In the present advance of the Lord’s recovery, He also desires to recover the perfecting of the common members of the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:11-16). If only a small percentage of the saints in a local church are able to speak a word for the Lord and serve Him organically, this is a strong sign that this local church is short of the perfecting of the saints. In the past we almost always held big meetings with one man speaking to give people help in a general way, but there was very little particular perfecting. It is so good that there are many schools in America where people can receive training in a particular trade. If we only had people who were college graduates and we did not have plumbers, electricians, and secretaries, what would our economy be like? People who receive particular training in trades and skills render a great benefit and profit to society. Their training is the perfecting. We need this kind of particular perfecting of the saints in the Lord’s recovery. We need particular teaching that we may be perfected in a particular field.
To some extent we need the general edification of the big meetings. This is why high schools give young people a general education in subjects such as mathematics, geography, and history. In addition to this general education, though, some particular instruction is needed. All that we had in the churches in the past was the general education of the saints week after week and year after year with hardly any particular instruction. Many saints have been in the church life for many years, but today they know very little because they were only edified in a general way.
The Lord desires to recover the perfecting of the common members of the Body of Christ, and this perfecting can take place in the homes. In Acts 20 Paul reminded the elders in Ephesus that he taught the saints in the church publicly and from house to house (v. 20), admonishing each one with tears night and day for three years (v. 31). The practical and actual perfecting takes place from house to house. We should not just give general messages and teachings but we need some particular instruction. Week after week and month after month, we need to instruct some saints face to face in a particular way. After half a year of this perfecting, many of the saints will learn how to serve.
Ephesians 4:11-12 says that the Head of the Body gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers for the perfecting of the saints so that the saints can do the work of the ministry. This means that all the perfected saints are able to do what the gifted ones do. There is a great shortage of such particular perfecting among us. We have the general teaching, but we have very little of the particular perfecting. There is the need of a recovery of this matter. The Lord is recovering the organic building up of His Body, and He is also desirous to see all the saints particularly perfected in order to participate in the building up of the Body of Christ as the gifted persons do. I have been in the Lord’s recovery for fifty-six years, and I have seen, done, passed through, and experienced many things, yet I must admit that we are short of the organic building of the Body of Christ and short of the perfecting of the saints that they all may share the work of the ministry. This is the revelation that I have received of the Lord within the past six months.
The perfecting of the saints is by the gifted persons as the joints of the rich supply (vv. 11, 16). Our physical body is full of joints. We would be terribly disabled without the joints in our physical body. Years ago I thought that the gifted persons were only the big members. The joints in our fingers, however, are not big joints, and they are very useful. When the joints in our body work, our body enjoys the supply for its support. Many saints in the Lord’s recovery are the gifted persons, the joints, but they do not exercise as joints. They need to be released to function for the building up of the Body of Christ. We all need to be revolutionized since we have been distracted and somewhat paralyzed in a certain direction. We have to change our direction to the present advance of the Lord’s recovery.
The Lord wants to recover the perfecting of the saints so that each one part of the Body of Christ may do the work of the New Testament ministry by operating in its measure for the purpose of building up the organic Body of Christ (vv. 12, 16). To have every part of the Body exercised is to build up the organic Body by the organic way. This is recorded in Ephesians 4:11-16 but we have not entered into this experience. Now that this vision has been presented to us, we can see our need and the Lord’s need today.