Charles Haddon Spurgeon was called the “Prince of Preachers”, but Alexander Maclaren was called the “Prince of Expositors”.
In a day when great pastoral ministry is often measured either by the pastor’s ability to have a lucrative speaking career outside of his church or to write books for the masses; Alexander Maclaren’s outstanding work ethic outshines the exploits of the ‘famous’ preachers of our time.
Born in Glasgow, Scotland February 11, 1826 into a Baptist nonconformist family, Maclaren knew from his youth that he was called to be a pastor and he never considered any other vocation. His father, David Maclaren was a devout Christian business man, who could be called a lay minister. He had to travel to Australia sometime in the 1830’s and lived there for four years, and while there he founded a church in Adelaide. While the senior Maclaren was gone, his son was born-again and baptized shortly after in 1840. He was fourteen years old.
After beginning college at the University of Glasgow, he completed his seminary education in Stepney at the Baptist College there (after the family moved to England) and Maclaren excelled in his studies. He loved the original biblical languages of Hebrew and Greek and graduated with honors in both. For the rest of his life, Maclaren daily read one chapter of the Old Testament in Hebrew and one in the New Testament in Greek. He also did all of his work for his sermons from the original languages.
In 1845, he received his first pastorate in Southampton where he took over for an incompetent pastor who had led the church Portland Chapel into debt and disrepair and thus given the church a bad reputation in the community. The work Maclaren devoted to the Chapel caused it to prosper. Many came to Christ and the area came to know the young preacher. He married in 1856 and two years later was called to preach at Union Chapel in Manchester. He accepted and began a forty-five year career that gave him the name “Maclaren of Manchester.”
Maclaren’s habit of study was first begun at school and he continued this as a pastor. He was known to devote sixty hours to the preparation of a single message. He stayed home, did his work and the church grew. The church in Manchester moved to a new building that seated about fifteen hundred. Yet he kept up his disciplines, refusing most invitations and studying the Word and feeding his people. Maclaren often refused speaking engagements, including one to Yale, to speak on preaching. He felt that, “To efface one’s self is one of the preacher’s first duties. The herald should be lost in his message.” It was obvious that he made a conscious decision to remain a humble and single-minded preacher.
Maclaren was a true expositor; he let the Bible speak for itself. He studied a passage in the original language; then he meditated on it, seeking out the divine truth. He said that he never wore his slippers when he was working on a message, he wore his work boots to remind himself that he was indeed working, and the work was hard. He took the study time and sermon preparation time very seriously and it is evident in his body of work and his length of service. The two key components of his ministry were devotion and discipline. Yet he did not look on the Bible as simple fodder for his own sermons. He looked upon it rightly as the very source of his spiritual life and power. He sought to understand the mind and heart of God. When he found a truth, he first applied it to his own life and then he sought the best way in which to share it with his church. There was a conscious effort made to present the truth so anyone could grasp it and apply it to their life.
The sermons that came from him were recorded by stenographers and were masterful in composition, though he preached from outlines, rather than complete notes. The sermons were then published each week in the Manchester Guardian, and were also published in book form. After his retirement, he undertook what became a 31-volume pastoral commentary entitled Expositions of Holy Scripture, creating sermonic analysis for virtually all of the books of the Bible.
One of the only posts he agreed to take outside of his church was that of the president of the Baptist Union. And this was only done later in his life after he had retired from active preaching. He was a contemporary of Spurgeon and was aware of the Down-Grade controversy. He was to be part of the delegation of four men that went to speak with Spurgeon but had become ill. It is thought that he would have been one who was sympathetic to Spurgeon and would have agreed with him.
Alexander Maclaren died May 10, 1910 but his godly life, godly work-ethic, devotion and discipline remain a model for Christians today.
A note on his name: The name was originally spelled McLaren, but Alexander changed the spelling during his student days. He said he didn’t like the Highland way of spelling his name.
