The Binghams stayed in Hawaii for twenty years and founded the Kawaiahaʻo Church. They also helped to develop a written Hawaiian alphabet. Besides the school, Sybil also started a weekly prayer meeting, attended by more than a thousand Hawaiian women.

Sybil’s admission to the mission field reminds me of a scene of a movie. She was asking for directions to her accommodations when a young man offered to take her there. The man, Hiram Bingham, was preparing to leave as a missionary to the Hawaiian Islands. He just had one problem: the mission board was reluctant to send unmarried people, and his fiancée had just broken off their engagement.
Sybil was a school teacher dreaming of joining a mission. It was common then for young Christian women to seek “higher” service to God by marrying a minister, going to a mission field, or both.
And there they were, in the same vehicle, both thinking of far-off fields. “I had taken cold by a night’s ride over the mountains,” Hiram explained, “and I wrapped a handkerchief about my neck, chin, and mouth, that cold evening, and this awakened ready sympathy in the sensitive heart of the young lady.”[1]
Hiram had heard of a young girl described as “a most amiable and thoroughly qualified companion for a missionary.” During the ride, Hiram’s “mind was intently querying whether this could be the very same.”[2]
When they arrived at their destination, they spoke for a while by the fire. “I measured the lines of her face and the expression of her features with more than an artist’s carefulness,”[3] Hiram wrote.
After discussing the matter with other men, Hiram asked a friend to contact Sybil and ask for an audience. The friend explained the matter to Sybil, leaving her with a verse meant to make a rejection rather difficult: “Rebecca said, ‘I will go” (Genesis 24:58).
But Sybil had no intention of rejecting Hiram’s proposal. She had been waiting for such an opportunity. And there was also a spark of romance. “Since that memorable evening when I was introduced to him, I find that he has secured my love,” Sybil wrote her sister. “God did indeed choose for me.”[4]
She and Hiram married less than two weeks later. On October 23, 1819, they sailed with seven other missionary couples on the Thaddeus, bound for Hawaii.
An Unfamiliar World
The 18,000-mile voyage was difficult, with the missionaries cramped in a small space, most suffering from seasickness – which might have been worse for Sybil and three other women who got pregnant during the trip. She also felt “like a pilgrim and a stranger” with “no abiding place,”[5] while everything she had loved on this earth moved further away.
The ship landed at Kailua-Kona, Big Island, on April 4, 1820. Before Sybil could even leave the boat, however, she had a first inkling that missionary life was not going to be what she had imagined. Before her departure, the secretary of the American Board of Foreign Missions (ABFM) had laid out the missionaries’ great commission.

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The qualifications of a ruling elder are of two sorts. Some are personal and relate to his way of life as a Christian. Others are official and relate to how he rules as an office-bearer in the household of God.

If it is dangerous to any church to have ministers who are not called and qualified for their office, we must be equally concerned to have qualified elders. Zeal for the Lord’s honour and the gospel, love to souls and fear of the Lord’s judgment will make this a priority. One of the key elements contributing to discipline, peace and orderliness in congregations (and the wider community) is an effective eldership. Yet many elders are either unaware of the responsibilities of their office or not conscientious about fulfilling them. To address this, James Guthrie wrote a treatise on elders and deacons. The following excerpt from a recent edition of his treatise presents his explanation of the qualifications of a ruling elder.
The Qualifications of a Ruling Elder
The qualifications of a ruling elder are of two sorts. Some are personal and relate to his way of life as a Christian. Others are official and relate to how he rules as an office-bearer in the household of God.
His personal qualifications, or the duties of his way of life are the same as the apostle requires in a minister (1 Timothy 3:2–7; 1 Timothy 6:11; Titus 1:6–8). In these passages, under the name of episkopos “overseer,” Paul includes all the office-bearers who have the oversight and charge of souls, and sets down what manner of persons they should be in regard to their walk and lifestyle.
It is beyond question that the ruling elder ought to have a blameless and Christian way of life. However, to make it clear what the Holy Spirit requires of ruling elders, I shall show from these passages, first, what Paul says they should not be, and secondly, what he says they should be.
What a Ruling Elder Should Not Be
A ruling elder must not be given to wine. He must not be a lover nor a follower of strong drink, nor go to excess in reckless debauchery, nor tipple away time in ale-houses and taverns.
He must not be a striker nor a brawler, nor given to quarrelling and contentions.
He must not be covetous, nor greedy of filthy lucre. The love of money is the root of all evil: which while some covet after, they err from the faith, and pierce themselves through with many sorrows (1 Timothy 6:10).
He must not be a novice, or one newly come to the faith, lest he be puffed up with pride, and fall into the condemnation of the devil. The spirits of novices are not yet well ballasted, nor have they been brought low enough by frequent exercises of the cross, and so they come to be more easily puffed up. The ruling elder needs to be an exercised soldier of Jesus Christ, someone who has been taught by experience to know the wiles of the devil, and who is able to endure hardship.
He must not be self-willed. He must not adhere obstinately and unreasonably to his own opinion, refusing to listen to the views of his brethren, even when their views are sound and wholesome.
He must not be soon angry, either for real or perceived causes of provocation.
What a Ruling Elder Should Be
The elder must be blameless. He must be someone who walks without offence towards God and others.
If married, he must be the husband of one wife. He must be the kind of person who shuns all immoral lusts, satisfying himself with, and keeping himself within the bounds of the remedy provided by God.
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Christians seem to feel a pull in one of two directions — both of which are away from the reality of the Spirit’s work. Both directions negate that the Holy Spirit is a divine person rather they portray him as a mere impersonal force. Both distract believers from a beautiful and central element of the Christian life.

Some years ago, I wrote about a blind spot in contemporary theology. In our church, we have just enjoyed a series about the Holy Spirit. In preaching this series, my mind has returned to this apparent blind spot. Yes, we know that Satan hates Jesus, marriage, and evangelism. But perhaps we should also consider his hatred for the Holy Spirit.
There is a logically obvious connection here. Satan hates God. The Holy Spirit is God, so therefore, Satan must hate the Holy Spirit. But it will be helpful to move past the obvious and ponder the specific reasons.
In the World
We see the enemy’s work as we look at the world around us. For example, we see cults, and we see secular society. In the cults, there is always an undermining of the biblical doctrine of the Trinity. So, God gets twisted from a gloriously loving tri-unity into a solitary and monadic power broker. As portrayed by the cults, God can even seem devilish and antagonistic. Thus, the Holy Spirit becomes just an impersonal force.
In secular society, the idea of God is also twisted into a perversion and caricature of reality. As society bombards the population with elevated notions of personal autonomy and a corrupted morality, the convicting work of the Spirit is directly opposed. People are coached not to feel guilty for sin, yet many are convinced they should feel hopelessly guilty for who they are.
In the Church
We also see the enemy’s work as we look within the church. It would be nice to imagine that his attack would lose energy once people become followers of Jesus. Reality reminds us that this is never the case. Does the enemy stop attacking marriage once people know Jesus? Are we no longer tempted to sin once we are believers? Of course not. We must then assume the enemy’s antagonism to the Holy Spirit will also continue within the church setting.
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