John Knox (1514-1572) grew into one of the boldest leaders of the Protestant Reformation, a frail man who rose to theologian and preacher, fell to being a slave, and rose again to lay the foundation of the Scottish Presbyterian Church.

Knox spread the gospel during a time of political upheaval in his native Scotland. During a cycle of Roman Catholic and Protestant monarchs, Knox fought for a church free from the pope and cardinals.

The democratic reforms he instituted are a distinctive feature of the Presbyterian Church today.

Instead of church government controlled by Rome, John Knox and his mentor John Calvin introduced elected representatives. Presbyters (the Greek word for elder) are elected by the local congregation to a group called the session. Several churches comprise the governing body called a presbytery, and several presbyteries form the General Assembly, which represents the whole denomination.

John Knox, Galley Slave

After his education at the University of St. Andrews, Knox, a Catholic priest, fell in with George Wishart, a volatile Protestant preacher who was touring Scotland. Knox became Wishart's bodyguard--and Wishart needed one.
In 1545, the Catholic Cardinal David Beaton had Wishart arrested, put on trial, and burned at the stake. That act so enraged Protestants that a group of 16 nobles stormed Beaton's castle and assassinated him. France, a Catholic ally of Scotland, sent ships to besiege the nobles in the castle.

Although Knox had not taken part in Beaton's killing, he had approved it. During a lull in the siege, he joined the nobles in the castle. A reluctant Knox began his Protestant preaching career there, but when the castle fell in 1547, he and several others were sent to labor as oarsmen on French galleys.

It took more than a year and a half before Knox was freed. The miserable conditions during his slavery broke his health and he was sickly the rest of his life.

John Knox Meets John Calvin

Instead of returning to Scotland, Knox went to England, where he preached for five years in the Church of England. After another change of monarchs, Knox fled to France, then to Geneva, where he met the famous reformer John Calvin. Calvin had a major influence on Knox, who later copied the Swiss leader's morals and democratic form of church governance.
Knox took the pastorate of an English Church at Frankfurt in 1554 but did not stay long, disagreeing about vestments, rituals, and the English prayerbook. Back in Geneva, he ministered at a church for English refugees.

By 1555 Knox was back in Scotland, preaching reformed doctrine and urging his countrymen to stop attending mass. He married Marjorie Bowles, fleeing to Geneva once more in 1556. While there, he wrote a series of revolutionary tracts, blasting Catholicism and female monarchs, and urging Scottish citizens to rebel against unjust rulers.

Final Return to Scotland

In 1559, John Knox came back to Scotland. A year later, the Reformed Protestant church became the official religion of that country. Knox was named minister of the main church in Edinburgh, St. Giles. It was then that he composed his most famous work, "The History of the Reformation in the Realms of Scotland," a coarsely written but lively account of the conflicts overcome in the birth of the Protestant church.
Early in his final ministry, Knox's wife died, leaving him with two sons. He married again in 1564 when he was 50 years old and his bride, Margaret Stewart, was 17. They had three daughters.

For the next eight years, John Knox pastored his church, battled Scottish bureaucrats, and set up reforms that would eventually be taken by Presbyterians to the American colonies and throughout the world.

He died in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1572, at the age of 58.

(Sources: Christianitytoday.com, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Presbyterian Church USA, and gotquestions.org.)

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