Chapter 27 · 8 min read · 10 min listen
Appendix B: Chapter-by-Chapter Study and Reflection Guide
“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves.”
— James 1:22, ASV
This guide is for personal reflection, small groups, or a reading course of about twenty-four weeks. Its purpose is not to make C. T. Studd an object of admiration or of blame, but to let his life hold up a mirror in which readers can examine their own discipleship under Scripture. Groups may find it helpful to begin each session with the chapter’s opening verse and to end with prayer. Several chapters raise hard questions about money, family, leadership, empire and illness. They are meant to be discussed honestly, not settled quickly.
Introduction - The Cricketer, the Crusader, and the Record
Central idea
The real Studd, heroic and difficult, is more useful to the Church than either the legend of total surrender or the cautionary tale.
Scriptures to revisit
Reflection
1. Why do we prefer our heroes simple? 2. How should we treat famous sayings whose source is unknown?
Chapter 1 - A Goodly Heritage
Central idea
Studd grew up with every advantage, on a fortune made from Indian labour, in a world that prized manliness and despised weakness.
Scriptures to revisit
Psalm 16:5-8; Mark 10:21-22; 1 Timothy 4:8.
Reflection
1. What advantages have you inherited, and from whose labour? 2. Which values of your upbringing have you never examined?
Chapter 2 - The Squire Who Sold His Horses
Central idea
A father’s late conversion and short, wholehearted Christian life opened the door for his sons.
Scriptures to revisit
Acts 16:31-34; John 3:16; John 5:24; Mark 4:18-19.
Reflection
1. Whose prayers lie behind your faith? 2. What “thorns” are choking the word in your life?
Chapter 3 - Fenner’s and the Oval
Central idea
Studd gave cricket the discipline he did not yet give to God, in a game divided by class.
Scriptures to revisit
1 Corinthians 9:24-27; James 2:1-5.
Reflection
1. What receives your best effort? 2. Where do you expect deference because of who you are?
Chapter 4 - “This Sickness Is Not unto Death”
Central idea
At his brother’s bedside he saw what fame was worth, and he returned to his first love.
Scriptures to revisit
John 11:1-4; Revelation 2:4-5; Matthew 10:37.
Reflection
1. Has a crisis ever shown you what really matters? 2. How do you weigh the objections of a loving family against a sense of call?
Chapter 5 - The Seven
Central idea
Seven privileged young men answered the call to China, and their example stirred students on both sides of the Atlantic.
Scriptures to revisit
Isaiah 6:1-8; 1 Corinthians 1:26-29.
Reflection
1. Why did the Seven attract so much attention? 2. Who are the unnamed workers whose service no one publicises?
Chapter 6 - In Chinese Dress
Central idea
The China Inland Mission taught Studd to become a learner and a servant in a church that Chinese Christians were already leading.
Scriptures to revisit
1 Corinthians 9:19-23; Philippians 2:5-7.
Reflection
1. Where are you a beginner, and how does it feel? 2. What would it mean to serve as a guest rather than a master?
Chapter 7 - Treasure in a Field
Central idea
He gave away his inheritance with joy, to people who themselves lived by faith among the poor.
Scriptures to revisit
Matthew 13:44; 1 Timothy 6:17-19; Acts 20:35.
Reflection
1. Was his gift wise, and does that question matter? 2. What would it mean for you to be “ready to distribute”?
Chapter 8 - Scilla
Central idea
Priscilla Stewart was a missionary in her own right, and the marriage began with a shared choice to depend on God alone.
Scriptures to revisit
Romans 16:3-4; Acts 18:24-26; Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.
Reflection
1. How can a marriage be a partnership in God’s work? 2. Whose labour behind the scenes makes your own possible?
Chapter 9 - Lungan
Central idea
Years of hostility, small results, broken health and two infant graves were part of the cost of sowing in China.
Scriptures to revisit
Psalm 126:5-6; Job 1:21; Psalm 34:18.
Reflection
1. How do you measure faithfulness when results are few? 2. What do you make of the Chinese Christians who stayed in 1900?
Chapter 10 - Students and Soldiers
Central idea
In the quieter years in America and India he kept preaching, while growing restless for the unreached.
Scriptures to revisit
2 Timothy 4:1-5; Romans 15:20.
Reflection
1. How do you serve in seasons with no great venture? 2. Is restlessness always a sign of God’s call?
Chapter 11 - A Notice in Liverpool
Central idea
A provocative notice and an explorer’s report sent an ill man of nearly fifty to the Sudan, and began a pattern of struggle with committees.
Scriptures to revisit
Romans 10:13-15; Acts 13:1-3; Acts 14:26-27.
Reflection
1. How should Christians speak about peoples they do not know? 2. What does it mean to be sent by a church, and not only by God?
Chapter 12 - The Heart of Africa
Central idea
He went to the Congo against medical advice and his wife’s wishes, into a land only just released from the terror of the Free State.
Scriptures to revisit
Hebrews 11:8-10; Matthew 6:33; Philippians 4:19.
Reflection
1. How should a married Christian decide when a spouse disagrees about a call? 2. What does faith look like when it depends on the faith of others?
Chapter 13 - Niangara
Central idea
An honest witness shows the first year of the mission, including the habits of a master that the gospel calls us to lay down.
Scriptures to revisit
2 Corinthians 4:5; Matthew 20:25-28; Proverbs 27:6.
Reflection
1. What did you make of the name Bwana and of required attendance at prayers? 2. What critics might help you see yourself more clearly?
Chapter 14 - The Chocolate Soldier
Central idea
His call to heroism was powerful, and it borrowed the language of wartime recruitment in ways that could wound.
Scriptures to revisit
2 Timothy 2:3-4; Matthew 20:28.
Reflection
1. Where is your faith a “chocolate soldier”? 2. When does a call to courage become a call by shame?
Chapter 15 - Nala and Ibambi
Central idea
The mission grew in the forest country among peoples who had already lived through a generation of upheaval and colonial demands.
Scriptures to revisit
Reflection
1. Why does it matter what the mission found when it came? 2. How do you hold together hard work and trust in God?
Chapter 16 - The Church in the Forest
Central idea
The word sounded forth from Congolese Christians, in their own languages, through their own evangelists, at their own cost.
Scriptures to revisit
1 Thessalonians 1:6-8; Revelation 7:9-10; 1 Corinthians 3:6-7.
Reflection
1. Whose names are missing from the stories you tell about your church? 2. What does self-support mean for a poor church?
Chapter 17 - The Crusade
Central idea
His vision for the whole world was a great gift; his language grew so extreme that it became hard to correct him.
Scriptures to revisit
1 Corinthians 4:10; Colossians 4:6; Ephesians 4:15, 29.
Reflection
1. What did the Crusade get right? 2. Is there a register of speech you use too often?
Chapter 18 - A Sharp Contention
Central idea
The dismissal of Alfred Buxton shows how virtues can harden into vices, and how God works even through quarrels.
Scriptures to revisit
Acts 15:36-41; 2 Timothy 4:11; 1 Corinthians 13:4-7; 3 John 9-10.
Reflection
1. When has disagreement been treated as disloyalty in your experience? 2. Is there a Mark you need to welcome back?
Chapter 19 - A Short Visit
Central idea
Twelve years of separation and one brief reunion were part of the cost of the work, borne above all by Priscilla.
Scriptures to revisit
Song of Solomon 8:6-7; 1 Corinthians 7:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14; Ephesians 6:4.
Reflection
1. Where is the line between shared sacrifice and neglect? 2. How can the Church honour those whose service is unseen?
Chapter 20 - The Thorn and the Needle
Central idea
His use of morphine in pain and old age should be judged with honesty and with mercy.
Scriptures to revisit
2 Corinthians 4:16-18; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10; 1 Timothy 5:23; Galatians 6:1-2.
Reflection
1. How should Christians speak about leaders who are ill? 2. What does it mean that grace is sufficient?
Chapter 21 - The Committee
Central idea
The crisis of 1931 split the mission, and showed the danger of vision without accountability.
Scriptures to revisit
Proverbs 11:14; Hebrews 13:17; Philippians 1:15-18.
Reflection
1. Who was right in 1931, and why is that hard to say? 2. To whom are you accountable?
Chapter 22 - Hallelujah
Central idea
He died at his post, translating Scripture and praising God, and the Congolese church came in great numbers to bury him.
Scriptures to revisit
2 Timothy 4:6-8; Revelation 19:6; Psalm 116:15.
Reflection
1. What does it mean to finish the course? 2. Why does the grief of the Congolese Christians matter to the story?
Chapter 23 - Only One Life
Central idea
His life was a grain of wheat that bore real fruit, and it warns that zeal must be governed by love.
Scriptures to revisit
John 12:24-26; 1 Corinthians 3:6-7; 1 John 2:17.
Reflection
1. What in his life would you imitate, and what would you avoid? 2. What will you do with your one life?
Chapter 27 complete
Appendix B: Chapter-by-Chapter Study and Reflection Guide