Moody

June 3, 2019

Weariness can do funny things to you. I’ve been thinking about what I might write in my gratitude musings for today. There is no shortage of fodder; I am blessed far beyond what I deserve, but I’m also feeling quite tired, which makes putting words to it quite challenging. I’ll try anyway.

Dwight L. Moody was a famous 19th Century American evangelist. I’ve already outlived him in years, but he accomplished more for Christ than I can ever hope to match. Shortly after his conversion, he came across an article that posited a bold statement: “The world has yet to see what God can do through someone fully committed to Christ.” He read those words and vowed that he would be that man. A former shoe salesman, he was nearly illiterate at first, so much so that when observed reading the story of the Prodigal Son to a child, he had to skip over a great many words. This didn’t hinder his enthusiasm for the Gospel, and soon the Sunday School he founded in Chicago swelled to over 650 ragamuffin street children. 

He often preached to crowds of 15,000-20,000 in the United States and England, without the aid of amplification. Once after preaching, a woman rebuked him saying, “Mr. Moody, I don’t much like how you witness.” 

He responded, “I don’t much like it, either. How do you do it?”

She answered, “I don’t, much.”

Well, I like the way I do it better than the way you don’t do it,” he concluded.

I’ve been reading a short biography of him, along with a compilation of some of his sermons. My first acquaintance with him was as a teenager. Men like Moody, R.A. Torrey, his associate, C.I. Scofield, Hudson Taylor, and Charles Spurgeon were household names in my world. His like are largely ignored in the more academic-minded Methodist circles of my adulthood, and I have often wondered what I’ve lost in the process. These were not as scholarly as John Wesley, but like him, they were men “of one Book,” devoted to its study and proclamation in ways I don’t often hear today. Sometimes it’s good to go back to one’s roots, and I am thankful tonight for this biography that reminds me of who I am.