Today we want to come to the sixth matter, that is, the affairs of the service office—the church business office or work office.
In the New Testament it is quite amazing that the arrangement concerning the spiritual aspect of the church is shown in a very detailed and complete way. Concerning the arrangement of practical affairs, however, the Bible tells us only that there was such an arrangement. It does not tell us how the practical affairs were arranged. The Bible speaks in great detail regarding how the spiritual gifts should operate, how the meetings should be conducted, and how the goal of the meetings should be for the building up. It is also sufficiently clear how the church is organized and how the church is local and has brothers, deacons, and elders. It is also quite clear how these elders, who are the overseers, should behave in the church. This time we have seen that the work is also regional. Within a region there are apostles being sent out by God to work and later returning to their own center of work. It is also very clear that there are apostles who take care of the affairs of the church in that region. The Bible, regarding spiritual things, has given us very clear guidance. If any person before God is sufficiently simple, sufficiently pure, sufficiently careful, and willing to learn, then he will not have much problem in understanding the ordination of God; he can obtain clear light.
In the New Testament one peculiar thing we repeatedly see is that the church needs a great many arrangements, yet the Bible does not spend much time speaking of the arrangements of practical affairs. It is very reluctant to mention these things.
Today I especially want to read the three portions in Acts. Two passages tell us that we should distribute to people according to each one’s need; one passage tells us that a few widows, the Hellenist sisters, were overlooked. The church in Jerusalem at that time had tens of thousands of people, but today you read only these few words: “Distributed to each, as anyone had need.” You see that it was very simple. But today in Foochow there are only one thousand believers; yet we still are not able to find out everyone’s need. In Shanghai there are a little more than one thousand believers, and we still do not know what the actual need of everyone is. At that time in Jerusalem there were tens of thousands of believers, all newly saved. How could the apostles distribute “to each, as anyone had need”? Please remember how much work and arrangements were needed among them. This is not a matter of one or two days, nor a matter of one or two persons, nor a problem of one or two meals; this is everyone’s need.
I believe that anyone who has managed practical affairs knows how difficult this is. For instance, this time on the mountain we have only one hundred persons, and already we are aware of the difficulties. We have three or four brothers at the foot of the mountain and two or three brothers up here. They are busy specifically for these one hundred. They still cannot do a perfect job. What would it take to care for over ten thousand people! The Bible simply says, “Distributed to each, as anyone had need.” It was a problem to find out how many “each”s were there. It was another problem to find out the needs of these “each”s, and even more of a problem to distribute to their need. Even though there are only seven words here, we do not know how much labor is involved with these seven words, how many problems, how many responsibilities, how many records, how much calculation is in the background, and how many people need to be sent out to do the distribution. However, this is a peculiar thing in the Bible. Although what they were doing may have taken several days to complete or even several months, the Bible simply records it in a few words, as if the thing happened within half an hour. The events on the day of Pentecost were recorded in great detail, but when it comes to distributing “to each, as anyone had need,” which is related to the management of practical affairs, the Bible does not give us a detailed record.