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Study Section 11:   Heroes  in early 1900s




             11.1 Connect.


                       We should all be patriotic to our country.  God has put you in a nation and you need to support
                       those who rule over you in prayer and obey the laws of your land.  But what would happen if a very
                       evil dictator took control of your country and started decreeing evil laws.  What if he started
                       systematically murdering an entire race of people?  What if he started imprisoning pastors and
                       even killing them for their faith?  How would you respond to such a nation’s leadership?  This is
            exactly the situation that one of our heroes of the faith found himself in during his life.  He was Dietrich
            Bonhoeffer.  And his faith in Christ compelled him to resist the evil movement within his nation, and it
            resulted in him losing his life.  Let’s explore his life as well as Peter Marshall’s life in this lesson…..


             11.2 Objectives.

                    1.  The student should be able to describe the amazing life of Peter Marshall to lead a nation to Christ.


                    2. The student should be able to describe the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer as he responded to the Nazi
                    regime taking control of his nation during World War II.


             11.3 Peter Marshall   1902- 1949

            http://www.kamglobal.org/BiographicalSketches/petermarshall.html

                       Unaware of the previous night's heated dialogue between two senators, Peter
                       Marshall, Chaplain to the U. S. Senate, began the session of April 3, 1947, with
                       this prayer: "Gracious, Father, we, Thy children, so often confused, live at
                       cross-purposes in our central aim, and hence we are at cross-purposes with
                       each other. Take us by the hand and help us see things from Thy viewpoint...."


                       As Marshall left the Senate chamber, one of the senators involved in the
            quarrel followed him and offered the surprised chaplain an apology for his behavior.


            This incident encapsulated the nature of the jocular Scotsman's influential ministry. He was
            straightforward and eminently practical. Supremely, he was led by God's Spirit.


            His pithy, pointed invocations before the Senate during his chaplaincy were often reprinted in such prestigious
            publications as Reader's Digest and The New Yorker.


            Peter Marshall had come a long way in the twenty-two years since he immigrated to America from Scotland.  He
            arrived at Ellis Island in New York harbor in 1927 at age twenty-five with two weeks' living expenses.  He worked
            for a year in New Jersey and then was enticed to travel south to Birmingham, Alabama, where a former
            schoolmate from his native Scotland had immigrated.




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