Recently, before a home meeting, the saints prepared to share with a new believer concerning reading the Bible. As they were reading the lesson on reading the Bible in Life Lessons together with the new believer, they came to the portion in 2 Peter 1:21, which says, “For no prophecy was ever borne by the will of man, but men spoke from God, being borne by the Holy Spirit.” At this juncture, the new believer asked, “What is the Holy Spirit?” The saints shared a little with her about God being triune, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Then after they sang a hymn concerning the Triune God being a mystery, her question seemed to have been satisfied, so they continued to read the lesson. A little later, she raised another question, “Why is it that God will not save people, even good people, unless they come to Him?” On returning home the saints did not feel that they had adequately responded to her questions and wondered how they could have answered her questions in a better way.
These saints realized that the purpose of the home meeting was to feed the new believer, but they should have grasped the opportunity to help this new believer to know the Holy Spirit. Since this was a question raised by the new believer, the saints should have left the topic of reading the Bible for another time and focused wholly upon her question. It also would have been better not to have asked the new believer to sing at this point, because other points introduced by the hymn may have become a distraction in answering her question. The saints might have begun by saying, “Sister, this is our burden in coming to meet with you. We would like to help you to know that the God whom we worship and the Savior in whom we believe is a Spirit, and this Spirit is the Holy Spirit.” Then they could have spent as much time as possible to stress the matter of the Holy Spirit.
Immediately after someone is baptized, we should help the new believer to know the two spirits-the Holy Spirit mingled with our human spirit. In this case, the new believer asked a question concerning the Spirit; therefore, the saints did not have to introduce this matter. It would have been good for the saints to use the entire home meeting to bring the new believer into the realization that God is Spirit (John 4:24) and that Christ is the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). However, saying that the Triune God is a mystery was going too far, distracting from the main matter of the Holy Spirit.
We must learn to go to the home meetings with a definite purpose. But at the same time, we must be quick to grasp the opportunity when a proper question or subject is manifested in the meeting. If the saints would have done an adequate job of answering the new one’s first question concerning the Holy Spirit, she would have been happy and perhaps would have forgotten about the second question. The second question, concerning why God will not save men unless they come to Him, may have been a question to distract from the main goal of the meeting. The strategy of the enemy is to spoil the work in the home meetings by distracting us from the goal. We must always bring the meeting back to the goal of our purpose.
A brother spoke to a new believer over the telephone because the new believer had missed a meeting, and he did not want to allow too much time to pass between the time of the new one’s salvation and the next appointment or meeting. In their conversation, the new believer asked why there was a difference between the two accounts of creation in chapters one and two of Genesis. Since it was a telephone conversation and the subject required some time to adequately address, the brother asked the new believer to study the chapters some more with a view of meeting together to discuss these matters further in the next home meeting. The brother wondered how to answer the new believer’s question.
While it is very reasonable to discuss such a topic at a later time, we must grasp every minute to inject, to minister, something of life and truth into the new believers in taking care of them. To have taken two or three minutes to say something about Genesis 1 and 2 would have helped to improve the telephone conversation.
To answer his question concerning the difference between Genesis 1 and 2, you should first point out that Genesis 1 is the outline of creation and Genesis 2 is the details of that outline. Genesis 1:26 says that God created man in His own image according to His likeness. Then chapter two gives the details of God’s creation of man. God used two materials in creating man, the dust and God’s breath (v. 7). God used the dust of the ground to form man’s body, and He used His breath of life to create the human spirit within man. Thus, today we have a body and a spirit. With this short word, you would help the new brother to know something concerning these two chapters. Then you could suggest to him that the two of you come together some time soon to talk about this matter further.
When we share any subject with the new believers, we must keep in mind that they are newborn babes (1 Pet. 2:2a; 1 Cor. 3:1b); therefore, we should feed them with baby food. In order to make our work effective, we must learn how to feed others and what portions to give them. To feed a babe with the writings of Paul may be too deep in the beginning. Our contact with new believers as babes involves two different aspects. The first aspect deals with their human education or learning. If one is a professor, we should not talk to him in a babyish way, otherwise, he may think that we despise him. We should treat him as a learned person, a scholar. The second aspect deals with their spiritual condition and age. According to human learning, they may know science, philosophy, or psychology, but according to spiritual understanding, they are babes, not knowing the spiritual things. Therefore, we have to help them as ones who know nothing spiritually. For example, we may point out to them Genesis 1:26 and 2:7 and stress the matters of man being made in God’s image according to His likeness and being formed from the dust with God breathing into him the spirit of life. We should stress these two things again and again, treating them as babes, feeding them with these deeper things in the form of baby food. Baby food is very rich in nutrition, but its quantity and form make it easy for babes to digest.
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