Paris Reidhead

Paris Reidhead (May 30, 1919 - March 23, 1992) was a Christian missionary, teacher, writer, and advocate of economic development in impoverished nations.

Life and career Reidhead was born in a Minnesota farming community in 1919. When in his late teens, he committed himself to a life of Christian service.

In 1945, Reidhead took an assignment with the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM), surveying and analyzing indigenous languages in preparation for evangelistic and educational efforts near the Sudan-Ethiopia border. His proficiency in tribal languages was noted by his contemporaries. Reidhead's experiences in Sudan deeply impacted the core values that would later guide his life.

A spiritual crisis during this period - as he described two decades later in what is probably his best-known recorded teaching, "Ten Shekels and a Shirt" - left Reidhead with the conviction that much of evangelicalism had adopted utilitarian and humanistic philosophies contradictory to Biblical teaching. The end of all being, he came to believe, was not the happiness of man, but the glorification of God. This theme would recur throughout his later teaching.

Upon his return to the United States in 1949, Reidhead was appointed Deputation Secretary of the SIM.