The Wordless Book and Culture

The Wordless book (or banner) used in China

I was reading sermon by Charles H Spurgeon the other day called the Wordless Book.  This book was used by Hudson Taylor (founder of the China Inland Mission, now called the Overseas Missionary Fellowship).

Spurgeon is regarded as one of the princes of preaching ever to teach the Word of God.  He was a master orator but amazingly he could reduce the message of the Gospel down to the simplicity of coloured pages.   Invented this book because he was to deliver an address on the 11th of January 1866 to hundreds of orphans.


The book in its original form contains just three pages
Black - The colour of fallen man in sin
Blood-Red - The Blood of Jesus
White - The new righteous man having had their sin washed away by the atoning blood of Christ.

Dwight L Moody added Gold last to represent heaven and modern books also add green after white to represent growth, walk and belief of the believer.  The China Inland Mission used Moody's four colour version as shown in the picture.  The Baptists as one would expect added another colour - blue - after white, for baptism.

It is staggering to realise that perhaps due to that simplest of books, in addition to the other mighty works and character of the early missionaries that used them that currently there are about 105 million people calling themselves Christian in China! (54 million in the famous House Churches).

However the actual true number of true believers in China is a figure that only God knows.  The same rule applies in your country, denomination or congregation for that matter!

Why was the wordless book so effective?  It portrays the Gospel message in such a simple way and in a way that people cannot forget.  It is hard to visualise sin, but easy to visualise black.  It's the same for the others.

What I believe Spurgeon did not know is Chinese Culture. (I could be wrong as he was a incredibly well read man).  According to tradition, Red is the colour of Marriage and White is used for death in funerals.  How appropriate that Jesus shed his blood so that he could then marry the Church as his bride.  And we in accepting him become righteous, but only after our old sinless self dies.  In a traditional Chinese wedding, the bride wears red at first then white.  Incredible!

Since we are on culture, I find it also very interesting that one of the rules of the China Inland Mission under Taylor was to preach the gospel wearing the clothes that the Chinese wear.  In addition they must also adopt the classic pigtail hairstyle.  The pigtail was a sign of subservience to the Emperor

Be subject to every human institution for the Lord’s sake, whether to a king as supreme or to governors as those he commissions to punish wrongdoers and praise those who do good. For God wants you to silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good. 1Pet 2:13-15 
.
An act of doing good was clearly shown by Taylor which demonstrates the last sentence of Apsostle Peter's advice.  After the Boxer Rebellion, many of CIMs missionaries were killed.  During the ensuing damages claim against the Chinese, Taylor refused to accept compensation.  This would have certainly silenced the Chinese Authorities -  Today we have very little concept of the lengths that these missionaries went to to spread the Gospel - even unto death.

No one has greater love than this – that one lays down his life for his friends. John 15:13 

So if is is good enough for Spurgeon and Taylor, then it is a good enough for me. So I tried it yesterday. I cannot say that my presentation had much effect but the Pastor was delighted.  He told me that it was the message that many needed to hear.  It turned out that while many present were believers, they were not established in the Church body.   However, I can see how this tool can be an effective way to reach the unsaved, and especially the uneducated illiterate ones that have no concept of John 3:16, where to find it or how to even read what is says.

These people, of which there are many many millions, have absolutely no idea what this means

Or what this man is doing (I trust it is to spread the Gospel)

But they can easily understand this