The Radical Disciple

Written by John Stott and Robert Coote Reviewed By Vaughan Roberts

It is entirely fitting that John Stott should have chosen the theme of discipleship for this, his final book. He will no doubt be honoured for many years to come as one of the chief human agents in the resurgence and spread of evangelicalism in the second half of the twentieth century. His gifts as a preacher, writer, pastor, evangelist, theologian, and statesman have been greatly used around the world, but there is no doubt that he himself would want to be remembered above all as simply a follower of Christ. His many years of consistent, humble, and wholehearted Christian service since his conversion as a teenager in the 1930s are the backdrop to this moving book and add greatly to its power.

John Stott focuses on eight characteristics of radical discipleship: non-conformity, Christlikeness, maturity, creation-care, simplicity, balance, dependence, and death. It is a personal and, by his own admission, arbitrary selection of subjects which he regrets are too often neglected in contemporary Christian reflection. Readers of his other books will soon recognise familiar themes and features. Once again we encounter a master bridge-builder “relating God’s never changing word to our ever-changing world” (to quote John Stott’s own words in I Believe in Preaching). Every statement is rooted in Scripture and then applied to the realities of twenty-first-century life, such as pluralism, materialism, narcissism, and the ecological crisis. The fact that so much ground is covered in only 140 widely spaced pages is testimony to the author’s remarkable lucidity and economy of style. The book abounds with pithy aphorisms that take us right to the heart of the matter in hand. A typical example in the second chapter on “Christlikeness” summarises a conviction which undergirds the whole book: “if we claim to be Christian, we must be like Christ.”

For me the last two chapters are most striking, largely because of a greater degree of personal vulnerability than appears in any of John Stott’s other books. His reflection on “dependence” in chapter seven begins with a description of his own weakness after a recent fall which left him “spreadeagled on the floor, completely dependent on others.” This was followed by a period of emotional weakness which expressed itself in tears before friends which we can imagine caused great distress to a product of “one of the so-called ‘public’ schools where one is supposed to be taught the philosophy of the stiff upper lip.” He was reminded, however, of a lesson taught him by the man who led him to Christ, that humiliation is the road to humility: “having plumbed the depths of utter helplessness, it would be impossible to climb the hill of self-confidence.” We gain a glimpse of an elderly saint struggling with the frustrating incapacities and indignities of old-age and yet striving for godly contentment within them. He is fortified by the example of Christ who was born a baby, completely dependent on his mother, “and if dependence was appropriate for the God of the Universe, it is certainly appropriate for us.”

In the final chapter on death, John Stott reflects on “one of the profoundest paradoxes in the Christian faith: life through death.” It is only through the substitutionary death of Christ that we can enjoy spiritual life and friendship with God. The principle of life through death must then be the pattern of our discipleship as we take up our crosses until the day we die. Physical death holds no horror for the Christian because Christ has risen and will return and then clothe us with resurrection bodies in the new creation. The author has often expounded these truths before, but they are communicated with extra power now that he writes as an eighty-eight-year old man for whom “the end is in sight” and who has therefore been “reflecting much about these things.” When he writes “the best is yet to come,” he is not reciting a glib phrase but proclaiming a deep conviction.

In a postscript John Stott says goodbye to his readers now that he is laying down his pen for the last time. He expresses a confident hope that books will continue to have a future and urges us to keep reading them. Books are unique, he says, and with our favourite ones we can even develop “an almost living and affectionate relationship.” We could say the same about their authors. I have met John Stott on only a few occasions, and yet through his many works he has been a hugely important mentor and guide to me since a friend gave me his Bible Speaks Today commentary on the Sermon on the Mount a few weeks after my conversion with the words, “read it: there is gold on every page.” As Stott signs off by bidding us farewell, his many readers will want to respond with a heartfelt thank you. We thank the Lord for all he has given us through his servant, and we are full of gratitude to John Stott himself for teaching us through his many books how to know, love, and serve Christ with such faithfulness, clarity, and integrity.


Vaughan Roberts

St Ebbe’s Church

Oxford, England, UK

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