July 2004

Mission Heroes

SOLOMON L. GINSBURG:
A Wandering Jew in Brazil

Picture this scene: an evangelist sets up his things in a crowded city plaza where he prepares to speak to the community. As soon as begins, people from the crowd start attacking him. They kick him until he falls down to the ground and beat him until there’s hardly a breath of life in his body. You stand by and watch as they carry his tortured, bruised and cracked body to a garbage dump nearby and just abandon him. This isn’t one of the usual, daily observances, but then again, this isn’t your everyday man either. His name is Solomon Ginsburg and his story is unique from the very beginning.

Born the son of a Jewish Rabbi in Poland in 1867, there were many expectations placed upon Solomon. At fifteen he was already a rebel when he refused to marry the girl that was matched for him. As he grew up, he spent time traveling around Poland and Russia and finally found work with an uncle in London. Not long after settling in London, a converted Jew presented the gospel to him through Isaiah 53, the foretelling of Jesus Christ, the Savior who would suffer on the cross.

Thinking back to his childhood, Solomon remembered a time when he had asked his father specifically about this passage and who it was about. A little taken back, the Rabbi grabbed up his Old Testament and gave his son a swift slap across the face for daring to ask. When Ginsburg heard this converted Jew share with him, he was truly intrigued and went to read the entire New Testament on his own. Solomon couldn’t deny Jesus’ exact fulfillment of the Old Testament in the New Testament and felt a burden on his heart that persisted for three months. He knew he needed to devote his life to Christ but he was overcome with worries about how his family would react if he became a Christian. One day as he listened to a sermon, the Scripture spoke directly to him: “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:37). Late that night, Solomon realized nothing should come between his relationship with Jesus Christ, and he finally proclaimed and trusted Him as his Savior.

Solomon experienced persecution from the very beginning of his life with Christ, beginning with his family. They excommunicated and disinherited him and his uncle fired him from his job. He began studying at Regions Beyond Mission College where he met Mrs. Kalley, the widow of the man who founded the Congregational Mission in Brazil. In 1890 she gave Solomon the means to get to Brazil and 100 British Pounds in exchange for a promise that he would learn Portuguese and support himself for one year as a missionary.

Before leaving for the mission field, Solomon was warned to avoid involvement and conversation about any particular denomination. He was well aware that the Baptists were already doing a work in Brazil, which persuaded him to study more into baptism. Prior to his research, Ginbsburg had made up his mind that baptism had nothing to do with advancing God’s kingdom, and therefore decided it wasn’t important enough to argue about. Once he really sought the Bible about it, he reached the decision that believer’s baptism was biblically based and worth arguing about, along with other Baptist beliefs, and so he became a Baptist missionary and even re-baptized by immersion anyone he had formerly sprinkled.

Solomon left for Portugal in February of 1890 to learn Portuguese, leaving behind a fiancé named Carrie Bishop who planned to meet up with Ginsburg a year later in Brazil. Very early in his language study he wrote two Portuguese tracts and handed them out everywhere he went. A lot of his ministry was spent passing out Christian literature, starting new churches, discipling future leaders and preaching. After threats of imprisonment by the Jesuits in Portugal, Solomon fled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Carrie met him there and they married, but, sadly, she passed away four months after their wedding. In 1893 he married Emma P. Morton who was a single missionary already in Brazil. They went on to have six children, four girls and two boys.

Ginsburg was convinced that reaching the Roman Catholics was the best way to evangelize the Jews and the Gentiles. As a child, Solomon remembered the lesson his father taught him as they passed by a Catholic church and saw the members bowing down to idols. The fact that these “Christians” were clearly disobeying one of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament proved to his father that Christianity was mixed up. Ginsburg set out to teach Roman Catholics to live by the truths of the Bible and not the traditions of the church including idolatry and superstitious beliefs. His hoped that Jews and people from other faiths could develop a new outlook on Christians.

Ginsburg earned his living by selling his tracts, Bibles and other religious books. He traveled purposely to remote parts of the country where danger and crime roamed free. His life was usually being threatened and on certain occasions Ginsburg was thrown into dungeons. However, God put a blanket of protection over Solomon’s life. One night, before preaching in an open, public place, Solomon found out that a priest had arranged to have him killed, yet he stood on his platform and spoke of God’s love and grace for two hours. Not until later did Solomon realized what had happened to the failed assassination attempt. The assassin had some drinks to get up the courage to kill Ginsburg. After that he fell asleep and everyone was gone when he woke up. God had more plans for Ginsburg and a much better future for his assassin, who became a Christian later on and even worked as Ginsburg’s bodyguard.

Since Solomon and other Christians were constantly persecuted, he had the opportunity to minister to and disciple criminals whom he met when thrown into prison. One prisoner, Herculano, was a hired-assassin that chose to turn his life around and put his faith in the Lord. Under the Ginsburg’s leadership, the Baptist Mission Press in Brazil delivered New Testaments and other Christian literature to the 750 prisons around the country.

Solomon Ginsburg worked in Brazil for 35 years as a Baptist missionary. In 1920, seven years before his death, the number of churches had increased from two in 1891 to 820. The total number of church members in Brazil totaled an amazing 20,155. Many people remember Solomon as “The Apostle of Brazil” and he went on to write an autobiography dedicated to his wife titled, “A Wandering Jew in Brazil” that tells of all his adventures, struggles and victories because of Christ.¹

¹ http://www.wholesomewords.org/missions/
bioginsburg2.html
² http://www.donelson.org/pocket/pp-971214.html
³ http://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/
biorpginsburg.html
⁴ Solomon Ginsburg, A wandering Jew in Brazil, 1922