03/25/2024
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LUTHER RICE!!!!!
Luther Rice was born the last of nine children to Amos and Sarah Rice on March 25, 1783, in Northborough, Massachusetts. The Rice family were Congregationalist. On Sundays, the Luther family would rise early, complete their farm chores, and attend church in the village. In his late teen years, Luther trusted Christ as his Savior and determined to live a life totally devoted to Christ.
Luther enrolled in Williams College, where a deeply spiritual environment nourished his faith. He met friends whose hearts had been turned to international missions through their study of the New Testament and the moving of the Holy Spirit.
These young Congregationalist ministers, known as the Society of the Brethren, were part of the famous “Haystack Meeting,” when part of the group waited out a rainstorm and prayed that God would open a way for a foreign mission-sending agency to be established by their denomination. There were no international mission-sending agencies in the US at that time.
In 1810, several of the Brethren moved to Andover Seminary for further ministry preparation. One of the first persons they met was Adoniram Judson, newly born again and passionate about missions. Together these young men petitioned the Congregationalist denominational leadership at its annual gathering to form a mission-sending society to support international missions. The leadership responded, and the next day formed the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
Two years later in Salem, Massachusetts, members of many congregations attended the momentous ordination service where five young ministers were ordained to the gospel ministry and commissioned as missionaries. Within two weeks, Adoniram and Ann Judson and Samuel and Harriet Newell sailed for India on one ship, and were followed five days later by Samuel Nott, Gordon Hall, and Luther Rice.
While crossing the ocean, after much prayer and study in the Greek New Testament, Adoniram and Ann Judson came to an understanding of believer’s baptism by immersion as opposed to infant baptism. When they disembarked in Calcutta, they were baptized by William Carey.
Luther Rice had a similar experience a few weeks later and was baptized by William Ward on November 1. These missionaries now found themselves in a quandary. There was no Baptist mission-sending agency in America and no financial support for their work. They wrote their resignations to the Congregationalist body with faith that God would provide for their needs.
Luther Rice returned home to New England to form mission support societies in Baptist churches. He traveled from town to village on horseback and formed dozens of groups, which became a network of mission support. In 1814 Rice was instrumental in forming The General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions (also called the Triennial Convention).
For the first time, Baptists in America cooperated at the national level, and missions was the vision that directed their work together.
During Rice's lifetime, the Triennial Convention’s membership grew from eight thousand to six hundred thousand. He helped to establish 25 missions with 112 missionaries, and 15 Baptist universities and colleges.
Luther Rice continued working until the day he died on September 25, 1836, in Saluda, South Carolina, while traveling through the South to raise funds for missions and seminaries.
He had paved the path for Baptist missions in America by helping to organize a national denomination of cooperative Baptist churches whose incessant heartbeat was missions and church planting.
-Adapted from an article written by Dr. Karen Bullock.
