Pride in Missionaries

When the Lord said, “Go into all the world and make disciples,” He began the most complex industry in the history of the world. It is a call that is exhausting, terrifying, confrontational, demanding, and humbling.

Who can go? Only those who have met the 16 qualifications in 1 Timothy 3. They must be men of God. Further, there is commonly a personality trait that could be called individualistic because they are willing to leave their familiar structures and move to the unknown. Or from another perspective, we could call that trait boldness because they are willing to come into other peoples’ circles and try to change them. Without this Christian grace for which Paul told the Ephesians to pray for on behalf of missionaries (Eph. 6:19), men either will not go, or they will struggle and return to their home culture.

So a missionary must be a man of character with real strength and grit—a Petrine lion.

And to whom does this man go? He goes to people whom Peter says are deceived by the useless lifestyle of their ancestors (1 Pet. 1:18). They are bound in habits of lying and laziness. Their minds and consciences are defiled (Titus 1:12 and 15). So demonic are their ways, that even wearing clothing was too much grace for many of them. What kind of mud must a man be in if he must be told from the outside how to write his name?

The word civilized was defined during the eras of European exploration as 1. Having a written language, 2. Musical notation, and 3. Buildings that reached above a single story. When men come from societies with those three marks and also numerous churches, schools, and industries, and arrive in societies that lack those marks, their arrival produced and still produces a dramatic shock for both sides.

Now the missionary must be a man of character, so he must in a vital way be a moral example. He must be in that sense, superior or above as a teacher is above the student. How profitable would a Brazilian missionary be were he to arrive in Japan if he were not in the most important, spiritual way above the lost Japanese? If a Philippine Christian went to plant churches in Iraq and yet his wisdom, morals, lifestyle, and marriage were below or even at the same level as those to whom he came, what good could he do?

It was said of William Carey in his old age by a new missionary wife who had just met him that he was the most humble man alive and that everyone knew it except Dr. Carey himself.

This morning I read from Thomas A Kempis,

Thou has nothing of which thou canst glory, but many things for which thou oughtest to account thyself vile; for thou art much weaker than thou art able to comprehend. …

Let thy own extreme unworthiness be always displeasing to thee. Fear nothing, blame nothing, flee nothing, so much as thy faults and sins.

One of the preachers most used by God in America’s history, Asahel Nettleton was recorded by his closest friend as weeping often from an overwhelming sense of his own vileness.

Are missionaries not unprofitable servants (Luke 17:10)? Are we too not dogs who have scrabbled after the crumbs mercifully allowed us (Matt. 15:26-27)? Are the heathen sold under sin (Rom. 7:14), but not us because of our passports? Are we above King David who called himself a dead dog (1 Sam. 24:14) and a worm (Ps. 22:6)? Is the Apostle Paul the chief of sinners because of his pre conversion life, but we are the chief of saints?

Many of the religious bodies that style themselves churches in Africa began generations ago by splitting from churches started by missionaries. I wonder if some of those splits could have been avoided had the missionaries been as much experts in humility as they were in linguistics.

Should new converts have a greater degree of humility and abasement for the vile condition in which they were not only found, but which they were actively supporting? Of course, they should. But maybe we missionaries would make disciples in humility more efficiently by clearer examples for new believers to follow.

Who can balance this matter? Before we cast stones at the missionary, try his role for a few years, or better, a few decades. It may be easier to critique than surpass. Leave your home, pull a language out of the air, raise your children without any relatives around, and keep a strong marriage with the added temptations of an unreached society hammering on your weaker vessel.

But the best missionaries simply want their new nation to be all for Christ. Have we paid for plane tickets, but the price of humility is too steep? Can we pass out tracts, but not start the day with confession? Should we review grammar, but not the Biblical descriptions of who we are as sinners? Can we have any hope that the Spirit of God will come to us with life and power while our old man still lives and his stench drives the lost away?

What souls might come to the Savior from a man who has no rights but plenty of love? What levels might our disciples reach were we at those levels giving them a hand up? What is more persuasive than humility and love?

“Father, do Thou perform in me the heart work that will make me glad to be a spiritual beggar—stepped on, neglected, used, or forgotten—if only Thy sheep will hear that voice through some of my weak efforts. I would that my mind not forget so quickly the greatness of my sins and guilt against so much light as I was born into and yet which these dear people had not the grace to receive until just recently. Drain from us the septic self and fill us with that Spirit who is content that only the Son would be known.”