Who Was James Stalker? Scottish Pastor and Author of Life of Christ
James Stalker was a Scottish minister and teacher who lived from 1848 to 1927. He pastored two large Free Church congregations, in Kirkcaldy and in Glasgow, and then taught church history and Christian ethics at the United Free Church College in Aberdeen. He's best known for The Life of Jesus Christ, a short handbook he wrote for Bible classes that has been read by students and Sunday school teachers around the world for well over a century. He also wrote Imago Christi, on following the example of Jesus, and The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ, a devotional study of the passion.
Here's a fuller look at his life, what he taught, and which of his books to start with.
Early years and training
Stalker was born in 1848 in Crieff, a small town in Perthshire, Scotland. He studied at the University of Edinburgh, where he did very well, and then trained for the ministry of the Free Church of Scotland at New College, Edinburgh. Like many bright Scottish students of his day, he also spent time at the universities of Berlin and Halle in Germany. He came home with a scholar's training and a pastor's heart, and he kept both all his life.
Pastor in Kirkcaldy
In 1874 Stalker became minister of St. Brycedale Church in Kirkcaldy, a busy town on the Firth of Forth. He stayed about thirteen years. It was there he began teaching the Bible classes that led to his first books. His Life of Jesus Christ came out around 1880 in a series of handbooks for Bible classes, and The Life of St. Paul followed a few years later. Both are set out in short numbered paragraphs, made to be taught and remembered.
The Life of Jesus Christ divides the public ministry into three parts: the Year of Obscurity, the Year of Public Favour and the Year of Opposition. Stalker keeps the reader's eye on the great turns of the story, and on Christ Himself:
But the centre and soul of His preaching was Himself.
The Life of Jesus Christ, The Year of Public Favour
The little book spread far beyond Scotland. It was reprinted many times and translated into other languages, and teachers still use it as a first life of Christ.
Glasgow
In 1887 Stalker moved to St. Matthew's Church in Glasgow, one of the large city congregations of the Free Church. He preached there for about fifteen years. During these years he wrote Imago Christi: The Example of Jesus Christ, which begins from Thomas à Kempis's Imitation of Christ. Stalker loved that old book but felt it belonged to the monastery. He wanted to show Christ as the pattern for life in the home, at work, in the state, in friendship and in the church. On work, for example, he wrote:
The Jews expected the Messiah to be a prince; but God decreed that He should be born a working man.
Imago Christi, Christ as a Worker
In 1891 he gave the Lyman Beecher Lectures on preaching at Yale, published as The Preacher and His Models. He held up the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah and the apostle Paul as patterns for ministers, and he pressed young preachers to guard their hidden life with God. He ends the book with an ordination charge he had written early in his own ministry:
These hours of quietness are our real life!
The Preacher and His Models, An Ordination Charge
A few years later came The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ, which follows Jesus from Gethsemane to the tomb and gives a chapter to each of the seven words from the cross. It's one of his warmest books, and a good one for the weeks before Easter.
Professor in Aberdeen
In 1902 Stalker was appointed professor of church history at the United Free Church College in Aberdeen, and a few years later he took on Christian ethics too. He taught there until he retired in the mid-1920s. These years produced his more scholarly books: The Christology of Jesus, on what Jesus taught about Himself; The Ethic of Jesus, on His moral teaching in the first three Gospels; and John Knox: His Ideas and Ideals, a short life of the Scottish reformer.
He also wrote two companion books for ordinary readers, The Seven Deadly Sins and The Seven Cardinal Virtues. Stalker noted that the old list of deadly sins was rarely treated by Protestant writers, and he took each one, from pride to sloth, and showed how Christ overcomes it.
The essence of sin is selfishness, and pride is the inordinate assertion of self; it would annihilate others, and it disdains to be prescribed to even by God.
The Seven Deadly Sins, Pride
Stalker died in 1927.
What he taught
Stalker's books keep coming back to one subject: Jesus Christ. He wrote about His life, His death, His example, His teaching about Himself and His moral teaching. He wanted readers to know the real Jesus of the Gospels and then to follow Him in ordinary life.
He also believed Christ does more than show the way. In The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ, writing of Pilate's "Behold the man," he says:
He is not only the image of perfection but the Saviour from sin.
The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ, The Shipwreck of Pilate
And in his study of Jesus' teaching on Himself, he points out that the first Christians did not treat Jesus as a teacher only:
As soon as the Church began to live, it began to pray to its ascended Lord.
The Christology of Jesus, The Judge
Why he's still read
Stalker wrote clearly and briefly, and he knew how to pick out what matters. His lives of Christ and Paul still serve as good first books for anyone starting to study the Gospels or Acts. Imago Christi and The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ still help readers see Jesus more clearly and love Him more. And preachers still find in The Preacher and His Models a serious, kind word about their calling.
Where to start
TheWay Library has fourteen of his books, all free to read. If you're new to him, start with The Life of Jesus Christ, short enough to read in an evening or two. Then read Imago Christi on following Christ's example, or The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ for Holy Week. If you're studying Acts or the letters, try The Life of St. Paul.
Our guide to James Stalker's books explains how all fourteen fit together, and our collection of James Stalker quotes gathers his best lines. You'll find everything on the James Stalker author page.