Missionaries who came to die

 

The Seed of Martyrdom: The Story of Robert Jermain Thomas

In today’s passage, Paul receives a prophecy from the believers. They warn him, “If you go to Jerusalem, you will be bound and face death. You must not go.” However, Paul’s response is unwavering. He declares that he is ready not only to be bound but to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.

Seeing Paul’s readiness to die for the Gospel reminds me of Robert Jermain Thomas (1839–1866), known as the first Protestant martyr to Korea—a missionary who went there, essentially, to die.

Robert Thomas was a young English missionary who arrived in China in his early 20s, burning with a passion for East Asian missions. He arrived with his newlywed wife, Caroline. However, the hardship of life in a foreign land and the harsh climate took a toll. Caroline, who was pregnant at the time, suffered a miscarriage and passed away shortly after. Though devastated by grief and loneliness, Thomas did not give up on his calling. He spent months learning the Korean language and preparing Chinese Bibles to take into the "Hermit Kingdom" of Korea, which was strictly closed to foreigners at the time.

In 1866, he boarded an American trade ship, the General Sherman, as an interpreter. His real mission, however, was to deliver the Word of God. As the ship sailed up the Taedong River toward Pyongyang, it was met with fierce hostility from the local authorities, who were determined to keep foreigners out. Eventually, the ship was set on fire.

As the crew scrambled ashore to escape the flames, they were met by soldiers and executed one by one. The last man to step onto the sand was Robert Thomas. He held a Bible in his hand. As a soldier named Park Chun-gwon raised his sword to strike, Thomas knelt on the sand. He bowed his head in a final prayer and then, with his last breath, reached out to offer the Bible to his executioner, pleading with him to take it. The soldier refused and took the young missionary’s life. Robert Thomas was only 26 years old.

It seemed like a meaningless tragedy. He had died only two and a half years after his wife, without ever having a chance to preach a formal sermon. But as Tertullian famously said, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."

That very day, the seed began to sprout. The soldier, Park Chun-gwon, could not stop thinking about that man. "What kind of book was this, that he tried so hard to give it to me even as he was dying?" He secretly returned to the riverbank, gathered the scattered Bibles, and took them home. Through reading that Word, he eventually accepted Christ and became an elder in the church.

The impact didn’t stop there. His nephew also read the Bible, converted, and later played a crucial role in translating two-thirds of the Korean Bible we have today. The blood of a 26-year-old Englishman became the "grain of wheat" that fell into the ground, giving birth to the first believers and the foundation of the Korean Church.

Today’s Prayer

Lord, give me the heart of a missionary—a heart that is willing to go wherever You call, even if it costs us everything.

  • May we not be like the "foolish man" in Proverbs, who rushes ahead without Your wisdom and ruins his work.

  • Instead, let us be like Mary, who chose the "one thing necessary" by sitting at Your feet and doing exactly what You asked.

  • Like Paul and Robert Thomas, may we be faithful to our mission even unto death.

Bless our families and our church to be a community that carries this same sacrificial love for Your Kingdom. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

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