The Born Again Preacher: George Whitefield on the New Birth (Ian Hugh Clary)

In the recent issue of Credo Magazine, “George Whitefield at 300,” Ian Hugh Clary contributed an article entitled, “The Born Again Preacher: George Whitefield on the New Birth.”

Ian Hugh Clary is finishing doctoral studies at the University of the Free State (Bloemfontein) where he is writing on Arnold Dallimore and the search for a usable past. He is co-editor (with Steve Weaver) of The Pure Flame of Devotion: A History of Christian Spirituality. Ian and his wife Vicky have three children, Jack, Molly, and Kate, and live in Toronto where they are members of West Toronto Baptist Church.

Here is the start of the article:

George Whitefield (1714-1770) has widely been lauded as one of Christianity’s greatest evangelists and preachers. His early biographer, John Gillies (1712-1796), wrote, “I often considered him as an angel flying through the midst of heaven, with the everlasting Gospel, to preach unto them that dwell on earth.” Though he gave the title of best preacher of all time to the Welsh revivalist Daniel Rowland (1713-1790), D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) nominated Whitefield as “the greatest English preacher of all time.” Arnold Dallimore (1907-1998), author of an important twentieth-century biography of Whitefield, said that he was “the greatest evangelist since the Apostle Paul.” While it is hard to know how to measure any one person as the greatest preacher—what standard can be used?—there is no doubt that the impulse behind such sentiments are true. Whitefield was a remarkable preacher.

Whitefield himself estimated that over the course of his seven trips to America, and his various preaching tours in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and even the Netherlands and the Caribbean, that he preached 18,000 times to some ten million hearers. He also revolutionized many of the media forms in the early modern period including print and sound amplification. It was basically unheard of in eighteenth-century England for an Anglican clergyman to preach in fields, but Whitefield did this when he was barred from pulpits in the Church of England. In Philadelphia Whitefield’s friend Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) performed an acoustic experiment and famously paced out 30,000 in attendance who could reasonably hear him at one of his sermons. Whitefield had the insight to situate himself in natural amphitheatres in order for his voice to carry across large spaces. Recent research using computer modeling has verified the likelihood of Franklin’s conclusions.

With this in mind, it is worth examining aspects of Whitefield’s preaching. For our purposes, we will look at how Scripture shaped Whitefield’s preaching ministry, his emphasis on the new birth, how he applied that emphasis to his hearers, and conclude with some brief reflections for preachers today. . . .

Read the rest of this interview today!

To view the Magazine as a PDF

We live in a day when those in the church want to have their ears tickled. We do not want a sermon, but a “talk.” “Don’t get preachy, preacher!” is the mantra of many church goers today. What is preferred is a casual, comfortable, and laid back chat with a cup of coffee and a couple of Bible verses to throw into the mix to make sure things get spiritual. One wonders whether Timothy would have been fired as a pastor today for heeding Paul’s advice: “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:2). Paul gives such a command to Timothy because he knew what was to come. “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Tim. 4:3-4). Has that day come? Are churches filled with “itching ears,” demanding “teachers to suit their own passions”? Have we turned “away from listening to the truth”?

In a day when ears itch and truth is shown the back door, what could be more needed than men who actually preach the Word? George Whitefield (1714-1770) was one of those men. He was a preacher who preached in plain language, so that even the most common man could understand God’s Word. Yet, his sermons were incredibly powerful, often leading men and women to tears as the Holy Spirit convicted their souls. Whitefield not only preached the truth, but he pleaded with his listeners to submit themselves body and soul to the truth. He preached God’s Word with passion because he understood that his listener stood between Heaven and Hell. His robust Calvinism, in other words, led to a zealous evangelism.

This year, 2014, marks the 300^th anniversary of Whitefield’s birth. These articles are meant to drive us back to Whitefield’s day, that we might eat up his theology, and drink deeply his passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Contributors include: Thomas Kidd, Lee Gatiss, Michael A.G. Haykin, Thomas Nettles, Ian Hugh Clary, Mike McKinley, Mark Noll, Doug Sweeney, and many others.