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It's Saturday, May 4, 2024.

Today’s edition covers the Chinese believer sentenced to prison for selling Bibles, John Wycliffe’s controversial life, the first times groups of prophets appear in the Bible, and much more.

“Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices.” (Proverbs 1:29-31)

Of Christian Concern

CHINESE CHRISTIAN SENTENCED TO 5 YEARS FOR SELLING BIBLES

The People’s Court of Huimin District, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. (Photo from Bitter Winter)

Ban Yanhong, a Christian in the Chinese city of Hohhot, was sentenced to five years in prison last month for “illegal business operations.” What operations? Reselling Bibles.

He is one of ten Christians who were arrested for the resale of the Bibles, which they purchased legally at 95% of the cover price from an authorized publisher associated with the government-controlled Three-Self Church. They then resold them at a loss (75% of the cover price), evidently to subsidize the cost for struggling Christians rather than to make a profit. 

In April 2021, they were arrested for their ministry work. The prosecutor reportedly argued that the resale of a Bible is illegal, even if it’s a “legal” Bible, if the resale was by an unauthorized religious organization, that is, a house church. The prosecutor’s office calculated that the total sales totaled over ￥40 million Yuan (~$5.6 million U.S. dollars).

After a legal battle, including a 49-day trial that concluded in January—“the first trial in Inner Mongolia that has lasted so long”—Ban Yanhong has now been sentenced. The legal proceedings continue for the other defendants, five of whom have been released on bail but four of whom remain in jail.

One of those still in custody is Wang Honglan, a woman in her late sixties who became a Christian at age 24 and is well-known in the Christian community of Hohhot. Read excerpts from Wang Honglan’s and the other defendants’ moving testimonies here.

Also Noteworthy

A street in Zürich, the largest city in Switzerland (Photo: H. Emre)

→ Nearly 1 in 3 people (32.7%) who live in the cities of Switzerland “do not belong to any religion,” according to an official report. Despite its significant role in the Protestant Reformation, a God-centered national anthem, and a cross on its flag, Switzerland has experienced “rapid…secularisation” in the past 50 years.

→ Voice for the Voiceless, an Utah-based abortion abolitionist group, pushed for the Utah Republican Party to amend their platform and adopt a resolution to pursue laws that would establish equal protection for unborn children. The party rejected the proposals and left them off the agenda during the state nominating convention last Saturday.

→ John MacArthur says there is no such thing as mental illness. For example, he says, PTSD is really only grief.

→ U.S. Supreme Court denies an application to prevent Texas from enforcing its new state law that requires porn sites to verify their users’ ages. The law remains enforceable.

→ Over 10 million unborn children have now been murdered by way of abortion in the United Kingdom since its 1968 Abortion Act, Christian Today reports.

→ United Methodist Church (UMC) votes to drop bans on funding LGBT groups, officiating gay marriages, and considering "self-avowed practicing" LGBT people for ministry. These moves come after thousands of conservative congregations, seeing the direction the denomination, have left the UMC over the past two years.

Really quick: Thank you to everyone who has responded to the survey I put out this past week! If you haven’t yet, please take two minutes to share your opinion:

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Content Catch-Up

Recent, notable content by Christian creators, or of Christian interest.*

→ Is Russell Brand For Real?: Many Christian influencers online weighed in on the report of Russell Brand’s baptism this past Sunday. One of those influencers was Allie Beth Stuckey, on her podcast Relatable. (Podcast)

→ 10 Popular Unbiblical Beliefs: Christian pollster George Barna released a report detailing common unbiblical beliefs held by millions of Americans, including that 46% “strongly believe it is possible for a married couple to be bonded to each other for eternity” and 31% “strongly believe all animals, plants, the wind, and water have a unique spirit, just like human beings do” (Release).

*Not necessarily an endorsement

Church History Tidbit

Wycliffe’s Controversies

Oil on canvas portrait of John Wycliffe, which still inspires beard envy today, by Thomas Kirkby, c. 1828. (Public Domain)

John Wycliffe (c. 1328-1384) began studying at Oxford in 1345, around 15 years of age, and had academic success. It was a politically volatile time in England, and Wycliffe ascended to popularity with the English governing class for his arguments about the limits of papal authority. He was given a parish in Lutterworth, where he preached and which he retained until his death.

However, he lost his popularity with that demographic over his consistency: just as he argued that papal authority must stay within its proper limits, he argued that civil authority must stay within its limits. At that time, his anti-papal views were growing. He taught that the true church is not the Pope and his hierarchy, but those who are predestined to salvation. Moreover, Scripture belongs to the true church and ought to be accessible in a language they can read. For this reason, he translated the Bible into English—the first ever English translation.

While this translation is what Wycliffe is most famous for today, he was more controversial in his own day for his opposition to transubstantiation—the Roman Catholic belief that the communion bread and wine actually (though undetectably) transform into the body and blood of Christ. In 1382, he was summoned to a court to examine his teachings. Ten of his tenets were pronounced heretical, but he was prestigious enough that he was neither excommunicated nor stripped of his parish. He died of a stroke two years later.

Wycliffe had amassed many followers, who came to be known as Lollards. After his death, the Lollards grew and eventually came under intense persecution, driving them underground. As a result of the upheaval, Wycliffe was posthumously excommunicated, his body exhumed and burned, and his ashes cast into a river—a supposed sign of damnation.

The underground Lollards joined ranks with Protestants in subsequent generations.

The Bible, Briefly

The Sons of the Prophets (Part 1)

Samuel Blesses Saul, by Gustave Doré, 1866. (Public Domain)

There is a sense of mystery, even spookiness, about the prophets in the Old Testament. Their access to secret knowledge (2 Kings 8:10-13), their unnatural authority (1 Kings 17:1), their strange ways (2 Kings 4:32-35), and the sometimes severe consequences for opposing them (2 Kings 1:9-12; 2:23-24) were enough at times to strike fear into the hearts of their contemporaries (2 Kings 1:13-14).

The concept of a prophet—a messenger of God—is familiar to Christians, and most of us probably think first of the big-name ones: Elijah, Isaiah, Jonah, etc. But in the time of Samuel and afterwards, the Bible refers matter-of-factly, without ceremony or clear explanation, to groups of mostly-unnamed prophets and “the sons of the prophets.” Who are they and what did they do? What can their activities tell us about the nature of Old Testament prophesying? In an 1889 article, Old Testament scholar Ira M. Price dove into the biblical data on this topic.*

The first mention of such a group, Price observes, is in 1 Samuel 10:5-13. There, the judge, priest, and prophet Samuel predicts that the newly anointed king-to-be Saul will encounter “a group of prophets” with musical instruments “coming down from the high place” at Gibeath-elohim (at or near Bethel). The prophets will be prophesying, Samuel says, and Saul himself will also begin prophesying. It happens exactly so. Notice how this seems to indicate that high places (cf. 2 Kings 1:9) and music (cf. 2 Kings 3:15; 1 Chronicles 25:1-7) are at least sometimes involved in prophesying.

Later, in 1 Samuel 19:18-24, a “company of prophets” headed by Samuel effectively prevents Saul’s messengers and eventually Saul himself from capturing David at Naioth in Ramah, when, as they’re prophesying, the Spirit of God comes upon the would-be capturers and makes them prophesy too. Saul, in fact, is so overtaken that “he too stripped off his clothes, and he too prophesied before Samuel and lay naked all that day and all that night.” Notice how this seems to imply that Saul was not the only one naked. Either the prophets (some or all) prophesied naked, or Saul’s servants had prophesied naked.**

In both of these instances, prophesying seems to have what we modern Christians might think of as a “charismatic” nature to it: it was apparently involuntary and uncontrollable, and presumably involved some kind of utterances. Exactly what those utterances were like, we can only speculate. Price suggests “the simplest explanation is that the prophesying was a recital of verses or psalms in praise to God.” In Saul’s case at Ramah, it “was probably a physically active and exhausting method of worship.”

Whatever the case, it’s clear from these verses:

• there was at least one group (perhaps an order or a school) of prophets, which was led and likely founded by Samuel

• prophesying at least sometimes involved high places, music, and nakedness**

To be continued…

___________

*Ira M. Price, “The Schools of the Sons of the Prophets,” The Old Testament Student 8, no. 7 (1889): 244–49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3156528.

**Nakedness would play a role in some later prophecies, as a symbol of being exposed and ashamed: e.g., Isaiah 20:2-4; Micah 1:8; Habakkuk 2:15. It would make sense if Saul and his servants were compelled by God to strip naked as a way of shaming them, since their pursuit of David was shameful. However, it’s not clear, and perhaps the possibility should be considered that the prophets with Samuel prophesied in the nude.

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Why "18:15"? The name Project 18:15 is based on Proverbs 18:15: “An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” The aim is for this weekly email—a Christian news briefing, a Bible study, and a Church history lesson rolled into one—to be one way you keep abreast of current events and acquire knowledge you might not acquire elsewhere.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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