The way for the church to practice the God-ordained way to meet and to serve is first through the exercise of the New Testament priesthood of the gospel by preaching the gospel through visiting people. We must first bring people to be regenerated and baptized. This is to produce new believers by begetting them. Then we need to raise up group meetings to build up the new ones, to perfect them, and to raise them up. To raise the new believers is harder than to beget them. All parents know that begetting a child is easy. After the delivery of a child, a mother must feed her child several times a day. Although this can be troublesome, it is not difficult. However, to raise a child for over twenty years is not easy. After being fed, a child begins to grow. Eventually, the child must be sent to kindergarten. Later, he must be sent to elementary school, junior high school, and high school. At home also the parents must do many things. They must instruct, correct, and discipline the child. They must also provide food, clothing, lodging, and many other items. Much has to be done in order to properly raise the child. After more than twenty years, the child will graduate from college. Then he will be useful, not just for making a living but for doing things that can help his society. Raising the new believers is the purpose of the group meetings.
Acts 20 reveals Paul’s heart and practice regarding the raising up of the believers. He called for the elders from Ephesus to meet with him in Miletus, and he told them, “Wherefore watch, remembering that for three years, night and day, I did not cease admonishing each one with tears” (v. 31). He said, “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and to teach you publicly and from house to house” (v. 20). Paul exhorted and admonished the believers, both publicly in the big meetings and privately from house to house. He did not shrink from telling them of all the things they needed to live their daily life according to the will of God. He told them all the things concerning God’s counsel, the mysteries of God’s economy, and he told them how to fulfill God’s eternal plan concerning the mystery of God, Christ (Col. 2:2), and the mystery of Christ, the church (Eph. 3:4, 9-10). Raising up the new believers in the way Paul did cannot be accomplished merely by the big meetings of the church. Even the home meetings for feeding the believers are not adequate to raise them up in this way. To raise up the believers in this way requires the group meetings.
If only a few saints know the proper way to preach the gospel and have group meetings, they will be able to go anywhere and raise up new believers within a short time. They will be desperate to get a few people saved and will then teach them in the way Paul did. These new believers, who formerly might have been heathens who knew nothing about Christianity, will have a very good group meeting within a few months. Many of us, however, came from the background of traditional Christianity, and it is not easy to change our way. Even if we practice the group meetings, we may not do it in the new way. Our oldness and staleness damages our practice of the group meetings. We need a change of mind. We all are able to change, but whether or not we change depends upon our desperation. We must not merely receive the speaking in these messages and appreciate and agree with all the points. We must be desperate to have a radical change. Without this desperation we will still have group meetings with spiritually old saints in the old way with the old concept. This is not effective. We must be stirred up to have a change. We desperately need a new start and new group meetings.