Name this most-admired Christian lady:

The other week I came across a women’s Bible study posted online from a weekend conference in October put on by a right division church. In it, a young woman referred to the influence this celebrity Christian’s most famous book (a 1957 bestseller) had on her. This woman wrote many books and had a long-standing syndicated radio show giving advice to Christian women on right living. The latest authorized biography on her life was written in 2020 by Ellen Vaughn.

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Funeral service, June 23, 2015, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, Dr. Tom Howard, brother of the deceased:

“She and I had virtually identical sensibilities . . . we loved the same hymns and the same English prose. This touches on something about Betty that her public perhaps never had the chance to see.

“For thousands of people who became aware of her when her husband was killed in Equador and then, as the years went by, those who were affected by her writings and speeches, these people might see her as a sort of heroic, almost Olympian figure and that is not entirely a wrong impression.

“She was all of that certainly. I think our parents were always a little bit awed by her, even before she became well-known . . .

“Over the years, she came increasingly to look to me to tell her what to read. While she was still in Equador, after Jim’s death, I’d sent her books by Kierkegaard, Paul Tillich, Dostoevsky, John Updike, Francoise Sagan and so forth.

“As time went on, it was the works of Cardinal John Newman and Russian Orthodox theologians Alexander Schmemann and Kallistos Ware. She also turned more and more to the works of the saints and Medieval mystics. Of the spiritual writers from the evangelical wing of Protestantism, I would guess that Amy Carmichael would be very near the top of her list.

"Interestingly enough, she came gradually, and I would say inexorably, to find rest for her soul in the eucharistic liturgy of the ancient church.

“I think that perhaps our father’s manifest love for what he called the great hymns of the church had instilled in her, as in me, an appreciation of the dignity, weight and majesty of forms of worship that had been hallowed by long usage.”

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Sermon outtake, Richard Jordan:

"Paul writes in Romans 8:14: [14] For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

"The issue of being 'led by the Spirit' is a terribly misunderstood concept. There's all kind of hokey and spooky stuff today in the evangelical world where people say, 'God led me to do this; the Lord spoke to me and wanted me to do that.'

"I remember years ago listening to a very famous lady Bible teacher and minister, the wife of the missionary martyred in Ecuador who was an international hero, and she's talking on her radio program to a bunch of ladies in a meeting, telling them she got up in the morning and was drinking her coffee at the table and was waiting for God to communicate to her what she should do that day.

"She said, 'The Lord spoke to me and said, Go to the mailbox.' So she goes down to the mailbox and so on and so forth.

"I wrote her a letter and asked her, 'Did you really mean that? What kind of accent did He have? How did He talk? If He spoke to you, did you write it down? I would like to see what He said. I don't have it in my Bible.'

"She wrote me back and was very kind and said, 'No, no, I believe the Bible's complete and the Bible's God's Word and I don't believe in extrabiblical communication; it was just an impression and a feeling.'

"I thought, 'Well, why didn't you say I was impressed to go.' When you say 'God spoke to me,' that's words, that's talk; extrabiblical communication.

"People talk about, 'Well, I had this feeling. I had this impression. God spoke to me in this still, small voice.' You hear that kind of stuff all over in the world today. This spiritual impression that comes on high. None of that is anything but nonsense; just emotional hoodleydoo.

"That verse doesn't say, 'As many of us are FILLED by the Spirit,' or TAUGHT by the Spirit. It says LED. You think about that word led. People say, 'Well, that's God guiding you.' The word isn't guide; the word is lead. Guidance is a subset of being led, but when someone guides you, it's only a part of the thing.

"By definition the word lead means to 'take someone to a particular destination.' If you get on your GPS, you need a destination and it will LEAD you to that place. Guiding you tells you along the way; leading is, 'I'm taking you somewhere.'

"When you think of that verse, think about it that way. The leadership is through the Word, the rightly divided Scripture, through the sound doctrine that's there in the Book.

"But what He's doing--the Spirit of God's job, His function, is to TAKE you somewhere and where He's taking you in your growth and in your walk, 'as many as are led.' In other words, the destination the Spirit of God is taking the Believer to is to be the son of God; to be a full-grown mature son.

"Romans 7 says, [6] But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

"So what is the goal the Spirit of God's going to lead you to? It's to 'serve in newness of the spirit,' not go back under the performance system of the law. The issue's freedom. You're free from the law; you're not under your flesh's resources and performance. You're free to live as who you are in Christ.

"Here Paul's talking about, 'You're not simply free; you're competent to do it.' You have the capacity through the leading of the Spirit, the teaching of the Spirit of God, to live in the identity that God gives you, and that is the issue of being the sons of God.

"That's why he says in verse 15, [15] For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

"Now, by that Holy Spirit leading you to understand your adoption and the identity you have in Christ as a son of God and what that means, whereby . . . 

"Whereby is another one of these words in grammar that are called 'words of logic'; words that explain things. He says, 'It's through the work and the ministry of  the Spirit of God, part of what His job is, part of His capacity . . . The information you're going to get from Him about being the sons of god, it's through that truth and understanding that you cry, 'Abba, Father.' You're given the privilege to have the same kind of sonship relationship with God the Father that Jesus Christ has."

(new article tomorrow)