All the verses that we have just read show us that the church is managed by the elders. The light concerning the elders' administration of the church has been received and practiced by us for many years. Thank the Lord that during the past years, not only has the Lord set up many local churches, but He has set up a number of elders in each local church. This has been especially true in many places in Taiwan during the past ten years. Everywhere, brothers who love the Lord, who are willing to pay the price, and who are concerned for the Lord's children have been raised up to manage the house of God with diligence and faithfulness. We cannot help but bow down to worship the Lord for this.
However, although these brothers have been constrained by the Lord's love to manage the house of God, due to the fact that they have never done this before, they are at a loss both in their understanding of the biblical principles and, in addition, in their practice as to how to manage the church. The worldly method has indeed been rejected, and the natural wisdom has been reckoned worthless. But where is the proper way for the management of a church? For this reason, the brothers serving as elders in the different places have often come to me to express their frustrations. They begged me to say something concerning the matter of the management of the church. This cry has become all the more urgent as the number of churches is multiplying rapidly.
For this reason, I deeply feel that I should take this opportunity at this time, when most of the elders are here, to consider this matter in a thorough way. Perhaps this will help the management of the churches in all the places. Of course, due to the limitation in time, we cannot take care of every aspect. We can only point out the most important subjects and cover them in fifteen chapters.
In the first message, we will begin by covering the matter of the knowledge of an elder—what an elder has to know. Although this title is very simple, what it entails is very broad. There are many, many things that an elder has to know. We cannot cover all of the items. We will bring out only a few items that are related particularly to the elders' management of the church.