Our service to the Lord in the New Testament includes preaching the gospel and meeting regularly for the fulfillment of God’s purpose. After much study I found that there are four steps in this New Testament service.
The first step is the preaching by the New Testament priests of the gospel to save sinners for God’s satisfaction (Rom. 15:16). The second is to feed the new believers. Right after their baptism, we should begin to feed, to nourish, the new ones. John 21:15 says: “Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon...do you love Me more than these? He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I love You. He said to him, Feed My lambs.” Here the Lord specifically tells us to feed His lambs, the new believers. Right after the delivery of her child, a mother begins to nourish, to feed, her baby. Without the proper nourishing, a newborn babe will die.
The third step in our New Testament service is the perfecting of the saints. It is not enough just to feed the young saints; we also have to perfect them. After a certain amount of growth in life, they have to be perfected that they may be able to build up the Body of Christ in the same way the gifted persons do. The Lord has given gifts to His Body-apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers-“for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ.” This is clearly revealed to us in Ephesians 4:11-12.
The fourth step is that all the saints should be trained in order to be brought into the practice of prophesying for the Lord in the church meetings. This point is clearly revealed in 1 Corinthians 14. According to this chapter, to prophesy does not mean to predict, or foretell, but to speak for the Lord, to speak forth the Lord, and to speak the Lord Himself that we may minister or dispense Him into others. With the genuine prophesying, people will not receive mere doctrines or teachings, but our speaking will minister Christ to people as their food supply.
Thus, there are four steps of our New Testament service revealed in the Bible: to preach the gospel, to feed the lambs, to perfect the saints, and to prophesy for the building up of the church.
First Corinthians 14:26 reveals that when the church comes together, each one has something of the Lord to share with others. This is very different from a meeting where a preacher or minister gives a message to a congregation. Over a period of time, this kind of meeting with one man speaking and all the rest listening will kill the development of the spiritual functions within every member. Therefore, we all have to pursue, desire earnestly, and seek after the excelling gift of prophesying (vv. 1, 12, 39).
Among Christians today we cannot see the practice of the organic prophesying for the building up of the church, and there is no record of such a corporate practice in Christian history. Brother Nee saw the need for church meetings in mutuality over fifty years ago. In 1937 he spoke the messages which are published in The Normal Christian Church Life. In this book Brother Nee says that the big Lord’s Day morning meeting with one man speaking and the rest listening has no place among the meetings of the church. In 1948 Brother Nee gave the messages contained in Church Affairs. At this time he was much stronger. He said that the Lord’s Day message meeting in which one person speaks and the rest listen is according to “the customs of the nations” (2 Kings 17:8, NASB). He charged us all to persistently push against this unscriptural tradition and work to tear it down.
On the one hand, to have one man speaking edifies the saints; but on the other hand, to have only one man speaking annuls and kills the spiritual function, ability, and capacity of every believer. Because of this practice, many Christians have been fully annulled in their spiritual function and capacity. Very few know how to speak for the Lord. This is the situation in Christianity today, and among us it is nearly the same.
I began a thorough study of the New Testament service in October 1984. In my study I remembered Brother Nee’s words. In 1948 he strongly repudiated the big Lord’s Day message meeting and asked all of us to exercise considerable strength to overthrow this damaging tradition. I had heard all these things, yet in 1949 when I came out of mainland China to Taiwan, I did not put these things into practice. Later, I was full of regret for this and asked the Lord to forgive me. Then I sounded the trumpet, saying that the Lord’s Day morning meeting with one man speaking and all the rest listening should be annulled.
Although I sounded the trumpet in this way in Taiwan in 1984, for over three years I did not propose for the church in Taipei to stop their Lord’s Day message meetings. Over three thousand saints attended these meetings. They were all influenced and deeply impressed that the best meetings were first, the Lord’s table, and second, the Lord’s Day morning message meeting. They liked the message meetings because they were all nourished by the messages that were given Lord’s Day after Lord’s Day. To suddenly stop this kind of meeting would have been a damage to the church. Instead, I spent over three years to train the brothers and sisters. Then in November of 1987, the elders in Taipei decided that it was time for them to stop the Lord’s Day morning message meeting, and they began to practice the organic prophesying as revealed in 1 Corinthians 14.
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