Paul Wei (; 1879 – 1919), also known as Wei Embo / Wei Enbo () was a Chinese evangelist and the founder of the

True Jesus Church The True Jesus Church (TJC) is a non-denominational Christian Church, with Oneness Pentecostal theology, that originated in Beijing, China, during the Pentecostal movement in the early twentieth century. The True Jesus Church is currently one ...

().

Biography

Born in

Hebei Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It bor ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, Wei was a poor farmer who moved to Beijing. There, he started working as a street vendor but eventually became the prosperous owner of several clothing shops. He attributed his newfound prosperity to his conversion to Christianity. He had joined the Beijing branch of the

London Missionary Society The London Missionary Society was an interdenominational evangelical missionary society formed in England in 1795 at the instigation of Welsh Congregationalist minister Edward Williams. It was largely Reformed tradition, Reformed in outlook, with ...

led by British missionary Samuel Evans Meech (1845-1937). When attending the London Missionary Society, Wei was also influenced by

Cheng Jingyi Cheng Jingyi or Cheng Ching-yi (; 22 September 1881, Beijing – 15 November 1939, Shanghai) was a Christianity in China, Chinese Protestant leader who worked for an independent, unified Chinese Christian Church and a nondenominational unity of Chr ...

, and espoused some teachings of the

Seventh-day Adventist Church The Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sa ...

. In 1915, Wei met Norwegian missionary to China Bernt Berntsen, became a Pentecostal and joined his Apostolic Faith Mission. In May 1917, Wei reportedly heard a voice telling him that “you must receive the baptism of Jesus.” He felt he should go to the

Yongdingmen Yongdingmen (), was the former front gate of the outer city of Beijing's old city wall. Originally built in 1553 during Ming Dynasty, it was torn down in the 1950s to make way for the new road system in Beijing. In 2005, the Yongdingmen was reco ...

gate in Beijing, where the voice asked him to proceed to a nearby river where, as he reported, Jesus appeared and personally baptized him facedown, giving him an armor and a sword. Satan also appeared, but Wei defeated him with the sword received from Jesus. After this vision, Wei left the Apostolic Faith Church and founded his own church, which he called the True Jesus Church. His followers believed that Wei’s vision had restored the original Christian church. They hailed Wei as “the new

Martin Luther Martin Luther ( ; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, Theology, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and former Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. Luther was the seminal figure of the Reformation, Pr ...

,” commissioned by Jesus to reform and restore the genuine Christian Church. Despite oppositions, including by Berntsen, who sued Wei claiming he had defrauded him of revenues of a business partnership they had established together, the True Jesus Church was able to gather several thousand members. Wei predicted that the world will end in 1921 or 1922. He died of tuberculosis on September 10, 1919, and the failure of his prophecy did not prevent the further growth of the True Jesus Church. Among several leaders, his son Wei Wenxiang (魏文祥, Isaac Wei, 魏以撒, ca. 1900-?) emerged as the main representative of the True Jesus Church, until he was arrested in 1951. The True Jesus Church was severely persecuted before and during the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

, but was again allowed to operate in China in the 1980s, gathering again a substantial following.

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wei, Paul 1879 births 1919 deaths True Jesus Church Chinese Pentecostal pastors Former Seventh-day Adventists People from Baoding 20th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in China

Biography

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