John Robert Walmsley Stott (27 April 1921—27 Julie 2011) was sekerlik een van die grootste regsinnige teoloë van die twintigste eeu. Ek het enorme waardering vir sy skryfwerk, veral sy handvol Nuwe Testamentiese kommentare. As ek 'n Skrifgedeelte in die Nuwe Testament onder die knie wil kry, kan ek 'n halfdosyn kommentare deurwerk, totdat ek by Stott se eenvoudige skryfwerk uitkom. Dan weet ek ek het eksegeties gearriveer.
As jy 'n Bybelstudent is (en elke Christen behoort een te wees), leer Stott ken!
Onderstaande is 'n paragraaf uit die boek: Tim Chester: Stott on the Christian Life, p.12-13.
Stott was far from simply an echo of the consensus. On a number of issues, he fought for the positions he held, sometimes countering opposite extremes simultaneously.
On the doctrine of Scripture, for example, he battled both liberalism and fundamentalism.
On missions, he fought an ecumenical missiology that neglected evangelism and a narrow evangelical missiology that neglected social action.
Instinctively irenic by temperament, he brought together divided evangelicals on many issues. But he was also ready and willing to stand his ground. Scripture was always his ultimate authority, and he was willing to follow wherever it led. One of his books was originally entitled Christ the Controversialist. In it he draws lessons from Christ’s confrontations with the people of his day, making Christ’s approach a model for a contemporary willingness to stand firm on the truth. “Certainly every right-thinking person will avoid unnecessary controversy, and we should steer clear of argument for argument’s sake. . . . But we cannot avoid controversy itself. ‘Defending and confirming the gospel’ is part of what God calls us to do.” So, for example, Stott defended substitutionary atonement at a moment when it might easily have been eclipsed, and he redirected evangelicalism away from a prevailing quietistic approach to sanctification.
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