Page 82 - Heros of the Faith - Textbook w videos short
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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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