We have to encourage all the brothers and sisters serving in the literary work to further their studies, especially in the study of vernacular Chinese. In Chinese vernacular literature, as recommended by scholars in general, there are four excellent classics. The first is All Men Are Brothers; the second, A Dream of the Red Chamber; the third, The Travels of Lao Ts’an: A Social Novel; and the fourth, the Chinese Union Version Bible. A contemporary Chinese scholar, Hu Shih, said that the Chinese Union Version is a great advancement in Chinese vernacular literature. Therefore, it would be profitable for us to read the Chinese Union Version thoroughly. The greatest advantage of the Chinese Union Version is its beauty in rhythm. Romans 12:1 is an example of this beauty. The literary style of Ephesians is also very good, although from the viewpoint of the original meaning it was translated relatively poorly.
The full-time serving brothers and sisters need to pay special attention to budgeting their time, because they often express that they do not have enough time. We have already fellowshipped that full-timers, especially the younger generation, should do only two things full time. One is to visit people by knocking on their doors to lead them to believe in the Lord and be baptized, and the other is to have home meetings to nourish and take care of the new ones. The home meetings can be compared to economics, an all-inclusive subject. The greatest subject of learning in the world is economics, which includes not only military science, political science, and finance, but in its broader, cultural sense, all things related to literature, astronomy, geography, history, and so forth. Similarly, our home meetings are all-inclusive and require us to spend much time to learn.
Many of the full-time serving ones among us are about thirty years old. Out of twenty-four hours each day they sleep for at most seven hours. Then they use an hour for each meal time, including some rest, for a total of three hours a day. Since meals and sleeping use at most ten hours, they still have fourteen hours left in the day. If they use two hours for exercise and eight hours for work, according to the customary working hours, they will still have four hours of spare time. This is why the entertainment business in America is so prosperous. It takes advantage of people’s spare time to make great profits in nightclubs, concerts, stage performances of all kinds, television, movies, traveling, and endless other types of entertainment.
However, people who play and exercise like this do not live a long life. We all know that it is good to exercise, but if we exercise excessively, we will die early. Experience tells us that good athletes often do not live beyond sixty years old. The reason many die early, such as those in Olympic sports, is that they exercise too rigorously. It is good to exercise for a short time, but to use too much time is not appropriate. In order to live long, we need to exercise for our health but not for entertainment.
There is a Chinese saying: “Long illness makes the patient a good doctor.” Although we have not studied hygiene or medicine, from our illnesses and from the doctors and nurses who cared for us, we have learned how to stay healthy. We have learned that even though we need to spend time exercising, we should do it absolutely not for entertainment but for health. If we spend these four hours for entertainment, we will gradually be defiled by immoral and improper things. In America, many sins come from these four hours of entertainment. This is truly a terrible thing.
Here we see the importance of budgeting our time. Every day we spend seven hours sleeping and three hours taking meals. This is an easy schedule. Then we spend two hours in exercise and various activities, which is more than enough; actually, it is sufficient to spend only one hour exercising each day. In addition to the normal eight hours for working, the four to five hours remaining should be time for studying. We can study many books if we leave four to five hours a day. We should not only read books but also study them. We can study any good book. I have studied many books ever since I was a child, and I am still studying now. I study not only Chinese and English dictionaries but also Greek. I am still studying continually.
The best way of studying is still the old Chinese method, which is the method of reciting. Children may not understand the meaning of what they study, but they are still able to recite the text: “Confucius said, ‘Isn’t it a pleasure to study and practice what you have learned?’” To them it seems that it is not very important whether or not they understand the content. It is still beneficial to them as long as they can recite it well. The study methods of the modern age are all fast; people learn quickly and forget quickly. If we look back from our graduation until now, we may realize that we have forgotten almost all the books we studied in elementary, junior high, high school, and college. According to the old Chinese learning method, however, children recite books from the first day they go to school. They recite from The Three-character Classics, The Book of Family Names, and The Analects of Confucius every day. The teacher teaches the students to recite word by word, and eventually the students are not able to forget them for their entire life because everything that they recite remains in them. Moreover, as time goes by and they grow older, they become more able to apply this knowledge in practice.
Today when we study the Bible, we should not aim at speed-reading. Rather, we should recite the verses with a serious attitude. However, we do not need to recite too quickly. If we memorize quickly, we will tend to forget quickly, and what we gain will not last long. I hope that we can all recite the four volumes of Life Lessons. We all need to make such an effort. We should memorize not only the main topics but also the contents under them. This is not a difficult task for young people. We have calculated that there are about three hundred sixty pages in the four volumes. If we recite one page a day for three hundred sixty-five days, we will have recited all of them in a year. When we were in secondary school, we recited The Collection of Ancient Chinese Classic Literature. The passages in this book are much longer than those in Life Lessons. There are not many lines on each page of Life Lessons, so we can recite at least two pages a day.
The young people who go to labor on a home meeting should make a determination regarding their practice. Starting from today, they should spend four months to study Life Lessons. There should be an examination every half month, and they should be able to recite six lessons. This will take care of twelve lessons in one month and forty-eight lessons in four months. We must work so thoroughly on the text that we are able to speak it fluently and the content of the lessons becomes our inward constitution. This must become our main emphasis. If we study these four volumes well before we go to labor on the home meetings, our viewpoint will be completely different.
Even if we have recited the whole of Life Lessons, we must speak, not recite, when we go out to visit people. There is no contradiction here. Because we speak after memorizing, all the riches are within us. Therefore, when we speak, we can speak fluently and smoothly. Moreover, every time before going to lead a home meeting, we need to pray, allow the Holy Spirit to fill us inwardly and outwardly, and be dealt with thoroughly. If this is the case, we can surely saturate Taipei so that in every home there is a meeting which is new and living.
Again we can use playing basketball as an example. If the players rigidly follow only what their coach has taught them about passing and catching the ball, they will certainly lose the game. In a real game the players cannot simply have memorized what the coach taught them. Instead, they should be familiar with what the coach has taught through regular practice. They should have practiced to the extent that all the skills have been wrought into their muscles. Then during a game the players will not play by memory or recitation. Rather, their muscles will have developed a spontaneous movement. Similarly, parents should teach their children when they are young so that what has been taught can be wrought into their “blood.” Then it will be impressed deeply within them and will be difficult to forget. Therefore, we must memorize these four volumes of Life Lessons. They are essential, especially the scriptural quotations. There are about three hundred verses quoted in the four volumes. Most of these three hundred verses are from the New Testament. They may be considered the essence of the New Testament. If we can recite all these three hundred verses, the essence of the New Testament will be in us. This will benefit us for our whole life.