I don’t believe anyone thought we took the name for our daughter, Agnes, from the then-recently released Despicable Me, but it often produced conversation. Among midwesterners, she inevitably hears, “Oh, I had a grandmother” — or great-grandmother — “named Agnes.” But few realize that the name has a distinctive Christian heritage, beginning with the early martyr Agnes of Rome.

In naming our daughter after a martyr, we were seeking to shape our (and her) imagination about the ideal Christian life. Agnes of Rome’s story, brief as it is, reminds us that gladly confessing Jesus as Lord and acknowledging our identity in Christ are the most important things about us. The martyr moment brings the good things of this earth into eternal perspective. Agnes shows the power of Jesus’s promise to the church in Smyrna — “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10) — and asks if we really believe it.

Pure Lamb

Early authors often remarked that Agnes’s life matched her name. Agnes conveys a double meaning related to the Greek word for “pure” (hagne) and the Latin word for “lamb” (agnus). In Christian art, she is always depicted with a lamb, which makes her easy to spot in an old church or an art museum. She exemplifies a young unmarried woman who died for her Christian faith.

As with many martyr stories, Agnes’s death likely occurred during the “Great Persecution” around AD 304. The Roman emperor Diocletian feared the rising Christian population and sought to unify the empire after a series of insurrections and rebellions. He closed churches, arrested church leaders, and tested the loyalty of prominent Romans by making them offer a sacrifice to the gods or else face deadly consequences.

Among those brought to trial in Rome during the persecution was a twelve-year-old girl (or possibly thirteen) named Agnes. She came from a Christian family and was probably denounced because she refused to marry the son of a Roman official.

‘New Kind of Martyrdom’

We know Agnes from two texts in the late fourth century. The first is an inscription, which still exists, in a church honoring Agnes in Rome. Damasus, bishop of Rome (AD 366–384), comments on her courage amid the degrading humiliation of being exposed before the crowd: “Though of so little strength she checked her extreme fear, and covered her naked members with her abundant hair lest mortal eye might see the temple of the Lord.” Damasus emphasizes both her vulnerability and her steadfast conviction, indeed willingness, to die for Jesus.

The second witness is Ambrose (c. AD 339–397), bishop of Milan and mentor to Augustine. He delivered an address on January 21, 377, which he notes is Agnes’s “birthday” (her martyrdom day). If she died in AD 304, Ambrose was retelling the story 73 years after the fact, approximately our distance from the Second World War. He could have known people who had witnessed the event, so his story has substantial credibility.

“A young person is never too young to testify to Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior, and Treasure.”

According to Ambrose, after refusing an offer of marriage, Agnes said, “He who chose me first for Himself shall receive me. Why are you delaying, executioner? Let this body perish” (“Concerning Virgins,” 1.2.9). Ambrose praises her in the high classical style of preaching in that day: “She was fearless under the cruel hands of the executioners, she was unmoved by the heavy weight of the creaking chains, offering her whole body to the sword of the raging soldier, as yet ignorant of death, but ready for it” (1.2.7).

He marvels that one so young would die:

A new kind of martyrdom! Not yet of fit age for punishment but already ripe for victory . . . she filled the office of teaching valor while having the disadvantage of youth. . . . All wept, she alone was without a tear. (1.2.8)

In devotion beyond her age, in virtue above nature, she seems to me to have borne not so much a human name, as a token of martyrdom, whereby she showed what she was to be. (1.2.5)

That is, the double meaning of her name showed her to be a lamblike sacrifice and a pure virgin. She understood herself to be espoused to Jesus and so denied the claim of a human suitor.

Hagiography

One challenge in appropriating Agnes for today is that medieval Roman Catholic writers added substantial details to her story. For instance, The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine (1275) records that the Roman prefect sent her to a brothel to be abused since she refused to recant and be married. God protected her so that when the prefect’s son approached her, he was struck dead. But Agnes prayed for the young man, and he immediately recovered. When she was sentenced to death in the fire, the flames parted so that she was unhurt. After failing to kill her in this way, the officials executed her with a sword.

This is hagiography, an expanded account of martyrdom that combines a historical core with additional (often invented) details to highlight the martyr’s heroism. We can see where the medieval authors creatively embellished Agnes’s story. While the motive may be commendable, we need to be content with the simpler accounts by Ambrose and Damasus, even if the details are not so vivid.

But what about the emphasis in all these sources on virginity? Agnes’s commitment to Christ was tested because of the advances of a non-Christian man seeking a wife. We do not know whether she refused marriage in principle or only refused to be married to an unbeliever. Either way, while we today may be hesitant to affirm the principled denial of marriage, it is important to see that the early church rejoiced in the newfound freedom of a sacred singleness exemplified by Jesus and Paul. To early church authors such as Ambrose, the refusal of marriage in this world pointed strongly to one’s belonging to Jesus Christ.

Regardless of Agnes’s exact motivation, we can agree with Ambrose that she refused the earthly good of marriage and accepted death (the end of all possibilities for good things on this earth) because she belonged to Jesus Christ. Despite the legendary facets added to this story, the main event continues to draw our attention: a twelve-year-old girl stood before a Roman official and confessed her faith in Jesus.

Not Too Young to Testify

Ambrose and others marveled at Agnes’s youth. Her story presses home that a young person is never too young to testify to Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior, and Treasure. And when they do so, especially in the face of opposition, they participate in the victory of Jesus over sin, death, and hell. When teenagers today confess that their decisions and actions are motivated by faith in Jesus, they demonstrate the courage and faith that overcomes the world (1 John 5:4–5). A confession of Jesus has more significance than any accomplishment — whether in school, sports, or society.

Note how Ambrose and Damasus remind us of Agnes’s physical vulnerability as a child and a woman but then show her indomitable trust in Jesus. When Augustine reflects on Agnes, he compares her to Hercules. He overcame the lion and Cerberus the three-headed dog, but “Agnes, a thirteen-year-old girl, overcame the devil” (Sermon 273.6).

C.S. Lewis knew that simple faith possesses great power against Christ’s enemies. The demon Screwtape seethes just thinking about a godly young woman like Agnes:

[She is not] only a Christian but such a Christian. . . . The little brute. She makes me vomit. She stinks and scalds through the very pages of the dossier. It drives me mad, the way the world has worsened. We’d have had her to the arena in the old days. That’s what her sort is made for. Not that she’d do much good there, either. A two-faced little cheat (I know the sort) who looks as if she’d faint at the sight of blood and then dies with a smile. . . . Looks as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth and yet has a satirical wit. The sort of creature who’d find ME funny! (The Screwtape Letters, 117–18)

We do not know if Agnes died with a smile or laughing at the impotence of the demons, but she did die confessing her Lord. And the demons shuddered.

Raising Our Children for What?

Lewis’s imaginative description brings Agnes home to us. Are we raising children whose highest aim is to testify faithfully to their Savior, the risen and exalted Jesus Christ? Would our daughters die with a smile, use satirical wit against a demon, and even look into the face of our greatest enemy and laugh because they are so secure in their faith?

Here is where martyr stories are so helpful. The picture that comes into our minds of a successful Christian life determines to a considerable extent what our own Christian life will look like — and the kind of Christian life we will hold before our children. Agnes provides such a picture.

There is fresh talk today about generational influence and stable households. By all means, it is a blessing to provide your grandchildren with a tradition of hard work and respect for family continuity. But this desire can so easily become a temptation to aim primarily at wealth, influence, and property. The martyrs, on the other hand, remind us that, whatever we build on earth, we must be ready to say goodbye to everything and give up control over our earthly future in a moment of witness. Christian parents will do no better than to pray that they and their children display the faithful confession of Agnes and the other martyrs.

Jesus’s promise in Revelation 2:10 — “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” — does not apply only to those who face imminent execution for confessing Jesus as Lord. The language of martyrdom provides a peg, a hook, on which to hang the rest of our Christian life and the culture of Christian life we are creating as a family and church. The brief account of Agnes does not tell us everything about the Christian life, but it does illustrate the extreme situation that should anchor our expectations of life in this world.

Augustine concludes with encouragement: “Pray that you may be able to follow in the footsteps of the martyrs. It isn’t, after all, the case that you are human beings and they weren’t; not, after all, the case that you were born, and they were born quite differently” (Sermon 273.9). Indeed, Agnes’s story reminds us that all of God’s people can find the courage to confess Christ publicly based on a settled conviction that we belong to Jesus.

“When did you feel called to missions?”

This question often gets posed to current and former missionaries. For me, a particular ministry opportunity quickly turned into a call. I was studying and training for ministry and had an interest in cross-cultural work, but it only hit home when a professor said, “I have a friend in Ukraine who could use someone to teach the things we are learning in this class. Are any of you interested?” That need fit me, and my heart quickly grew toward God’s work there.

Are You Called?

A lot of people, however, feel confused about the term “called.” One person may believe his call places him outside the reach of evaluation — as if my sense of divine call obligates other people to treat me in a special way. A call to missions can sometimes seem to validate someone’s Christian faith, as if I am incomplete as a Christian unless God gives me the significance of cross-cultural ministry. Or we may say we are called when what we mean is that we feel drawn toward the spiritual and physical needs of people in a certain place. These interpretations tend to make the call an internal experience more interested in how I feel than with God’s purposes in the world.

The missionary call can also be expanded so widely that it stirs up improper guilt. The passionate singer-songwriter Keith Green gave this missions exhortation in 1982:

[Jesus] commands you to go. . . . “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15 KJV). That’s right. . . . YOU ARE CALLED! In fact, if you don’t go, you need a specific calling from God to stay home.

And by “go,” Green did not mean just to a next-door neighbor. This was a call to cross-cultural evangelism in light of the overwhelming number of people who have never heard the gospel. Green wanted his listeners to feel guilty for not crossing cultures as missionaries. Such an exhortation cuts through the process of discernment about whether someone is called to missions and simply concludes that we are all called.

All Are Sent, Some Are Called

Green’s words remind us that the whole church is sent. Jesus sends the apostles in John 20:21 and tells them they will be his “witnesses” all over the world (Acts 1:8). The Great Commission addresses all of Jesus’s disciples with its charge to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18–20). Peter makes clear that this sense of mission applies to everyone in the church when he calls his readers “a holy nation.” You were chosen, he says, “that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

But the whole church fulfills that mission by setting apart particular people to bring the saving gospel to new groups in different cultures. Instead of saying, “You are all called to cross-cultural missions,” we can announce to the church, “You are sent!” without specifying exactly where and how each person participates in that mission.

To help clarify how the church uses these terms, I propose that we reserve a missionary “calling” to people who have both an internal desire to be involved in this ministry and also the affirmation of the church, the institution that Jesus Christ has authorized and sent. A “call” to missions announces that a particular person will join the church’s mission in this particular task — crossing cultures in order to proclaim the gospel and establish the church.

Missionary Calling in the New Testament

God certainly directs his people into specific ministry assignments, but the New Testament does not emphasize the internal sense of calling to the degree that we often do. The apostles received distinctive divine calls — whether through the incarnate Lord saying, “Follow me” (Matthew 4:18–22), or, as with Paul, through an appearance of the risen Christ speaking directly to him (Acts 9:1–19). But these were extraordinary callings for extraordinary tasks. When we look at how the other missionaries were chosen in the book of Acts, we find a variety of means.

“Saying that we aspire to a missionary calling saves us from the twin dangers of overconfidence and indecision.”

In the examples of Silas, Timothy, and John Mark, they each seem to have joined a missionary team through a combination of desire, need, and opportunity. Paul needed a partner and so looked to Silas (Acts 15:40). Barnabas needed a partner and recruited John Mark back onto the team (Acts 15:37–39). Timothy “was well spoken of,” and Paul recruited him (Acts 16:1–3). These examples show us that while the whole church is sent to make disciples, individuals join particular branches of that task through a combination of factors.

That is not to say that the idea of a calling or vocation is without biblical evidence. “Calling” in the New Testament Epistles always refers in some way back to one’s conversion, the time God called one into his family (1 Corinthians 1:26). But in at least one text, 1 Corinthians 7:17, Paul also views our life circumstances as part of our calling. He writes, “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him” (1 Corinthians 7:17). Paul means that when God calls you into his family, he calls you specifically, with all the relationships, positions, and history that you have. Were you married when he called you (that is, when you were converted)? Then God means to make you his child in that state of marriage.

It is from this text that Christians have developed the idea of one’s “calling” or “vocation” in life. Since God is sovereign over the events in our life, whatever he gives us to do can be a part of our particular path of discipleship. God means to make us Christians in whatever circumstances he gives us. That call may include caring for an elderly parent, or raising a child with special needs, or — if you happen to be born as the eldest son of a monarch — serving as a prince and king.

It makes sense, then, to refer to the task of cross-cultural missions as a calling, just as pastoral ministry, motherhood, running a farm, and simply living as the persons we are in the place God has given us are callings from God.

Learning from the Pastoral Call

That said, a pastoral calling works in a special way that would be helpful for missionaries to learn from. Protestant churches have long recognized that a man does not possess the authority of a pastor unless a church recognizes the God-given gifts that accompany that position. Many churches and denominations require that ordination be “to a definite work” (as the PCA’s Book of Church Order puts it). This is a “call,” a specific affirmation of someone’s gifts and of his fit for a particular task with recognized status and responsibility in the church. A man may feel called to preach the gospel, but he is only truly called to pastoral ministry when the church affirms that desire and gives him some responsibility.

In his handbook for future pastors, Bobby Jamieson prefers to say that a man “aspires” to become a pastor rather than “is called.” “Calling asks you to picture yourself at the end of the trail. Aspiration points out the path and tells you to take a step” (The Path to Being a Pastor, 30). An aspiring pastor asks the church to help him take the next step toward affirmation and responsibility.

Because pastoral ministry includes a specific authority to preach God’s word to God’s assembled people and to participate in the oversight of a local church, it requires definite and fairly high qualifications. But because missions can represent a variety of ministries, some of which are only tangentially related to spiritual authority in the church, we can easily dilute the calling. A person’s desire alone can be mistaken for a calling to a particular work.

If we adopted the careful language of a pastoral call for missionaries, we would clarify where someone is on the path to becoming a missionary. A subjective calling to cross-cultural ministry will be confirmed if and when God arranges it so that this person is actually engaged in that definite work.

Rather than speaking confidently of our calling to missions (and may the Lord call out many more!), we might be wise to say, “I desire to be a missionary,” or “I am preparing to be a missionary,” or “I aspire to be a missionary.” Since our knowledge of God’s call is tentative and aspirational, we can have a missionary burden, a desire for missions, an exploration of a call, or a sense that we might be called.

Opening Ourselves to God’s Leading

Aspiration announces that we are on a path. It says to the church around us, “Please help me discern the next step God would have me take.” It opens us up to evaluation and input, and places our desire for ministry within the appropriate context of the church’s mission. Saying that we aspire to a missionary calling also saves us from the twin dangers of overconfidence and indecision. If we aspire, then we do not announce confidently that we already have the call. And if we aspire, we are asking for the church’s affirmation rather than for a unique divine sign.

“Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed” (Acts 15:39–40). Did Silas receive a missionary call? Silas was certainly a well-respected church leader. He had been chosen, along with Paul and Barnabas, to bring the letter from the Jerusalem council back to Antioch (Acts 15:22). But Paul’s invitation here was enough to have him join the missionary team. God may have moved in a hundred ways before that day to prepare him for this call. But the crucial moment came when Paul said, “Why don’t you join me?” and Silas heard and accepted that call.

Instead of waiting for a miraculous sign, Christians can seek opportunities for ministry and use discernment to ask, “Would this ministry fit how God has made me?” Instead of boldly announcing that one is “called” to missions, Christians can ask for input from other mature believers. “I would like to be called as a cross-cultural missionary. How could I prepare for and pursue that calling?”

A call to missions is confirmed when the church sends someone who is willing, capable, and tested to proclaim the gospel and establish the church in another culture. When that happens, a missionary can be confident in God’s direction not only because of his subjective desire, but also because of the affirmation of God’s people in the church.