The Life and Writings of
Adolphe Monod
(1802-1856)
His Life
Though
scarcely known to English-speaking evangelicals today, Adolphe Monod was a towering
figure among Protestants in nineteenth century France and Switzerland, and his
reputation spread through Western Europe, the British Isles, and even to North
America. His influence endures to this day. Yet the faith that lay behind his
ministry as a pastor, church planter, and seminary professor did not come
without a struggle.
Adolphe Monod was from a Swiss family prominent
in the French Reformed Church, yet the faith of the family home was a formal,
cold piety that ultimately could satisfy neither his intellect nor his heart.
He saw others whose faith had taken on new warmth, vibrancy, and power through
the Awakening that swept through French-speaking Switzerland and into France
early in the nineteenth century. He
liked—at times even envied—what he saw in them, but it was years before he came
to the place of humility and dependence before God that enabled him to find
that kind of faith for himself.
That happened as he was serving as pastor for
the Protestants in Naples, Italy. He was twenty-five years old. Six months
later he joined the staff of the large but worldly Reformed Church in Lyon,
France, where his strong gospel-centered preaching soon drew opposition and led
to his dismissal. Staying on in Lyon, he founded an independent evangelical congregation
that grew rapidly. He then spent a decade teaching at the Reformed Church of
France’s seminary in Montauban and another decade as a pastor in the Reformed
Church in Paris. The vibrant clarity and warmth of his preaching made him a
leader in the evangelical church of his day, with his sermons and books widely
published and often translated during his lifetime. He has been called “the voice of the
Awakening.”
Those facts, however, fail to capture Monod's
spirit. He was a man of deep integrity, a keen mind, and a caring, pastoral
heart. All of these qualities were augmented and set off by his natural gift
for speaking—a gift supplied by God for the work to which he had called his
servant. Where Scripture is clear, Monod was bold in proclaiming its message,
even when to do so drew criticism, yet he was also quick to acknowledge that
there are mysteries in the Christian faith that we cannot fathom while we are
still confined in space and time. Even as his renown grew, Adolphe Monod
remained a truly humble man. A week before his death he said, "I have a
Savior! He has freely saved me through his shed blood, and I want it to be
known that I lean uniquely on that poured out blood. All my righteous acts, all
my works which have been praised, all my preaching that has been appreciated
and sought after—all that is in my eyes only filthy rags."
A Biography
My popular biography of Adolphe Monod was
published in 2013 by Evangelical Press for their series Bitesize
Biographies (series editor, Michael A. G. Haykin). It contains extensive quotes from sermons,
correspondence, and diaries, and it is illustrated by portraits and by pencil
sketches of key locations in Monod's life. For a description of the book,
please click on the cover image.
Editing and Translation
Many of Monod's published works have been
reprinted over the years and translated from the original French into a variety
of languages. In recent years, I have
translated and edited a number of his works. The goal has been to produce
editions that flow more naturally for modern readers than earlier translations
do and, in some cases, are also more accurate.
These works are listed below, along with their publisher and date.
Further information on each work, including reviewers' comments, can be found
by clicking on the book's title or cover image.
These books and the above biography are available from the publishers
and most are also available from my author page on Amazon.
Living in the Hope of Glory is a new edition of
Adolphe Monod's most famous work, his Farewells
or Les Adieux. This Christian classic is a series of
informal meditations given to friends and family at communion services in his
home as he was dying of cancer. They are
full of life, peace, faith, and joy. This work was published by P&R
Publishing in 2002. P&R eventually discontinued the work, and a new edition
was published by Solid Ground Christian Books in 2019. The same editing was
applied to the original French text of Les Adieux
in collaboration with William Edgar at Westminster Theological Seminary. This new French edition was published jointly
by Éditions Excelsis and Éditions Kerygma in 2006, the book's
sesquicentennial.
An Undivided Love is a collection of seven of Adolphe
Monod's best-loved sermons. They were
organized into three sections relating to different stages in our Christian
walk of faith: Come and Drink; Behold Your God; and Trust in the Lord. This book was
published by Solid Ground Christian Books in 2009.
Jesus Tempted in the Wilderness is a monograph
giving practical advice on dealing with temptation based on Jesus' example when
tempted by Satan. Monod's insights from the Scriptures are reinforced by years
of personal and pastoral experience.
First addressed to seminary students, they were later adapted for the
congregation of the large Reformed Church of Paris. This work was published by Solid Ground
Christian Books in 2010.
Woman: Her Mission and Her Life is a monograph dealing
with an issue almost as important in Monod's day as it is today: God's design
for women. Though some of Monod's ideas may sound dated, they are firmly
grounded in Scripture and have helped many of us find peace, contentment, and
true fulfillment in our lives. This work has been supplemented by a section
giving examples of the book’s message from the lives of four women in Monod's
family. Solid Ground Christian Books
released this book in 2011.
Saint Paul is Monod's series of sermons on the great
apostle. The author's goal was to stimulate young Christians to develop a more
Pauline faith in order to bring renewed vitality to the church at large, along
with genuine, beneficial change to society. It describes the prodigious work
Paul accomplished, the kind of faith that produced that work, the character of
the conversion that produced Paul's faith, and then the inherent strengths and,
especially, weaknesses with which God endowed Paul in preparing him for his
ministry. The final discourse calls on us to follow Paul’s example in carrying
out the work assigned to us. This volume
was published by Solid Ground Christian Books in 2012.
The Incarnation and Beyond is a book about Christ's
earthly life—its results here on earth, the responses it demands from us, and
God's eternal purposes that unfolded beyond the incarnation through Christ’s
resurrection and the sending of the Holy Spirit. It consists of Monod’s four published Christmas
sermons, plus an Easter sermon and a Pentecost sermon. It was published by
Evangelical Press in 2015.
Lucile, Take and Read
is a classic work of apologetics on Scripture that was one of two winning
entries in a book contest sponsored by the Religious Book Society of
Toulouse in 1841. It remained immensely popular for decades and was translated
into at least eight languages. The first part of each entry was to be a brief
defense of the divine origin
and authority of Scripture. The second part was to argue for the right—indeed,
the responsibility—of all believers to read the Bible for themselves. It
is written in the form of dialogs and correspondence and is based on the true
story of persons known to the author. This makes for winsome, engaging, and at
times almost suspenseful reading. Monod’s goal was to get people to read the
Bible. I have brought it out on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing in 2020 in
both print and ebook format. The print
version is also available from Solid Ground Christian Books.
Last modified 2 April 2023