J. C. Ryle on the Gospels, for Today's Reader

Who Was J. C. Ryle?

John Charles Ryle (1816 to 1900) was an English parish clergyman for nearly forty years before he became the first Bishop of Liverpool in 1880. He was a plain preacher and a plain writer, and his tracts and books sold in the hundreds of thousands in his lifetime. He is best remembered today for Holiness and for Expository Thoughts on the Gospels.

Why his Expository Thoughts endure

Ryle wrote the Expository Thoughts between 1856 and 1873, beginning with Matthew and ending with three volumes on John. He wrote them, as he said in his preface, for family reading: a few verses at a time, two or three plain lessons from each passage, and nothing a household could not read aloud in a quarter of an hour. Each passage gives the doctrine, the warning and the comfort in the text, in that order. They have never been out of print.

What this edition changes

• The language is updated. "Thou," "hath," "shew" and the other furniture of Victorian print become their modern forms. Ryle's words and his order stay. The sense is never changed.
• A new biography opens each volume, written by the editor, Richard French.
• Editor's notes appear in brackets where a word, a name or a reference needs help for a reader today.
• Scripture references are written out in full so they can be found without a key.