Who Was Alexander Maclaren? The Manchester Prince of Expositors
Alexander Maclaren was a Scottish Baptist preacher who lived from 1826 to 1910. He spent almost his whole ministry in two English churches: about twelve years in Southampton, then forty-five years at Union Chapel in Manchester. He became one of the best-known preachers in the English-speaking world, and his sermons fill dozens of volumes, above all the Expositions of Holy Scripture, which walk through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. People called him the "prince of expositors," because he made the meaning of a Bible passage plain and then pressed it on the heart.
Here's a fuller look at his life, his way of preaching, and which of his books to start with.
Early years in Glasgow
Maclaren was born in Glasgow on February 11, 1826. His father, David Maclaren, was a merchant who also preached as a lay pastor among the Baptists. Alexander grew up in a home where the Bible was read and taught with care. He studied at the Glasgow High School and at the University of Glasgow, and he made his own profession of faith while still a boy.
At sixteen he went to London to train for the ministry at Stepney College, a Baptist school. There he studied Hebrew and Greek under a teacher he admired, and he took a degree from the University of London, winning prizes in both languages. That early love for the original languages of the Bible stayed with him all his life.
Southampton
In 1846, not yet twenty-one, Maclaren became pastor of Portland Chapel in Southampton. It was a small, struggling congregation. Accounts of his life say he was glad of a small church that left him time to study. He gave himself to careful preparation, and the church slowly grew under his preaching. During these years he married his cousin, Marie Pullar, who shared his work for many years. Her death in the 1880s was one of the great sorrows of his life.
Forty-five years in Manchester
In 1858 Maclaren was called to Union Chapel in Manchester, a busy industrial city in the north of England. He stayed until he retired in 1903, and the church then made him pastor emeritus. Under his ministry the congregation outgrew its building and moved into a large new chapel, which was filled week after week.
He did not build his name on anything but preaching. He was known for keeping long, guarded hours in his study and for giving little time to committees and social calls, so that he could prepare. He read his Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament daily. On Sunday he preached from careful notes, and he often divided his text into a few clear heads that his hearers could carry home.
The city came to love him. In 1896, citizens of Manchester had his portrait painted for the city art gallery. He was twice president of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, and in 1905 he presided over the first Baptist World Congress in London. The universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow gave him honorary degrees.
How he preached
Maclaren's gift was to take one verse or one short passage, explain what it meant in its setting, and then show what it meant for the person in the pew. He didn't tell many stories, and he didn't try to be clever. His sermons are full of short, clear sentences that sum up a truth in a line.
On the work of Christ in a believer, for example, he could say:
The Christ in the heart will be the Christ in the face and in the life.
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. Luke, Prayer and Transfiguration
And on where a Christian's strength comes from:
Our power is God's power in us, and our faith is the power with which we grasp God's power and make it ours.
The Secret of Power and Other Sermons, The Secret of Power
He preached Christ from every part of Scripture. When he came to the book of Acts, he read it as the story of the risen Lord still at work through His people:
The very keynote of this Book of the Acts is the work of the ascended Christ in and for His Church.
Expositions of Holy Scripture: the Acts, The First Preaching at Antioch
He was also a man of prayer. A volume of his Pulpit Prayers, offered in public worship at Union Chapel, was printed after his death. They are full of Scripture and reverence, and they show the same warmth as his sermons.
A man who guarded his time with God
Maclaren practiced what he preached about hidden time with God. He believed that the busier a Christian is, the more he needs to be alone with his Lord. He put it like this in a sermon on the Psalms:
The more any of us are trying to do for Jesus Christ, the more need there is that we increase our secret communion with Jesus Christ.
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Psalms, Life Hid and Not Hid
That conviction explains the quiet, steady shape of his life. He wasn't a great traveler or organizer. He was a student of the Bible who prayed, prepared and preached, Sunday after Sunday, for more than half a century.
His books
Maclaren's sermons were printed all through his ministry, in volumes like The Secret of Power, The Beatitudes and Other Sermons and The God of the Amen. He also wrote three volumes on the Psalms and one on Colossians and Philemon for The Expositor's Bible, a series of commentaries for general readers. In his last years he gathered his preaching on the whole Bible into the Expositions of Holy Scripture, a set of many volumes that he finished shortly before he died.
He died on May 5, 1910, at eighty-four.
Why he's still read
Preachers have kept Maclaren on their shelves for more than a century because he shows how to stay close to the text and still speak to real life. Ordinary readers keep him because he writes about the love of God in Christ with such steady warmth. He's never in a hurry, and he never leaves you without pointing you to Jesus.
Where to start
TheWay Library has more than forty of his books, all free to read. If you're new to him, start with Music for the Soul, a year of daily readings chosen from his sermons. If you'd like to see him preach through a book of the Bible, try his sermons on the Psalms, or his verse-by-verse commentary on the first thirty-eight Psalms. For a short devotional book, try Leaves from the Tree of Life.
Our guide to Alexander Maclaren's books explains how all of them fit together, and our collection of Alexander Maclaren quotes gathers his best lines. You'll find all his books on the Alexander Maclaren author page.