Christianity in China

"All God's giants have been weak men, who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them"

"A little thing is a little thing, but faithfulness in little things is a great thing."

"After proving God’s faithfulness for many years, I can testify that times of want have ever been times of spiritual blessing, or have led to them."

"Brighton, 25 June 1965: “All at once came the thought – If you are simply obeying the LORD, all the responsibility will rest on Him, not on you! What a relief!! Well, I cried to God – You shall be responsible for them, and for me too!”"

"An easy-going non-self-denying life will never be one of power."

"And he who in all things recognises himself as the servant of GOD may count on a sufficiency from GOD for all manner of need, and look with confident expectation to GOD to really prosper him in whatever he does."

"At home you can never know what it is to be alone – absolutely alone, amidst thousands, as you can in a Chinese city, without one friend, one companion, everyone looking on you with curiosity, with contempt, with suspicion or with dislike. Thus to learn what it is to be despised and rejected of men – of those you wish to benefit, your motives not understood . . . and then to have the love of Jesus applied to your heart by the Holy Spirit . . . this is worth coming for."

"But God makes no mistakes; according to their service He divides the help, and those who are called to the holiest service are those who can have least assistance."

"China is not to be won for Christ by quiet ease-loving men and women."

"Christ is either Lord of all, or is not Lord at all."

"Consider six or eight hours a day sacred to the Lord and His work, and let nothing hinder your giving this time (to language study and practice) till you can preach fluently and intelligibly."

"Devotion to GOD is still a voluntary thing; hence the differences of attainment among Christians.”"

"For our Master’s sake, may He make us willing to do or suffer all His will."

"God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supplies."

"He that sanctifieth and those who are sanctified, find their full satisfaction in [Christ], and in Him alone."

"How important, therefore, to learn before leaving England to move man through God by prayer alone."

"How sadly possible it is to delight in the rest of faith while forgetful to fight the good fight; to dwell upon the cleansing and the purity effected by faith, but to have little thought for the poor souls struggling in the mire of sin."

"I almost wish I had a hundred bodies; they should all be devoted to my Savior in the missionary cause."

"I am in great straits for funds. I am happy about it. The Lord may take away all our troublesome people through it and give us true-hearted ones instead."

"I believe we are all in danger of accumulating – it may be from thoughtlessness, or from pressure of occupation – things which would be useful to others, while not needed by ourselves, and the retention of which entails loss of blessing."

"I besought Him to give me some work for Him, as an outlet for love and gratitude; some self-denying service, no matter what it might be, however trying or however trivial"

"I could not think that GOD was poor, that He was short of resources, or unwilling to supply any want of whatever work was really His. It seemed to me that if there were lack of funds to carry on work, then to that degree, in that special development, or at that time, it could not be the work of GOD."

"I have found that there are three stages in every great work of God: first, it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done."

"I have never passed a more anxious or trying month in my life, but I never felt God so present with me."

"I . . . know how much easier it is to lean on an arm of flesh than on the Lord; but I have learned too how much less safe it is."

"I said, ‘You are now placed in a position to help the Chinese as you have never been before. They see that your being a foreigner is now no protection, but increases your danger. Let them see that you are rejoicing in God . . . that you do not need any other protection and that you do not go away, although you might; that you put your trust in God, and are prepared either to suffer or be delivered as He sees best, will learn that there is something in the Gospel worth risking life for.’ What was the result? In almost every place where there were native Christians they grew (in spiritual maturity) as never before."

"I wish sometimes that I had twenty bodies, that at twenty places at once I might publish the saving name of Jesus."

"If God try our faith it is to show His faithfulness, and we shall lose the blessing by appeals etc."

"If I am guided by God, in going out, He will open the way and provide the means."

"If I had a thousand pounds, China should have it. If I had a thousand lives, China should have them. No! not China, but Christ. Can we do too much for Him?"

"If there was more true abiding in Christ, there would be less selfish abiding at home."

"If this is a real work for God it is a real conflict with Satan."

"If we are faithful to GOD in little things, we shall gain experience and strength that will be helpful to us in the more serious trials of life."

"If we could offer to the ungodly a worldly plan which would ensure their prospering in all that they undertake, how eagerly they would embrace it! And yet when GOD Himself reveals an effectual plan to His people how few avail themselves of it!."

"If you want blessing, make room for it."

"It is not lost time to wait upon God!"

"It needs the presence of special difficulties to manifest to all the workings of God’s mighty power, and for such difficulties we may and should be grateful, and not cast down."

"It was no vain or unintelligent act when, knowing the land, its people and climate, I laid my dear wife and the darling children with myself on the altar for this service."

"It will not do to say that you have no special call to go to China. With these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the gospel to every creature, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home."

"Let but faithful labourers be found, who will prove faithful to God, and there is no reason to fear that God will not prove faithful to them."

"Let there be no reservation; give yourselves up fully and wholly to Him whose you are and whom you wish to serve in this work; and then there can be no disappointment."

"Let us give up our work, our thoughts, our plans, ourselves, our lives, our loved ones, our influence, our all, right into His hand, and then, when we have given all over to Him, there will be nothing left for us to be troubled about, or to make trouble about."

"Many there are who fail to see that there can be but one lord, and that those who do not make GOD Lord of all do not make Him Lord at all."

"My work is a very peculiar [unique] one; in many respects it has, and can have no precedent. It may be called an experiment; to a certain extent it is so. And by God’s help it shall be, as it is being, faithfully made."

"Nearness to GOD calls for tenderness of conscience, thoughtfulness in service, and implicit obedience."

"Not infrequently our GOD brings His people into difficulties on purpose that they may come to know Him as they could not otherwise do."

"One difficulty follows another very fast – but God reigns, not chance."

"Our eyes must be upon the Lord, not upon His people. His means – not ours, not theirs, but His means are large; and to a faithful steward He will prove a faithful master."

"Power with God will be the gauge of real power with men."

"“Pray for those you send, shield them by prayer."

"Real trust in God cannot be confounded."

"Satan may build a hedge about us and fence us in and hinder our movements, but he cannot roof us in and prevent our looking up."

"Self-denial surely means somethings far greater than some slight and insignificant lessening of our self-indulgences!"

"Some are jealous of being successors of the Apostles. I would rather be a successor of the Samaritan woman, who, while the Apostles went for meat and forgot souls, forgot her water pot in her zeal to spread the good tidings."

"The Apostolic plan was not to raise ways and means, but to go and do the work."

"The highest service demands the greatest sacrifice, but it secures the fullest blessing and the greatest fruitfulness."

"The missionaries should be men of apostolic zeal, patience, endurance, willing to be all things to all men. May the Lord raise up suitable instruments, and fit me for this work."

"The more we rest on this fact, – that we do not know the way we are going, but that we have a GUIDE who does know; that we do not know how to accomplish our service, but that He never leaves us to devise our own service; – the more restful does our life become."

"The sin of neglected communion may be forgiven, and yet the effect remains permanently."

"The use of means ought not to lessen our faith in GOD; and our faith in GOD ought not to hinder our using whatever means He has given us for the accomplishment of His own purposes."

"The work . . . is steadily growing and spreading – especially in that most important department, native help. . . . The future hope of China doubtless lies in them. I look on all us foreign missionaries as platform work round a rising building; the sooner it can be dispensed with the better; or rather, the sooner it can be transferred to other places, to serve the same temporary purpose, the better for the work sufficiently forward to dispense with it, and the better for the places yet to be evangelized."

"The work of a true missionary is work indeed, often very monotonous, apparently not very successful, and carried on through great and varied but unceasing difficulties."

"There are three great truths, 1st, That there is a God; 2nd, That He has spoken to us in the Bible; 3rd, That He means what He says. Oh, the joy of trusting Him!"

"There is great danger of not, in happiness, finding our delight in the Lord."

"Those who do not make God Lord of all, do not make Him Lord at all"

"To know and to do His will – this is our safety; this is our rest."

"True devotion will rather ask to be allowed to give, and will count as loss all which may not be given up for the Lord’s sake."

"Wave after wave of trial rolled over us; but at the end of the year some of us were constrained to confess, that we had learned more of the loving-kindness of the Lord than in any previous year of our lives."

"We are taking our four little children, and I never need anyone to remind me that they need their breakfast . . . dinner . . . supper. And I cannot imagine that our heavenly Father is less able or less willing to remember His children’s needs, when He sends them forth to the end of the earth about His business."

"We believe that the time has come for doing more fully what He has commanded us; and by His grace we intend to do it. Not to try, for we see no Scriptural authority for trying. Try is a word constantly in the mouth of unbelievers, . . . far too often taken up by believers. In our experience, ‘to try’ has usually meant ‘to fail’. (The Lord’s) command is not ‘Do your best,’ but ‘DO IT’."

"We have so often been disappointed that we must not be too sure of anything, save of God’s help and presence which He will never withhold."

"On September 13, 1888, Jonathan Goforth, famed Canadian pioneer Presbyterian missionary to China, made his first exploration tour of North Honan. Honan was considered one of the most anti-foreign and dangerous parts of China. Yet God had called Goforth to it. Hudson Taylor wrote him, “We have been trying, unsuccessfully, for ten years, to get into Honan. We’ve been beaten, stoned, and turned back time and again. Brother, if you would enter that province, you must go forward on your knees!"

"We may fail, do fail continually, but He never fails."

"We shall find that Separation to GOD is followed by Blessing from GOD; and that those who receive large blessing from Him, in turn render to Him acceptable Service; service in which GOD takes delight, and which He places in everlasting remembrance."

"We wish to see churches and Christian Chinese presided over by pastors and officers of their own countrymen, worshipping the true God in the land of their fathers, in the costume of their fathers, in their own tongue wherein they were born, and in edifices of a thoroughly Chinese style of architecture."

"What I have to watch against is impatience at waiting His time."

"When the heart submits, then Jesus reigns When Jesus reigns, there is rest."

"When you need it, rest in body; rest always in spirit."

"Where the need is greatest let us be found gladly obeying the MASTER’S command. For it is in the harvest-field, it is among the reapers, that we shall find Him."

"While unbelief sees the difficulties, faith sees God between itself and them."

"With GOD all things are possible, and no conviction ever takes place save by the almighty power of the HOLY GHOST. The great need, therefore, of every Christian worker is to know GOD."

"Work is the outcome of effort; fruit, of life."

"You are not sent to preach death and sin and judgment, but life and holiness and salvation – not to be a witness against the people, but to be a witness for God – to preach the good news – Christ Himself."

"You do not need a great faith, but faith in a great God."

"The vine . . . is not the root merely, but all - root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit: and Jesus is not only that: He is soil and sunshine, air and showers, and ten thousand times more than we ever dreamed, wished for, or needed."

"Fruit-bearing involves cross-bearing. We know how the Lord Jesus became fruitful – not by bearing His Cross merely, but by dying on it. Do we know much of fellowship with Him in this?"

"I so want you to realise this principle of working with God and asking Him for everything. If the work is at the command of God, then we can go to Him in full confidence for workers; and when God gives the workers, we can go to Him for means to supply their needs."

"Argument almost always leaves behind a sore feeling in the heart of the one who has been worsted. By loving teaching, by Christ-like living, we are to win this people for our Lord. They do not understand what disinterested love and unselfishness mean: you are to go and live it amont them."

"Solid, lasting missionary work is done on our knees."

"I do not intend to be one of those who bemoan little results, while resting in the faithfulness of God. My cue is to take hold of the faithfulness of God and USE THE MEANS necessary to secure big results."

"Here then we see God’s way of success in our work, whatever it may be – a trinity of prayer, faith and patience."

"The aim of Satanic power is to cut off communication with God. To accomplish this aim he deludes the soul with a sense of defeat, covers him with a thick cloud of darkness, depresses and oppresses the spirit, which in turn hinders prayer and leads to unbelief – thus destroying all power."

"The enemy is delighted to have us so occupied incessantly with secondary and trivial concerns, as to keep us from attacking and resisting in the true spirit of the conflict."

"My mistake has too often been that of too much haste. But it is not the people’s way to hurry, nor is it God’s way either. Hurry means worry, and worry effectually drives the peace of God from the heart."

"I used to think that prayer should have the first place and teaching the second. I now feel that it would be truer to give prayer the first, second and third place, and teaching the fourth."

"At a time when much of the rest of the world is starting to wake up to the repression, mendacity, and dangers of the Chinese Communist Party regime, the Vatican is getting even deeper in bed with it. And at a time when that regime is intensifying repression of religion—including Catholics—in China, Pope Francis is renewing an accord with Beijing that has yielded no benefits yet save for President Xi Jinping and only disunity and suffering for the Catholic Church."

"The agreement just renewed between the Holy See and China is not [a peace accord] between the two sides: it is not the end of the troubles for Catholics in China, nor does it sanction religious freedom in China. It is a compromise, strongly contested by many and celebrated with excessive enthusiasm by others. It is not a situation that is advantageous to everyone. I believe that the Vatican paid a higher price than Beijing. It is an agreement that perhaps the Holy See could not have renounced without causing further difficulties to Catholics in China."

"Finally, the agreement did not address the issues of the legalization of ‘underground’ bishops not recognized by the Communist Party, and the fate of clergy who were imprisoned or under house arrest."

"The document makes no provision for any papal role in the process, not even a papal right to approve or veto episcopal appointments in China, which was supposed to be the single substantive concession to the Vatican in the agreement. It’s as if the deal never happened."

"The deal, which is part of Pope Francis's vision to expand the Catholic Church's following across the world, would help the Vatican gain access to potentially millions of converts across China, the world's most populous nation."

"Supporters argue that the deal represents a step forward as it unites Catholics in China under the authority of the pope. But critics argue that the deal would only embolden the Chinese leadership in their persecution of religious minorities, and provide moral legitimacy to a repressive regime."

"As part of the 2018 agreement, the Vatican legitimized Chinese priests and bishops whose loyalties remain unclear, confusing Chinese Catholics who had always trusted the Church. Many refuse to worship in state-sanctioned places of worship, for fear that by revealing themselves as faithful Catholics they will suffer the same abuses that they witness other believers suffer at the hands of the Chinese authorities’ increasingly aggressive atheism."

"Backers of the deal argue that it was never meant to address all outstanding issues, but was an important first step and largely beneficial to Chinese Catholics."

"The Vatican has defended the accord against criticism the pope sold out the underground faithful, saying the deal was necessary to prevent an even worse schism in the church in China."

"Little is known about the precise terms of the arrangement, except that it involves input from the Chinese government on the appointment of bishops to Chinese dioceses."

"Further, while the pastoral intent of the Holy See is understandable, in reality it is not possible to clearly distinguish the pastoral from the political in China. The Vatican’s deal gives political legitimacy to the Chinese regime."

"With the Vatican-China deal of 2018, renewed in 2020 and 2022, the schism between the Patriotic Catholic Church and the “underground” Catholic Church loyal to the Vatican was theoretically healed. Rome recognized the bishops of the Patriotic Catholic Church. The former “underground” Catholics were encouraged to affiliate with the Patriotic Catholic Church, although those “Catholic conscientious objectors” who refused to do so, while not encouraged in their attitude by the Vatican, were still regarded as being in communion with Rome. One might have expected that, after becoming somewhat affiliate with the Vatican, the Patriotic Catholic Church would have ceased to publicly support the most obnoxious repressive practices of the [Chinese Communist Party] towards other religions. After all, this may now embarrass the Vatican as well."

"We’re optimistic the Chinese authorities will wish to continue the dialogue with the Holy See within the agreed terms of the accord, and we move forward."

"The fact we have managed to get all the bishops of China in communion with the Holy Father for the first time since the 1950s, and that the Chinese authorities allow the pope a modest say in the appointment of bishops but ultimately the final word, is quite remarkable."

"It does mean that we have an opportunity to raise other issues with our Chinese counterparts. If we were to walk away from the dialogue completely, we wouldn’t have any opportunity for that. We don’t have a diplomatic mission in Beijing. We have representation in Hong Kong, but that’s very much at a church level, there’s no political exchanges, so we would be left with nothing at all."

"While its theology is certainly different from the doctrines of traditional Christian churches, American scholar Holly Folk believes it is an “authentic Christian traditions,” “and its intellectual and theological lineage within Christianity is very rich.”"

"The different theological content [of the musical film Human Beings Have Regained the Sanctity They Once Possessed] corresponds to a different and non-traditional style, which puts together , K-pop, traditional Christian songs, and Latino dance. The new Kingdom also corresponds to a new artistic style."