August 9 | Moments Almanac | Judson

Welcome to Moments Almanac. My name is Matt Tullis, and I'm so thankful that you are here for today, August 9th. And on this day, in 1788, a boy was born in Malden, Massachusetts, who would grow up to give Burma its first complete Bible in the language of its people. His name was Adenarum Judson. When Judson sailed for Asia in 1812, he believed, like the congregationalists who sent him, that infants belonged in the waters of baptism. Then, during a four-month voyage to India, he opened his New Testament to sharpen his arguments against Baptist missionaries he expected to meet when he arrived. Instead, the study undid him. Judson became convinced that baptism belonged to those who could confess faith for themselves. And that baptism should be by immersion, in obedience to Christ's command. That conviction cost him dearly, everything he had left home with, his denomination, his salary, his sending board, because a man cannot unknow what he has plainly seen in the text. Adeniram and Anne Judson were baptized in Calcutta that September, trusting that a still unformed network of American Baptists might somehow support two missionaries they had never met. Then Burma nearly broke him, six years without a single convert, imprisonment as a suspected spy, ankles in irons, forced marches while Anne pleaded for his life outside the prison walls. And yet Paul wrote these words, but the word of God is not bound. And it wasn't. In eighteen thirty four, Judson completed his translation of the entire Bible into Burmese. The missionary could be bound. The word could not. One hundred fifty four years after Judson's birth, on the other side of the world, another man staked everything on a very different kind of freedom. Mahatmas Gandhi stood before the All India Congress in Bombay and issued a stark challenge do or die. India would be free, or they would die in the attempt. Hours later, before dawn, on august ninth, British authorities arrested Gandhi, along with much of the Congress leadership. Hoping to strangle the movement before it could stand, it didn't work. The arrests helped ignite the Quit India movement, and five years later India gained its independence. Gandhi's conviction came from Hindu tradition, and from writers such as Tolstoy and Thoreau, not from the gospel. We shouldn't blur that distinction just to make history fit neatly into a devotional. Gandhi sought political freedom for his people. Judson carried news of a deeper freedom altogether, the freedom Christ purchases from sin and death. Those are not the same thing. But on August ninth, both stories remind us of something worth remembering. Conviction eventually sends a bill. For Judson, it cost him a denomination, security, years of apparent failure, imprisonment, grief, and almost his life. And still the word of God was not bound. And that's the question August 9th leaves with us. What truth do I believe strongly enough to obey when believing it becomes expensive? Maybe the cost of a friendship, maybe a reputation, maybe an opportunity, or simply the comfort of remaining silent. Take heart. A boy born on this date once allowed a slow, honest reading of scripture to rearrange his entire life. He could not have known where that obedience would lead. He only knew what the text said. And sometimes that's enough. And only eternity will reveal what such obedience is worth. That's Moments Almanac for today, August the 9th. I hope you'll join me tomorrow. Until then, take heart. Notice the scattered moments in your day, and share the grace.