Ethics and Culture is a blog by Andrew J. Spencer. (@SpenceSpencer01)
Austen does not dig for unnecessary dirt and seek to discredit Elisabeth Elliot or those around her. However, she does present a more complete picture of the strengths and weaknesses of this formidable woman than Vaughn does. Elliot was far from perfect, but she was still used by God.
Read MoreReading biographies of significant Christians can be encouraging. The sorts of people about whom biographies are written are often those through whom God has done some impressive things. Sometimes the study of such Christians is a good reminder that God can do great things through ordinary, flawed people.
The study of Eric Liddell is a bit different than other missionaries. By all accounts, he seems to have been someone who achieved a surprising degree of holiness. Even secular biographers, like `Duncan Hamilton, find themselves awed by the consistent character of Eric Liddell.
Liddell, of course, is most famous for winning an Olympic Gold Medal at the 1924 games in Paris. The movies, Chariots of Fire, reasonably accurately represented his life. That film went on to win four Academy Awards in 1981.
The focus of Chariots of Fire was the Olympic competition, especially Liddell’s refusal to participate in the 100m race because there were heats of it being run on Sunday. As a strong Sabbatarian, Liddell refused to engage in such entertainments on the Lord’s Day. Liddell’s character is portrayed as being affable, if a bit stubborn on religious matters, and deeply concerned with holiness.
That bit of the story is all good. But the viewer is left with a limited picture of Liddell. There is a brief scene at the end of the movie where viewers can read that Liddell went to be a missionary and died in China. It’s that death and the manner of life until his death that is the most significant thing.
Eric Liddell appears to have been one of the most consistent, faithful, and Christlike men to walk the face of the earth. Read the words of a recent biographer, Hamilton:
“Skeptical questions are always going to be asked when someone is portrayed without apparent faults and also as the possessor of standards that appear so idealized and far-fetched to the rest of us. Liddell can sound too virtuous and too honorable to be true, as if those who knew him were either misremembering or consciously mythologizing. Not so. The evidence is too overwhelming to be dismissed as easily as that. Amid the myriad moral dilemmas in Weihsein [a prison camp], Liddell’s forbearance was remarkable. No one could ever recall a single act of envy, pettiness, hubris, or self-aggrandizement from him. He bad-mouthed nobody. He didn’t bicker. He lived daily by the most unselfish credo, which was to help others practically and emotionally.”
In the short book that Liddell wrote, but which was not published until 40 years after his death, Liddell suggests a fourfold test of obedience to God’s moral law:
“Here are four tests of the moral law by which we measure ourselves––and so obey the biblical commands.
Am I truthful? Are there any conditions under which I will or do tell a lie? Can I be depended on to tell the truth no matter what the cost? Yes or no? Don’t hedge, excuse, explain. Yes or no?
Am I honest? Can I be absolutely trusted in money matters? In my work even when no one is looking? With other people’s reputations? Yes or no? With myself, or do I rationalize and become self-defensive?
Am I pure? In my habits? In my thought life? In my motives? In my relations with the opposite sex? Yes or no?
Am I selfish? In the demands I make on my family, wife, husband, or associates? Am I badly balanced; full of moods, cold today and warm tomorrow?”
These questions logically follow on from Liddell’s definition of a disciple:
“A disciple is one who knows God personally, and who learns from Jesus Christ, who most perfectly revealed God. One word stands out from all others as the key to knowing God, to having his peace and assurance in your heart; it is obedience.”
Liddell penned those words somewhere between 1941 and 1943, when he wrote The Disciplines of the Christian Life. It was a little manual for discipleship that he wrote during a time when he was stuck in Japanese occupied China, but wasn’t allowed to minister to the local Chinese.
By all accounts, Liddell appeared to compare well to those four tests.
In his book, Shantung Compound, Langdon Gilkey is very critical of many of the Christians in the camp, especially the missionaries. He seems to delight in recounting every time they got caught up in their own misery and allowed their pettiness to overcome them. His opinion of Liddell, whom he calls Eric Ridley, is surprisingly positive.
He writes,
“It is rare indeed when a person has the good fortune to meet a saint, but he came as close to it as anyone I have ever known. . . . He was aided by others, to be sure. But it was Eric’s enthusiasm that carried the day with the whole effort [of entertaining the teens in the camp.]”
Liddell’s life is more than interesting; it is convicting. That he seemed to be just as much at his best in a prison camp as he was in a relaxing situation is a testament to his character. His character is one that Christians should seek to emulate.
This transient event was a reminder that there is order in the universe. There is design. Care was taken by a mind to create something that is wonder-full. And, if we’re willing to take a little of our time, we’re likely to get a glimpse of the transcendent even in this world of banal imminence. These moments are gifts from God to draw us out of the ordinary into a sense of awe at his nature. That is something no human mind can deny.
Michael Rood of ‘Rood Awakening!’ ministries is careful to distance himself from Pharisaical traditions, but his teaching has more in common with the Judaizers Paul dealt harshly with throughout his life. His message is intended to lead them away from salvation.
Sometimes it seems there is a chasm between biography missionary and the average missionary from the trenches.
Growing up in a church that supported individual missionaries, rather than a mission board, there was a regular stream of faithful missionaries through the church with their slide shows, occasional ethnic dress, and stacks of prayer counters left by the world map with the pushpins.
But there was always a difference in my mind between the missionaries with biographies like Jim Elliot, Adoniram Judson, C.T. Studd, and Gladys Aylward.
As I’ve met more missionaries (many now labeled cross-cultural workers), read more books, and heard more stories from missionaries, I’ve realized that the differences between the missionaries with biographies and those only prayer cards are relatively small and largely circumstantial. Pioneers tend to get more credit than those that came after, better speakers or letter writers will be better remembered, and those who drew the interest of skilled writers or significant church leaders will often be more celebrated.
Make no mistake, there are unique people who do amazing things for Christ whose biographies can inspire a generation to come. Yet I’ve never met a missionary who does not have a story of trusting God that should motivate greater service in one’s present location. Most missionaries have several.
Larry Sharp’s recent book, The Greatest Missionary Generation: Inspiring Stories from Around the World, picks up stories from lesser know missionaries, most of whom will never be featured in an entire volume from a major publisher. But the anecdotes Sharp shares demonstrate clearly that the major difference between those that give their lives in service to God through international missions and those that don’t is a willingness to go.
Sharp himself served as a missionary in Brazil with his family for several decades. He then spent several decades working with Crossworld, a parachurch organization that emphasizes getting people of all professions into the world with the gospel message, and he has been a leader in the Business as Mission (BAM) movement, which has similar aims. His experience as an administrator put him into contact with a large number of missionaries whose stories he has curated into this volume.
There are several dozen missionaries featured in The Greatest Missionary Generation sorted by general topic in the thirteen chapters of the book. The common thread among them is being born at a time to have experienced World War II, thus coinciding with the generation that Tom Brokaw has famously labeled the Greatest Generation, and that they all seem to have come from seemingly insignificant backgrounds.
The pattern may not be universal in this volume, but many of the mini-biographies Sharp records begin with a summary of the individual’s background. Usually from Nowhere, USA. Most of the stories about people from the hills of Appalachia, small mid-West towns, or unknown areas of Canada. The educational background of these saints is also scant, with many of them going to Bible institutes to get just enough training to be approved by the mission board. Not that they didn’t seem to value training, but that they were chomping at the bit to get onto the field.
Each of these stories is about regular people who made a decision to live as vocational workers for the kingdom of God. That’s the main difference between them and the average person in your local church. And that is a powerful reminder that the key qualification for faithful service is willingness.
Generational analysis has been overdone and is often exceedingly uncharitable. However, the formative experiences of the so-called Greatest Generation unquestionably shaped their view of life. My own grandfather, having served in the US Navy and witnessed the invasion of Iwo Jima (something I did not find out about until his funeral), gave his life in service of the kingdom as a church planter in the mid-Atlantic region. Doing analysis after the fact, I have little doubt that the experience of witnessing the horrors of WWII and experiencing the borderline societal collapse did a great deal to diminish the importance of a profitable career for him. The same seems true of so many of the subjects of Sharp’s biographies.
Thankfully, The Greatest Missionary Generation, does not imply that they are the best generation or the only generation doing missions faithfully. Rather, it highlights the ordinariness of the missionaries and seeks to inspire a greater number of regular people to step out from their comfortable first culture lives to take the gospel to the nations. If these people with unexceptional backgrounds can do such unexceptional things, then there is hope for everyone. The biographies of the workers in The Greatest Missionary Generation are timely because these saints have either gone home to glory or will do so in the very near future. Their races have largely been run, so this is a good time to honor their work and tell their stories. The danger of getting too much praise and attention is, for most of these faithful servants, already gone.
I read this book in an afternoon. It was an excellent way to spend a Sunday, reflecting on God’s faithfulness and the response of regular people in taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. This is a book that would likely be better digested more slowly, perhaps shared a chapter at a time with kids toward the end of the day. There are enough short stories in this book to recharge a pastor’s supply of missionary illustrations or move the local Sunday School missions moment past the same dozen or so big names.
Like a lot of books on modern missions sifting through the history of the movement, there is a chapter on the faithful service of women in varying roles. Like a lot of books from interdenominational perspectives there are a few potshots thrown at those who remain faithful to the Pauline teaching on gender roles related to the pastorate. Sharp sweeps aside theological questions related to preaching and baptizing as unimportant, without grappling with the meaningful questions of the text and theological tradition. His comments on this subject largely incidental to the main content, but they do reflect a basic pragmatic approach that sits at the edge of many modern interdenominational movements: whatever gets the job done. This sounds commendable until we recognize where it has led churches with regard to their adoption of worldly cultural practices like “seeker models” that use entertainment over substance to build a crowd. It’s worth considering that the way we practice Christianity is important to the clarity and consistency of the message of Christianity. This is a minor point in Sharp’s book, but it reflects a broader trend of failing to take meaningful objections seriously when they conflict with cultural norms, or, perhaps, the adoption of a results-oriented pragmatism that conquers navel-gazing but can lead to the dismissal of important doctrinal questions.
In sum, this is an excellent book. It is well worth the time to read it. It should be part of a local church library, could be an inspiring book to read with a group, and would do well to find its way into the hands of teenagers who are considering what they want to be when they grow up. One of the most attractive aspects of the book is the celebration of some “no name” missionaries. May we get more volumes like this that demonstrate the significant impact that ordinary people being ordinary Christians in cross cultural situations can have for the advance of the gospel. The task of reaching every tribe, tongue, and nation will be completed by faithful people like these, not by big names doing extraordinary things.
NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the author with no expectation of a positive review.
The hope of Christians for creation is not that we will be able to make things entirely correct through our efforts. Rather, we work with the knowledge that we have been given a ministry of reconciliation, which includes all of creation (cf., Col 1:20; 2 Cor 5:16–18). We work toward reconciliation in hope, but recognize that hope will not be fulfilled until Christ comes again. Creation exists in futility in the present age because of God’s curse on creation. (Gen 3:17–19) Our task is to till the ground in hope, making our living, (Gen 3:20) looking forward to the moment when God supernaturally sets everything right.
This transient event was a reminder that there is order in the universe. There is design. Care was taken by a mind to create something that is wonder-full. And, if we’re willing to take a little of our time, we’re likely to get a glimpse of the transcendent even in this world of banal imminence. These moments are gifts from God to draw us out of the ordinary into a sense of awe at his nature. That is something no human mind can deny.
Michael Rood of ‘Rood Awakening!’ ministries is careful to distance himself from Pharisaical traditions, but his teaching has more in common with the Judaizers Paul dealt harshly with throughout his life. His message is intended to lead them away from salvation.
For those who love reading and thinking about reading, this book is a delight. Perhaps it will not change the world, but it did enrich my soul.
In both books, Anderson notes that “distinguishing between good and bad questions is like distinguishing good and bad music.” He also highlights the “‘touch’ that separates great pianists from good ones” (Questions, 158; cf. Exploring, 164–65). There is an intangible quality, an eye, or a feel that differentiates the good from the great in every discipline. You can’t checklist your way to the Hall of Fame in a sport, to musical greatness, or to academic excellence. On the other hands, you can often checklist your way to adequacy. And adequacy is a precursor to excellence.
In a culture that tends to see so many things in terms of quantitative production rather than qualitative excellence, even a dose of what Newport prescribes can be beneficial. Knowledge workers that reconsider their harried lives through his unhurried lens will find plenty of things to reevaluate, especially for those of use who recognize a purpose beyond income and self-gratification in our work.
Everyone has stories. As the Moth authors write, “You are a multitude of stories. Every joy and heartbreak, every disappointment and dizzying high––each has contributed to the complex, one-of-a-kind person that you are today” (3). That’s part of their motivation in telling stories, in coaching storytellers for their show, and in producing their book about storytelling.
When Paul warns servants to do their work “as for the Lord” (Col 3:23) he is getting at this why. Obviously, we’ve got to work so we keep a job in order to eat (or for slaves, so they didn’t get punished), but that’s not enough. We have to focus on the next deeper question to have success. We have to see God as the final object of our efforts if they are going to have real merit. And, I think, we are more likely to have new habits or behaviors stick if we make God’s glory the animating purpose of our actions.
The brevity and fragility of life is exactly what makes the Puritans different from our contemporary “entrenched intellectualists,” who “present themselves as rigid, argumentative, critical Christians, champions of God’s truth for whom orthodoxy is all” (31). Truth and life were altogether too important to waste with argumentative posturing and saber rattling, The Puritans certainly battled many things in culture and in print, but in their writings, those always seem to be penultimate goals—the ultimate goal was increasing love and knowledge of the God of the universe.
How and How Not to Be Happy is an exercise in asking questions and reasoning through options for the source of happiness with the aim of explaining to a broad audience where true happiness can be found.
I read biographies because it puts me in contact with better men and women, most of whom have died and whose lives can be measured with more accuracy and finality than the living. This is a sanctifying process, since it humbles me to recognize my own weakness in comparison to the greatness of others.
When it comes to the recent biography of Eric Liddell, For the Glory, I have found a man whose sandals I am unworthy to untie.
Liddell has been immortalized in contemporary culture with the Oscar winning movie Chariots of Fire. That film tells the tale to Liddell’s relatively short running career which cultivated in his surprising world record and gold medal finish in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. Previously, when I thought of Liddell, I always heard the synthesizer playing the familiar theme and thought of giving up a chance at more gold medals to honor sabbatarian traditions. The movie ends with a brief, abrupt epilogue that indicates that the hero died in an internment camp in China during WWII.
Another picture emerges in other biographies I’ve encountered. The YWAM biography and other simplified biographies written by Christians paint a portrait of a saint, telling a powerful story for an audience looking for a Christian hero. Danny Akin has preached a sermon using the life of Eric Liddell as an extended illustration.
I expected these sorts of biographies to paint Liddell in a positive light as the protagonist in a compelling sports movie and as a great missionary who died for the cause.
When I picked up Duncan Hamilton’s recent biography, I was expecting a much less flattering picture. A missionary biography written by an apparent non-believer with no clear Christian sympathies printed by a secular publisher is bound to find all the dirt and put it out so everyone can see it. I expected to find private details with hints of suspicious activities at every turn. That, however, is not the case.
The portrait of Liddell that emerges from this volume is of a man whose serious, meticulous devotion to God was rewarded by such a degree of sanctification that he was able to risk his life for Christ without thinking twice. In fact, the man once pushed two wounded men in a wheelbarrow through the countryside filled with Japanese aggressors because they would have otherwise died. He faced harassment, theft, confiscation of his property, and separation from his wife with a good attitude for the sake of the cross. The picture Hamilton paints is one of a saint who did great things for the Lord with a gracious attitude and without neglecting the other good things in his life as a consequence.
The book is divided into three parts. Part One focuses on Liddell’s childhood through his Olympic victories. These chapters line up well with other biographies I’ve read and generally support the well-known story that has been seen on screen as Chariots of Fire. Part Two explores Liddell’s work as a missionary in China, including his courtship of his wife, his continued athletic efforts, and his focus on doing the work God called him to. An interesting wrinkle to the legend of Liddell is that he didn’t absolutely reject the possibility of running in another Olympics. His faith was not a call to asceticism. Rather, it was the British Olympic Committee that failed to engage a man who might have won the U.K. another gold. This section was largely new ground for me and very engaging. Part Three expands on Liddell’s life in the Japanese internment camp, about which much less has been known than about other parts of Liddell’s story. Hamilton conducted a host of interviews of other internees to expand the available information about a great hero of the faith.
What Hamilton has done here deserves notice. He took a Christian hero whose story has been told before and he made it better. Hamilton added to the field of missiology by writing a careful history of someone who has been celebrated widely. He did this without slipping into dismissiveness of Liddell’s convictions or snarky digressions about the foolishness of his faith. Hamilton should be praised for adding a critical work on Liddell that doesn’t fall into the too common trap of attacking the biography’s subject in order to add interest. There are no “daddy complex” narratives or secret abuse allegations. What the reader gets is honest history told exceptionally well.
Even if missionary biographies don’t keenly interest you, this book is worth your time. Hamilton writes so very well. His retelling of Liddell’s life story is detailed but lively, carefully crafted but not pedantic, honest but complimentary. In short, this is a great book that deserves to be read and widely.
Note: I received a gratis copy of this volume with no expectation of a positive review.
I reviewed a volume not too long ago in which Mark Tietjen presents the thought of Soren Kierkegaard in an attempt to convince the reader that reading Kierkegaard is a worthwhile activity for the contemporary church. I am inclined to agree with him based on his book.
What struck me as perhaps the most significant lesson from the book was the call to be a Christian missionary to Christians. This is the subtitle of the book and it largely describes how Kierkegaard saw himself. It is, in our day, perhaps a necessary task.
The following extended quotation, drawn from the conclusion of his book outlines some ways Tietjen sees that Christians can be missionaries to other Christians, which is Kierkegaard’s overall ministry:
- If there are some who are Christians in name only, then one can be a Christian missionary to such Christians.
- If there are some who have inherited a perverted form of Christianity and know nothing better, then one can be a Christian missionary to such Christians.
- If there are Christians who value created goods over the Creator, then one can be a missionary to such Christians.
- If there are Christians who struggle to trust in God and his goodness, then one can be a Christian missionary to such Christians.
- If there are Christians who fail to believe God can redeem even the least redeemable person, then one can be a Christian missionary to such Christians.
- If there are Christians who lose hope that God’s kindness, forgiveness and redemption extend even to them, then one can be a Christian missionary to such Christians.
- If there are Christians who ‘speak in tongues of angels,’ and so on, but have not love, then one can be a Christian missionary to such Christians.
Thus to be a missionary is not simply to convert the lost but to incarnate divine love in obedience to and imitation of Jesus Christ, the God incarnate. This could involve a fresh gospel message, works of love, words of nurture or the trust of one who construes me as neighbor who bears God’s image. The truth is that just as all Christians are called to mission, so too could all Christians use the message and love of the Christian missionary. Mission work quite simply calls others, all others, to God. (161-162)
A necessary step into understanding what Tietjen is proposing, and what he claims Kierkegaard supports, is altering the concept of "missions." This is by no means a new conversation, but it is one that hasn't always found escape from the halls of academia.
In general terms "missions" refers to the concept of going out to evangelize, do good works, and spread the good news of Christianity. When you think "missions" think vocational missionaries, evangelistic meetings, and a focused effort to reach people who have not previously accepted the gospel.
The term "mission" encompasses those things, but it is an umbrella term that defines a broader range of activity. Advocates of the concept of "mission" are affirmative of focused evangelistic efforts, but also see the gospel importance of daily living. The faith and work integration movement has this vision. Every action has the potential to preach the gospel in some way.
Behind Tietjen's explanation of Kierkegaard as a Christian missionary to Christians is this understanding of the purpose of the Christian life. It broadens the pool of gospel workers to include all truly converted Christians and broadens the work that is considered to promote the advance of the gospel.
We live in a post-Christian America. Perhaps even a post-reality America. Although I do not believe that America was ever a "Christian nation" in the sense that the nation had a divine mandate or was especially blessed because of its faithfulness, I do see in the pages of history a general Christian consensus.
Obviously that consensus has decayed. And yet, a form of cultural Christianity continues on. This is the sort of Christianity that allows people voting for an immoral, authoritarian candidate for the highest office in the country to claim that he is somehow chosen by God for the office. (Which he may be, just not for the reasons they suppose.) Many of these people claim to be "Evangelical Christians," but do not darken the doors of any church on a regular basis. This is the sort of Christianity that needs Christian missionaries.
Or, on the other side of the political spectrum there are individuals who brand every form of social deconstruction a form of "progress" and make public arguments that adherence to any sense of moral law outside of "judge not" is sub-Christian. There is a large block of such professed Christians in the United States that need the gospel as much as your Buddhist neighbor. They need a vision of the transformative power of conversion, where the Lordship of Christ is apparent over every corner of life.
This is the sort of application that Tietjen is calling for. The gospel must be evident in every area of the life of every Christian. I must say that on this point I agree with him wholeheartedly.
The hope of Christians for creation is not that we will be able to make things entirely correct through our efforts. Rather, we work with the knowledge that we have been given a ministry of reconciliation, which includes all of creation (cf., Col 1:20; 2 Cor 5:16–18). We work toward reconciliation in hope, but recognize that hope will not be fulfilled until Christ comes again. Creation exists in futility in the present age because of God’s curse on creation. (Gen 3:17–19) Our task is to till the ground in hope, making our living, (Gen 3:20) looking forward to the moment when God supernaturally sets everything right.
This transient event was a reminder that there is order in the universe. There is design. Care was taken by a mind to create something that is wonder-full. And, if we’re willing to take a little of our time, we’re likely to get a glimpse of the transcendent even in this world of banal imminence. These moments are gifts from God to draw us out of the ordinary into a sense of awe at his nature. That is something no human mind can deny.
Michael Rood of ‘Rood Awakening!’ ministries is careful to distance himself from Pharisaical traditions, but his teaching has more in common with the Judaizers Paul dealt harshly with throughout his life. His message is intended to lead them away from salvation.
For those who love reading and thinking about reading, this book is a delight. Perhaps it will not change the world, but it did enrich my soul.
In both books, Anderson notes that “distinguishing between good and bad questions is like distinguishing good and bad music.” He also highlights the “‘touch’ that separates great pianists from good ones” (Questions, 158; cf. Exploring, 164–65). There is an intangible quality, an eye, or a feel that differentiates the good from the great in every discipline. You can’t checklist your way to the Hall of Fame in a sport, to musical greatness, or to academic excellence. On the other hands, you can often checklist your way to adequacy. And adequacy is a precursor to excellence.
In a culture that tends to see so many things in terms of quantitative production rather than qualitative excellence, even a dose of what Newport prescribes can be beneficial. Knowledge workers that reconsider their harried lives through his unhurried lens will find plenty of things to reevaluate, especially for those of use who recognize a purpose beyond income and self-gratification in our work.
Everyone has stories. As the Moth authors write, “You are a multitude of stories. Every joy and heartbreak, every disappointment and dizzying high––each has contributed to the complex, one-of-a-kind person that you are today” (3). That’s part of their motivation in telling stories, in coaching storytellers for their show, and in producing their book about storytelling.
When Paul warns servants to do their work “as for the Lord” (Col 3:23) he is getting at this why. Obviously, we’ve got to work so we keep a job in order to eat (or for slaves, so they didn’t get punished), but that’s not enough. We have to focus on the next deeper question to have success. We have to see God as the final object of our efforts if they are going to have real merit. And, I think, we are more likely to have new habits or behaviors stick if we make God’s glory the animating purpose of our actions.
The brevity and fragility of life is exactly what makes the Puritans different from our contemporary “entrenched intellectualists,” who “present themselves as rigid, argumentative, critical Christians, champions of God’s truth for whom orthodoxy is all” (31). Truth and life were altogether too important to waste with argumentative posturing and saber rattling, The Puritans certainly battled many things in culture and in print, but in their writings, those always seem to be penultimate goals—the ultimate goal was increasing love and knowledge of the God of the universe.
How and How Not to Be Happy is an exercise in asking questions and reasoning through options for the source of happiness with the aim of explaining to a broad audience where true happiness can be found.
“What we need in China is more workers. The harvest is very great, the laborers, oh! so few. Why does the Southern Baptist church lag behind in this great work?”
Today marks the 142nd anniversary of Lottie Moon's landing in China to take the gospel to that nation and to those millions of people.
She's been a hero to many for her willingness to leave relative comfort, social position, and a loving family behind in the United States to go to a life of discomfort and perpetual struggle.
She was fiercely orthodox, even forgoing her marriage to Crawford Toy over his abandonment of the veracity of Scripture. Lottie Moon was a woman of conviction who lived much of her life so that others might find new life in Christ.
Her faithful letter writing to raise funds for all Baptist missionaries led to her becoming the namesake of the Southern Baptist Convention's annual Christmas Offering. Because of her faithfulness, her name has become a rallying point for Southern Baptist Missions.
Lottie Moon's story is one that is compelling and should increase our faith in God's providence and renew our desire to go to tell of him to the nations.
Consider praying a prayer of thanksgiving for faithful saints like Lottie Moon.
1. She was born on December 12, 1840 into a wealthy plantation owning family in Virginia.
2. As an adult she was only about 4'3" tall. This is about the height of an average American 8 or 9 year old girl.
3. Lottie Moon was one of the earliest pioneers in women's education as a graduate of Albemarle Female Institute at Charlottesville in Virginia. She was academically gifted, particularly in languages, which would help her master Chinese. She earned an M.A. in Classics in 1861.
4. She was converted from a vehement opponent to Christianity to a faithful Christian in 1859 under the teaching of John Albert Broadus, in Charlottesville.
5. On July 7, 1873, the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention appointed Lottie Moon as a missionary to China. She actually followed her sister, Edmonia, who had been appointed as a missionary before her.
6. She helped institute the contemporary missions policy of allowing furloughs for missionaries. Moon spent 14 years on the field before returning to the United States for a break. Prior to that innovation, missionaries who left their home country were presumed to be leaving forever.
7. Lottie Moon was a vocal advocate for ending the practice of foot binding in Chinese culture. She helped to turn the tide on that barbaric practice.
8. Her letter writing was a means of encouraging missionaries to leave home for the sake of the gospel during her day. They have continued to inspire missionaries to be faithful to God's calling to the present.
9. On December 24, 1912, Lottie Moon died on a ship off the coast of China. She weighed only 50 pounds and died of starvation because she was foregoing food to try to save her Chinese friends and neighbors during a famine.
10. In 1918, the Women's Missionary Union (WMU) named their annual Christmas offering after Lottie Moon, the woman who had strongly encouraged them to start the practice.
Danny Akin's 2007 sermon on the life of Lottie Moon with an exegesis of Romans 12:1: Manuscript and Audio
Christian History feature article on Lottie Moon.
A helpful book, edited by my friend, Keith Harper:
The hope of Christians for creation is not that we will be able to make things entirely correct through our efforts. Rather, we work with the knowledge that we have been given a ministry of reconciliation, which includes all of creation (cf., Col 1:20; 2 Cor 5:16–18). We work toward reconciliation in hope, but recognize that hope will not be fulfilled until Christ comes again. Creation exists in futility in the present age because of God’s curse on creation. (Gen 3:17–19) Our task is to till the ground in hope, making our living, (Gen 3:20) looking forward to the moment when God supernaturally sets everything right.
This transient event was a reminder that there is order in the universe. There is design. Care was taken by a mind to create something that is wonder-full. And, if we’re willing to take a little of our time, we’re likely to get a glimpse of the transcendent even in this world of banal imminence. These moments are gifts from God to draw us out of the ordinary into a sense of awe at his nature. That is something no human mind can deny.
Michael Rood of ‘Rood Awakening!’ ministries is careful to distance himself from Pharisaical traditions, but his teaching has more in common with the Judaizers Paul dealt harshly with throughout his life. His message is intended to lead them away from salvation.
For those who love reading and thinking about reading, this book is a delight. Perhaps it will not change the world, but it did enrich my soul.
In both books, Anderson notes that “distinguishing between good and bad questions is like distinguishing good and bad music.” He also highlights the “‘touch’ that separates great pianists from good ones” (Questions, 158; cf. Exploring, 164–65). There is an intangible quality, an eye, or a feel that differentiates the good from the great in every discipline. You can’t checklist your way to the Hall of Fame in a sport, to musical greatness, or to academic excellence. On the other hands, you can often checklist your way to adequacy. And adequacy is a precursor to excellence.
In a culture that tends to see so many things in terms of quantitative production rather than qualitative excellence, even a dose of what Newport prescribes can be beneficial. Knowledge workers that reconsider their harried lives through his unhurried lens will find plenty of things to reevaluate, especially for those of use who recognize a purpose beyond income and self-gratification in our work.
Everyone has stories. As the Moth authors write, “You are a multitude of stories. Every joy and heartbreak, every disappointment and dizzying high––each has contributed to the complex, one-of-a-kind person that you are today” (3). That’s part of their motivation in telling stories, in coaching storytellers for their show, and in producing their book about storytelling.
When Paul warns servants to do their work “as for the Lord” (Col 3:23) he is getting at this why. Obviously, we’ve got to work so we keep a job in order to eat (or for slaves, so they didn’t get punished), but that’s not enough. We have to focus on the next deeper question to have success. We have to see God as the final object of our efforts if they are going to have real merit. And, I think, we are more likely to have new habits or behaviors stick if we make God’s glory the animating purpose of our actions.
The brevity and fragility of life is exactly what makes the Puritans different from our contemporary “entrenched intellectualists,” who “present themselves as rigid, argumentative, critical Christians, champions of God’s truth for whom orthodoxy is all” (31). Truth and life were altogether too important to waste with argumentative posturing and saber rattling, The Puritans certainly battled many things in culture and in print, but in their writings, those always seem to be penultimate goals—the ultimate goal was increasing love and knowledge of the God of the universe.
How and How Not to Be Happy is an exercise in asking questions and reasoning through options for the source of happiness with the aim of explaining to a broad audience where true happiness can be found.
“To all our subjects who may see this and also to others, may God save you, know that we have prohibited the transport of slaves by sea in all our harbours and have closed the markets which are for sale of slaves through all our dominions. Whoever therefore shall ship a raw slave after this date will render himself liable to punishment and this he will bring upon himself. Be this known.” – From a notice, posted on a customhouse in Zanzibar on June 5, 1873, about 1 month after David Livingstone’s death.
Every biography of David Livingstone picks up on a different aspect of his life. He’s hailed as a paragon of missionaries for abandoning the colonial model of a mission station to push to the interior of Africa. Unfortunately, by most ways missionaries are measured, he was not terribly successful, with few converts in his lifetime. He is sometimes celebrated as a scientist due to his medical discoveries, particularly his pioneering of the treatment of quinine for the prevention and treatment of malaria. Often he is known as a great explorer because of his expeditions into the heart of Africa to map the territory and to attempt to find the headwaters of the Nile.
Jay Milbrandt’s recent biography, The Daring Heart of David Livingstone: Exile, African Slavery, and the Publicity Stunt that Saved Millions highlights an element of Livingstone’s life that is often little publicized: Livingstone was passionate about ending the brutal slave trade in East Africa. In fact, the closing of the slave markets in Zanzibar, highlighted in the statement above, was one of the greatest accomplishments of his career, which unfortunately he did not live to see.
Reading of Livingstone’s life is heartbreaking. He failed at several major efforts. He won the hearts of the people of Britain and America due to his discoveries and his missionary accounts. But then he lost the crowd’s applause due to his public failures, which were driven in part by his personal weaknesses. He was, at times, a poor leader. By any reasonable metric he was a terrible father whose children barely knew him, if at all. Still, his wife had every reason to despise him and yet she loved him. I have read several biographies of Livingstone before. I have at times wondered why he is such a celebrated hero. Milbrandt has done a service by highlighting Livingstone’s greatest achievement.
This is a dark book at many points. In order to illustrate the importance of Livingstone’s fight against the slave trade, Milbrandt reveals some of the gruesome details of the conditions in East Africa during Livingstone's time.
For example, in order to destabilize conditions in an otherwise generally peaceful region of Africa, slave traders sent parties in to murder as much as to capture slaves. Villages would be wiped out with a few survivors taken captive, tied together, and sent on a death march toward the coast where they would be sold to the highest bidder. Disease, starvation, and exhaustion took the lives of many of the captives before they reached their destinations.
Livingstone records something more horrifying than the direct deaths due to the brutal slave raids:
“The strangest disease I have seen in this country seems really to be the broken-heartedness, and it attacks free men who have been captured and made slaves. . . . They ascribed their only pain to the heart, and placed the hand correctly on the spot, though many think that the organ stands high up under the breast bone. Some slavers expressed surprise to me that [their slaves] should die, seeing they had plenty to eat and no work . . . it seems to be really broken-hearts of which they die.”
Their families slaughtered, the captives in the slave camps died because their freedom was gone. They ceased to live because they had nothing left to live for. Slavery was a misery worse than the physical ailments that beset them. The blackness of the evil of slavery in that context must be understood if the value of Livingstone’s life work is to be recognized.
One of the more intriguing twists in Livingstone’s fight for abolition is that it was a publicity stunt that had the most impact in stopping the brutal slave trade. Livingstone had been reported dead by some of the natives who had accompanied his expedition to find the headwaters of the Nile. In order to scoop the British papers, the New York Herald sent Henry Morton Stanley to go find the wayward explorer.
Against all odds, Stanley was successful. After a series of interviews over a period of four months, Stanley left Livingstone, unable to convince the explorer to return to civilization. Livingstone did, however, send journals and letters with Stanley, which were influential in spurring political action in Britain to lean on the African nations to end their trade in slaves.
Contributing to the building momentum toward abolition was the dynamic between Britain, who had ended slavery in the early 19th century, and the United States, who had only ended their barbaric human trafficking after a bloody and divisive Civil War. Stanley’s efforts, funded by a US paper helped to shame the British into a more forward action against the slave trade.
Stanley’s encounter also provides a less biased picture of the man who was David Livingstone. Though Stanley was not particularly religious, he wrote this about Livingstone:
“His religion is not of the theoretical kind, but it is a constant, earnest, sincere practice. It is neither demonstrative nor loud, but manifests itself in a quiet, practical way, and is always at work . . . In him, religion exhibits its loveliest features; it governs his conduct not only toward his servants. . . . Religion has tamed him, and made him a Christian gentleman.”
Stanley’s admiration for the man, despite his failings, helps explain why Livingstone’s legacy is as great as it is. It also helps to explain why his wife, Mary, risked disease and death to be with her husband, though he had frequently left her behind for years at a time during his explorations. It also explains why so many of the Africans loved the man so dearly.
As Milbrandt aptly writes, “Livingstone’s story is one of failure and falling from grace. But it is also a story of relentless commitment that brings redemption we may never know, and a story greater than we could ever image. This is David Livingstone’s legacy.”
I am thankful to Jay Milbrandt for investing his time to write this biography. He has done a good thing to draw out the victory against slavery that came through Livingstone’s work. Milbrandt illustrates the reality that many great men and women had serious failings, and that despite these failings their memories should not be cast aside forever, nor should their weaknesses be ignored.
Though Livingstone did not accomplish all he set out to do, a worthy tribute was once paid to him in a speech made by an old African man that had once met the explorer:
“A white man who treated black men as his brothers, and whose memory would always be cherished all along the Rovuma Valley after we were all dead and gone. A short man with a bushy moustache, and a keen piercing eye, whose words were always gentle, and whose manners were always kind, whom as a leader it was a privilege to follow, and who knew the way to the hearts of all men.”
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
The fact that Sam and his wife Rachel served for 51 years is impressive in and of itself. I dream of being that faithful for so long.
That they served in Vietnam for many of those years makes the feat even more astounding. James recalls of his decision to serve in Vietnam:
"I didn't know any Vietnamese people. I'd never heard the Vietnamese language. . . . It was just something the Lord laid on my heart that I couldn't get away from. . . . Sometimes I think the call of God is something of a mystery."
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The hope of Christians for creation is not that we will be able to make things entirely correct through our efforts. Rather, we work with the knowledge that we have been given a ministry of reconciliation, which includes all of creation (cf., Col 1:20; 2 Cor 5:16–18). We work toward reconciliation in hope, but recognize that hope will not be fulfilled until Christ comes again. Creation exists in futility in the present age because of God’s curse on creation. (Gen 3:17–19) Our task is to till the ground in hope, making our living, (Gen 3:20) looking forward to the moment when God supernaturally sets everything right.