The Greatest Missionary Biography

Written by Paul Schlehlein

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I believe Robert Dann’s Father of Faith Missions is the greatest missionary biography in print.

When it comes to missionary bios, the devotional warmth is superior in Hudson Taylor, the heights of adventure more spectacular in John Paton, the range of emotions broader in The Three Mrs. Judsons, and the team dynamic more pronounced in William Carey. The queue is long for great missionary biographies.

But when I add up all the factors that make a missionary biography great, the story of Groves stands alone on top.

You most likely have never heard of Anthony Norris Groves. Don’t let that deter you. In the early 19th century, Groves left his dental practice in England and travelled with his family 5,000 miles over mountains and deserts, a trip where horses and humans died, to set up shop in the heart of Islam–Baghdad, Iraq. He established the first Protestant mission to Arabic-speaking Muslims.

What are the ingredients of a great missionary biography and why should Christians today read about the life of this great man?

Just as the tilting of a diamond brings swarms of refracted light, reading Groves’s biography gives the reader a kaleidoscope of major themes in missions. Here are ten of them.

1. Missions and Family

The lessons this book teaches about home life, marriage and children are legion.

Groves was patient with his wife, Mary, who originally resisted tooth-and-nail a move to missions on the other side of the world. Only death awaited her. She knew it and she was right. He didn’t force her. He wooed and persuaded her until she wanted to go for Jesus’ sake.

After Mary died, Groves endured years of sorrow and depression. Upon remarriage, he allowed his second wife to teach daily because that’s where she was gifted, though she left the organizing of the home to their lifelong nanny, a decision which would bear sour fruit in the future.

It warmed my heart to see one generation following the next on the mission field. George Beer was a giant in missions, living in poverty with his wife Elizabeth amidst paltry spiritual fruit. After he died of heatstroke at age 41, his children stayed and continued the work, starting schools and leading many to Christ.

The missionaries were not perfect. They were real people with real problems, like teammates clashing with wives and children dying of sickness. Groves’s youngest son Edward felt neglected, saying: “I was always in the way at home, and saw that my presence was an interference with the exalted ideal of missionary life.”

While the older sons of Groves were fully committed to missions, Edward was eventually placed in an insane asylum. At one point in boyhood he hadn’t seen his mother for 12 years.

In trying to discover why one son went wayward and the others didn’t, Dann gives great advice to parents:

“As we look back on the lives of the brothers, we might wonder how it was that Henry and Frank, who suffered all the physical horrors of Bagdad, grew up so sane, balanced and, we might almost say, conventional–whilst Edward, who had a common place, private-school upbringing (like any other Victorian boy with parents overseas), should turn out so strangely. The reason may lie in the fact that Henry and Frank faced the horrors of Bagdad with their father and mother, secure in their parents’ love and affection, whist Edward, feeling uncared for and abandoned, suffered the horrors of Tusculum on his own. Experience shows that a child needs the love of his parents (or substitute parents) more than anything else. Assured of it, he can face almost any adversity; deprive of it, he may be left with scars that never heal.” (p. 347)

2. Missions and Money

Groves blazed new trails in helping the church and missionaries think carefully about money. He said: “Labour hard, consume little, give much, and all to Christ” (204). Groves walked away from his dentistry business in England. His wife abandoned her $1.5 million inheritance.

They stood strong against debt and paying pastors a salary. In page after page Groves unpacks why it is unwise to pay nationals with foreign money.

They lived simply and gave most of their money away. The Beers and Bowdens lived on bread and basic porridge for ten years. When asked why it was worth going without, he gave three reasons: (1) It saved money that could be given to others, (2) It is a good example to those who doubt the missionary’s sincerity, and (3) It’s a sacrifice for Christ who gave all.

3. Missions and Writing

This book shows why missionaries should write, even if writing isn’t their gift. It wasn’t Groves’s gift. But Dann suggests it was his greatest accomplishment. “In some ways the printing of this little tract, barely a year after he came to full assurance of salvation, was the most significant thing he ever did.” (530)

Soon after his conversion, Groves wrote a 28-page stewardship booklet called Christian Devotedness. He urged the church to forsake all for Christ. He suggested a radical alternative to occasional generosity, which was economical living, trusting in God to supply and giving lavishly to gospel work.

It became one of the great Christian works from the 19th century, inspiring thousands, including Robert Nesbit, Hudson Taylor, Alexander Duff and his brother-in-law George Müller. The latter claimed he experienced a second conversion after reading it. He was influential in starting and then writing for Echoes of Service, a missions magazine which ran for over 100 years.

Dann writes:

“There are things a book can do that a missionary cannot. A book can find its way into the inner chambers of a mosque or palace or harem. It is available at any moment of leisure and can speak without a foreign accent. It can present facts without personal antagonism and develop a theme without interruption. It suffers no sickness or fatigue, and enjoys a lifespan much longer than its author’s three-score years and ten.” (320)

4. Missions and Suffering

Groves only daughter died just before leaving for Baghdad with his family. Many saw taking two boys to Persia as irresponsible. Baghdad is one of the hottest places on earth, the missionaries reporting temperatures of 158 degrees in the sun. In their first years the city faced unthinkable hardships, including cholera, flooding, the plague, typhus fever, rheumatic fever and war. In one particular month, 30,000 died.

A year after arriving in Persia, his wife and infant died. She had no funeral rites and no special place for burial. Groves said, “In this world’s history, great things are not accomplished but by great sacrifices.” (124)

He changed his view of suffering, particularly his interpretation of Psalm 91, which seems to promise physical protect to all of God’s children. Groves found that a life without suffering actually hurt their testimony among the people. Groves learned by experience. Christians will suffer. He said: “A man with great visions will suffer many disappointments.” (432).

5. Missions and Language

Unlike many missionaries today, Groves learned the local language, even though he had no great linguistic ability and linguistic aids were almost non-existent. He said: “I talk nothing but Arabic from morning to night” (207). He believed that a missionary should at all costs learn the language spoken by the people.”

Dann says:

“The greatest practical obstacle to the missionary task of the Church was the multiplicity of languages in the world and the difficulty of communication with ‘every nation, tribe, language and people.'” (281)

6. Missions and Friendships

Groves was not as dogged as Kitto, not as charming as Parnell, not as scholarly as Craik, evangelistic like Arulappan or intellectual as Newman. What he could do is love. He would bear with the lapses and shortcomings of first generation believers. Like the Apostle Paul surrounded by so many proper nouns, Groves had many friends.

Groves was baptistic but not a Baptist and would minister happily with those from other theological persuasions. “Groves brought unity through ignoring denominational identities, Hudson Taylor through respecting them” (519).

As did Carey and the Serampore Trio, Groves shows how partnerships are crucial to missions. His first, handpicked teammate was John Kitto, a 4’8″, awkward, clownish, deaf young man with asthma. Later, Parnell, Craik, and Cronin joined the team, though hardships later disbanded them. The Beers and Bowdens followed after that. The lives of his friends Karl Rhenius (ch. 16), Karl Pfander (ch. 25) and John Arulappan (ch.31) are breath-taking.

7. Missions and Evangelism

Groves wasn’t stepping over church denominations in his mission work. In Baghdad there were 70,000 Muslims and 2,000 “Christians”–as in non-Jews and Muslims. The missionaries were evangelists at heart and would use any biblical means they could to share Christ, such as planting churches, starting schools and printing literature. John Arulappan was a master evangelist.

Inspiring is the story of William Bowden falling on his knees, about to quit because the people were so hardened. He and his wife decided to give it one more week before leaving and then the first converts came.

One man was converted 48 years after the first meeting. While in Baghdad Groves devoted every Friday to fasting and prayer for the Holy Spirit to bring revival.

Chapter 25 and the story of Karl Pfander is an apologetics goldmine. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book. Pfander was a German apologist and linguistic genius that was called to missions at age 16 and gave his life to debating Muslims in their own language. His book Mizan ul-Haqq is still read by Christian/Muslim apologists today.

8. Missions and Business

The original goal was for Groves to start a dental practice to support the team. This didn’t work out like planned. Some teammates didn’t think hospitals and schools were following the pattern of Acts. Groves was also a lousy businessman.

In time, he didn’t think tent-making was wise. At times in the book it seems they thought the missionary should give all of his time to preaching. But other times Groves says the ideal was self-support. The Moravians and other missionaries at this time often supported themselves. Groves said the ideal is part time job to support oneself, then give the rest of his time to mission.

He also said prospective missionaries shouldn’t study the Bible in college but should learn a skill like medicine, watchmaking or blacksmithing.

9. Missions and Inspiration

Groves makes us re-examine ourselves: “Am I giving my all for Christ?” His life of hardship awakens us from lethargy. His decision to leave England inspires us, as few educated men at that time were willing to enter missions.

One reason Father of Faith Missions is so inspiring is because the author and central characters walk the walk.

Theoretically, an accountant could write a good book on dentistry, but the chances are slim. He wouldn’t have much clout. Why is it that so many missions conferences and missions books are platformed and authored by non-missionaries? It doesn’t mean a pastor at home has nothing good to say about missions, it’s just that he lacks ethos.

Robert Dann had over two decades of experience with churches in the developing world. Norris Groves left his home to do Great Commission work in a different culture, suffered among them, learned their language and then handed off the reins. He wasn’t an arm-chair missionary.

10. Missions and Philosophy

This may be the most important mark of all. The book not only promotes the what of missions but the how. He explains how Great Commission work should be done.

Groves was convinced that the natives should not be crippled by foreign money, authority or help. One of his disciples, John Arulappan, “[found] that Indians responded best to the gospel when they heard it from Indians—when there was no foreigner present at all.” (246)

Groves was one of the early pioneers of the Brethren Movement. Groves was Calvinistic in his view of salvation, embraced believer’s baptism and longed for the imminent return of Christ. The Brethren Church has virtually no statement of faith and embraces weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper, a very simple polity and dispensationalism. Groves was like Hudson Taylor in that neither were ordained by the Church of England, a part of a denomination or promised their missionaries salaries.

Groves strongly embraced the local church as the sender, not the Missionary Society and would heap up reasons why missionaries should be sent out by their local congregation.

Conclusion

Twice I’ve read Dann’s 600-page work on the life of Norris Groves. It does not surpass the greatest missionary biographies in certain areas, but overall, it is my opinion that Father of Faith Missions should be a standard text in churches and schools that promote missions because it is the best missionary biography I’ve ever read.

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