TTT #27 The New Testament Word for Success is Faithfulness

While I intend for my book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (TTT) to be relevant for everyone and not just for Christian believers, this article taken from the first part of the 27^th chapter of TTT (and found in full here) is primarily about Christians (for good or for ill). But I trust it will also be of interest and instructive to those of other faiths, or of no faith.

Disliking Failure

Failure is a word we hate to hear. During their school days, little seemed worse for most people than getting an “F” on a test or on their report card.

And in real life, failure is a fear for those who go into business for themselves as well as for those who go into non-profit service activities. Failure for either usually means loss of income as well as loss of self-esteem.

Since in the world of religion this seems to be more of an issue for Christians than those of other faiths, this article/chapter is mostly about success and failure as related to Christianity.

Liking Success

Because of the fear of failure, through the years there has been a spate of books, many from a Christian or semi-Christian perspective, written about how to succeed. Some of the most widely read are Acres of Diamonds (1915), Think and Grow Rich (1937), The Power of Positive Thinking (1952), The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989), and The Success Principles (2005).

Success, as we who live in the United States all know, is often measured either in terms of dollars or in terms of numbers of people. In the business world no one who has not become fairly wealthy would be considered a success.

In the Christian world, successful churches are generally considered those that have had considerable numerical growth and boast large attendance at their regular meetings, and the pastors of such churches are generally considered successful.

Most people in the U.S., for example, would consider Joel Osteen, pastor of the Lakewood Church in Houston, a huge success.

The church of which Osteen (b. 1963) is pastor is the largest in the U.S. In 2017 the weekly attendance of his church was 43,500. Moreover, his ministry is said to reach over seven million broadcast media viewers weekly in over 100 nations around the world.

Not only is Osteen successful, but he seeks to help others achieve success also. He also has written several books and regularly posts articles on the Lakewood Church blog.

Some of his articles, especially in past years, were expressions of the so-called “prosperity gospel,” according to which financial success can be expected to result from proper or adequate faith—although many have serious questions about that understanding of success.

Being Faithful

Years ago I heard, and agreed, that the New Testament word for success is faithfulness. Certainly the NT does not speak about success as being defined the number of dollars one has made or the number of members attending a given church.

Many of the great Christian missionaries were quite “unsuccessful.” That is how Francis Xavier thought about his work in Japan in the years following his arrival there in 1549. (Many later missionaries, though, thought he was quite “successful.”)

For many years following his arrival in India in 1793, William Carey was “unsuccessful”—as were Adoniram and Ann Judson for years following their arrival in Burma in 1813.

But they all realized that the New Testament word for success is faithfulness—as did Mother Teresa of Calcutta. So I close this article with her oft-quoted words: 

In Praise of Adoniram and Ann Judson

Two hundred years ago this month, the first foreign missionaries from the United States arrived in India. The famous “haystack prayer meeting” in 1806 led to the forming of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) four years later. In 1812 three couples and two single men set sail for India. One of the couples was Adoniram and Ann Hasseltine Judson.

The ABCFM was a Congregationalist organization, and Adoniram was also commissioned by the Congregational churches. Back then only men were appointed/commissioned as missionaries, and the wives went with their husbands to be homemakers. Some, such as William Carey’s wife, were not at all happy with becoming a missionary’s wife and having to go to a “foreign” land. But Ann Judson became a very effective missionary in her own right.

 The Judsons were married on February 5, 1812, and exactly two weeks later they boarded the ship for India. They arrived in Calcutta (now Kolkata) on June 17, 1812. Since they were Congregationalists and knowing they would encounter William Carey and other Baptist missionaries from England, while aboard ship en route to India the Judsons did a focused study on the theology of baptism.

Baptists have long rejoiced that the Judsons came to the position that believer’s baptism was theologically valid and should be done as a matter of obedience to the command of Jesus. Consequentially, they were baptized by immersion less than three months after their arrival in India.

Luther Rice, another ABCFM missionary who arrived in India in August 1812, also became a Baptist soon after arriving there. Rice, who was single, returned to America to break ties with the Congregationalists and to raise support for the Judsons from the Baptists. As a result of his efforts, “The General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions” (later often called "the Triennial Convention”) was organized in May 1814.

It is amazing that Rice was so successful, for all this activity raising support from Baptists was during the War of 1812. The organizational meeting was held at the First Baptist Church in Philadelphia. Just three months later the British invaded Washington, D.C., and burned most of the federal buildings. And just four months later a decisive battle was fought in the harbor near Baltimore, only a hundred miles from Philadelphia.

The Judsons went on to Burma (now officially Myanmar) in 1813 and began a long and effective ministry there. Today, only about 5% of the people of Myanmar are Christians, and they are mostly among the Chin, Kachin, and the Karen ethnic groups. But about 1/3 of Myanmar’s Christians are Baptists, and they are the greatest legacy of the Judsons.

The Chin, Kachin, and Karen peoples are also those who have been most at odds with the military government which changed the English name of the country from Burma to Myanmar in 1989. The Karens, especially, have long been most opposed to the central government. In fact, they began seeking political independence in 1949.

Now there are tens of thousands of Karen refugees here in the U.S., including a sizeable number in North Kansas City. Many of them are Baptists, and the Grace Baptist Church, near where most of them live, has done a commendable job of ministering to them. I am disappointed that I have not been able to follow through on my original intention of helping with that ministry—partly out of appreciation for the praiseworthy missionary work of Adoniram and Ann Judson.