Appendix a: Lessons from the Life of David Livingstone

“Remember them that had the rule over you, men that spake unto you the word of God; and considering the issue of their life, imitate their faith.”

— Hebrews 13:7, ASV

The lessons below gather the themes of this book so that readers can return to them. Livingstone is a harder subject for this kind of list than most of the people in this series, because some of his lessons are warnings. The letter to the Hebrews tells us to consider the outcome of the lives of those who went before us and to imitate their faith, not every choice they made. Each lesson therefore rests on Scripture, not on his example alone.

1. God Uses Working People

A boy who went into a cotton mill at ten, and studied Latin at night with the books snatched from his hands at midnight, became a doctor, a minister and one of the best-known Christians of his century. “God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27, ASV).

2. Hard Work Is a Form of Service

Livingstone believed that the mill had trained him for Africa. Work done with all our strength can be offered to God, even work we did not choose. “Whatsoever ye do, work heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men” (Colossians 3:23, ASV).

3. Faith and the Study of Creation Belong Together

He came to faith when he saw that the God of the Bible and the God of the rocks and stars were the same. He worshipped as he measured. “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament showeth his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1, ASV).

4. Weakness Does Not Disqualify

He forgot his sermon at Ongar and was nearly rejected by his Society. God did not make him eloquent; he gave him other gifts. “Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt speak” (Exodus 4:12, ASV).

5. Learn the People’s Language and Ways

He lived for six months among the Bakwena without hearing English, so as to learn Setswana and the life of the people. “I am become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22, ASV).

6. Honour Those Who Save Your Life

Mebalwe ran at the lion with a gun that would not fire. Livingstone’s life, again and again, was saved by Africans whom his books barely named. “Salute Prisca and Aquila my fellow-workers in Christ Jesus, who for my life laid down their own necks” (Romans 16:3-4, ASV).

7. Hear the Hard Questions

Sechele asked why the gospel had come so late to his ancestors. Livingstone had no easy answer, and he wrote the question down. “Being ready always to give answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, yet with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15, ASV).

8. Faith Cannot Be Forced

He refused Sechele’s offer to beat the Bakwena into belief, and he was right. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6, ASV).

9. Count the Cost Others Will Pay

His family paid for his journeys with poverty, loneliness and separation. A calling that destroys those closest to us needs to be examined, not only admired. “But if any provideth not for his own, and specially his own household, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8, ASV).

10. Keep Your Word

He would not leave twenty-seven men on the coast at Luanda, though a ship was waiting to take him home. “He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not” (Psalm 15:4, ASV).

11. Rest on the Promise of Christ

On the night of 14 January 1856 he found peace not in a change of circumstances but in a word, which he called the word of a gentleman of the strictest honour. “And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20, ASV).

12. Service Is a Privilege

“I never made a sacrifice,” he told Cambridge. Those words are true of what Christ gives, though we must remember those who paid the price for us. “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward” (Romans 8:18, ASV).

13. Beware of Borrowed Power

His call for “commerce and Christianity” was taken up by those who wanted Africa for themselves. The gospel must not be confused with the interests of any nation. “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24, ASV).

14. Hold Your Plans Loosely

He built a vision on a river he had not seen, and Kebrabasa blocked it. Plans are good; certainty about them is dangerous. “A man’s heart deviseth his way; But Jehovah directeth his steps” (Proverbs 16:9, ASV).

15. Learn to Share Command

He could lead Africans across a continent and could not lead six Europeans up a river. Humility in leadership is not weakness. “In lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself” (Philippians 2:3, ASV).

16. Admit When You Are Wrong

Livingstone found it very hard to say that he had been mistaken about Kebrabasa, about Baines, about the Helmores, about Kirk. Confession is a door to freedom. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins” (1 John 1:9, ASV).

17. Speak for the Captive

He wrote down what he saw on the slave roads, plainly and without exaggeration, and his writing helped close the Zanzibar market. “Open thy mouth for the dumb, In the cause of all such as are left desolate” (Proverbs 31:8, ASV).

18. Grief Is Not Unbelief

At Shupanga he wept for Mary and felt, for the first time, willing to die. God is near in such grief. “Jehovah is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart” (Psalm 34:18, ASV).

19. Be Present to Your Children

Robert died in a prison camp in America under a false name, having hardly known his father. Children need more than letters. “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4, ASV).

20. Lament Is a Form of Prayer

At Nyangwe he could only cry out for God’s kingdom to come. The Bible gives us words for such moments. “O Jehovah, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear?” (Habakkuk 1:2, ASV).

21. Tell the Whole Truth

His field diary shows that he told the story of Nyangwe in a way that put more distance between himself and the traders than there had been. Christians, of all people, can afford to tell the whole truth. “Putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his neighbor” (Ephesians 4:25, ASV).

22. God Remembers the Unnamed

Susi, Chuma, Jacob Wainwright, Majwara, Halima and the others carried him a thousand miles, and most of them were sent home before the funeral. “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and the love which ye showed toward his name” (Hebrews 6:10, ASV).

23. Fruit May Come After We Are Gone

One known convert in his lifetime; churches of millions after his death. “Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit” (John 12:24, ASV).

24. We Are Unprofitable Servants

At sixty, in the swamps, he gave himself to Christ again and asked only to finish his task. The task was finished by others. “We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which it was our duty to do” (Luke 17:10, ASV).