Jeremy221
May 31, 2014
Does anyone know much about the Jesus Family?
Edit: typo, title
Does anyone know much about the Jesus Family?
Edit: typo, title
Ephesians 2:19
New King James Version (NKJV)
19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
household of God / Family of God.
?
This community was started in Taian, China in the 1920s.
The Jesus Family (Chinese: 耶穌家åº) was a Chinese Pentecostal communitarian church established in 1927. It began in the rural village of Mazhuang, Taian County, Shandong Province.
Background Note: "The Jesus Family (Yesu jiating) was a unique Pentecostal communitarian church first established in rural Shandong Province (in a village called Mazhuang, in Taian County) about 1927. In later years, other Jesus Family churches were established in North and Central China, many of them in Shandong but others as far south as the regions of Wuhan and Nanjing. They were all in rural or semirural areas, and were formed into small communicities of up to a few hundred, with the believers working and living together, and holding property in common, under the direction of the 'family head' (jiazhang). Thoiugh it is hard to be exact, it seems that there were well over one hundred of these Jesus Family communities in 1949, with a total of several thousand members. All were run entirely by Chinese, under the overall leader Jing Dianying (1890-1953?). The Jesus Family was strongly millenarian, anticipating the imminent return of Christ, and it was very Pentecostal, basing its worship and behavior on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including tongues, and also on the believers' receiving divine revelations through messages obtained while in a trance. All the Jesus Family communities were disbanded in 1953, but even today many former adherents are active members and leaders in the Chinese Christian community. In the 1980s, some Jesus Family groups reappeared, but they are technically illegal and subject to persecution by the authorities." (Bays, 1996, p. 312)
from: http://ricci.rt.usfca.edu/institution/view.aspx?institutionID=353
It is probably considered a small part of the underground church in China.
:) I see it now. No brother I have personally never heard of the group.
The ' Jesus Family' in Communist China by dr D Vaughan Rees. Paternoster Press. A good book on comunity, and fresh faith without the baggage. The dr was trapped in China after the Boxer Revelution for 2 years and lived among them.
Blessings.
I'm reading a thesis titled Protestant Christian Communities by Hyun Jin Kim that looks at the Jesus Family along with some other more well known communities like the Sisters of Mary and the one in South Africa. The thesis includes a lot of references to the book by Rees, thanks for the link. It looks quite sound biblically in what I've read so far.
Does anyone have experience with these saints?
Brethren,
There is a portion discussing this group in Brother Yun's book: Heavenly Man.
He shares that they were a godly group that had a great vision to go all the way back to jerusalem with the Gospel through all the closed countries. God used them to bring many to the Lord and they were one group that had this vision in his day.
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