June 3

BRINGING A BROTHER TO JESUS

Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.

The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.

John 1:40-42a

When Jesus admonished his disciples to be fishers of men, he certainly was aware that such a commission might very well arouse anger, kindle persecution, and tear apart families. Yet it was a command that he did not give lightly, and he expected his followers—even as Andrew had done—to bring their brothers to him.

For Christiana Tsai, the daughter of a wealthy Chinese provincial governor, bringing her brother to Jesus was a dangerous proposition. She was raised in a Buddhist home, but attended a mission school to take advantage of the excellent education it offered. She vowed, however, that she would never convert to Christianity, and she deeply resented the religious services she was required to attend. “This only increased my resistance,” she later wrote, “and I made up my mind that I was not going to ‘eat’ their Christianity, so I used to take a Chinese novel with me to chapel and read it as I knelt at the bench.”

What Christiana wanted most from her education was to perfect her skills in the English language so that she could quench her insatiable thirst for knowledge. To do that she joined an optional English Bible class, and, by her own testimony, “God used my love for English to draw me to Himself.” It was through reading Scripture that she was converted—an experience that created anger and despair among her family members. One of her brothers tore up her Bible and hymnbook, and her mother openly grieved that her daughter would care so little about her as to deny her future homage through ancestral worship.

Eventually, however, Christiana’s testimony and changed life began to have an effect on her family, and one by one they converted to Christianity. “So the brother who tore up my Bible and persecuted me in the early days at last confessed my Lord,” she wrote. “In all, fifty-five of my relatives, adults and children, have become Cod’s children and expressed their faith in Jesus. I have never been to college, or theological seminary, and I am not a Bible teacher; I have only been God’s ‘hunting dog.’ I simply followed at the heels of my Master, and brought to His feet the quarry He sent me after.” 3