Learning from John Newton 300 years on

The headlines of the story are well-known.

A rebellious youth. Pressganged into the Royal Navy. Whipped after an attempted desertion. Swapped onto a ship on its way to pick up slaves. Enslaved, himself, in Africa. Rescued by a captain friend of his father’s only to almost die in a storm on the way home. So far from God that his fellow sailors thought that he, like Jonah, had brought the wrath of God down on them.

His prayer in that storm was marked as the moment he was saved.