🌍 World Missions — Unit 8: Missionary Giants and Martyrs

Introduction: The Giants of the Great Century

The century that William Carey opened was filled with giants — men and women who left everything behind to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth. We cannot tell all their stories, but in this unit we will meet five of them: Adoniram Judson in Burma, David Livingstone in Africa, Hudson Taylor in China, Mary Slessor in Nigeria, and Jim Elliot in the jungles of Ecuador. Some of them labored faithfully for decades; some of them died young. But every one of them shows us what the burden for the nations looks like when it truly takes hold of a human life.

I. Adoniram Judson — Burma

Adoniram Judson (1788–1850) was the first American Protestant foreign missionary. In 1812 he sailed from Boston with his young bride Ann, and on the long voyage he became convinced of Baptist convictions. Unable to remain in India, the Judsons settled in Burma in 1813. There Adoniram preached for seven long years without a single convert; the first Burmese believer was not baptized until 1819. He suffered imprisonment and torture, and he buried his wife and his children on the field. Yet he pressed on, and he gave Burma a translation of the entire Bible into the Burmese language, completed in 1840 and still in use to this day. Judson teaches us patience, for as the psalmist says, "those who sow in tears shall reap in joy" (Psalm 126:5, NKJV).

II. David Livingstone — Africa

David Livingstone (1813–1873) was a Scottish doctor and minister — a missionary, an explorer, and a tireless enemy of the African slave trade. Sent out by the London Missionary Society, he opened the interior of southern and central Africa both to the gospel and to the conscience of the watching world. He poured out his life for the continent he loved, traveling thousands of miles through unmapped country, and at the last his servants found him dead, kneeling in prayer beside his bed. Livingstone calls the church to care for the whole person — to hate the chains that bind men's bodies as well as the sin that binds their souls.

III. J. Hudson Taylor — China

J. Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) was the founder of the China Inland Mission. Converted as a boy of sixteen, this young English doctor sailed for China at twenty-one. While most missions of his day stayed safely in the coastal treaty ports, Taylor was determined to reach the vast, unevangelized interior. He adopted Chinese dress, ate Chinese food, and lived among the people in a way that shocked his European colleagues — for he would remove every needless barrier between the Chinese and Christ. In 1865 he founded the China Inland Mission on what he called a faith principle: no guaranteed salaries and no denominational backing; the mission would simply ask God for the workers and the funds. Within fifty years it had more than a thousand missionaries spread across every province of China. His most quoted words have encouraged missionaries ever since: "God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply."

IV. Mary Slessor — Nigeria

Mary Slessor (1848–1915) was a Scottish mill girl who became one of the great missionaries to Calabar, in what is now southeastern Nigeria. Working alone among peoples that had been considered far too dangerous for any missionary to enter, she transformed the whole Okoyong region. She made peace between warring tribes. And she ended the cruel practice of killing newborn twins, who were believed to be cursed and were abandoned to die in the bush — she gathered up the abandoned babies and raised them as her own. Mary Slessor reminds us that God delights to use the lowly, and that a single fearless life, surrendered to Him, can overturn the cruelty of generations.

V. The Cost — Jim Elliot and the Martyrs

The advance of the gospel has always had a price, and across the centuries many have paid it with their lives. In 1956, five young American missionaries — Jim Elliot among them — set out to reach the Huaorani people, a tribe deep in the jungles of Ecuador who had never heard the name of Christ. As they made contact, the Huaorani attacked, and all five men were speared to death. Jim Elliot's wife, Elisabeth, was just twenty-nine years old, with a baby daughter. But the story did not end at the river's edge. In the years that followed, Elisabeth Elliot and others went back to those same people, and many of the Huaorani — including some of the very men who had killed the missionaries — were brought to faith in Christ. Years before he died, Jim Elliot had written in his journal the words that became the watchword of a generation: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Their deaths were not waste, for the Lord Himself had said, "unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain" (John 12:24, NKJV).

Conclusion: A Pattern, Not a Relic

Judson's patience, Livingstone's compassion, Taylor's faith, Slessor's courage, and Elliot's sacrifice are not relics to be admired from a distance. They are a pattern for the present. The same Lord who called and sent these giants is calling and sending still, and the same gospel that was worth their lives is worth ours. To them and to all the faithful, the promise stands: "Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life" (Revelation 2:10, NKJV). Let us honor them best by finishing the work for which they died.

Submit Exam & Check Pass Reset Unit