Prayer: Lord, every time we gather together, we are full of thanksgiving, praise, and worship. The present age is a dark and corrupted age, but You have saved us and have rescued us from all the preoccupations and ensnaring things and have gathered us into Your name. Lord, we believe that You are with us. You chose us before the foundation of the world, and You created us and called us. You have also redeemed us and have dispensed Yourself into us. Tonight we are meeting in Your name. You are in our midst. You are not only in our midst; You are in us as well. We do thank You for all Your provisions. We have Your precious blood, we have Your Spirit, and we have Your church. Lord, cleanse us, anoint us, enlighten us, and be with all of us. Help us to realize that Your work today is to make home in our heart and to saturate us with Yourself, so that our whole being can be filled with You, and so that the whole church can be filled unto the fullness of God.
Lord, may Your presence be with us in this meeting. Cleanse every one of us with Your precious blood. Cleanse even this meeting hall. May You pour out Your Spirit from on high. May He fill us within and without, so that we can feel Your presence with us. We pray that You would not only speak to us but also dispense Yourself into us through Your rich word. We may forget the message that we hear, or we may not even understand it; but through this meeting we want to gain You and have Your element added into us. Lord, be gracious to all of us, that we would touch Your presence in one spirit, and that we would be headed up in You even before all things are headed up, so that You would gain the glory. Amen.
The general subject of the ten chapters in this book is "The Economy and Dispensing of God." What is the meaning of the term economy, and what is God's economy? What is God's dispensing? The word economy in Greek is oikonomia. It means household law, household administration, or household government. It is used to denote a dispensation, a plan, or an economy in an administration. Hence, it is a household management. The Bible is composed of sixty-six books, and it includes many teachings. If we have the spiritual discernment and would study the Bible finely and carefully, we will see that God's economy is the plan whereby He dispenses Himself into humanity. The focus of God's accomplishments in His economy is His dispensing.
The Divine Trinity is for God's dispensing. The matter of dispensing is revealed in Ephesians 3:2 and Colossians 1:25-27. In these verses the word stewardship has the sense of dispensing. God's stewardship is the dispensing of the processed Triune God in Christ into His chosen, redeemed, and regenerated people that He may be their life and everything, to produce the unique Body of Christ in the universe to be His corporate expression. This Body is the church in this age and the New Jerusalem in eternity.
In 1964 I released twenty-four messages during the summer training in Los Angeles. The general subject was "The Economy of God." In 1983 and 1984 I released fifty-one messages on "God's New Testament Economy" in Stuttgart, Germany and in various places in the United States. Both series of messages speak of God's dispensing in His economy. (The messages on these two subjects have been published by Living Stream Ministry in books under these two titles.) Later, in the fall of 1984 the Lord led us to pay our attention to the practice of the "new way." I went to Taiwan in October of that year, and was prepared to stay there for a considerable time to study the new way with the brothers and sisters. I felt at that time that although we had seen God's economy and His dispensing, we were still short in the matter of practice. Hence, I spent four years in Taiwan to study the way of practice according to the Bible in an attempt to find out the way to put into practice the dispensing in God's economy. In spite of the fact that during this period there were many interruptions, today, according to my inner realization and feeling, the new way has become very clear. The new way that the Lord has led us to practice, that is, the God-ordained way, is a scriptural way. I believe that the Lord will gradually lead the churches on in this way. At present, the Lord has given me the burden to make a clear presentation to the brothers and sisters of the matter of God's economy and dispensing. This message is on God's economy.