When the new way reaches a critical point, it will come to a peak, which is the home meetings. The way to lead the home meetings, perfect the home meetings, and go on in the home meetings is altogether critical to the success of the new way. Going door-knocking, visiting people, leading people to believe in the Lord and be saved, and baptizing them are only the basic matters. After a person is saved, establishing a meeting in his home, leading people in the meeting, and perfecting the meeting are the key matters. For us to climb this high peak is not easy at all. All of us, older ones and younger ones, need to understand this burden, receive this burden, and bear this burden in one accord.
There is a definite principle that the Spirit and the Word are needed for leading and perfecting a meeting. The Spirit and the Word are the two fundamental elements of Christian meetings. The Spirit is the Holy Spirit and the Word is the Bible. For us to be filled with the Spirit, we need to seek the Lord every day, pray unceasingly, be dealt with before the Lord, and be emptied and open to the Lord completely. In so doing, we can be filled with the Spirit every day. Therefore, to be filled with the Spirit simply requires our seeking, which is not too difficult.
To deal with the Word is not as simple. The Word is the Bible, which has existed among Christians for almost two thousand years. During the Dark Ages, the Bible was locked up by Catholicism for almost ten centuries. It was not until the early 1500s that the Reformation under Luther began to open the lock to release the Bible from the imprisonment of Catholicism. Along with the Reformation, the invention of printing and the use of newspapers brought a noticeable benefit for Christianity. The Bible began to be printed for public distribution, later spreading to every kind of Christian meeting. Today almost all Christians have a Bible in their hands. Unfortunately, although this Bible was unlocked and released, its intrinsic revelation and the profound meaning of its contents still remained unopened.
In the 1800s, three hundred years after the Reformation at the time of Luther, the Lord raised up the Brethren in England. They were very blessed before God and were full of light and revelation. The Bible, especially the New Testament, was opened up at that time. From that time onward, the Bible was no longer a locked-up book. It was not only an opened book but an interpreted book. It is sad, however, that most of Christianity at that time rejected the teaching of the Brethren. In addition, a number of ministries of the Word appeared among the Brethren themselves, and this brought in different opinions and caused divisions. By 1918, just after World War I, the Brethren had already been divided into hundreds of sects, and during the last forty years they have become even more divided. This division has almost completely annulled the Brethren. This is the real situation that we have witnessed.
According to the situation we have observed, the understanding of the Word of God is desolate. In Christianity as a whole, the Bible is mostly still not opened or interpreted. Although at one time the Brethren had opened up the Bible, they eventually declined due to their internal tumults, disagreements, and serious contention regarding the truth. The United States has many seminaries, but today two in particular are considered as leaders in terms of theological teaching. One is Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas; the other is Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois. Both of these receive the theological teachings of the Brethren.
Around 1900 the Scofield Reference Bible was very popular in the United States, and even today many people are still using it. More than ninety-five percent of the footnotes in this reference Bible originate from the theology and teachings of the Brethren. In other words, the footnotes are based on the light the Brethren saw from the Bible.
The light the Brethren saw from the Bible can be summarized by three main points. First, they saw the church in the New Testament. Beginning from them, people no longer regarded the church merely as a physical building. Before the Brethren were raised up, Christians in America and Europe generally believed that their chapels were the church. After the Brethren were raised up, however, they boldly declared that the church of God is not a chapel but an assembly that is called out by God. Because of this, they changed the word church to assembly, which means “a called-out congregation.” What they taught was good, but what they saw was still too superficial. They did not see the intrinsic principle of life in the Body of Christ. They saw something concerning the Body and understood it a little. They realized that the Body of Christ is constituted with all the saved ones everywhere and at all times throughout the age of the Lord as the Spirit, but they did not thoroughly see the principles of life, resurrection, and the cross and the move of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, we were helped very much by the Brethren in the matter of the church.
Second, the Brethren saw the types in the Old Testament. Throughout the previous generations not one group of Christians had supplied a better interpretation of the types than the Brethren did. In this regard they helped us a great deal. However, after much in-depth study in the past few decades, we have seen something further that they did not see.
Third, they saw much related to the prophecies. Before the emergence of the Brethren, people in general were not clear about the second coming of the Lord Jesus. Some realized that the time of the resurrection of the Christians will be at the time of the coming of the Lord Jesus, but others said that the millennial kingdom would come when the gospel and truth have improved human society. People were not clear about the Lord Jesus’ coming, nor did they fully understand the interpretation of the other prophecies in the Bible. Few people understood the prophecies in Daniel 2, 7, 8, 11, and 12 in a clear way, and there were even fewer who could open up the book of Revelation. It was the Brethren who opened up the book of Daniel, and they also opened up Revelation, at least on the surface. Although the Brethren were not accurate enough in many of the minor points, they did unlock something of what the Bible reveals concerning the church, the types, and the prophecies. However, only a portion of the true lovers and seekers of the Lord have accepted the teachings of the Brethren in the past one hundred sixty years.