Offering & Evangelism

This short message was shared as part of the offering exhortation in church on April 27.

What has evangelism to do with offering? The difference is this:

Offering - the giving of our money to do God's work.

Evangelism - the giving of ourselves to do God's work.

Last Saturday I was at my usual coffee shop for morning tea. An elderly lady in her 70s shared my table as the shop was full. Before I knew it, I had paid for her coffee and before I knew it I had taken out the tract "Steps to peace with God" which I normally carry around with me and shared with her the gospel (in broken Cantonese)!

She was very open. She told me that she was staying at the Old Folks' Home in BBA and that she had been to church but that she was a not a Christian. She told me that her mother died when she was young and she never married, that was how she ended up in the Old Folks' Home. She took the tract I gave her happily even as I invited her to church for Easter.

I went away that Saturday thinking to myself that it was good for me to do this random act of kindness i.e. pay for her drink to feed her body but that it was even more fulfilling for me to share the gospel with her as I had given her the precious message of salvation to feed her spirit!

2 weekends ago I was at Macau for my holiday. Although this small nation state had many casinos (in hotels, shopping complexes) there was also something special about Macau.

I realized that it had a rich Christian heritage. As I researched deep into its history, I realized that the first Protestant missionary to China actually went to Macau.

Robert Morrison in the 1890s felt God's call to go to China. He went to Macau as his posting under OMF. He tried to live like the Chinese. He kept his hair and nails long, he dressed in long robes and he learned to use chopsticks. He even engaged Chinese tutors to teach him the language.

Although he was cheated many times by the local Chinese and suffered a great deal in his 27 years of missionary work in Macau (going home to Britain only once), he persevered in his work. He faced many obstacles as he was viewed with suspicion by the local Chinese. He was overcharged for his lodgings and the tutors he employed to teach him Chinese cheated him of his money. He was also sickly and his first child died while he was in ministry. He seemed to make little progress in his missionary work.

However I was amazed that this 'orang putih' or white man was actually the first person to translate the King James Bible into Chinese! Now this is something like a revelation to me because I would have thought that the Chinese Bible would have been translated by a Chinese!

He was also the first white man to translate the first Chinese dictionary! What about converts? Apparently he brought to Christ the first 10 Chinese converts in Asia and baptized them. They stayed faithful to the end. The rest of the time, he spent giving out literature to the merchant classes in Macau and Guangzhou. 

I wonder - did this man accomplish anything in his 27 years of missionary? He must have if not Macau would not have been described as a city state having more churches per square mile than the Vatican! Everywhere there are churches. The churches do not seem to be restricted to buildings but services are also held in hotels!

Even the 5 star hotel where we stayed had a service ongoing that Sunday. Is there anything good to come out of Macau despite its reputation of being a place where gambling thrived?

I believe Robert Morrison left behind an unparalleled heritage. I believe that because of his perseverance despite countless obstacles he faced in ministry, Macau's Christian community had thrived to what it is today.

What lessons can I learn from this today?

That where darkness is greatest, the glorious light of the gospel is marching on! 

THERE IS NO STOPPING THE KINGDOM OF GOD IF GOD HAS MEN AND WOMEN SOLD OUT FOR HIS KINGDOM!