The danger of different ministries can be seen in the inner life movement. The inner life movement began in the seventeenth century with the mystics in the Catholic Church such as Madame Guyon and Father Fenelon. William Law was raised up to express the teachings of the mystics in a more practical way. His teachings were a great help to Andrew Murray, who played a prominent role in recovering the truth concerning Christ as the believers’ inward life and experience. Jesse Penn-Lewis received help from Andrew Murray and went on to see much concerning the subjective death of Christ. Her teachings were published in a paper called The Overcomer. Her teaching on the subjective death of Christ was very good. From the subjective death of Christ she went on to talk about spiritual warfare in a book entitled War on the Saints. Eventually, however, Mrs. Penn-Lewis went to an extreme on the matter of spiritual warfare, and at the end of her life, she became preoccupied with demons.
Late in Mrs. Penn-Lewis’s ministry, T. Austin-Sparks was raised up. During a visit to Taiwan in 1955, Brother Sparks told me that when he was young, he was working with Mrs. Penn-Lewis. But at a certain point, he realized that he could not work with her anymore because as a sister she exercised too much headship. She took too much of a leadership role as the head. Brother Sparks left her to begin another work which became his own ministry. Some said that Mrs. Penn-Lewis had a very good ministry on the subjective death of Christ and that Brother Sparks had a very good ministry on the principles of Christ’s resurrection life. Eventually, Mrs. Penn-Lewis went to be with the Lord, but her paper, The Overcomer, continued to be published. Brother Sparks also published a paper entitled The Witness and the Testimony. These two papers were in competition with one another. Sister Penn-Lewis and Brother Sparks had two ministries to produce two results of the work.
In our early days in the recovery, we read their writings and received much help from them. Both of them knew the Bible well and had spiritual insight. I received a great deal of help from one book written by Brother Sparks entitled The Release of the Lord. This book helped me to know the truth concerning the release of the incarnated Jesus in John 12:24, that is, that the one grain was released to be many grains. These dear saints, however, made a great mistake by keeping two different kinds of ministries. For two different ministries to be carried out by two ministers is altogether against the principle of the New Testament. The ministries of Sister Penn-Lewis and Brother Sparks became two kinds of works to produce two groups of people. One group followed Sister Penn-Lewis, and another group followed Brother Sparks. We must be warned by history so we do not repeat the mistakes made in the past.
In the Lord’s recovery there is only one ministry. If you say that the ministry is my ministry, you must say it with the realization that what I minister is the New Testament ministry. The New Testament ministry was commissioned by the Lord Jesus to His twelve apostles and then to Paul and his co-workers. Brother Nee had a clear realization that there was only one ministry. The ministry of God’s economy in the New Testament is uniquely one. All the serving ones, the ministers, should participate in the same ministry.
The deciding factor in determining the right ministry, which is the ministry of God’s New Testament economy, is the teaching of the apostles. A person’s work is in the New Testament ministry if he teaches the teaching of the apostles. If he does not teach you according to the teaching of the apostles, his work is not participating in the ministry of the New Testament economy. The unique ministry is the ministry ordained by God according to the apostles’ teaching.
The New Testament ministry, the unique ministry, the ministry of the Spirit and the ministry of righteousness (justification), is to bear the testimony of Jesus and to minister the processed and completed Christ to His believers according to the apostles’ teaching (Eph. 3:8; Gal. 1:6-9). To preach anything other than the apostles’ teaching is to preach something that is not a part of the ministry of the New Testament economy. This is why Paul charged the Galatians to discern those who pervert the gospel of Christ. A gospel other than the gospel that Paul preached to the Galatian believers is not the gospel (vv. 6-9). In other words, a gospel different from Paul’s gospel is not in the New Testament ministry. We should not receive a gospel different from Paul’s gospel, different from Paul’s ministry. The ministry is unique in the teaching of the apostles.
The New Testament ministers (2 Cor. 3:6) are the ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ (Eph. 3:6-7). Whoever ministers the gospel of Jesus Christ as the Son of God becoming a man, dying on the cross for our sins, and resurrecting to impart life into us, is one of the New Testament ministers. These ministers are for the building up of the church (Col. 1:24-25). They are many, yet they have one unique ministry for the building up of the Body of Christ. All the ministers’ different works should be for this unique ministry (Eph. 4:11-12).
Not only the gifted members but also the perfected saints are working the work of the ministry. It should not be that only a few are in the ministry, but all of us need to be in the ministry. When we go out to visit others, we need to speak the ministry. There is one ministry with thousands of ministers. In Christianity there are a few big speakers, but in the Lord’s recovery we need to have thousands of speakers. These thousands of speakers should be ministers in the one ministry. The ministry is not merely the ministry of a few gifted ones, but it is the ministry of each one of the saints. It is the ministry of thousands of small ministers. The one ministry must be our ministry.