Though Martyn preferred a quiet life of prayer and study, he demonstrated a commitment to what many today would call being incarnational. As chaplain aboard multiple East India Company vessels, he ministered to the sailors and crew. In India, he opened his home to British soldiers and Indians alike for Bible studies and church services. Martyn also took a relational approach to language learning. Though he enjoyed studying grammars and texts, he made significant progress in various languages by visiting with Indians, Arabs, and Persians.

Though we marvel at the Bible translation output of William Carey (1761–1834) and the Serampore community, Henry Martyn (1781–1812) proved a far more capable Bible translator. Trained in biblical and classical languages and mathematics at Cambridge, Martyn oversaw in his short life the translation of the New Testament into Urdu, Arabic, and Persian in less than six years of missionary service in India and Persia.

In 1923, Constance Padwick (1886–1968), a long-time missionary with the Church Missionary Society in the Arab world, published Henry Martyn: Confessor of the Faith to capture the life and significance of the visionary 19th-century missionary. Although four biographies on Martyn had been published before the turn of the 20th century, those works were appreciative and borderline hagiographic.

Writing a century after Martyn’s death, Padwick narrates his journey more soberly and from the perspective of a veteran missionary in the Muslim world. Having also written a biography on her colleague, William Henry Temple Gairdner, Padwick valued historical reflection to encourage wisdom for ongoing ministry. What lessons about mission can be gleaned from Padwick’s presentation of Martyn?

Tentmaker and Translator

Martyn went to India not as a missionary per se but as a strategically placed religious professional. He initially aimed to join the Church Missionary Society. But since his father’s inheritance was lost and Martyn was responsible for providing for his younger sister, he instead accepted a chaplain position for the British East India Company.

While Martyn primarily served as a pastor to the English-speaking expatriate community, his chaplaincy role allowed him some freedom to minister to Indians. He organized church services for Urdu-speaking women and beggars. He even started a school to teach children how to read. But Martyn’s chaplaincy also afforded him much time for his first love in ministry: Bible translation. Along with another colleague, he caught a vision for a groundbreaking project—translating Scripture into three related languages (Urdu, Persian, and Arabic) at the same time.

Martyn worked directly on the Urdu translation, which was closely aligned with his pastoral ministry in Dinapore and Cawnpore, India. In 1810, he finished the Urdu New Testament, and it was published in 1814.

Meanwhile, he oversaw the Arabic and Persian translations, including managing a team of consultants. Based on initial feedback, Martyn expressed concern about the quality of the Arabic translation and wanted to check it with Arab scholars. On their confirmation, the Scripture was published in 1816. But perhaps the most stunning accomplishment of Martyn’s team was their translation of the Persian New Testament, completed in just 34 months and published in 1815.

Missionary Scholar

Among 19th-century missionaries and translators, Martyn possessed the strongest skills in biblical languages and the greatest aptitude for learning Oriental languages.

Read More