On Wednesday 1 June the Right Reverend John Taylor went to be with his Saviour at the age of 87.
He held many positions of high distinction: Bishop of St Albans, Lord High Almoner, Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, President of the Bible Society, President of the Garden Tomb Association, and member of the House of Lords.
However, the many people who knew him personally will remember him as a humble man who gave his life in service to Christ and was always pastoral and caring. We also remember him as a great and long-standing friend of Tyndale House.
Bruce Winter, former Warden of Tyndale House, writes: ‘During my 19 years as Warden, John was such a personal encouragement both as a friend and also as the chairman of our Council from 1997–2004. He was warm hearted, loved God’s Word (which was reflected in his preaching) and he had loved Tyndale House ever since his time as a student in Cambridge, when he boarded there in its very early days.’
Outstanding encourager
In my own time I have been grateful to God for John’s work as an outstanding encourager. His many homilies in chapel and countless conversations cheerfully called us to patient endurance and to a sober but positive view of our calling as followers of Christ. Numerous others can testify to the same experience of John.
While he always spoke in a self-effacing way about his scholarship and didn’t write thick scholarly tomes, there was a depth to his writing which was aimed at ordinary people in the church. Thomas Renz, an Ezekiel specialist, says of his 1969 commentary on Ezekiel: ‘His Tyndale Commentary on Ezekiel was probably one of the few popular commentaries on any biblical book that got something right about the flow of the book which was missed in every one of the more academic commentaries of the time.’
He will be sorely missed and we remember his wife Linda in our prayers.
The Thanksgiving Service for John’s life was held on 16 June at the Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban, St Albans.
