The Life of Paris Reidhead

And today I want to introduce you to one of the most beneficial and unusual sermons that I've ever had the opportunity to hear. It was preached by a man named Paris Reedhead, and it has a strange title, Ten Shekels and a Shirt.

It's taken from Judges chapter 17. And in this account, we have a young priest, an idolatrous Jewish family, and the tribe of Dan. This will require more than one podcast for you to listen to, so we're only going to listen to the first half now, and then we'll return for the second half later.

Paris Reidhead’s Background and Ministry

So today, I'd like to give you just a little background on Paris Reedhead. And next week, we'll talk a little bit about the occasion of the preaching of the sermon. Born in 1919 in a Minnesota farming community, Paris Reedhead embraced Christ.

And in his late teens, he committed himself to a life of Christian service. Now, in 1945, in his mid -20s, Reedhead took an assignment with the Sudan Interior Mission. And this involved him surveying and analyzing indigenous languages in preparation for evangelistic and educational efforts on the Sudan-Ethiopian border.

A spiritual crisis occurred in his life during this time, and he talks about that in this sermon. And the result was that he came to feel that much of Western evangelicalism had adopted a utilitarian or pragmatic and humanistic philosophy that directly contradicted the scriptures.

In 1949, Reedhead returned to the United States and took up work with the Christian and Missionary Alliance. This is the same denomination that A .W. Tozer labored in. He also became a pastor in New York City.

It was called the Gospel Tabernacle. For the remainder of his life, Reedhead was involved with the Sudanese and other African groups, laboring in various capacities to help impoverished people in these developing nations to help themselves and to rise out of their poverty.

Why Reedhead’s Critique of Humanistic Religion Carries Weight

He died in Woodbridge, Virginia, in 1992. The reason I mention that last thing is because I think it's important for us that if we're going to listen seriously to a sermon that so strongly condemns humanistic approaches to religion, we want to make sure that the man we're listening to really cares about humanity.

It's easy to overreact and to become kind of indifferent and aloof. But Paris Reedhead does not do that. He goes into New York City, he becomes a minister there, and he continues the rest of his life working with national and international groups as a humanitarian.

But now it's different. His humanitarianism flows out of love for Christ. And that's what we want. We don't want to overreact and become indifferent to humanity. Another thing I want to say about the sermon, which I think needs to be said because of the passage of time between us and him, is that he will talk about the people in Africa and he calls them monsters of iniquity.

And you might think that that is a strange statement from a man who went to labor among these people. Does he not care about them? Is it a racial comment? Well, it's not. His point was that in his day, there was the attitude that in the West, that those tribes in Africa who had not yet been Westernized were untouched by the vices of the West, you know, the materialism and the greed.

And when you went there with the gospel, they would just be so happy to have it. And he said he went there and he found out that they were just as sinful as the people in America. They too were monsters of iniquity.

The Universal Sinfulness of Humanity

I remember reading in 18th century sources when John Wesley was converted and George Whitefield as well. They both preached in England to good Englishmen who were members of the Church of England, and they called them monsters of iniquity.

Worse, they said, than the animals, worse than the devils. Now, that drew a lot of criticism in the 18th century. And here was the English criticism. You can't talk to good baptized church members in England as if we're savages.

They said you need to go speak that way to people out there, people outside of England. I think it's a good point. And while it's a shocking way of describing humanity, it's a good shock. We are all, regardless of our education, where we grew up, what we look like, regardless of the surface that we put on in our religion, every man and woman and child, apart from the work of Christ in mercy, saving us, we are all monsters of iniquity.

And Reedhead points that out. I hope you'll listen closely to the first half of this sermon.