Bible Commentaries

J.D. Jones's Commentary on the Book of Mark

John Daniel Jones

John Daniel Jones (1865-1942) was at first known as Jones of Bournemouth because of a man with a similar name. J.D. Jones was a Congregationalist who was friends with W. Robertson Nicoll and on a lesser scale, Dwight L. Moody.

He could have been F.B. Meyer's successor at Christ Church in Westminster, or John Henry Jowett's successor when Jowett went to Fifth Avenue Presbyterian in New York City. Instead, J.D. Jones remained for thirty-nine years as the beloved pastor of Richmond Hill Congregation Church in Bournemouth, retiring in June 6, 1937. He pastored with a genuine love for people and a no non-sense approach.

He was a biblical preacher, but he was not an expositor of the same type as Alexander Maclaren or the gifted Welshman D. Martyn Lloyde-Jones. In the biography J.D. Jones of Bournemouth, Arthur Porritt remarked: "All his sermons were on a very high level. He was always on a plateau, but - as friendly critic figuratively said - there were no mountains and no valleys - just a uniform level of excellence."

"When J.D. Jones took a text", wrote one religious editor, "it was the text that mattered, not the preacher's commentary upon it. The preacher's commentary had but one aim - to recall its hearers to the richness and wonder of the truth which the text enshrined. He never searched for excitingly unusual texts, nor did he strive to find startlingly unusual interpretations of his texts.