The first step we need is the step of begetting. To visit people in their homes with the gospel by knocking on their doors is for begetting. We need to do this. We have to admit that we have been very low in our rate of increase. We need to drop all our vain talk and go out once a week to knock on people’s doors. Maybe the first week that we go out, we will not gain anyone, but the second week we may get two baptisms. We should not go out to knock on more doors because we have to take care of these two new ones. We have to nourish and cherish them. If one of them is not so positive or open, we can go out again to gain some more new ones. If we do not have the assurance that one out of three that we baptize will remain, we had better baptize four, looking to the Lord that we will gain one of these for the church life. If we take this way, we can surely bring at least one into the church life yearly.
If some of us do not have the strength or the heart to go out, we should joyfully support those who do. Since we all love the Lord Jesus, love to preach the gospel, and love to see sinners get saved, we should pray for the saints who go out to visit people in their homes even though we cannot go. We should thank the Lord for so many who are willing to go out, praying for them and looking to the Lord for His blessing upon the church. As long as such an activity is for the gospel of the Lord, we should thank the Lord that He has burdened so many. It is not an easy thing to knock on people’s doors. The ones who go out may get doors slammed in their faces and they may get rebuked, but they are happy to suffer such a shame for the Name of the dear One whom they love.
When I went back to Taiwan in 1984, I realized that the first thing we had to do to revolutionize our practice was to take care of the proper preaching of the gospel. We must get the increase for the building up of the Body of Christ. This is why I paid such a great price to return to Taipei to test out this matter of visiting people by knocking on their doors. The Lord’s blessing on this scriptural, God-ordained way has been proven by the marvelous results.
After my four-year study in Taipei, I have picked up these four crucial points: 1) begetting by gospel preaching; 2) nourishing by home meetings; 3) teaching by small group meetings; and 4) building up the church by church meetings. These four points are the scriptural way we must take for the building up of the Body of Christ. Now is the time for the Lord to recover 1 Corinthians 14:26 and Ephesians 4:11-16. I have the full assurance that the Lord will move today to recover these two portions of the Word. We must admit that the age for these items is here. The tide has come. Sooner or later we will have to go along with this tide. It is not an accident that the Southern Baptists and other denominations and groups realize that they need to have a change in the way that they preach the gospel and serve the Lord. We must abandon the old, traditional way and pick up the new, scriptural way.
We must be advised, however, not to take the new way in a fast way. We have to take it gradually as I did with the brothers in Taiwan. We spent thirty-seven months to study and to prepare before we completely stopped the old way. We should not take the new way too fast or cause too much loss. We must be careful to go on positively in a gradual way, and we must have a clear view with a definite purpose. We need a clear view that the Lord is finished with the old way. We must have a vision that these two crucial portions of the Word—1 Corinthians 14:26 and Ephesians 4:11-16—need to be fully recovered. The Lord desires to build up the organic Body of Christ, not a congregational church. These portions of the Word must be recovered so that the Body of Christ as the organism of the Triune God can be built up and prepared to be His bride for His coming again. Our senior co-worker, Brother Nee, stressed this matter twice beginning over fifty years ago, and we must pick up this burden. We have to believe that this is the time and that we are the right people for the Lord to use to recover these two portions of the Word.
If you do not want to take this way, I am concerned that you will become a dropout. If we see the vision of the new way and practice it gradually to bring the saints under our care into the understanding of such a change, we will not suffer that much loss. Of course, to change anything in practice will always result in some loss, but the profit that will result over the long run makes the change more than worthwhile.
In order for Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 4 concerning the perfecting of the saints to be carried out, we need to follow his practice in Acts 20 and the practice of the apostles in Acts 5:42. Then the saints will be perfected. According to Ephesians 4:16, the saints in the Body of Christ are categorized into two groups: “every joint of the rich supply” and “each one part.” The joints are the gifted persons—the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherd-teachers. The Body grows by being joined closely together through the joints and by being knit together through the operation in measure of each one part. Through the gifted persons’ supply and through all the members’ operation in their measure, all the Body causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love. The Body of Christ is built up organically by causing itself to grow through the functions of the gifted persons and through the members who operate in their measure.
For this organic building to be realized, the gifted persons must do their best to perfect every saint. The co-workers and the elders who are taking care of the saints need to go to their homes. If we have a revelation as a new vision, we can call a meeting of the local churches. We can even have a conference with the nearby churches to give a series of messages to cover a particular vision, a particular revelation, which we have received of God. Ordinarily and regularly, however, we do not need to do this. Ordinarily, we need the elders and co-workers to go to visit the saints’ homes to teach them personally and directly, mouth to mouth, year round. There is not such a practice among us so far. Thus far, many of the leading ones in the churches do a routine work.
It is not enough for the elders merely to decide the meeting schedule of the church and come to the meetings in a routine way without any endeavoring. First of all, we ourselves have to dive into the Word to learn how to perfect ourselves. As we are being perfected ourselves, we can go to visit the saints house after house, day and night, to nourish them, cherish them, and teach them one by one sometimes with tears. This will consummate in the perfecting of all the saints. They will all be enabled to speak. Each one part will operate in its own measure. Then all the saints will function, and there will be no clergy or laity among us. All the saints meeting with us will be perfected, equipped, and furnished to speak forth Christ. This will issue in the accomplishment of the Lord’s heart’s desire, the organic building up of the Body of Christ.
The Lord has expected this organic building for almost two thousand years, but what is being practiced in today’s Christianity is the traditional clergy-laity system. The mass of the believers are so-called laymen. Here are two ways for us to choose from—the old way of the clergy and the laity or the new way of the organic building up of the Body of Christ through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in measure of each one part. We all must take the new, scriptural way. For this new way we all have to labor diligently, especially the leading ones and the co-workers. It is not acceptable to prepare a message to speak once a week, and then take it easy the rest of the week to have leisure time.
Some have said that we should forget about the work and come back to the enjoyment of Christ, but we need to realize that the enjoyment of Christ always has an issue. If a branch of the vine tree is really and richly enjoying the life juice from the tree, surely the branch will bear fruit (John 15:5). If the branch has not borne fruit for years, it has probably already been cut off (15:2a, 6). A person may think that he is enjoying Christ, but actually he may be cut off from the enjoyment of Christ. He may be self-deceived. Have we been enjoying Christ year after year? Where is our fruit? When I returned to Taipei in 1984, they only had three thousand in attendance at the Lord’s table. Today they have five thousand at the table. They also have thousands of new ones that they are caring for in home meetings and small group meetings. The saints and churches who have practiced visiting people in their homes with the gospel have testified of the fruitfulness of this way. Can we give a testimony in a definite way of the fruit that we have borne?
If the way that I have presented to you is ordained by God and is according to the Scriptures, we have to practice it at any cost. Then the Lord will have a way with us to finish His recovery. Otherwise, we may force Him to drop us and go to others. The Lord dropped others in His move and came to us sixty years ago, but where are we today? The gifted ones—the leading ones and the co-workers—need to perfect the needy saints, not by speaking to them as a congregation but by visiting them in their homes. Some of the older co-workers may feel that they have become useless now that we are changing to the new way. Actually, if the older ones pick up the new way, they will become more useful. Their years of experience are needed for the perfecting of the saints. If we do not go along with the tide of the Spirit in this age, however, we will become dropouts. Time does not wait for us. This is why the New Testament tells us to redeem the time (Eph. 5:16). The older ones are more useful, but they have to go along with the present advance of the Lord’s recovery.