{"id":10784,"date":"2026-06-02T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=10784"},"modified":"2026-05-27T17:05:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T23:05:57","slug":"defiant-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=10784","title":{"rendered":"Defiant Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I wrote yesterday about my disappointment with people who might experience “grief, frustration, and loss<\/a>” over a few simple changes to service times. I don’t think we’re doing a good job of producing robust and resilient disciples. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They seem to be doing a better job in China. An article by Brian Spegele in the May 20, 2026, Wall Street Journal has this headline: China Is Throwing Christians in Jail, but This Pastor Refuses to Back Down<\/a> and this subtitle: Ezra Jin kept his church going\u2014and growing\u2014through years of government intimidation. Now confined to a cell, his defiant faith is still rousing believers.<\/em> The lengthy article, worth the read in its entirety, opens:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pastor Ezra Jin was just finishing dinner with his elderly mother-in-law in the Chinese city of Beihai last October when more than a dozen police appeared at the door. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They stormed the apartment, confiscated his phones and computer, and hauled him off to jail.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, he\u2019s been confined to a dank cell at Beihai\u2019s No. 2 Detention Center, cut off from his flock and his family, 8,000 miles away in the U.S. His sin: leading a church that Xi Jinping couldn\u2019t bring to heel.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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Here’s the climate in China under Xi:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Authorities once tolerated Jin and others like him, back when China\u2019s economy was thriving and the country was gradually opening up to the world. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then Xi took power and began tightening the screws. Officials interrogated churchgoers, threatened they could lose their jobs and pressured landlords who rented space to churches. Authorities demanded surveillance cameras be installed at Zion. Some of Jin\u2019s assets were frozen, and he was barred from leaving China.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jin refused to back down. After authorities raided Zion in 2018 and shut it down, he took his preaching online using Zoom and other digital tools\u2014and reached more followers than ever, placing the pastor on a dangerous crash course with Xi\u2019s government. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

His arrest was part of one of China\u2019s biggest crackdowns on Christianity in decades. Jin is being held for suspected \u201cillegal use of information networks\u201d related to Zion\u2019s online ministry, along with 17 others associated with the church. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And how are the believers handling it? The article continues:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The struggle is about more than one man\u2019s stubborn refusal to surrender his faith. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To a degree many observers thought impossible when China\u2019s leader took power more than a decade ago, Xi has succeeded in using digital surveillance and tough jail sentences to silence activists, lawyers and business leaders who speak out of turn. But he still can\u2019t fully control Christians, who number in the tens of millions in China.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, many believers say the more authorities seek to suppress Christianity in China, the more the faith will spread and grow stronger.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the highest honor for a Christian, for people like Pastor Jin, being put in prison,\u201d said Sean Long, another pastor at Zion. \u201cThat\u2019s exactly the mark of following Jesus.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I say, you can read the article in its entirety, but I think you get my point: I can’t imagine these people being upset about a change in service times! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…so that we may no longer be children…we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. (Ephesians 4.14, 15, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5.11, 12, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ\u2019s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4.12, 13, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote yesterday about my disappointment with people who might experience “grief, frustration, and loss” over a few simple changes to service times. I don’t think we’re doing a good job of producing robust and resilient disciples. They seem to be doing a better job in China. An article by Brian Spegele in the May … Continue reading Defiant Faith<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-2NW","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10784"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10790,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10784\/revisions\/10790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}