The blog is going silent for time. Between family responsibilities, pastoral duties, and PhD deadlines I’ve had to make a decision: let the blog go silent for a while or let my time daily personal time with God get pinched. I’ve chosen the former. Lord willing, the blog will resume its usual ruminations on ordinary ministry sometime in July.
In case you’ve missed it, 9Marks has been running a weekly feature since early March named “The 9Marks Mailbag.” Every Friday morning Jonathan Leeman offers “counsel on questions that [are] wide-ranging, practical, and from actual readers in the throes of actual dilemmas.” You may not always agree with the particulars of his counsel, but Leeman does a fantastic job in thinking through every question with biblically informed wisdom.
Check out the Mailbags, with their specific questions, in the links below:
Mailbag #1: Lent, Mid-Life Pastor, & Elder Agenda
Mailbag #2: Deaconess Qualifications, Private Baptisms, Knowing Members’ Giving
Mailbag #3: Plagiarizing Pastor, Membership Interview
Mailbag #4: Gospel Culture, Elders and Porn
Mailbag #5: Not Baptizing Children, Small Groups, Elders and Porn—Again
Mailbag #6: Pastors’ Wives, Taking Oaths, Pastors & Administration Work
Mailbag #7: Cake-baking Principles; Two Services or One; Youth Pastors; & A Discipline Issue
Genesis chapters 1-2 may have the unfortunate distinction of simultaneously being the best-known and most debated chapters in the whole Bible. One commentator says, “From what appears to be a fairly simple, brief, chronological account of how creation came into being comes an array of complicated, extended explanations of what ‘really’ happened.” My aim tonight is to try and recover something of the simple beauty of our text. It’s so easy, as we shall soon see, for most people today to get caught up in how this happened and totally miss the wonder of what happened. The main point I want us to see tonight is this: Our God is Lord over all.
1:1 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Right from the outset we see that this story of creation is utterly different from all rival religions is it tells us one God created everything and He created it from nothing.
One of the many interested things about this text is how sevens arrange the whole structure. 1:1 consists of seven Hebrew words, the are seven units, there are multiples of seven in God’s creation of heaven and earth, and there are seven divine fiats, “Let there be.” As many of you know, in the Hebrew culture seven was the number of perfection.
Like a master potter God is getting ready to create His universal masterpiece. Just like a potter starts by putting together a lump of clay, God starts, notice 1:2, “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” As a mother bird hovers of her children, the Spirit hovered over the formless void. And then the real Big Bang happened: God spoke. Look at 1:3, “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” What can we say about these days of creation?
One morning when I was a seventeen year old I went over to a friend’s house for a Bible study he promised “would rock my world.” I showed up at 7:30am and he proceeded to indeed rock my world for three hours as he tried to convince me what the Bible really says about the days of creation. Were they literal twenty-four hour days? Not so, he said. Each day was ages and ages long for the Hebrew word for day (yom) is occasionally used to speak of a epoch or era. While he did blow my mind, I was—and still am—unconvinced. Many mentors in ministry and scholars I hold in high esteem find some variation of the day-age theory satisfying and others see the days as a God accommodating to our finite understanding by using our seven-day week as analogous to His work in creation. I find no satisfying exegetical reasons to doubt God actually did created everything in one week, as we would understand a week full of twenty-four hour days. I understand many Christians struggle to reconcile supposed scientific fact with Scripture. But we must decide in our minds that science cannot account for a supernatural God and science can never be the guide for how we understand this supernatural God. Also, our Bible is not a scientific document, it God’s revelation of Himself. So if you go looking for answers to scientific questions in the Bible you probably won’t find what you are looking for. But you will find a God to adore. For however long is actually took Him to do it, this God created everything!
Let’s run through the days of creation quickly now. What’s already been said in 1:2 is vital to understanding what God was doing in the six days of creation, “The earth was without form and void.” There was a formlessness and emptiness in the world. So God goes about giving the world form and fullness, what I’m calling days of preparation and days of saturation. Days 1-3 are ones of preparation for days 4-6 that will give saturation to the earth.
So God separates light and dark on day 1 and then fills it with the lights of day and night on day 4. God separates sea and sky on day 2 and then fills it with creatures of water and air on day 5. He prepares a fertile land on day 3 and then saturates is with creatures of the land on day 6.
But something unique and extraordinary happened on day six, look at 1:26-27, “Then God said, “Let us (I think this is probably an implicit reference to the Trinity) make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.”
In all of this creative work only man and woman bear the image of God. Man and woman are clearly the crown of God’s creation. What’s interesting is that in the Ancient Near Eastern world kings were said to be images of their god, but here we find God every man and women is imago Dei. In the ancient world “a ruler’s image was set up in the distant parts of his kingdom to indicate his authority reached there.” What then does it mean to be created in the image of God? Human beings are made in God’s image in that they are to rule the world for God.
Look at how God confirms this in 1:28, “And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” This is the creation mandate: Human beings are God’s vice-regents on earth, called to the responsibility and privilege of subduing the world for God.
Many people have said that the creation of man represents the climax of Scripture, but I actually think it’s what happens on day seven. Notice 2:1-3, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” This is the true climax of the story of creation: God rest from his work. Not because He was tired, for God can never tire, but because His work was complete, it was perfect. What God sets out to do, He will do, and He will do it perfectly. Our God is Lord over all.
There is a pattern of God’s redemptive-creational work we need to see. Out of the chaos He brings life and He brings rest. This is what happened with the nation of Israel. Out of the chaos of slavery in Egypt, God brought them life and rest in the Promised Land. It’s not different in our day. Out of the chaos of sin God brings life and rest in Jesus Christ. Remember what He said? “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” If you are not a Christian, rest from your sin is found in Jesus alone. He lived the perfect life, died a sacrificial death, and rose victoriously over the grave to give you perfect, eternal rest. It can be yours tonight if your turn from your sin and trust in His work.
God reigns as the sovereign King. He is the supreme Creator, righteous Judge, and merciful Father. He alone creates and thus reigns over creation. There may, as we will see next week, be rebels in God’s kingdom, there are not rivals.
God rules by His sovereign word. Our LORD God creates and commands. By His word He brought all things into being and by His word He rules over His people.
Man is utterly reliant upon God. His power alone brought us into the world, thus it’s by His power alone we can live in the world. Our physical fragility and spiritual vulnerability scream out just how reliant upon God we are.
Man is ultimately responsible to God. He created His people in His image to enjoy His grace and commanded them to extend His glory to the ends of the earth. Ultimate accountability belongs to Him alone.
This then is the simple, yet glorious truth, which sets the stage for all human history and eventual eternity: Our God is Lord over all.
Just as Catholicism influenced the spirituality of mainline Protestants in the 20th century, so too did mainline Protestants influence evangelical spirituality. The influences are many, but this essay will focus on the spiritual formation movement, increasing openness to the miraculous gifts, egalitarianism, and homosexuality.
For most of the 20th century evangelicals had never heard of the phrase “spiritual formation.” Yet, by the turn of the century “spiritual formation” was a buzzword in evangelical denominations and networks. Many seminaries today not only offer spiritual formation classes, but even have departments of spiritual formation. What is it? Spiritual formation speaks of the shaping process by which a person’s spirituality is shaped, and is thus uniquely concerned with the dynamic means by which one grows in Christlikeness. Its main proponents are luminaries such as Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, and Eugene Peterson.
Mainline versions of spiritual formation often meant experimenting with a diverse array of practices. In the late 1900s mainline retreats for spiritual formation would adapt themes from medieval mystics and have workshops on the Labyrinth or Enneagram. Some spiritual formation proponents even encouraged Buddhist techniques to help spiritual growth. In a Christianity Today article from 2002 entitled, “Three Temptations of Spiritual Formation,” Evan Howard writes, “One popular retreat and spiritual [formation] training center in my region offers common meals, massage, inner healing, evening prayer, in-depth dream work, daily Eucharist, and “mandala explorations.” Mandalas (artistic, usually circular, designs) appear in a few religious traditions—in Native American designs, in Gothic rose windows, and especially in Tibetan practices.” It seemed as though much of the spiritual formation in the mainline was indeed “spiritual,” but hardly “Christian.”
Much of the evangelical adaptation of spiritual formation picks up on time-tested, ordinary means for growth in Christlikeness. Foster, in his Celebration of Discipline, provides a chapter each on the following disciplines: mediation, [contemplative] prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration. The mainline influence is particularly seen is in how some evangelicals stress greatly intuitive and individualistic notions of spirituality. Yet, whereas the mainline feels no great need to tether this intuitiveness to Scripture, many evangelical teachers of spiritual formation seek to submit the intuitive pursuits to Scripture and not neglect the reality of sin and the need for a Savior. Spiritual formation is thus not something done to simply promote spirituality, but something done to pursue godliness, as revealed in God’s Word.
Quite possibly the greatest effect mainline Protestant spirituality brought to evangelicalism is “The Third Wave” movement. It was at the beginning of the 20th century that Pentecostalism began and quickly found a place in American—if not evangelical—life. Charles Parham taught that the baptism of the Spirit was subsequent to conversion and was evidenced by speaking in tongues. His young disciple William Seymour would eventually take the Pentecostal doctrine to Los Angeles where, in 1906, a revival broke out. This revival lasted for roughly nine years and led to the rapid growth of the Pentecostalism in America. Yet, for most of the first half of the twentieth century Pentecostalism found little respect among mainline denominations and thus had little effect on Protestantism as a whole. This began to change when Dennis Bennett—an Episcopalian priest in Van Nuys, California—claimed to have been given the gift of tongues. This event was a watershed moment for Pentecostalism. It eventually led to many Catholics and mainline Protestants to become “Charismatic” in their orientation. While Pentecostals teach a subsequent Spirit baptism leading to the gift of tongues, Charismatics accept a “baptism in the spirit” by faith without accompanying manifestations while later seeking to “yield to tongues,” not as “initial evidence” but as one of the authenticating gifts of the Spirit. Throughout much of the 1960s and 1970s, a Charismatic renewal swept through the mainline denominations and moved the continuation of all spiritual gifts to the forefront of much evangelical thought.
The great adaptation of mainline Charismatic renewal practices began to broadly happen in the 1980s. Peter Wagner, of Fuller Theological Seminary, coined the term Third Wave, saying, “The first wave was the Pentecostal movement, the second wave was the Charismatic movement, and now the third wave is joining them.” Third Wave adherents thus made it clear that while they were the natural succession to Pentecostal and Charismatic practice, they were distinct. What made the Third Wave proponents different from Pentecostals and Charismatics was they did not teach a subsequent baptism of the Spirit to conversion, but they did believe in the continuation of all miraculous gifts. A believer was baptized in the Spirit upon conversion and all gifts were to be pursued, but not all gifts would be received.
Third Wave belief and practice was typified by the Vineyard Movement, which went through astonishing growth under John Wimber in the mid-1980s–late-1990s. The movement was characterized by signs and wonders and swept up many notable evangelicals including Dallas Theological Seminary professor Jack Deere, as well as theologian Wayne Grudem, and Sam Storms. Another prominent evangelical Third Wave movement is Sovereign Grace Ministries.
Perhaps the greatest example of evangelicalism’s fascination with and adaptation of The Third Wave is John Piper. One can read Piper articles and sermons circa 1990 to see a pastor intrigued with John Wimber, while simultaneously being unsure of his teaching. At Lausane II in Manila Piper spent much time learning from Jack Hayford and John Wimber. In 1990 Piper took fifty-eight leaders and members from his church to investigate Wimber’s ministry further at The Vineyard’s “Holiness Unto the Lord” conference. Piper came back to Bethlehem Baptist Church with a series of “Kudos & Cautions” for Vineyard and Wimber. As one pays attention to Piper’s ministry, his public fascination with The Third Wave has diminished even if his Third Wave sympathies remain.
Piper appears emblematic of a large swath of evangelicals in our time, Christians who are open to all miraculous gifts, yet don’t pursue or practice all gifts with zeal. In many ways, it seems as though the rising evangelicals today are something of a “Fourth Wave,” which can be quantified in the statement, “Open to all spiritual gifts, but cautious in the use of all spiritual gifts.”
Towards the end of the 20th century many mainline Protestant denominations reflected the larger culture’s changing attitudes towards the role of women and homosexuality. It became increasingly common for mainline denominations to ordain women to pastoral ministry and in time many would ordain a homosexual to gospel ministry. In the late 1980s evangelicals reacted to this growing change with the publication of The Danver’s Statement in 1989. From this public statement of complementarianism The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood began to lead the charge for a “regrounding” of evangelicalism on the Bible’s teaching on gender roles and sexuality.
The evangelical seminaries bear testimony to the war that raged during this time over egalitarianism and complementarianism. Many evangelical seminaries (Fuller Theological Seminary being among the most prominent) had faculty members that were either openly confessing egalitarianism or either on the way to egalitarianism. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is probably the most visible seminary to go through an internal—yet, still quite public—battle over the matter and come out on the complementarian side.
It must be noted that many egalitarians would consider themselves evangelicals. They believe, from Scripture, that women can be ordained to the ministry but still hold to the inerrancy of Scripture and the urgent need for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Other evangelicals believe complementarianism to be “a gospel issue,” and thus egalitarianism is incompatible with a pure gospel.
In mainline Protestantism we saw many denominations confessing egalitarianism soon confess openness towards homosexual practice and in our time this is the greatest place of mainline influence on evangelicalism. Just as the matter of homosexuality seems to be the current dividing line in our broader culture, it seems to be the next dividing line of spirituality among moderates and conservatives alike.
A final evidence of the mainline’s influence on evangelical spirituality can be seen in the unabashed appreciation of mainline figures like Deitrich Bonhoeffer and C.S. Lewis. In 2010 Eric Metaxas published Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Metaxas’ book was something of a sweeping and sensational publication in our country, shooting up the bestseller lists and even paving the way for Metaxas to speak before President Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast. It’s success was a great indication of how many evangelical Christians are influenced by a mainline Protestant from Germany.
C.S. Lewis also continues to occupy a large plage in evangelical life. In 2013 Desiring God devoted their national conference to the theme “The Romantic Rationalist: God, Life, and Imagination in the Work of C.S. Lewis.” In addition to his Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis’ books The Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, and The Problem of Pain have exerted a large influence on the life and faith of evangelicals.
For Pat
We gather here today to remember our beloved brother in Christ, Pat Murray. We come to celebrate a man who fought the good fight and finished his race, all the while keeping the faith. So there is joy. But there is also loss. A tender husband is no longer here; a faithful father has gone to his true home; a cherished son, brother, and friend is now in the midst of heaven’s host. We come then with hearts of gladness and grief. My hope in these few minutes is to raise our minds to consider the Lord Jesus, who is the reason of gladness and the refuge for grief. To help us see this we turn to Philippians 1.
Here the apostle makes one of the most remarkable statements you can ever hear a Christian make. He says in 1:21, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” I want to briefly meditate on how Pat Murray embodied this passion in life and assurance in death.
I first met Pat not long after he was diagnosed with cancer in the fall of 2012. It wasn’t long after that the Murrays began to visit our new church plant in January 2013. For the last two and a half years Pat and Ronda have been cherished attenders, and then members, of Imago Dei Church.
What struck me about Pat was that he was a man of joy; for Him, to live was Christ. I saw Pat delight in shepherding young CPAs to be faithful in their labor during the pains of tax season. I heard Pat eagerly encourage young husbands and fathers to remain rooted in God’s word as they shepherded their family. I observed Pat speak with glowing adoration of his wife and daughters. I watched Pat don the colors of his alma mater and cheer for the Bears to sic’ ‘em. I saw a gleam in his eye when he talked about the great game of golf. I heard of a hunger in his soul for God’s word and the fellowship of his people. I sang next to him and heard a heart raised in praise to God. I’m sure every one of you who knew him well have untold stories of Pat that upon reflection can’t help but stir your soul and bring a smile to your face.
Now, I know Pat, he wouldn’t like all this talk about himself. But I would tell my dear brother not to fret, for to honor him in this way is to honor the God he loved. Why could he find happiness in every stage and station? Why didn’t the curse of cancer rock the boat of his life and crash him onto the rocks of despair and doubt? Here’s my answer: he was a man alive to joy, because he was a man made alive in Christ. This kind of life and joy are not possible through any other means or any other person.
The Bible says we are all born dead in sin, we are by nature children of wrath, and thus deserve nothing less than eternal judgment from God. No amount of self-striving or self-righteousness can make our dead hearts begin to truly beat. God knows this and so He sent His Son to do what we should have done, but did not do: He lived a life of perfect obedience, obeying where we failed; He died on the cross in the place of sinners, satisfying God’s wrath against any who would believe on Him; three days later He rose from the dead conquering sin, Satan, and death and now the King Who Lives now calls out to dead sinners, “Come alive! Turn from your sin and trust in me and so live with me forever.”
To live is Christ, and oh how Pat was really alive. Where do you find life? In what or whom do you find ultimate, life-giving joy? Life is found only in the Lord Jesus.
God opened Pat’s eyes to this life at an early age and set his course to model the truth that to live is Christ. Little did Pat, or any of us, know just where that course would eventually lead.
When Pat’s life turned down the dark alley marked “Life-Threatening Cancer” what we saw was not a threat to Pat’s faith, but a reason for Pat to give thanks. He once wrote to his prayer partners, “[I] thank God for all of His incredible blessings, including the cancer which has completely changed my life forever!” See here a peculiar kindness of God, to open Pat’s eyes to his majesty and splendor amidst terrible pain. He once told me, “As the physical part gets harder, God’s mercy becomes even greater.”
As the weeks after the initial diagnosis turned into months and the months turned into a couple years, Pat began to reflect the second half of Paul’s stunning statement, “To die is gain.” He knew death would soon come knocking on the door, but one thing I never heard from Pat was fear. There was no doubt where he was going. He was assured of God’s love, He was assured of God’s beauty in Christ, and knew nothing in this life can compare to the glory of seeing His savior face to face.
And so let us grieve because our dear brother is gone, but let us grieve with gladness for of this I’m assured: Pat stands in the presence of the King and his soul rests in perfect holiness and happiness.
Several months ago I introduced an old hymn at our church named “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks.” I did so because I trusted it would encourage Pat Murray in his final days (it’s forever known as “Pat’s Hymn” in my mind). I know from Ronda that Pat listened to this song about two hours before he went home on Saturday. Consider these words as we close:
No chilling winds or poisonous breath
Can reach that healthful shore
Where sickness sorrow pain and death
Are felt and feared now more
When shall I reach that happy place
And be forever blessed
When shall I see my Father’s face
And in His presence rest
I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the Promised Land
To live is Christ, and to die is gain, for death in Christ leads to the Promised Land. Our brother was bound for and is now found in the Promised Land.
Zack Eswine is a pastor and author with a style all his own (could we call it “contemplative?”) and a unique experience in the academy and ministry. He is someone worth listening to.
His previous books related to ordinary ministry are:
Eswine’s latest book is The Imperfect Pastor: Discovering Joy in Our Limitations through a Daily Apprenticeship with Jesus.
Crossway says,
Pastors aren’t superheroes—they have fears and limitations just like everyone else. Zack Eswine knows this from personal experience and has a wealth of wisdom to offer those who feel like they don’t measure up. Written in a compelling memoir style, The Imperfect Pastor is full of insightful stories and theological truths that show how God works unexpectedly through flawed people. By talking honestly about the failure, burnout, pain, and complexities that come along with church ministry, Eswine helps pastors accept their human limitations and experience the freedom of trusting God’s plan for their church and life.
The Imperfect Pastor lands, Lord willing, September 30th.
This post is adapted from my recent sermon, “The Life and Ministry of Hudson Taylor.”
He arrives in China, finds a rebellion in full force, currency in great inflation, and much of the missionary community looking down on him for they had little respect for the Chinese Evangelization Society. Taylor only added fuel to their scornful fire when he made the decision to dress in Chinese clothes and grow a pigtail like the Chinese men wore; respectable Europeans would never steep so low—including the missionaries. Taylor had little money, terrible communications with London (it would take at least four months to send a letter and get a reply), but he wasn’t deterred. In the six months it took him to learn the language he found himself separating from, what he deemed, the “worldly” missionary culture saturating China. Almost all the missionaries were living in one of the five “treaty ports,” spending most of their time with English businessmen or diplomats who needed their translation services.
So, much like the apostle Paul, Taylor struck out on a series of ten extended evangelistic journeys to the interior, taking the gospel to places where it had never been heard. All this last about four years. On January 20, 1858, he married another missionary Maria Dyer. They were married for twelve years. When Maria died at age 33, she had given birth to eight children. Three died at birth, two in childhood and those that lived to adulthood all became missionaries with the mission their father had founded, the China Inland Mission. I did the math on this. From age 26-38 every 1.5 years Hudson Taylor has a child and every 2 years a child or his wife dies. Can you imagine the pain? Here’s what he said about suffering:
It is in the path of obedience and self-denying service that God reveals Himself most intimately to His children. When it costs most we find the greatest joy. We find the darkest hours the brightest, and the greatest loss the highest gain. While the sorrow is short lived, and will soon pass away, the joy is far more exceeding, and it is eternal.
In 1860 Taylor came down with what probably was hepatitis, and he and his family set sail for England. This medical sojourn was one that deeply grieved Taylor, believing it to be a major setback to the work he’d begun in China. Yet, in God’s providence it would bring the most “decisive event” in his life. Which is a wonderful reminder for us. Perceived setbacks are often the occasions for God’s unusual providential mercy. During this four-year respite Taylor translated the Bible into Mandarin, studied to become a midwife, and urged greater awareness for God’s work in China.
What then is the decisive event? Over the course of the same period in which our country was fighting the Civil War, the Spirit was putting in Taylor’s a vision that would change the history of the largest nation on earth. Here’s how Taylor wrote about the event:
On Sunday, June 25th, 1865, unable to bear the sight of a congregation of a thousand or more Christian people rejoicing in their own security, while millions were perishing for lack of knowledge, I wandered out on the sands alone, in great spiritual agony; and there the LORD conquered my unbelief, and I surrendered myself to GOD for this service (the founding of the China Inland Mission). I told Him that all the responsibility as to issues and consequences must rest with Him; that as His servant, it was mine to obey and to follow Him — His, to direct, to care for, and to guide me and those who might labour with me.
This was the birthplace of the China Inland Mission. Taylor was 33 years old. On May 26, the following year (1866) Hudson, Maria, and their children sailed with the largest group of missionaries that had ever sailed to China—sixteen besides themselves. Overnight the mission force in China expanded 25%.
Four years later (1870) Taylor’s son Samuel died, then daughter Noel died, and on July 23 his wife Maria died of cholera. She was 33, and he was 38. A year later, Taylor sailed for England again, and while he was there he married Jennie Faulding, they would be married for 33 years until her death in 1904. In 1900 the brutal Boxer Rebellion raged against all Christians and foreigners in China. 58 adults and 21 children of the China Inland Mission were killed, more than any other agency. Five years later Taylor died at the age of 73, buried at Zhenjiang by the side of Maria and his four children who had died in China.
At the time of Hudson Taylor’s death, the China Inland Mission was an international body with 825 missionaries living in all eighteen provinces of China with more than 300 mission stations, more than 500 local Chinese helpers, and 25,000 Christian converts. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the mission Hudson Taylor founded. In 1900, there were 100,000 Christians in China, and today there are probably around 150,000,000.
I choose this year to think about Hudson Taylor for two reasons. First, he is a man unlike us. He’s from outside our tradition and with whom we would probably have some significant disagreements—particularly as it relates to sanctification. But he’s nevertheless a man we can lean much from. It’s surely a mark of maturity and humility that people you don’t totally agree with can still teach your mind and transform your heart. Secondly, he is a man like us. This fact struck me powerfully throughout my recent study of Taylor’s life. He was not like his friend Charles Spurgeon, who had a photographic memory and a command of rhetoric the envy of every preaching. He was not like the great evangelist George Whitefield, so gifted in oratory it was said he could make crowds weep simply with how he said the word, “Mesopotamia.” Nor was he like William Carey, the founder of the modern missions movement, a polyglot who translated the Bible into some 29 different regional dialects.
No, Hudson Taylor was remarkably ordinary in his gifting. He had no formal education, but he did have a deep love for the Lord. He had no unusual mental faculties, but he did have a passion for God’s word. He had no unusual power in preaching, but he did have supreme trust in His God. Why then, under God’s providence, was this man so enormously effective? Here’s my answer: he was a man full of faith and persistent in prayer. These two are distinct, but they go hand in hand.
Taylor is perhaps most famous for giving birth to the faith missions movement. Much like his personal hero George Mueller he never solicited funds for his mission work. Convicted in his conscience that he should never ask for money, but instead trust in God’s provision alone through prayer, he lived a life of untold number of occasions where God’s generosity flowed in just in time and in greater abundance than necessary. He famously said, “Depend upon it, GOD’S work done in GOD’S way will never lack GOD’S supplies,” he meant every kind of needed supply, both money and health and faith and peace and strength. Lest we think he had something like a gift of faith, Taylor was actually adamant that he didn’t.
Taylor’s faith was even what precipitated his break with the China Evangelization Society, who was borrowing money to fund its missionaries. And so when he founded the China Inland Mission he required that the missionaries would have no guaranteed salaries, they were not to appeal for funds, and they were to adopt Chinese dress and press the gospel to the interior. He believed mission efforts should be directed on the field, not from a far off place like London, and thus Taylor was to be the leader and settle all disputes. Not everyone appreciated his leadership and the demands he made on himself and everyone else. One missionary in that early group accused him of tyranny and had to be dismissed.
We must remember that rigorous devotion to convictions of conscience (where in the Bible does it say you can’t ask for money?) can often disrupt Christian unity. Might there be any place in your life where your convictions of conscience might be prone to distraction or disruption?
So he was a man full of faith and totally persistent in prayer. From the time he felt called to China until the end of his life he woke at 5am to pray. He said later in his life, “For as long as I’ve been alive the sun has never risen in China without finding me in prayer.” We often view prayer as a duty, but for Hudson Taylor it was a necessity. It was as necessary for his soul as breathing was for his body. His private prayer life was doubtless reflected in his public prayers. Someone present at a meeting Taylor led wrote, “His appearance did not impress me. He was slightly built, and spoke in a gentle voice. Like most young men, I suppose I associated power with noise, and looked for great physical presence in a leader. But when he said, ‘Let us pray,’ and proceeded to lead the meeting in prayer, my ideas underwent a change. I had never heard any one pray like that. There was a simplicity, a tenderness, a boldness, a power that hushed and subdued one, and made it clear that God had admitted him into the inner circle of His friendship. He spoke with God face to face, as a man talk[s] with his friend.”
Here then is the main point I want us to see from Hudson Taylor as Mission Month 2015 come to a close: full faith and persistent prayer give supernatural power to disciple-making. Taylor’s life was a living testimony to that truth. I pray this brief glimpse of his life and ministry would lead us to imitate the same. May God give us a fullness of faith and persistence in prayer in our efforts to make disciples of all nations.
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