In the previous chapters, we have seen our need to help sinners to be saved and become the organic members of the Body of Christ. This is the first thing we must do for the building up of the Body of Christ. After the sinners have been saved, we should continue to take care of them by nourishing and cherishing them continually. If we do this, the newly saved ones will be fully established. If we do not nourish and cherish a newborn babe and take good care of him, it will be very difficult for him to remain alive. In order for a little one to survive, we must have an adequate care for him that he may be established.
To establish the new ones means to qualify them to learn something more. A mother knows that before a baby is three months old, she cannot tell him many things. She needs to feed, nourish, and cherish him, and let him grow for three months. After growing for three months, the baby will have more capacity. The mother will have the opportunity to instruct the baby, and he will be able to receive her instruction.
After the new ones are established, we should bring them together with other saved ones in small groups of fifteen to twenty or twenty-five. For only one or two to be saved is not adequate to form a small group. Therefore, we need to help more new ones to be saved. Two or three brothers or sisters can join together to bring several newly saved ones to form a group. These brothers and sisters can then work together. Much work will be required to perfect the new believers. In Greek the word perfect mainly means to equip. Perfecting may be illustrated by the training young people receive in the military service. The new believers have to be equipped. This involves instructing them. We have to teach them, and we have to feed them, not just with milk, but with solid food.
Some may wonder how the new ones could go on so quickly. Many teachers have found that little ones have a great ability to apprehend things. Every kind of life has its ability. In the human life there is an ability to grasp and understand many things. The newborn Christians have the divine life. With the divine life there is also the divine ability. We have to believe that the saved ones have received something divine within them. Therefore, they have the capacity, the ability, to understand what we say.
We should bring the new ones out of their homes to join with other Christians. This is to bring them into the habit of not simply existing by themselves in their own homes but coexisting with other Christians. Now that we have brought meetings to them, we have to bring them out of their homes to gather with other Christians. They can rotate their meetings in different homes. This will make them happy, build them up, and provide contact and togetherness with the saints. This togetherness brings much benefit to their Christian life. Children learn a lot by being together. When they come together, they teach each other. Quite often I have seen little ones “tutoring” each other, and sometimes those little tutors do a better job than their mothers can do. They have their way to talk about things. They have their own language and new vocabulary. They understand each other even when their mothers do not. This is why we have to bring the new ones together with some new saints.
As we have seen, we must first help sinners to be saved and become living members of Christ. Secondly, we have to go to them quite often to nourish, cherish, and encourage them. Then we must form groups of these believers. We have discovered that the small groups are crucial. The cherishing, entreating, and consoling of the believers for their perfecting takes place in the small groups. In 1 Thessalonians 2:7 Paul firstly said, “But we were gentle in your midst, as a nurse would cherish her own children.” It is not easy to be so patient, gentle, and tender in caring for little babes. Without grace one cannot do it. Then in 2:11 Paul also likened himself to an entreating and consoling father. Entreating, or exhorting, implies a lot. Sometimes it implies a warning, and sometimes it implies rebuking, but with it is also the consoling. Martin Luther said that in disciplining children we sometimes must first spank them and then give them an apple. This is wise. Many parents have learned that if they only charge their children, the children will not receive the charge. After rebuking, parents must console and “warm up” their children. Then they will do what they were told. Paul said he was a nursing mother, feeding the believers with milk, and an exhorting father, disciplining, teaching, instructing, and charging.
In Acts 20, Paul told the elders of the church in Ephesus that he had stayed with them for three years (vv. 17-18, 31). Acts 20:20 says, “How I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and to teach you publicly and from house to house.” Paul taught and admonished them publicly in big meetings and also from house to house. One by one he had many home meetings with them. This building work was done day and night, without ceasing, and with tears (vv. 31, 19).