The Conversion That Wouldn't Let Wilberforce Rest

In the autumn of 1785, William Wilberforce was a twenty-five-year-old member of Parliament who had everything London's elite could want — wealth, wit, a voice that could hold the House of Commons spellbound, and an appetite for late-night card games and fine wine. Then, during a carriage journey through the French countryside with his former schoolmaster Isaac Milner, Wilberforce began reading the Greek New Testament. By the time the wheels stopped, something had cracked open inside him.

Grace came to Wilberforce not as a gentle suggestion but as a teacher with firm hands. He wept for days over the wasted years. He nearly abandoned politics altogether, until John Newton — the old slave trader turned pastor — urged him to stay and serve God right where he stood. So Wilberforce did what grace demanded: he said no. No to the gambling tables. No to the hollow ambitions of social climbing. No to the comfortable silence that allowed two million enslaved Africans to suffer in British ships.

For the next forty-six years, grace taught him self-control when Parliament mocked him, uprightness when bribes were offered, and godliness when his body failed him. He lived to see the Slavery Abolition Act pass in 1833, just three days before his death.

Paul told Titus that the grace of God teaches us to renounce ungodliness and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age. Wilberforce is proof that grace does not merely pardon — it trains, reshapes, and sends us back into the world with holy purpose.