"Furthermore, we must remember that the person to whom we are talking, however far from the Christian faith he may be, is an image-bearer of God. He has great value and our communication to him must be in genuine love. Love is not an easy thing; it is not just an emotional urge, but an attempt to move over and sit in the other person's place and see how his problems look to him. Love is a genuine concern for the individual. As Jesus Christ reminds us, we are to love him 'as ourselves'. This is the place to begin."
— Francis Schaeffer
Source: The God Who Is There (London: Hodder & Stoughton / Chicago: Inter-Varsity Press, 1968), Section IV "Speaking Historic Christianity into the Twentieth-Century Climate," ch. 1 "Finding the Point of Tension"
Missionary work, questions, answers, and the human heart
Views: 611
"Well, I have God, and His Word is sure; and though the superstitions of the heathen were a million times worse than they are, if I were deserted by all, and persecuted by all, yet my hope, fixed on that sure Word, will rise superior to all obstructions, and triumph over all trials. God's cause will triumph, and I shall come out of all trials as gold purified by fire."
— William Carey
Source: Carey's journal, 19 April 1794, in George Smith, The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & Missionary (1885), ch. IV
"Often our real failure is not being rejected, but being too afraid of rejection to take a step of faith. Whatever storms lie ahead, the Lord's grace is enough to carry us through."
— IntoOne
Source: IntoOne meditation
Missionary work, rejection
Views: 497
"We must admit that there is a mystery here. We cannot say why God should have chosen the Jews rather than any other people to be the means of salvation, just as we cannot understand why He should have chosen us and not others to be the witnesses to His gospel in India to-day. But if we reflect a little we can understand why He should work by this way of choosing. It is His purpose to create a new human race in which the divisions caused by sin are overcome, in which men are at one with God, with one another, and with themselves."
— Lesslie Newbigin
Source: Sin and Salvation (SCM Press, 1956), ch. V, "The Preparation for Salvation"
Missionary work, culture
Views: 491
"This lively hope of China's speedy deliverance from the thraldom of Satan by the hand of our great Lord, Jesus Christ … constantly prompts me to action, and makes me willing rather to perish in the attempt of carrying the gospel to China, than to wait quietly on the frontiers, deterred by the numerous obstacles which seem to forbid an entrance into the country. … Yet still I am not ignorant of my own nothingness, nor of the formidable obstacles which, on every side, shut up the way and impede our progress; and I can only say, "Lord, here I am, use me according to thy holy pleasure.""
— Karl Gützlaff
Source: Journal of Three Voyages along the Coast of China (1834), pp. 124–125