In these messages we will specifically consider the church life in the Lord’s recovery today. The church life mainly involves worshipping God, meeting, preaching the gospel, serving God, and working for the Lord. The entire New Testament does not present these matters in sequence in a systematic way. Rather, the New Testament record is according to the spiritual need; that is, it takes the spiritual need as the center, revealing a certain matter when it speaks of the spiritual need for that particular matter. Therefore, when the New Testament speaks of spiritual matters such as how to meet and how to serve God, it brings out their practical aspects but does not clearly point out their details all at once. For example, when Paul uses the term priest of the gospel of God in Romans 15:16, he does not specifically elucidate it; rather, he merely brings it up in passing in connection with the spiritual situation. Because of this, many have read the Bible throughout the centuries, but not many have seen the significance of the term priest of the gospel of God. There are many other similar cases, in which the Bible mentions a certain matter without giving a particular explanation for it. Hence, when we come to explore these matters, we need to take the view of the entire Bible. Unless we take this view, when we come to the matter of how to serve God in preaching the gospel, we may never realize that we who preach the gospel are all priests of the gospel of God.
Because the record in the New Testament is often spiritual, it is difficult for us to be clear concerning the way to practice certain matters. This is not to say that the presentation in the New Testament lacks clarity; it is to say that it is not easy to discover in the New Testament the way to practice certain matters. Therefore, throughout the centuries those who love the Lord and desire to serve God have encountered problems when studying the Bible. This is one reason why the way to practice the church life has stirred up many arguments and debates among Christians in the past nineteen hundred years and has even led to divisions. This is very regretful.
Because not everyone has received sufficient light from the New Testament, some unscriptural practices have been brought into the church life. For example, there are many different practices of baptism. Because no plain regulations are given in the New Testament concerning this matter, there have been endless arguments throughout the centuries concerning how to baptize people and how many times to baptize them. Because there were so many arguments, many became confused, and consequently, some unscriptural practices were gradually brought in. Such situations happened again and again, especially in the degradation of the church. The only way to understand the Bible is to trust in the Holy Spirit. However, due to the church’s degradation, the degree of relying on the Holy Spirit was greatly reduced; thus, many practices that are not found in the Scriptures were brought in.
The matter of the eldership is another example. In the New Testament, elder and overseer are synonymous terms referring to the same person (Acts 20:17, 28). However, in the second century a teacher by the name of Ignatius introduced an erroneous teaching, saying that an overseer is higher than an elder. He then appointed overseers as bishops over a district to rule over the elders of the different places within that district. This extreme error resulted in the formation of a hierarchy. This teaching is also the source of the episcopal system of ecclesiastical government. Later, after gradual development, there were not only the bishops who governed a district but also the archbishops who mostly governed a country. Then, on a higher level, there were the cardinals who surround the pope to rule over the Catholic Church on the whole earth. They are the “cabinet members” of the pope, and if the pope dies, they elect a new pope from among themselves. The pope, of course, is the highest bishop. Besides the Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church is also governed by the episcopal system. Although the presbytery system of the Presbyterian Church is not as strict, the principle is the same with them.
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