Tao Lu never laid eyes on the Word of God until he came to the United States to study advanced computer engineering.
Chinese scholar Tao Lu never laid eyes on a Bible until he came to the United States to study computer engineering. Once he studied it, everything changed.
That’s not unusual in China where Tao grew up, even though his father taught English in a major city. The Chinese Christian movement may be growing rapidly amid periodic crackdowns, but it has yet to reach hundreds of millions of people in the vast communist nation.
“Not only did my father never mention the Bible to me, but as far as I can remember my high school and college English teachers never talked about it either,” recalls Tao, 30, now a doctoral student at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va., where he lives with his wife and 2-year-old daughter.
“As a result, in the first 26 years of my life … I never even saw a Bible.”
Tao studied apologetics. He examined the lives of the disciples before and after Jesus’ resurrection. He read “From Pagan to Christian,” a book by Lin Yutang, a renowned Chinese author who embraced faith in Christ. He systematically listed the teachings of Jesus and found he agreed with all of them.
He also experienced the love of God in the lives of people who had befriended him: a pastor at the Richmond church where the Chinese fellowship meets; a Christian couple who welcome and mentor Chinese students at Virginia Commonwealth University; and a Christian lawyer, Jim Fiorelli, who volunteered time weekly to help hone his English. Their textbook: the Gospel of John.
“He was obviously a very sharp guy,” Fiorelli recalls. “He was ready to grab hold of the truth. There’s almost no substitute for giving someone the chance to read Scripture, think about it and talk through it. If you can get people into the Word, to read it for themselves, the Word will speak for itself and go deep into a person’s heart.”
The time had come for Tao to make a decision. In June 2015, he made it.
He prayed the sinner’s prayer with his pastor friend and immediately shared the news with the couple who welcomed him and with Fiorelli, who led him through a series of lessons on assurance of salvation.
“Now I realize that it was the Holy Spirit’s work that helped me finally decide to follow Jesus,” Tao reflects. “It was not based purely on my rational, logical consideration. There was also emotion. I knew that I was a sinner. I believed that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died for me and His blood cleansed my sins, and I accepted Jesus as my Savior. I was sure that I had eternal life.” For complete article, here
