Witness Lee

Witness Lee (李常受 Pinyin: Lǐ Chángshòu) was born in Chefoo, Shandong Province, China, in 1905, to a Southern Baptist family. He experienced salvation in 1925 through the preaching of Peace Wang, and almost immediately came under the influence of Watchman Nee. He became a full-time co-worker of Nee in 1933, and moved to Shanghai to be with Nee in 1934. In the late 1940's as the Communists were advancing in China, Witness Lee was sent by Nee to Taiwan in order to continue their ministry there. During the 1950's, Lee worked closely with T. Austin-Sparks who held conferences with him in Taiwan in 1955 and 1957.

In 1948, Lee extended his ministry from Taiwan to cities in Malaysia and Indonesia. His ministry reached Manila in 1950, Japan in 1957, the United States in 1958, Brazil in 1959, Canada in 1963, South Korea in 1965, New Zealand and Australia in 1970, Germany and Nigeria in 1971, and Ghana in 1972.

According to Witness Lee and Watchman Nee, the Lord's recovery can be traced back at least to God's raising up of Martin Luther and the reformers, and continued in recovering lost biblical truths through others such as Madame Guyon, Count Zinzendorf, the Moravian Brethren, John Nelson Darby, the Plymouth Brethren, and themselves. Lee believed that one of the primary items that God used Nee and himself to recover was the oneness of all believers in Christ and the practical expression of this oneness in the practice of the local churches.

Witness Lee visited the U.S. in 1958 and 1960. During this time he met with a number of Christian fellowships in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. In 1962, Lee returned to the U.S. and established his residence in Los Angeles, helping to raise up the local church in Los Angeles. He established the Stream Publishers in 1965 (which later became Living Stream Ministry in Anaheim, California) primarily as a publishing vehicle for his and Nee's spoken and recorded messages. He gave numerous conferences, mostly in the United States and Asia.

Although both Nee and Lee taught that, doctrinally, all Christians are one in Christ, they also strongly advocated the teaching that all Christians should also be practically one by having only one eldership in each city (with many elders) and accepting all believers in Christ as members of the church in each city regardless of racial, cultural, social, doctrinal or any other differences. Nee called this practice meeting on "the ground of locality" (see local churches), and Lee carried on in this after being sent by Nee out of China. Because of their unwillingness to compromise in this matter, other Christian organizations distanced themselves from Nee and Lee both in and outside of China. This, however, did not diminish their ministry, as they cared little for acceptance and validation by their contemporaries in mainstream Christianity.

Some aspects of Nee's and Lee's ministry were considered to be controversial by some Christians. For example, Nee's teaching of the "ground of locality" was not accepted by mainstream Christianity. Also, Lee's understanding of the Trinity was condemned by a few as being modalistic, which accusations he and others strongly denied and rigorously refuted. In another move without regard for contemporary acceptance, later in his life, Lee, following the example of Athanasius, declared that God became man in Jesus so that man could become God in Christ (in the life and nature of God, but not in His Godhead). So foreign was such a declaration to the ears of many modern Western Christians, that it was taken by some as being heretical.

Lee's ministry is recorded in hundreds of tapes, videos, and books, which are mostly edited transcriptions of his spoken messages. His major work, The Life-Study of the Bible (complete online text (http://www.ministrybooks.org/life-studies.html), online audio (http://www.lsmradio.org/rad_archives.html)), comprising 32 volumes, is also an edited transcription. Late in his life Lee began the "crystallization-study" of the Bible to review and expand on the major points ("crystals") of the Bible that he had taught throughout his lifetime, but was unable to finish it. Today this study is being carried on by a number of Lee's co-workers at Living Stream Ministry.

Witness Lee died in June 1997 in Southern California.

External Links

• Brief biography (http://www.livingstream.com/witness_lee_bio.html) from Living Stream Ministry
• Detailed biography (http://www.witnesslee.org/life-ministry.html) from Living Stream Ministry
• Life-Study of the Bible (http://www.ministrybooks.org/life-studies.html) - Complete online text.
• Life-Study of the Bible Radio Program (http://www.lsmradio.org/) - Complete online archive of more than 1000 programs.
• Books by Witness Lee (http://www.ministrybooks.org/witness-lee-books.html) - Complete online text of more than 200 titles.