In this full-time training we intend to cover the four main steps of the God-ordained way. In the previous messages we have covered the first two steps: visiting people as the New Testament priests of the gospel and raising up the new believers in the home meetings. In this message we will begin to fellowship concerning the third step-the group meeting. The fourth step of prophesying for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ will be covered in future messages.
Paul said that he was a New Testament priest of the gospel (Rom. 15:16). In the book of Acts and in all of Paul’s Epistles, we can see that Paul exercised to practice this New Testament priesthood to the uttermost. He practiced the gospel preaching as a New Testament priest mainly in two ways. First, wherever he went he visited the synagogues. At that time, especially in Asia Minor, there were Jewish synagogues in all the major cities. There was always a group of people gathered together in these synagogues who had the Scriptures and knew something of God. Paul took advantage of this situation. As a Jew who had been converted to be a Christian and who had also become an apostle and an evangelist, it was very profitable for him to go to visit the Jewish synagogues. In doing this he was following in the Lord’s steps. When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, He traveled through the cities and also entered into the synagogues (Matt. 4:23; 9:35). Paul followed the Lord’s example and was successful in this way of preaching the gospel.
Paul also practiced preaching the gospel by going out to visit people. In his second journey, Paul was first forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia, and then when they tried to go into Bithynia, the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. Therefore, they were forced to take a direct course toward Macedonia through Mysia and Troas (Acts 16:6-8). In his second journey, Paul did not know which way to go. He tried one way and then another way; he was “experimenting.” He tried to go to the left (Asia) and was stopped. Then he tried to go to the right (Bithynia) and was also stopped. He did not want to turn back, so he went straight forward until he came to the city of Troas on the Aegean Sea. At this point he did not know where to go.
It seems that when they came to Troas, Paul did not have the thought to cross over to another continent, so God gave him a vision. “A vision was seen by Paul during the night: a certain man, a Macedonian, was standing and entreating him and saying, Come over into Macedonia and help us! And when he had seen the vision, we immediately endeavored to go forth into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to bring the good news to them” (Acts 16:9-10). The word “concluding” in this verse indicates that after seeing the vision from God, there was the need to conclude, that is, to understand by considering what it meant, by exercising the mind, a mind saturated and directed by the spirit (Eph. 4:23), according to the actual situation and environment. After studying the situation and considering the vision, Paul reached a conclusion. Today some people are too spiritual. They think that if you have the leading of the Holy Spirit, you should always know what to do. But Paul was not that spiritual; he was still human.
In the Old Testament, God’s oracle, God’s speaking, always came through the Urim and Thummim which were on the breastplate of the high priest (Exo. 28:30). That was a miracle. Suddenly light would shine, not on the whole breastplate, but on the Hebrew letters on the breastplate, again and again until the divine speaking was completed. In this way God’s will was made known to His people. God’s administration in the Old Testament was carried out by His speaking in His divine oracle through the Urim and Thummim. This administration, God’s divine government over his people, is called theocracy. At certain times this theocracy was carried out by the wording from the Urim and Thummim; but not all of God’s oracle in the Old Testament was through the priesthood by the Urim and Thummim. This is why, in addition to the priesthood, there were the prophets. The prophets went along with the priesthood to strengthen it. They prophesied and also received visions from God.
In the New Testament theocracy, the Urim and Thummim are replaced by the mingled spirit, the divine Spirit mingled with our regenerated human spirit (Rom. 1:9; 8:16; John 3:6; 4:24; 1 Cor. 6:17). The oracle of God is in our spirit, but sometimes this is not adequate because of our weakness. In the book of Acts, there is also something in addition to the New Testament Urim and Thummim. As the prophets were added to the priesthood in the Old Testament, the New Testament priesthood also needs the function of the New Testament prophets. All of the New Testament believers are priests. Paul indicates that he was a priest of the New Testament (Rom. 15:16), yet in Acts 16 his priesthood needed the function of the prophets.
In the Old Testament, it was common for a vision to come to a prophet. Here in Acts 16, Paul was the priest, but the inner feeling of the mingled spirit was not so clear to him. If it had been clear, he would not have needed to experiment, to try to go to the left and then to the right. It may be that he was worried about this situation and could not sleep well. Then a vision came to him. Even after the vision came, Paul and those with him considered their situation and the vision very much, and concluding that God had called them to bring the gospel to Macedonia, they went to Philippi.
In Philippi Paul did not preach the gospel by going into the synagogue. He went out to visit people. He went to a place of prayer outside the gate beside a river and spoke to the women who had come together. In going to this place, he was going to a “cold door.” He did not know them, and they did not know him; but one of these women, Lydia, received the gospel and opened her home to the apostles (Acts 16:13-15). This was the first penetration of the gospel preaching into the continent of Europe. Before this time the gospel had not yet spread beyond Asia Minor.
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