Learning from Matthew Ricci (1552 to 1610)

One of the people I studied this week was Matthew Ricci (1552 to 1610) was a Jesuit missionary who, with his Jesuit colleagues, played a crucial role in starting the evangelization of China.^[1] Ricci was born in 1552 in the city of Macerata in Italy. His father was a respected aristocrat.  After studying the humanities until age 16, he was sent by his father to study civil law in Rome. He studied law for two years before joining the Jesuits, against his father’s will. Under the Jesuits, he studied Mathematics and prepared himself for missionary work. He was sent along with thirteen others to Goa in India, where he spent four years teaching children. Because he did not feel called there, he soon appealed and was transferred to Macao, in China.[2] China had a strong civilization of its own and was very difficult for Christians to penetrate. Many missionaries ended in Macao, a Chinese city on the south coast of China, across the Pearl River Delta from Hong Kong, and were not allowed into mainland China. However, when Chinese leaders discovered that he had expertise in Mathematics, astronomy, and geography, they invited Ricci and fellow Jesuit Ruggieri to live in the provincial capital of Shiuhing in 1583.[3] His influence gradually grew and, in 1600, he was invited by the emperor to live in the capital city, Peking.

Even though some accused Ricci of syncretism, his work was largely an epitome of effective cultural contextualization of the gospel. In other to reach the Chinese, he took up their culture and dressing. He studied Chinese philosophy and Confucianism and became an expert in these areas. In the process, he translated many Chinese classics. He labored to contextualize Christian principles in ways that the Chinese intelligentsia, with a Confucianist background, could understand. While translating the ten commandments into Chinese, for example, he consulted with experts and chose the word, “Tien-chu ” which means “Lord of Heaven.”[4] His used sentences like, “Those that adore Heaven instead of the Lord of Heaven are like a man who, desiring to pay the emperor homage, prostrates himself before the imperial palace at Peking and venerates its beauty,”[5] to communicate Biblical principles to a Chinese audience.

Ricci’s whole-hearted pursuit of soul-winning through with relentless contextualization reminded me of the Apostle Paul who said,

Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews, I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law, I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law, I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings (1 Cor 9:19-23).

Ricci died and was buried in China. He is one of the few western missionaries who is well-respected in China. At the time of his death, even though the percentage of China that had come to faith was small (given their large population), Ricci had won many people in high places to Christ. These people later played vital roles in future evangelization efforts in China. As with all the theologians reviewed, Ricci’s beliefs on evangelism and conversion as a process can be seen plainly through the strategy he employed to evangelize the Chinese.

Ricci’s passion for evangelism and his respect for the cultures of those he worked with inspired me tremendously. Many Western missionaries, even today, embrace the doctrine of the tabula raza, the “belief that non-Christian philosophies and religions must be entirely eradicated before Christianity can be effectively introduced.”[6] Ricci dismissed this idea, and rightly so. Those who embrace this doctrine consciously or unconsciously often fail to respect those they are seeking to evangelize. Such condescension prevents them from seeing that the hand of God has been working in those communities millennia before they came there and that the best way to win souls is to humbly join God in what he has been doing there and learn and respect the customs of those people. Ricci models an incarnational evangelism that is refreshing.

In this season of life, I feel called to serve an underprivileged Hispanic population in California’s Coachella Valley. Over 70% of my patients only speak Spanish and over the last year, I have gone from speaking no Spanish at all to speaking Spanish with my patients without a translator in 98% of my visits and doing so comfortably. That’s required tons and tons of hours of Spanish using textbooks, apps, watching Spanish movies, attending Spanish church, and making many embarrassing mistakes initially. My entire family has gotten involved in it and when we play card games, we creatively incorporate penalty’s in there that require someone to conjugate a verb or translate a sentence from English to Spanish.

Learning and respecting the culture of those we are called to serve is something that I feel is essential for effective deep-level connection and service. Reading Ricci this weak challenged and inspired me to go even further in the areas I am called to serve. I think Ricci models Christ’s incarnational approach to ministry and is something we should all seek to do.