Who Was William Garden Blaikie? Free Church Pastor and Bible Expositor

Biography Church History Commentary

William Garden Blaikie was a Scottish minister, professor and writer who lived from 1820 to 1899. He was one of the young ministers who left the Church of Scotland in the Disruption of 1843 to form the Free Church. He served twenty-four years as pastor of a working-class congregation in Edinburgh, then twenty-nine years as a professor at New College, training ministers. Today he's best known for three volumes in The Expositor's Bible, on Joshua, First Samuel and Second Samuel, and for his biographies of David Livingstone and Thomas Chalmers.

Here's a closer look at his life, what he taught, and which of his books to start with.

Aberdeen and Edinburgh

Blaikie was born in Aberdeen on February 5, 1820. His father, James Blaikie, was a lawyer who became provost (mayor) of the city. William studied at Marischal College in Aberdeen and took his degree young. He then went to Edinburgh to study divinity, and there he sat under Thomas Chalmers, the most famous preacher and churchman in Scotland. That teacher shaped the rest of his life. Fifty years later Blaikie wrote of his time as Chalmers's student as one of the great privileges of his life.

The Disruption

In 1842 Blaikie was ordained minister of Drumblade, a country parish in Aberdeenshire. He had barely settled when the Church of Scotland split. The quarrel was over whether congregations or wealthy patrons and the civil courts should decide who their ministers would be. In May 1843 more than four hundred ministers, led by Chalmers, walked out of the General Assembly and formed the Free Church of Scotland. Blaikie went with them. He gave up his church, his manse and his salary at twenty-three.

Late in life he wrote a book on the Disruption, After Fifty Years, and he was the last Moderator of the Free Church who had been a minister before 1843.

Pilrig: a pastor among working people

In 1844 Blaikie became minister of a new Free Church congregation at Pilrig, on the road between Edinburgh and Leith. He stayed until 1868. It was a district of working families, and Blaikie followed the pattern Chalmers had taught: a church that took responsibility for the people in its own streets.

He visited homes, preached, and pressed for better living conditions. His little book Better Days for Working People sold in large numbers. He helped found an association that built decent homes for working families, the Pilrig Model Buildings. He was a strong temperance reformer. Later, with his wife Margaret, he ran a home that took in children from homes broken by drink and found new families for many of them, some in Canada.

He also edited church magazines and a literary review, and he wrote for ordinary readers. His Bible History told the story of Scripture for young people. His Personal Life of David Livingstone, written from Livingstone's letters and journals, became the standard popular life of the missionary.

Professor at New College

In 1868 the Free Church elected Blaikie professor of apologetics and pastoral theology at New College, Edinburgh. He taught there until 1897. His job was to prepare young men to defend the faith and to care for a congregation, and he wrote a book on the subject, For the Work of the Ministry. In the preface to his life of Chalmers, he notes that his chair was one of the two created at New College in place of the single chair Chalmers had held.

Blaikie also worked to bring Presbyterian churches around the world together. After a visit to America in 1870 he became one of the main founders of what is now the World Communion of Reformed Churches, and he served it for years. In 1892 the Free Church made him Moderator of its General Assembly. When D. L. Moody came to Scotland, Blaikie welcomed him and supported his meetings.

He died at North Berwick on June 11, 1899, at seventy-nine. His autobiography, Recollections of a Busy Life, appeared after his death.

What he taught

Blaikie's Bible books read like the preaching of a wise pastor. He takes an Old Testament story, explains what happened, and then asks what it shows about God and about us. He never treats the history as a fable. He reads it as the real story of God's purpose, and he finds Christ at the end of it. Summing up the two books of Samuel, he wrote:

The history delineated is not that of the kingdom of Israel, but that of the kingdom of God.
The Expositor's Bible: The Second Book of Samuel, The Two Books of Samuel

He loved to show God's grace running ahead of human seeking. On David's kindness to Mephibosheth, the lame grandson of Saul, he said:

The sight to be seen in this world has not been that of men seeking after God, but that of God seeking after men.
The Expositor's Bible: The Second Book of Samuel, David and Mephibosheth

He was plain about sin. In Achan, who hid stolen treasure in his tent and brought defeat on the whole army, he saw how secret sin harms other people and how no one can hide from God. And he was plain about the gospel. When he came to the cities of refuge in Joshua, he wrote that they point to Christ, and he drew the line clearly:

What Christ saves from is not our misfortune but our guilt.
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Joshua, The Cities of Refuge

Like his teacher Chalmers, he refused to split faith from ordinary life. A Christian's work, home and money all belong to God:

All that is right is religious; all that is according to the will of God is spiritual.
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Joshua, The Distribution of the Land

That conviction explains why the same man wrote Bible commentaries, campaigned for better housing, and trained pastors to visit the poor.

Why he's still read

Blaikie isn't the most famous name of the Free Church, but his books on Joshua and Samuel have lasted because they're so useful. They follow the Bible story chapter by chapter, they're clear, and they always end with something to do or to believe. A Sunday school teacher, a preacher or a reader working through these books on their own will find a sensible guide who knows the text and loves the people in it: Hannah praying, Jonathan giving up a crown for a friend, David falling and being restored.

His life of Chalmers is still one of the best short introductions to Scotland's great preacher, written by a man who knew him.

Where to start

TheWay Library has five of Blaikie's books, all free to read:

The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Samuel is the best place to start. It runs from Hannah's prayer to the death of Saul, with fine chapters on prayer, on Saul's self-will and on the friendship of David and Jonathan.
The Second Book of Samuel carries on with David's reign, his sin with Bathsheba, his repentance and Absalom's revolt.
The Book of Joshua follows the conquest and the dividing of the land, with chapters on Rahab, Achan, Caleb and God's faithfulness.
Thomas Chalmers is his short biography of his old teacher. For more on Chalmers himself, see who was Thomas Chalmers.
Saving Knowledge: Addressed to Young Men is a plain explanation of the way of salvation, from sin and God's gift of His Son to faith, the new birth and holiness, written with his fellow Free Church minister Thomas Guthrie.

Our guide to William Garden Blaikie's books describes each one, and our collection of William Garden Blaikie quotes gathers his best lines. You'll find all of them on the William Garden Blaikie author page.