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Arthur John Gossip
Arthur John Gossip, born 1873, died 1954, was a Scottish preacher and professor whose eloquent sermons and profound faith made him one of the most celebrated ministers of the Free Church of Scotland in the early 20th century. Born on January 20, 1873, in Glasgow, Scotland, to Robert Gossip and Agnes McFarlane, he graduated with an M.A. from the University of Edinburgh, where he was shaped by the preaching of Alexander Whyte at St. George’s Church. Licensed as a Free Church minister in 1898, he served several congregations—Forfar (1898–1907), St. Matthew’s in Glasgow (1910–1918), and Beechgrove Church in Aberdeen (1918–1928)—before becoming Professor of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the University of Glasgow from 1939 to 1945. His World War I service as a chaplain in Belgium and France further deepened his pastoral perspective. Gossip’s preaching gained lasting fame through his sermon “But When Life Tumbles In, What Then?” delivered in 1927 at Beechgrove Church, days after the sudden death of his wife, Annie Morton, whom he married in 1907 and with whom he had one daughter. This sermon, blending raw grief with unshakable hope, is often cited as one of the 20th century’s greatest, published in his book The Hero in Thy Soul (1928). His other works, like From the Edge of the Crowd (1924) and The Galilean Accent (1926), showcase his literary flair, drawing from poetry, fiction, and scripture with a rare dramatic intensity.
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Arthur John Gossip emphasizes the importance of taking up our cross and following Jesus, highlighting the deep impact of sin on God as seen through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. He urges listeners to truly understand the gravity of sin by looking at the suffering of Jesus and to be filled with a sense of loathing for sin. Gossip also challenges believers to grasp the vastness and depth of God's love, encouraging them to stop limiting and measuring it with human standards, but instead to allow God's love to overflow and transform their lives.
The Measure of Sin
"Any one who does not take up his cross and follow where I lead is not worthy of Me" (Matt. 10:38, Weymouth) Look at the Cross, if you would measure sin aright, your little daily trespasses and falls; look at its cost to God; look at the man Christ Jesus on the tree, and take it in. That is the perfect picture of how God always is affected by it, every time so hurt, so wounded, so heartbroken! So will you grasp its hideousness and horror, and be filled with loathing for this awful thing. Our one chance, Newman thought, is that we be shocked by sin. Look upon Him whom we have pierced, and surely that must shock us, till we hate what caused Him that, fly from it, find a new power surging up within us that gives the strength to cast it forth, and make an end of it. Or take the biggest thing in the whole universe, the deepest, the most inexhaustible, God's love. How busy we have been all down the ages with our wretched little foot-rules upon that, complacently measuring the immeasurable, marking it off--this is its length, and this its breadth--fixing the bounds and limits of this illimitable thing, setting up barriers which we declare it never passes, and marks which we say with assurance it can never overflow, declaring confidently this and that it cannot overlook, and that and this it never does, judging of God, in short, by our own petulant, foolish, sullen, earthly human hearts!
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Arthur John Gossip, born 1873, died 1954, was a Scottish preacher and professor whose eloquent sermons and profound faith made him one of the most celebrated ministers of the Free Church of Scotland in the early 20th century. Born on January 20, 1873, in Glasgow, Scotland, to Robert Gossip and Agnes McFarlane, he graduated with an M.A. from the University of Edinburgh, where he was shaped by the preaching of Alexander Whyte at St. George’s Church. Licensed as a Free Church minister in 1898, he served several congregations—Forfar (1898–1907), St. Matthew’s in Glasgow (1910–1918), and Beechgrove Church in Aberdeen (1918–1928)—before becoming Professor of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at the University of Glasgow from 1939 to 1945. His World War I service as a chaplain in Belgium and France further deepened his pastoral perspective. Gossip’s preaching gained lasting fame through his sermon “But When Life Tumbles In, What Then?” delivered in 1927 at Beechgrove Church, days after the sudden death of his wife, Annie Morton, whom he married in 1907 and with whom he had one daughter. This sermon, blending raw grief with unshakable hope, is often cited as one of the 20th century’s greatest, published in his book The Hero in Thy Soul (1928). His other works, like From the Edge of the Crowd (1924) and The Galilean Accent (1926), showcase his literary flair, drawing from poetry, fiction, and scripture with a rare dramatic intensity.