In Appreciation of Lloyd-Jones

Living in Sydney as I do, and daring to confess that I have a great deal of admiration for Lloyd Jones is a bit like confessing that I have engaged in cannibalism (without inhaling, of course), or some equally heinous crime. In other parts of the world (like the reformed circles of Wales, or I am given to understand, Korea), having anything negative to say about the Doctor is far worse than the odd spot of cannibalism. So, I thought I'd jump into the fray with both feet (my own, in case you are wondering), and add my two cents to all the reflections on the good Doctor - Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

First, a basic introduction for those of you with no background knowledge. Lloyd-Jones was a Welsh doctor, of the medical persuasion, who left medicine to preach. He wound up preaching in posh old London town, which he did without any discernible compromise, continuing to pray even when bombs were falling. (He was talking to God after all). He preached voluminously, spending 12 years preaching just through Romans. He loved the Puritans and is part of the reason why puritans have been republished through the Banner of Truth publishers (which he was involved in setting up). So, many puritan classics are now cheap and accessible. He longed for revival and really thought it could happen, drinking deeply from his Welsh heritages where revivals were part of the blood of the church.*

He was also incredibly eccentric. He went to the beach in a three piece suit and a bowler hat. And had a bizarre cure for sea-sickness, I seem to remember. He had little sense of humour, yet he was a really good listener, from accounts of people who knew him. I got the impression that he could be a tricky man to live with, being a determined, fairly intense kind of man with a slight sense of the practical.

He seems to have had a sense of purpose and direction that caught people up, and written recollections of him often read as hagiography. I'm pretty sure he would not be amused by them. Most of his preaching was transcribed and comes to us today in written sermon form as 'commentaries' on certain books of the Bible.

I feel I owe him a debt, for several reasons:
1. I used to babysit when I was 17 or so, and I got paid in Lloyd-Jones book. I considered this an excellent currency and still remember reading his commentaries on Ephesians in the train. I loved what he had to say. It was clear and real, and started to shift me from basing my faith on my own pietism and need to choose, to realising that God was bigger than I, and that I lived my life in his hands.
2. He wrote about suffering, and gave me the categories to know that God controls reality even when it changes colour, disintegrates and everything you 'know' is turned inside out. It would have been very hard to live without having that category somewhere in the mess that was inside my head.
3. He really didn't pull punches about sin. So, finding out that actually every single thing I have ever done, and everything I will ever do till the day I die, is full of sin (like fat in a steak), was very bad news. But it was and is believable, and more than that, he didn't see it as a complete defeat. Instead, he pointed us to Jesus and his death, and I learned that Jesus' death was not something to rejoice over in a past tense way, but was something I needed for every minute of every day. My sin wasn't a problem I could ever solve, but Jesus' death was not something I could ever 'use up' either.
4. He didn't bother with illustrations or fancy packaging. I like that in a preacher. Slickness is just unsatisfying in the end. Some people need it, I think, but some people don't, and he so didn't need it. I always felt engaged in serious conversations, rather than watching a collection of parlour tricks.

5. There are three things I still vividly remember reading (I remember where I was even!) and I think they gave me categories that have been particularly useful:

a. 'When people speak badly of you, and even when they say things about you that aren't true, they'll never actually capture how bad you really are'.
Which is cold comfort, but is useful to quell defensiveness.

b. 'If you want a spiritual experience, you'll get one. You might not get a spiritual experience of God, but you'll get a spiritual experience'.
This stopped me in my tracks and (I still remember when my heart started beating again), made me start to change the priorities I had when relating to God.

c. 'As human beings we are much more comfortable speaking about God than speaking about Christ, and we will move away from speaking about Christ to speaking about God'.
I wasn't sure he was right about this (horror!), but I totally get it now. I deliberately talk about Jesus sometimes to people who want to tell me all about their faith. They don't like it at all and go back to talking about 'God'. It's a good check up question for myself as well.

Such a very long post. But this is why I think the Doctor is a dude.

*This was actually accidental, but I left in for Synergy to appreciate, and for Carawen to go 'ew'.