Samuel Rutherford for the 21st Century (III)
Guy M. Richard
Rutherford’s Ministry in Anwoth
Sometime in mid-1627, Rutherford was called to the small, rural parish of Anwoth in Galloway, in the southwest of Scotland. The church building–the stone ruins of which still stand–is reported to measure 18′ wide by 60′ long. And, as those who have seen it will testify, it seems much smaller than that in actual fact. (Many churches today have Sunday School rooms that are bigger!) But as insignificant as Anwoth was in terms of its population, it had a geographical and a political importance that far outpaced its size: it was located on the highway between England and Ireland; and it was the parish of the Viscount Kenmure, whose wife Jane Campbell–one of Rutherford’s closest friends and correspondents–was the sister of Lord Lorne (Archibald Campbell), who was later to become the Marquis of Argyle and the most powerful nobleman in all Scotland. When Rutherford accepted the call to come to Anwoth in 1627, however, these political factors had not yet materialized and were, thus, quite unknown to him at the time.
A Ministry of Humility
We see something of Rutherford’s humility and his lack of earthly ambition in the fact that he accepted the call to the small, rural parish of Anwoth in the first place and, in the second place, that he did so at a stipend that was significantly less than the average for his day (n.b., Rutherford’s stipend was approximately 40% of the going rate for the day!). Perhaps because of his public scandal with his eventual wife, Rutherford felt unworthy of a larger parish with a larger stipend. But whatever the case may be, he still exhibits a selflessness and humility that is rarely seen today in the church. If the examples of prominent ministers today are any indication of the prevailing spirit, we can say without question that, in our day, ministers tend to look for the most significant calls they can with the largest salary packages they can get. Rutherford’s humble and unassuming approach was an altogether different thing.
More interestingly, Rutherford not only chose to accept the call to the small, rural parish of Anwoth for an extremely low stipend, but he also chose not to leave once he got there. The General Assembly actually had to force him to leave in 1639, in order that the church might make better use of his talents and gifts as a professor of divinity at St. Andrews University. This is quite a contrast to the success-oriented, get-ahead-at-all-costs attitude that permeates Western society and is even present within the church as well. Rutherford did not play on his newly acquired political connections in Anwoth to seek wider fields of influence for himself or to magnify his own name. Nor did he seek to move on to greener pastures. He preferred to stay where God had placed him. Of course, one possible explanation for Rutherford’s not wanting to leave Anwoth is that he did not want to be taken away from the political connections that he had so recently established there and that he wanted to capitalize on them for the propagation of the cause of Christ in Scotland. But, even if that is true, it does not change the fact that Rutherford’s overriding motivations were not selfish but wholly selfless. In a way that is contrary to much contemporary thought, Rutherford placed a far lower value on himself and his own ministry than did the church at large.
Guy M. Richard is Senior Minister of First Presbyterian Church in Gulfport, MS.
This article was published in Reformation 21, the online magazine of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance calls the twenty-first century church to a modern reformation by broadcasting, events, and publishing. This article and additional biblical resources can be found at AllianceNet.org
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