Jars of Clay: Reflections on John Stott by Eleanor Trotter

Yesterday my favourite earthenware pot developed a crack. Actually no, it has been there for a while but I’d been in denial. That pencil-like line on the bottom might be a flaw. Or something scraped on by too much use – maybe?

The silent drip, drip of tomato juice on the work surface told a different story. It was leaking. I must have plunged the thing into cold water when it was too hot. Soon it would be two halves; fodder for the bottom of a garden planter.

For the last five or six years of John Stott’s life I was his Editor. Together we shared the joys and challenges of building a book. Back when Uncle John was London-based we attended London Lectures committee meetings together. On another occasion we sat in that tiny living-room in Weymouth Street where a bird clock heralded the end of meetings on the hour with the finality of an ejector button. Then John moved to The College of St Barnabas, and much of the contact was through Frances Whitehead, aptly named John’s ‘right hand’.

What stands out from the mix of memories?

Those twinkly eyes. The unruffled feathers when he arrived at a posh club venue without a tie and nearly got turned away. The open-handed generosity – ‘Would you like this book?’

He was such easy company and genuinely kind. Suddenly you’d find him standing beside you, asking where you’d come from, how long your journey had taken and what time you’d eventually get home. And he wanted to know the answers.

Money was his servant, not his master. All his book royalties went to Langham Literature, not into his own coffers. He’d grasped the Christ of the Bible as depicted in Frank Houghton’s hymn:

‘Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,

All for love’s sake becamest poor;

Thrones for a manger didst surrender,

Sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.’

My friend Jeanette tells of a conference session Uncle John attended, where the vexed issue of men and women’s ministry was being discussed. Emotions ran high, and you could have sliced the air like bread for sandwiches at one point. The details are long-forgotten, but during the break a trolly emerged, rattling with cups and saucers. There behind it was John Stott, offering tea to all and sundry, likely unaware of the statement he was making.

At IVP John Stott was the author with the most books published and translated (by a long shot), as well as a string of awards. Despite this, he showed little trace of pride or arrogance.

If you’ve read the biographies, then you will know that these traits were no accident. Uncle John well knew the importance of communion with God and keeping short accounts in his Christian life. Christlikeness, not success, was his aim, as epitomised in his memorable final talk at Keswick Convention in 2007:

‘The most effective preaching comes from those who embody their message. What communicates now are people, not words or ideas, but rather personal authenticity. That is Christlikeness!’

Since John Stott’s death I have worked, with permission from his Literary Executors, on The Contemporary Christian, crafting it into five standalone volumes for new generations of readers. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve stopped to consider a delightfully constructed sentence or a freshly illuminated truth. It’s no wonder that a recent conference with a focus on Ephesians included asides about core content being from John Stott’s Bible Speaks Today, ‘thinly disguised’. It was!

As believers, we know the foundational truth that we are saved by grace and kept by God’s power. But at a time when we’re seeing Christian figures with public platforms fall from grace, perhaps my earthenware pot has more lessons than the 2 Corinthians metaphor. Maybe today’s cracks were once deemed little fissures, ‘small’ sins which didn’t seem to warrant attention?

It doesn’t need to be this way. And many of God’s servants were faithful, obedient and meticulous in their walk with God, living with his eye upon them, aware that the hairline crack today could eventually split the whole dish. I believe that John Stott was one of them.