Missionary Travels Order Printed Copy

Author: Dr. David Livingstone
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About the Book

"Missionary Travels" is a travelogue written by Dr. David Livingstone chronicling his journeys through southern Africa in the mid-19th century. Livingstone details his encounters with various African tribes, his experiences navigating challenging terrain, and his efforts to spread Christianity and abolish the slave trade. The book provides valuable insights into the geography, cultures, and peoples of Africa during this time period.

Billy Graham

Billy Graham (born November 7, 1918, Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S.—died February 21, 2018, Montreat, North Carolina), American evangelist whose large-scale preaching missions, known as crusades, and friendship with numerous U.S. presidents brought him to international prominence. Conversion and early career The son of a prosperous dairy farmer, Billy Graham grew up in rural North Carolina. In 1934, while attending a revival meeting led by the evangelist Mordecai Ham, he underwent a religious experience and professed his “decision for Christ.” In 1936 he left his father’s dairy farm to attend Bob Jones College (now Bob Jones University), then located in Cleveland, Tennessee, but stayed for only a semester because of the extreme fundamentalism of the institution. He transferred to Florida Bible Institute (now Trinity College), near Tampa, graduated in 1940, and was ordained a minister by the Southern Baptist Convention. Convinced that his education was deficient, however, Graham enrolled at Wheaton College in Illinois. While at Wheaton, he met and married (1943) Ruth Bell, daughter of L. Nelson Bell, a missionary to China. By the time Graham graduated from Wheaton in 1943, he had developed the preaching style for which he would become famous—a simple, direct message of sin and salvation that he delivered energetically and without condescension. “Sincerity,” he observed many years later, “is the biggest part of selling anything, including the Christian plan of salvation.” After a brief and undistinguished stint as pastor of Western Springs Baptist Church in the western suburbs of Chicago, Graham decided to become an itinerant evangelist. He joined the staff of a new organization called Youth for Christ in 1945 and in 1947 served as president of Northwestern Bible College in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Evangelism Graham’s emergence as an evangelist came at a propitious moment for 20th-century Protestants. Protestantism in the United States was deeply divided as a result of controversies in the 1920s between fundamentalism and modernism (a movement that applied scholarly methods of textual and historical criticism to the study of the Bible). The public image of fundamentalists was damaged by the Scopes Trial of 1925, which concerned the teaching of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in public schools in Tennessee; in his writings about the trial, the journalist and social critic H.L. Mencken successfully portrayed all fundamentalists as uneducated country bumpkins. In response to these controversies, most fundamentalists withdrew from the established Protestant denominations, which they regarded as hopelessly liberal, and retreated from the larger society, which they viewed as both corrupt and corrupting. Although Graham remained theologically conservative, he refused to be sectarian like other fundamentalists. Seeking to dissociate himself from the image of the stodgy fundamentalist preacher, he seized on the opportunity presented by new media technologies, especially radio and television, to spread the message of the gospel. In the late 1940s Graham’s fellow evangelist in Youth for Christ, Charles Templeton, challenged Graham to attend seminary with him so that both preachers could shore up their theological knowledge. Graham considered the possibility at length, but in 1949, while on a spiritual retreat in the San Bernardino Mountains of southern California, he decided to set aside his intellectual doubts about Christianity and simply “preach the gospel.” After his retreat, Graham began preaching in Los Angeles, where his crusade brought him national attention. He acquired this new fame in no small measure because newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, impressed with the young evangelist’s preaching and anticommunist rhetoric, instructed his papers to “puff Graham.” The huge circus tent in which Graham preached, as well as his own self-promotion, lured thousands of curious visitors—including Hollywood movie stars and gangsters—to what the press dubbed the “canvas cathedral” at the corner of Washington and Hill streets. From Los Angeles, Graham undertook evangelistic crusades around the country and the world, eventually earning international renown. Despite his successes, Graham faced criticism from both liberals and conservatives. In New York City in 1954 he was received warmly by students at Union Theological Seminary, a bastion of liberal Protestantism; nevertheless, the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, a professor at Union and one of the leading Protestant thinkers of the 20th century, had little patience for Graham’s simplistic preaching. On the other end of the theological spectrum, fundamentalists such as Bob Jones, Jr., Carl McIntire, and Jack Wyrtzen never forgave Graham for cooperating with the Ministerial Alliance, which included mainline Protestant clergy, in the planning and execution of Graham’s storied 16-week crusade at Madison Square Garden in New York in 1957. Such cooperation, however, was part of Graham’s deliberate strategy to distance himself from the starchy conservatism and separatism of American fundamentalists. His entire career, in fact, was marked by an irenic spirit. Graham, by his own account, enjoyed close relationships with several American presidents, from Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush. (Although Graham met with Harry Truman in the Oval Office, the president was not impressed with him.) Despite claiming to be apolitical, Graham became politically close to Richard Nixon, whom he had befriended when Nixon was Eisenhower’s vice president. During the 1960 presidential campaign, in which Nixon was the Republican nominee, Graham met in Montreaux, Switzerland, with Norman Vincent Peale and other Protestant leaders to devise a strategy to derail the campaign of John F. Kennedy, the Democratic nominee, in order to secure Nixon’s election and prevent a Roman Catholic from becoming president. Although Graham later mended relations with Kennedy, Nixon remained his favourite politician; indeed, Graham all but endorsed Nixon’s reelection effort in 1972 against George McGovern. As Nixon’s presidency unraveled amid charges of criminal misconduct in the Watergate scandal, Graham reviewed transcripts of Oval Office tape recordings subpoenaed by Watergate investigators and professed to be physically sickened by his friend’s use of foul language. Legacy of Billy Graham Graham’s popular appeal was the result of his extraordinary charisma, his forceful preaching, and his simple, homespun message: anyone who repents of sins and accepts Jesus Christ will be saved. Behind that message, however, stood a sophisticated organization, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, incorporated in 1950, which performed extensive advance work in the form of favourable media coverage, cooperation with political leaders, and coordination with local churches and provided a follow-up program for new converts. The organization also distributed a radio program, Hour of Decision, a syndicated newspaper column, “My Answer,” and a magazine, Decision. Although Graham pioneered the use of television for religious purposes, he always shied away from the label “televangelist.” During the 1980s, when other television preachers were embroiled in sensational scandals, Graham remained above the fray, and throughout a career that spanned more than half a century few people questioned his integrity. In 1996 Graham and his wife received the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, the highest civilian award bestowed by the United States, and in 2001 he was made an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE). Graham concluded his public career with a crusade in Queens, New York, in June 2005. Graham claimed to have preached in person to more people than anyone else in history, an assertion that few would challenge. His evangelical crusades around the world, his television appearances and radio broadcasts, his friendships with presidents, and his unofficial role as spokesman for America’s evangelicals made him one of the most recognized religious figures of the 20th century.

he carried a cross through the empire - ignatius of antioch (35–107)

Shaded from the heat of a Syrian summer, an old man sits in shackles, speaking earnestly to a secretary. His words mingle conviction and compassion, like a father to his children. In the next room, ten of emperor Trajan’s legionaries drink off another day’s pay. For them, the road from Antioch to the Roman Colosseum will be long, but it is better than being sent a second time into the Dacian wars. It is August, AD 107. The prisoner’s name is Ignatius. Before his arrest just weeks ago, he was the bishop of Antioch. After the Apostles As Ignatius travels to the Colosseum, the church sits in a precarious spot. Ignatius’s mentor, the apostle John, has recently died. For the first time, there is no living witness to the resurrected Jesus. No leader who can comfort or correct the course of the church with apostolic authority. And yet the need for both comfort and correction is great. From outside the church, Roman society marginalizes Christians as “atheists” (those who do not acknowledge the Roman gods), and the authorities respond to rumors of strange rites in Christian worship with intensifying cycles of persecution. External pressure exposes internal fault lines among those claiming to follow in The Way. Doctrinal deviation creeps in, questioning the truth of the incarnation (Docetism) or requiring adherence to the law of Moses (Ebionism). Behavioral aberration crops up, as some take the name of Christian but remain complacent in patterns in sin. Errors in both doctrine and practice multiply as the church continues to expand across the reaches of the Roman Empire. All of which serves to highlight the question of authority. The old ways of answering this question are gone: Christ has ascended, and his apostles have been martyred. The new and perpetual authorities are not yet in place: a creedal consensus on the faith, a recognition of the canon of Scripture, and the biblical structure of the church all remain undetermined. Seven Last Letters At just over seventy years old, Ignatius steps into this crucial moment in the life of the church by writing letters addressed to seven congregations along his route to Rome. His public ministry through these seven letters has been compared to a meteor, his brightest moment coming as he “blazes briefly through our atmosphere before dying in a shower of fire” ( Apostolic Fathers , 166). But Ignatius is much more concerned about his role as a pastor than as a martyr. As he writes, he cares more about the churches’ discipleship than his own death. He may, therefore, be better pictured like a weaver’s shuttle, carrying the thread of Christlikeness from east to west behind him as he passes through the empire, binding the churches together in the beautiful truths of the Christian life. The pattern he weaves, from the threads of his concern for the church as well as reflection on his own situation, is centered on the cross of Christ in at least five ways. 1. Branches of the Cross First, and foundationally, the cross was central to the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus. Ignatius presented the cross as capturing the essence of Jesus’s life in this world. This acute moment of passive obedience was the consummation of lifelong humiliation. Jesus was, from first to last, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). This broad view of the sufferings Jesus endured — “in every respect” (Hebrews 4:15) — opens wide the door for Ignatius, as well as those to whom he writes, to share in the sufferings of Christ. In a stunning adaptation of Jesus’s words from John 15, Ignatius writes, “If anyone is the Father’s planting, they appear as branches of the cross.” To be branches in the vine, to have his life in us, means that we must “die into his sufferings,” not only as martyrs but in our mundane life as disciples (3.1). 2. Foolishly Different Hope Second, the cross is central to the Christian proclamation of the gospel. In the gospel announcement of “Christ for us,” the “passion has been made clear to us,” and we, in turn, must make it clear to others (6.7). Ignatius celebrates the saving power that was released at Calvary: we escape death in Christ’s death; we receive the new birth only because he died on our behalf. Furthermore, as a community of the redeemed, the ministry life of the church is shaped by the crucifixion. Ignatius pictures the cross as a crane lifting living stones into the temple of God (1.9). It is this cross-shaped congregation that is regularly re-formed around the broken body and spilled blood at the Lord’s Table (1.20), proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes. This is why the church must reject those who soften the weak and foolish offense of the cross. “[Be] deaf whenever anyone speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ — really born, really persecuted, really crucified, really raised” (3.9). Otherwise — if our hope is not evidently and “foolishly” different than that of this world — someone “might praise me but blaspheme my Lord” by denying that he was God in the flesh (6.5). 3. Greatest When Most Hated Third, the cross is central to Christian discipleship. This is true for Ignatius as he is on the way to Rome to “die for [Christ] as he died for us” (4.6). His caravan has become a classroom — “I am just now learning to be a true disciple” (1.3). But Christian discipleship is deeper and wider than the spiritual gift of martyrdom. It is wider because it applies to every believer — we are all to bear “the stamp of God” rather than “the stamp of the world” (2.5). And it is deeper because the cross places a claim on the whole of our life; once we have “taken on new life through the blood of God,” our new and “righteous nature” delights to reflect the cruciform character of God in Christ. The Spirit of Christ within us enables us to imitate him rather than the world. In response to their anger, be gentle; in response to their boasts, be humble; in response to their slander, offer prayers; in response to their errors, be steadfast in the faith; in response to their cruelty, be civilized; do not be eager to imitate them . . . [instead] let us be eager to be imitators of the Lord, to see who can be the more wronged, who the more cheated, who the more rejected, in order that no weed of the devil may be found among you. (1.10) As he wrote to the church in Rome, “Christianity is greatest [most like Jesus] when it is hated by the world” (4.3). 4. Doorway to God Fourth, the cross is central to Ignatius’s longing to commune with Christ. One of the most striking aspects of these letters is the way Ignatius pleads with the believers in Rome not to interfere with his impending martyrdom out of misplaced concern. Reflecting the way Christ has turned life and death upside down, he writes, “do not hinder me from entering into life, and do not desire my death” (4.6). Ignatius’s journey to the Colosseum is, in a tangible way, a journey into the presence of God. “To be nearer to the sword is to be nearer to God” (4.2). Yet even on the way, communion with Christ in his sufferings has turned the chains draping his body into “spiritual pearls” carried “in Christ” (1.11). In this, Ignatius sets himself as an example for us to imitate. We too must “stand firm, like an anvil being struck by a hammer” (7.3). We too are storm-tossed ships still on the way to the harbor. We too “lack many things so that we may not lack God” (3.5). And yet we do not lose heart because, as the persecuted church gathers together, Christ himself is present among his people. And Christ is he “than whom nothing is better” (2.6). Indeed, “nothing is better than him” (7.1). Because of his cross, we die into his sufferings. But because of his resurrection, suffering has turned into birth pangs, the grave has been turned into a womb, and death is a doorway into life full and everlasting. 5. Scripture Unlocked Fifth, and perhaps most immediately relevant for twenty-first-century disciples who seek to follow Ignatius as he follows Christ, the cross is central to his interpretation of Scripture. Rejecting the accusation that a crucified Messiah is unknown in Israel’s Scripture, Ignatius installs the Christ of the Gospels as the “unalterable archives” out of which the wisdom of God is to be read. The lens through which the Old Testament can be rightly understood must be the person and work of Christ (5.9). For the church in the first century and the twenty-first century, Christ is known, proclaimed, worshiped, and followed as he stands forth from the Book of God, unlocked by the key of his cross and resurrection. Christ of His Cross In considering the example of Ignatius, we can receive encouragement from his faithful witness. The testimony of his life did not seep into the sand of the Colosseum to be lost but, spread through his seven letters, watered the church. We can rejoice in the Spirit-led process by which the canon of Scripture was not only recognized but was faithfully summarized in the creeds of the church, providing us with firm ground on which to stand. Most of all, however, our attention must be drawn to the cross Ignatius carried across the empire, and to which he called the church. In many ways beyond those few listed here, the Christ of this cross is our hope, our joy, and our life.