More of Them, Please
by Stephan Joubert
The young physicist at the Politechnikum at Zurich should have been devastated when his dissertation was turned down. Most students usually give up when their Professors decide their research is not good enough. But this man refused to do so. His name? Albert Einstein. Failure was not an option for him. Never! “Long live insolence,” he cried out. After that rejection, in the Swiss city of Bern, the 26 year-old Einstein spent many hours writing three important papers that caused the biggest shifts in modern science.
The reason for Einstein’s success? Well, he didn’t have a big ego that craved for recognition from his peers. Harvard professor Howard Gardner later said that Einstein became one of the greatest scientists of our age because of his openness, honesty and naïveté. He remained an “eternal child.”
We urgently need spiritual Einsteins who refuse to go with the religious flow. Far too many believers live mediocre lives. Far too many spiritual leaders occupy comfortable positions in highly predictable church environments. Far too many theologies, church programs and sermons facilitate feel-good religious experiences in irrelevant ivory towers. No wonder Christianity has such a low impact in “the real world.”
Modern-day spiritual Einsteins are individuals who don’t settle for the same old answers in the same old safe spiritual environments. They risk their own popularity and careers to explore God’s new routes of hope outside the safety of religious environments. They make impact where it really counts – among the poor, the downtrodden, the sick, and the lonely. They walk boldly where no man has walked before. They care, love, pray, and share, like Robert J. Thomas did.
Thomas was the first missionary in Korea that we know of. He did not run a massive missions program. In fact, he died even before he could start it. In 1866 he boarded an American ship named General Sherman, that was traveling up the Taedong River in present-day North Korea, where he wanted to go work for the Lord. The ship landed on a sandbank and they were attacked by Korean soldiers. Before Robert Thomas was killed, he held out his Bible to his attackers and called out: “Jesus, Jesus.” That was it. About 25 years later someone visited a guesthouse in the area with a strange wallpaper against the walls. The owner explained that he liked the Korean writing that he found in a thick book he found somewhere. Then he pasted it on the wall as was the custom of that time. All this time it was the pages from Robert Thomas’ Bible that have been the text for so many guests throughout the years! Who knows how many people found God’s grace while reading those pages pasted as wallpaper within the guesthouse. Some researchers estimate that roughly 40% of South Korea’s inhabitants today are Christians and that Thomas’ Bible was a first giant step in the right direction. Thomas shows us the way to go!
Come, let us follow him.