July 19 - The Way Things Worked: The Case Of J. G. Matteson

Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. 1Peter 4:10, NIV.

Sometimes things actually do work well. Sometimes everything does seem to come out as God would have it. Such was the case of John Gottlieb Matteson. Born in Denmark in 1835, he immigrated with his parents to Wisconsin in 1854, bringing with him a good education but also the skepticism of so many of his native land. Considering himself a freethinker, one of his enjoyable pastimes was to bait preachers with questions they couldn't answer.

But open-minded baiters can meet their Waterloo. So it was when Matteson heard a preachers talk enthusiastically about the beauty of heaven. Having been raised in the atmosphere of the "dead state churches of old europe," he "had never known a living religion." That experience led to a chain of events in which, he recalls, "in the forest alone I found Jesus as my personal Saviour" in 1859. Soon after his conversion he felt called to preach. And preach he did, even though he didn't know his Bible very well. God blessed from the beginning as people responded to his obvious sincerity. In 1860 he entered the Baptist theological seminary in Chicago and in 1862 was ordained a Baptist pastor.

So far so good. But it got better. In 1863 he accepted the Seventh-day Adventist message. His congregation requested that he preach his new faith to them, which he happily did. For six months he presented a series of sermons on Adventist beliefs, with the result that all joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church except one family.

An effective preacher, Matteson developed Danish-Norwegian churches across the Midwestern states. Then in 1872 he got the idea to publish a periodical in the language of his converts. The Advent Tidende became the first Seventh-day Adventist periodical in a language other than English.

Copies soon found their way back to Scadinavia to make converts. In a pattern that would repeat itself in many lands, the new believers soon wrote to America requesting a missionary. Matteson accepted the call in 1877 and the next 11 years he established churches in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. While there he organized the first conference outside of North America (Denmark in 1880) and founded the first publishing house outside the United States. During his ministry he would lead some 2,000 people into the faith he loved.

Matteson's life illustrates the way things should work.