In the church the bigger members must learn to perfect others, and the smaller, younger members must learn to take the perfecting. This is not merely to submit but to receive perfecting. In the early days, by the Lord’s true mercy I was a learner. I made a decision within myself simply to be a learner. Many times I was asked to suggest something, but I only answered, “I have no suggestion.” I simply wanted to do whatever the perfecting members told me. If we receive perfecting from others, we will learn more.
If someone says, “Brother, would you please give a message?”, the best thing to do is ask, “What message should I give?” If the perfecting one says, “You may minister something about the inner life,” we should ask, “What should I say about the inner life? I have no ideas concerning what to speak. Please tell me something so that I may learn.” The first brother may reply, “Perhaps you should say that the inner life is Christ.” Then we can ask, “After I say that, what else should I speak?” In this way we should proceed point by point. This is the way I always dealt with Watchman Nee. I would even ask him how long my message should be. Brother Nee might say, “It is up to you,” but I would reply, “I do not know how long to speak.” If he suggested half an hour, I would finish my speaking within thirty minutes. Sometimes it took three hours to finish dealing with him in this way. I took the position that I truly did not know anything. In this way I learned very much. On one day I spent three hours learning, and on the next day I spent less than one hour speaking from what I had learned.
We must not only meet together, but we must learn. Many of you are younger and are smaller members. You may have some things, but the bigger members have more than you. Do not show off what you have; that does not help you to learn. You are here not for your teaching. You are here for learning. If you are going to show off what you have, then there is no need for you to learn more.
The messages in The Normal Christian Church Life were first given in 1937 beginning from the first day of the year. While we were in the north, we received a cable from Brother Nee asking us to come down to where he was. No further reason was given, so we just did what he asked. We took a train without a berth for thirty-six hours from Peking in the north to Shanghai in the south. When we arrived, Brother Nee came to the station to meet us. Right away he started to give the messages in that book. Those were not meetings but a conference of co-workers.
After about only two days, Brother Nee caught a heavy cold. He had a fever, so he could not rise up to come to the meeting. Early in the morning on the next day, Sister Nee came and asked me to contact Brother Nee. He was in bed, and I took a seat by him. He said, ”Brother Lee, I cannot get up. You have to give a message on Acts 13.” In the past two years he had covered the first part of the Acts from chapter one to chapter twelve. Now we had come to chapter thirteen, but he was unable to speak. I said, “What should I speak? What is in Acts 13?” He said, “You know,” but I said, “I truly do not know. All I know is that there were prophets and teachers in the church in Antioch.” He replied, “You have to tell the people about the line of Antioch.” I said, “What is the line of Antioch?” Then he spoke to me concerning these matters.
When I went to speak, I said, “Brother Nee caught a cold, so he cannot come. He asked me to give you something, but I can only speak what he told me.” Then I spoke about the line of Antioch from Acts 13. After two days Brother Nee rose up, came to the meeting, and gave the message on the line of Antioch again. I sat there and listened to it, saying to myself, “This is one hundred percent different from what I just spoke.” He spoke something more, and I learned from him.
Due to Brother Nee’s cold, the messages during those eight days in January were not given adequately. Then after the Japanese invaded China in July of the same year, we were forced to retreat from the coast to the interior. At that time I and some others were in north China, close to Mongolia, travelling and working. One day we received a cable summoning us down to Hankow in the center of China, on the Yangtze River, where the Chinese government was retreating to. At that time Brother Nee gave all those messages once again in an adequate way. The Normal Christian Church Life was published according to the long-hand notes taken there.
I always took the standing that I was learning. In order to learn something, we must be one hundred percent a learner. If we do this, we will see how much we will learn. We will learn more, and we will even learn the most.
Concerning our functioning in the church, there is the need of two sides. The bigger, older members must always take the stand not to replace others but to reproduce and perfect them, and the smaller, younger members must always take the stand to learn. If we care for these two sides, the functioning of the Body will be quick and adequate.
The poor situation in the church life, however, is that the bigger members do not reproduce and perfect, and the smaller ones do not learn. For the learners to criticize the bigger members for this poor situation does not help them. The learners should simply concentrate on learning. Then they will learn more. Suppose you teach me how to drive. If I am a good learner, I should not reason with you. If you tell me to drive on a certain road, I should not say that there is something in the way. I simply should take your orders. Then I will learn more.
These are the proper principles. In the church some are the older, bigger ones. This is something comparative. Someone may be a younger one to one person and an older one to another. I might be a smaller one to you, but I am a bigger one to someone else. As the younger ones, we have to learn, and as bigger ones, we have to reproduce and perfect others. I say again that we will see all the functions brought forth in an adequate, rich, and very fast way. These two principles are not a small matter.