Sunspots 596

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: Stephen Burnett continues a series about "Christian White Magic," here and here.

Relevant reports that a missionary in Russia has been arrested and fined for holding a religious service in his home, and inviting others to attend.

A Relevant commentator says that Christianity is not just a relationship -- it's a religion.

Finance: Relevant reports that the Mall of America will be closed on Thanksgiving Day.

Health: (and food) A doctor tells why he eats dropped food off of his kitchen floor, even if it's been there more than five seconds.

History: Listverse sets the record straight on Pocohantas. She had a very hard life.

Humor: A Christianity Today contributor prays for certain characteristics of a possible future husband.

Literature: Morgan Busse, Christian writer of fantastic literature, asks "What if Only One Person Reads my Books?"


Politics: The New York Times reports on a study of the political leanings of doctors, and there are several interesting results. Surgeons, for example, are nearly three times more likely to be Republican than infectious disease specialists. Also, doctors in higher-paying specialties are more likely to be Republican.

Science: Scientific American reports that silkworms, fed mulberry leaves sprayed with solutions of certain artificial materials, produce silk which is stronger than normal silk, and such silk can conduct electricity.

Oh, oh. Scientific American reports that the Food and Drug Administration, important scientific journals, and universities exert considerable control over how news from these bodies is reported. One example -- Fox News is not invited to FDA press conferences. The reason for this is not clear.

And Scientific American says that ISIS gets quite a bit of money from agriculture.

Listverse grosses us out with photos and descriptions of the 10 creepiest fungi.

FiveThirtyEight tells us that rocks don't just sit there.






Image source (public domain)

Prayer and missions, by E. M. Bounds, part 7

God’s decree for the glory of His Son’s kingdom is dependent on prayer for its fulfilment:
“Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thy inheritance, and the uttermost part of the earth for thy possession.” God the Father gives nothing to His Son only through prayer. And the reason why the Church has not received more in the missionary work in which it is engaged is the lack of prayer. “Ye have not, because ye ask not.”
 
Every dispensation foreshadowing the coming of Christ when the world has been evangelised, at the end of time, rests upon these constitutional provisions, God’s decree, His promises and prayer. However far away that day of victory by distance or time, or remoteness of shadowy type, prayer is the essential condition on which the dispensation becomes strong, typical and representative. From Abraham, the first of the nation of the Israelites, the friend of God, down to this dispensation of the Holy Spirit, this has been true.

Our Lord’s plan for securing workers in the foreign missionary field is the same plan He set on foot for obtaining preachers. It is by the process of praying. It is the prayer plan as distinguished from all man-made plans. These mission workers are to be “sent men.” God must send them. They are God-called, divinely moved to this great work. They are inwardly moved to enter the harvest fields of the world and gather sheaves for the heavenly garners. Men do not choose to be missionaries any more than they choose to be preachers. 

God sends out labourers in His harvest field in answer to the prayers of His church. Here is the Divine plan as set forth by our Lord:
“But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few. Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.”

Although E. M. Bounds died in 1913, this book was first published in 1925, by an admirer of the author’s life. Bounds was known for praying from four until seven each morning.

This post is one of a series, taken from The Essentials of Prayer, by Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. The Essentials of Prayer is in the public domain. The previous post in the entire series on the book is here. Thanks for reading. Read this book, and, more importantly, practice, prayer. 

Prayer and missions, part 6, by E. M. Bounds

It is praying missionaries who are needed for the work, and it is a praying church who sends them out, which are prophecies of the success which is promised. The sort of religion to be exported by missionaries is of the praying sort. The religion to which the heathen world is to be converted is a religion of prayer, and a religion of prayer to the true God. The heathen world already prays to its idols and false gods. But they are to be taught by praying missionaries, sent out by a praying Church, to cast away their idols and to begin to call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No prayerless church can transport to heathen lands a praying religion. No prayerless missionary can bring heathen idolaters who know not our God to their knees to true prayer until he becomes pre-eminently a man of prayer. As it takes praying men at home to do God’s work, none the less does it take praying missionaries to bring those who sit in darkness to the light.

The most noted and most successful missionaries have been pre-eminently men of prayer. David Livingstone, William Taylor, Adoniram Judson, Henry Martyn, and Hudson Taylor, with many more, form a band of illustrious praying men whose impress and influence still abide where they laboured. No prayerless man is wanted for this job. Above everything else, the primary qualification for every missionary is prayer. Let him be, above everything else, a man of prayer. And when the crowning day comes, and the records are made up and read at the great judgment day, then it will appear how well praying men wrought in the hard fields of heathendom, and how much was due to them in laying the foundations of Christianity in those fields.

The one only condition which is to give world-wide power to this Gospel is prayer, and the spread of this Gospel will depend on prayer. The energy which was to give it marvelous momentum and conquering power over all its malignant and powerful foes is the energy of prayer.

The fortunes of the kingdom of Jesus Christ are not made by the feebleness of its foes. They are strong and bitter and have ever been strong, and ever will be. But mighty prayer—this is the one great spiritual force which will enable the Lord Jesus Christ to enter into full possession of His kingdom, and secure for Him the heathen as His inheritance, and the uttermost part of the earth for His possession.

It is prayer which will enable Him to break His foes with a rod of iron, that will make these foes tremble in their pride and power, who are but frail potter’s vessels, to be broken in pieces by one stroke of His hand. A person who can pray is the mightiest instrument Christ has in this world. A praying Church is stronger than all the gates of hell.

Although E. M. Bounds died in 1913, this book was first published in 1925, by an admirer of the author’s life. Bounds was known for praying from four until seven each morning.

This post is one of a series, taken from The Essentials of Prayer, by Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. The Essentials of Prayer is in the public domain. The previous post in the entire series on the book is here. Thanks for reading. Read this book, and, more importantly, practice, prayer. 

Thanks for reading.

Prayer and Missions, part 5, by E. M. Bounds

In the margin of our Bible, it reads, “Ye that are the Lord’s remembrancers.” The idea is, that these praying ones are those who are the Lord’s remembrancers, those who remind Him of what He has promised, and who give Him no rest till God’s Church is established in the earth.

And one of the leading petitions in the Lord’s Prayer deals with this same question of the establishing of God’s kingdom and the progress of the Gospel in the short, pointed petition, “Thy kingdom come,” with the added words, “Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven.”

The missionary movement in the Apostolic Church was born in an atmosphere of fasting and prayer. The very movement looking to offering the blessings of the Christian Church to the Gentiles was on the housetop on the occasion when Peter went up there to pray, and God showed him His Divine purpose to extend the privileges of the Gospel to the Gentiles, and to break down the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile. But more specifically Paul and Barnabas were definitely called and set apart to the missionary field at Antioch when the Church there had fasted and prayed. It was then the Holy Spirit answered from heaven: “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.”

Please note this was not the call to the ministry of Paul and Barnabas, but more particularly their definite call to the foreign field. Paul had been called to the ministry years before this, even at his conversion. This was a subsequent call to a work born of special and continued prayer in the Church at Antioch. God calls men not only to the ministry but to be missionaries. Missionary work is God’s work. And it is the God-called men who are to do it. These are the kind of missionaries which have wrought well and successfully in the foreign field in the past, and the same kind will do the work in the future, or it will not be done.

Although E. M. Bounds died in 1913, this book was first published in 1925, by an admirer of the author’s life. Bounds was known for praying from four until seven each morning.

This post is one of a series, taken from The Essentials of Prayer, by Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. The Essentials of Prayer is in the public domain. The previous post in the entire series on the book is here. Thanks for reading. Read this book, and, more importantly, practice, prayer. 

Thanks for reading, especially if you read this post twice! This post was supposed to be published on August 25, 2013, but I hit the wrong button, and it was published early. On August 10th, I discovered this, and withdrew it until the 25th.

Prayer and Missions, by E. M. Bounds, part 4

Not a few of us have heard eloquent and earnest speeches stressing the imperative need of money for missions where we have heard one stressing the imperative need of prayer.
 
All our plans and devices drive to the one end of raising money, not to quicken faith and promote prayer. The common idea among Church leaders is that if we get the money, prayer will come as a matter of course. The very reverse is the truth. If we get the Church at the business of praying, and thus secure the spirit of missions, money will more than likely come as a matter of course. Spiritual agencies and spiritual forces never come as a matter of course. Spiritual duties and spiritual factors, left to the “matter of course” law, will surely fall out and die. Only the things which are stressed live and rule in the spiritual realm. They who give, will not necessarily pray. Many in our churches are liberal givers who are noted for their prayerlessness. One of the evils of the present-day missionary movement lies just there. Giving is entirely removed from prayer. Prayer receives scant attention, while giving stands out prominently. They who truly pray will be moved to give. Praying creates the giving spirit. The praying ones will give liberally and self-denyingly. He who enters his closet to God, will also open his purse to God. But perfunctory, grudging, assessment-giving kills the very spirit of prayer. Emphasising the material to the neglect of the spiritual, by an inexorable law retires and discounts the spiritual. 

It is truly wonderful how great a part money plays in the modern religious movements, and how little prayer plays in them. In striking contrast with that statement, it is marvellous how little part money played in primitive Christianity as a factor in spreading the Gospel, and how wonderful part prayer played in it.
 
The grace of giving is nowhere cultured to a richer growth than in the closet. If all our missionary boards and secretaryships were turned into praying bands, until the agony of real prayer and travail with Christ for a perishing world came on them, real estate, bank stocks, United States bonds would be in the market for the spreading of Christ’s Gospel among men. If the spirit of prayer prevailed, missionary boards whose individual members are worth millions, would not be staggering under a load of debt and great Churches would not have a yearly deficit and a yearly grumbling, grudging, and pressure to pay a beggarly assessment to support a mere handful of missionaries, with the additional humiliation of debating the question of recalling some of them. The on-going of Christ’s kingdom is locked up in the closet of prayer by Christ Himself, and not in the contribution box.

Although E. M. Bounds died in 1913, this book was first published in 1925, by an admirer of the author's life. Bounds was known for praying from four until seven each morning.

This post is one of a series, taken from The Essentials of Prayer, by Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. The Essentials of Prayer is in the public domain. The previous post in the entire series on the book is here. Thanks for reading. Read this book, and, more importantly, practice, prayer. 

Thanks for reading.

Prayer and Missions, by E. M. Bounds, part 3

It is all right to urge men to give of their means to the missionary cause. But it is much more important to urge them to give their prayers to the movement. Foreign missions need, today, more the power of prayer than the power of money. Prayer can make even poverty in the missionary cause move on amidst difficulties and hindrances. Much money without prayer is helpless and powerless in the face of the utter darkness and sin and wretchedness on the foreign field.

This is peculiarly a missionary age. Protestant Christianity is stirred as it never was before in the line of aggression in pagan lands. The missionary movement has taken on proportions that awaken hope, kindle enthusiasm, and which demand the attention, if not the interest, of the coldest and the most lifeless. Nearly every Church has caught the contagion, and the sails of their proposed missionary movements are spread wide to catch the favouring breezes. Herein is the danger just now, that the missionary movement will go ahead of the missionary spirit. This has always been the peril of the Church, losing the substance in the shade, losing the spirit in the outward shell, and contenting itself in the mere parade of the movement, putting the force of effort in the movement and not in the spirit.

The magnificence of this movement may not only blind us to the spirit of it, but the spirit which should give life and shape to the movement may be lost in the wealth of the movement, as the ship, borne by favouring winds, may be lost when these winds swell to a
storm.

Although E. M. Bounds died in 1913, this book was first published in 1925, by an admirer of the author's life. Bounds was known for praying from four until seven each morning.

This post is one of a series, taken from The Essentials of Prayer, by Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. The Essentials of Prayer is in the public domain. The previous post in the entire series on the book is here. Thanks for reading. Read this book, and, more importantly, practice, prayer. 

Thanks for reading.

Prayer and Missions, by E. M. Bounds, part 2

The craftiest wile of Satan, if he cannot prevent a great movement for God, is to debauch the movement. If he can put the movement first, and the spirit of the movement in the background, he has materialised and thoroughly debauched the movement. Mighty prayer only will save the movement from being materialised, and keep the spirit of the movement strong and controlling.

The key of all missionary success is prayer. That key is in the hands of the home churches. The trophies won by our Lord in heathen lands will be won by praying missionaries, not by professional workers in foreign lands. More especially will this success be won by saintly praying in the churches at home. The home church on her knees fasting and praying, is the great base of spiritual supplies, the sinews of war, and the pledge of victory in this dire and final conflict. Financial resources are not the real sinews of war in this fight. Machinery in itself carries no power to break down heathen walls, open effectual doors and win heathen hearts to Christ. Prayer alone can do the deed.

Aaron and Hur did not more surely give victory to Israel through Moses, than a praying church through Jesus Christ will give victory on every battlefield in heathen lands. It is as true in foreign fields as it is in home lands. The praying church wins the contest. The home church has done but a paltry thing when she has furnished the money to establish missions and support her missionaries. Money is important, but money without prayer is powerless in the face of the darkness, the wretchedness and the sin in unchristianised lands. Prayerless giving breeds barrenness and death. Poor praying at home is the solution of poor results in the foreign field. Prayerless giving is the secret of all crises in the missionary movements of the day, and is the occasion of the accumulation of debts in missionary boards.

Although E. M. Bounds died in 1913, this book was first published in 1925, by an admirer of the author's life. Bounds was known for praying from four until seven each morning.

This post is one of a series, taken from The Essentials of Prayer, by Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. The Essentials of Prayer is in the public domain. The previous post in the entire series on the book is here. Thanks for reading. Read this book, and, more importantly, practice, prayer. 

Thanks for reading.

Prayer and Missions, by E. M. Bounds, part 1

Missions mean the giving of the Gospel to those of Adam’s fallen race who have never heard of Christ and his atoning death. It means the giving to others the opportunity to hear of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, and allowing others to have a chance to receive, and accept the blessings of the Gospel, as we have it in Christianised lands. It means that those who enjoy the benefits of the Gospel give these same religious advantages and Gospel privileges to all of mankind. Prayer has a great deal to do with missions. Prayer is the handmaid of missions. The success of all real missionary effort is dependent on prayer. The life and spirit of missions are the life and spirit of prayer. Both prayer and missions were born in the Divine Mind. Prayer and missions are bosom companions. Prayer creates and makes missions successful, while missions lean heavily on prayer. In Psalm 72, one which deals with the Messiah, it is stated that “prayer shall be made for him continually.” Prayer would be made for His coming to save man, and prayer would be made for the success of the plan of salvation which He would come to set on foot.

The Spirit of Jesus Christ is the spirit of missions. Our Lord Jesus Christ was Himself the first missionary. His promise and advent composed the first missionary movement. The missionary spirit is not simply a phase of the Gospel, not a mere feature of the plan of salvation, but is its very spirit and life. The missionary movement is the Church of Jesus Christ marching in militant array, with the design of possessing the whole world of mankind for Christ. Whoever is touched by the Spirit of God is fired by the missionary spirit. An antimissionary Christian is a contradiction in terms. We might say that it would be impossible to be an anti-missionary Christian because of the impossibility for the Divine and human forces to put men in such a state as not to align them with the missionary cause. Missionary impulse is the heart-beat of our Lord Jesus Christ, sending the vital forces of Himself through the whole body of the Church. The spiritual life of God’s people rises or falls with the force of those heart-beats. When these life forces cease, then death ensues. So that anti-missionary Churches are dead Churches, just as anti-missionary Christians are dead Christians.

- From The Essentials of Prayer, by E. M. Bounds. 

Although E. M. Bounds died in 1913, this book was first published in 1925, by an admirer of the author's life. Bounds was known for praying from four until seven each morning.

This post is one of a series, taken from The Essentials of Prayer, by Bounds. Found through the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, here. The Essentials of Prayer is in the public domain. The previous post in the entire series on the book is here. Thanks for reading. Read this book, and, more importantly, practice, prayer. 

Thanks for reading.

John, on supporting missionaries

3 John 1:5 Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, 6 who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. 7 For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. 8 Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth. (ESV, emphasis added.)

Thanks for reading. Support a missionary!

Beyond the Gates of Splendor, part 2

Yesterday, I posted on Beyond the Gates of Splendor, a documentary film telling the story of the killing of five US missionaries in Ecuador in 1956. I have now seen the rest of the film, and the last half was better than the first. (It's not a two-part film -- I just didn't have time to see it all at once.) The End of the Spear was released later, and is a dramatization of the same events. It has the same director as this documentary. The documentary relies heavily on eye-witness testimony by participants, and also on graphic material, including some home movies, from the 50s.

The second half tells more of how Elisabeth Elliot (who has since re-married) and Rachel Saint, wife and sister of two of the murdered missionaries, went to serve the Waodani people. Elliot's service was for a couple of years, but Saint was there for a long time. She worked on translation and Bible teaching. Elisabeth Elliot, in an interview, tells how Saint prepared a woman to preach to the people every Sunday. (Saint is dead.) Elliot took her small daughter with her, and she was, basically, a Waodani kid.

Steve Saint, son of Nate Saint, also spent years with the Waodani. Many things that only God could have done are shown in the film. Steve Saint's son, who had lost one of his grandfathers, developed a grandson-grandfather relationship with one of his grandfather's killers.

The son of the Waodani man who lied about the missionaries, leading to the attack on them,
became a missionary pilot himself, although within his own culture.

I found the interviews with the Waodani, including some who participated in the murder, to be the most interesting part of the film. (There are English subtitles.) They are great actors, they understand that they have come out of great darkness, and they show us, through their eyes, some things about North American mainstream culture that aren't pleasant to see. They are also funny -- natural comedians.

Thanks for reading. I'm glad that I checked this out of our local library. It is still for sale, apparently.

Beyond the Gates of Splendor

I happened to see a DVD entitled Beyond the Gates of Splendor in one of the DVD racks of the local branch of our public library. I had never heard of it. I checked it out, and have seen most of it, certainly enough to recommend the DVD. It was released in 2002.

The film is a documentary, using interviews. It also uses photos, and videos, taken in the 1950s by the missionaries who attempted to reach the Aucas (also known as Huaorani and Waodani -- don't ask me which is correct) of the Amazon jungles of Ecuador. Five male missionaries were killed in 1956. Jim Elliot and Nate Saint are the best known. Elisabeth, Jim Elliot's wife, went to live with these Indians as a missionary some time after the killing. She has been an important author and speaker, and is still alive. One of her books is Through Gates of Splendor, which is about the events of 1956.

All five of the wives of the dead men are interviewed, as are other relatives, a missionary and a US soldier involved in the investigation of the incident, and several of Indians, including eyewitnesses of the events of 1956.

There doesn't seem to be much doubt that the Waodani are better off because of the efforts of these, and other missionaries. An anthropologist describes them, as they were in 1956, as perhaps the most violent society on earth -- some 60% of the ancestors of Indians he interviewed back then died by murder.

One idea that I had never heard was the reason given for the killings, by one of the Indians. He said that a man and a young unmarried woman, with an older woman as chaperon, came to visit the missionary men. (There are photos of these three, at the site, with the men.) The man and the young woman went back to the Indian camp without the chaperon, which upset some of the men at camp. These men were told that the chaperon wasn't with them because the foreigners had threatened them, which was a lie. The Indians, it was said, attacked because of this.

This is a moving movie. The recollections of the wives are sometimes funny, sometimes heart-wrenching. The Indians (with subtitles) are sometimes dramatic and sometimes matter-of-fact about some terrible events in their lives, but always interesting. I haven't seen anything about conversions of Indians so far, and probably won't -- this is from Twentieth-Century Fox, not some Christian organization, which, in a way, emphasizes the interest and importance of the story.

The director, Jim Hanon, went on to make The End of the Spear, a dramatized version of the same events, which had rather wide theater distribution in 2005. I guess I'd choose the documentary, if I had to select one of the two. Apparently Beyond the Gates of Splendor is still for sale.

Thanks for reading.

* * * *

March 7th, 2008. An additional post is here.