No Reserves, No Retreats, No Regrets

Today as I was studying Chuck Bentley's newest book "The Root of Riches" and I found myself captivated by a story Chuck shared about William Borden.  I did some research and found an article about Borden that I posted below.

In 1904 William Borden, the heir of the famous Borden dairy estate, graduated from high school in Chicago. As a graduation gift, his parents sent him on a cruise around the world. While on this cruise, God began to open William’s eyes and heart to the masses of unsaved people around the world. William wrote to his mother about his desire to be a missionary. In one of his early letters he wrote, “I think God is calling me to be a missionary.” In his final letter he wrote, “I know God is calling me to be a missionary.” One friend expressed amazement that William was throwing his life away by choosing to become a missionary.

When he returned home, William enrolled in Yale University where he was instrumental in starting campus prayer and Bible study groups and evangelism initiatives. He also worked with the least of these on the streets of New Haven and founded Yale Hope Mission. Henry Wright, a professor at Yale, said, “It is my firm conviction that the Yale Hope Mission has done more to convince all classes of men at Yale of the power and practicability of Christianity to regenerate individuals and communities than any other force in the University.” While in school, William renounced his fortune in favor of missions and wrote two words in the flyleaf of his Bible – “No Reserves.” William wanted to live by faith and to trust God for everything in his life.
  
William attended a Student Volunteer Movement conference in Nashville where he learned about the great number of Muslims in China. He felt God wanted him to go to China where he hoped to work with Muslims. When he graduated from Yale, he had many lucrative job offers, including the opportunity to take over the multi-million dollar family business. However, he was determined to fulfill God’s call to serve as a missionary. Once again, he opened his Bible to the flyleaf and wrote two more words – “No Retreats.”

William set sail for China on December 17, 1912. He stopped in Egypt to study Arabic so that he would be better equipped to work with Muslims. While in Egypt, William contracted spinal meningitis and died on April 9, 1913 at the age of twenty-five. Years of training, a promising future, and William never made it to China. Charlie Campbell, one of William’s college friends, received his Bible after his death. When he opened it he found what William had written in the flyleaf. In addition to the words “No Reserves” and “No Retreats” that William had jotted down during his college days, he found two more words that William had written before he died – “No Regrets.”

Although William Borden never made it to the mission field in China, he touched hundreds of students at Yale University and Princeton Divinity School who became missionaries. And, because the news of his death was published all over the world, many people wrote letters to his family expressing how their lives had been influenced by William’s story of faith and commitment to the cause of Christ. His story continues to inspire selfless service for the cause of Christ.

Article by: Omar C. Garcia

Created in God's Image

What does it mean to be created in the image of God?  We know an image is not the original.  We obviously do not share the divine nature of God but we do resemble some of His characteristics.

First, man is to be a reflection of God to the rest of creation.  We reflect God by sharing attributes (still limited) such as speaking, loving, giving, hearing, and reasoning.  Adam and Eve in their original state were created with a perfect ability to express and share those attributes.

Secondly, man is to live in fellowship with God.  Adam and Eve had the unique privilege of walking and talking with God in the Garden of Eden in complete unity.  Within each person is a longing and desire to be in relationship and fellowship with God.  That was God's design.  He wants to be in fellowship with us as his image bearers.

Third, humankind is to act as God's representative and stewards to all creation.  Genesis 1:28 says, "God blessed them [Adam and Eve] and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."  Man is to rule and act as a steward over God's creation.

Puritans Concerning the Family

With nearly 60 percent of marriages among professed believers ending in divorce today, the Puritan teaching on marriage serves as a biblical remedy to our "quickie-divorce" culture.

Erroll Hulse said, "The Puritan ethic of marriage was not to look for a partner whom you do love passionately at this moment, but rather for one you can love steadily as your best friend for life, and then proceed with God's help to do just that."

Thomas Manton declared that, "marriages are made in heaven before they are made on earth" and Daniel Rogers, son of [Puritan preacher] John Rogers of Dedham commented on what today we call 'falling in love' like this: "Marriage love is often a secret work of God, pitching the heart of one party upon another for no known cause; and therefore when this strong lodestone attracts each to the other, no further questions need to be made but such a man and such a woman's match were made in heaven, and God has brought them together.'"

The Puritans held forth a clearly biblical foundation for the duties of husbands and wives based upon Genesis 2 and Ephesians 5. They saw the first duty of husbands and wives as to love each other entirely in accord with Ephesians 5:25,28 and 33. Husbands and wives also were to be helpers of each other's salvation.

Hulse also stated, "They were to stir up each other to faith, love and obedience, and good works; to warn and help each other against sin and all temptations; to join in God's worship in the family and in private; to prepare each other for the approach of death and comfort each other in the hope of eternal life."

For the husband and father, the Puritans asserted the biblical doctrine of headship. That is, the husband and father is the accountable head for what takes place in the family and is the provider for and protector of his wife and children. The husband is responsible for the spiritual development and biblical instruction of the wife and children.

Fathers sought to equip their sons and daughters with a thorough knowledge of Scripture beginning at an early age.

"The headship is not a ticket to privilege but a charge to responsibility," Hulse said. "It is not tyranny, but leadership based on love."

To the Puritans, concern for family extended to live-in servants and the elderly, who were cared for in the home until death and not relegated to retirement homes, he said.

The Puritans esteemed the family as the basic unit of society and aimed that it be a little church in itself with the husband as its pastor and his wife as assistant. Puritan pastors believed fervently that the family was the foundational unit of a godly society.

The Puritan ethic was to train up children in the way they should go, to care for their bodies and souls together, and to educate them for sober, godly, socially useful adult living. The Puritan way of home life was based on maintaining order, courtesy and family worship.