‘I THANKED THE LORD, AND ASKED FOR MORE’:
George Muller’s Life and Work
By Neil Summerton
Brethren Archivists and Historians
Network. 359 pages. £18.00
ISBN 978 1 739 128 302
In the pantheon of evangelical heroes from church history George Muller is in the first rank.
Best known for his orphanages and for trusting God to provide for the needs of the orphans as well as his own, Muller (1805– 1898) was a major evangelical leader at the end of the 19th century whose influence is still being felt today.
There are several popular biographies of Muller on the market, but in this volume Neil Summerton has written an excellent scholarly assessment of his life and work. Being scholarly doesn’t mean that the book is inaccessible to ordinary readers. It is very accessible and, as well as being informative, is in parts very moving and challenging. For anyone wanting to dig deeper into the life of this remarkable man this is the book he or she must read.
The book is not a biography as such, but rather a series of essays dealing with different aspects of Muller’s life. Some were originally written as articles for journals, or delivered as addresses at conferences, but here have been significantly revised. There is some overlap between chapters, but a little repetition is no bad thing.
The first chapter is biographical and gives an overview of Muller’s life. And what a life! Space forbids even a brief outline, but suffice it to say that after his conversion from a dissolute life while at university in his native Germany, Muller moved to England and seemed never to let up in his devotion to serving the Lord as a preacher and evangelist, as a church leader locally (first in churches in Devon and then for the rest of his life at Bethesda Chapel in Bristol) and across the world, as a philanthropist establishing his orphanages and schools, and as a gospel entrepreneur initiating many enterprises to advance the kingdom.
Chapters 2 to 5 form Part One: each chapter looks at Muller’s faith and thought and deals with things such as his theology, Brethenism and spirituality.
In regard to his theology Muller came, through his study of the Bible, to a Calvinistic understanding of salvation, which was wedded to his Dispensational Premillennialism.
Muller was also wholly committed to the Plymouth Brethren movement, although over the years he became increasingly broad in his associations with other evangelicals, both Nonconformist and Anglican. Summerton is particularly good at showing the significance and appeal of Brethrenism in the 19th century as well as Muller’s falling out with John Nelson Darby and the beginning of the ‘Open’ and ‘Exclusive’ split.
He is also excellent on probing Muller’s spirituality in chapter 4, which I found one of the most interesting. At the heart of Muller’s spirituality was the reality of ‘the living God’ who demonstrated that reality in answering prayer.
In Part Two (chapters 6 to 13) Summerton looks at the different aspects of Muller’s work. If nothing else, it is amazing what he achieved in the course of his life. As well as being, as he put it, ‘a minister of the word and doctrine’ at Bethesda Chapel and its sister churches, establishing and supervising his orphanages and conducting a wider public ministry, Muller also founded the Scripture Knowledge Institution which published books and tracts, supported missionaries and ran schools.
There is a lot of granular detail in some of these chapters which will appeal to some more than others, but don’t let that take away from the big picture of what Muller was able to do by God’s grace. Indeed, the detail shows the particularity of God’s gracious provision, much like those lists of things in the Old Testament.
In connection with this, Summerton shows how Muller, great man of faith that he was, was also a very faithful steward of what God provided.
The last chapter, chapter 14, sums up ‘The Man and His Work’. Summerton pulls together the various strands of Muller’s life and activity. Perhaps it is the short section on ‘Faith and integrity’ that speaks most powerfully to our generation. Summerton mentions how Muller, in achieving great things, ‘showed how the faith principle, through prayer, could be applied to great undertakings’. But he also says that ‘of equal importance, [Muller] was in the lead in demonstrating how a great, and a personal, charitable activity could and should be conducted with integrity’. Gifted man of faith that he was, George Muller was a man of godly character and integrity, and as such is an example for every Christian whatever their calling in life.
