We expect something to happen, for good or ill. The presupposition of life is that the good of it ought to prevail. So to the work on the issues of spiritual growth that moves persons, closer and closer to full achievement, to a truthful context for our lives. We can sense the issues in such works as Jonathan Aitken’s biography of John Newton. Newton is eminent in Church history for his experience and ministry. This included his effective modeling, first as a sinner of utter disgrace, then as a saintly man seeking to end slavery that he had supported. He modeled spiritual growth and humility before God. The negative younger years of Newton included such things as control of a slave ship. Newton represented the company of some of the ugliest officers in the slave trade. Treatment of the cargo cost as many as a third of the lives of shackled black persons on board, dying in transit; the sexual impositions upon defenseless women in Africa were repugnant; and, the language so irreverent that even crude fellow seamen were offended – and so the story goes. A series of events, even rescue from death, caused Newton to sense that God would mean something to his life. He slowly gave up his habits of excess, and committed his life to Christ. There emerged in his conscience that he ought to apply for ordination. Without any formal education, he was rejected, but through various influences he was approved and ordained at forty years of age. His ministry in England became devout and classic. He served both the formal Church of England and the Separatists (Baptists, and others). He became a counselor to anyone turning to him, and that included the eminent writer William Cowper, and members of Parliament. He became a key figure in ending the slave trade. He was indefatigable as a preacher, as a hymn writer including such hymns as Amazing Grace, and Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken. He took in orphaned children, deeply loved his near invalid wife, Polly, and so the story may be extended of worthy thought and conduct. He did not fret over criticism, or the failures and omissions of others. His ministry sometimes suffered by his distractions in other areas, his support of the American colonies for freedom, his political and ecumenical interests. He learned the Christ model. He proved the gospel in a journey from: the guttermost to the uttermost.
We leap more than two centuries to this writing. What is the evidence of God among the people? Scripture informs us what a godly person ought to model. The information is strengthened by the urging that one should follow the best examples. The best one, by the standard of the devout Christian, is Jesus Christ. Apostles urge us to follow his model. The Apostle Paul suggests that his readers follow his, Paul’s model, as Paul followed the model of Christ. To follow the model is an inherited gift from the best of those who have gone before. I have met many of these persons, and, before history evaluates them, I have learned and been inspired by their application of faithful following so to provide, to the degree possible, a Christ figure in their era. I have found many, but I refer to one for this purpose.
Billy Graham was a newly graduated collegian when I first met him. In early course, we were related in professional life, both with personal and general assignments to me, and all for the advancement of the Great Commission of Christ found in Matthew 28. For several years we worked together in Christian education, in preparing materials for preaching and counsel. I saw, without exception, a man concerned for moral effectiveness, living what he believed might be the person of Christ if Christ were physically engaged in modern life. He ordered ways to evade sexual distractions, so was faithful to his family; ways to gain information that was true, so to be faithful to the nature of God and the expectations of persons in learning; and, ways to separate himself from concern about things so to put the responsibility for resources flowing to him on faithful friends to manage, so to avoid greed or any other temptations that might damage ministry. The story can be well extended. Of course there were some negatives – as illustrated in all other persons in their own way. The point is that I saw in Graham, the life effort to model Jesus Christ. That is well ahead of what some persons may think of first in review of his or any other life. The world saw a fiery evangelist. I saw an example of the text: Christ in you, the hope of glory. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020