cannot thrive apart from sound doctrine and ecclesiology.

What Will We Do?

Now we must decide. As the messengers gather in Indianapolis, they will undoubtedly speak to the question of women pastors. But in so doing, they will also speak to the essence of the convention. They will determine if the SBC is primarily a doctrinal people or a pragmatic people. To borrow from Lloyd-Jones, “The ultimate question facing us these days is whether our faith is in men and their power to organize, or in the truth of God in Christ Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.” May we choose wisely. May we Christ Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. May we choose the Law Amendment.