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Who Was William Kelly? The Brethren Scholar and Bible Teacher

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William Kelly was an Irish Bible teacher and scholar who lived from 1821 to 1906. He was one of the leading teachers among the early Plymouth Brethren, a close co-worker of John Nelson Darby, and the editor of Darby's Collected Writings. For almost fifty years he edited a magazine called The Bible Treasury, and he wrote lectures or notes on every book of the Bible. He held no church office and took no salary. He was a classical scholar who chose to spend his learning on plain Bible teaching for small gatherings of believers.

Here's a look at his life, what he taught, and where to start reading him.

From County Down to Sark

Kelly was born in May 1821 at Millisle, a village in County Down in the north of Ireland. His father died when he was young. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was trained in the classics, and he had a fine command of Greek and Hebrew all his life.

To support himself he became a tutor, first in the family of the rector of Sark, one of the Channel Islands, and then in the household of the island's seigneur. Around 1840 he came to a settled faith in Christ. Soon afterward he joined the Brethren, the movement of believers who met simply in Christ's name to break bread, without clergy or denominational name. He stayed with the Channel Islands for about thirty years, living mostly in Guernsey, where he married. In the 1870s he moved to Blackheath, in London.

Scholar and editor

Kelly could have had a career as a scholar. He helped S. P. Tregelles in his work on the Greek text of the New Testament, and in 1860 he published his own critical edition of the book of Revelation, which drew praise from specialists. His knowledge brought him into correspondence with well-known scholars at Oxford and elsewhere.

But most of his energy went into teaching. In 1857 he took over The Bible Treasury, a magazine of Bible study, and he edited it until his death. He also edited the writings of J. N. Darby, which fill many volumes, and the writings of J. G. Bellett. On the title pages of his own books he often put only his initials, "W. K."

Lecturer on the whole Bible

Kelly's books mostly began as lectures given on weekday evenings to gatherings of believers, often taken down in shorthand and corrected later. In Darby's lifetime he was best known for his lectures on the books of Moses, the Gospel of Matthew, Revelation, the church of God and the Holy Spirit. In his later years came longer expositions of Isaiah, John, Hebrews and the epistles of John, and a large book on the inspiration of Scripture.

His style is close and careful. He doesn't tell stories. He follows the line of thought in a book of the Bible, shows how each part fits the whole, and keeps turning the reader's eye to Christ. A line from his notes on Daniel sums up his method:

The important thing is to bear in mind, that the understanding of Scripture depends much more upon what is moral, than what is of the mind — upon a single eye to Christ.

Notes on the Book of Daniel, chapter II

What he taught

Kelly taught the convictions of the early Brethren, and he set them out clearly.

The church as one body. In Six Lectures on Fundamental Truths Connected with the Church of God he taught that all believers are formed by the Holy Spirit into one body, and that this truth should be practised, not just believed. He held that the Spirit, not human arrangement, should guide the gathering of believers, and that believers who wanted to be faithful could still gather simply to the Lord's name.

The Holy Spirit. In his Lectures on the New Testament Doctrine of the Holy Spirit he drew a careful line between the Spirit's work in new birth and His personal gift to every believer after Christ was glorified, and the baptism of the Spirit that forms the church.

Prophecy. Kelly read prophecy from a futurist view. He taught that the church would be caught up to meet the Lord before the judgments of Revelation, and that God's promises to Israel will yet be fulfilled. His Lectures on the Book of Revelation and Notes on the Book of Daniel follow that line.

Grace. Under it all is the grace of God in Christ. In his lectures on Matthew he put it simply:

There is nothing so humbling, and strengthening withal, as the heart's rest in God's grace toward us in Christ.

Lectures on the Gospel of Matthew, chapter XXII

A painful division

For many years Kelly was regarded as Darby's right-hand man. In 1881 a dispute over church discipline divided the Brethren assemblies Darby led, and Kelly and those who stood with him were separated from Darby's party. The meetings in fellowship with him were afterward called "Kelly Brethren." He went on teaching and writing for the rest of his life.

His last years

Kelly kept ministering to believers until a couple of months before his death. He died on March 27, 1906, in his eighty-fifth year. Shortly before he died he is reported to have said that there are three things real: the cross, the enmity of the world, and the love of God.

Why he's still read

Kelly is not an easy writer, and he doesn't try to be. But Bible students keep returning to him because he reads a book of the Bible as a whole, with a scholar's care and a believer's reverence. He shows why Matthew differs from Luke, why Romans comes before Ephesians, how Daniel and Revelation belong together. Many later Bible teachers learned from him, whether or not they shared all his views on the church.

Where to start

TheWay Library has six of his books, all free to read.

Our guide to William Kelly's books describes each one, and our collection of William Kelly quotes gathers his best lines. For more on prophecy, see the best Christian books on the second coming. All his books are on the William Kelly author page.

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