ACTS 28 (Chapter 11)
The Global Focus
Acts 11:1-30
1 Now the apostles and brethren who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God.
2 And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision contended with him,
3 saying, “You went into uncircumcised men and ate with them!”
4 But Peter explained it to them in order from the beginning, saying:
5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying; and in a trance I saw a vision, an object descending like a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners; and it came to me.
6 When I observed it intently and considered, I saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air.
7 And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’
8 But I said, ‘Not so, Lord! For nothing common or unclean has at any time entered my mouth.’
9 But the voice answered me again from heaven, ‘What God has cleansed you must not call common.’
10 Now this was done three times, and all were drawn up again into heaven.
11 At that very moment, three men stood before the house where I was, having been sent to me from Caesarea.
12 Then the Spirit told me to go with them, doubting nothing. Moreover, these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house.
13 And he told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house, who said to him, ‘Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon whose surname is Peter,
14 who will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved.’
15 And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, as upon us at the beginning.
16 Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, ‘John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’
17 If therefore God gave them the same gift as He gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?”
18 When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, “Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.
19 Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only.
20 But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus.
21 And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.
22 Then news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch.
23 When he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad, and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord.
24 For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord.
25 Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul.
26 And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people. And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.
27 And in these days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch.
28 Then one of them, named Agabus, stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar.
29 Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea.
30 This they also did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul
I. THE GLOBAL GOD
1. The Apostolic Mandate
Acts 11:1-18
Apostles and Brethren
Apostle – Sent one, special messenger, envoy, delegate, one sent by God. Ex. My primary Gift
Brethren – fellow believer, spiritual family member
2. The Gospel Expansion
Acts 11:19
19 Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only.
· Phoenicia (Modern Day Lebanon) – 237 Miles from Jerusalem
· Cyprus – An Island in the Mediterranean – 253 Miles from Jerusalem
· Antioch – Modern Day Turkey - The Roman military and administrative capital – 455 Miles
3. The Antioch Seed
Acts 11:20
20 But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus.
*Antioch became a major missions base launching to the Nations
4. Barnabas Sent Out
Acts 11:22-24
22 Then news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch.
23 When he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad, and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord.
24 For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord.
5. The Mutual Benefit of Global Connectivity
Acts 11:27-30
27 And in these days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch.
28 Then one of them, named Agabus, stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar.
29 Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea.
30 This they also did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul
II. GLOBAL APOSTOLIC CENTERS
1. They are mission minded. They believe in transforming neighborhoods and nations.
2. They embrace the 5 expressions of Jesus’ Ministry DNA
Ephesians 4:11-13
11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,
12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,
13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
3. They empower people in the workplace not just the church place.
4. They believe the influence of the gospel must go to the ends of the earth.
5. They see Church Planting as the most effective way to reach new converts.
6. They believe in making disciples. Paul always looked for disciples, not just members.
7. They operate in the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit.
8. They believe the only hope for a nation is renewal and awakening to change the nation.
III. THE GLOBAL CONDITION
1. The Ratio of Protestant Missionaries
§ 1,448 Ministers per million people in the United States
§ 56 Missionaries per million people in Africa
§ 30 Missionaries per million people in South America
§ 20 Missionaries per million people in Korea
§ 15 Missionaries per million people in India
§ 3 Missionaries per million people in Indochina
Moreover, much of Europe with its 480 million people is largely unevangelized. And virtually all Communist-controlled countries are closed to mission’s work.
More than two billion of the earth’s inhabitants are either pagan, atheistic or non-Christian. There are 800,000,000 Communists, all militant atheists. There are 700,000,000 Muslims, all anti-Christians, and there are almost a billion Indians and Chinese and other kindred Asians.
—Lippincott
§ Billion people alive
§ 2.3 billion Christians
§ 42.2 % of world’s population unreached (Less than 2% Christian) – 8791 people groups
§ Unevangelized people groups (more than 2% Christian) but still not evangelized
BENEFIT OF MISSIONARIES
· Areas where Protestant missionaries had a significant presence in the past are on average more economically developed today, with comparatively better health, lower infant mortality, lower corruption, greater literacy, higher educational attainment (especially for women), and more robust membership in nongovernmental associations.
· One stereotype about missions is that they were closely connected to colonialism. But Protestant missionaries not funded by the state were regularly very critical of colonialism.
Reference Notes
Missionaries that traveled to the remote pacific islands certainly made an impact on the mindset of the people. During World War II, on a remote island in the Pacific, an American soldier met a native who could read, and the native was carrying a Bible. Upon seeing the Bible, the soldier said, “We educated people no longer put much faith in that book.” The native, from a tribe of former cannibals, replied, “Well, it’s a good that we do, or you would be eaten by my people today.”
“I challenge any skeptic to find a ten-square mile spot on this planet where they can live their lives in peace and safety and decency, where womanhood is honored, where infancy and old age are revered, where they can educate their children, where the Gospel of Jesus Christ has not gone first to prepare the way. If they find such a place, then I would encourage them to emigrate thither and there proclaim their unbelief.”
In search of answers, Woodberry traveled to West Africa in 2001. Setting out one morning on a dusty road in Lomé, the capital of Togo, Woodberry headed for the University of Togo's campus library. He found it sequestered in a 1960s-era building. The shelves held about half as many books as his personal collection. The most recent encyclopedia dated from 1977. Down the road, the campus bookstore sold primarily pens and paper, not books. "Where do you buy your books?" Woodberry stopped to ask a student. “Oh, we don’t buy books,” he replied. “The professors read the texts out loud to us, and we transcribe.”
Across the border, at the University of Ghana’s bookstore, Woodberry had seen floor-to-ceiling shelves lined with hundreds of books, including locally printed texts by local scholars. Why the stark contrast?
The reason was clear: During the colonial era, British missionaries in Ghana had established a whole system of schools and printing presses. But France, the colonial power in Togo, severely restricted missionaries. The French authorities took interest in educating only a small intellectual elite.
More than 100 years later, education was still limited in Togo. In Ghana, it was flourishing.
OCTOBER IS MISSIONS MONTH
Home Impact
September / October
· September 24th Outreach Clothing Pantry
· October 12th Mobile Food Panty (Fed 600 families)
· Helped through Benevolence (Hundred +)
· Embrace Grace Small Group, First Choice, Cope
· Sheridan Heights – Recently full lawn Overhaul
· The Brotherhood
· Sunday Morning Services
· Breakthrough Services
· Small Groups
- Given Away Gas (300)
- Car
NATIONS
September / October
Ghana
Tanzania
Uganda
Kenya
Zambia
Germany
Sierra Leone School Impacting hundreds
· 2023 GHANA AND SIERRA LEONE
GHANA & SIERRA LEONE October 8th - 23rd
Includes Flight, Hotel, Transportation and Food
TOTAL ~ $4550.00
GHANA October 8th – October 19th
Includes Flight, Hotel, Transportation and Food
TOTAL ~ $3,000.00
SIERRA LEONE October 17th – October 23rd
Includes Flight, Hotel, Transportation and Food
TOTAL ~ $2,800.00
Appendix
The Impact of Christianity when it enters a nation:
As an Atheist, I Truly Believe Africa Needs God"
A couple of days ago a British atheist published an article in London’s The Times:
“Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.
I used to avoid this truth by applauding – as you can – the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It’s a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.
But this doesn’t fit the facts. Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing.
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2008/12/29/as-atheist-i-truly-believe-africa-needs/
“You have one business on earth – to save souls.”
― John Wesley
“I will go anywhere, provided it be forward.”
― David Livingstone
“Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the real action is -- where life and death, sin and grace, Heaven and Hell converge.”
― Robert C. Shannon
“Untold millions are still untold.”
― John Wesley
“Go straight for souls and go for the worst.”
― William Booth
“The best remedy for a sick church is to put it on a missionary diet.”
― David Livingstone
“The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity. – Mike Stachura”
“I have but one passion: It is He; it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.” – Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf
"If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.– C.T. Studd
“People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives… and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted.” – Nate Saint, missionary martyr.
“I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light.” – John Keith Falconer
“The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.” J. Hudson Taylor
“Go ye’ is as much a part of Christ’s Gospel as ‘Come unto Me.’ You are not even a Christian until you have honestly faced your responsibility in regard to the carrying of the Gospel to the ends of the earth.” – J. Stuart Holden
“I believe that in each generation God has called enough men and women to evangelize all the yet unreached tribes of the earth. It is not God who does not call. It is man who will not respond!” – Isobel Kuhn, missionary to China and Thailand
When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying “You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages.” To that, Calvert replied, “We died before we came here.”
“’Not called!’ did you say? ‘Not heard the call,’ I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible and hear him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face – whose mercy you have professed to obey – and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.” – William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army
“It is not in our choice to spread the gospel or not. It is our death if we do not.” – Peter Taylor Forsyth
“If a commission by an earthly king is considered an honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?” – David Livingstone
“The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become.” – Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia
“We talk of the Second Coming; half of the world has never heard of the first. – Oswald J. Smith”
“This generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of souls on the earth! – Keith Green”
“If ten men are carrying a log – nine of them on the little end and one at the heavy end – and you want to help, which end will you lift on?” William Borden, as he reflected on the numbers of Christian workers in the US as compared to those among unreached peoples in China.
“The Gospel is only good news if it gets there in time. – Carl F. H. Henry”
“The best way to encourage your church in missions [may be] to stop talking about missions for a time and, instead, talk more about the gospel. I’ve seen churches that have tried to get their members excited about missions without being excited about the gospel. The result was pitiful.”
“Extensive travel and international experience are not prerequisites to missionary work. A love for the gospel, a faithful life, an affirming church, and a willingness to go are. Missionaries aren’t world travelers with full passports. The best missionaries tend to go to one place and stay there, sometimes for the rest of their lives.”
“Being long-term focused [means] doing short-term trips with the long-term mindset. Rather than just providing ‘missions experiences,’ consider trips that support the work of existing long-term teams to whom you are committed.” Andy Johnson, Missions: How the Local Church Goes Global
SAVING WIDOWS FROM SUTTEE- Widows no longer burned in India
Before the coming of Christ, widows were ostracized, despised, and frequently buried or burned alive at their husband’s death. For countless centuries India’s cultural custom of suttee (or sati), the burning alive of widows, was an integral part of Hindu culture. By God’s grace, as a result of the tireless efforts of Christian missionary William Carey, the British authorities in 1829 outlawed the practice of suttee. When this ban went into effect, many Indians “cried that the foundations of Hindu society would be shaken if widows were not burned alive.” (India – A Short Cultural History). Others argued that the British ban on suttee violated Article 25 of India’s constitution that gave people freedom of religion (Sati, Widow Burning in India).
This legal ban on suttee (known as Carey’s Edict) is still in effect today, although since the 1990’s there have been numerous attempts to revive the custom with open glorification of suttee widow burning and instances of teenage widows being cremated on their husband’s funeral pyres. Dr. Schmidt notes: “In light of the current, almost worldwide promotion of multi-culturalism, which argues that all cultures and religious are essentially equal, the desire and efforts to bring back India’s pagan custom of suttee may gain momentum in the future.” (Under the Influence).
History records that, before the coming of Christianity, widows were burned by American Indian tribes, by the Maori in New Zealand, by the Chinese, the Finns, and the Scandinavians.
Jesus changed the world in so many ways. One 19th century poet named James Russell Lowell put it this way,
“I challenge any skeptic to find a ten-square mile spot on this planet where they can live their lives in peace and safety and decency, where womanhood is honored, where infancy and old age are revered, where they can educate their children, where the Gospel of Jesus Christ has not gone first to prepare the way. If they find such a place, then I would encourage them to emigrate thither and there proclaim their unbelief.”
REMOVING THE VEIL- women able to not wear a veil once married
Christianity also pioneered other freedoms for women including the removal of the veil. Women at the time of Christ were veiled by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks, Hebrews, Romans, and Samarians. There were cases of Romans divorcing their wives for leaving the house unveiled. Greek women were required to wear a veil after marriage. Even among the Hebrews, the rabbi’s taught that it is a “godless man who sees his wife go out with her head uncovered. He is duty bound to divorce her” (Kethuboth 2). However, the lack of any specific reference in the Gospels, or anywhere in the New Testament, to women having to veil their face, led the Church to increasingly discontinue the practice. While Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 urged the women in Corinth to cover their heads in church, he made no reference to veiling their faces. And in 1 Timothy 2:8-9 where Paul tells the woman to dress modestly, and not to braid their hair, he makes no mention of any veil. So worldwide Christianity has led the trend to disperse with the veil.
FREEDOM FROM FOOTBINDING- Chinese women liberated from practice
Similarly, the Chinese practice of foot binding, where girls from an early age had to have their feet tightly bound forcing the four smaller toes of each foot up and under against the fleshly part of the foot (frequently causing severe infection and even on occasion gangrene) was only abolished under the influence of Christianity. This cruel custom, which crippled many Chinese women, was only outlawed by the Chinese government in 1912. It was Christian missionaries who led the crusade to abolish foot binding in China.
One afternoon he attended a required lecture that brought his vocational drift to a sudden end. The lecture was by Kenneth A. Bollen, a UNC–Chapel Hill professor and one of the leading experts on measuring and tracking the spread of global democracy. Bollen remarked that he kept finding a significant statistical link between democracy and Protestantism.
Woodberry set out to track down the evidence for Bollen's conjecture that Protestant religion and democracy were somehow related. He studied yellowed maps, spending months charting the longitude and latitude of former missionary stations. He traveled to Thailand and India to consult with local scholars, dug through archives in London, Edinburgh, and Serampore, India, and talked with church historians all over Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa.
In essence, Woodberry was digging into one of the great enigmas of modern history: why some nations develop stable representative democracies—in which citizens enjoy the rights to vote, speak, and assemble freely—while neighboring countries suffer authoritarian rulers and internal conflict. Public health and economic growth can also differ dramatically from one country to another, even among countries that share similar geography, cultural background, and natural resources.
In search of answers, Woodberry traveled to West Africa in 2001. Setting out one morning on a dusty road in Lomé, the capital of Togo, Woodberry headed for the University of Togo's campus library. He found it sequestered in a 1960s-era building. The shelves held about half as many books as his personal collection. The most recent encyclopedia dated from 1977.
Down the road, the campus bookstore sold primarily pens and paper, not books.
"Where do you buy your books?" Woodberry stopped to ask a student.
"Oh, we don't buy books," he replied. "The professors read the texts out loud to us, and we transcribe."
Across the border, at the University of Ghana's bookstore, Woodberry had seen floor-to-ceiling shelves lined with hundreds of books, including locally printed texts by local scholars. Why the stark contrast?
The reason was clear: During the colonial era, British missionaries in Ghana had established a whole system of schools and printing presses. But France, the colonial power in Togo, severely restricted missionaries. The French authorities took interest in educating only a small intellectual elite.
More than 100 years later, education was still limited in Togo. In Ghana, it was flourishing.
What began to emerge was a consistent and controversial pattern—one that might damage Woodberry's career, warned Smith. "I thought it was a great, daring project, but I advised [him] that lots of people wouldn't like it if the story panned out," Smith says. "For [him] to suggest that the missionary movement had this strong, positive influence on liberal democratization—you couldn't think of a more unbelievable and offensive story to tell a lot of secular academics."
But the evidence kept coming. While studying the Congo, Woodberry made one of his most dramatic early discoveries. Congo's colonial-era exploitation was well known Colonists in both French and Belgian Congo had forced villagers to extract rubber from the jungle. As punishment for not complying, they burned down villages, castrated men, and cut off children's limbs.
In French Congo, the atrocities passed without comment or protest, aside from one report in a Marxist newspaper in France.
But in Belgian Congo, the abuses aroused the largest international protest movement since the abolition of slavery. Why the difference?
Working on a hunch, Woodberry charted mission stations all across the Congo. Protestant missionaries, it turned out, were allowed only in the Belgian Congo.
Among those missionaries were two British Baptists named John and Alice Harris who took photographs of the atrocities—including a now-famous picture of a father gazing at his daughter's remains—and then smuggled the photographs out of the country.
With evidence in hand, they traveled through the United States and Britain to stir up public pressure and, along with other missionaries, helped raise an outcry against the abuses
Woodberry already had historical proof that missionaries had:
· promoted widespread printing,
· educated women and the poor
· led nationalist movements that empowered ordinary citizens, and
· fueled other key elements of democracy.
Now the statistics were backing it up: Missionaries weren't just part of the picture. They were central to it
In spite of Smith's concerns, Woodberry's historical and statistical work has finally captured glowing attention. A summation of his 14 years of research—published in 2012 in the American Political Science Review, the discipline's top journal—has won four major awards, including the prestigious Luebbert Article Award for best article in comparative politics. Its startling title: "The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy."
"[Woodberry] presents a grand and quite ambitious theory of how 'conversionary Protestants' contributed to building democratic societies," says Philip Jenkins, distinguished professor of history at Baylor University. "Try as I might to pick holes in it, the theory holds up. [It has] major implications for the global study of Christianity."
"Why did some countries become democratic, while others went the route of theocracy or dictatorship?" asks Daniel Philpott, who teaches political science and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame. "For [Woodberry] to show through devastatingly thorough analysis that conversionary Protestants are crucial to what makes the country democratic today [is] remarkable in many ways. Not only is it another factor—it turns out to be the most important factor. It can't be anything but startling for scholars of democracy."
"We don't have to deny that there were and are racist missionaries," says Woodberry. "We don't have to deny there were and are missionaries who do self-centered things. But if that were the average effect, we would expect the places where missionaries had influence to be worse than places where missionaries weren't allowed or were restricted in action. We find exactly the opposite on all kinds of outcomes. Even in places where few people converted, [missionaries] had a profound economic and political impact."
There is one important nuance to all this: The positive effect of missionaries on democracy applies only to "conversionary Protestants." Protestant clergy financed by the state, as well as Catholic missionaries prior to the 1960s, had no comparable effect in the areas where they worked. Independence from state control made a big difference.
"One of the main stereotypes about missions is that they were closely connected to colonialism," says Woodberry. "But Protestant missionaries not funded by the state were regularly very critical of colonialism."
For example, Mackenzie's campaign for Khama III was part of his 30-year effort to protect African land from white settlers. Mackenzie was not atypical.
· In China, missionaries worked to end the opium trade.
· in India, they fought to curtail abuses by landlords.
· in the West Indies and other colonies, they played key roles in building the abolition movement.
· Back home, their allies passed legislation that returned land to the native Xhosa people of South Africa and also protected tribes in New Zealand and Australia from being wiped out by settlers.
"I feel confident saying none of those movements would have happened without nonstate missionaries mobilizing them," says Woodberry. "Missionaries had a power base among ordinary people. They [were] the ones that transformed these movements into mass movements."
·
He notes that most missionaries didn't set out to be political activists. Locals associated Christianity with their colonial abusers, so in order to be effective at evangelizing, missionaries distanced themselves from the colonists. They campaigned against abuses for personal, practical reasons as well as humanitarian ones.
"Few [missionaries] were in any systemic way social reformers," says Joel Carpenter, director of the Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity at Calvin College. "I think they were first and foremost people who loved other people. They [cared] about other people, saw that they'd been wronged, and [wanted] to make it right."
The Nations' Educators:
While missionaries came to colonial reform through the backdoor, mass literacy and mass education were more deliberate projects—the consequence of a Protestant vision that knocked down old hierarchies in the name of "the priesthood of all believers." If all souls were equal before God, everyone would need to access the Bible in their own language. They would also need to know how to read.
"They focused on teaching people to read," says Dana Robert, director of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission at Boston University. "That sounds really basic, but if you look worldwide at poverty, literacy is the main thing that helps you rise out of poverty. Unless you have broad-based literacy, you can't have democratic movements."
As Woodberry observes, although the Chinese invented printing 800 years before Europeans did, in China the technology was used mostly for elites. Then Protestant missionaries arrived in the 19th century and began printing tens of thousands of religious texts, making those available to the masses, and teaching women and other marginalized groups how to read. Not until then did Asian authorities start printing more widely.
Pull out a map, says Woodberry, point to any place where "conversionary Protestants" were active in the past, and you'll typically find more printed books and more schools per capita. You'll find, too, that in Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia, most of the early nationalists who led their countries to independence graduated from Protestant mission schools. "I'm not religious," says Grier. "I never felt really comfortable with the idea of [mission work]; it seemed cringe-worthy. Then I read Bob's work. I thought, Wow, that's amazing. They left a long legacy. It changed my views and caused me to rethink."
What They Brought the World:
William Carey. David Livingstone. Hudson Taylor. These are the rock stars of the modern missionary movement. Here are eight other missionaries who were bellwethers for global democracy.
CONGO Alice Seeley Harris, - A UK Baptist, Harris and her husband, John, were among the first people to use photography to promote human rights. In the early 1900s, colonialists used forced labor to extract rubber from the Congo's jungles—and villagers who resisted were castrated, burned, or had limbs cut off. The Harrises traveled throughout the United States and Britain disseminating photos and giving lectures detailing the abuses.
BOTSWANA John Mackenzie - The British missionary partnered with a chief named Khama III to protect his land from being occupied by white settlers in South Africa. Their efforts birthed a pivotal land protection agreement. If not for Protestant missionaries, Botswana would most likely not exist today.
SOUTH AFRICA Trevor Huddleston - The Anglican missionary to South Africa earned the nickname Makhalipile—"dauntless one"—in part for publishing Naught for your Comfort, a devastating critique of South African racial policies. His writings and later leadership with the Anti-Apartheid Movement helped turn British public opinion against apartheid.
INDIA Ida Sophia Scudder -She vowed to never become one. But then Ida Sophia Scudder watched three women die needlessly one night at her parents' missionary bungalow and knew God was calling her to the mission field. Scudder addressed the plight of Indian women and the fight against bubonic plague, cholera, and leprosy. In 1918, she started one of Asia's foremost teaching hospitals, the Christian Medical College & Hospital.
INDIA James Long - Sent to Calcutta at age 22, Long was an Irish Anglican priest who played a key role in the Indigo Revolt of 1859, when rural indigo farmers rebelled against British planters. Long translated and published Nil Darpan, a play written by Dinabandhu Mitra about the poor treatment of indigo farmers, for which he was fined and briefly jailed. He is remembered today as a key preserver of Bengali education, literature, and history.
JAPAN Guido Verbeck - Guido Verbeck was a Dutch political adviser, educator, and missionary hired by the Japanese government to establish a new English school system in Nagasaki. He went on to lead massive change in Japan's education system, set up an exchange program with the States, and began the first Bible study in modern Japan.
CHINA Timothy Richard - Amid China's famine of 1876–79, Timothy Richard, a Welsh Baptist, helped lead one of the first major humanitarian relief efforts in modern history. While in Shanghai, he helped produce almost 300 books, campaigned with the Anti-Footbinding Society, and consulted with the governor of Shanxi Province to find a university.
CHINA Eliza Bridgman - In 1864, 20 years after sailing to China, American missionary Eliza Bridgman opened a school for girls in Beijing who otherwise would have suffered prostitution, forced labor, or starvation. Bridgman's school was eventually folded into Yenching University, one of the first universities in China. Now Peking University, today it is China's most prestigious university.
This short excerpt from another article tells how Christianity began to impact the entire Roman empire as it spread:
"And such impact began soon in the Roman Empire, itself. Former professor of sociology Dr. Alvin Schmidt notes Elwood Cubberly’s observation that the biblical teachings of Jesus Christ challenged “almost everything for which the Roman world had stood” (How Christianity Changed the World, Schmidt, p. 44). Dr. James Kennedy writes, “Life was expendable prior to Christianity’s influence… In those days abortion was rampant. Abandonment was commonplace: It was common for infirm babies or unwanted little ones to be taken out into the forest or the mountainside, to be consumed by wild animals or to starve… They often abandoned female babies because women were considered inferior” (What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?, pp. 9–11).
The Romans promoted brutal gladiatorial contests where thousands of slaves, condemned criminals and prisoners of war mauled and slaughtered each other for the amusement of cheering audiences. Roman authors indicate that “sexual activity between men and women had become highly promiscuous and essentially depraved before and during the time that Christians appeared in Roman society” and that homosexuality was widespread among pagan Greeks and Romans, especially men with boys (Schmidt, pp. 79–86). Women were relegated to a low status in society, where they received little schooling, could not speak in public and were viewed as the property of their husbands (Schmidt, pp. 97–102).
As professing Christianity spread in the region, those parts of its teachings that corresponded to biblical truths had a profound impact. Pagan practices were confronted with biblical principles concerning the status of women and the importance of the family (Ephesians 5:22–33; 6:1–4), the sanctity of human life as made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26), and the sinfulness of sexual immorality and homosexuality (1 Corinthians 6:9–10). Eventually, Roman emperors even outlawed the branding of criminals and crucifixion and terminated the brutal gladiatorial contests that had flourished for nearly seven centuries—implementing one of the most important reforms in the moral history of mankind (Schmidt, p. 63–65). In the words of historian Christopher Dawson, the changes brought about by the spread of these ideas marked “the beginning of a new era in world history” (Religion and the Rise of Western Culture, p. 25).
Such changes were not limited to the West. The influence of biblical principles abolished suttee in India—the practice of burning widows on the funeral pyre of their husband. It stopped the killing of wives and concubines when tribal chiefs died in Africa, discouraged cannibalism, and helped to end the global slave trade in the 1800s (Kennedy, pp. 16–17)."
My notes,
· to counter the infanticide towards babies and small children, Christians launched the first orphanages, and began to adopt these children abandoned by the Romans
· Christians traveling throughout Rome brought with the Biblical perspective that woman had value, and that marriage was sacred, between a man and a woman exclusively. For instance, the normalizing of weddings for the masses from an excuse to have a drunken party, into a solemn, joyous ceremony where people dress up and make public, binding vows, was brought by Christian influence.
https://www.tomorrowsworld.org/magazines/2016/november-december/how-christianity-changed-the-world
