What Does Myanmar Have in Common with Massachusetts?

 Lum Gyung, wife Daung Naw, son Chris Gyung Khaung, and daughter Keziah Gyung Naw before Adoniram Judson’s home, 145 Main St., Malden, MA

 Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and formerly referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989) is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has a population of about 55 million. About 6.2% claim to be Christian (United States Pew Research Center 2019). Myanmar is bordered by India and Bangladesh to the northwest, China to the northeast, Laos and Thailand to the east and southeast.[1] We were reminded last November when Lum Gyung from Myanmar came into the Boston campus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in order to help Aida with  technical help for her New Testament Interpretation zoom class that Myanmar and Massachusetts are closely tied together today as they were in the past.

An important missionary to Myanmar was Adoniram Judson and his family. The founder of Gordon Divinity School was named after him at his birth, as Adoniram Judson Gordon. Adoniram Judson was born in 1788 (died in 1850) in Malden, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. He was born to Abigail Brown and Adoniram Judson Sr., a Congregational minister. Judson Jr. attended the Andover Theological Seminary. In 1808, Judson "made a solemn dedication of himself to God." During his final year at the school, Judson decided upon a missionary career.[2]  

In 1810, Judson joined a group of mission-minded students who called themselves "The Brethren." These students inspired the establishment of America's first organized missionary society. Eager to serve abroad, Judson became convinced that "Asia with its idolatrous myriads, was the most important field in the world for missionary effort." He, and three other students from the seminary, appeared before the Congregationalists' General Association to appeal for support. In 1810, the elders voted to form the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He was appointed by them as a missionary to the East. Judson was also commissioned by the Congregational Church, and married Ann Hasseltine on February 5, 1812. He was ordained the next day at the Tabernacle Church in Salem, MA. In 1813, Judson and his wife, Ann, moved to Burma. He was 25 years old. Judson served as an American Particular Baptist missionary in Burma for almost 40 years. His mission work with Luther Rice led to the establishment of the American Baptist Churches USA.

First attempts by the Judsons to interest the natives of Rangoon with the Gospel of Jesus met with almost total indifference. Buddhist traditions and the Burmese worldview at that time led many to disregard the pleadings of Adoniram and his wife to believe in one living and all-powerful God. Nevertheless, the first believer was baptized in 1819, and there were 18 believers by 1822. The progress of Christianity would continue to be slow with much risk of endangerment and death in the Burmese Empire. George H. Hough in 1817 produced the first published materials in Burmese that were printed in Burma, which included 800 copies of Judson's translation of the Gospel of Matthew. By 1823, ten years after his arrival, Judson finished the first draft of his translation of the New Testament in Burmese. When Judson finished translating the entire Bible into Burmese, it was printed and published in 1835.

Judson compiled the first ever Burmese-English dictionary (missionary E. A. Steven completed the English-Burmese half). Every dictionary and grammar written in Burma in the last two centuries has been based on those originally created by Judson. Though the Bible has been translated numerous times into Burmese, Judson's translation remains the most popular version in Myanmar.

Each July, Baptist churches in Myanmar celebrate "Judson Day," commemorating his arrival as a missionary. Inside the campus of Yangon University is Judson Church, named in his honor, and in 1920 Judson College, also named in his honor, merged into Rangoon College, which has since been renamed Yangon University.[3] 

Judson was the first missionary to make contact with the Karen people in 1827, when he ransomed and freed a debt-slave. This act of social justice then led to spiritual renewal of an individual and then a nation. The freed slave, Saw Ko Tha Byu, was an illiterate, surly man who spoke almost no Burmese and was reputed to be not only a thief, but also a murderer who admitted killing at least 30 men.

In 1828, the former Karen bandit was sent south with a new missionary couple, George and Sarah Boardman, into the territory of the strongly animistic, non-Buddhist Karen. Ko Tha Byu was no sooner baptized, when he set off into the jungle alone to preach to his fellow tribe members. Astonishingly, he found them prepared for his preaching. Their ancient oracle traditions, handed down for centuries, contained some startling echoes of the Old Testament so that some scholars conjecture a linkage with Jewish communities (or possibly even Nestorians), before their migrations from western China into Burma.

The core of what they called their "Tradition of the Elders" was a belief in one true God, unchangeable, eternal, all-powerful, creator of heaven and earth, of man, and of woman formed from a rib taken from the man. They believed in humanity's temptation by a devil in a garden, and its fall, and that some day a Great Messiah would come to its rescue. They lived in expectation of a prophecy that white foreigners would bring them a sacred parchment roll.[4]

By 2006, Myanmar had the third largest number of Baptists[5] worldwide, behind the United States and India. The majority of adherents are Karen, Kachin and Chin. The Karen population has spread around the world, to Thailand, United States, Australia, Canada, and India. Among the total 3,371,100 in Myanmar, an estimated 50% of Karen are Christian.[6]

The tribe to which Lum Gyung belongs is the Lhaovo ethnic group from the northern part of Myanmar (the Kachin State). He and his parents are Christians. His grandparents were converted from worship of their great-great grandfather’s spirit (Nat), who had died from the attack of a wild animal. Lum attends the Lynn Myanmar Christian fellowship, one of three Myanmar community churches in Massachusetts (two others are in Lowell and Boston).

Lum came to study at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, MA in 2023 and completed his Masters in Christian Ministries in 2026. He explains that: “Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (GCTS) is one of the best seminaries in the US which provides the best education for diverse ministry fields not only domestically but also internationally. In our country’s context, the GCTS alumni from Myanmar are most effective and successful missionaries and pastors nationwide, which means the seminary offers outstanding training.”

In 2024-25, these community churches dedicated themselves to purchase the home of Judson’s birthplace in order to preserve the heritage of the first missionary and Bible translator to the Myanmar (Burmese) people.[7] Judson’s motto was “devoted for life” and his biblical foundation came from Matthew 28:18-20: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen” (KJV).

Judson dedicated his whole life for the people of Burma to see the Light, despite much hardship, heartbreak, suffering, losses, and great challenges. Judson was prepared by God and by his Christian family and friends in Malden, thus the house is a symbol of faith, dedication, sacrifice, love, and obeying God’s command to go to all nations to baptize and teach. As Jesus was with his early disciples in Jerusalem and throughout the ancient world and with Judson in Burma, so too he is present today with the Burmese descendants of those early converts to Christianity.

Aida with Lum Gyung

 

 

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[1] “Myanmar,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar.

[2] “Adoniram Judson,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoniram_Judson.

[3] Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoniram_Judson. See also Rosalie Hall Hunt, Bless God and Take Courage: The Judson History and Legacy (Valley Forge, PA: Judson, 2005).

[4] See Don Richardson, Eternity in Their Hearts, 3^rd ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2006), ch. 2.

[5]  The Karen Baptist Convention in 2025 notes that it has 337,682 baptized members, https://kbcm1913.org/.; About Us.

[6] There are many different Karen peoples in Myanmar. The two largest are the Sgaw Karen (2.1 million total pop.) and the Eastern Pwo Karen (1.2 million). Together, the World Christian Database reports they are 51% Christian. If you add in the other Karen peoples, the percentage drops closer to 30%. Gina A. Zurlo, ed. World Christian Database (Brill, accessed December 2025). “Karen people,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_people.

[7] “Ribbon-Cutting Celebrates Opening of Adoniram Judson Heritage Center,” City of Malden News, Posted on August 13, 2025, https://www.cityofmalden.org/m/newsflash/home/detail/1090; Leon H Abdalian, “Preserving History and Protecting Heritage,” https://www.judsonheritage.org/restoration.

Rising Up Above the Waters (Exodus 14:21-31)

Picture of lock and Viking ship by Aida Besancon Spencer 6/26/2024

Three o’clock in the morning, I slid back the heavy curtain on the window to take a look at night on the river and the early dawning of the northern sun. Instead, to my shock, I found myself confronting a solid, concrete wall just about two feet from my face.[1]

It wasn’t there when I went to sleep. I wasn’t dreaming; I was awake, and I was astonished! If I’d opened the window, I could have reached out and touched it! But, as I gaped at it, it looked like this wall was gently but steadily dropping away. Then, I realized, the wall wasn’t moving. No, the 2,600-ton Viking river cruiser, on which we were traveling the Rhine River, was rising until it crested the top of that wall, and we emerged up into the night air.

Now, the reason I was there is that we were attempting to recapture and explore a treasured childhood memory Aída had wanted for years to share with me: journeying through the castles of Germany which she had visited in her youth with her Dutch father and family. The cruise was set for eight days, riding the Rhine from Amsterdam in the north down to Basel, below the Alps, from where we would fly home.

When we reached Germany’s castle-country, we did indeed see twenty castles from the top of our ship.

The gracious staff of this affordable, yet immaculately-kept cruiser equipped us all with an informative and entertaining narration, a glossy handheld pamphlet guide to the “Castles on the Middle Rhine,” large umbrellas to keep the sun off us, chaise lounge chairs on which we could stretch out our legs, all the bottled water we could guzzle on a bright sunny day, and a break from the previous days of excursions in which we toured cities, cathedrals, fortresses, and other interesting sites all along the river. And all that in 8 days!

But to arrive at this destination toward which we’d set out from the Netherlands through Germany into France, as we approached Switzerland, our ship had to navigate through ten separate locks, a new experience for me.

Every one of the staff was so pleasant and accessible, I decided to ask what these brief passages in and out of the cement locks I had witnessed in our window that morning were all about.

I was guided to the ship’s Hotel Manager, Stefan Strobl-Santos, an imposing young officer who looks like a European movie star and melds efficiency and friendliness like an art form.

My question was: what exactly are locks and why do we need to go through them? It’s not that these brief nautical passageways were annoying. Not at all. Eight of them I didn’t even notice we were in, if I hadn’t occasionally looked out a window, after that early morning discovery, but, having never been on a river cruise before, I wondered: why were these locks here at all?

He drew me a picture as he explained that it was as if our ship was climbing a stairway. The Rhine River we were on was actually rising between Germany and Switzerland and the locks were chambers we were entering so a sluice could pour in water beneath us and slowly, carefully, raise our level at each juncture. What we were avoiding were rough rapids over the equivalent of waterfalls in the river’s stream, and other obstacles such as sandbars that would have made our journey much more arduous and treacherous.[2] We were constantly being moved to a greater height.

The hefty Viking craft was being lifted by the power of the increasing volume of pouring, rising water to a new level, on which it could begin to move carefully at first and then more swiftly out of the lock to continue on the river to its destination.

Thinking this over, I was struck by the curious similarity between what we were experiencing and the marvelous delivery of the fleeing Israelites, escaping from Egypt in the Exodus, when they suddenly found themselves confronted by the impassible Red Sea.

The similarities? We both needed to go through a deep river to get to safety.

For us, who knows? If caught in a terrific storm, without the locks, could our ship have hit rapids, logs, sandbars, and the force of the waves constantly slugging into us with tremendous force sweep our ship sideways, backwards, careening into a sandbar or thrown up onto the shore? Probably not, since the ship was closed by strong walls and windows, but at least the ride would have been rough, not smooth as it always was.

The differences? Well, as we look at what confronted the Israelites, our situation, even theoretically in worst case scenario, was nothing compared to theirs.

*They had no ships, no boats, no rafts, no bridges, no means but their feet to get themselves, their children, their elderly, their infirm, across a body of water deep enough to drown them all.

*They were in a rush now with no time to sit down and rethink their plans. They were escaping from a land that had held them captive for several hundred years. And their former captors who had begrudgingly let them go had just been told by their leader, as recorded in Exodus14:5: “What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!”

So, an army of war chariots were in pursuit of them.

And here they are, their route of escape suddenly blocked, stymied by a huge body of water and nowhere to run.

What they needed desperately was a lock like we had to hold back the water and avoid ending their escape by the catastrophe of drowning in a rough deluge.

Sherri Chasin Calvo in Encyclopedia.com tells us locks appeared fairly early, mainly being used in canals and, “The first known canals were dug in the Middle East thousands of years ago.” One example, she notes, is familiar to all Bible readers: the “50-mile (80-km) long stone canal built to supply the city of Nineveh with fresh water.” It was built, in fact, by “King Sennacherib, who ruled Assyria” and who was eventually going to besiege Judah in the time of King Hezekiah and capture 46 of its towns, demanding a huge tribute in the late 700s to the early 600s BC.” We can read that account in 2 Kings chapters 18-19.

Further, “several additional canals were built elsewhere in the Mesopotamian region, as well as in Egypt and Phoenicia. In about 510 BC the Persian king Darius I (550-486 BC) even attempted to connect the Nile with the Red Sea.” So that would have been helpful for Israel, trying to go through the Red Sea.

But, the problem here is that these dates are all about 500 years or so after the Exodus.

A similar problem surfaced with the flash locks, where water built up and behind “movable barriers” or “lock-gates” like those developed by the Chinese in the first century BC,” in canals near Nanyang,” wherein boats could float over problems when the barriers were removed if going downstream or hauled over the difficulty if going upstream.[3]

But that would be too little and way too late – by a millennium!

So human-made locks were not an option.

They had no bridges to cross, no ferry to carry them over, no locks to hold back the water.

But they had one great advantage. They had the power of God at work.

Exodus 14:21-22 tells us that, at God’s command, Moses stretches his hand over the sea and God drives back the water into a wall that opens a passage and God dries that passage up, so Israel can cross over safely.

In short, God creates a natural lock. No cement, no concrete, no sluices, but the inspiration is there for humans to imitate it – but only the power of God is at work to make it happen naturally.

But, how did God do this?

We have an explanation from no one less than Sir Colin Humphreys, Professor at The School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London, Professor of Experimental Physics, The Royal Institution; Cambridge; and Director of both Cambridge University’s Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre on Advanced Materials and its Aixtron Centre for Gallium Nitride, as well as Emeritus Professor of the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge.[4] He is well-known for his work developing the LED lightbulbs we use and has received many awards and honors, including being knighted for his accomplishments in science.

Alongside Colin Humphreys’ expertise as a physicist and materials scientist, he has also become an apologist in defending the miracles of the Bible.

In 2004, he released an interesting book, The Miracles of Exodus – A Scientist’s Discovery of the Extraordinary Natural Causes Underlying the Biblical Stories. In it, among other contributions, is an impressive explanation of how God built overnight the natural “lock” that saved Israel and destroyed the pursuing army.

Here is a summary of some of the light this LED pioneer sheds on this event:

Noting Exodus 14:21, which recounts “all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind” (NRSV), he explains: “A wind blowing along the surface of a body of water exerts a stress on the water which forces it back.” Oceanographers call this a ‘wind set-down.’” Moses and the Israelites were able to cross. When they all arrived, God ceased the wind, and the sea rushed back with great swiftness and force onto the pursuing army. He estimates that the height of the wall of water was about “800 metres.” At 1 metre to about 3.3 feet, that is roughly over 24 feet (re Exod.14:22). Sir Colin also explains: “The mathematics shows that the water returns as a fast-moving vertical wave called a ‘bore’.” Since this happens only on a long stretch of water and the Bible specifies it was an east wind, Prof. Humphreys focuses on the Gulf of Aqaba as the most probable location of the crossing and calculates the speed of the returning “bore” wave to be about five metres per second, “sufficient to knock over a horse and its rider and hurl them into the sea.”[5] Maps of the area still show that the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Gulf of Aqaba are waters that are all connected.

The Archaeological Study Bible adds an extra point, “Humphreys also suggests that the name Red Sea could be accounted for by the red coral that grows in the Gulf of Aqaba.”[6]

Therefore, as our sleek and solid Viking craft was lifted by the power of the pouring water to a new level, on which it could begin to move carefully at first and then more swiftly out of each lock to continue up the Rhine River to our destination, just so, the fleeing Israelites were rescued by God with an east wind and led across the emptied deep to rise up and climb to a higher physical plane on the far shore, while at the same time being raised up through this experience to a higher spiritual plane.

Step by step, we see that, when difficulties confront us, they can be solved by obeying God’s command to follow God’s lead, seeking escape from the bad, and actively moving toward the good solution God provides to get us out of as much of the misery and trouble as we can.

As the Israelites slowly had their consciousness raised to the power of God on earth, we, the heirs of this great epic account we read in Exodus, should remember that, when catastrophe hits us, as it often does, we are gifted by God to rise up to a higher, farther shore. God leads us through the troubles mounted up around us, empowering us to transcend the obstacles facing us and enables us to continue on our own spiritual journey in the power of God’s grace.

So, what should we do when catastrophe strikes?

1)           Don’t despair at overwhelming problems.

2)           Ask and listen for God’s leading to a solution.

3)           Act on God’s solution:

a) Follow the Lord.

b) Seek the higher ground.

4)           Trust God to protect you, because you are in God’s eternal hands.

5)           Don’t let fear unnerve you or turn you back.

6)           Keep pressing on.

Bill

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[1] This blog is an adaption of a sermon given August 18, 2024 at Pilgrim Church in Beverly, MA.

[2] For those who want a parallel explanation, the website of the Government of Canada’s Saint-Ours Canal National Historic Site explains, “A lock usually consists of a watertight basin known as a lock chamber, which is used to raise or lower the water level as required. Boats are raised or lowered by filling or emptying the lock chamber. Gates at each end of the lock chamber allow the boats to enter and leave. The gates are operated by various hydraulic, electric or manually operated systems, depending on the canal. Sluices in the gates or walls of the locks are operated to fill and empty the lock chambers by gravity. https://parks.canada.ca/lhn-nhs/qc/saintours/culture/ecluses-locks , accessed June 30, 2024.

[3] Sherri Chasin Calvo, “The Development of Canal Locks,” Encyclopedia.com, https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/development-canal-locks

[4] The Royal Society, “Sir Colin Humphreys CBE FREng FRS, https://royalsociety.org/people/colin-humphreys-11662/, accessed 8/11/20. The Royal Society, which is “a Fellowship of many of the world's most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence,” applauds Sir Colin Humphrys for his “valuable work on the electron microscopy of semiconducting materials,” and “his world-leading research on gallium nitride (GaN),” which has resulted in a substantially improved understanding of this important material with a wide range of technological applications.” As a result, the USA, along with Europe has awarded him gold medals for his work, and he was knighted by Great Britain’s Queen in 2010 for his contributions to science.

[5] Acaemia.com: “Science and the Miracles of Exodus” by Colin Humphreys, Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy, University of Cambridge- Cambridge, UK, https://www.academia.edu/75936355/Science_and_the_Miracles_of_Exodus. For other explanations of what may have happened in the parting of the waters at the exodus, see “Parting The Red Sea - Could It Have Happened? Wind Setdown Model Says Yes,” News Staff, Scientific Blogging: Science 2.0, posted September 2, 2010, accessed August 19, 2024|.

[6] “The Wind Set-Down Hypothesis,” Archeological Study Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 111.

What My Mom’s Hesitation Taught Me About Women Leading

 

Bill's Mom & Dad as newlyweds, 1940

On a clear and sunny day, my dad, a painting contractor, was three stories up on a wooden ladder, painting the top of a sidewall of a house. Suddenly, the rung he was holding snapped and he plummeted down all three stories onto a macadam driveway. He was all smashed up. Unconscious, he was rushed to the hospital. The surgeon told my mother he wanted to remove my father’s left leg and left arm. They were too destroyed to be of use if he recovered. Through her tears, my mom said, “No. He will never forgive me. And he will use them again.” She knew my dad had an indomitable will.

For many months he was in the hospital, as the surgeons slowly pieced together his hand and leg the best they could in a series of operations. Then followed several years of physical therapy before he could use them to go back to work and rebuild his business.

I remember my mom and I standing on the porch before a friend’s door as she cried about what to do. I also remember they did not invite us into their home. Maybe they thought catastrophe was contagious

My mother broke my dad’s heart when she told him she was going back to work. They were fundamentalists and women were not supposed to work. But what could she do?  The year was 1956. If there were any kind of governmental support system, she was unaware of it. I was 8 years old, the only remaining child (my older sister having drowned two years earlier on a playground trip to a pool and the rest of what would have been my siblings were stillborns).

My mother had worked in retail before she married and she found a job in a nearby city at Bamberger’s department store (eventually added to the Macy’s chain). She excelled and was named “an ambassador,” the store’s highest award for success in sales. Rejoicing with my mom, I said, “Now you can get a big raise!” That was the moment she explained to me that men were the wage earners and women always earned less as a result.

I was shocked. I already had an incipient logic and a child’s clear sense of justice, so I blurted, “But that’s not fair! You work harder than anyone and do the best job selling!”

My mom just repeated that men were the wage earners and my plea, “But you’re the wage earner now!” didn’t permeate the perspective she’d been taught. That was the day my consciousness began to raise and I first glimpsed the pervasive inequality I would learn besets this fallen world.

Over six decades have passed since that perspective-changing conversation with my mother. Since then, I have been told of countless instances of women stymied by artificial limitations placed on their self-image and on their capabilities.

It’s bad enough to learn about inequity and the disenfranchisement of women in the fallen world. But it is doubly reprehensible when we hear about it happening in the church of Jesus Christ.

This incident of manifest contradiction of my mother’s refusal to admit the implications of her own excellence in the face of the limitation inculcated into her consciousness by fellow Christians came back to me quite recently when I heard from a mainland Chinese friend that a wave of young Christians, trained in a conservative seminary in the USA, have been invading Chinese house churches, confronting the women who planted them and who pastored them for many years. These young zealots are insisting that the Bible demands these women must relinquish leadership and men must lead in their places.

How contradictory such a present action is from the honor given at the same time today to the trailblazing Chinese Bible Women who served so diligently as “teachers, interpreters, Bible readers, and evangelists.” Ruth A. Tucker and Walter Liefeld record that Bible Women were “employed by organizations to carry out evangelistic work. The British and Foreign Bible Society, for example, in 1913, had in its employ thirty-six Bible women hired specifically to distribute Bibles and literature.”[1] Missionaries who often worked closely with them are exemplified by the renowned Southern Baptist missionary Charlotte “Lottie” Moon, whose impact on Chinese society and on the status of women and children was matched by her advocacy to promote the status of women missionaries. Lottie Moon fearlessly preached to Chinese women, children, men and boys. An inspiration in the organizing of the Southern Baptist’s Women’s Missionary Union, she “was an egalitarian when it came to women’s service in Baptist life,” and, despite opposition in her time, overwhelming support has preserved her memory both in fact and legend.[2]

Janette Hassey in her excellent historical study No Time for Silence, Evangelical Women in Public Ministry Around the Turn of the Century points out that Dwight L. Moody recruited famed temperance leader Frances Willard to tackle Boston for the gospel with him. Dr. Hassey notes, “When asked to preach by Moody one Sunday afternoon, Willard wondered if that might hinder the work among conservatives. Moody retorted ‘it was just what they needed.”[3] As one result, Moody Bible Institute’s Moody Monthly “listed Lottie Osborn Sheidler as the first woman to graduate from the Pastor’s Course, in August of 1929.”[4] For a called and gifted woman to pastor was obvious. Even before that, in 1889, Louisa Woosley was ordained by Nolin Presbytery of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (CPC). Opposition halted her reception, but faithful service and persistence saw her received as a minister by the CPC in 1911, making her the first Presbyterian woman ordained.[5]

In 1894, responding to the removal of “a young lady missionary [who] had been appointed to give an account of her work” from the speaking roster of a convention, due to the “strong” “scruples of certain of the delegates against a woman’s addressing a mixed assembly,” so that “further public participation in the conference [was] confined to its male constituency,” A. J. Gordon published in The Missionary Review of the World his classic defense for “The Ministry of Women,” wherein he explained, “the purpose of this article is…to justify and vindicate both its propriety and authority by a critical examination of Scripture.”[6] This he not only accomplished, but practiced his convictions since he and his wife, Maria Hale Gordon, had already partnered with other couples to found the Boston Missionary Institute, the foundation of today’s Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary,[7] where both Aída and I are privileged to teach. Clearly, both Arminian and Calvinist evangelicals have recognized the prior gifting and calling of women by God and responded by ordaining them long before today, following the example of the ministering women Paul extols in Romans 16.

That there are eager young voices today whose mission seems to have been deflected into interrupting the gifting and calling of others by God is absolutely heart-rending to me. I’ve read incessantly many arguments for and against the ministry of women and we and our colleagues  have responded with our own biblically-based explanations of how God intends women and men to partner together in ministry in our House of Prisca and Aquila book series with Wipf and Stock, Publishers with such books as Christian Egalitarian Leadership: Empowering the Whole Church according to the Scripture, which is our latest book at this writing, as well as Global Voices on Biblical Equality: Women and Men Serving Together in the Church. Both of these books contain thoughtful, well-researched chapters by scholarly women and men addressing these issues with evangelical Christian perspectives from a variety of cultures. One of my favorite books on mutual ministry is KeumJu Jewel Hyun and Cynthia Davis Lathrop’s Some Men Are Our Heroes: Stories by Women about the Men Who Have Greatly Influenced Their Lives, a very positive book.

In short, someday, each of us are going to have to stand before our Lord God and account for how we used our time on earth. When it’s my turn, I want to bow down humbled to the ground before the Lord and whisper, “Lord, I tried as hard as I could to empower 100% of the church to use the gifts you gave to assist you as you reconciled the world to yourself.” I don’t think I would be able to report, “Lord, I did everything in my power to make sure that 60% of the church were never allowed in leadership over any males over the age of ten. And, Lord, when I didn’t have anybody who could do a job but a woman, I made certain she didn’t get any title or credit for it.”

Bill

 

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[1] Ruth A. Tucker and Walter Liefeld, Daughters of the Church: Women and Ministry from New Testament Times to the Present ( Grand Rapids, MI: Academie/Zondervan, 1987), 340.

^i.Regina D. Sullivan, Lottie Moon:  A Southern Baptist Missionary To China in History and Legend (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press , 2011), “Southern Biography Series,” ed. Andrew Burstein. For a helpful review, see Chuck Warnock’s “The Real Lottie Moon” at https://chuckwarnockblog.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/the-real-lottie-moon-story/. When my wife was earning her doctorate in New Testament at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, between 1978-1982, I remember visiting a room in the SBTS ibrary where Lottie Moon was honored among other evangelical leaders.

[3] Janette Hassey, No Time for Silence, Evangelical Women in Public Ministry Around the Turn of the Century (Grand Rapids, MI: Academie/Zondervan, 1986), 33.

^4.Ibid., 31.

[5] See Tim Lee’s article, “Louisa Woosley: Trailblazer in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, in Priscilla Papers, vol. 28, no. 2 (Spring, 2014), 16.

[6] A. J. Gordon, “The Ministry of Women,” Africanus Journal, vol. 8, no. 1 (April 2016), 50.

[7] Aída Besançon Spencer, “Your Daughters Shall Prophesy? How Institutionalization Affected Women at Gordon,” Africanus Journal, vol. 8, no. 1 (April 2016), 74.

What does Santa Claus Think about Jesus?

Many years ago, while visiting Disney World, we saw an advanced release of the movie Ernest Saves Christmas. Near the end of the film, Santa Claus explained that he owed allegiance to a Power higher than himself. Unfortunately, that sentence was removed from the final released version of that movie. Nevertheless, that one sentence exactly places Santa Claus in his correct schema of things. Santa Claus is an image of One greater than himself and the real Saint Nicholas knew that fact.

The real Saint Nicholas was a bishop in Myra of Asia Minor, current day Turkey. As a bishop, he would have been a devoted and genuine believer in Jesus as Emmanuel, “God is with us” (Matthew 1:23). Bishops or elders were overseers over the spiritual life of a Christian community. In the earliest times, each church had several “bishops” or overseers, such as at Ephesus (Acts 20:17, 28) or Philippi (Philippians 1:1). They were to “shepherd the church of God” (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:2). Although most bishops were men, a few were women, such as Theodora. A bishop was to be “temperate, sensible, respectable, hospitable, an apt teacher, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and not a lover of money” (1 Timothy 3:2-3).[1]   Nicolas was known for his generosity, which made him “hospitable” or a “lover of strangers.” When his Christian parents died and he received his inheritance, he used it to assist the needy and the sick. For example, three young girls of Patara who could not marry because they were poor could have been sold into slavery. But Nicholas tossed into an open window three bags of gold so they could use them for their dowries. Once, when he was returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, a mighty storm threatened to wreck the ship. Like his Lord Jesus (for example, Matthew 14:22-33), Nicholas calmly prayed. The terrified sailors were amazed when the wind and waves suddenly calmed, sparing them all. That is why Saint Nicholas became known as the friend and protector of all in trouble or in need, especially of children and sailors.

Saint Nicolas personally begged Emperor Constantine for lower taxes for his region because the high taxes were causing much hardship in Myra. Constantine granted a reduction that lasted at least two centuries. Jesus too was concerned for the needy and the sick both when on earth and even now.

During the early years, many bishops had to suffer for their faith. Nicholas not only gave generously from his own possessions, he also was imprisoned because of his belief in Jesus during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. Nicholas was later released and possibly attended the Council of Nicaea in A. D. 325, where he defended true doctrine about Jesus being fully God as well as fully human.

Saint Nicholas is known as a gift-giver and that ability to give gifts comes from God. Jesus’ brother James explained to Messianic Jews that “every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). Jesus even today gives to the church gifts of ability in prophecy, evangelism, shepherding, and teaching to help equip believers for service to others (Ephesians 4:11).

At this time, when we celebrate God’s gift to us of Jesus, the Savior, we do well to remember that Saint Nicholas points to One greater than himself.[2]

Aída

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[1] All Bible quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version.

[2] For further resources see www.stnicholascenter.org; catholic.org/saints; Rebecca Benson Haskell, The True Story of Saint Nicholas (Chambersburg, PA: Alan C. Hood & Co., 1997); Adam C. English, The Saint Who Would Be Santa Claus: The True Life and Trials of Nicholas of Myra (Waco, TX: Baylor University, 2012).