Therefore, I hope that you would see that although all the truths in the Bible are in our midst, you need to spend time and energy to learn them. This, of course, is not an easy matter. I feel that the co-workers are not aggressive enough and that they should be trained. After I left the Far East in 1961, I did not come back to the Far East to work again. At most I came back to hold conferences and to visit the churches. For more than twenty years I have been living in the Western world, printing English publications in America and sounding out the call for the Lord’s recovery. I can proudly tell you that before I went to America there were less than twenty churches in that country. During the past twenty-three years, due to my calling and the publications that I have put out, over three hundred churches have been raised up. The United States and Canada have over one hundred churches, Central and South America have over one hundred churches, and Africa, Europe, and Australia also have over one hundred churches. Before I went abroad, I left the churches in the Far East—the churches in Taiwan in particular—many assets, including a large group of co-workers and a great number of meeting halls. However, during the past twenty years, where has the increase been in Taiwan? At the time I left Taiwan, there were seventy to eighty churches, and now there are not even a hundred. Therefore, I hope that you young saints would learn not to take the old way.
Recently I was in Singapore for a conference of the co-workers from the Far East. Co-workers from Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia attended. One day I openly rebuked some of the co-workers. I was not opposing them. I was supporting them, but within me there was a feeling of indignation. I wish that, as Paul said, I could provoke them to jealousy (Rom. 11:14) so that they would rise up and hate themselves and not be so loose anymore. I wish that in continuing to work, they would have the determination to produce results, even if they have to hit their heads against the wall. Otherwise, they should discontinue their work and find a proper job. Instead of always “occupying the nest without laying any eggs,” they should let the young people try to produce some results. I do not trust in the old way. Even I am taking the lead to try new things and to make changes.
Every word in the footnotes of the New Testament Recovery Version was written by me. Every time I go back to read those footnotes, I marvel at how I could have written such words that are full of light, revelation, and supply. I am not being proud. In my hometown of Chefoo during the summer of 1936, eleven years after I was saved, I wrote two pamphlets called Gleanings from the Genealogy of Christ and Gleanings of the Generations. Even today it is hard to find a book among all the books published by Christianity on the genealogy of Christ that can be compared to Gleanings from the Genealogy of Christ. I accomplished these things altogether by my personal learning day by day during the past sixty years. Some people say that I can do so much because I have an inborn talent and am a smart learner. Actually, I do not have as much natural talent as you. The only advantage I may have over you is that I am fond of studying and can study tirelessly. Today, regardless of what I am writing, I still consult the dictionaries often to study the meanings of words.
I do not think that you have exhausted all your energy, nor have you spent your energy in a proper way. If I were conducting the training, your days would be different than they are now. You would probably feel that no day is good. You have not truly experienced hardship. Thus, when the schedule is somewhat busy, you feel that it is unbearable. I do not like to hear the brothers say, “This is too stressful. We cannot bear it.” If you truly cannot bear it, then how is it that you can still eat and sleep well? The fact that you can still eat and sleep well proves that you are still living comfortably. You truly need to be constricted.
Some say that being a co-worker in the recovery is like having a secure job, because once you have been recognized as a co-worker, you are a co-worker for your whole life. There is no need to be tested or evaluated. If there were testing, our situation would not be as it is today. However, once there is testing, the matter of working for the Lord becomes professionalized. This is something that we do not want to see. I began conducting the training in 1953. Looking back, I am not satisfied with that training. After much inward consideration, I would like to completely change my way this time. First I will give you a demonstration, a pattern. Then I hope that I can change your concept and stir you up to endeavor.
Do not always expect others to teach you. Rather, you need to pursue deeply and diligently on your own. I did not read many books when I was young, and Christianity at that time was not publishing any books of value. Between 1936 and 1939 Brother Nee purposely did not publish any books because he wanted to see what Christianity could produce. Under those circumstances, I still endeavored to learn. Therefore, you need to be stirred up. When I was conducting the training in 1953, I told the trainees that when I was in elementary school, I read a proverb that said that if your handwriting is poor, you should not blame the pen or the ink but yourself for your lack of practice. Similarly, you should not complain about the environment or other matters. Rather, you should blame yourself for not laboring enough.
The current situation is exceedingly favorable to you, but you are taking all the blessings for granted. Consider the church life for example. When I got saved, I was young, and there was no church life. The church life in Shanghai in 1940 was nothing like today’s church life. At that time, we pursued the few books that Brother Nee had published. We not only read them, we read them many times. I started to use the Interlinear Greek-English New Testament in the winter of 1932. No one ever taught me Greek. I learned the words and the grammar entirely on my own. As the saying goes, “Rome was not built in a day.” Even though I could not understand Greek, I toiled, spending much time and energy to get deeply into my studies. For example, the Greek word for truth is aletheia. There are eight denotations of this word in the New Testament. Footnote 6 of 1 John 1:6 explains this very clearly. Even a Greek expert probably could not give such a complete explanation of this point.
I am speaking these things to stimulate you so that you would stop thinking about getting help from theological seminaries. A theological seminary can teach you only to be a man with mediocre ability. If you want to be only a man with mediocre ability, then you may go to a seminary to be taught. In the training there is an ideal environment in which you can learn. Even if you eventually get a secular job and do not become a full-time serving one, the learning and influence you receive during these two years will benefit you. What I regret the most is the pitiful condition of those of us who are Chinese and who have entered into the church. I am not saying that the church is not good. The church is good, but man’s condition is not good. You have brought all the bad things of the Chinese culture into the church, such as looseness of character, lack of vitality, disorder in the meetings, and a lack of tidiness and neatness in the meeting hall. I have been groaning unceasingly about this situation. I simply cannot imagine that the elders and co-workers could lead the churches into such a situation. We are not keeping up with the times.
I am not telling you to be rebellious or to nullify everything that the co-workers have done in the past and to depreciate them. Praise the Lord that they have done their part. However, their character is undesirable. In this matter you should not learn from them. There was a great entrepreneur in Taiwan whose success was the issue of his own hard work. He said, “We all say that Japan’s economy is good, but why are we unwilling to learn from them?” This person was right. We should learn to have the spirit of the Japanese. Regarding the publication work, Japan is the best, the United States is second, and Taiwan is third. The printing press for the Japanese bookroom is in a small, square room directly above the meeting hall and is much smaller than Taiwan’s printing press, yet Taiwan’s products cannot match the standard of the products put out by the Japanese saints.
For another example, consider the carrying out of the video trainings. The church in Tokyo abides by all the regulations of the video training. The churches in Taiwan, however, violate many of the regulations. Every locality is required to keep an attendance record of the video training and to send a report to the ministry station. Only the church in Tokyo sends a report that is neat and clean; the report from Taiwan is altogether unclear. Not only so, in order that those attending the training would have some sense of responsibility and in order to raise the standard of the training, those attending the training are required to make a donation. Again, the church in Tokyo does an accurate job in this matter. Their accounts are very clear and orderly with no mistakes. The most disorderly accounts are from Taiwan.
When we do things in a serious way, results will be produced, and we will make progress. The social trend, tradition, and natural habit of the Chinese people, all of which are in our blood, are altogether the opposite. Therefore, when you learn to do the Lord’s work, the first thing you must do is to have a radical change in your character. You must completely change the Chinese character that is within you. If you learn to do this within two years, then you would be the best in whatever you do, even if you take a secular job. However, if you refuse to change your character, then you will be of little use, no matter what you do.