Podcast

Prayer amid Pandemic

A 19th-Century Celebrity Pastor Frequently Found Himself an Invalid

How London’s most popular preacher dealt with routine bouts of physical and mental illness.

One of the biggest names in 19th-century British preaching was a man named Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon’s preaching career began in the countryside. Though he was not formally trained, the then-teenage orator’s sermons drew the public’s attention and at the age of 19 he moved to London.

“Spurgeon’s language was graphic, emotionally charged, occasionally maudlin and sentimental,” wrote Patricia Stallings Kruppa for Christian History. Though the world knew him for his showmanship, Spurgeon, along with his wife, also suffered from chronic pain, a matter that came up frequently in his writings about God.

In this episode of Prayer amid Pandemic, Thomas Breimaier, the author of the forthcoming work, Tethered to the Cross: The Life and Preaching of Charles H. Spurgeon and a tutor in systematic theology and history at Spurgeon’s College, shares about how a cholera outbreak in London changed the Spurgeon’s ministry and how he theologically made sense of his chronic pain.

Flemlyn Ragobeer, the general secretary for Inter School/ InterVarsity Christian Fellowship of Guyana, offers this week’s prayer.

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Music by Urban Nerd Beats, Prod. Riddiman, and Oliver Dúvel

Prayer amid Pandemic is produced by Morgan Lee, Mike Cosper, and Erik Petrik

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