The gifted persons perfect the saints by nourishing them. Just as we love and care for every member of our physical body, the Lord loves and cares for every member of His Body, the church. Ephesians 5:29 says, “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ also the church.” The Body is altogether organic and needs to be cared for in an organic way by being nourished. The church as the organism of Christ is built up with nourishment, the life supply, for the growth in life (Eph. 4:16, 15; 1 Cor. 3:2, 6; 1 Pet. 2:2). Nourishment and growth result in the building up of the Body of Christ.
It may seem strange that the Bible uses the word build to describe what transpires with this organism (Eph. 4:12, 16). The Body is an organism that can be built up. The building up of our human body may be used as an illustration of the building up of the Body of Christ. Every time we eat, we build up our body. A newly delivered baby may weigh seven pounds and be twenty inches long, but after twenty years this baby may grow to be over two hundred pounds and over six feet tall. He becomes so big by growth, and this growth of his body is a building up.
This building takes place by the addition of certain things to our body to nourish it. The addition of inorganic things to our body does not build it up, but the addition of eggs, apples, beef, chicken, and fish builds up our body by nourishing it. Day after day, at least three times a day, we add something to our body by eating. This is the building up. Our body has been built up with many organic things. The addition of organic things to our organic body causes the growth, which is the building up.
We may have the concept that teaching and organizing build up the church. The New Testament does say that we must teach others, but in the biblical sense teaching means feeding. In Hebrews 5:12 Paul says, “For when because of the time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you what are the rudiments of the beginning of the oracles of God, and have become those who have need of milk and not of solid food.” In this verse Paul refers to teaching in the sense of feeding. In our teaching to the churches and the saints there must be an organic element which can be taken in as nourishment. Any teaching that does not convey nourishment is not the biblical teaching, the teaching of the New Testament. According to the New Testament way, all teaching should be organic and very rich in life and the life supply. It should be with life and full of life. After listening to this teaching, we will be nourished, and this nourishment will result in the growth in life. The organic element we receive will be digested and assimilated into our being.
The building up of the Body of Christ is through the gifts’ perfecting of the saints. Ephesians 4:11 and 12 say, “And He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ.” The apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers should perfect the saints.
Much is implied by the apostles’ perfecting of the saints. Apostles are ones who preach the gospel to save sinners, bring them together to establish a church, and then appoint elders. We may think that after the apostles appoint the elders, they should leave and have nothing more to do with the church. But how could the apostles perfect the saints if they had nothing more to do with the church and the elders that they had established? The perfecting of the saints by the apostles would be impossible.
There were elders in Jerusalem (Acts 15:2), but the Bible does not tell us how they were established. The first instance of the appointment of elders in the New Testament is in Acts 14. Paul and Barnabas preached the gospel in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra in Asia Minor. After preaching elsewhere, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch and established elders in every church (vv. 21-23). These were young churches, and the elders were babes. After appointing elders in these churches, the apostles returned to Antioch in Syria where they confronted the problem of the heresy of circumcision, and they went to Jerusalem to deal with this problem. Following this, Acts 15:36 says, “Now after some days Paul said to Barnabas, Let us return now and visit the brothers throughout every city in which we announced the word of the Lord, and see how they are getting along.” Within a short period of time, the apostles preached the gospel, set up churches, appointed elders, and then went back to visit the churches and elders they had established.
All the Epistles were written to the established churches with the elders not just to teach them, but to charge and instruct them to deal with certain problems, to do certain things, and to take care of certain matters. Paul said to the Corinthians, “What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of meekness?” (1 Cor. 4:21), and in 1 Corinthians 11:34 he said, “And the remaining matters I will set in order when I come.” Paul intended to return to Corinth to set matters in order. According to the record of the Bible, after appointing the elders in a church, the apostles did not stay away from the church to let it go on by itself.
Peter was an apostle, but he stayed in Jerusalem as an elder (1 Pet. 5:1). His example shows us that an apostle may remain in a church as an elder to help the church. After the appointment of the elders, the apostles always helped the churches either by remaining with them, by visiting them, or by writing epistles to them to charge them, instruct them, and correct them. Even the Epistles to Timothy and Titus were written in the principle of helping those who had been established by the apostles. Paul instructed these brothers how to behave themselves in the church.
In The Normal Christian Church Life, Brother Watchman Nee said that after the apostles appointed the elders, the apostles would not take care of the church in its business affairs. In the business affairs, the apostles should keep their hands off of the churches. This word by Brother Nee was misunderstood and misused by some of the saints, even the co-workers. Eleven years later in 1948, he put out a set of messages which were printed in the book Church Affairs. On page 149 of this book he says, “After the meeting in Hangkow [where the messages in The Normal Christian Church Life were given], some brothers misunderstood that though the elders are appointed by the apostles, they do not have to listen to the apostles. This is impossible.” The apostles should never keep their hands off of the churches in the work of the ministry to build them up. Pages fourteen through twenty-four of Church Affairs is a long section telling us how, after establishing the elders, the apostles have to train them by teaching them how to be elders and how to take care of the church affairs.
By the apostles’ returning to or staying in a church to help the elders after they are established, they have the opportunity to perfect the saints. The New Testament shows us that the apostles’ practice was to preach the gospel, teach the truth, set up a church with the saved ones, establish the elders among them, and then train the elders how to be elders. Then they would stay with the elders for some time to perfect the saints. The apostles perfected the saints to do what they themselves did. They preached the gospel, and no doubt they perfected the saints to do the same thing. They taught the truth and also perfected the saints to learn the truth, know the truth, and teach the truth. The apostles set up churches and perfected the saints to do this also. Today we need this kind of perfecting so that we can preach the gospel to sinners, teach the truth to the saved ones, and establish these ones as a church.
If we are those who preach the gospel in the proper way, teach the truth in an adequate way, and set up churches, we are qualified to appoint elders. However, we must not set up elders and go away to rest or retire, leaving them without any perfecting. We must stay to train the elders how to shepherd the flock, the church. As an elder Peter said, “Shepherd the flock of God among you...nor as lording it over the allotments, but becoming patterns of the flock” (1 Pet. 5:2-3). The elders should not control but should shepherd and nourish the saints that they may grow. We must train the elders to do this. Then we have to cooperate with these elders to perfect the saints to do what we do. As we have been perfected, we will produce a number of saints like ourselves. This will cause us to be productive and will result in the duplication of the churches.
The apostles should perfect the saints in the things which they themselves do. A professor of mathematics teaches his students mathematics. After their graduation, the students of the professor will do the same things that he does. This is the professor’s perfecting of the students. In the same way, the apostles must stay with a church, first to train the elders and then, with the elders, to perfect the saints. In recent years we have been short of the training of the elders and the perfecting of the saints. We have not had adequate time for this. Perhaps many of our problems have been due to this shortage. What can we expect of a local church in which the elders are not trained and the saints are not perfected? To train the elders is not simply to have a conference. The apostles must stay with the elders to train and teach them.
There has not been an adequate situation of training and perfecting among us. We have had meetings in which only general messages have been given week after week. The saints have received only a general perfection, not a particular perfection. However, Ephesians 4:11-12 implies that the perfecting by the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers is particular. We are short of this perfection. Our goal is to endeavor to attain it.
Ephesians 4:11-16 has not been properly touched by the Lord’s children. The need for the perfecting of the saints revealed in these verses has not been fulfilled. Where is the apostles’, the prophets’, and the evangelists’ perfecting of the saints? There may be a certain amount of the perfecting by the elders as the shepherds and teachers, but only in part and not in a particular way. In a college one must study many courses before he can graduate. In the same way, in the church life we need the perfecting by the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and teachers. Because Ephesians 4:11-16 is the word of the Lord in the Bible, it will not only be touched but also fulfilled. Perhaps this fulfillment has already begun among us. We now desire to see what these verses mean for us. We are not satisfied or contented with our present practice of the church life, with the general meetings, the general messages, and the general rather than particular perfection. We want to cooperate with the Lord for the fulfillment of His word in Ephesians 4:11-16.