In 1742 Yale College expelled David Brainerd. A spiritual awakening had been sparked on the campus in months prior. As it began to grow and draw in more zealous students, tensions arose among the skeptical faculty such that the college trustees passed a code prohibiting students from even insinuate that any of the faculty were "hypocrites, carnal or unconverted men." Before long it was reported that Brainerd had made some uncharitable comments of this kind and, though he was at the top of his class academically, they booted him. Add to this that in order to be an established minister in Connecticut you had to be a graduate of Yale, Harvard, or a European university. Brainerd's dreams (and obedience!) to become a pastor came crashing down. It was very difficult, as John Piper explains, "Brained felt cut off from his life calling." This is a hard fact to swallow. Tragic, it might seem, considering that David Brainerd died at the young age of 29. But here we are looking at his life, admitting there's a good story to be told, and retold. One that's not about the expulsion, but about what God did through him in that handful of years between the expulsion and his death. Originally delivered as a message at the 1990 Conference for Pastors, John Piper tells Brainerd's story in this short ebook, "David Brainerd: May I Never Loiter on My Heavenly Journey!"

Earnestly consider your role in completing the Great Commission. That was John Piper's overarching plea when he delivered a biographical message on Adoniram Judson in 2003. Judson was America's first foreign missionary and an example of one who considered, and executed on, his own uniquely strategic role in the completing of the Commission. Though warned not to go to Burma, he entered the country almost 200 years ago—in July of 1813 — and there invested the next 38 years of his life preaching Christ where he had not been named. And the cost was very high. But in God's perfect economy, his suffering had a plain purpose. As Piper explains, "I am persuaded from Scripture and from the history of missions that God's design for the evangelization of the world and the consummation of his purposes includes the suffering of his ministers and missionaries." Originally an address to pastors, Piper's biography of Judson is now available in a short e-book that leads us to ask the same challenging question, "Might God be calling you to fill up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, to fall like a grain of wheat into some distant ground and die, to hate your life in this world and so to keep it forever and bear much fruit?"

In October of 1792 the Baptist Missionary Society was formed in the home of Andrew Fuller. For the next twenty-one years Fuller served as the leader of this organization, raising funds, writing periodicals, recruiting missionaries, and sending personal letters to those on the frontlines. He fulfilled his promise to the great missionary William Carey, who upon his trip to the unknown world of India, looked at the small band of brothers around him and said, as it were, "Well, I will go down, if you will hold the rope." Andrew Fuller held the rope. Suffering the loss of his first wife, and eight of their eleven children, Fuller persevered in the midst of severe affliction and overwhelming responsibilities. He longed for unreached peoples to hear the gospel and championed the important (but often overlooked) foundation of doctrinal clarity. For these reasons and more, John Piper delivered a biographical message on Andrew Fuller at the 2007 Conference for Pastors. Standing as the emblematic "rope holder," Fuller's life is once again put on display for our encouragement and example in this new ebook. How do we give our lives to world missions if we feel called to stay in our homeland? How do we breathe the air of the world's lostness without living among unreached peoples? How do we grasp the importance of doctrine in fulfilling the missionary cause? Read Andrew Fuller.

It wasn't until 1606 that Spanish explorer Fernandez de Quiros discovered a chain of eighty islands stretched across 450 miles in the South Pacific. Later named the New Hebrides, the islands were inhabited by peoples whose existence had been unknown to the rest of the world for centuries. It would be another 230 years before two London missionaries made the first earnest attempt to bring the gospel to these unengaged and unreached peoples in 1839. But they were killed and eaten by cannibals only minutes after going ashore. John G. Paton and his wife set sail to the islands in 1858. But this decision didn't come without criticism. On one account before leaving, a respected elder chided the couple, "You will be eaten by cannibals!" To which Paton responded, "Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms." Paton didn't play. He was a courageous man who understood how to do missions when dying is gain. God is sovereign, and Paton knew it. He endured one threat after another and put it all on the line for the glory of Christ. Originally a message delivered at the 2000 Conferecne for Pastors, John Piper's biography of Paton is now available as the eBook, John G. Paton: You Will Be Eaten by Cannibals!