Jim Elliot was martyred in Ecuador at age 29.

Jim was fueled by a passion to see the nations praise the Lord Jesus. He trusted Jesus as Savior at age 8 and as a teenager began to feel a call to missions. His wife wrote that his aim in life was “to know God.”

Jim’s other great aim in life was to exalt God. In a letter to his parents that he wrote as a 21 year-old, he described missionaries as normal people. He called them, “a bunch of nobodies trying to exalt Somebody.”

On January 8, 1956, Jim and 4 other missionaries waited for the chance to meet with the Auca or Huaorani Indians. They longed to exalt Somebody to a group of men who had never heard His name.

Even thought Jim was carrying a gun, he refused to use it. Suspecting danger his wife asked him before his last journey if he would use his gun to defend himself against the Indians. Jim replied, “We will not use our guns!” When asked why he replied, “Because we are ready for heaven, but they are not.”

Jim’s short life certainly exalted God and His purposes.

Who does your life exalt?

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*Elliot’s remarkable story was made more popular by the 2006 motion picture, End of the Spear. If you have never invested much time into missionary biographies, give a couple of hours to watching this movie and it might just pique your interest.

**For this entry I am in debt to Daniel Akin’s Five Who Changed the World.

“For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

Philippians 1:21 (ESV)

Bill Wallace was brutally murdered because of his faith in Christ in China on February 10, 1951. The two powerful truths of Philippians 1:21 defined his life.

For Bill to live was Christ. At age 17 Bill decided to follow God’s call and become a medical missionary. 10 years to the month after making this decision - after graduating from the University of Tennessee and University Medical School in Memphis and completing his medical residency - Bill was appointed as a medical missionary to Wuchow, South China.

Bill bypassed marriage to a young lady many of his friends expected him to marry. Bill bypassed a lucrative medical career in the United States. Bill’s life was all about Jesus.

For Bill to die was gain. Political unrest and instability marked Bill’s time in China. He lived there during the Japanese invasion of China, World War II, and the Communist takeover. Through each season, Bill ministered to people’s physical needs in the hospital often foregoing food so others could eat. Even more, he shared with them the message of Jesus Christ.

After refusing to leave China because of impending persecution, Bill was arrested on December 19, 1950 and charged with being an American spy. After nearly two months of brainwashing and torture while in prison, Bill gained the presence of God.

For who or what are you living? What will be gained by your death?

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*For this entry I am in debt to Daniel Akin’s Five Who Changed the World.

John Huss was a preacher and scholar who became the rector (or leading administrator) at the University of Prague in 1402. From this esteemed position in what is now the Czech Republic, Huss called for reform in the church. Specifically, he advocated for a return to the biblical truth that forgiveness cannot be bought from the church but must be granted by God.

Even though his view was solidly biblical, the king and the pope (John XXIII) saw his teaching as a heretical threat on the established church. Thus, he was excommunicated and he withdrew to the country to continue writing about the need for change.

The church later called a meeting to discuss matters of theological importance. Emperor Sigismud invited Huss to attend the council to defend himself and offered him safety through royal protection.

Upon his arrival, Huss was taken before the pope and ordered to recant his heresy. When he refused, he was treated like a prisoner. The emperor, realizing what was happening, ordered his release. However, upon noticing that Huss’ cause was not popular and any help to him would look like support for a heretic, the emperor refused to provide the safety he had promised.

On June 5, 1415, Huss was brought before the council in chains and ordered to submit to the assembly by recanting his heresy. Knowing that any admission of guilt would involve denying biblical truth and convinced that he would not receive a fair trial, Huss declared….

“I appeal to Jesus Christ, the only judge who is almighty and completely just. In his hands I place my cause, since he will judge each, not on the basis of false witnesses and erring councils, but of truth and justice.”

Huss was taken back to prison and many people pled with him to recant. He would not.

On July 6, he was taken to the cathedral and dressed in priestly garments. In acts of humiliation they stripped him, shaved his head, and placed a paper crown decorated with demons on him. Then, they led him away, tied him to a stake, and gave him one final chance to recant. When he would not, they burned him.

Before they lit the fire he prayed aloud, “Lord Jesus, it is for thee that I patiently endure this cruel death. I pray thee to have mercy on my enemies.” As the flames engulfed him he was heard reciting the Psalms.

In societies where biblical truth is not valued, those men and women who cling to it have always faced persecution. We live in such a society. So don’t be surprised when our commitment to the Truth requires us to a pay an earthly price.

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*Again, I’m in debt to Justo L. Gonzalez’s fine work in The Story of Christianity, vol. 1, pp. 348-351.

Betsie ten Boom lived in Holland with her father and more well-known sister Corrie at the time of the Nazi occupation during World War II. All three were imprisoned and the ladies eventually taken to a concentration camp. Betsie and her father died in earthly captivity. After years of imprisonment, Corrie was released and later wrote much about her family’s experiences in the popular book, The Hiding Place.

Prior to their arrest, they lived out their Christian faith by providing refuge for people who were hiding from the Nazi oppressors. For more than a year this family housed as many as seven people illegally. As the ten Booms ministered to these Jews and members of the Dutch underground, they trusted God in remarkable ways.

One night Betsie and Corrie awoke as German and English planes were fighting over their city. They huddled downstairs drinking tea until the commotion subsided. As Corrie climbed back into bed she cut her hand on a piece of shrapnel that had fallen through the roof and landed on her pillow. Racing back downstairs to Betsie for help, she couldn’t help but think of what might have been.

But before she could finish her sentence, Betsie stopped her cold with the life-altering application of a powerful truth…

“There are no ‘if’s’ in God’s world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety. . . . Let us pray that we may always know it!”

Betsie ten Boom, quoted from Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place, 70

Do you worry about the ‘if’s’ in life? Or do you trust completely in the safety of God’s sovereignty?

William Carey was born in England in 1761 and left as a missionary to India in 1793. Although he was poor and almost completely uneducated, Carey translated the Bible into dozens of languages and established schools and missions all over India. What he lacked in terms of education and skill he made up with surrender to God’s call.

He simply could not understand how Christians could read this text and “sit at ease” while most of the world is “lost in ignorance and idolatry.” So Carey left the comforts of life in England for the trials of missionary life.

And he would face more than his share of trials. He faced unimaginable grief in burying two wives and three children. He faced physical suffering in losing most of his hair in his 20’s due to illness and fighting back diarrhea and malaria. He faced exhaustion by serving in India for 41 years without ever taking a vacation. He faced discouragement in serving 7 years before baptizing his first convert.

Yet Carey remained and through his work thousands have been changed. They have been changed because the Bible is in their language. They have been changed because the gospel is now preached in their communities. They have been changed because one man was willing to abandon his life to surrender to God’s call to make disciples.

Will you obey the call to make disciples?

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*The factual information for this blog entry comes from two terrific books. Daniel Akin’s Five Who Changed the World and Timothy George’s Faithful Witness: The Life and Mission of William Carey.

From my good friend Curt, the following is a great quote from T. H. L. Parker’s biography of John Calvin.

Before you read it may be helpful to know…

• Calvin was a sixteenth century theologian.
• The quote is Parker’s summary of Calvin’s view about man’s dependence on the Bible as our source of ultimate knowledge of God.
• The emphasis added through the italics is mine.
• Sorry the quote is so long, but stick with it… it’s really rich.

“For all his capabilities, man is a puzzled, groping creature, surrounded by that which is mysterious to him. He not only does not understand God, nor does he understand the world in which he lives, but he does not even understand himself-from where he has come, why he lives, or to where he goes. If help does not come to him from without, he will never know God or find His kingdom.

But God, in His loving concern for man, reaches right to him, where he is wandering imprisoned in the labyrinth, and gives him the guidance of the Holy Scriptures, which are like a thread, leading him through this maze of ignorance to the knowledge of God. “The light of the Divine countenance, which the Apostle himself says ‘no man can approach unto,’ is like an inexplicable labyrinth to us, unless we are directed by the thread of the Word.”

The basis of Calvin’s theology, therefore, is the belief that through the Bible alone can God be known in His wholeness as the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord of the world. He is not so discernible in any other place-in the creation, or in man’s conscience, or in the course of history and experience. And since, if we are to know of God, we must go to the place where He is to be found, it is to the Scriptures that we must go, and there we shall find Him as He is. . . . The Scriptures are not man’s guesses about the mystery of God, nor are they the conclusions that men have drawn from certain data at their disposal. On the contrary, they are the unveiling of the mystery of God by God Himself-God’s gracious revelation of Himself to ignorant and sinful men. Far from being a stage, even the last stage, on man’s quest for the well at the world’s end, the Bible is the place where God comes from above and beyond the world to show Himself to His people.”

From T. H. L. Parker’s, Portrait of Calvin, 1954, 62.

What is the foundation for your knowledge about God? Are you leaning on your own ideas about God to form your understanding of Him? Or are you basing your understanding of Him on what He has said about Himself in the Bible?

One way is fatally flawed. The other way leads to life. So be careful.

While the genuineness of the Roman Emperor Constantine’s faith is a source of endless debate, his impact (both positively and negatively) on Church history is enormous. His rise to power began well before he became ruler of the western share of the Empire in AD 306. After assuming this position, he gradually gained military superiority over the other partial rulers until seizing control of the entire Roman Empire in AD 324.

With his power well-established in 313, however, Constantine instigated one of the most important political agreements in church history: the ‘Edict of Milan.’ This agreement between he and Licinius, another partial ruler of the Empire, included a provision to end the persecution of Christians and return their churches, cemeteries, and other properties to them.

For the first time in the nearly 300-year history of the church, Christians garnered official protection from the government. This agreement brought positive and negative changes that affected the world’s political scene and the Church immediately and for centuries.

Following the enforcement of this edict, the Church set aside an emphasis on the Kingdom of God as they lost the hope of martyrdom. During the early years of the 4^th century the Church faced some of the most cruel persecution in history, which pointed them toward the future reign of Christ and the hope of escaping persecution by dying for their faith. Now living in relative safety and security, the Church began her descent toward complacency.

Doesn’t that church sound familiar? A group of relatively safe and secure individuals who have no vision or concern for God’s eternal Kingdom and certainly no hope of dying for their faith.

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*Again, I’m in debt to Justo L. Gonzalez’s fine work in The Story of Christianity, vol. 1, pp. 113-135.

Adoniram Judson was born in Massachusetts in 1788. He and his wife Ann arrived in Rangoon, Burma in July 1812. As the first English-speaking missionaries in Burma, their ministry was marked by death, disease, and suffering.

After 5 years Judson had learned the language, translated the gospel of Matthew, and written a few gospel tracts. He had also buried two infant children and faced excruciating and unexplainable headaches.

After 7 years Judson saw his first Burmese convert and by his tenth year he had led 18 people to Christ. Two years later, in 1824, the situation went from bad to worse. War broke out in the region and he was arrested under suspicion that he was a spy. He spent 21 months in prison nearly dying several times because the conditions were so awful.

Meanwhile his wife Ann suffered just as much. She gave birth to a daughter shortly after he was arrested. The two girls suffered disease and malnutrition before both died shortly after Adoniram was released from prison.

Despite their suffering, God used this couple to bring good news to Burma. Their work resulted in the first Burmese Bible and led to hundreds of thousands of new believers.

The death, disease, and suffering that marked their lives were no surprise to God. In fact, He used all of it to bring salvation to hopelessly-lost people in a remote part of the world.

The truth remains today: God often uses our suffering to bring salvation to others. So remember to look for opportunities to share Christ in the midst of your pain, disease, death, or suffering. For your bad news might be a catalyst for God’s good news in another person’s life.

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To read much more about Adoniram’s life order a copy of his biography, To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson by Courtney Anderson.

In 373 a man named Ambrose became the leader of the church in Milan.[i] Ambrose, who at the time was governor of the city, had political aspirations and no interested in serving in the church. After his conversion, however, a controversy erupted in the church and he attended a meeting with the hopes of dealing with the potentially explosive situation and maintaining peace in the city. As he addressed the crowd, his leadership and skillful communication convinced the people that he should lead the church.

After attempts to refuse the office and even to escape the city were unsuccessful, Ambrose relented and became the bishop of Milan. Despite his reluctance, he came to embrace this role and God used him mightily.

I mention Ambrose today because one story from his ministry presents a relevant challenge for the contemporary Church.

An enemy army invaded and ravaged a nearby region. As refugees flocked to Milan, news spread that the enemy was holding other people for ransom. In response, Ambrose ordered that money be raised to help both of these groups by melting golden vessels from the church. This order created controversy within the church to which he responded…

“It is better to preserve for the Lord souls rather than gold. He who sent the apostles without gold also gathered the churches without gold. The church has gold, not to store it, but to give it up, to use it for those who are in need…. It is better to keep living vessels, than the golden ones.”

Which vessels are more valuable to you? Which vessels are more valuable to our churches?

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[i] The historical events referenced in this entry, including the extended quotation, are based on Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, vol. 1, pp. 189-193.

So much of 21^st century Christianity is skewed by our culture. Sometimes it’s helpful to reset our minds by remembering the ideals and attitudes of the great men and women of faith from past centuries. One story of a loud death helps me.

A man named Ignatius was the bishop of the church in Antioch when he was sentenced to die in A.D. 107. The imperial authorities wanted to execute him in Rome for amusement as part of a celebration for a recent military victory. Ignatius was ready for martyrdom.

While awaiting execution he heard that some Christians in Rome wanted to rescue him to prevent his death. Ignatius, however, was ready to seal his witness with his blood. In a letter written during his imprisonment, he expressed his disapproval for any attempts to save him. So he wrote…

“I fear your kindness, which may harm me. You may be able to achieve what you plan. But if you pay no heed to my request it will be very difficult for me to attain unto God.”

He continued later in the letter…

“If you remain silent about me, I shall become a word of God. But if you allow yourselves to be swayed by the love in which you hold my flesh, I shall again be no more than a human voice.”

Ignatius was no masochist. Nor did he desire self-promotion through pain. He longed to die physically in a way that would announce the central fact about his life: he was already dead.

God, help us follow Ignatius. Help us to die to self. And lead us to face death (and life) in a way that announces this death.