Yesterday was one of those feel-like-you-got-hit-by-a-truck-when-you-finally-lay-in-bed days. In a good way. I’ll try to fit my account of yesterday’s events into one entry. St. came over yesterday morning to spend four hours with me. We studied the book of Acts and talked about Paul and his ministry. He was in chapter 16, where Paul meets Timothy. This was a perfect place to begin. This chapter demonstrates perfectly the true exercise of ministry: discipleship. We talked about what it meant to be a disciple, what it meant to make disciples, what it meant to be led by the Holy Spirit, what it meant to build a church, and what it meant to teach the Bible. He seemed to understand what I was talking about, even though I was coughing out my ugly Mandarin. His English is great, though, so I check occasionally to make sure I didn’t just string together five senseless sentences.
I also let him in on a couple secrets. Namely, our Bible study is illegal. This surprised him. But Paul gets chucked into a jail cell in Acts 16, so it came across very biblically! We talked about the 3-Self church, since he’s gone there twice with us before, and he seemed to understand that they don’t say everything that we say at our Bible study. I worried about how he would respond to the news about our illegal status, but before long he was asking about helping me to find a new building for our Bible study. So I guess it didn’t bother him too badly!
We grabbed something to eat before he went home, and he asked me how to recognize the Spirit’s leading. So we talked about God working in us to will and to do of His good pleasure, and the difference between us wanting something for ourselves and wanting something for His kingdom. I told him about the conflict I felt about going into the ministry, and that if this is something God wants him to do, he should probably feel resistance from the flesh. He said, “I think this is the Spirit leading me.” We’ll see…
Then came our Bible study, and it came with fury! This week we ran out of “things resembling chairs,” so we had a lot of floor-sitters. We had a great number of guests since our speaker was in Mandarin last night, giving us somewhere close to fifty people crammed into my living room! Trust me, a lot of people won’t be back! Our friend from Taiwan gave a fantastic message about the Word of God and what makes it different from any other book. It was a crazy night, but definitely one of the greatest moments we’ve had here. A couple of students made professions of faith, but there was a whole lot more conviction than that! Praise the Lord for the great night! Wish you could have been there!
The Gospel in China 
Leave a Reply