A few years ago, I visited a Kibbutz producing medical supplies and selling them to... China. I was puzzled, as I believe you are. How could a tiny Kibbutz of a few hundred people in the geopolitical context that is proper to all Kibbutzes in this world sell anything to China? Amazing and puzzling as it may seem, this question has a very simple answer: you can always sell what other people don’t have. So the main question has always been not how but what do you offer? The key to reaching China is not strategically tackling its forbidding size, nor conquering its mesmerizing languages, nor navigating its political system. The only really important thing, the only key to reaching this vast nation, has been offering something its people don’t already have.
When reading through Hudson Taylor’s autobiographical account[1] of his early dedication to God and initial preparation for his mission in China, we would look in vain for the strategic thinking we might have been accustomed to in our world. In the early days of Taylor’s consecration there is no in-depth analysis of the Chinese political conjecture, no economic charts, no anthropological studies made nor courses taken, no preliminary cultural nor linguistic immersion, and of course no scouting into China in the middle of the nineteenth century. These are all readily available to us today but were only in some measure so to people in the Victorian era. The stealthy ram he would use later on to penetrate the innermost regions of China, i.e. the use of Medicine, is described a little bit on the side-lines of something much more important. And so, we are treated to an account of things that are supposed to have formed the bedrock of Hudson Taylor’s calling to China, and these things have absolutely nothing to do either with China itself, nor with what would become later the main practical solution to bring the Gospel to the interior of China.
OK, what was it that formed and prepared one of the greatest missionaries of all times?
We could probably put it this way – instead of being preoccupied with the millions of people in China, Hudson Taylor’s greatest initial preoccupation was with his own soul.
His own soul.
He cared first for his spiritual self. His account of the days that would eventually become the basis for his fruitful mission in China deals with what and how much he ate, what he wore, what he spent, what mattress he slept on, how much he tithed, how he reduced his library, how he managed his money, and how he adjusted his views on eschatology. Obviously all this was just as much related to his soul as were the painful and yet glorious ways of learning, indeed of teaching himself “how to move men, through God, by prayer alone, before leaving England,” or how to stay by the sick, care for the poor, tend to the dying.
The overall impression of his account of those early days on his path with Jesus Christ is the following: the young Hudson Taylor was first and foremost a missionary to himself. His first disciple was his own soul. It was the University of the Spirit. He considered it appropriate to relate to us two particular events, which had absolutely nothing to do with China. The first is how the Spirit of God wrenched out of his pocket a lonely coin to offer it to some poor family, and the second is how uncomfortable and embarrassed he was to ask for his salary. His salary. The salary that was due to him. Embarrassed before God that is, not before men. What a fantastic perception of the Lord being present in the small details of his life, what a heavenly conviction that the Lord sees it all, knows it all, and can do all things!
Let us hear some details. He is on a visit to a poor family, the lady seems moribund, Hudson Taylor has a coin in his pocket. One coin. He couldn’t eat the next morning without this coin. He tries to encourage the family; he tries to pray with them. After a dramatic, inner struggle he finally surrenders to God and relieves the family by giving them all he had. Christians should be able to relate to that one way or another. Sacrifice is after all at the bottom of all things divine.[2] But would we describe our struggle in Hudson Taylor’s terms? “A wretched unbelief prevented me from obeying the impulse to relieve their distress at the cost of all I possessed.” Go back and read this again, please. Is he really saying that being reluctant to part with your daily bread reveals your wretched unbelief?[3] That the preoccupation with your body’s basic needs is objectionable and reveals your unregenerate nature?[4] Why wretched unbelief and not (some) immaturity, or (little) inexperience with God; why go directly for wretched unbelief?
But there is more. Hudson Taylor relates how he tried to comfort these downcast people and also the voice he heard within himself: “You, hypocrite! Telling these unconverted people about a kind and loving Father in heaven, and not being prepared yourself to trust Him without half-a-crown?” Why the epithet? The boy had only that half- a-crown in his pocket! Look at his inner turmoil! His agitation and confusion! But there was still more to come. He tried to pray with these people, and the voice came again: “Dare you mock God! Dare you kneel down and call Him Father with that half-crown in your pocket?” Such a time of conflict came upon me then as I have never experienced before or since.”[5] What would your sceptic friends say of this today? God seemed to have been really obsessed with that “half- a-crown,”]6] did He not? No. He was obsessed with the soul of Hudson Taylor, and He didn’t spare him the test. “The joy all came back in full flood-tide to my heart; I could say anything and feel it then.... Not only was this poor woman’s life saved, but I realised that my life was saved too!”[7] He had just parted with his last money.
Do you feel what you say about God to others? Where is the hindrance?
“It might have been a wreck—would have been a wreck probably, as a Christian life—had not grace at that time conquered, and the striving of God’s Spirit been obeyed.”[8]
Might have been... would have been a wreck. Conquering grace and obedience to God ultimately defused all likelihoods and probabilities. But again, just pause a second – not giving a coin resulting in the crash of your Christian life? But you should have forgotten that coin by now, God was after his heart. All of it. This story is not about a coin.[9]
What is your half-a-crown? Mine was a bike I felt the urge to sell. But that is yet another man’s story. What is your half-a-crown? Remember, for Hudson Taylor it had worth beyond its face value.
The hidden hand of God in building faith and reliance on Christ in your heart might be hidden for others but it must be visible for you.
“I cannot tell you how often my mind has recurred to this incident, or all the help it has been to me in circumstances of difficulty in afterlife.”[10] And he had some difficulty in his after-life. Is he really saying that this coin incident had helped him overcome (real?) difficulties? This incident?
What is your incident? Is there something in your life that the world or even the Church would consider exaggerated in your vision, but which bears the mark of your invisible wrestling with the Angel of the Lord, a wrestling where you win by losing?[11] Don’t go to China before you cross by night the brook of Jabbok.[12] Alone.
Jesus Christ taught us to pray for the Lord of the harvest to send labourers to His harvest, not just anybody.[13] The Lord of the harvest brought Hudson Taylor through some hard inner labour and moulded him into the labourer he proved to be. Is this a divine pattern?[14]
Hudson Taylor was indeed driven to reach the most unreached and unengaged people in his generation. But before all this happened he was brought to reach the most unreached and unengaged parts of his own heart.
And before we move to that other formative story in his account, allow me to backtrack from what I said above and go back to that... coin. Aren’t you curious what exactly is half-a-crown? Whatever its value, it bore this inscription: Victoria Dei gratia Britanniarum regina, which means “Victoria, by the grace of God, Queen of the Britains.” All things are by the grace of God. Especially when you trust Jesus Christ to the uttermost.
Then we are told another story. Taylor had determined not to remind the doctor he was working for about his own salary and prayed to God to do the reminder on his behalf. What an arbitrary decision! Was he testing his own faith, or God? Was this the only way he might have tested his own faith?
“Of course it was not the want of money that distressed me—that could have been had at any time for the asking— but the question uppermost in my mind was this: ‘Can I go to China? Or will my want of faith and power with God prove to be so serious an obstacle as to preclude my entering upon this much-prized service?’”[15]
He bets his future missionary endeavours on the arbitrary decision to rely on God to remind his boss that pay-day had arrived and gone. Can I go to China? If I cannot convince the Lord to remind my boss to pay me, how can I go to China? The beautiful outcome is that after much wrestling, he receives his pay. His subsequent comment is even more beautiful than his victory of faith: “...after all I might go to China.” Just might.
When Saul was caught in the net of the Fisherman from Nazareth, a prophecy came to a simple Christian from Damascus. A never heard-of and never to be heard-of again, Ananias told Saul he would be sent to bear the name of God “before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel.”[16] Saul obviously had a busy program for the rest of his life, so he had better get on his feet and go. Instead he went to Arabia and then back to Damascus, and then, after three years, to Jerusalem.17 Then some time later we find him in Tarsus (doing what?), and a good man called Barnabas comes from Jerusalem to fetch him and bring him to lend a hand in the bustling work the Spirit of God had started in a town called Antioch.18 Saul was mobilized by a man who had laid everything he had at the feet of the apostles in Jerusalem,19 and this was a beautiful flash-back to the prophecy of Ananias. Time had come. But why the tarrying?
The greatest of all missionaries was still in the making. He had to obtain and refine in his soul what he was to bring over to “the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel.” You can’t provide what you don’t have. You can’t bring to China what they already have, and the young Hudson Taylor obviously intuited that. China needed Jesus Christ and Him crucified,20 and a young English boy was being formed in the meaning of it all through a process of surrendering the details of his life over to the Crucified Lord.21
Do you have a burden for the unreached?
How about first having a burden for the unreached recesses of your heart?
It was the primary preoccupation of Hudson Taylor and the apostle Paul.
It is the primary preoccupation of Jesus. Then you might be able to go to your China.
Nikolai Boyadjiev leads several FAI Europe initiatives and gives leadership to our Translation Initiative. He lives in central Europe with his wife and daughters, and can be reached at nikolai@faimission.org.
[1] J. Hudson Taylor, A Retrospect. Kindle edition.
[2] Genesis 22:9; Revelation 13:8
[3] Matthew 16:8; Mark 8:18, 21
[4] Matthew 6:32
[5] Taylor, loc. 232.
[6] ibid., 237.
[7] ibid.
[8] ibid.
[9] Luke 15:8-10
[10] ibid, 253.
[11] Genesis 32:24–28
[12] Genesis 32:22
[13] Matthew 9:38; Luke 10:2
[14] Hebrews 12:2
[15] ibid., 258–264.
[16] Acts 9:15
[17] Galatians 1:17–18
[18] Acts 11:25–26
[19] Acts 4:36–37
[20] 1 Corinthians 2:2
[21] Philippians 3:8
