Eaten By Cannibals – The Life of John Gibson Paton

Last Sunday, I presented the life of John G. Paton to our church here for their encouragement and for their challenge to the call of the gospel, not in the South Pacific only, but here in our own lives and community for the sake of the Lamb who [was] slain, and purchased for God with [his] blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation (Rev 5:9).

Paton went to the South Sea’s New Hebrides Islands in the middle of the 1800s to reach the cannibalistic tribes there with the gospel. He is perhaps most famous for his response to Mr. Dickson, which Paton recounts this way:

Amongst many who sought to deter me, was one dear old Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, "The cannibals! you will be eaten by cannibals!" At last I replied, "Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms, I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer."

The old gentleman, raising his hands in a deprecating attitude, left the room exclaiming, "After that I have nothing more to say!"

So Paton embarked on a lifelong journey, having left a ministry in which he was offered “any reasonable price” to stay. He refused that offer, recognizing that there were many who could do what he was doing there, and none who were willing to go to the cannibals. He went, like so many in those days, with no exit plan.

Paton endured much, more than can be conceived by most of us. He endured the death of his first wife and son, largely due to the location in which he built the first mission house. He experienced repeated threats to his life and property. He ultimately fled his first mission station without seeing much fruit. He experienced the travails of traveling to raise money, and then he returned to try once again, this time in a new location.

And he did it all with faith, an unshakeable conviction that heathen needed the gospel. In reflecting on his suffering on the island of Tanna he says, 

In the darkest moment I never doubted that ultimately the victory there, as elsewhere, would be on the side of Jesus, believing that the whole Earth would yet be filled with the glory of the Lord. But I sometimes sorely feared that I might never live to see or hear of that happy day! By the goodness of the Ever-merciful One I have lived to see and hear of a Gospel Church on Tanna, and to read about my dear fellow-Missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Watt, celebrating the Holy Supper to a Native Congregation of Tannese, amid the very scenes and people where the seeds of faith and hope were planted not only in tears, but tears of blood,—"in deaths oft."

In the end, he saw the victory that he longed for, both on the island of Tanna (from which he fled under threat of life), and the island of Aniwa (to which he returned and lived and worked with visible success). He was instrumental in raising funds for missions, and encouraging others to go.

The story of Paton is too long to recount anything of substance here. Suffice it to say, for now, that reading his story is a great challenge.

As I have said before, reading stories like these make you think you can do anything for Christ, and at the same time make you think you have done nothing.

I commend to you the life of John Paton for your edification and your challenge. Feel free to weep in his pain, to fear in his danger, to laugh in his humor (particularly when you read of the lady who desired to show her conversion by the clothes that she wore), to rejoice in his ending, and “having considered the result of his conduct, [feel obligated to] imitate his faith” (Hebrews 13:7).

**In preparation for this I read The Story of John G. Paton Or Thirty Years Among the South Sea Cannibals and J. Theodore Mueller’s short biography entitled John G. Paton: Missionary To The New Hebrides 1824-1907.

If you are interested in my presentation, you can hear it here.

Pratt on Missions

Tonight, on my regular Saturday evening walk (my best of the year), I took the time to listen to this 9 Marks interview with Zane Pratt. Pratt is a missions professor at Southern and has some excellent insights into missions in so many different areas.

Among the highlights are his comments on social media, particularly how technology is keeping missionaries closely tied to their home and perhaps preventing them from a more effective ministry. I am reminded that Adoniram Judson said something very similar in To the Golden Shore. Well, actually Courtney Anderson said it in To the Golden Shore, but it was from Judson.

Anyway, take a walk and listen to this. Or listen to it some other way. Just listen to it.

Quotable

A certain South African missionary society once wrote to David Livingstone: “Have you found a good road to where you are? We want to know how to send some men to join you.” Livingstone wrote back: “If you have men who will come only if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come if there is no road.”

In Gary McIntosh, Finding Them, Keeping Them: Effective Strategies for Evangelism and Assimilation in the Local Church, pp. 29-30.

I recently saw where George Washington said that most things attributed to him on the internet were not things he actually said. In that same spirit, I have no idea if Livingstone actually said this. But if he didn’t, he should have. It’s a thought worth considering.

Some Thoughts on Missions (Not From Me)

Here are two things worth your time and careful listening:

This first is a message by David Sitton from the 2006 Desiring God Pastor’s Conference entitled Missionary Martyrs: Fools for Jesus for the Nations.

The second is a panel discussion on missions with David Sitton, David Sills, and Jason Mandryk.

I highly recommend them.

Faulty Missions Mind-set?

Recently I linked to a series of articles on missions in South America in the middle of the 20th century which I found interesting. There is a new, and interesting, installment.

Read it all, but here are two interesting lines.

First, their understanding of the call of God as primarily to a location soon leads to the question: ‘How fast can I get there?’ However, an understanding of God commissioning us to a particular kind of work would lead to a completely different question, namely: ‘How well equipped will I be for the work when I arrive?’

I admit to not knowing a lot about modern missions preparation. I am convinced that we do not do particularly well in domestic situations of getting men in places where they can succeed, and then giving them helpful and serious mentorship.

Equipping prior to getting there seems like a high priority. I know of one family currently doing a short-term stint in a creative access country to help some other families get adjusted through helping them think through ethnography and mission-related issues. I remember a discussion about this where one person was questioning whether or not this was necessary. I think it absolutely is necessary. And I think this probably needs to start before you spend months or years raising support, only to get somewhere and find yourself frustrated and discouraged because you aren’t ready.

In the future, one thing I want to know from prospective missionaries is this: What have you been doing to get ready? How seriously have you studied the culture and language of your prospective field? How long have you been doing this? What books have you read on the culture you are going to? What kind of ethnographical research have you done?

My friend Dave, who knows a thing or two (get it and watch it, and make sure you watch the interview) about missions, puts it this way:

What you should really ask is “What do I need to learn before going to the field, why, and what source or combination of sources can teach me most efficiently?” Those are not easy questions to answer, so you have to seek help from a multitude of counselors—especially those who have proven themselves faithful and fruitful.

Here’s a second quote from the Speared article:

I just want to point out that the two major interpretations of the Commission – ‘take the Gospel to every person that hasn’t heard it’ versus ‘take the Gospel to every people that hasn’t heard it’ – lead to radically different strategies.

I think (as the blogger says), that both of these are important. But which is the Great Commission? The word “nations” (ethne) seems to indicate the latter—people groups, though it does not exclude the individual people in the groups.

Paul’s pattern described in Romans 15:19-23 of leaving a place fully evangelized to go where “Christ was not named” is equally instructive, at least in some respects (with due respect to this perspective).

By having ‘fully preached the gospel’ he surely did not mean he spoke to every person. He rather meant that he had established a gospel presence that could now continue on without him.

“Pioneer missions” is certainly different than going to places with gospel works already established. And I confess that when it comes to mission support and encouragement, I would rather see missionaries go to unreached people groups or gospel-less areas rather than pile in on gospel preaching churches just because they have a “burden” or have a little different doctrinal perspective than a church already there.

That is not to discount going to evangelized places. If that is the desire you believe that God has placed in your heart, pursue it. But realize that when you try to get me to support you, you will need to convince me that you have a legitimate place there—that you are not merely duplicating the work of someone nearby.

And realize that if I have an option between you and someone going to an unreached people group, you are starting a step behind.

I realize that most communities could stand more gospel witness, not less. And so by going, you will be a help in many ways.

But I am reminded of two things. First, the gospel and Great Commissions is for all nations because Jesus died to purchase people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation (Revelation 5:9-10).

Second, I am reminded of the old parable that if a bunch of people are carrying a log, consider helping out on the end where there are fewer people.

Was It Necessary?

Here’s a series of short articles (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) on the death of ten missionaries in the middle of the 1900s in South America. It is interesting to read this perspective on why these deaths probably were not necessary, but rather a waste. It is probably not a popular view.

Here’s a line that sticks out at me from the third article.

Jim Elliot’s team in Ecuador was afraid of attracting too much attention to their efforts in the jungle, because they thought that too many outsiders would serve to further alienate the Aucas. For this reason, they were extremely secretive with their plans, going so far as to use a code to prevent leaking the details. Unfortunately, this commitment to secrecy kept them from sharing their plan with some of the people that may have guided it to a better end.

And later,

The nail in the coffin was a mission board that prided itself on letting the missionaries do whatever God ‘led’ them to do. From all I can tell, there was virtually no accountability. Three of the missionaries were with a mission board that reminded the missionaries that they were not answerable to any man – only to God.

In missiology and church growth, there is a common belief that the older generation has had their day and their mindset and methods not only no longer work, but that are not even to be considered as having legitimate perspectives on present day ministry.

It is true that the older generation is, at times, a bit stuck in their ways and unwilling to consider the possibility of generational shift. This is (perhaps) one factor in the post I made recently about churches. “We have always done this” becomes the mantra of a church that is slowly dying, or at least only maintaining.

But it is equally true that there is much more to missionary strategy than youthful energy and zeal, with “outside the box” thinking.

Young people would be wise to seek (and actually consider) the input of the “grizzled veterans.” Those lines in their faces and the gray in their heads did not come from vacations at the beach. They came from time served in the trenches.

Your good ideas may simply be recycled nonsense. It may not be. But it won’t hurt you to ask. It may save you a lot of grief if you direct some of your energy toward asking someone who has been there before.

It usually helps to have some experienced eyes to look things over with you.

Real Presence

No, this is not a post about Communion. It’s about being wherever you are. Tim Aynes at Missions Mandate recently linked to an interview by Paul Borthwick on short-term missions.

Paul comments on social media, saying,

It’s getting increasingly difficult for Westerners to be emotionally present where they’re serving. Rather than becoming culturally immersed, they go out during the day and do ministry, but come back at night to check their Facebook pages and update their blogs. They don’t become part of the local culture because technology is keeping them connected to home.

I recently listened to Os Guinness speaking on “Survival of the Fastest.” (I downloaded it some time ago so I have no link for it. If you google it you can find several links.)

Guinness commented on being at an Anglican conference (GAFCON), during a communion service, sitting beside ten African bishops. He says that six of them were on their cellphones at the high point of communion. “They were not present.”

He speaks of being at some political gatherings with major speeches being given, and looking around and seeing all the congressmen on their Blackberries.

He continues with this assertion about technology: “The good news is you can do business everywhere. The bad news is you can do business elsewhere. … So often we are with people and we are simply not with people.”

The impact is not just on foreign missions. It is on home life (being constantly “plugged in”), personal relationships (when was the last time you were at lunch with someone who was checking their cellphone for texts or email). Technology invades our life in some dangerous ways.

So here’s my advice (which I am working hard to take): Wherever you are, be all there.

The Great Commission Compiled

While it is customary for believers to think about the Great Commission in terms of Matthew 28:19-20, there are actually five passages that communicate the Great Commission: Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:46-48; John 20:21; and Acts 1:8.

By looking at these passages together, we can get a full sense of the mission to which God has called the church.

I have compiled it this way:

The Great Commission is to go[1] with the authority of Jesus[2] and the presence of Jesus[3] in the power of the Spirit[4] to all people groups,[5] preaching the gospel[6] calling people to repent and believe on Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins,[7] and incorporating them into visible churches through baptism[8] and teaching them the commands of Jesus[9] so that they become disciples who believe his word and obey his commands.[10]

---

[1]Matt 28:19; Acts 1:8; cf. Mark 16:15; Luke 24:47; John 20:21

[2]Matt 28:18; Acts 1:8; John 20:21

[3]Matt 28:20

[4]Acts 1:8

[5]Matt 28:19; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8

[6]Mark 16:15; Luke 24:46-47; Acts 1:8

[7]Luke 24:46-47

[8]Matt 28:19

[9]Matt 28:20

[10]Matt 28:19-20;

Dave Doran, pastor of Inter-City Baptist Church and president of Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary has an excellent extended discussion of the Great Commission in the book For the Sake of His Name: Challenging a New Generation for World Missions (Allen Park, MI: Student Global Impact, 2002), pp. 68-154.

A Missionary on Missions

My friend Dave, who I have known since high school and who used to abuse me during tennis matches years ago, has recently responded to my friend Chris with some ideas about the call to missions. It is worth your time. I’d post it all, but I think that would be stealing or something, so I will just give you his conclusion about the sometimes seeming fruitlessness of gospel ministry on the mission field and ask you to go read it for yourself:

And though no one come, though no one heed, you are there, and they know you are there, and HE knows you are there -- and HE is there with you. Always. Until it's all over and you go to your final sleep saying, "I left it all on out there on the field -- and it was worth it all."

Dave is one of the living people in this world that I most highly respect. He went and did and still is doing what I have only talked about and preached about. I talk about the sacrifice of ministry, but I have an easy life. Dave and Kristi live it.  

Dave and I have not had much contact since college, but I have seen his ministry from afar. I recommend him to you with great confidence. Pray for him and his family.

And listen when he speaks.