John Newton's Long Lesson in Grace

When John Newton stumbled off a slave ship in 1748, half-starved and desperate, he credited God's mercy for sparing his life during a violent Atlantic storm. But Newton did not become a changed man overnight. For six more years after that famous conversion moment, he continued captaining slave vessels, ferrying human beings across the Middle Passage in chains.

Grace had appeared to Newton — but grace was not finished with him.

Slowly, through Scripture, through the friendship of abolitionist John Wesley, and through the quiet, relentless conviction of the Holy Spirit, Newton began to see what he had refused to see. By 1764, he had left the sea entirely and entered the ministry. By 1788, he published Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade, a blistering confession of his own guilt that helped turn the tide of British public opinion. He called his former life an "abomination" and spent his remaining years supporting William Wilberforce's fight to end the trade forever.

Newton understood something pastors still need to preach: grace does not simply rescue us and leave us where we are. As Paul wrote to Titus, the grace of God "teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives." Grace is patient, but grace is persistent. It saved Newton in one storm — then spent a lifetime reshaping everything he thought he knew about human dignity, repentance, and love.