James Stalker Books: A Guide to All 14 and Where to Start
James Stalker (1848–1927) was a Scottish pastor and professor who wrote clear, short books for ordinary readers and students. Most of them are about Jesus Christ: His life, His death, His example and His teaching. TheWay Library has fourteen of them, all free to read, along with his studies of the two Johns, his Yale address The Four Men, a book on Christian psychology and a guide to the poetry of the Old Testament. For his life story, see who was James Stalker.
This guide sorts them so you can find what you need.
Where to start
Start with The Life of Jesus Christ. It's short, it's clear, and it's the book that made his name.
After that, choose by what you want:
- To follow Jesus in daily life: Imago Christi.
- For Holy Week or the Lord's Supper: The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ.
- To study Acts and Paul's letters: The Life of St. Paul.
- For your own character: The Seven Deadly Sins and The Seven Cardinal Virtues.
- If you preach or teach: The Preacher and His Models.
- For a short book to give a student or young adult: The Four Men.
- To read the Psalms, Job and the Song of Songs as poetry: The Beauty of the Bible.
Every quotation below is checked against the book it comes from. For many more, see our collection of James Stalker quotes.
The life of Christ
The Life of Jesus Christ
Stalker's compact life of Christ, written as a handbook for Bible classes in short numbered paragraphs. He covers the birth and youth of Jesus and the world He was born into, then divides the public ministry into the Year of Obscurity, the Year of Public Favour and the Year of Opposition, and closes with the last week, the cross and the resurrection. Hints and questions for teachers follow. It's a good first book on the Gospels.
No life ends even for this world when the body by which it has for a little been made visible disappears from the face of the earth.
The Life of Jesus Christ, Conclusion
Read The Life of Jesus Christ.
The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ
The fuller telling of the last scenes he covered briefly in the Life. The first half follows Jesus from Gethsemane through the trials before the high priest, Herod and Pilate, with chapters on Peter's denial and on Judas. The second half walks the road to Calvary and gives a chapter to each of the seven words from the cross. Stalker applies every scene to the reader's own heart.
No one is forsaken who can pray, "My God."
The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ, The Fourth Word from the Cross
Read The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ.
Imago Christi: The Example of Jesus Christ
Stalker starts from Thomas à Kempis's Imitation of Christ and sets out to show Christ's example in all of life, not just in the cloister. Seventeen chapters show Jesus in the home, the state, the church and society, and as friend, man of prayer, student of Scripture, worker, sufferer, winner of souls, preacher and teacher. It's practical and warm, and a fine book to read slowly, a chapter at a time. Read Imago Christi.
Studies of Jesus' teaching
These two are more scholarly, written for ministers and serious students.
- The Christology of Jesus: what Jesus taught about Himself in the Gospels, taken title by title: Son of Man, Son of God, Messiah, Redeemer and Judge. Each chapter begins with the passages it draws on.
- The Ethic of Jesus: Jesus' moral teaching in Matthew, Mark and Luke, arranged under the kingdom of God, righteousness, sin, repentance, faith, love to God and man, the family and the state. This edition was restored from a scan and has misread words, especially in the lists of Bible references, so read the Christology first.
As soon as the Church began to live, it began to pray to its ascended Lord.
The Christology of Jesus, The Judge
Lives of the apostles and of Knox
The Life of St. Paul
The companion to his Life of Jesus Christ, in the same numbered-paragraph style. It covers Paul's upbringing in Tarsus and Jerusalem, his conversion and his gospel, his three missionary tours, his letters and character, a picture of a church in Corinth, and the great argument over the law. This edition adds a foreword by Wilbert W. White and notes for teachers. Read The Life of St. Paul.
The Two St. Johns of the New Testament
Character studies of the two Johns. Twelve chapters follow John the apostle, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," from the Jordan to Patmos: his call by the lake, his place among the inner three, his fiery temper as a "son of thunder," his love for Jesus at the Last Supper and the cross, his old age and his writings. Seven more follow John the Baptist, from his priestly home and his preaching to his doubts in prison and his death at Herod's court.
Even a single friendship, with a specially gifted man or woman, may be the most golden memory of a life.
The Two St. Johns of the New Testament, St. John's Besetting Sin
John Knox: His Ideas and Ideals
A short life of the Scottish reformer in two halves. The first tells his story: his conversion, his time as a galley slave, his exile in Geneva and his leading part in the Scottish Reformation. The second explains his books, his convictions, his views on rulers, and the three documents of the Reformation in Scotland, including the Book of Discipline with its plan for schools and the poor.
It is the poignant and intolerable sense of sin that makes the soul cling to the cross of Christ.
John Knox, His Religious Convictions
Character and the inner life
Four books on the shape of a Christian life. The first two are a matching pair of short books for everyday Christians.
- The Seven Deadly Sins: pride, avarice, luxury (sexual sin), envy, appetite, anger and sloth, each described in its modern forms and set against what Christ offers. His chapter on sloth explains the old sin of accidie, spiritual listlessness.
- The Seven Cardinal Virtues: the four old virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance and justice, and the three Christian graces, faith, hope and love.
The normal effect of love to God is love to man.
The Seven Cardinal Virtues, Love
The Four Men, and Other Chapters
Eight short addresses, led by "The Four Men," which Stalker preached in the Yale chapel and D. L. Moody had printed for every student. From 1 Corinthians 4 he shows that each of us is four men: the one the world sees, the one a friend sees, the one we see, and the one God sees. Other chapters treat temptation, conscience, practical religion, public spirit, the evidence of faith, and youth and age. It's the shortest book here and a good gift for a young reader.
But people no longer respect the cloth, unless there is a man inside it.
The Four Men, and Other Chapters, Chapter IV: The Religion for To-Day
Christian Psychology
Lectures that take what the psychology of his day had learned about the mind and ask what it means for Christian growth. Stalker starts with the Bible's terms body, soul and spirit, then works through the senses, memory, imagination, habit, reason, the heart, the will and conscience, with practical counsel at each step on forming habits, guarding the imagination and training the will. Appendices cover the four temperaments and how evangelists such as Whitefield, Edwards and Moody worked with the mind. Read Christian Psychology.
The Bible as literature
The Beauty of the Bible
A guide to the poetry of the Old Testament. Stalker explains Hebrew parallelism and the kinds of poetry in Scripture, gathers the poems scattered through the history books, and then takes the Psalms, Lamentations, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, Job and the Song of Songs in turn, with a chapter on music in the Bible. He holds that inspiration made the writers more themselves, not less. Some chapter titles in our copy are damaged, but the text reads well.
Inspiration made the man who was under its influence not less but more himself.
The Beauty of the Bible, Introduction
For preachers
The Preacher and His Models
Stalker's Yale lectures on preaching. He holds up Isaiah, Jeremiah and the apostle Paul as patterns for the minister: his call, his message, his love for his people and his own walk with God. A chapter on the false prophets warns against preaching smooth things. It closes with an ordination charge on 1 Timothy 4:16. Read The Preacher and His Models.
Why read Stalker today
Stalker doesn't waste words. He picks out what matters in the life of Christ and puts it so plainly that you remember it. Begin with The Life of Jesus Christ, then go on to Imago Christi or The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ. All fourteen books are on the James Stalker author page.