In Matthew 25 the Lord told us the parable of the talents. Each of us has received at least one talent from the Lord. The Lord has given us a talent, and now we have to use this talent to make some interest for the Lord. We have to contact the bankers and deposit our talent with them (v. 27). We may ask, “Who are the bankers?” The bankers are the very sinners whom we are going to visit. When we go out to knock on doors and we see the people, we should say, “Praise the Lord! Here is a banker.” We need to deposit our talent with these bankers, and then we will receive some interest. The parable in Matthew 25 says that the one who had five talents and the one who had two talents made interest, but the one who had one talent did not go to the bankers. Instead, he buried his talent. Because he did not gain any interest, he was rebuked by the Lord, and in the coming kingdom age he will suffer a dispensational punishment. This parable in the holy Bible is a serious word. Just as we love John 3:16, we also have to love this parable in Matthew 25. The Lord has invested a lot in us. Now we have to do business for Him by depositing His investment with the bankers. Then we will gain interest for the Lord and be rewarded by Him.
In Matthew 24, the Lord reveals that as the Master, He has set some slaves over His household that they may give food to His household at the appointed time. This giving of food takes place in the home meetings and group meetings. When we go to visit sinners with the gospel by knocking on their doors, we are depositing the Lord’s investment with the bankers. When we function in the home meetings and group meetings, we are giving food to the Lord’s household at the appointed time. Every day is the appointed time. We have to go to distribute the Lord’s rich food to nourish His household. The Lord said, “Blessed is that slave whom his master when he comes shall find so doing” (v. 46). If the Lord sees us feeding His household at His return, we will be blessed by receiving His reward in the kingdom age. Whether we will be rewarded or punished in the coming kingdom age depends upon how we work in this age. The punishment in the kingdom age will be to be cast out into the outer darkness (25:30), whereas the reward will be to enjoy the Lord’s joy and to participate in His kingship (25:23). What we receive in the coming age depends upon how we work for the Lord in this age. We have the Lord’s investment so that we can make a deposit with the bankers to gain some interest. We also have the ability to feed others, to distribute His rich food to His household at the appointed time. If we are faithful to serve the Lord in this way, we will receive a reward.
To knock on doors for the preaching of the gospel is to gain sinners, to invest our talent with the bankers. To have home meetings and small group meetings is to be faithful in distributing the Lord’s rich supply to His household at the appointed time. This service to the Lord, though, still has not reached the ultimate point for the building up of the Body of Christ.
The building up of the Body of Christ is fully covered in the Epistles of Paul. First Corinthians 14 is the only chapter in his Epistles which stresses to the uttermost that the building up of the church as the organic Body of Christ can be prevailing only by all prophesying.
In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul talked about love as the excelling way for exercising the gifts. In the first verse of chapter fourteen, Paul says, “Pursue love, and desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but rather that you may prophesy.” Prophesying is the excelling gift for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ. In verse 31 Paul says, “You can all prophesy one by one,” and in verse 24 he says, “If all prophesy....” We all can prophesy, and we all should prophesy. Paul also indicates in verse 12 that prophesying is something excelling all the other gifts. To prophesy is excelling because it builds up the Body of Christ. Paul dedicated all of 1 Corinthians 14 to promote this and encourage all of the saints to prophesy. At the beginning and at the conclusion of this chapter Paul tells us that we need to desire earnestly to prophesy (vv. 1, 39). For the Lord to gain the organic building up of His Body, we need to pursue and desire to prophesy, seeking to be rich in this excelling gift for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.
In the past we did not know the true significance of prophesying. In the Pentecostal movement, there have been many false prophecies about the future. One so-called prophecy among them was that there would be a great earthquake, and the entire city of Los Angeles would go into the ocean. Eventually, there was no fulfillment of this prophecy. Because of the traditional teaching and practice of Christianity, we thought that to prophesy is merely to foretell, or predict. But if we carefully read 1 Corinthians 14, we can see that in this chapter to prophesy is not to predict but to speak for the Lord. When we look at the patterns of prophesying in both the Old and New Testaments, we can see that the saints spoke for the Lord. Luke 1:67 says, “Zachariah...was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied.” What Zachariah says after verse 67 is his speaking for the Lord. In the New Testament sense, to prophesy mainly means to speak for the Lord, to speak forth the Lord, to speak out the Lord, and to speak the Lord into others. Prophesying is the top gift for building up the Body of Christ.
Today we are doing something particular, definite, and special for the Lord’s recovery. For the Lord to build up His Body in an organic way, we must gain sinners by knocking on their doors and have home meetings and group meetings. Millions of sinners may be brought to the Lord, but without the home meetings and group meetings, these new ones have no way to go on with the Lord and become remaining fruit. If we can carry out these steps, we will gain the proper increase for the church life. The Lord desires to build up His organic Body, not a congregation. This is why we stress the group meetings. It would be marvelous to see thousands of small group meetings of fifteen to twenty saints in every local church. There would be many small groups but no congregation as a facade to make a show. The Lord would be able to get the genuine worship in all of these small groups. If we had only the above steps, however, we would still fall short of the building up of the Body of Christ. There would be no practical building up of the Body of Christ organically because we would still be short of prophesying. We need the excelling gift of prophesying. When each one of us is prophesying, the Body of Christ is built up organically. This is surely an advanced recovery.
Throughout the past centuries, item after item of truth and practice have been recovered by the Lord, but the Lord’s recovery has always been stopped and frustrated by people’s contentment. The British Brethren were greatly used by the Lord, but at a certain point they became contented. They were stopped by being contented with where they were, and the Lord could not go on with them. The Lord’s recovery has been progressing very slowly because of people’s contentment.
By 1984 we were somewhat at a standstill, so I realized that we had to be desperate to go on with the Lord. By August of 1988, the Lord showed us that He needs to recover the truth of 1 Corinthians 14:26 and Ephesians 4:11-16. If we are going to have the practice of 1 Corinthians 14:26, of every saint prophesying, we must practice Ephesians 4:11-16. All the gifted persons must rise up to do the perfecting work. The evangelists do not only preach the gospel. They also spend time to perfect the saints to preach the gospel. Suppose an evangelist went to twelve localities and spent one month in each locality to perfect and to train the saints to preach the gospel. The result would be marvelous. In addition to being perfected to preach the gospel, we need to be perfected in cherishing and nourishing the new ones in home meetings and in teaching them in the small group meetings. Eventually, we all need to be perfected to prophesy, to speak for the Lord, in the larger meetings of the church. When we are all trained and perfected to prophesy one by one, the Body of Christ will be organically built up. This is the Lord’s recovery today.
The fellowship in this book presents the vision, the view, of the Lord’s present, advanced recovery. Now we have to endeavor to get sinners saved for the Lord and to go to their homes to have home meetings with them in order to cherish them, nourish them, and raise them up. We have to endeavor to have small group meetings to educate, teach, instruct, perfect, equip, and furnish the new ones so that they will be enabled to do everything necessary for the carrying out of the church life. Finally, we have to endeavor to reach the point where all the saints have something of Christ to offer by prophesying in the larger meetings of the church according to the principle of 1 Corinthians 14:26. By this scriptural way, each one of us will be built up organically, and the Lord Jesus will be happy because He will be able to have something built up on this earth as His Body to be His bride so that He can come back.
Brother Nee saw that we needed to practice 1 Corinthians 14:26 over fifty years ago, in 1937. This fellowship is in his book The Normal Christian Church Life. At that time, however, we did not find a way to practice it. Brother Nee said in his book Church Affairs that to have a church meeting in which one person speaks to a big congregation is according to the customs of the nations (2 Kings 17:8—NASB) and that we should not maintain such a meeting. He told us that the traditional way of meeting had become a habit rooted deeply within us. He also told us that we had to have something better to replace this traditional way of meeting before we stopped it. Otherwise, the saints would stop coming to the meetings. Brother Nee shared these things and strongly stressed them in 1948. Soon after his fellowship, the communists took over mainland China. Brother Nee was put into prison, and I was sent to Taiwan, so we did not have the time to practice his fellowship.
Whenever I consider our history, I regret that we did not endeavor to put his fellowship into practice when I first came to the United States. We did not endeavor to practice it until we had drifted into a dormant situation, and we were forced to reconsider our way. It was in August of 1988 that one word came to me—organic— and I saw the Lord’s desire in 1 Corinthians 14 and Ephesians 4. From that time, my burden has been focused on these two chapters. The more I speak on these portions of the Word, the more I have to speak.