The supply of the apostles’ word is the supply of the ministers of the word. The gospel preaching and the edifying of new believers in the regular meetings should be sufficient for the brothers to have the habit of serving in the gospel and edifying the new believers. If we desire a stronger supply of the word, then we need meetings such as those in 1 Corinthians 14. This is the case in a local church. Then what is the responsibility of an apostle? During a certain time, when a brother passes by a certain locality, he should stay for a few days as Paul did when he passed through Troas and stayed for seven days. You may stay there for a few days, a week, or a month and hold a conference. Perhaps a local church or several local churches in the area may join together two or three times to get some special help.
I have considered before God many times for many years, and I deeply believe that the help rendered to people by the Lord’s Day morning preaching cannot match what God desires to do. Frankly speaking, if we are not careful, the Lord’s Day preaching will become a waste and a loss. It is best to turn that message into gospel work. The Lord’s Day is the time for everyone to be mobilized to go out to save people. Thursday is the time for all the new believers to be edified, and perhaps Saturday is the time for the brothers and sisters to be gathered together to be mutually edified. On special occasions in a locality, an apostle may have a three to five-day conference. After finishing, he may go to another place to have a three to five-day conference. In this way you will see that the church will be very balanced in the matter of the supply of the word, and her way will be straight.
Today we are not talking about the locality which is the center of the work, but the localities outside the center of the work. They cannot bear the burden of a Lord’s Day message meeting. Once this burden is present, you almost have to place a worker there. Once you do this, you have quite a problem. This is the time every brother should rise up to serve God. We cannot have a system of workers.
The pressure of tradition is very strong. When we first begin to push against it, it is very heavy. The pressure on my spirit is heavy. We need to push against it day after day. After two or three years the situation will change. Then all the brothers and sisters will desire to have the gospel preaching work on the Lord’s Day. If you say, “Let us preach a message to you,” no one will want to listen to your message. They will see immediately that this is not the church. If, after two years, you send these brothers and sisters to another place or another church and ask them to listen to messages, they will not be able to sit still. They will sense that they should not be there, that their being there makes them just like members of Catholicism, where everything is done by a priest and where they could not have a portion.
The situation of the church today is altogether not according to the New Testament! Therefore, we need to reverse it. God wants to take the way of recovery; we also need to take the way of recovery. We should always lead the brothers and sisters to the point where they are the ones working and serving. There is service toward the sinners, and there is also service toward the new believers. Among them there is also the mutual edifying as in 1 Corinthians 14, that is, help rendered mutually by the saints from the word before God.
If you live in a locality for a while, you can add your portion of the word to the Saturday meetings. Even if you are not a worker, you can still add your portion of the word to the Saturday meetings.
If there is a need for further spiritual supply, we can immediately release many workers to go out and travel from place to place. Formerly, you fixed them one by one in a single place, but today it should not be so. They must be mobile, going from one place to another. They should go out, being in one place for three to five days and in another place for three to five days.