God providentially led Ryle to these circumstances and spiritual condition for a purpose. Being the eldest son in the family, he took upon himself the responsibility of providing for the family in this trying situation. His parents could not help him nor offer him any suggestions because of their devastated condition. Going into law would not bring them any immediate comfort as it would take at least four years before he could start work. A secretary position for a local politician opened up, but he declined because he did not have confidence over the person.
If not for the pressing circumstance of providing for his family, and his humbled condition, he would have declined the offer to minister at a village in Exbury, Hampshire, South-East of England in December 1841. It was a small place of about 400 persons, mostly poor, backwards and rough in manners. According to Ryle, the place was very lifeless, isolated and lonely. In December 1843, he moved to minister in Winchester, a city of about 3,000 persons in Hampshire. Unexpectedly, the next year he was offered a place in the village of Helminghan, Suffolk, East of England. After 17 years in Helminghan, he left for Stradbroke, another village of about 400 persons located in the same county of Suffolk. He served in Stradbroke for 20 years before he moved on to be the first bishop of Liverpool, a city North-West of England, at the request of the Prime Minister and Queen Victoria. He ministered in Liverpool until his death in 1900.
At the start of his ministry, he preached two messages on Sundays, and held two house meetings on Wednesday and Thursday nights. Ryle believed preaching the God’s Word ought to be in a clear and simple manner. As one farmer once commented: “I enjoy Sunday more than any day of the week because I sit comfortably in church, put up my legs, have nothing to think about, and just go to sleep.” It took Ryle much practice, but he strove to make his messages clear and understandable even to the most disadvantaged, uneducated listener – something that became very clear in all his writings in later years.
Ryle also believed in the necessity of visiting those under his care – meeting each family at least once every month to talk and discuss on spiritual matters. In his older years, he was not happy to note that a “growing [character] throughout the land, among the ministers, devote an exaggerated amount of attention to what I must call the public work of the ministry, and to give comparatively too little attention to pastoral visitation and personal dealing with individual souls.” Perhaps this view could be fuelled by his early years where he never met a minister of the Gospel visiting his family with the Gospel. He reiterated this as the bishop of Liverpool: “give me a minister who can preach in a street without a surplice, as well as in a pulpit; a man who will go in and out of every alley in his district and talk simple Gospel to half-a-dozen ragged folks in a dirty [basement] as heartily as to five hundred well-dressed people in a church; a man of fire, and love, and sympathy, and [sensitivity], and patience and sanctified common sense”.
Furthermore, Ryle provided medical care and social helps whenever the need arose, believing that the Gospel must be preached by word AND deed (Colossians 3:17). As Ryle puts it: “Next to the office of him who ministers to men’s souls, none is really more useful and honourable than that of him who ministers to the soul’s frail tabernacle, the body.” Perhaps his rigorous regime of providing spiritual and physical help in the early years pushed him over his limit resulting in him suffering from constant headaches, indigestion and heart palpitations.
One novelty that he introduced at that time was that of tract distribution. In those days, it is unheard of for the Anglican minister to be distributing tracts publicly. However, Ryle would always be carrying with him a tract or two to be given to those he encountered. In the beginning, he would get ready made tracts, but when he was in Suffolk, he began to write his own tracts and got them printed out by his own resources. The tracts became popular and in time, demand for more were made known to him. His tracts were diverse in length – the shortest only 2 pages, while the longest over 100 pages (a booklet). This led him to the writing of books, the most famous being his book on “Holiness”. He began churning out many helpful books including hymn books and biographies of great preachers.
A preacher who constantly brings out the Word of God is only as effective as what he puts into himself: Ryle began to feed himself with rich spiritual food by devouring much from the English Reformers and the Puritan works. He regularly referenced Thomas Manton, John Flavel, Thomas Brooks, Richard Sibbes, John Owen and many others.
This is the challenge for ministers of God; are we labouring in the word and doctrine as the Lord expects us to (1 Timothy 5:17)? If the world labours much for the things that are temporal, how much more should the servants of God labour for the things that are eternal?