We all know that it is easy to beget a child. It is not too difficult to raise him up either. But teaching children takes many months and years. According to the present system of education, a child must receive sixteen years of education. Only after he finishes his college education can he be considered as having successfully completed his training. To be successfully educated means to be perfected. In spiritual education, only when a saint has been perfected to the extent that he can do the work of the New Testament ministry can his education be considered as completed. The work of the New Testament ministry is none other than the building up of the Body of Christ. This is a term that Christianity knows nothing about and is a work that is not found in Christianity, but it certainly is in the Bible. Moreover, the Lord has shown us that when all the saints, old and young, men and women, are perfected, they can all build up the Body of Christ.
The building up of the Body of Christ does not depend on a few people. It does not depend on the responsible brothers in a church. Nor does it depend on the co-workers or the full-timers. Rather, every one of the perfected saints should participate in the work of the building up of the Body of Christ. Begetting, nourishing, teaching, and building are the four major steps in the new way. When every one of the saints in the church can beget, nourish, teach, and build, God’s eternal purpose is fulfilled. God’s eternal purpose is to have the Body of Christ, and the steps to arrive at this purpose are the begetting through the preaching of the gospel, our nourishing through the home meetings, our teaching through the small group meetings, and our building up through the church meetings.
First Corinthians 14:26 says, “Whenever you come together, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.” Here God shows us the model for the church meeting. According to Ephesians 5, the psalms are not mainly for singing in the meeting but for speaking. Verse 19 says to speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and psalming with your heart to the Lord. One can see that the hymns are not just for singing or for psalming, but are for speaking one to another. Hence, in the church meeting before we sing a hymn, it is not bad to first spend some time to speak the hymns to one another. There is one kind of taste in singing the hymns, but there is a better kind of taste in speaking the hymns. The speaking of the hymns is a kind of prophesying.
Everyone has a desire to prophesy in the meetings, but many do not know what to speak. The simplest way is to choose a hymn and speak to one another. Every one of our hymns is a revelation and a message. When we exercise our spirit to speak the hymns, we express the content, atmosphere, and spirit of that message. The goal of prophesying is to build up the church which is to build up the Body of Christ. When you speak a little and I speak a little, and when everyone speaks a little, the riches of Christ will be manifested. No matter how well a person may preach, he only expresses his own thoughts. But for everyone to prophesy is to have a love feast in the Chinese style where everyone brings a dish and puts it on a long table. The riches will be exhibited fully before everyone’s eyes. In the church meeting everyone must bring forth the riches of Christ, everyone should speak, everyone should listen, and everyone should function.
What God is after today is not a congregation. What He is after is a Body. A congregation is an organization, but a body is not an organization. Rather, it is an organism. The members in a human body do not come about by organization. Rather, they come about organically. In the same way, the church of God does not come about through organization. Rather, it comes about organically. Today’s Christianity emphasizes the congregation. As such it is surely an organization. As long as a learned and eloquent speaker comes and speaks persuasively, the congregation is kept together. Once the able speaker is gone, the congregation cannot remain. This is a congregation, an organization. What God is after is not a congregation; He is after a Body. Hence, Ephesians 1:20-23 says that Christ resurrected from the dead and transmitted all the riches of ascension to those who believe in Him. Those who believe in Him are the church, the Body of Christ. For this reason, the preaching of the gospel must be done by every member of this Body.