Tke Missionary’s Qualifications What Does it Mean to Volunteer for Soul-Winning Work in Foreign Lands?
By REV. OLIVER M . FLETCHER
“We then as workers together with Him . . . “ Giving no offense in anything, that the ministry be not blamed: “ But in all things approving our selves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses. “ In stripes, in imprisonments, in tu mults, in labors, in watchings, in fast ings. “ By pureness, by knowledge, by long suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned. “ By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left. “By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true. “ As unknowti, and yet well-known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chas tened, and not killed. “ As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as hav ing nothing, and yet possessing all things.” Frankly, let me say that there have been few people f have known in twen ty-seven years of Christian service who have begun to measure up to these things. We believe that they are great ly needed in the homeland, and if this is true, how infinitely more so on the mission field. THE MISSIONARY FOR THE NEED must be someone who will undertake any task from road or hut building, to the erection of church and chapel and the preaching of the sermon of dedica tion; from the bandaging of a simple cut upon some native’s body, to the ef fort to heal the most repulsive ulcers,
r-r-»HE missionary’s education should consist of at least a high school course, followed by a thorough Bible training. On the other hand, God can abundantly use, and I fully believe is calling from this generation, many who shall have passed through college or university courses, but who have been enabled, in spite of all the uncertainties of modern thought, to maintain their faith in the eternal God and in the deity of His Son, the person and work of the Holy Spirit, the divine inspiration and integrity of the Scriptures, and who also realize that it is impossible to conceive that God would have sent His blessed Son to the cruel death of Calvary unless there had been something to save men from other than that which is seen in this life, and that it must ever stand as an evident fact that to despise God’s sacrifice of Christ would be so infinitely worse in its sinfulness as to preclude the possibility of such rebels having a place in the presence of the rejected Christ. , But the missionary will need more than his education. He should be pre pared to make “ bricks without straw;” to build houses without tools, save such as his genius might invent for the need; to discover paths through trackless wilds; and find ways of preaching to the Africans through devious processes of thought and action. He will need to know I Corinthians 13— to believe all things, endure all things, to suffer long and to be kind. He will need to “ suffer the spoiling of his goods” without re dress, or without any bitterness of thought or action. He will need to “ en dure affliction with the people of God” and also with the heathen. He must know IX Corinthians 6:1-10 inclusive:
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