Biographical sketch: Adolphe Monod

Church bulletin for May

The name Adolphe Monod is probably not that well known in the Christian world today. In his own day however and by the time of his death at the age of 54 he was one of the most significant evangelical preachers and Theologians certainly in France, if not Europe. Monod was born in Copenhagen in Jan 1802; the sixth of twelve children, his father was pastor of the French speaking Reformed church in that city.   

Although raised in the knowledge of the scriptures Monod’s journey to faith was far from smooth. The spiritual climate of his youth was rationalistic and within his own home and church it was characterised by formalism rather than evangelical fervency. Believing he was called to the ministry from the age of 14, he entered seminary in Geneva in 1820. It was while at seminary that he began to be influenced by the preaching of the Scotsman Thomas Erskine. Still unconverted and battling with rationalism he was ordained in 1824 and accepted a call to the pastorate in Naples. For three years he lived in a spiritually confused state struggling to preach what he had not yet fully believed. Finally relief came when Thomas Erskine visited him in Naples and at the age of 25 he saw the futility of works based righteousness and came to trust in Christ alone.     

From Naples he moved to pastor a large church in Lyon, reformed in name but not practice. He was ordered to stop preaching salvation by grace, which he refused to do. Eventually things came to a head and he left to form an independent church with many who had been converted under his ministry.  In 1836 he became professor of ethics and homiletics at the Reformed church’s national seminary in Montauban. A decade later he returned once more to the pastorate in Paris where he remained until his death in 1856.

Monod was widely known for his vibrant, passionate preaching. Among the churches that he served he was loved for his caring pastoral heart. He wrote a number of books and had sermons published. I stumbled upon Monod in a second hand bookshop when I picked up a copy of his farewell exhortations, a series of discourses delivered to his family and friends as he lay dying with cancer. Solid Ground Christian Books have republished some of his material and as the Baptist historian Michael Haykin says, “it is food for the soul”. Indeed Monod deserves to be rediscovered by a new generation that the richness of his insights might be appreciated afresh

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