http://www.e-n.org.uk/4777-What-we-can-learn-from-Charles-Simeon.htmWhat we can learn from Charles Simeon
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’.
2. Get your message across
Simeon knew that it was possible to be faithful as a preacher and yet ineffective because of a failure to communicate the message. He therefore stressed the need for clarity, emphasising the importance of three elements: ‘Unity in the design, Perspicuity in the arrangement, Simplicity in diction’.
By ‘unity’ Simeon meant that each sermon should have one ‘big idea’. The preacher’s task was to look beyond the details to discern the thrust of the text as a whole; that thrust should drive the sermon and be the focus of its message. There should be a short introduction and two or three sections with clear headings, all of which should contribute to the basic direction of the sermon and serve the main point of the passage. The content should all be delivered with clarity and passion.
There is perhaps a danger that in our renewed emphasis on ‘getting the Bible right’ in some circles, we have not given sufficient attention to ‘getting it across’, so that our preaching can be somewhat lifeless and dull. Nobody ever laid that charge against Simeon. One young girl listening to him speak asked her mother, ‘O Mama, what is the gentleman in a passion about?’ Would anyone ever think of asking such a question of us?
3. Expect opposition
The congregation at Holy Trinity had set their hearts on another pastor being appointed and resented the young Charles Simeon from the moment he arrived. Church pews were privately rented in those days and the pew holders took the opportunity to register their protest against the new curate by absenting themselves from the church and ensuring that no one sat in their seats by attaching locks to them. Simeon bought chairs and benches at his own expense and placed them in the aisle and at the back of the church but the wardens threw them into the churchyard, leaving most of the congregation standing for the first ten years of his ministry. When Simeon took the unusual step of starting an evening service to provide him with another opportunity to preach, the wardens responded by locking the church and carrying off the keys. Although by nature prone to a quick temper, he did not respond with anger but rather prayed, ‘May God bless them with enlightening, sanctifying and saving grace’.
4. Think strategically
Simeon was diligent in fulfilling his duties within his own parish, but his vision was never narrowly parochial but encompassed the whole nation. He had a clear sense of his own priorities, saying once: ‘Let every man see what his line of work is and keep to it. I have, as my work, undertaken to provide ministers for eternal souls’. That goal required him to focus on three tasks: recruiting, training and deploying.
Once Simeon spotted converted young men with potential as future gospel ministers, he made time to disciple and train them, both one-to-one and in small groups. He held weekly conversation parties, in which between 60 and 80 students would pack into his rooms, drink tea and ask him questions, as well as fortnightly sermon classes. Many of those Simeon trained struggled to find suitable jobs as ministers because of their evangelicalism. This prompted him to invest large sums of his own money to buy the right to appoint ministers to churches; by the time of his death there were 21 ‘livings’ in the Simeon Trust, which still exists to this day.
5. Have a global vision
Simeon’s passion to be used to raise up workers for the harvest field extended beyond Britain to the ends of the earth. He played an important part in the early days of the modern missionary movement, being a driving influence in the formation of the Church Missionary Society in 1799. His greatest impact was seen in India. The East India Company would not allow missionaries in their territories until 1813, so Simeon sought to get round this restriction by recruiting chaplains to serve the British community. Once there they would devote their spare time to learning local languages and translating the Bible into them. Among those who served in this way was Henry Martyn, who died aged 31 and yet, in his seven years in India, produced translations of the New Testament in Urdu, Arabic and Persian, which became the foundation for mission work in that region for years to come. Simeon hung Martyn’s portrait in his study and said that the young man’s eyes would look down and challenge him: ‘Don’t trifle!’
6. Be Bible Christians
Although himself a moderate Calvanist, Simeon resisted party labels and pleaded with Christians to interpret the Bible in its natural sense rather than squeezing it to conform to a particular system. ‘God has not revealed his truth in a system’, he said. ‘Lay aside system and fly to the Bible. Be Bible Christians, and not system Christians.’ He knew that it is possible to be more logical than biblical and insisted that, on occasions, ‘The truth is not in the middle, and not in one extreme, but in both extremes’. That is not to say that Simeon rejected any systematisation of theology. He recognised the value of a framework in ensuring a text was interpreted in the light of the whole of the Bible’s teaching, but resisted its over-rigid application.
7. Walk closely with Christ
Simeon was far from perfect, having a natural tendency to a rather haughty manner and short temper. After he had visited Henry Venn as a young Christian, the old man’s daughters commented on his faults. Venn responded by asking them to fetch him a peach from the garden. They thought it was a strange request as it was early summer and all the peaches were still green and unripe. The father then said: ‘We must wait; but a little sun and a few more showers and the peach will be ripe and sweet. So it is with Mr. Simeon’.
Sure enough, Simeon grew in godliness as he gave himself to the disciplines of Bible-reading, prayer and battling with sin. Despite his busy life he managed to resist a descent into mere professionalism as a minister, but rather ensured that he sustained a vibrant spiritual life. He rose each morning at 4.00 am and devoted the first four hours of the day to prayer and devotional study of Scripture. In his own instructions to others about pastoral ministry Simeon stressed: ‘The whole state of your own soul before God must be the first point to be considered; for if you yourself are not in a truly spiritual state of mind, and actually living upon the truths which you preach or read to others, you will officiate to very little purpose.’
8. Stick at it!
Simeon knew that it was not enough to recruit, train and deploy a new generation of gospel ministers if they were then to drift off course as the years went by. He therefore also gave attention to ensuring that they were maintained in faithful ministry, praying for his younger disciples, regularly writing to them and encouraging them to meet together. He himself was an outstanding model of perseverance: despite great opposition for decades, he never wavered from the task of preaching the gospel and only stopped active ministry when illness confined him to bed. After he died on November 13 1836 his grateful parishioners placed a plaque in the church, which simply read: ‘In Memory of the Rev. Charles Simeon, M.A., Senior Fellow of King's College, and fifty-four years vicar of this parish; who, whether as the ground of his own hopes, or as the subject of all his ministrations, determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified’.
This article is based on an address given by Vaughan Roberts (of St. Ebbe's, Oxford) at the Evangelical Ministry Assembly in June 2009.
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