William Carey
"Expect great things; attempt great things."
At a meeting of Baptist leaders in the late 1700s, a newly ordained minister stood to argue for the value of overseas missions. He was abruptly interrupted by an older minister who said, "Young man, sit down! You are an enthusiast. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he'll do it without consulting you or me."
That such an attitude is inconceivable today is largely due to the subsequent efforts of that young man, William Carey.
Plodder Carey was raised in the obscure, rural village of Paulerpury, in the middle of England. He apprenticed in a local cobbler's shop, where the nominal Anglican was converted. He enthusiastically took up the faith, and though little educated, the young convert borrowed a Greek grammar and proceeded to teach himself New Testament Greek.
When his master died, he took up shoemaking in nearby Hackleton, where he met and married Dorothy Plackett, who soon gave birth to a daughter. But the apprentice cobbler's life was hardâthe child died at age 2âand his pay was insufficient. Carey's family sunk into poverty and stayed there even after he took over the business.
"I can plod," he wrote later, "I can persevere to any definite pursuit." All the while, he continued his language studies, adding Hebrew and Latin, and became a preacher with the Particular Baptists. He also continued pursuing his lifelong interest in international affairs, especially the religious life of other cultures.
Carey was impressed with early Moravian missionaries and was increasingly dismayed at his fellow Protestants' lack of missions interest. In response, he penned An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. He argued that Jesus' Great Commission applied to all Christians of all times, and he castigated fellow believers of his day for ignoring it: "Multitudes sit at ease and give themselves no concern about the far greater part of their fellow sinners, who to this day, are lost in ignorance and idolatry."
Carey didn't stop there: in 1792 he organized a missionary society, and at its inaugural meeting preached a sermon with the call, "Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God!" Within a year, Carey, John Thomas (a former surgeon), and Carey's family (which now included three boys, and another child on the way) were on a ship headed for India.
Stranger in a strange land
Thomas and Carey had grossly underestimated what it would cost to live in India, and Carey's early years there were miserable. When Thomas deserted the enterprise, Carey was forced to move his family repeatedly as he sought employment that could sustain them. Illness racked the family, and loneliness and regret set it: "I am in a strange land," he wrote, "no Christian friend, a large family, and nothing to supply their wants." But he also retained hope: "Well, I have God, and his word is sure."
He learned Bengali with the help of a pundit, and in a few weeks began translating the Bible into Bengali and preaching to small gatherings.
When Carey himself contracted malaria, and then his 5-year-old Peter died of dysentery, it became too much for his wife, Dorothy, whose mental health deteriorated rapidly. She suffered delusions, accusing Carey of adultery and threatening him with a knife. She eventually had to be confined to a room and physically restrained.
"This is indeed the valley of the shadow of death to me," Carey wrote, though characteristically added, "But I rejoice that I am here notwithstanding; and God is here."
Gift of tongues
In October 1799, things finally turned. He was invited to locate in a Danish settlement in Serampore, near Calcutta. He was now under the protection of the Danes, who permitted him to preach legally (in the British-controlled areas of India, all of Carey's missionary work had been illegal).
Carey was joined by William Ward, a printer, and Joshua and Hanna Marshman, teachers. Mission finances increased considerably as Ward began securing government printing contracts, the Marshmans opened schools for children, and Carey began teaching at Fort William College in Calcutta.
In December 1800, after seven years of missionary labor, Carey baptized his first convert, Krishna Pal, and two months later, he published his first Bengali New Testament. With this and subsequent editions, Carey and his colleagues laid the foundation for the study of modern Bengali, which up to this time had been an "unsettled dialect."
Carey continued to expect great things; over the next 28 years, he and his pundits translated the entire Bible into India's major languages: Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Hindi, Assamese, and Sanskrit and parts of 209 other languages and dialects.
He also sought social reform in India, including the abolition of infanticide, widow burning (sati), and assisted suicide. He and the Marshmans founded Serampore College in 1818, a divinity school for Indians, which today offers theological and liberal arts education for some 2,500 students.
By the time Carey died, he had spent 41 years in India without a furlough. His mission could count only some 700 converts in a nation of millions, but he had laid an impressive foundation of Bible translations, education, and social reform.
His greatest legacy was in the worldwide missionary movement of the nineteenth century that he inspired. Missionaries like Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, and David Livingstone, among thousands of others, were impressed not only by Carey's example, but by his words "Expect great things; attempt great things." The history of nineteenth-century Protestant missions is in many ways an extended commentary on the phrase.
weakness may be your greatest strength
How well are you investing the weaknesses youâve been given? Perhaps no one has ever asked you that question before. Perhaps it sounds nonsensical. After all, people invest assets  in order to increase their value. They donât invest liabilities . They try to eliminate or minimize or even cover up liabilities. Itâs easy for us to see our strengths as assets. But most of us naturally consider our weaknesses as liabilities â deficiencies to minimize or cover up. But God, in his providence, gives us our weaknesses just as he gives us our strengths. In Godâs economy, where the return on investment he most values is âfaith working through loveâ (Galatians 5:6), weaknesses become assets â we can even call them talents  â to be stewarded, to be invested. It may even be that the most valuable asset God has given you to steward is not a strength, but a weakness. But if weâre to value weaknesses as assets, we need to see clearly where Scripture teaches this. The apostle Paul provides us with the clearest theology of the priceless value of weakness. I have found 1 Corinthians 1:18â2:16 and, frankly, the entire book of 2 Corinthians, to be immensely helpful in understanding the indispensable role weakness plays in strengthening the faith and witness of individual Christians and the church as a whole. Paradoxical Power of Weakness Paulâs most famous statement on the paradoxical spiritual power of weakness appears in 2 Corinthians 12. He tells us of his ecstatic experience of being âcaught up into paradise,â where he received overwhelming and ineffable revelations (2 Corinthians 12:1â4). But as a result, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, âMy grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.â Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7â10) In these few sentences, Paul completely reframes the way Christians are to view weaknesses, even deeply painful ones that can appear to hinder our calling and that the powers of darkness seek to exploit. What at first seems to us like an expensive liability turns out to be a valuable, God-given asset. Weakness and Sin Before we go further, we need to be clear that Paul does not include sin  in his description of weakness here. The Greek word Paul uses is astheneia , the most common word for âweaknessâ in the New Testament. J.I. Packer, in his helpful study on 2 Corinthians, Weakness Is the Way , explains astheneia  like this: The idea from first to last is of inadequacy. We talk about physical weakness [including sickness and disability] . . . intellectual weakness . . . personal weakness . . . a weak position when a person lacks needed resources and cannot move situations forward or influence events as desired . . . relational weakness when persons who should be leading and guiding fail to do so â weak parents, weak pastors, and so on. (13â14) But when Paul speaks of sin, he has more than inadequacy in mind. The Greek word for âsinâ he typically uses is hamartia , which refers to something that incurs guilt before God. Hamartia  happens when we think, act, or feel in ways that transgress what God forbids. âWeaknesses manifest Godâs power in us in ways our strengths donât.â Though Paul was aware that hamartia  could lead to astheneia  (1 Corinthians 11:27â30) and astheneia  could lead to hamartia  (Matthew 26:41), he clearly did not believe âweaknessâ was synonymous with âsin.â For he rebuked those who boasted that their sin displayed the power and immensity of Godâs grace (Romans 6:1â2). But he âgladlyâ boasted of his weaknesses because they displayed the power and immensity of Godâs grace (2 Corinthians 12:9). In sin, we turn from God to idols, which profanes God, destroys faith, and obscures God in the eyes of others. But weakness has the tendency to increase our conscious dependence on God, which glorifies him, strengthens our faith, and manifests his power in ways our strengths never do. And thatâs the surprising value of our weaknesses: they manifest Godâs power in us in ways our strengths donât. Thatâs what Jesus meant when he told Paul, âMy power is made perfect in weaknessâ (2 Corinthians 12:9) â âperfectâ meaning complete  or entirely accomplished . Our weaknesses are indispensable because God manifests the fullness of his power through them. Asset Disguised as a Liability At this point, you may be thinking, âWhatever Paulâs âthornâ was, my weakness is not like that.â Right. Thatâs what we all think. I have a thorn-like weakness, known only to those closest to me. If I shared it with you, you might be surprised. It dogs me daily as I seek to carry out my family, vocational, and ministry responsibilities. It makes almost everything harder and regularly tempts me to exasperation. Itâs not romantic, certainly not heroic. It humbles me in embarrassing, not noble, ways. And most painful to me, I can see how in certain ways it makes life harder for those I live and work with. Often it has seemed to me a liability. Iâve pleaded with the Lord, even in tears, to remove it or grant me more power to overcome it. But itâs still here. Paul also initially saw his weakness as a grievous liability and pleaded repeatedly to be delivered from it. But as soon as he understood Christâs purposes in it, he saw it in a whole new light: a priceless asset disguised as a liability. And he gloried in the depths of Godâs knowledge, wisdom, and omnipotent grace. âGod, in his providence, gives us our weaknesses just as he gives us our strengths.â I have been slower than Paul in learning to see my thorn as an asset (and honestly, Iâm still learning). But I see at least some of the ways this weakness has strengthened me. It has forced me to live daily in dependent faith on Godâs grace. It has heightened my gratitude for those God has placed around me who have strengths where Iâm weak. Beset with my own weakness, I am more prone to deal gently and patiently with others who struggle with weaknesses different from mine (Hebrews 5:2). And I can see now how it has seasoned much of what Iâve written over the years with certain insights I doubt would have come otherwise. In other words, I see ways God has manifested his power more completely through my perplexing weakness. The fact that we donât know what Paulâs thorn was is evidence of Godâs wisdom. If we did, we likely would compare our weaknesses to his and conclude that ours have no such spiritual value. And we would be wrong. Stewards of Surprising Talents Paul said that his weakness, his âthorn . . . in the flesh,â was âgivenâ to him (2 Corinthians 12:7). Given by whom? Whatever role Satan played, in Paulâs mind he was secondary. Paul received this weakness, as well as âinsults, hardships, persecutions, and calamitiesâ (2 Corinthians 12:10), as assets given to him by his Lord. And as a â[steward] of the mysteries of Godâ (1 Corinthians 4:1), he considered his weaknesses a crucial part of the portfolio his Master had entrusted to him. So, he determined to invest them well in order that his Master would see as much of a return as possible. If youâre familiar with Jesusâs parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14â30), you might recognize that Iâm drawing from its imagery. Jesus has given each of us different âtalentsâ to steward, assets of immense kingdom value, âeach according to his abilityâ (Matthew 25:15). And his expectation is that we will invest them well while we wait for his return. Some of these talents are strengths and abilities our Lord has given us. But some of them are our weaknesses, our inadequacies and limitations, which heâs also given to us. And heâs given us these weaknesses not only to increase in us the invaluable and shareable treasure of humility (2 Corinthians 12:7), but also to increase our strength in the most important aspects of our being: faith and love (2 Corinthians 12:10). But our weaknesses are not only given to us as individuals; they are also given to the church. Our limitations, as much as our abilities, are crucial to Christâs design to equip his body so that it works properly and âbuilds itself up in loveâ (Ephesians 4:16). Our weaknesses make us depend on one another in ways our strengths donât (1 Corinthians 12:21â26). Which means they are given to the church for the same reason they are given to us individually: so that the church may grow strong in faith (1 Corinthians 2:3â5) and love (1 Corinthians 13) â two qualities that uniquely manifest Jesusâs reality and power to the world (John 13:35). Donât Bury Your Weaknesses Someday, when our Master returns, he will ask us to give an account of the talents heâs entrusted to us. Some of those talents will be our weaknesses. We donât want to tell him we buried any of them. It may even be that the most valuable talent in our investment portfolio turns out to be a weakness. Since âit is required of stewards that they be found faithfulâ (1 Corinthians 4:2), we would be wise to examine how faithfully we are stewarding the talents of our weaknesses. So, how well are you investing the weaknesses youâve been given?
