Perspectives8

Week 8 - Pioneers of the World Christian Movement

2022-10-05

The Glory of the Impossible

Samuel Zwemer

• Frequent set-backs and apparent failure never disheartened the real pioneer. Occasional martyrdoms are only a fresh incentive. Opposition is a stimulus to greater activity. Great victory has never been possible without great sacrifice. (330)
• The unoccupied fields of the world await those who are willing to be lonely for the sake of Christ. (330)
• Inverted homesickness describes one’s passion to call the foreign country home which is most in need of the Gospel.
• from David Livingstone in his last testament to college men for the cause of missions in Africa (333):

For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink, but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall hereafter be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.

An Enquiry

William Carey

• Carey’s arguments for why the Great Commission was not reserved for the apostolic age:
  • test
  • tet
  • test
  • test

The Call to Service

J. Hudson Taylor

• Taylor’s congregational minister inquired him of how he imagined of getting to China. He responded with Christ’s example of sending out the Twelve and Seventy without purse or scrip so they would rely on Him to provide. The minister said Taylor would grow wiser one day and not follow such an example. Taylor replied, “I have grown older since then, but not wiser.”
• Taylor took his parent’s advice to “develop the resources of body, mind, heart, and soul” while waiting for God’s guidance in his mission endeavors. He would exercise, remove his feather bed, and actively serve in whatever capacity in his church.
• Taylor became an assistant to a doctor after medical and surgical training. In his own time, he would study the Word of God, visit the poor, and evangelize on summer evenings.
• He made the imminent coming of Christ the source of his blessed hope and conviction to tidy everything in his life that made him sorry to give account to Jesus. He donated accumulated possessions and clothes lamenting how the Church of God ought to utilize more of her resources!

In the study of that Divine Word I learned that, to obtain successful laborers, not elaborate appeals for help, but, first, earnest prayer to God to thrust forth laborers, and, second, the deepening of the spiritual life of the Church, so that men should be able to stay at home, were what was needed. I saw that the apostolic plan was not raise ways and means, but to go and do the work, trusting in His sure Word who has said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” (321)

• Taylor had unbelief for God to use him to seek from Him the needed workers. He delayed until a blood-guiltiness washed over him when seeing a congregation of thousands worshipping in security while knowing millions were perishing for the ignorance of the Gospel. Overcoming the unbelief led him to write “China’s Spiritual Need and Claims.”

The State of the Gospel

Jason Mandryk

• Getting the job done:
  • Priorities: only 1/100 believers are involved in the cause of missions.
  • Sacrifice: lay down our careers, finances, time, and possibly our lives before God.
  • Partnership: collaboration between Western and Majority World churches and missions can yield much fruit.
  • Unity: demonstrate the reconciling power of the gospel.
  • Prayer: the state of the gospel changes by prayer.
• The motto of Operation World is ,“When man works, man works, but when man prays, God works. We can strategize, harmonize, dialogue, and worship—we can equip ourselves with the best financial resources and the most astute missiology available—but without prayer, we will not see spiritual strongholds broken down, nor the unevangelized peoples experiencing the gospel. The state of the gospel changes by prayer.” (368)

Women in Mission

Marguerite Kraft, Meg Crossman

• Women became the “major muscle” of the missions movement since many were widowed or unmarried due to so many deaths from the Civil War.
• 2/3 of the missions force has been and currently is female.
• from David Yonggi Cho:

We have found that in these situations, women will never give up. Men are good for building up the work, but the women are best for persevering when men get discouraged.

• Medical missions was dominated by women for many years

Europe’s Moravians

Colin A. Grant

• Within 150 years, the Moravians sent out 2,158 of its members overseas.
• The Moravians fled anti-Reformation persecution in Bohemia (in Czech Republic) and settled in Zinzendorf’s property (southern Germany).
• from A.C. Thompson, a recorder of Moravian history:

So fully is the duty of evangelizing the heathen lodged in current thought that the fact of anyone entering personally upon that work never creates surprise… It is ont regarded as a thing that calls for widespread heralding, as if something marvelous or even unusual were in hand.

• from Rev. Ignatius Latrobe, a former secretary of the Moravian missions in the U.K.:

We think it a great mistake when, after their appointment, missionaries are held up to public notice and admiration and much praise is bestowed upon their devotedness to their Lord, presenting them to the congregations as martyrs and confessors before they have even entered upon their labours. We rather advise them quietly to set out, recommended to the fervent prayers of the congregation…

• One Moravian missionary among the Huron, David Zeisberger, suffered an invasion from another indigenous tribe resulting in the burning of all his manuscripts of Scripture translation, hymns, and notes on the grammar of Indian languages. Nonetheless, he resumed his work trusting in the Lord for provision.