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Discussion Forum : General Topics : Two Young Moravian Story - Source?

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tacklebox
Member



Joined: 2005/10/8
Posts: 196
Roanoke Rapids, NC

 Two Young Moravian Story - Source?

In TEN SHEKELS AND A SHIRT, Paris Reidhead ends with a story of two young Moravaian missionaries who sold themselves into slavery. I can find vague references to this story, but not a specific reference. Does anyone know where Reidhead got this story from?


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Christopher Wright

 2005/12/29 9:33Profile
habakkuk3
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Joined: 2005/10/18
Posts: 490
Virginia

 Re: Two Young Moravian Story - Source?

I did some digging around the Internet and found this written by David Smithers. It was posted on a number of different websites. Pastor Reidhead's wife maintains a website as well and you can email them from there. You'll need to paste this into your browser: http://www.bibleteachingministries.org/. Sister Marjorie is a delightful woman and must be somewhere around 90 years of age and they are extremely friendly and responsive.

The Moravians had learned that the secret of loving the souls of men was found in loving the Savior of men. On October 8,1732, a Dutch ship left the Copenhagen harbor bound for the Danish West Indies. On board were the two first Moravian missionaries; John Leonard Dober, a potter, and David Nitschman, a carpenter. Both were skilled speakers and ready to sell themselves into slavery to reach the slaves of the West Indies. As the ship slipped away, they lifted up a cry that would one day become the rallying call for all Moravian missionaries, "May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering." The Moravian's passion for souls was surpassed only by their passion for the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.


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Ed Pugh

 2005/12/29 12:51Profile
tacklebox
Member



Joined: 2005/10/8
Posts: 196
Roanoke Rapids, NC

 Re:

Is it possible Mr. Reidhead got some of the facts a little off in his version, then?


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Christopher Wright

 2005/12/30 17:39Profile
habakkuk3
Member



Joined: 2005/10/18
Posts: 490
Virginia

 Re:

Sure it's possible. Here's the story Brother Paris recounted and it's on their website... Here's his explanation of the sermon.

In over fifty years of Bible teaching and preaching "Ten Shekels and a Shirt" is the only message that I feel constrained to explain how it came to be preached.

During a Bethany Fellowship Summer Conference in the mid sixties I was preparing to speak at the Tuesday morning Bible hour. Upon returning to my room after breakfast to meditate and pray about the message for that morning hour, I felt strangely impressed that I could not deliver the message that had been prepared for the session. Instead, I felt that there was some other message that was needed which I was to bring.

After prayer, the message that came to mind was one which I had begun preparation for the ministry at the church in New York City of which I was pastor at that time. My notes were not with me, but were in a file folder in my study. An empty envelope was on the desk in my room, on the back of which I wrote the scripture texts to be used and one or two ideas that came to mind. With the envelope in my Bible marking Judges, Chapter 17, and my self utterly cast upon the Lord, I went to the auditorium where between four and five hundred people waited to hear from the Lord through me.

I remember praying, "This morning I am utterly cast upon You because I am not really prepared." In my heart I seemed to hear His response, "Well is that so bad, already" (being from New York City it was given in a idiom I would understand.)

I delivered the message and gave an invitation. Shortly the altar across the front of the auditorium was filled with broken people seeking God.

The summer conference was soon over and I returned to New York City and the ministry there.

About ten years later, one of the Bethany Fellowship staff was in Washington, D.C., where we had moved and from where we still minister. His word was, "Paris, I want to tell you that God has repeatedly used your messages, but the exact message itself was preached only that once.

A week or two later Harry Conn from Rockford, Illinois was in Washington. He invited me to have dinner with him. In the course of the meal he said, "I buy that message of yours 'Ten Shekels and a Shirt' by the dozen to give people. God is really using it in lives." My response was that if you have a copy, I would like to have it sent to me so that I can find out what it is I have said. In a few days the cassette arrived.

Since I don't have a tape player in my office, I put the tape into the Sony dictating machine on my desk and listened through the little playback on the hand-held microphone. The element of distance in terms of time, and the distorted sound through the miniature speaker, let me listen to the message with no real awareness of who was speaking. From time to time I felt like exclaiming, "That's right! I wish I had said that!"

Then it dawned on me that it was my voice, but God was speaking through me. I realized that on a Tuesday morning during a summer conference, God had been able to get His message across because of my utter and complete helplessness. Here it is, just as the Lord gave it.

Paris Reidhead


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Ed Pugh

 2005/12/30 17:54Profile





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