Ep. 042 - The Radical Faith of C.T. Studd: Sacrificing Everything for the Gospel

Episode Transcript

Austin
Spencer. When we read scripture and we encounter stories like the rich young ruler and the reality that Jesus calls some people to give everything. It's a really challenging call to come up against. Now we have to realize that Jesus didn't call everyone to give everything but some. He did. So today we want to look at this call and specifically how C.T. Studd, a missionary to Africa, China and India lived out that call in his life.

Spencer
Welcome to the Second Half Stewardship Podcast. We believe that God owns it all, and our response as Christians is to live generous lives. I'm Spencer Hall, a certified financial planner.

Austin
And I am Austin Mclaughlin. As former full time missionaries in the United States and overseas, Spencer and I approach managing our personal finances through the lens of biblical stewardship.

Spencer
Journey with us as we explore how to be generous stewards of our money, time, relationships, gifts, and experiences. In a recent podcast, we've interviewed a number of different people trying to unpack what the role of a steward is in the Christian life and how we do that well. And so if you haven't had a chance to listen to those interviews with Michael Blue and Father Aaron.

Spencer
Wright and IJM, and Brian Humphreys, take a minute to do that. We think that we can learn so much from brothers and sisters in particular areas, and we can learn as well from history. Hebrews 12 tell Hebrews 12 tells us that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and that we ought to lay aside every hindrance and to pursue Christ.

Spencer
And one of the great things about studying guy like C.T. Studd is he comes from a whole different culture, a whole different trajectory. And he has another level of grit and perspective that we can really learn from. And so we're excited about being able to profile him today and some of the things that we glean from him as we read his biography with a group of other financial advisors here over the last year or so.

Spencer
Yeah.

Austin
Well, I think the reality is, when we went through that program, that was one of the books that I think struck both of us. coming from former missionary backgrounds ourselves being like, oh, this is really challenging. Oh, this is really hard. I remember situations where I encountered people like this, and I think we come back to C.T. I think more than I anticipated after I first read the book.

Austin
Yeah. To be honest, reading his biography was really challenging for me at times because of just the zeal that he had, I think challenged me to say, do I have that same kind of heart for evangelism, heart for the lost that would lay down everything to go and follow Jesus wherever he calls? And I think that's that is challenging.

Austin
It's it's tough. We need to wrestle with those things. And on the flip side, we need to think about passages like Romans 12 and first Corinthians 12 and the reality that I am a part of a greater body. not all of us can be eyes. Not all of us can be hands or feet. We need a comprehensive body.

Austin
And C.T. was a gifted evangelist and someone that had a tremendous amount of faith to go. And I think we we also come back to the reality that not everybody is going to be a missionary to a foreign country, but it doesn't preclude any of us as believers from being missional in the lifestyle that we live. It doesn't preclude us from sharing our faith with our friends and our neighbors, whether that's through hospitality or sitting down and reading the Bible with them.

Austin
We all have to be pressed into what does it look like to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, to love our neighbor as ourselves and to call people to repentance? and so when we look at the life of C.T. Studd, there going to be things that we we say that makes me uncomfortable whether how he did it.

Austin
but again, he lived in a much different time than we did. But the faithfulness that he had to Jesus, the faithfulness that he had to, spending time in prayer, listening for the Lord, and then doing what the Lord called him to do, is really something pretty remarkable. So again, we come back and say, not all people are called to give everything in terms of all of their resources, like Jesus called the rich young ruler.

Austin
Or like, we'll see Jesus called C.T. to give everything. We're not all in that same position. But when Jesus does call us to do it. we need to do it right, which is challenging, right?

Spencer
So let's talk about his early life. You know, he's a name that some people have probably heard of. Many people have not. He was one that I really had not spent much time with. I knew his name vaguely. So I'm expecting that a lot of our listeners will have never heard of C.T. Studd. So let's lay the foundation.

Spencer
Who was he? Where did he come from? Who were his people? These kinds of things?

Austin
Yeah. So C.T. was born in 1860, in southern England. his father came to Jesus to know the Lord through preaching from D.L. Moody. So Moody was kind of going on around the time, and preaching in these big open air environments. And C.T.’s father went and saw him preach, and then he came to faith and then kind of led his family into an upbringing where they were around Christianity.

Austin
He went to some of the most prestigious schools in England. So his father came from wealth. He had spent time in India as a businessman for a long time, and then had come back and had substantial wealth. And so he went to schools like Eton College and Cambridge. And while he was there, he became immensely successful as a cricket player.

Austin
Now, I'll be honest, I don't know a whole lot about cricket. I've watched it a few times and I kind of enjoy it, but I have no idea what's going on. So I can't explain how good he was because I don't understand how good he was. But he was really good. And so he.


Spencer
He was one of the best in the world at the time.

Austin
He was. Yeah. And his as his acclaim grew, his disinterest in cricket also grew. he was quoted saying, I knew that cricket would not last in honor, would not last, and nothing in this world would last. But it was worthwhile living for the world to come. And so you can see in this time he becomes more intimately aware of Christ's death and resurrection.

Austin
And it's it's potency, it's impact on his own life. And so, as he is coming into this deeper relationship with the Lord, he's also wrestling with, well, what's my place as a professional cricket player or a well acclaimed cricket player? He knows that this success is not what he wants to be chasing after, but he has it and he also has wealth.

Austin
And so he's kind of struck along both these lines of like, I can continue to become immensely successful in this area and pursue this and probably live well. Most people would say that a normal, successful life. but he takes a different path, right? And he starts realizing God may be calling him to something greater.

Spencer
Well, and it's interesting in particular, because with that success, he starts to he starts to see that this is not satisfying in that same way. he had heard the gospel prior to all of this cricket success. He pursued cricket in a tremendous way. You look at like the workouts that he did and the regiment that he took.

Spencer
And in the midst of his studies, he was a passionate person. Whatever he put his hand to. And that's one of the things that we'll see later as well. But you can start to see his his philosophy and his approach begin to shift as he knows that his influence is going to wane there, and he's never going to be fully satisfied with it.

Austin
Yeah. So really what we see next is he goes off into continuing to work Cambridge after he graduates, and then his brother comes and they start to really dive into the word together. They gather these prayer groups and they are listening to the Lord. They're praying. They're meditating on Scripture with a small group of people and as they're there, this small group starts to extend and the Lord starts moving through them.

Austin
And the reality is we are, in these modern times, kind of just prone to saying, okay, God is going to move through a certain subset of people, but really he moves through community. And so it was within this group of believers that were gathering together, praying together, and God started moving through them as a group. And we really need to know, as God is moving in and through us, where is he calling us to go?

Austin
Because it's never meant to be insular. And I think that's one thing that C.T. recognized with his friends and his brothers was that his faith needed to move him outward. It couldn't just be an inward faith that needed to be an outward faith. And so he prays and he says, I realized that my life was to be one of simple, childlike faith, and that my part was to trust and not to do.
Austin
And even though we see him doing a lot, the reality is it came first to you. I need to trust the Lord. Where is God leading me? Where is God guiding me? And then he follows in response, through prayer, through fasting, through time, in the word, through time with brothers and sisters. He meets with the Lord. And then he wants to come back to this childlike faith of when God says something, he he means it, and he is going to follow that out in his life.

Austin
And so in 1885, Studd, as well as six of his other Cambridge students, formed a group known as the Cambridge Seven, and these men were devoted to the Lord. And they said, okay, we want to go to a place where Christ is not proclaimed. And so they went into mainland China to serve with the the China Inland Mission that was founded by Hudson Taylor.

Austin
And so they went, Taylor, if you don't know of him, he's another one of these renowned missionary figures that really move the gospel into mainland China. And so the Cambridge Seven, they decided, okay, we're going to go and join up with Taylor. And they moved into China. And really, I think what's beautiful about this is they did their best at that time to become as most like the native Chinese as they could.

Austin
They didn't come in and say, we're we're British, do things the way that we do. They said, we want to understand your culture so that you can have an influence within your culture. So they did the best that they could to really become like the people. Their the lifestyle that they exhibited was a lifestyle similar to the way that the, the natives would be living.

Austin
And I think when we think about missions, it oftentimes it was always hard for me when I was on the field to remove my cultural lens or remove my cultural milieu when I'm sharing with students from the Middle East or North Africa or Latin America, people that come from vibrant faiths in Nigeria, like when I was working cross-culturally, I had to struggle to not say, well, the Western way is the right way.

Austin
There are so many aspects of living out a Gospel centered faith that I can't comprehend, because I didn't live in a place like the Middle East where my faith was being persecuted. And so I have to learn from these other believers. And I think that's one of the beautiful things that they did, was they went to go preach the gospel, but also in a culturally relevant way, which I think was really different in the 1860s.

Austin
when you think about it. and so one of the other staggering things that happens is in 1885, they, they arrive in China. But before he leaves, Studd receives an inheritance of roughly 30,000 great British pounds. Now, that doesn't sound like a lot, but when you adjusted for inflation and you put on the exchange rate from pounds to dollars, that's roughly a $4.5 million inheritance today.

Austin
and struck by Christ call on started to go to India. He wanted to be faithful with this inheritance that he was receiving. He didn't just want to say, well, okay, that's great. Now I don't have to do anything. I'll just live on this. And I can be a missionary. He wanted to fully trust in Jesus, so rather than saving any of it, he gave it all away.

Austin
He was struck by the call in Luke 12:33 that Jesus called not to let for yourselves treasures on earth in Matthew six and the early church in acts and seating gave well, at this time he gave most of it away. He decided he was going to save a little bit back and hold it off for what he thought was maybe, an engagement or marriage in the future.

Austin
So he kept a little bit on the sidelines. And then Priscilla, his wife, when they were about to get married, she said, no, C.T. When Jesus says, give it all, you give it all. And so then he gave the rest of his possessions. He was faithful to the Lord and and trusting him in the midst of not knowing when he was going to need funds, they said, the Lord will provide.

Austin
And if Christ has called me to this, then he he followed in those footsteps. And so I think, again, we come back to this and say, Jesus doesn't call everybody to it. But when he does, he's going to meet us there and we'll see time and time and time again, that zeal that you talked about, like he had with cricket, he had in the mission field when he listened to the Lord and the Lord said something it wasn't much of a conversation back and forth.

Austin
It was, okay, I'll do it, Lord. And then he went. And so he did. Again, it takes this an immense amount of faith to follow Jesus in this way.

Spencer
Well and zeal. I think sometimes we can just say, oh, it's just his personality. Well, there has to be a tremendous amount of humility. I mean, how many players do we see that are at the top of an athletic achievement or some kind of, you know, leadership position globally who they've worked really hard to get there, but it's really all about them.

Spencer
It's about that ego of saying, okay, I got here, I worked really hard. I'm enjoying the fruits. Even for folks that are very good team players, they're not folks. Typically, they're even going to lay everything down. They're not folks that that typically get to that point and then just say, okay, the Lord be praised. All of this goes to him, and I'll wake up the next morning with nothing other than complete dependance on him.

Spencer
so that that is a remarkable facet of what the Lord did in his life. I think that we best pause and and just say, wow, the Lord did some amazing things.

Austin
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. and I think the reality, you know, even as you were talking about that, I was starting to think, okay, but there are some athletes that do a really good job of continuing that humility process. But oftentimes the longer they're in their career and the further the more success they gather. the further away from that humility they get.

Austin
And I think it's just because it's the waters that they swim in. The reality is, the longer that you're inundated and surrounded by people that live and breathe and talk in a certain way, you're going to live and breathe and talk and that way. And so I think C.T. in a lot of ways, knew that if he continued in that cricketing career, then maybe that's the direction that his life would have had.

Austin
We don't know that. But I think it's really easy to see, okay, when he's around his Christian brothers and sisters. This is what is happening versus the success that you have in a sporting endeavor. And so I think it's challenging for all of us to say, okay, who are we surrounding ourselves with? Is it people that are actually pressing me into love the Lord with all my heart, soul and mind and strength?

Austin
Or is it people that are pressing me into to get as much as you can? Work as hard as you can, so then you can show how successful you are. Great. aside from from the needing, the Lord. And so I think that that is just a beautiful picture of his life. So C.T. and his family spent about ten years in India.

Austin
They have four daughters and or, sorry, ten years in China and then had four daughters. And then they decided to move back to England. and the Lord was again calling him back to the ends of the earth. So they left, they came back to England, and I think one of the really incredible pieces here that when we were reading his biography that struck me was when they moved back to England.

Austin
Their daughters didn't know English, and so they had to teach their daughters English so they could be involved in just British life. Right. and then for a while there, they spent some time in England, and then God called them back out onto the mission field. And so then they moved to India. And his father had been a businessman, like we were talking about earlier.

Austin
And one of his dying wishes, that was that the gospel would go to India. And so C.T. took his family. And fulfilled one of those desires of his father to go take the gospel to India. So they lived there for several years, planting churches in southern India. but then God called them back to England once again.

Austin
And then really, it's that that final season of his life is when he goes to Africa. And this is, that last little portion of his missionary career. And, he had both in India and in China, he had experienced a litany of health crises. they didn't know if he was going to survive in China. India had been really harsh on him.

Austin
And so at that time, the physicians were not advising him, and everyone around him was saying, you cannot go to the heart of Africa. It's going to be too hard for you. You'll die there. And and his wife was saying, really, I don't I don't know if this is a great idea. And I think this is where some of those challenges that I get are like, okay, you've got everybody around you.

Austin
I'm telling you, you have been faithful to the Lord for decades now. You have lived a missionary life. You've seen people come to faith. Let's go ahead and hang up the spikes and it's time to let's have a normal life per se, right? But again, we come back to C.T. doesn't listen to those outside influences. He came back to the Lord and said, what is the Lord saying?

Austin
He sends the Lord saying, I am the Great Physician. is this not too great for me? Is are these health concerns not too great? And so for the next couple of years, C.T. would travel back and forth to Africa. But he his heart was to go into the heart of Africa and to stay there as a missionary.

Austin
And so he took one journey that was about two years long, came back and then he said, okay, I want to go as far into Africa, into the depths of the continent as he could. And so in 1916, that would leave England and spend the rest of his life doing evangelism in discipleship in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Austin
so really you think about the heart of Africa. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is really in the central part of Africa. So he travels from England, goes down through, some of the eastern African countries and then lands in the DRC. And then he spends the rest of his life doing missions there. He brings his family over his daughter, decides to come with him and join them on that missionary journey in 1916.

Austin
And you can see amidst those challenges that I, in my current lens as a former missionary, see, and I'm like, oh, this kind of is hard for me to wrestle with. you continue to see the Lord's faithfulness, the Lord's faithfulness to his family, to bring his daughter along, even in the midst of maybe circumstances where maybe his wife was saying, I don't think this is a good idea.

Austin
His daughter still says, I see that the Lord is is moving in this way. Let's go follow him to the heart of Africa and he spends the rest of his life there. He dies in Africa, but he's surrounded by brothers and sisters that have come to faith in Jesus, that have their tribes there have been transformed, and he has established a missions organization that continues to this day.

Austin
And the reality is, yes, there are some of these challenging themes of, okay, you left everything. You left your family for years at a time. But God also moved. You held people to a really high standard of a mission field that you would pray significantly, that you would go and go and go, but God moved. And so where where is this border line between immense faith, incredible seeing God move, but also pushing really hard.

Austin
And I think that's that's one of the challenges that I find with his life, is it's a beautiful life of a missionary. But me and he pushed hard throughout his entirety of his life.

Spencer
Well, and you see that one of the things that I think is somewhat redemptive is just even when he had, quote, people close to him, his wife, his family, who sometimes did not think that the move should be made, for instance, to Africa, I think by the time he ultimately decided to go, his wife was on board just now.

Spencer
It wasn't, you know, her first choice when they started the conversation. But as he continued to pray and invited her to pray and continue to move, he didn't move there independent of her will. same kind of thing with his daughter, you know, she was then drawn, there, and, and even a great example for us as married people as we look about our finances and making decisions.

Spencer
He didn't make the decision to give away the remainder of his of his inheritance outside of his wife. It was his wife that said, no, I think this is what we need to do. And so then he prayed with her and he felt called in that same direction. But even though they were apart for years at a time, you still get the sense that, she was supportive of him.

Spencer
She was doing a tremendous amount of the work at home to maintain the correspondence, the financial elements, to build the organization, all those kinds of things, so that she was really stepping into her calling as well. It's just that both of them had to get there, and they they got there at different points kind of along the way.

Spencer
And then she also there's a sweet part in there that she got to go and visit him. soon before he, you know, passed away. to be able to actually see the work for the first time. So the Lord was gracious in allowing all of those different things. And there are, you know, they're different culturally and such.

Spencer
But so much of the wisdom that they had, you could have as principles that we could really bring into our day of just saying, hey, we've got to be on the same page before we ultimately make this move. we've got to, be people of prayer and people in the word. And relying on the Lord's guidance more than anything else.

Spencer
Yeah.

Austin
Well, I think, again, as we think about this, how do we now embrace a similar posture towards faith? This dad and his family did. It's coming back and saying, okay, God, where are you calling and where what is my place in that calling that you're putting on my life? Am I listening to you? Am I listening to you in relationship with my spouse?

Austin
Am I listening to you in relationship with other believers? who am I being submissive to? Am I listening to authority figures? But again, it's coming back to you. Where is the Lord guiding? Where is the Lord leading? And am I doing this in such a way that I'm building up a community of faith around me?

Austin
Or am I going Isolated. And I think that's what we see with C.T. is there's always a community around him. speaking in challenging, asking hard questions, driving him back to what is the heart of the Lord? What is the heart of mission? What is the heart of these things? And in the midst of all of that, God continued to provide for them.

Austin
There were definitely seasons where it was challenging, where resources weren't coming in, and where things were happening in a very different way than maybe they would have anticipated. but God always showed up. and I think when we look at stories like Studd or the Rich Young Ruler or others that will profile over the next couple of weeks, the reality is, God always provides as as we trust in him now, it's not always how I want him to.

Austin
Right? And I think about over the course of ten years in ministry, God provided in ways that I was like, oh, that's weird and different. But it was incredible. Like, we always came back and said we had what we needed. And I think when we are looking inwardly to ourselves and saying, I need to provide, I need to be the provider for my family, then it it moves the conversation away from the Lord and puts it back on me in a lot of ways in an unhealthy position.

Spencer
Well, because you say, well, I don't know how I'm going to provide, I don't, I don't see the next step. But if we know that the Lord has called us in a certain way, then we want to have that faith, to be humble, to have our eyes open to to be open to things that are unexpected. and I think that's where, you know, a couple of quotes from Studd.

Spencer
You know, he said, If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him. So there's this sense of of complete submission. It is Galatians 2:20, I'm crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in, the body I live by faith in the Son of God.

Spencer
you know, a a a real surrender in that sort. And one of those poems that he, he wrote, you know, has resonated kind of with missionaries and other believers, over the last 100 years. Only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. And he just kept coming back to that. there's no sacrifice that's too great.

Spencer
If the Lord calls me to die, then I go to him. If he calls me to lives, then I have fruitful ministry. It's very similar to the words of the Apostle Paul, you know, in in grappling with what the Lord would have him do and what he longed for to be with God. But at the same time he's open to continuing to live.

Spencer
But it's that amazing faith. One other thing that we note here is there's a beautiful interconnectedness to, the gentleman that we'll profile next time we get together on second half stewardship, which will be in George Mueller, Mueller, Studd and then Hudson Taylor. Each one of them helped each other at different points. You look at Studd. He helped both Taylor and with Mueller giving away his inheritance as a part of that.

Spencer
But then each of them played roles in supporting him later on. And so there's a sense of having an open handed ness to the, resources that God has given that, okay, I don't need them right now. I'm going to deploy them to people that are doing good things that can work, and then maybe I'll need them later on and they can support me.

Spencer
It's so different than the way so often we approach things now, which is okay, we need to have enough money and not even just that. But let's build an endowment and all kinds of other different things that, sometimes can be helpful to help us to, go through periods where it may be a little bit more dry, but sometimes they become that thing that, at least in our observation, that people depend on as the provider rather than looking to God, you know, as the provider.

Spencer
So there's a slippery slope there that we I think we have to be careful with as we look at organizations and how we form them and how we lead them.

Austin
Absolutely. Well, we hope this conversation about C.T. Studd and his life was challenging. It has been for us, and I think that's why we come back to his story more than I anticipated. Again, like I said, because it is a beautiful call to when Christ says something, are we going to follow them? So clients, we hope you enjoyed this.

Austin
If you have questions about C.T. Studd or even just about generosity, and what does it look like to follow Christ through challenging circumstances? We love to have a conversation with you and we'll see you again next time. If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so that you don't miss the next episode.

Discolsure
This content was provided by Second Half Stewardship. We are in Knoxville, Tennessee and you can visit our website at www.SecondHalfStewardship.com. The information in this recording is intended for general, educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as investment advisory, financial planning, legal, tax, or other professional advice based on your specific situation. Please consult your professional advisor before taking any action based on its contents.