Chapter 1 · 2 min read · 3 min listen
The Boy in the Shoe Store
“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.” — Acts 4:13 (KJV)
Dwight Lyman Moody was born in 1837 on a small farm in Northfield, Massachusetts. He was the sixth of nine children. When he was four, his father died, and the family was left very poor. Dwight only had about five years of schooling.
At seventeen he moved to Boston to work in his uncle’s shoe store. He was energetic, ambitious and a bit rough around the edges.
His Sunday school teacher, a man called Edward Kimball, decided to visit him. On 21 April 1855 he found Dwight at the back of the shop, wrapping up shoes, and told him about the love of Christ. Right there among the shelves, Moody gave his heart to Jesus.
Moody soon moved to Chicago. He started a Sunday school in one of the roughest parts of the city, an area people called “Little Hell”, and it grew until fifteen hundred children came. Eventually he gave up a successful business so he could give all his time to God.
In 1873 he sailed to Britain with a singer called Ira Sankey. They held meetings that filled huge halls, and Moody came home the best-known evangelist in the world. He was never ordained as a minister. People estimate he preached to as many as a hundred million people in his life.
The boy with five years of schooling also started schools for young people, the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, and a project printing Christian books cheap enough for anyone to afford.
Moody spoke in plain words and loved telling true stories. The Way to God is his explanation of the most important question there is: how can a person come to God? It is full of stories of real people he met: a man passing a church at night, a self-righteous businessman, a man haunted by a crime he committed, a prisoner who loved flowers.
In this book you will hear those stories, and Moody’s plain answers. Like the first disciples, he wasn’t educated, but people could tell he had been with Jesus.
One thing to do this week: think about who first told you about Jesus, a parent, a teacher, a friend, a youth leader. This week, thank God for them, and if you can, send them a message to say thank you.
Questions to think about
Think it through first — then tap a question to see one way to answer it.
Where was Moody when he became a Christian?
In his uncle’s shoe store in Boston, where his Sunday school teacher Edward Kimball found him wrapping shoes.
What did Moody start in Chicago?
A Sunday school in a slum called “Little Hell” that grew to fifteen hundred children.
Why is Acts 4:13 a good verse for Moody’s life?
Because, like Peter and John, Moody had little education, but people could see he had been with Jesus.
Chapter 1 complete
The Boy in the Shoe Store