Andree Seu
Andrée Seu is a Senior Writer for WORLD and author of Won't Let You Go Unless You Bless Me and Normal Kingdom Business. A graduate of Westminster Seminary, she has four children and was widowed in 1999. She offers daily thoughts at worldontheweb.com.

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On being respectable

Jesus went to all the wrong parties | by Andrée Seu

In 1788 Elias Smith was such an impressive itinerant preacher in rural New Hampshire that he was promoted to a wealthy pastorate on the outskirts of Boston and groomed for leadership: "They dressed me in black from head to foot; and on some occasions a part of my dress was silk with a large three-cornered hat and cloak of the best. I built a house there; kept a horse and carriage. . . . Being so respectable I began to write my sermons [rather than preach extemporaneously] . . . as I lived near the metropolis, it would make me appear respectable; and besides . . . it would show that [I was] an ordained minister" (Isaac Backus, William G. McLoughlin).

In the 1820s, to be "a clergyman earning a good living" was the aim of Mr. Mueller in sending his son George to seminary. But the newly converted Mueller cut off his own support because he knew he would disappoint his dad: He was about to embark on a very unrespectable life (The Autobiography of George Mueller). He was about to become "like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things" (1 Corinthians 4:13).

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