Wang, Wilson

1903 - 1998
Evangelist and editor of Bible Magazine
The Christian and Missionary Alliance
Southeast Asia

Wilson Wang (pen name 王峙, Wáng Zhì) was born in Fuzhou, China, on December 2, 1903. His father was a scholar and a supporter of Sun Yat Sen.

Wilson had three brothers. The eldest, Leland, later became the founding president of the Chinese Foreign Missionary Union and received a Doctor of Divinity degree from Wheaton College in recognition of his work as an evangelist to the Chinese diaspora. Leland was the first in the family to become a Christian through the prayerful influence of his wife, Ada. He was followed by Wilson, the second of the four brothers. After that, the two younger brothers (Luke who became a medical doctor and Philip who graduated from Rutgers University with a PhD in microbiology) also accepted the Lord. 

Wilson attended the Naval College in Canton and was headed towards a career in the navy. But after becoming a Christian in 1922, he joined a group of young Christian men who sought the Lord. Leland, Watchman Nee, Simon Meek, John Wang from Taiwan, “Faithful Luke” from Singapore and several others would visit two British lady missionaries stationed at Ma-Mooi, just outside Fuzhou, for teaching and counselling. This turned out to be the genesis of a vital Christian evangelical movement in China.[1] Most of these young men later became missionaries in Southeast Asia.

They frequently joined other young Christians in the Shanghai area and conducted mission trips out of the city. It was then that Wilson met Beatrice Chung, an itinerant evangelist with the Bethel Evangelistic Band and the only daughter of Dr. Harry Chung, a diplomat. In 1924, Wilson, then 21, asked 19-year-old Beatrice for her hand in marriage. She was shocked by the proposal and asked to pray about it as she had vowed to serve God wholeheartedly. 

Wilson gave her one week. When he met her again, she asked him to give her five years, thinking that this would deter him. But he replied, “Okay, I will wait.” Beatrice was taken aback but realised that she could not retract her words. They were married five years later on December 2, 1929. Beatrice was very fervent in prayer and would wake shortly after 4a.m. daily to pray for Wilson’s preaching ministry (he had set up a church in Fuzhou in 1924), missionary friends, congregational needs and family members. 

One of Wilson’s early overseas mission trips was to Indonesia, leading him to give his eldest child Myra the name He-Dao in Chinese, that is, “Gospel in Holland” (Indonesia was then under Dutch rule). Before war broke out in the mid-1930s, the couple had four more children: David, Florence, Paul and Joseph. Soon after Joseph’s birth, the family had to evacuate to Singapore by ship via Hong Kong, leaving the newborn baby in the care of a Christian lady there. As soon as they were settled in Singapore, Joseph was reunited with the family. John was born in Singapore in 1939 while Timothy, the youngest child, was born in Penang in 1944. The family lived in Singapore for about three years.      

In 1928, Wilson had joined The Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), a missionary society with its roots in the United States. That same year, Leland formed the Chinese Foreign Missionary Union and established Chinese mission work in Indonesia. Watchman Nee remained in China. Wilson, based in Singapore, became an itinerant evangelist travelling to Malacca, Penang, Jesselton (now Kota Kinabalu) in Sabah, Sarawak, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tokyo, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Rangoon in Burma (now Yangon in Myanmar) but was unable to return to China due to the Sino-Japanese War. 

Wilson also became editor of the Chinese-language Bible Magazine, a publication of C&MA whose previous editor had been Robert Alexander Jaffray. The Bible Magazine was a major Christian journal for Chinese Christians, read not only in the East but also in Europe, the US and Australia. He wrote and edited the magazine while sailing from one place to another for his speaking engagements.     

When the Japanese overran Malaya and Singapore in 1941-42, the foreign pastors who were pastoring most of the English-speaking churches in the Straits Settlements at the time were put into Changi Prison. Meanwhile, Wilson could not continue his evangelistic activities as passenger ships had ceased operating. He was then invited by the Penang Gospel Hall, a Brethren church, to be their resident pastor. So the Wangs packed their then six children and earthly possessions onto a train that took three days to reach Penang from Singapore.

As Wilson was fluent in English and several Chinese dialects, he was invited by many churches in Penang and northern Malaya to preach or hold gospel rallies. He would sometimes cycle between the towns to preach and even conducted open-air gospel rallies on the beach in Penang. When World War II ended and the churches were returned to the care of foreign pastors, he resumed his itinerant missionary work and continued editing the Bible Magazine

He was an avid letter writer, corresponding with contributors and publishers and arranging for appointments in various countries for his evangelistic work. But the most important letter-writing was to the family. He was away from home for nine to 10 months a year. During that time, his family would receive letters from him almost every day and Beatrice would read these to the children after family worship time. The letters were addressed to her, followed by the children’s names in their birth order. Based on Beatrice’s reports, Wilson praised, corrected or counselled the children accordingly. 

He would also request prayer for his mission work, reporting on the responses and difficulties of each mission. When he was home, once or twice a year for three to five weeks at a stretch, he continued editing and writing for the Bible Magazine while making arrangements for upcoming mission trips. He also wrote many gospel tracts and booklets which were distributed to other countries. The difficult years of the war were recorded in a booklet titled God’s Deliverance in the Day of Trouble and there was a big demand for both the English and Chinese versions. Wilson also wrote another booklet titled The Assurance of Salvation.  

After the war, when Malaya and Singapore once again came under British rule, Wilson gradually resumed his missionary work. In between preaching and holding evangelistic meetings and writing for the Bible Magazine and tracts, he also taught for short stints at Bible schools and colleges. He was then invited to be the principal of the Singapore Bible College, an evangelical and inter-denominational seminary, where he served from 1961-62 and taught Bible exposition. But the calls for him to go to different countries were overwhelming and, after a year, he felt the need to resume itinerant missionary work. 

In the sixties, he was invited to shepherd a Chinese church in Sydney, where he served from 1966 to 1969. The Sydney church records noted his powerful teaching and gospel messages which were described as “entering into the deep and emerging from the shallow” as he used Bible texts and illustrations in the form of exposition, stories, jokes and historical events. His greatest skill was in helping the congregation to search their own lives sincerely and laugh at themselves through his illustrations and jokes while the Holy Spirit convicted them of their sin. He persuaded and guided the young people to pursue outdoor preaching and instilled a sense of urgency in them to do so. He never ceased to emphasise “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved”. 

After serving in Sydney, Wilson returned to Malaysia before leaving for the US in 1970 to join most of his children who had settled there. He was made senior pastor of the Chinese Bible Church of Greater Boston and was invited to preach in North and South America. One of his final messages was at a Chinese church in Boston when he was 90 years old. He then had to cease his pulpit ministry as he struggled with mobility issues and diabetes. He passed away on February 8, 1998 at the age of 94, just five days after his beloved wife Beatrice had gone home to be with the Lord.

Notes

  1. ^ In his book Giants Walked Among Us: The Story of Paul and Ina Bartel (The Jaffray Collection of Missionary Portraits Book 28), Anthony G. Bollback recounts an incident that The Christian and Missionary Alliance missionary Paul Bartel enjoyed sharing, that of how a Mrs. Baker went from England to Fuzhou, China and prayed unsuccessfully for 10 years to have just one convert. “Soon after she returned to England, revival came to Fuchow. The first convert was Leland Wang, who was closely associated with The Christian and Missionary Alliance for many decades along with his brother, Wilson, who became the editor of the Bible Magazine.” The next to be converted was Watchman Nee, then Brother Chang, ‘faithful Luke’, Simon Meek and the sixth was John Sung. “These six men all came to Christ within a two-year period as the direct result of the earnest and prevailing prayer of Mrs. Baker,” said Bollback.

Florence Wang

The writer is the daughter of Wilson Wang. She was Professor of Medicine at University of Malaya (1972-1992) and is presently involved in healing, counselling and deliverance under Ellel Ministries, Singapore, part of an international ministry.

Bibliography

Bollback, Anthony G. Giants Walked Among Us: The Story of Paul and Ina Bartel (The Jaffray Collection of Missionary Portraits Book 28). N.p. N.d. https://books.google.com.my/books?id=pphqBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT174&lpg=PT174&dq…. Accessed September 28, 2021.

Huang Jianhui. “佳美腳蹤: 盡心遵 勉力傳—記王載、王峙—” (trans. “Beautiful footprint: Follow with all his heart, work with his full strength – Commemorating Wang Zai and Wang Zhi”). Chinese Christian Herald Centre Australia. August 2016. http://au.cchc-herald.org/?page_id=13473&fbclid=IwAR1EdSi6exaQ85I1cK5AQ…

“Robert A. Jaffray, China/Vietnam/Indonesia, 1896-1945”. The Alliance. https://www.cmalliance.org/about/history/in-the-line-of-fire/jaffray. Accessed September 28, 2021.

Z, Steve. “Indigenous Mission Movements in China”. Mission Round Table Vol. 11 no. 3 (Sep-Dec 2016): 21-32. OMF International. January 10, 2020.  https://omf.org/blog/2020/01/10/indigenous-mission-movements-in-china/. Accessed September 28, 2021.