In 1933, Brother Watchman Nee began publishing a little magazine called Collection of Newsletters, mainly to publish the fellowship among the churches raised up by the Lord in various places in China. Due to the lack of correspondence, the churches were not receiving news of each other, so Brother Nee published this magazine to allow the churches to receive this news. He was the editor, and when he was busy on a trip, he would ask Sister Ruth Lee to be the acting editor. In 1934, the second year of its publication, Sister Lee also took a trip, so he asked me to be the acting editor. That year there was a great deal of fellowship; letters from different localities were continually flooding in. All these letters, however, repeatedly referred to things such as leaving the denominations, baptism, head covering, and the breaking of bread. As the acting editor, I selected eight or ten good ones and published them. After reading them, Brother Nee, who was in Foochow at that time, immediately wrote me a letter, saying, “Brother Witness, do not publish in the Collection of Newsletters things concerning leaving the denominations, baptism, head covering, and the breaking of bread.”

After that, Brother Nee also asked me to co-sign a statement with him saying that “if any co-worker goes out to specifically speak about things such as head covering, bread breaking, and baptism, then he is no longer our co-worker.” Concerning this matter, some asked, “Was it not Brother Nee who taught us head covering?” For sure Brother Nee taught this, and not only he taught this but the apostle Paul also did. In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul gave us this teaching, but he linked this teaching to Christ. He said, “Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of the woman, and God is the head of Christ” (v. 3). Hence, the sisters should have their head covered. Paul’s teaching of head covering was linked to Christ. Today, however, people teach head covering as something detached from Christ; this is to teach differently.

Among Christians, there are many debates concerning baptism. There are endless arguments even on what kind of water to use. Should we use water from the faucet, water from the river, or water from the sea? Should it be cold water or warm water? Should it be fresh water or salt water? Some pastors even say that the scriptural way is to go and be baptized in the river of Jordan as the Lord Jesus was. Even more absurd is that some in the United States are discussing how many times a person should be immersed-once or three times? Those who advocate the practice of being immersed three times base their argument on the Lord’s word in the Gospel of Matthew that we have to baptize people into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (28:19). Therefore, they say that we need to immerse people once in the name of the Father, once in the name of the Son, and once in the name of the Holy Spirit and that only then is the baptism complete. Others ask about the way to baptize people. Should we baptize them leaning backward, leaning forward, or leaning sideways? These things produce many questionings among Christians, causing people to become confused. This shows us that although there are many teachings among Christians and although these teachings are all from the Scriptures, they are different teachings and are even strange.

The central teaching in the New Testament is the economy of God, which is concerning Christ as the mystery of God and the church as the mystery of Christ; Christ and the church are the great mystery. This is the message we preach. By the Lord’s mercy, we have not preached anything other than Christ and the church in our speaking and in our publications. In other words, we only preach that Christ as the mystery of God expresses God and that the church as the mystery of Christ expresses Christ. In speaking the economy of God we follow the example of Paul. However, at the time of Paul there were some who did not preach this economy; therefore, Paul charged Timothy to pay attention to this matter. In the same way, some of our so-called co-workers also do not like to speak about God’s economy; they like to speak only their own messages.

When people preach according to their own preferences, this causes problems. For example, Apollos was one who especially knew the Scriptures and was especially able to expound the Scriptures. However, Apollos had a problem in his preaching and eventually was not in the same stream as Paul was (Acts 18:24-25; 19:1-7; cf. 1 Cor. 16:12). We all must see this matter clearly. Therefore, the co-workers must avoid this kind of problem; what we speak must be in the same one burden. I co-labored with Brother Nee for eighteen years. In all those years I absolutely did not speak my own messages. Whatever message Brother Nee spoke, I spoke the same. Not only did I not make any changes, but I even clearly told people that this was a message given by Brother Nee in such and such a place and on such and such a day. This is not to say that I did not have any messages of my own and therefore had to speak Brother Nee’s messages. I had quite a number of messages that I could have spoken, but I purposely did not do it. I spoke only what Brother Nee spoke, because I saw clearly that that was the Lord’s recovery at the time.
Home | First | Prev | Next