Mayflower Classics: Spiritual Food – by Wong Ming-Dao

Spiritual Food - by Wong Ming-Dao

Our price: £1.00, by Wong Ming-Dao (Arthur Reynolds translator)
Published by Mayflower Christian Books

With deep insights, this book has 20 messages characterised by the gift of the author to see through wrongly motivated, human behaviour in churches.

Wong Ming-Dao was imprisoned in China for 23 years by the Communists for his faith.

This Godly pastor understood people’s personal needs and the human heart so he could bring challenging applications. The articles are searching and sifting, but are also full of positive counsel and encouragement for real pilgrims.

Wong Ming-Dao knew what it was to suffer and yet triumph with Christ. He is a great example of Christian obedience and faithfulness.

This book makes for truly attractive devotional reading and is highly recommended.

Written about this Wong Ming-Dao book by those involved in its publication …

Why was the Lord’s servant, Mr Wong Ming-Dao, so greatly in demand as a preacher and teacher? Certainly the content of his preaching was not universally popular. It was a straightforward setting forth of the truths and implications of the Gospel, albeit in a style of his own.

Yet not only was he held in great respect by the church with which he was associated in Peking, but also his visits would be remembered with gratitude by churches in all parts of China. I have in mind particularly, of course, the days when he was able to move around freely and to minister widely to Christians and non-Christians alike.

Two features stand out. On the one hand was the forthright and faithful nature of the message; on the other band was the uncompromising and courageous nature of the man. He was undoubtedly a preacher with backbone. ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?’

Something of the make-up of the man can be seen in his autobiographical writings already published (‘A Stone made Smooth’: Mayflower Christian Books). He paints his own picture without concealing the ‘warts’. Certainly not all readers would find themselves in agreement with all of Wong Ming-Dao’s policies. But surely no one can doubt that here is a man of God, with the unction of the Holy Spirit, who stands out not only among the outstanding Christian lenders of China but also among the outstanding Christian leaders of the world.

The messages for the most part were given not only prior to the 23 years that Wong Ming-Dao spent in prison but during the earlier years of his ministry. Their effectiveness is not hampered by considerations of time or space since they are firmly based on the authoritative and unchangeable Word of God.

Of what do Mr Wong’s messages consist? There are two strains that particularly stand out. Just as you find in the letter of the apostle Paul to the Ephesians, that one part is made up largely of doctrine and the other part largely of conduct and behaviour, so you will perceive in the writings of Wong Ming-Dao that on the one hand he makes a powerful stand for the Faith accompanied by warnings against false teaching) and that on the other hand he presents a strong case for maintaining a high standard of Christian living.

Most of the articles translated are taken from copies The Spiritual Food Quarterly that I kept when my wife and I – as members of the China Inland Mission – were recalled from China in 1951. We have the author’s permission to use the articles in this way.

In our view the messages of Wong Ming-Dao are singularly appropriate today.

The reason why we are not here using the official spelling ‘Wang’ is that television advertisements are influencing people to pronounce WANG to rhyme with pang. This is not surprising, perhaps, since we also have bang and gang and hang and so on, which give it a certain consistency. So we have followed those who have adopted WONG. I have been told that one spelling is associated with ‘Mandarin’ and one with Cantonese. But that is not the consideration here.

Be that as it may, it is the message and not the name that matters. And in reading these messages we cannot be other than enlightened, stimulated and strengthened – nourished, in fact, with ‘spiritual food’, to help us in our pilgrimage. Nor do we forget that a substantial element in our paying careful attention to what our brother writes is our knowledge of the man behind the message, and of all that he and his wife have endured.

If those of us who read these messages are inspired, as we read, to pray more diligently than we have in the past for our brothers and sisters in China, we shall have even more reason to offer our thanks to God that He has made possible the publication of these translations.