The fifth book in 'the swans are not silent' series by John Piper, covers in very brief detail the biographies of William Tyndale, Adoniran Judson, and John Paton.
"The swans will not be silent" refers to the inspiring lives of faithful Christians in history and their lives are not silent in the sense that their lives still speak powerfully for our encouragement and guidance.
This book takes a quick look into the sufferings of these three men who lived Jesus' words from John 12, "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it will bear little fruit. And unless a man despises his life in this world, he will lose it for eternity." This book really is a sobering and encouraging read as it gives details of what each man suffered for the gospel.
William Tyndale was burned at the stake in 1536 at the age of 42. He wanted to put the word of God into the common man's hands. He is largely responsible for what we now know as the King James Version of the Bible. It was principally for his belief that we are justified by faith alone that he was martyred.
John Paton was a missionary to the New Hebrides, a group of eighty islands in the South Pacific (now called Vanuatu) arriving on the island of Tanna, November 5, 1858 with his pregnant wife. In March of 1859 both his wife and newborn son died of fever. John spent the next three years alone on the island working amongst the cannibals until he was driven off the island in February, 1862. John returned to the island of Aniwa in November, 1866 with a new wife.
Today, over 100 years after his death in 1907, at the age of 82, over 91% of the population of Vanuatu identifies itself as Christian, about 14% as evangelical.
Adoniran Judson arrived in Burma, July 13, 1813 with his wife after a short stay in India. There, taking the gospel to the Burmese, Adoniran would lose two wives and seven of his thirteen children. He died at the age of 62 after translating the Burmese Bible and writing a Burmese dictionary.
John Piper describes the character traits of each of these men and how each "died to self". At the end of the book, he asks two questions. Questions that Christians of today don't like to dwell on. We have become a very adverse to suffering for the sake of the Word, but all three books that I've read lately have emphasised what Jesus taught, that if we are true followers of Christ, we will experience trials.
The two questions are: How important is martyrdom today? And How important is suffering for the sake of taking the gospel to the nations?
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