8/4/2023 0 Comments Witness lee and watchman neeThese early efforts laid the theological foundation for his future teaching ministry.įor a variety of reasons, including the anti-Western movement of the 1920s, many Chinese Christian leaders were seeking ways to form indigenous churches that would be free from Western missionary control. Published in 1928, the three-volume work has been called basically a translation of Penn-Lewis’s Soul and Spirit, published ten years earlier, though Ni did not make that clear. In 1926, when he was suffering from tuberculosis, Ni began his first major book, The Spiritual Man, which sought to explain spiritual formation in terms of biblical psychology, especially the radical distinction between “soul” (self-consciousness) and “spirit” (God-consciousness). He began in 1923 by editing Revival, a devotional magazine for free distribution, followed in 1926 by The Christian, which dealt with “truths about church and matters of prophecy” and gained wide circulation in only a few years. Throughout his career, Ni engaged in extensive literature ministry. He read about major Christian leaders, also, such as Martin Luther, John Knox, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, George Whitefield, David Brainerd, John Henry Newman, D. Darby, George Muller, William Kelly, and C. He became familiar with the Brethren Movement through the writings of J. Like these writers, Ni would emphasize both a “rest of faith” and premillennialism. Jesse Penn-Lewis played by far the most prominent role in his own thinking, however. He was deeply influenced by the books in Barber’s library, consisting mostly of the Holiness literature of writers such as T. They split, however, when Ni insisted upon a total dissociation from Western denominations, which he had come to consider anti-Christian.ĭisenchanted with Anglican doctrine and liturgy, Ni spent a year at Yu’s Bible school in Shanghai, where he received basic training in Christian living. He joined with several other students of Trinity College, including Wang Zai (Leland Wang), to form a home fellowship. Ni and his mother, having rejected as unbiblical their baptism as infants in the Methodist church, were re-baptized by Barber in 1921.įrom the time of his conversion, Ni became a diligent student of the Scriptures and a constant witness to Christ. Barber had renounced her ties to the Anglican church and embraced a “life of faith,” depending on no one for financial support. Barber (1869-1930), an independent English missionary who became the most important personal influence on his theological development. In April, 1920, however, both he and his mother were converted through the ministry of Dora Yu (Yu Cidu), a Methodist evangelist. At first, he was not interested in the required biblical instruction. Mark’s English High School, and starting in 1916 the junior high school at the Anglican Trinity College, which was run by the Church Missionary Society. He attended the Church Missionary society (CMS) Chinese vernacular school, St. Ni’s father, the son of a Christian preacher, was active in his church, though his mother’s faith was nominal during his youth. (Later, he took the name Tuosheng, which is the sound produced when a time-watcher hits the bamboo gong at night.) Shortly after his birth, his parents returned to Fuzhou, where Ni received his early education in Chinese classical studies, with a private tutor for calligraphy and the Four Confucian Classics. His parents moved to Fuzhou when he was six. Born November 4, 1903, in Shantou, Guangdong, of churchgoing parents, Ni was called Shucu (“declare your ancestors’ merits”).
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