By Wayne E. Shaw
James Stuart Stewart was selected as the greatest preacher of the twentieth century by Preaching Magazine in a poll of its readers and contributing editors shortly before the new millennium began.[1] The choice would have embarrassed Stewart and it surprised some of those polled, but not those of us who sat in his classes, visited in his home, devoured his books and fell under the spell of his preaching.
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Through his preaching and teaching, Stewart made Christian orthodoxy fascinating and applicable to daily life. His sermons demonstrate that he had a high view of the Bible and a supreme view of Jesus Christ. Also, his sermons and lectures are in a sense autobiographical because they reveal him as an able scholar, a uniquely gifted preacher, and a deeply devoted Christian.
Born July 21, 1896, in Dundee, Scotland, Stewart grew up in a home that was strongly Christian. His mother was the daughter of a minister and his father, William Stewart, worked for the YMCA in the afterglow of the Moody-Sankey revival that had swept across Scotland.
Among the influences in his formative years, he listed the ministers in his boyhood congregation, the Christian example of his parents, and an English teacher who put great stress on essays and required them to memorize “great chunks” of the poetry of their land.[2] He attended Edinburgh University and graduated with his college and seminary degrees from St. Andrews University.
After doing post-graduate study in Bonn, he was ordained into the Church of Scotland in 1924. For the next 23 years he carried on a busy ministry in three successive churches, preaching twice each Sunday, teaching classes, doing pastoral work and researching and writing at various levels. His pulpit work at North Morningside in Edinburgh gained him an international reputation. People came from far and wide to hear “Stewart of Morningside.”
In 1947 Stewart was called to the Chair of New Testament Language, Literature, and Theology at New College, Edinburgh University, where he served for nineteen years until his retirement in 1966. That appointment freed him not only to teach but also to fill pulpits throughout the British Isles and in many parts of the English speaking world. Students at New College said that his lectern sometimes became a pulpit, but his pulpit never became a lectern.
