First Corinthians 12:1-12 is a portion of the Word that has been misunderstood and even misused throughout the history of the church. To understand any section or any sentence of the holy Word, one needs a complete and overall view of the entire Bible. The twelve verses in the Scripture reading are one short section of 1 Corinthians, and to understand them we need to see what 1 Corinthians talks about.
In the last century the Brethren taught that 1 Corinthians was a book to solve the problems in the church life. The first of the eleven problems in 1 Corinthians is the problem of division (1:10-17). They considered the portion from chapter twelve through chapter fourteen as a section on the problem of the gifts. In particular, the Brethren felt that this section of 1 Corinthians was written to solve the problem of tongue-speaking. Apparently Paul wrote this letter to solve all the problems, but actually there was a deeper thought and burden within Paul. Those in Pentecostalism stress very much that 1 Corinthians is the unique book in the New Testament and in the entire Bible that encourages us to speak in tongues. Actually, however, in 1 Corinthians Paul strongly belittles the gift of tongues and exalts the gift of prophecy, because his main concern is the church, not the individual believers. Speaking in tongues, even if it is genuine and proper, edifies only the speaker himself, but prophesying, to speak forth the Lord, builds up the church (14:1-4).
The position of 1 Corinthians in the Bible bears a particular significance. The arrangement of the books of the Bible was under God’s sovereignty. Malachi could not be the first book of the Old Testament nor could Genesis be the last book. Psalms and Proverbs are properly placed before the prophets and not after. In the New Testament it is significant that Matthew comes first and that Revelation is last. The four Gospels give us a clear view of the completion of Christ. God anointed His Son to be His Christ, yet even His Son, the God-anointed One, needed to be completed, to be equipped, in order that He might have the ability and the qualifications to carry out His commission to accomplish God’s eternal plan. Thus, the four Gospels tell us how God’s Son has been completed to be God’s Christ to carry out God’s New Testament economy. Acts tells us how this completed Christ was propagated. Due to this propagation, many believers came into existence. Thus, we need Romans to tell us what the Christian life is for the church life. Romans shows us the Christian life for the church life, and 1 Corinthians follows to show us how to have the church life.
The practice of today’s Christianity is a destruction of the church life. Unrestricted speaking in tongues is a great destruction to the proper church life, and it destroyed the church life at Corinth. In 1 Corinthians 12—14 Paul dealt with tongue-speaking to save the saints in Corinth from the destruction of the church life. He adjusted the Corinthian believers in many ways that they might have a proper church life. The proper church life depends absolutely upon the church meetings. If we do not have proper church meetings, we can never have a proper church life. The term “church” is ekklesia in Greek, which means the called out assembly. This term implies meeting because the church is an assembly. Without the meetings, there is no church. How to have the meetings, however, is a big problem to the church life. Today on this entire earth it is hard to find the proper church life because there are not the proper church meetings.
The Lord’s new way is mainly to bring people into the church and then to form them into meetings that they may enter into the proper church life for the building up of Christ’s universal Body. The visiting of people’s homes by knocking on their doors is the God-ordained way to spread the gospel. To have meetings set up in the new believers’ homes is also God’s ordained way to begin the church life. After God has done so much to complete Christ and to propagate Christ to produce the church life, we have to see how the church should meet, and the way for the church to meet is by the Divine Trinity’s operation. In every church meeting is the Divine Trinity’s operation. The Christian gathering is for the Divine Trinity to operate for the purpose of carrying out the dispensing of the processed Triune God. The way to continue God’s New Testament economy is to have meetings for the Triune God to operate among us to carry out His dispensing of the processed Trinity. Christianity has lost the view of God’s New Testament economy and has lost the view of God’s ordained way to carry out this economy.
The Lord’s new way is not merely the way to knock on doors or the way to set up meetings in people’s homes. The Lord’s new way is to carry out God’s New Testament economy. God’s New Testament economy is first to complete His Christ and then to propagate, to duplicate, to reproduce, this completed Christ and dispense Him into His chosen and believing people for the producing of the church, which is the organism of the Triune God. This divine organism exists, is maintained, and goes on by being gathered into the Lord’s name (Matt. 18:20), the highest name in the universe. In such a gathering, the Triune God operates. God the Father operates, the Son ministers, and the Spirit distributes all the gifts for the dispensing of the processed Triune God (1 Cor. 12:4-6).
The purpose for us Christians to meet is unique. It is not for teaching, for preaching, for tongue-speaking, for healing, or for miracles. The Christian meeting is for the dispensing of the processed Triune God. Many Bible teachers do not realize that the teaching of the Bible should be for the Triune God to operate so that He can carry out the dispensing of His divine Triune self. Even the gospel preaching is not for gospel preaching but for the Triune God to operate to carry out His divine dispensing of Himself. We are not merely going to recover door-knocking or home meetings. We believe the Lord has shown us a way to recover the divine dispensing of the divine Being into our being. The Lord’s new way for His new move is to recover the proper way of gospel preaching and the proper way of Christian meeting that the Triune God may operate among His chosen people to dispense Himself into their being.
After the completion of God’s Christ, the propagation of the pneumatic Christ, and the producing of the church, the Divine Trinity is looking for and expecting to have a proper opportunity among His chosen people so that He can operate among them and within them to dispense Himself into them. Our past way to meet did not afford God much of an opportunity to dispense Himself into us. In most Christian meetings today God has nearly no way to operate in order to dispense Himself into His chosen people. God needs to recover this way that He may have on this earth in many places around the globe groups of seeking Christians who afford Him the opportunity to operate in them so He can dispense Himself into their being.
In every Christian meeting, God should be operating, and this operation is carried out by ministries, which are completed by the different gifts of the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 there is a picture of the Triune God that begins with the Spirit, goes through the Lord, and reaches God the Father. With the Spirit is the distribution of the gifts, with the Lord are the ministries, and with God the Father are the operations. God the Father operates, the Lord ministers through different ministries, and the Spirit distributes Himself into the believers as gifts. Thus, all the gifts are accomplishing the ministries, and all the ministries are carrying out God’s operation. The operation of the Divine Trinity is to carry out the divine dispensing of the divine Being into us, the believers in Christ, that we may become His organism to express Him in the whole earth. This is the new way for the Lord’s new move.