John Charles Ryle enjoyed a privileged upbringing in Victorian England. The eldest son of a wealthy Cheshire businessman, J. C. Ryle was educated at Eton and Oxford. He captained the university cricket team and was also known for rowing. At a height of 6‘4” (1. 93 m) he towered over his fellow students. However, disaster struck at the age of twenty-five when his father lost their family fortune in a banking crash. RYLE later recalled, ‘We got up one summer’s morning with all the world before us as usual, and went to bed that same night completely and entirely ruined’.1
Originally intending to take up politics, instead Ryle became an Anglican vicar. While we might not agree with some of his doctrinal standpoints or denominational associations, J. C. Ryle was a keen evangelist and a powerful communicator. We can still benefit from his teachings today.
Ryle described his conversion experience at Oxford in his autobiography. He arrived late to a service one day, just as the scripture reading was taking place. The reader carefully and deliberately emphasized each word of Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8, ‘For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God’. RYLE said, ‘Nothing I can remember to this day appeared to me so clear and distinct as my own sinfulness … the need to be born again … Before that time I was dead in sins and on the high road to hell, and from that time I have become alive and had a hope of heaven. And nothing to my mind can account for it, but the free sovereign grace of God’.2
Christianity in England was highly fragmented in the Victorian age. Many people wanted to reintroduce ceremonial ritual and return to Catholicism, whereas others were sincerely evangelical. Ryle was definitely in this latter camp. He said, ‘No one ever reached heaven without repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ’.3
His heroes included historical individuals mentioned in previous articles in this series, including Tyndale, the Wesleys, and Whitefield.
Ryle knew much of tragedy throughout his life. He was married and widowed three times, with his first wife dying in childbirth and his second wife suffering a debilitating illness for several years.
Due to his accessible style, Ryle’s work is entirely readable today, more than a century after his death. He was a gifted communicator who intentionally employed simplicity in his speech and writing. ‘Unless you are simple in your sermons you will never be understood, and unless you are understood you cannot do good to those who hear you’.4
His most famous book is Holiness, which is an entirely balanced discussion about sanctification. The modern theologian J. I. PACKER describes this book as ‘a masterpiece of pastoral indignation’.5
Ryle also wrote a commentary series called Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, covering all four evangelists across seven volumes. My personal favourite is his treatment of John. I remember rainy lunchtimes in my high school library in Liverpool, poring over Ryle’s notes on the Lord Jesus’ conversation with Simon Peter in John chapter 21. RYLE asserts, ‘Well would it be for the church, if all “afterdinner” conversations among Christians were as useful and edifying as this’.
J. C. Ryle was associated with Liverpool, which during his lifetime grew from a medium-sized town to a major metropolis. Although he worked in the South of England originally, Ryle moved to Liverpool in 1880 and served in the city for twenty years until his death in 1900.
The prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, selected Ryle to be the first bishop of Liverpool. Ryle was noted for his evangelical disposition. He argued against the construction of a costly cathedral in the city, instead preferring to see money spent on building mission halls around the city.
There are many valuable quotations from Ryle, well worth memorizing. Here is a small selection.
J. C. RYLE, Holiness. https://www.gracegems.org/Ryle/holiness.htm.
David Holloway, J. C. Ryle: the man, the minister, and the missionary, The Christian Institute, 2022.
Eric Russell, That Man of Granite with the Heart of a Child: A New Biography of J. C. Ryle, Christian Focus Publications, 2001.
J. C. Ryle, Bishop J. C. Ryle’s Autobiography: The Early Years, Banner of Truth, 2016.
Ibid.
J. C. Ryle, Repentance. https://www.gracegems.org/24/Ryle_repentance.htm.
J. C. Ryle, Simplicity in Preaching. https://gracegems.org/18/Ryle-%20Preaching.htm.
J. C. Ryle, Holiness, Preface by J. I. PACKER, Evangelical Press, 1979.
