Customer Reviews

Against the Tide: The Story of Watchman Nee

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Against the Tide came highly recommended to me, but I was unfortunately disappointed by it. There are two kinds of biographies, those that take you alongside a person and those who take you inside a person. This is of the former. This is one of those biographies where you learn all about what Watchman did and the events that were going on around him, but you don't see very much of what was really happening in his life and heart. There were hints of what made him tick, but only hints. In the end, I walked away feeling as if I knew what Nee did, but now who he was or why he did those things. This would make an excellent companion to other biographies of Nee's life or a solid foundation for research on Nee in general, but it fails to be inspiring or motivating.

Nee's biography has helped me to understand the context of his writings and lectures. It has helped me to understand a man that I greatly admire... that many have misunderstood.

Angus Kinnear has done the church a great service in penning an orderly account of the life of Watchman Nee. His life was one of great struggle and constant oppossition. And his writings and his lectures are biblically sound and evidently life-changing.

One Western missionary writes, "There is no doubt that Mr. Nee was a man raised up by the Lord to inject the truths of the gospel into the very bloodstream of the Chinese people. His words stuck like burrs. His books and tracts ran everywhere. If one was asked to draw up a short list of the most influential Chinese Christians there have ever been, it would be hard to leave him out."

If you adore Nee's writings or you are just curious to know the man behind the name... you will appreciate this telling biography of a great Christian leader in a dark cold land.

The author writes, "Watchman's inner peace derived, thus, from a sense of destiny, which in this life is perhaps God's greatest gift to a man."

Learn of this "man of destiny" and be encouraged by the testimony of a believer who had depth of insight into the Lord Jesus Christ. This biography is written by "an observer at a distance". The book delivers what it promises.

I recommend reading:

The Normal Christian Life (Hendrickson Christian Classics)

Christ the Sum of All Spiritual Things

The Release of the Spirit

The Spiritual Man (3 volume set)

Outstanding accounting of the life of Watchman Nee for students of his writings. His dedication and faith to the end were encouraging, yet brought tears to my eyes.

First let me say that I just recently bought the original 1973 production of this book, which means I had to get it from one of Amazon's outside booksellers, in this case Nick's Book Nook. This is the second time I've dealt with Nick's Book Nook and in both instances I have found their service to be exemplary. They have shipped my book immediately in each case, and in each case the book was exactly (if not better) than represented. I highly recommend Nick's Book Nook as an outside seller. They are certainly a credit to Amazon as one of Amazon's outside representatives, as it were.

I also highly recommend this biography. I originally read this biography soon after it was published in 1974, but lost the book through the years. I loved it then, and I like even better this time. It is highly readable, and it fills in a lot of blanks about Watchman Nee and the world and times in which he lived. Nee himself wrote only the one book, The Spiritual Man, but his other "writings" are taken verbatim from his sermons, magazine publications, and lectures and teachings.

This biography fills in the blanks behind those teachings. In short, Nee and his band were an extraordinary bunch of saints for the Lord Jesus Christ, and I think anyone who reads this biography and who has a hunger to grow in the Lord Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit cannot help but find great comfort, knowledge, edification and encouragement in reading this biography.

The book is less than two hundred pages, and you will fly through it, as it keeps you turning the pages one after the other, it is so interesting. For those interested in the Christian walk, this biography should be among the top of the list.