A Lasting Impact on Myanmar Churches
Across the world, the mandate of the Great Commission is thundering forth in places we have never heard of. Men and women are living out the gospel under trials we in the West cannot imagine. Their courage inspires us, though we may never meet them on this earth. This is the story of Myanmar.
Silas Van Duh Hmung is serious about the gospel.
As a faculty member at the Expository Preaching and Teaching Academy (EPTA) and pastor of a local church in Myanmar, Silas has desired to serve Christ ever since he was saved as a teenager in 1999.
During his time studying at the Pastoral Training Seminary (PTS) in India, Silas read about the life of missionary Adoniram Judson, who would become his spiritual example.
“When I was in India,” he said, “there were many opportunities to serve Christ outside of Myanmar, if I wanted. But in my heart, I know, God has called me to my country.”
After nine years in India, Silas returned to Myanmar, where he helped found EPTA in 2018. Silas has continued to teach, write, and train church leaders despite mounting challenges in the country.
Silas’s commitment to the people of Myanmar and his passion for the earnest proclamation of the gospel mirrors the heart of the missionary who first brought it to his homeland. In TMAI’s Biblical Missions textbook, Silas reflects in his own words on the qualities that made Judson’s ministry so enduring.
Adoniram Judson: Reasons for a Lasting Impact on Myanmar Churches Today
The deep love that pioneering missionary Adoniram Judson (1788-1850) had for Myanmar (Burma), my home country, has powerfully impacted me personally. After graduating from seminary, I returned home and became a church planter in rural southern Myanmar. My wife and I named our son Judson to serve as an ongoing reminder that we want to follow in the footsteps of Adoniram Judson. Foreign missionaries have been excluded from Myanmar since the 1960s. Yet there remains a growing church in Myanmar today. Let’s examine why the work of this American missionary left such a lasting impact on my family and the people of Myanmar in general.
First, Judson was well prepared before going into ministry. Before the Lord chose Judson to be his vessel for the proclamation of the gospel in Myanmar, Judson had committed himself to a high level of education.25 At the age of nineteen, after graduating from Brown University, he opened the Plymouth Independent Academy in Massachusetts and authored two textbooks.26 His school did not remain open, but in the year of his conversion he began studies at Andover Theological Seminary. Altogether, besides Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, he studied ancient literature.27 God used these skills on the mission field for teaching, translating, and producing much literature.
When Judson converted at age twenty,28 he carefully counted the cost of following Jesus, and especially the cost of working in a foreign land. His famous letter two years later to Ann ‘Nancy’ Hasseltine's father, in which he requested her hand in marriage, reveals the possible hardships and sufferings of a missionary life that Judson fully, willingly anticipated encountering.29 None of these things, when they actually occurred—illness, imprisonment, or even death—did in fact deter Adoniram or Nancy from following the Lord. Their life purpose was purely to please Jesus Christ.30 The church today needs to learn from the Judsons that missionaries must be well prepared. The gospel and commission of Christ are worthy of it.
Second, Judson submitted himself to the authority of Scripture. His submission to and love for God's Word are displayed throughout his life and ministry[...] Judson was always hesitant to recognize anyone as a Christian who might be merely superficially interested in Christ, and this turned out for the genuine salvation of many who had made false professions[...]
Judson's commitment to Scripture is also seen in his translation of the Bible into the Burmese language. He reasoned that winning people to Christ would require "distributing Bibles and tracts in every possible way, and in every language under heaven."33 He finished translating the New Testament in 1823 and the whole Bible in 1834. Judson's commitment to Scripture should stimulate churches to take a stand on Scripture's authority alone in preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Finally, Judson poured his heart into reaching the Burmese people. The country of Burma got its name from the largest people group living there, the Bama. Though the Bama had proven to be among the hardest people to reach, Judson tried every possible way to win them to Christ. Besides preaching and teaching at the regular zayat (a bamboo hut) and distributing gospel tracts, Judson courageously approached the Burmese king in Innwa (the capital city then) to formally request official tolerance of the Christian religion34[...]Judson's heart was so captured by Christ's love that he relentlessly preached the gospel to Burmese people despite temptations to harbor resentment against them or to reason that other people groups would be easier to reach. His approach set a strong example for churches in Myanmar today that are tempted to harbor resentment due to political or cultural oppression brought on by the majority people group.
Thus, Adoniram Judson's commitment to preparation, to the authority of Scripture, and to the people to whom he was sent surpassed the weaknesses and desires of the flesh. All of this—and especially his love for God's Word—resulted in the production of a Burmese Bible that remains the most widely used translation two hundred years later. Every missionary in Myanmar today stands on Judson's shoulders. His goal in life was to please the Lord, and the Lord continues to use his life to impact Myanmar today.
Endurance and faithfulness were the legacy of Judson’s missionary ministry; now, they are the testimonies of Myanmar Christians like Silas. Their stories point not to the greatness of man, but to the promises of the Savior who will preserve His church. He is our hope.
25. Courtney Anderson, To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson (Valley Force, PA: Judson, 1987), 31-32.
26. Anderson, 36.
27. Anderson, 49.
28. Anderson, 42-45, 50.
29. Anderson, 83.
32. Maung Swe Wa, Burma Baptist Chronicle, ed. Genevieve Sowards and Erville Sowards (Rangoon: University Press, Burma Baptist Convention, 1963), 24.
33. Robert T. Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary: Records of the Life, Character, and Achievements of Adoniram Judson (New York: Fletcher, 1854), 312; E.D. Burns, A Supreme Desire to Please Him: The Spirituality of Adoniram Judson (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2016), 81.
34. Maung Shwe Wa, Burma Baptist Chronicle, 25, 41-52.
Biblical Missions: Principles, Priorities, and Practices
($59.99)
Available for purchase here.