Trials of a Missionary<\/b><\/p>\n
From his early boyhood, John Paton wanted to be a missionary. Before studying theology and medicine, Paton served for ten years as a Glasgow City Missionary. After graduation, he was ordained and set sail for the New Hebrides as a Presbyterian missionary. Three months after arriving on the island of Tanna, Paton\u2019s young wife died, followed by their five-week-old son. For three more years, Paton labored alone among the hostile islanders, ignoring their threats, seeking to make Christ known to them, before escaping with his life. Later, he returned and spent fifteen years on another island.<\/p>\n
Paton was working one day in his home on the translation of John\u2019s Gospel\u2014puzzling over John\u2019s favorite expression pisteuo eis, to \u201cbelieve in\u201d or to \u201ctrust in\u201d Jesus Christ, a phrase which occurs first in John 1:12. \u201cHow can I translate it?\u201d Paton wondered. The islanders were cannibals; nobody trusted anybody else. There was no word for \u201ctrust\u201d in their language. His native servant came in. \u201cWhat am I doing?\u201d Paton asked him. \u201cSitting at your desk,\u201d the man replied. Paton then raised both feet off the floor and sat back on his chair. \u201cWhat am I doing now?\u201d In reply, Paton\u2019s servant used a verb which means \u201cto lean your whole weight upon.\u201d That\u2019s the phrase Paton used throughout John\u2019s Gospel to translate to \u201cbelieve in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morning Glory, Sept. \/Oct. , 1997, p. 50<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Trials of a Missionary From his early boyhood, John Paton wanted to be a missionary. Before studying theology and medicine, Paton served for ten years as a Glasgow City Missionary. After graduation, he was ordained and set sail for the New Hebrides as a Presbyterian missionary. Three months after arriving on the island of Tanna, … Continue reading “Believe”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}