Where's the fulfillment of Mark 10:39?

In my last post, I referred to how John 21:18-19 lines up well with what other sources report about Peter and Mark's use of Peter as a source. Something similar can be said of the apostle John, but with another element that adds further credibility to what's reported about him.

How much does Acts support the apostles' willingness to suffer for their resurrection testimony?

Lydia McGrew just concluded a good series of videos on the following topic:

This week I'm starting a series about this question: Does Acts support the idea that at least twelve specific, named individuals were willing to risk their lives for the claim that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead?

Some skeptics have claimed that even if we take Acts at face value in its account of the early days of Christianity, it still doesn't support this claim. They may downplay the seriousness of the risk. They may imply that only Peter and John among the original twelve disciples actually stood up and took a risk or that the others stopped taking a risk after the religious leaders first told them to stop preaching.

In the coming weeks I'll be addressing these claims from Acts itself. Here I am setting up the question.

Remember, this is addressing what we can learn from Acts itself if we take the narrative at face value about who was proclaiming the resurrection and what they were risking.

Here are links to each part in the series:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Did the resurrection witnesses have an opportunity to recant?

Skeptics occasionally suggest that the people who claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead may have been willing to renounce that claim, but were never given an opportunity to do so. Or it will be suggested that we should be agnostic on issues of recantation, since we don't have enough evidence to go by.

The Witnesses' Willingness To Suffer For Belief In Jesus' Resurrection

The issue often comes up in discussions of the resurrection, and it should, as evidence pertaining to the witnesses' sincerity. I've written a lot about the subject in the past, such as a brief overview I wrote 17 years ago here and a lengthier treatment focused on the death of the apostles that I wrote 11 years ago here. What I want to do in this post is briefly reiterate or expand upon some of the relevant points.

Chic apostates

It's striking to compare the Christians who persevere despite dispossession, imprisonment, torture, family separation, and martyrdom to chic celebrity apostates feted in social media who had all the advantages the suffering, faithful, persecuted Christians lack.

Francis Chan at the Catholic Ecumenical Track

I watched the talk Francis Chan's recently gave to a Catholic group:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zudQWKCFEBk&t=737s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER883Nr3O-0

This is, of course, right on the heels of a sermon in which he was regurgitating Catholic talking-points. A few random observations:

1. Pastor Francis made a number of good observations about Christian piety, unrelated to Catholicism. He usually has some good things to say. I don't think he should be written off. We get different things from different people. He has his own niche. 

2. I can't foresee the future, but I think it's unlikely that he will convert to Rome. He resists being pigeonholed. He's theologically eclectic. I think he views Catholicism as just another box. He may believe it has a few things that evangelicals can learn from or benefit from, but he doesn't strike me as the kind of person to pulls a package off the shelf and goes by that label. He's more independent. What he did in speaking to the Catholic group was more a case of retranslating their piety into his own priorities. 

3. If the viewer was hoping that he'd clarify his position on Catholicism, his discussion was a disappointment. If you don't feel competent or comfortable with offering a public assessment of Catholic theology, don't accept an invitation to speak to a Catholic audience. The Catholic church is far and away the largest ostensibly Christian denomination. Many unbelievers reject Christianity because they identify Christianity with Roman Catholicism, which they think has discredited itself. 

So we can't avoid evaluating what Rome has to offer. We must present constructive alternatives. Pastor Francis doesn't have to be an expert on Catholicism to have a broadly informed, considered position. A basic way to clarify your own position is to understand opposing positions. That often provides a necessary point of contrast. 

6. Pastor Francis seems to think there's a generic, Christocentric piety which Catholics and evangelicals can share in common. He fails to appreciate that devout Catholics detour their pious impulses into the Rosary, eucharistic adoration, reading Catholic saints and mystics. It's going to be a distinctive Catholic-oriented piety. He failed to explain to the Catholic audience where to look for Jesus. How to cultivate fellowship with God. 

7. He acts like refusing to fellowship with Catholics is tantamount to "hating" Catholics, and falls under our Lord's condemnation of those who refuse to love the brethren. But that's terribly confused. 

8. He acts like you can tell who a real Christian is just by looking into their eyes. How well they emote about Jesus. 

9. Pastor Francis distinguishes between Christians who are "in love with Jesus" and those who aren't. He seems to think it's possible or even necessary for a Christian to be in love with Jesus all the time, and he treats that as what demarcates true followers of Jesus from self-deluded churchgoers. 

It's true that some Christians started out very zealous, but their fervor faded over time. There are different reasons for that. A superficial conversion experience. Or boredom caused by thin theology. After a while they think they've heard it all. There's nothing new or fresh. They stagnate rather than grow. 

However, you also have Christians where the zeal has dried out, but the commitment remains. The juice is gone, yet they faithfully persevere. That's actually a better test of Christian fidelity than when they were motivated by gushing fervor. It's like a marriage where the passion is gone but commitment remains. The couple will see it through to the end, even if the emotional dividends are gone. Endurance is a mark of true Christian faith. 

10. Pastor Francis's ideal is the persecuted church. The underground church. But there's a problem with making that the paradigm. 

i) For one thing, his ideal suffers from internal tension. On the one hand he thinks persecution and suffering for the cause of Christ are what promote genuine church growth. But that model only works if Christians remain a persecuted minority. On the other hand, once church growth crosses a threshold, the church becomes worldly, losing its purity and vision. 

So he doesn't seem to think the Gospel can or should spread beyond a certain point, because true Christian piety requires a dominant culture that oppresses the Christian faith and movement. He can't decide if church growth is good or bad. It's good so long as remains underground, but it can't stay underground if there are too many converts. At that point it's too big to be hidden. 

ii) Apropos (i), Pastor Francis seems to define genuine faith or saving faith in terms of heroic faith. The cult of martyrdom. A martyrdom mystique. He doesn't seem to have a model for how or whether it's possible to be a Christian in ordinary times. Can a faithful Christian have a normal family life? Or must true Christians live on the lam, under constant threat from the authorities? 

Has it occurred to Pastor Chan that there's a sense in which it's easier to be a martyr than a lifelong Christian? Martyrdom can be an escape from the daily demands of the Christian faith. Early release from the humdrum, the frustrations, and disappointments. 

iii) He seems to lack much appreciation for the fact that God calls different Christians to different lives of service. For instance, the church needs theologians and Bible scholars. But that requires some breathing space, where Christians aren't constantly under the gun. Where they can pursue education and research, teach and write. 

11. Instead of guilt-tripping Christians who don't suffer horribly for their faith, Pastor Francis should encourage them to make generous use of their blessings for the benefit of others. That's why God has given some Christians greater opportunities than others. On the one hand we need the purifying experience of the persecuted church. On the other hand, we also need the experience of believers in countries where Christianity is legal, where there's the affluence to cultivate Bible scholarship. Seminaries, Christian colleges, and Christian K-12. These two dynamics cross-pollinate.  

12. Pastor Francis suffers from an occupational hazard of gifted preachers. This holds true for talented performers in general. If you're a gifted public speaker, you acquire a reputation as a gifted public speaker. That in turn can make you self-conscious because there's now an expectation to live up to. That's not confined to preachers. Great performers like Laurence Olivier, Franco Corelli, and Vladimir Horowitz developed stage fright because the expectations were so high. Will you dazzle the audience? Will you say something unforgettable every time you step stage? 

One reason preachers should cultivate a text-oriented preaching style is to avoid becoming self-conscious. You stay in the text. And you bring the congregation into the text. You bring the congregation into the world of the narrative. Help them visualize what the Bible is describing, and draw analogies with their own experience. That's easier when preaching from biblical narratives, but the Bible is also chock-full of metaphors. It's good for a preacher to develop the metaphors. Draw a picture in the mind's eye of the congregation. Expand the metaphor into an extended theological parable. 

If a preacher stays in the text, and draws the congregation into the text, he's less likely to think about how he's coming across. He's not thinking about himself and the image he's projecting. Rather, he's projecting the world of the text. 

Vicarious martyrdom

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a revered figure for many professed Christians all across the theological spectrum. And that's merited. There is, though, the danger of self-deception in the veneration of figures like Bonhoeffer. It's chic to admire Bonhoeffer. It can become an exercise in self-flattery. If I admire a good person, that makes me good by extension. 

And it can become a form of vicarious martyrdom. It takes no courage to praise his courage. We admire him at a safe distance from the mortal hazards he faced. Venerating figures like Bonhoffer becomes a cost-free substitute for taking the risks he took. It has all the advantages of martyrdom without the price-tag. 

But while we admire him, would he admire us? I'm old enough to remember Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's controversial commencement address at Harvard. The western intelligentsia lionized his moral heroism. Having honored him by inviting him to deliver the commencement address at the most prestigious university in America, they expected him to honor them in return. Instead, he delivered a scorching speech about secular decadence in the west. His speech was prophetic:

https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/alexandersolzhenitsynharvard.htm

In fairness, someone might say the same thing about this very post. I don't face imprisonment, torture, or execution for posting this. Point taken. I don't claim to be a hero. Posting this doesn't make me virtuous. So this is a message for me as well. 

What if Jesus wants you to die?

http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2019/06/what_if_jesus_wants_you_to_die.html

Youthful martyrdom

Christian parents, your child is at high school when a shooting breaks out. The gunman is asking kids if they "believe Jesus is Lord": if they say "yes," they get shot. The shooter walks up to your child and asks if they think Jesus is Lord. How would you want them to answer?

— Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) February 27, 2019

Arminian theologian Randal Rauser is always on the lookout for opportunities to undermine Christian faith by posing hypothetical wedge tactics. Regarding the latest subversive thought-experiment:

i) To be the teenage child of Christian carries no presumption that the child is Christian. The teens are often an intellectually unsettled period in which the teen is developing a degree of emotional independence necessary to be a self-reliant adult. That includes the evaluation of his hereditary religion. In some cases this involves a reactionary, outright rejection of his hereditary religion. In other cases he may simply have unsettled views. In both cases this may be a temporary phase, after which he personally appropriates his hereditary religion. 

If, at the time he's confronted by the sniper, he is not a Christian believer, then he shouldn't profess Christian belief. That wouldn't be an honest answer. Admittedly, this is a situation where cowardice conveniently dovetails with honesty. But if he's not a Christian, that would be a very bad time to die.

ii) Even if their child is a Christian, there's no inconsistency in Christian parents feeling conflicted. This is not the sort of question they can give a dispassionate answer to. 

iii) If the teenager is a Christian, then he should be prepared to die for his faith. In one respect, that's the answer his parents should give, but it's inevitable and forgivable for them to be deeply ambivalent about the dilemma. This involves legitimately competing duties, although not all obligations are equally obligatory.

And the darkness overcame it not

Recently I was watching a performance of "Surely, he hath borne our griefs" (Isa 53) from Handel's Messiah, performed by King's College Chapel:

Everything about it was ideal: the setting, the message, the music, the performance.

A pocket of light in a world of darkness. If we resided in a world without darkness, there'd be no occasion to question God's existence or benevolence. If we resided in a world without light, there'd be no reason to believe in God's benevolence–although some transcendent being would still be necessary to account for many things.

But what about a world that alternates between light and darkness, in time and place? If light is the ultimate reality, we can explain the existence of moral darkness, but if darkness is the ultimate reality, how can we explain the existence of light? Shadow requires light. Light is not the absence of darkness. Rather, darkness is the absence of light. Light is primary while darkness is the side-effect of light's absence or occlusion.

Dropping the metaphor, moral evil presumes that something went wrong. Things ought to be better.

Christianity is threatened in England–by secular totalitarians in league with Muslim totalitarians. Threatened to be enveloped by darkness

But Christianity has always been threatened–both inside and outside the church. From within, by heresy, dead formalism, and moral corruption. From without by Islam, secularism, paganism, &c.

Yet within a dark world, stubborn pockets of unquenchable light remain. Pockets of light behind enemy lines. Despite ruthless, fanatical efforts to extinguish the light, it continues to reignite. It rekindles in the most unlikely places. And the surrounding darkness makes pockets of light stand out all the more. The persistence of light in a darkened world gives us reason to hope for the best.

Christian persecution in the 1C

https://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/61/61-3/JETS_61.3_525-547_Schnabel.pdf

Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything (unless you're a missionary)

https://veritasdomain.wordpress.com/2018/11/23/john-allen-chau-and-north-sentinel-island/

https://veritasdomain.wordpress.com/2018/11/29/my-response-to-leftist-christians-bashing-john-allen-chau-in-a-meme/

Missionary methods

Was he right or was he wrong? This is where thinking Christians need to step back for a moment and recognize that there is a distinction we have to make between motivation and method. That's not an accidental distinction. It's an important distinction.

But we also come to understand that Protestant missions during that period began to learn certain methodologies that became absolutely essential to the modern missionary movement. For one thing, even as we see the example of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, Christian missionary organizations began to send out missionaries, not one by one, but at least two by two. Understanding that some kind of team effort was important.

But I would also point to a distinction in methodology. Jim Elliot and the missionaries who were with him were part of a larger effort. They were part of a culture, of a church sending culture of missionaries. There were those who would continue the effort, who would learn from what happened to Jim Elliot and would continue to try to make contact with the tribe. There was an infrastructure, there was methodology, there was not a solitary effort because if that solitary effort had been the case in Ecuador, there would not have been the following of the team that was able eventually through persistent efforts to reach the tribe with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

But we also have to understand that hard lessons have been learned throughout Christian history and in particular, in the course of modern Christian missions about how best to try to reach unreached people groups.

And to put the matter bluntly, this is not the way that most modern missions organizations would seek to reach this kind of group. That doesn't mean that they wouldn't demonstrate the same kind of courage, it doesn't mean that missionaries even today are not serving under the threat of martyrdom and often facing the reality of martyrdom. It doesn't mean that there should have been no effort to reach this unreached people group, not to mention the thousands of other unreached people groups still on planet earth.

But it's also true to understand that Christian missionaries and mission sending organizations have learned something about how, over the long term, to be even more effective in reaching these unreached people groups.

https://albertmohler.com/2018/11/26/briefing-11-26-18/

The gaping lacuna in Mohler's analysis is that he never gets around to presenting a practical alternative. What's a more effective method for reaching the tribe? Mohler repeatedly poses that question, then leaves it dangling in mid-air. He never answers the question he raised. He takes refuge in abstractions and generalities. 

Take his (at least) two-by-two rule. How would that change the outcome of the encounter with the hostile tribe? If a team showed up at the island, wouldn't the whole team be massacred? 

There's a problem when Christian spokesmen feel the need to comment on issues even though they have nothing constructive to say. Why does Mohler bother to critique Chau's methodology when Mohler has no solution to offer? 

Shake the dust from your feet!

1. I've seen a couple of critics raise a biblical objection to John Chau's ill-fated missionary encounter: he disobeyed the command to shake the dust from your feet when you are unwelcome (Mt 10:14; Mk 6:11; Lk 9:5; 10:11; Acts 13:51). That's an issue we have to seriously consider.

2. This is not a direct command to Christian missionaries, but to the Twelve. The doesn't rule out a general application, but some commands to the Twelve are unrepeatable. Moreover, even where commands have a general application, they are only applicable in analogous situations. 

3. The command to the Twelve has a specific context. It's an extension of the public ministry of Christ in Palestine. The Twelve are to go around Palestinian villages, proclaiming the Gospel to Jews.

In the Synoptic Gospels, as well as Acts, the command has explicit reference to Jews. That doesn't mean it can't have a broader application, but the application must be analogous.

These are people steeped in the OT. So they already have that frame of reference. In addition, they either know Jesus by reputation or from firsthand observation, as an exorcist and wonder-worker. So his authority as a messenger is corroborated by his supernatural feats. In addition, the Twelve are empowered to perform miracles (exorcism, supernatural healing).

That's the audience. The audience already has multiple lines for evidence for the Gospel. Their knowledge of the OT. Their knowledge of Jesus as an exorcist and wonder-worker. Their knowledge of the Twelve, as exorcists and healers. 

If, despite all that, they oppose the missionaries, then that's when the missionaries should shake the dust from their feet.

Clearly the Sentinelese tribe has nothing like that background information. They don't have a biblical frame of reference. They never witnessed missionaries performing miracles. They're a blank slate in that regard. Assuming they're religious, it's paganism. 

4. Acts 13:50-51 is an extreme case. Paul and Barnabas didn't merely encounter resistance. They were forcible expelled from the district. It wasn't physically possible for them to evangelize the Jews and gentiles in that area. They were run out of town by the civil authorities.

5. Did the Sentinelese tribe en masse oppose Chau? Did the women and children oppose his overtures? Presumably the tribe is governed by a chieftain or oligarchy of male elders. I doubt their xenophobic policy was put up for a vote. 

6. There are situations in which evangelism may be futile, and given limited resources, it's best to reallocate those resources to a more promising mission field. But throughout church history, missionaries routinely encounter initial, fierce resistance.

Fool for Christ

John Stackhouse 

I read a piece issued by a prominent American medium (Religion News Service) that was really badly written, a hodge-podge of fact, stereotype, and outright falsehood that almost certainly was published only because the author identified herself as both a former evangelical Christian and a Native American wrestling with her own identities as such.

There aren’t many heroes left outside superhero comics and movies, are there? Not unalloyed saints, that’s for sure. And that’s okay: No one but Jesus has been perfect, and we’re right to keep our critical faculties about us even when, and sometimes especially when, someone is presented to us in glorious robes of sanctity.

That said, I agree that it’s weird, verging on the pathological, the way even fellow Christians have sharply criticized this young man, initially assuming he was a fanatic who knew nothing about diseases (wrong), languages (wrong), tribal cultures (wrong), and the dark history of imperialism (wrong). In fact, he and his sending agency seem to have been impressively responsible on all those counts. So what’s the problem?

Then we have evangelical Christians chiding him for breaking the law in preaching the gospel to people the government had said were off limits. Excuse me? Anyone read the Book of Acts recently?

Missionary history is in fact full of stories of pioneers cut down upon first contact, only to be replaced by more who were inspired by the initial story who then enjoy success. Let me be clear that of course I am not defending any and all missionary endeavours. Some of them have indeed seemed foolish and fruitless. But I am defending the simple point that someone has to be first, and that someone may well pay the ultimate price in order to get the conversation going. That’s what John Chau did, and it’s ‘way too early to write off his self-sacrifice as foolish and worthless. Let’s just see what happens next.

Last point: For Christians, the worst thing in the world isn’t dying. It’s failing to do the will of God.

https://randalrauser.com/2018/12/21st-century-martyr-a-conversation-on-the-legacy-of-john-allen-chau/

Should Missionaries Just Stay Away?

http://www.contextwithlornadueck.com/2018/11/29/should-missionaries-just-stay-away/

Publicity-seeker?

Arminian NT scholar and blogger Scot McKnight has a guest post by Ruth Tucker impugning John Chau as a publicity-seeker:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2018/11/28/john-allen-chau-a-missionary-historian-perspective/

Unless I'm misremembering, I believe Ruth Tucker is an apostate. She wrote a book about her defection from the Christian faith several years ago. That doesn't mean her observations about Chau, Jim Elliot, and Elizabeth Elliot are necessarily wrong, but she does have an ax to grind. I find it odd that McKnight would host her diatribe without any awareness of the conflict of interest. 

Rough rider or reject?

https://asianroughrider.com/2018/11/27/the-death-of-john-allen-chau-rough-rider-or-reject/

Was John Chau a missionary Rambo?

http://www.dennyburk.com/mission-agency-clears-away-some-false-assumptions-about-john-chaus-mission-to-remote-tribe/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2018/11/28/slain-missionary-john-chau-prepared-much-more-than-we-thought-his-case-is-still-quandary-us-missionaries/

Sending missionaries

1. The martyrdom of Christian missionary John Chau provoked critics of Chau from both ends of the political/theological spectrum. On the one hand you have the secular progressives. One allegation is that he represents white-American colonialism. Some basic problems with that allegation:
i) Was he Aryan? He seems to have a Chinese surname and appears to be biracial. I'm guessing he's Amerasian (or adopted). So he's a poor candidate for white colonialism.
ii) In addition, in what sense did he represent the forces of colonialism? Here's a definition:

colonies for settlement and colonies for economic exploitation
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/colonialism/#Def

He doesn't represent either one. Is the USA planning to invade the North Sentinel Island?
iii) The Christian faith originates in the Middle East, not Europe. It's not a white man's religion, and it was around many centuries before the USA came into being.
iv) Then you have progressives who say Chau was violating the national sovereignty of the islanders. But aren't these apt to be the same people who support open borders with respect to immigrants and "refugees" to the USA?
v) Another objection raised both by secular progressives as well as some professing Christians is the risk of infecting the islanders. Yet that would preclude Christian mission to many people-groups throughout church history, before the advent of vaccines, antibiotics, and antivirals.
In addition, can the islanders count on everyone to respect their sovereignty? China is becoming increasingly aggressive and expansive. If their geographical isolation and lack of resistance makes the islanders fatally vulnerable to epidemics, then they need to develop some resistance, since they can't expect to live in a bubble forever.
What about medical missionaries?
vi) The bottom-line is that secular progressives despise the Christian faith. Ironically, the people who hate Christianity reveal their desperate need for the very thing they hate.
vii) If atheism is true, human life is worthless. It's impossible to wrong anyone. It's all about power and ruthless self-interest.
2. Chau also came in for criticism from Christians. Reformed author and pastor Mark Jones said he was "unimpressed" by Chau and compared him to Calvin's statement that "zeal without doctrine is like a sword in the hands of a lunatic."
i) Some Christian critics seemed to imply that if a missionary is murdered, that in itself is proof that he was a zealous fool. When I asked Pastor Jones if that applies to St. Stephen (Acts 9), he replied:

You're comparing John Chau to Stephen? Wow. At least Stephen's audience heard the gospel in their language. That's one major difference.

That's an interesting response. How, exactly, is a missionary supposed to master the language of a xenophobic, geographically isolated people-group? Are there grammars and lexicons of Sentinelese language? Are there recordings that provide the pronunciation? From what I've read, it's a language isolate. Presumably, the only way a missionary could learn their language is through immersion, which requires direct contact.
In Acts 14:8-13, Paul and Barnabas don't know the native language, which results in some confusion. Were they wrong to evangelize such areas?
3. Do Christian critics think evangelism is supposed to be risk-free? I asked them what Chau should have done differently to avoid getting killed. No answer. Should we play it safe. Write off countries where evangelism is hazardous?
4. Another objection is that Chau's action was illegal. But even if that's the case, Scripture says the duty of evangelism overrides any laws to the contrary (Acts 5:29).
5. Yet another objection is that he wasn't sent. He was a lone ranger. That raises a number of issues:
i) From what I've read, he was trained and sponsored by a missionary organization:
https://allnations.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/All-Nations-Nov-21-2018-News-Release.pdf
So Chau doesn't seem to fit the profile of a missionary Rambo. But suppose instead of going by himself, a mission team went to the island. If they all got massacred, would that satisfy the critics?
ii) Perhaps some critics would say his sponsor doesn't count because that's a parachurch ministry. Some Christians frown on parachurch ministry. They think missionaries must be sponsored by a local church. And in the Book of Acts we see some coordination between local churches and missionary outreach.
a) However, that's descriptive, not prescriptive.
b) Moreover, although Peter, Paul, and John are said to be "sent" by local churches, they had an independent mandate to evangelize. A direct commission from Christ. They didn't require permission or authorization from a local church.
c) Furthermore, we have passages like Acts 8:5 which says "Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ." There's no indication that he was sent by a local church.
d) What about denominational mission boards? What about missionaries who were sent, not by a local church but by the denomination–via the missions board? Does that count? A denominational missions board transcends the local churches that comprise the denomination. That can't be prooftext from Acts.
Then you have transdenominatinal mission boards. Does that count?
In the nature of the case, missionary outreach has an international dimension. That can't all be coordinated at the level of the local church. There need to be some overarching structures or "connectional" ministries.
iii) In addition, while Acts sometimes refers to people who are "sent", the sender isn't necessarily or even normally a local church. It can take the form of revelatory dreams and visions, Christophanies, angelophanies, Christian prophets, or an audible voice of God:

26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. 27 And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot” (Acts 8:26-29).
19 And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you. 20 Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation, for I have sent them.” 21 And Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for. What is the reason for your coming?” (Acts 10:19-21).
Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. 4 So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus (Acts 13:1-4).
6 And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. 7 And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. 8 So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. 9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them (Acts 16:6-10).

Yet I'm pretty sure the critics of Chau are cessationists, so they don't think a missionary must be sent in that supernatural sense. But in that event they can't prooftext their position from Acts.
There is a famous passage in Romans:

14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Rom 10:14-15).

But in context, I believe that's alluding to Jesus commissioning the apostles. If so, a cessationist can't appeal to that passage. You also have Paul dispatching his deputies. But unless we subscribe to apostolic succession, that's unrepeatable.
6. Perhaps Chau went alone because he couldn't persuade anyone else to accompany him. They were too afraid. Or perhaps he didn't wish to endanger anyone besides himself. As a "person of color", he might have more entree with other "people of color" than a white missionary. He died trying, but his death is a Christian witness. Indeed, that's the etymology of martyrdom. It became a technical term for Christians whose willingness to die for their faith is a witness in its own right.