During the past four and a half years, I have been burdened to reconsider our way. In my reconsideration, I was reminded of Brother Nee’s fellowship with us in 1937 concerning the need to recover the church meeting of mutuality revealed in 1 Corinthians 14. This fellowship has been printed in the book entitled The Normal Christian Church Life. At that time, however, we did not find a way to replace the traditional way of one speaking and the rest listening with this scriptural practice. In 1948 Brother Nee fellowshipped with us again along these lines. These messages are printed in the book entitled Church Affairs. He told us that the so-called Sunday morning service in which one man speaks and the rest listen is unscriptural and according to the customs of the nations (2 Kings 17:8). He proposed that we put this kind of meeting aside and encourage all the saints to go out and preach the gospel on the Lord’s Day. Within a short time after Brother Nee gave this fellowship, however, the Communists took over mainland China, so we did not have a chance to work out his burden.
As I began to restudy our situation in 1984, I was reminded of Brother Nee’s vision. I realized that now might be the time and that we are the people to carry out this vision. When I began to take this way, some of the older co-workers would not take it. They would not give up the practice of one man speaking and the rest listening. It was hard for them to change because they had been practicing according to the traditional way for many years.
All of us have to pay the price to enter into the scriptural way of meeting revealed in 1 Corinthians 14. We need to practice 1 Corinthians 14:26—“Whenever you come together, each one has.” To carry out God’s New Testament economy, His eternal plan for the New Testament age, all of us who are His children should learn to exercise the capacities in the divine life He has given us. Even in the human life, there are many capacities. When a baby is delivered and he cries, everyone is happy. His crying is a sign that he is living and that he has the capacity to utter something. From the time of its delivery, an infant is complete in the sense of having all the capacities in its human life for it to function properly. He has the capacity to hear, see, smell, eat, speak, and walk. An infant has the capacity to learn a language. All these capacities are concealed, so they need to be developed by the growth in life and by practice. An infant’s growth in life will increase what he can practice, and the more he practices, the more development he will gain. At a certain point, a babe will begin to say “ma ma” and “da da” spontaneously. The ability to speak is hidden within his human life, so he needs the opportunity to practice.
Now that we have been regenerated, we have received the divine life of our divine Father. Surely the divine life is much richer and much stronger than our human life. This stronger and richer life has its capacities also. All the capacities within our human life are present at birth. Now we are the children of God, and there are many capacities in the divine life that we have received from our spiritual birth. Despite all of these capacities, many have been Christians for years and they can do very little for the Lord in the way of spiritual service. If we say that we love the church, and our service is only to do something such as vacuuming the carpet for the Lord’s Day morning meeting, this is to despise God’s divine life, to annul the functions of God’s divine life, to put aside all the abilities concealed in God’s divine life. It is better to hire some janitors to clean the hall, and let the saints go to visit people with the gospel.
We may have been saved for many years, yet we have never spent an adequate time with our relatives to speak Christ to them. If we visit some of our relatives for half a year on a continual basis, they will be saved. Suppose a sister picks up the burden to visit her aunt. With fear and trembling she could pray, “O Lord Jesus! Help me, Lord. Now I have to go to my aunt. I don’t know what to say, Lord. Tell me what I have to say, Lord.” Then when she goes, the Lord will answer her prayer. She may say to her aunt with tears, “Dear aunt, I really love you, and I have to apologize to you. I believe in the Lord Jesus. I have been saved for many years, but I never came to you to speak the Lord Jesus to you. Today I have come to tell you that the Lord Jesus is the real Savior.” When the aunt hears this, she will be touched by the Lord. She may say, “I want to receive your Savior, Jesus Christ, as my Savior. I want to pray with you.” We need to serve the Lord in this way in the gospel rather than merely in the sundry affairs.
Suppose that instead of vacuuming the carpet for three weeks, a brother went to visit his aunt one week, his cousin the next week, and his grandfather the third week. How marvelous it would be if all three of them got saved! After six months of this kind of exercise, a brother or sister will be a top expert in preaching the gospel by visiting people. We have to learn to go visit our relatives, classmates, colleagues, and acquaintances according to the way that I have illustrated. We need to go to them with a weeping heart, with the intimate concern. We do not need to speak too much. The Spirit will be with us, and we will learn to preach the gospel in many ways.
After half a year, the Lord may say, “I am so happy with you because you dropped the vacuuming of the carpet and picked up serving me according to My New Testament economy as a New Testament priest, preaching My gospel. Now I want you to perfect others to do the same thing.” We may feel that we do not know how to do this, but we must take the Lord’s word and go by faith. If the Lord tells us to perfect others, we should go to perfect others with faith in His word. We may not know how to do it, but He knows how. A sister may visit another sister in the church with the burden to perfect her. She may tell her, “I came to you to fellowship in love about one thing. Up until six months ago, I served in the church by vacuuming the carpet every Saturday. Six months ago, the Lord asked me why I had to spend one and a half hours every Saturday vacuuming the carpet, forgetting about the salvation of my aunt, my cousin, my grandfather, and the rest of my relatives. I wanted to fellowship with you and ask you how you feel about this. I know you love the Lord, and you also go to the hall to clean. I have not come to distract you from the church’s direction. We love the church, and we respect and regard the elders to the uttermost. But consider which is more important—to vacuum the carpet or to save our relatives. We realize that the church here has not increased much in the last three years. Why don’t we go together to visit our close relatives and our neighbors?” For a sister to fellowship with another sister in this way is what it means to perfect the saints. Then she can go with this sister to preach the gospel without doing anything to replace her. After two or three weeks of functioning in the gospel, this sister will receive some perfecting. After one year, these two sisters can go to perfect two others. In this way, the perfecting of the saints will spread throughout the church.
We can carry out the New Testament priesthood of the gospel on the one hand and the perfecting of the saints on the other hand. God wants all of us to do the work of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers. Even though we may not be these gifted persons, we can be perfected to do their work. The only difference is the quantity of work we do. The gifted persons may do more work, and we may do less. In totality, however, the work of all the saints put together will be much more than the work of the gifted persons alone. Regardless of how gifted one person is, he cannot replace the work of one million members of the Body. They can bring one million people to salvation in a year and care for them, whereas one gifted person cannot.
Now the Lord has given us the new light that we have to practice the universal prophesying because Paul says we can all prophesy one by one (1 Cor. 14:31). This indicates that we all have the capacity to prophesy. Paul says in verses 23 and 24 that when “the whole church comes together in one place...if all prophesy....” This means we have the obligation to prophesy.
We may ask, “If everyone speaks, what will those who have been speaking to us for years do?” Thank the Lord that He has given the churches some real speaking brothers. We may consider these brothers as prophets, who have been prophesying in the churches for years. According to the New Testament, the prophets who are the gifts in Ephesians 4:11 speak for God, but they do not speak as those who carry out the regular meetings of the church by themselves. The regular meetings of the church should be for the universal prophesying. Every week the whole church should come together for all of the attendants to prophesy. All the churches, however, still need the prophets who are the particular gifts to the Body. Paul was such a prophet. There must be special meetings for such gifted members to do their work. Paul had a special meeting at Troas, recorded in Acts 20. He stayed at Troas for one week and spoke on the Lord’s Day for the whole night. That was a special meeting for a gifted person such as the Apostle Paul to function for the perfecting of the saints. We cannot make the regular meetings of the church like this. Otherwise, we would “kill” all the attendants. We need to see, however, that there is much need of the proper, able, capable, and experienced prophets among us.
Recently one of the elders in Tokyo moved to a nearby small town for the spreading of the recovery. A number of the saints went to visit people in this town for the preaching of the gospel. After about one month, they felt they needed a big gospel preaching meeting. Do not misunderstand what I have said concerning the big gospel preaching meeting. I do not condemn the big meeting for the preaching of the gospel. What I mean is that the church should not make the big preaching meeting a regular practice that replaces the individual preaching of the saints by visiting people. When the saints in Tokyo had this big gospel preaching meeting in this small town, over three hundred new ones came. They came as a result of the saints visiting people for a period of time. Therefore, that big gospel preaching meeting was a real reaping. This is absolutely right, but the regular preaching of the gospel should be by the priests of the New Testament, that is, by all the saints.
Because of the Lord’s rich mercy, we may have a number of gifted evangelists among us, and they can be used to reap the new ones. All of the saints should personally visit others for the preaching of the gospel, but in this kind of visiting it is hard to give others a longer speaking on a particular gospel subject. A big gospel meeting can fulfill this function. There could even be an entire weekend of big gospel meetings for the purpose of reaping the new contacts of the saints. All the saints could bring the ones whom they have contacted for the past month. If many bring one or two new ones, the meeting hall will be filled with them. All of these new ones will have been prepared by the Lord. They will have already called on the name of the Lord. One of the brothers may give a message concerning what the Christian faith is. All the new ones will like to hear this. Now that they have called on the name of Christ, they will want to know what the Christian faith is. Not every believer can give such a long message on a certain topic of the gospel, but every believer can visit people to bring them to Christ.
In a big gospel meeting, a brother may decide to share on the existence of God. Although the new ones have believed and called on the name of the Lord Jesus, they may wonder how we can prove that God exists. Not many saints can give a message on this subject, so there is the need of a big meeting with a particular gifted person who can give three messages to show people the existence of God. These messages will be convincing, subduing, and enlightening. After hearing this, all the newly contacted ones will be established and happy.
We should have meetings like this regularly. It is not too much to have these meetings once a month. Because the church is rich, hundreds of the saints should go out daily as priests to do a daily work, to live their daily life in preaching the gospel of God. The other side is that we need some gifted evangelists to preach the truth of the gospel. An evangelist may decide to speak concerning the matter of sin. The new ones may have called on the name of the Lord with the saints who visited them. They may have confessed that they are sinful, but deep within them they are not clear about what sin is. We can have a conference of four messages to release a deeper teaching concerning the matter of sin. This convinces, establishes, strengthens, and keeps people. We should have meetings like this to show the riches of the church.
The same principle holds true with the matter of prophesying. The regular church meetings must be occupied and used by all the saints for them to discover their capacity, to develop their ability, and to build up and foster their energy to speak for the Lord. In this way opportunities will be given to all the saints. Whatever the saints have and can do will come to the surface. Then their gifts will be manifested, and they will become useful in the church life. This does not mean, however, that we annul or stop the particular gifts of the prophets. We should hold conferences on a periodic basis, perhaps once a month or once every three months. Furthermore, these gifted persons have to travel from city to city to prophesy. This is the right way.
I hope that this fellowship has rendered us a proper understanding. No one among us can be made useless. Rather, the scriptural way makes every saint more useful. By this way all the saints have the equal opportunity to preach the gospel, all have the equal opportunity to take care of the new ones, all have the equal opportunity to do the shepherding and build up the small groups, and all have the equal opportunity to speak for the Lord. Then all the riches in every believer will be developed, fostered, strengthened, and manifested.
I want to repeat again, though, that the function of the gifted persons listed in Ephesians 4:11 is vital. These gifted persons perfect all the saints to do the work of the ministry. Ephesians 4:16 shows us that the Body causes itself to grow by two categories of members: the joints of the rich supply (the gifted persons) and each one part (every member of the Body). Thus, every member of the Body is occupied with some function. No one is idle. This causes the entire Body to grow, and this growth is the building up. The Body is then built up by itself, not only spontaneously, automatically, but also organically. In the organic Body of Christ, everyone should be busy with much to do, but is the situation among us today like this? There are many needs among us. A number of the saints among us are really gifted, but they are covered and even annulled by our present practice.
My burden for the advance of the Lord’s recovery today is with a happy expectation. I know that the day will dawn when what I have spoken will come to pass because it is not from my imagination, but it is something of God’s New Testament economy. All of us are included in this economy. This fellowship concerning the present advance of the Lord’s recovery liberates us from the tyranny and the bondage of the old system. I am for the “layman’s emancipation.” I want to see all the “laymen” liberated. Actually, there should be no clergy, no hierarchy, and no laymen among us. All of us must function in the New Testament priesthood as priests of the gospel.
In this book, I am burdened to present the vision of the advance of the Lord’s recovery today. Once we see the vision, we must enter into the practice of the vision. I am burdened to train the saints in the practice of carrying out the New Testament priesthood of the gospel of God according to the advance of the Lord’s recovery today. We all need to be perfected to preach the gospel as priests of the gospel of God. The priesthood of the gospel in the New Testament is altogether missing in the practice of the Lord’s children today. This is a new discovery. It is something new on this earth. The same holds true with the other three items of the advance of the Lord’s recovery today. The organic building up of the Body of Christ, the perfecting of the saints by the gifts, and the prophesying for the building up of the church are new items in the experience of the Lord’s children. Prophesying for the building up of the church is mentioned clearly in 1 Corinthians 14, but where is such a practice on this earth? This is altogether new. By the Lord’s mercy, He has shown me these things, and I am burdened to release them to the churches to give the saints a vision.
However, how to carry out these four major items is a big problem. We all have to learn something, and I feel that I must take the lead to learn. Whatever I learn, I will present to the saints. I hope that we all would pray for the carrying out of the advance of the Lord’s recovery today.