YOU SHALL BE WITNESSES

After decades of ministry, I am more convinced than ever that it is not what we do as Christians but what we are that has the greatest impact for Christ. It is not the number of people with whom we have shared the gospel, how many conversions we can number, how many churches we have planted, or the average attendance at our services, that matters for eternity. It is the quality of our ministry that makes a lasting change in lives.

After his resurrection, just before ascending to heaven, Jesus commissioned his disciples with these words:

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." (Acts 1:8)

Certainly there is a commission to do something. The disciples’ ministry was to extend “to the end of the earth.” (Compare Matthew 28:19-20; Luke 24:47). But the emphasis in this last statement of Jesus’ commission was on being. “You will be my witnesses.” The power of the disciples’ words would be evident from their life. When Peter and John were called before the Jewish council for preaching gospel of Jesus and his resurrection, the council noted:

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)

I’m convinced that every Christian, especially those in full-time ministry, need to give more time and attention to being what God wants us to be. That means backing off from frenetic activity in the Lord’s name at the cost of neglecting  a deepening fellowship with the Lord Himself.

An example of quality over quantity comes to mind. I know a missionary whose ministry for many years was in a support capacity. He rarely preached in Sunday services, but he always made sure he got to know every individual and couple who attended. One Sunday, a couple visited from a distant town because they had heard about the church through a radio ministry, a ministry that “support” missionary had helped set up and run. That humble missionary and his wife invited the visitors to their home for dinner, and they spent the entire afternoon listening to them pour out their sorrows. The couple shared they had come to the point of divorce, but they agreed to visit this church as the last hope for their marriage. What they found was new life in Christ. Not long afterwards that couple was baptized and became the nucleus for a new ministry in their town. It was the quality of life of that missionary, his being, that made the crucial difference.

The story repeats itself across history. I think of the Scottish pastor whose humble ministry had not produced many converts, yet one of them was a boy named Robert Moffatt, the great missionary who opened the interior of Africa to the gospel. We probably will not know until heaven just how many lives we have touched for Christ just by being faithful and by deepening our communion with Christ.

Among the people who came to Jerusalem for the Passover the week Jesus was crucified were some Greeks. They came to Phillip with this simple request: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”  That’s exactly what people need today! They need to see Jesus in the lives of his brethren, those born of the Spirit God. People need to take note, as did the Jewish council, that we have been with Jesus.

Abel Bingham, The Soldier

In the spring of 1814, the war between the young United States of America and Great Britain was reaching a climax.  The now celebrated Battle of New Orleans (December 23, 1814 – January 8, 1815) would turn out to be anti-climactic.  Both sides knew the war was nearly over and they were fighting mostly for advantage in negotiations.  For instance, where would the border be drawn between Canada and the United States?  Who would get Lake Champlain, and who would control the Great Lakes?  Those questions made the Battle of Plattsburg, New York, of critical importance.

In the spring of 1813, Abel Bingham and his wife Hannah Olmstead Bingham sold their farm in Jay, New York, with the intention of joining Hannah’s father and other friends who had moved to Caledonia.  But Bingham’s militia company was called up for duty in Plattsburg.  Bingham was an orderly sergeant at the time, and though some militiamen in Bingham’s company paid the allowable bounty for being excused from service, Abel Bingham said, “I will go.” According to his daughter’s memoir, Bingham “wrote his friends at Caledonia that he must first serve his country before he could join them in their new and pleasant home.”  Though the tour of duty was supposed to be for three months, Bingham did not return home for a year and a half, and at one point his wife was convinced that he would not return home alive at all.

During the campaign in New York, Bingham’s company made several incursions into Canada, engaging the British and taking prisoners near Lake Champlain.  In the spring of 1814, Bingham was promoted to lieutenant, and when the company captain was granted leave, Bingham assumed command.  In early September, 1814, the British launched an infantry assault on the American positions across the Saranac River near Plattsburg.  On September 11, the naval assault began, and in a fierce two-hour naval battle, the American fleet forced the British to strike their colors, thereby cutting off all support to the British ground troops.  General George Prévost, seeing that any further military action would be useless, ordered a British bugler to sound retreat.  But the 76^th Regiment of Foot, which had been diverted from the main assault force by a fierce skirmish with the New York militia, did not hear the retreat signal.  The regiment was surrounded and captured by the militia, one detachment of which was commanded by Lieutenant Abel Bingham.

During the battle Bingham was struck in the forehead by a British musket ball and fell bleeding on the field of battle.  As his apparently lifeless body was being carried off the field, a militiaman cried out, “Lieutenant Bingham has been killed!” News of his death spread through the ranks before his real condition could be confirmed. Although the ball had fractured his skull, Bingham showed signs of life and was carried to a nearby farmhouse where his wound was dressed.  Soon after regaining consciousness, Bingham returned to the battle!

  

Hannah, still living in Jay, was near enough to the battle to hear the rumble of cannon shot, so news of her husband’s death arrived quickly.  She had hardly begun to grieve when to her joyous shock and elation, Abel showed up at the door!

Abel Bingham was a good story-teller, which undoubtedly contributed to his later success as a missionary.  In recounting his near-death experience in the Battle of Plattsburg, he mesmerized audiences to the point that some forgot who was telling the story. On one occasion, when he got to his vivid description of the ball striking his head, one spell-bound listener exclaimed, “Did it kill you?”  General Winfield Scott, upon hearing the account on another occasion, remarked, “Well, Mr. Bingham, you had your face the right way.”

The American victories at Plattsburg and Baltimore secured American rights to Lake Champlain and guaranteed shared access to the Great Lakes in the Treaty of Ghent, signed December 24, 1814.

Abel Bingham’s heroism at the Battle of Plattsburg would display itself in the years ahead as he followed in the footsteps of pioneer missionaries Adoniram and Ann Judson in taking the Good News of Jesus Christ to fields of spiritual battle.

Copyright 2014 by Thomas L. Jones

WHY THIS WASTE?

And when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to Him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on His head as He sat at the table. But when His disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, "Why this waste? For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor." But when Jesus was aware of it, He said to them, "Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good work for Me. For you have the poor with you always, but Me you do not have always. For in pouring this fragrant oil on My body, she did it for My burial. Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her."   (Matthew 26:6-13)

 I have noticed during my nearly 37 years in the ministry, that when a denomination or Christian organization departs from the central message of the Bible – the redemption of lost souls through faith in the Person and atoning sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ – they inevitably turn to social concerns and “humanitarian” efforts.  Whole bureaucracies within the denomination are formed for such endeavors as “world relief” and “human rights advocacy”. 

 This shift in ministry emphasis in America began in 19^th-century and led to the coining of the term “Social Gospel”.  Seeing the misery very evident around them, Christians sought to relieve the effects of poverty and disease while maintaining their primary evangelistic mission.  Protestant denominations who held firmly to the Bible and its message of personal salvation believed that only spiritual regeneration through faith in Christ could make a lasting difference in society as a whole.  These used social relief efforts as a means of sharing the gospel.  Hospitals, clinics, schools, and rescue missions were formed with the intention of saving lost souls by means of their physical needs.  The problem is that if churches and Christian missions do not constantly renew their commitment to their Scriptural mission, the “felt needs,” the earthly ills, become the primary focus, and the evangelical mission is lost.

No denomination is immune to this phenomenon.  The pastor and seminary professor who holds the title “The Father of the Social Gospel in America” was Baptist pastor Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918).  His books included, Christianizing the Social Order and A Theology for the Social Gospel.  Baptists who held firm to the gospel of personal salvation would eventually separate from the liberal groups and form their own fellowships.  The same trends were played out – and are still being played out – among Methodists, Presbyterians, Reformed churches, Lutherans, and other denominations. 

 Lest I be misunderstood, let me say that Christians must never be callous to suffering and need.  Our willingness to do what we can to help others is a demonstration of our faith in Christ (James 2:14-17) and our love of God (1 John 3:17).  A mission agency with whom I had the privilege of serving for twenty years operates a hospital in Bangladesh.  The ministry of that hospital has resulted in scores of conversions to Christ and the founding of a local church.  Reports from that field always put the emphasis on the spiritual results, not how many patients were seen.  When a devastating tsunami hit Bangladesh in 2004, that mission set up an emergency relief fund and called for volunteers to help administer food and other material needs and to help rebuild the thousands of homes that were destroyed.  God’s people responded, homes were rebuilt, and every penny of the money donated went directly to the relief needs – not to administrative costs!  That mission, and others like it,  have kept their focus on the biblical gospel while responding to immediate needs as they arose – all without forming a new department of “world relief”!

 When that faithful lady in the home of Simon the Leper (!) poured that fragrant oil on the head of our Savior, Jesus’ own disciples protested: “Why this waste?”  They still didn’t believe or understand the real mission of our Lord.  “For in pouring this fragrant oil on My body,” Jesus said, “she did it for My burial.”  She understood that Jesus had to die for our sins, be buried, and rise again that we might have eternal life and a new heart.  That is the gospel.

 Should we not pour out our most precious resources to spread the fragrance of Christ’s gospel of eternal life to a lost world?  Waste?  How many millions of Christian dollars are poured into political action committees and social activist activities?  How much fragrant oil is being wasted on social bandages, while spiritual lepers are eaten away by sin and pass into an eternity in hell?