Editorial
From the Newsletter of Revesby Presbyterian Church
March 2009
Rev Dr Peter Barnes
On 25 October 1933 John Stam and Betty Scott were married in China where both of them were already serving as missionaries. On 11 September 1934 Betty gave birth to baby Helen Priscilla Stam, and one can only imagine that their hopes and joys were great indeed. However, less than three months later, the Communist forces overran Tsingteh where the young Stam family was staying. The Communists immediately threatened to kill baby Helen, but an unknown farmer objected, and the soldiers responded: ‘Then it’s your life for hers!’ He was killed on the spot – a martyr whose name is recorded in heaven, but not on earth. The next day, 7 December 1934, John wrote to the China Inland Mission to say that the Communists were issuing a $20,000 ransom demand. He finished his brief letter with the words: ‘God give you wisdom in what you do and give us grace and fortitude. He is able.’
On 8 December 1934 John and Betty were marched through the city streets in their long underwear with their hands tied behind their backs. A Christian who spoke up on their behalf was summarily executed. Then the Communists cut John’s throat, and decapitated Betty with a sword. Their bodies were left on the outskirts of town, where they had fallen. Twenty-four hours later a Chinese evangelist named Lo found out what had happened, and managed to retrieve Helen who was carried to safety, and presented to the missionary, George Birch, at Suancheng by Mrs Lo with the mournful words: ‘This is all we have left.’ Chinese peasants reattached the heads to the bodies using hemp thread. Helen was to grow up, marry and have children, but chose to remain quite anonymous for the rest of her life.
Clearly, when John Stam wrote those three words, ‘He is able’, he had Scripture in mind, but it is not obvious which particular verse. He may have been thinking of ‘God is able to make all grace abound toward you’ (2 Cor.9:8). Or ‘He is able to aid those who are tempted’ (Heb.2:18). Or perhaps ‘He is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him’ (Heb.7:25). One might suggest Jude’s benediction: ‘Now unto Him who is able to keep you stumbling’ (Jude 24).
A more likely candidate is Philippians 3:21 where Paul tells of the resurrection to come ‘according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.’ Or maybe 2 Timothy 1:12 which says: ‘He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.’ Because of the situation in which John Stam found himself, he may possibly have thought of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego who declared: ‘Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king’ (Dan.3:17). Indeed, all of these verses are summed up in Paul’s benediction at the end of the third chapter of Ephesians: ‘Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us’ (Eph.3:20).
John and Betty Stam went to their deaths trusting in the God who is able to do all things in Christ Jesus His Son. He was able to save their baby daughter. He is able to raise the dead because the last enemy has been defeated through Christ’s resurrection. And He is able to bring wonderful good out of terrible evil. The deaths of the Stams stimulated missionary interest across the evangelical world. The magazine China’s Millions in February 1935 cited the Moravian seal: ‘Our Lamb has conquered; let us follow Him.’ Gospel seeds were sown in the ravaged land of China. The Communists came to power in 1949, and soon expelled any missionaries whom they did not kill. The people were forced to endure the mad brutality of Mao Zedong and, indeed, they still suffer under a totalitarian atheistic regime committed to a compulsory one-child policy. Yet, in spite of all the government’s power and propaganda, millions of Chinese people have turned to Christ in faith. Sixty years after the Communist Revolution, the number of Chinese Christians could well be about eighty million. John Stam has had the last word over Chairman Mao: God is able indeed.
With warmest regards in Christ,
Peter Barnes