Friday, September 27, 2024

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ***

It is September 27th, 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

A happy Friday to you, if it is indeed… you know. Two things.

First, today, we remember a figure who fits a certain category- one known extremely well in certain circles and virtually unknown in others, if perhaps not just a name that rings familiar.

He was Johan Georg Ferdinand Müller, better known as George Müller, and we’re going to need to stop here for a quick word about the dreaded, beloved, feared, and adored Umlaut. The two “dots” over some German vowels. What to do, like with Müller. An Umlaut means there is an “e” smushed at the end of that vowel- so make your lips like at the shape of an exaggerated “e” ” and say the vowel. And if you don’t want to hold down the letter on your keyboard or find a keyboard shortcut, you can add an e after the vowel in lieu of the umlaut. And pronunciation is a matter of custom and preference.

So, Mueller. He was born on this, the 27th of September in 1805, in Kroepenstedt in what was then Prussia. His telling of his early life is relatively typical prodigal fare, but his parents didn’t seem particularly concerned. When he was 14, he learned of his mother’s death while in an inebriated state and shrugged it off. He would spend time in a prison cell for theft before his father bailed him out. He would take his father’s advice and enroll at the University of Halle to study for the ministry- not because they were religious, but rather because it was a reputable job with a good pension. When George later had a change of heart, his father told him that he had expected to retire in his son's parsonage and now would no longer recognize him as his son.  

His change of heart came while at Halle. It was once the center of Lutheran pietism and the likes of August Hermann Francke and his orphanages and other other charitable institutions. It had housed the Moravians, many of whom would later settle in the Pennsylvania colony.

Upon an awakening at a home Bible study in 1825 he would dedicate his life to becoming a missionary. He had first accepted a position with a London-based mission society but was at first unable to go on account of his mandatory military service- a bout of Tuberculosis got him a dispensation to leave. London proved difficult for reasons relating to language and theology, but before he could make his next decision, TB forced him down the way to Devon in Plymouth.

Here he would meet Henry Craick- a fellow minister and in the early “brethren” movement of dissenters in Plymouth (these are the British Brethren of Darby, not the German ones) Craick and Mueller would be life long friends.

Mueller would follow Craick to Bristol, where Mueller would Mary Mary Groves and begin his ministry there, a post he would hold for six decades while tending to his other work.  

That work was to be the Scriptural Knowledge Institute for Home and Abroad. Of the various goals the institute had, its last was “to board, clothe and Scripturally educate destitute children who have lost both parents by death.” A cholera epidemic would see George and Mary redirect their energies to seeing that orphaned children were taken care of (we hear echoes of Francke and Halle). The family first took in orphans and then acquired nearby homes to house the overflow. This led to an orphanage, and then two, and eventually 5, serving over 10,000 orphans in his life alone.

As part of the Brethren movement he was not ordained and took no salary. He did no fundraising outside of prayer. Stories abound, as you might expect, of “just in time” orders of food and financial provisions that kept the ministry growing and having never borrowed any money nor asked for any.

He would see one child die in infancy and others stillborn. His one surviving daughter lived until middle age. Are would also die, he remarried, and his second wife would die as well. He would outlive his whole family and preach the sermons at both of his wives' funerals.

He would spend his long life tending to the gorging orphanages, to preaching at his church in Bristol as well as traveling the world as a speaker and missionary. His works have been collected into various forms of autobiography and sermons. Born on this day in 1805, George Müller was 92 years old.

 

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary and Psalm 19- so let’s head to the Scottish Metrical Psalter:

 

The heav'ns God's glory do declare,

the skies his hand-works preach:

Day utters speech to day, and night

to night doth knowledge teach.

 

There is no speech nor tongue to which

their voice doth not extend:

Their line is gone through all the earth,

their words to the world's end.

 

The words which from my mouth proceed,

the thoughts sent from my heart,

Accept, O LORD, for thou my strength

and my Redeemer art

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 27th of September 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man without umlauts, tildes, circumflexes, macrons, or other diacritical marks—Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man wondering when we can put this baseball season to rest: worst. Ever. Period. I’m Dan van Voorhis. 

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.