Daily Topic for June 02, 2008
The Corinthian church was not a “beautiful people” church. But Paul explained that God had chosen them to reveal the folly and weakness of the wise and strong of this world. Neither are today’s missionaries generally considered to be “beautiful people” in the world’s eyes. But God has used seemingly weak and foolish people to plant His church all around the globe.
Dear God, we need more “weak and foolish” Christians to become missionaries to the unreached peoples!
“From a hill to the north rose an exquisitely proportioned spire of gold, broadly round where it left the trees, tapering to a point where it touched the crimson heavens.” This was Adoniram Judson’s first glimpse of Burma, and he was elated. The couple had been unable to enter India, their original destination, and by a complicated route had finally arrived in Burma in 1813. The passage had been long and hard. Twenty-one-year old Nancy almost lost her life in the premature birth of their first baby who died while at sea.
In the city of Rangoon, they made the simplest kind of living arrangements, and quickly started to learn Burmese. Judson’s first teacher played a mean trick on him teaching him obscene words for ordinary ones. Thus Judson’s original Bible translation work made the teachings of Christ ridiculous. Months of work had to be redone. Adoniram’s own vocabulary had to be cleaned up. However it should be noted here that in later years Judson wrote a Burmese grammar, translated the entire Bible, and gave the Burmese an English-Burmese dictionary.
By 1820, Nancy’s health had broken, and she went alone to the United States seeking help. During this time, Adoniram had moved to Ava, the capital city several weeks’ journey to the north. Nancy joined him there when she returned to Burma in 1824.
Learn more at joshuaproject.netPray that the Lord will give great endurance to today’s frontier missionaries.-AL