INTRODUCTION
Helen Barrett Montgomery may be on of the most influential Christians you have never heard of. Her groundbreaking text The Bible and Missions was required reading for one of my Fuller classes (review follows) but her life is more an inspiration than any of her individual writtings.
Montgomery (1861-1934) was a social reformer, educator, women’s rights advocate, missiologist, and church leader. After her graduation from Wellesley College in 1884, she moved to Rochester, New York, and married William Montgomery. She received a license to preach from the Lake Avenue Baptist Church of Rochester and taught a women’s Bible class there for 44 years. With Susan B. Anthony, she founded the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union of Rochester and served as its first president. Along with Anthony, she advocated and advanced a wide range of social reforms including women’s rights, educational reform and health and vocational education. She was the first woman to hold public office in Rochester. In her later years, her focus turned increasingly toward missions and she became the first woman elected president of the Northern Baptist Convention. Her various publications include the first translation of the New Testament from Greek by a woman scholar.
THESIS
Montgomery’s thesis is that “that the Bible is God’s missionary text-book; that the missionary message, although most clearly revealed in the New Testament, is woven into the fabric of the Old Testament, and definitely proclaimed in its every part.”
MAJOR SECTIONS
This book is broken into two main sections. In the first section Montgomery explores the missionary message of the Old Testament. This includes her assertion that the Bible is missionary in its essence and substance as well as in its positive teachings. Montgomery explores the missionary message in the Law, the Historical Books, the Poetical Books and the Prophets. Section two focuses on the missionary message of the New Testament, including the two centers of Jesus thought: Christ’s Message of the Father and Christ’s Message of the Kingdom. She then moves from Christ’s essential teachings to his life, examining both his missionary activities and the missionary commands he issues to his followers. Lastly, she explores the missionary message of the remainder of the New Testament (outside of the gospels) covering Acts, the Epistles and the Revelation.
PERSONAL REACTION
I believe Montgomery does an admirable job of introducing briefly the great themes of the Bible such as “its presentation of the character of God,” “the golden thought of the Kingdom,” “the record of God’s search for man” and “God’s plan of the ages” and tracing them through both Testaments. Her focus on these overarching themes is effective as she highlights the consistency with which every section of the Bible reveals them. Additionally, I found the way she explores Jesus’ teaching and life (throughout which he continually emphasizes the character and nature of the Father and the character and nature of the Kingdom) to effectively tie together both Old and New Testaments as two parts of one compelling story; the story of a missionary God relentlessly committed to a broken humanity.
Montgomery effortlessly connects this story to the lives of her readers, continually challenging them to remember their calling to partner with God in his missionary enterprise and reminding them of the possibility of their participation in this great adventure: “A divine Adventure summons the souls of men to work together with God for the creation of a new earth in which righteousness, no longer pilgrim and stranger, is at home; and in which the Lamb for sinners slain is loved and worshipped by every heart.” Throughout the book, she effectively tells the story and summons the reader into it simultaneously.
Montgomery’s work is perhaps even more meaningful to me knowing the context of her life. At the forefront of social reform movements with Susan B. Anthony and others, advancing the cause women, children and others oppressed in civil society, she increasingly devoted her life to the cause of missions from a holistic perspective. She seemed to instinctively understand that Christ would have us act for him in the social and civil spheres, but also that as we continue on our journey with him we recognize the truest hope for the social liberation of humanity is the arrival of the Kingdom of God. Therefore, in the midst of whatever else we do, joining with God in his mission to reconcile humanity individually and socially to him is of the utmost importance. After reading her book and doing some basic research on her life, Helen Barrett Montgomery has rapidly moved to the top of my list of “heroes” who lived the Gospel of the Kingdom in a tumultuous time with great integrity, and, who unwaveringly, called the church to abandon lesser pursuits and join in the story of God’s mission in the Bible.
Related:
Susan B. Anthony and Helen Barrett Montgomery: an intergenerational feminist partnership
A blog about present and future church, contemporary culture, intercultural dynamics, and the implications of Jesus' Gospel of the Kingdom in today's context. Billy Calderwood is the lead pastor of Aqueous, a missional faith community doing life together in Santa Barbara, California.
Thanks for the good review of HBM’s the Bible and Missions. Come and check out my new HBM blog. I’ve just started it, but I want to make it into a one-stop clearinghouse for HBM information on-line. If you like what you see, please post a link to it in your “Related” section. Thanks!