The fellowship, intercession, care, and shepherding in the first section of the group meeting are the beginning and the base of the group meetings. Without such a base, we cannot have effective group meetings. However, these items in the first section of the group meeting cannot fulfill the purpose of the group meeting or reach its goal. The purpose and goal of the group meetings is the perfecting of the saints through teaching in mutuality.
The way to have the proper teaching in a group meeting is not by waiting for an assigned teacher to speak. Rather, the best way is to teach by asking questions. There are no assigned teachers in the group meetings; all the attendants are teachers. Although the sisters should not teach with authority by defining and deciding the meaning of doctrines concerning divine truth (1 Tim. 2:12), they can still teach in the way of exhortation. A sister can say, “Brothers and sisters, we all need to be sanctified from the world unto God by the holy word.” Then another sister may ask what sanctification is, and a brother can give a defining word on the meaning of sanctification. He may say, “To be sanctified is to be separated from the world.” Another may say, “Sanctification is to be made holy unto God in our position.” A third one may say, “Sanctification is to be made holy unto God also in our disposition.” A fourth may say, “Formerly, we were mixed with the world, but sanctification separates us from that situation unto God. Then, this sanctification continues by separating us from the negative things in our disposition. This is equivalent to transformation.” In this way every attendant in the group meeting can teach, regardless of how little he can do. Each answer to the questions raised in a group meeting becomes part of the teaching in that meeting.
The goal of the group meeting is to perfect the saints. Without teaching, it is impossible to reach this goal. In a group meeting, the best way to teach is to ask. Even if we have a burden to teach and exhort others concerning a particular matter, we should not release our burden directly. Rather, we should turn our teaching into a question. Once we ask a question, all the attendants in the meeting will have the obligation to say something, and they will all become teachers. The best way to learn something thoroughly is to teach it. Often we can learn more by teaching than by listening.
We should not think that we know everything there is to know about any teaching in the Bible. In the matter of knowing, there is no limit. Sometimes one who has been saved for only a short time will speak something that is new to the other members. The more attendants there are in a group meeting, the more knowledge there is. However, the knowledge that is within the attendants should be released. Meeting in the old, traditional way did not give the saints the way to release what was within them, but by our meeting in the new way, everything that is in the saints can be released.
The group meetings are our meetings. Therefore, all the attendants in a group meeting must take care of the meeting. In our natural being and in the traditional practice of Christianity there is not the thought that every member must care for the meetings, but in the new way this thought must be sown into us. We should not go to the meetings without a sense of obligation. If each person does not take care of the meetings, the meetings will be poor. Each person in the meeting must be both a teacher and a learner.
In order to take care of a group meeting and answer the questions asked by the new ones, we need to learn a great deal. We must know the truth, the experience of life, and the current situation of the saints and the Lord’s move. Without such learning, we are not qualified to care for the saints by answering their questions. On the one hand, to teach in the group meeting is easy. All the attendants need only to express something according to their experience. Even if one has been a Christian for only one week, he will have had some experience and will have something to say. On the other hand, it is not easy to be effective in our carrying out of the purpose and goal of the group meetings. To take care of a group meeting requires that we have much ability and a large capacity. We all have an ability, a skill, related to the group meetings. However, our ability has a capacity, a limit. The more we function according to our ability, the more our capacity will be increased. We all need much learning, and we need to be trained. We need to study the Bible and read the proper spiritual books. We also need to use our time wisely to study other positive matters, such as humanity, history, and foreign languages. This will equip us and enable us and will enlarge our capacity.
To take care of the group meetings, we need to have a large capacity that is full of ability. To be the proper Christians that God desires for the carrying out of His New Testament economy in this age requires that we mean business with Him. If we are not such capable persons, the Lord will not have the way to return, because He will not be able to build up His organic Body. However, the Lord’s sovereignty is adequate. Eventually He will have the opportunity to carry out His New Testament economy, and the way in which He will do this is the new way that He is unveiling to us in these days. Today we are pioneering the new way, and eventually many others will take this way also.
We must learn to know the truth, and we must learn to know the genuine experience of life. We need the foundation of life, the Spirit, the apostles’ teaching, the subjective experience of the cross, and resurrection. I have no desire to pass on to the saints mere spiritual or biblical knowledge. My intention is to bring all the saints into the full realization of the experience of life. In life we must experience the cross of Christ subjectively, and we must also experience resurrection, which in reality is the pneumatic Christ. We must experience these things in our daily life. When we are about to exchange words with our spouse or with the brothers, we must first ask ourselves, “Am I doing this under the cross? Is this in resurrection?” This is the experience of life.
The first two lines of Hymns, #631, say,
If I’d know Christ’s risen power,
I must ever love the Cross.
If we do not live a life under the cross and in the resurrection of Christ, whatever we can do and whatever we would do will mean nothing. We need to learn many things in order to be adequately equipped. We also need to learn to serve the Lord and work for Him under the cross and in resurrection. We must learn the lesson of life in the Spirit; that is, in doing anything we need to consider how much we are under the cross and how much we are in resurrection.