Dying First, Ministering Second

“Readiness to die is the first step in learning to live.” – J.I. Packer

James Calvert was born on January 3, 1813, in Pickering, Yorkshire, England. On March 22, 1838, he married Mary Fowler and five weeks later, they sailed for Fiji via Sydney, accompanied by John Hunt.

Their goal, as Methodist missionaries, was to share the gospel with the natives in the Fiji Islands – who were known to be cannibals – and to convert them to Christianity.

As their ship approached Fiji, the captain tried to convince Calvert and Hunt to remain on board, saying, “You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages.”

Calvert looked the captain straight in the eye and with great resolve replied, “Sir, we died before we came here.”

James and Mary Calvert had four daughters and three sons, all born in Fiji. Mary died in January 1882, and James remarried seven years later to Matilda, the widow of the Rev. Dr. Andrew Kessen.

During his many years of missionary service, Calvert led Ratu Seru Epenisa Cakobau, the King of Fiji, to saving faith in Jesus Christ. As a result, Cakobau renounced cannibalism and polygamy, established a constitutional monarchy, and eventually presented his warclub to Queen Victoria when Fiji became part of the British Empire.

Before his death on March 8, 1892, James Calvert oversaw the printing of the Bible in the Fijian language and also served as a missionary to South Africa.

It turns out that “dying before he came here” was all God needed to make James Calvert’s life count for eternity!

“Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life will lose it, but whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:24-25 (BSB)

- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President