Formerly, you could be a Christian in a locality with your door closed and not be bothered with the brothers and sisters in other places. Today, however, for you to be a Christian, it is not sufficient to be a national Christian, nor even an international Christian; you need to be a universal Christian.
Three years ago when I came back to Taiwan to change the system, I had no intention of letting the American brothers know what I was doing. I told them to allow me first to go back to Taiwan, and that whatever I did there, they would gradually find out. But they followed right behind and came all the way to Taiwan. Some even volunteered to come to serve, to help in such things as digging the tunnel, plastering walls, and working in the kitchen. I had never thought so many brothers and sisters would come, nor that there would be so many intermarriages between Chinese and Americans, as well as between Chinese and Japanese. From a human viewpoint, I did not like it because I felt some were married too quickly. However, on the other hand, I thought that this may be the Lord’s will for the purpose of mingling everyone together. First Corinthians 12:18 says, “But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, even as He willed.” Right now we are all placed here. Also, verse 24 says, “God has tempered the body together.” Not only did God place us together, but He also tempered us together. All that God has done is for obtaining a Body.
When we look back to see the two thousand years of history, we feel that it is very meaningful. Before the Lord Jesus was born, God caused the Roman Empire to be raised up so that many of the prophecies in the Bible could be fulfilled. Both the Lord’s birth and His death were related to the raising up of the Roman Empire. If there had been no Roman Empire, the Lord would not have been born in Bethlehem and yet have grown up in Nazareth. If the Lord had not been born during the age of the Roman Empire, He would not have been crucified, because the Jewish people did not have this kind of death sentence. Not only so, God also connected all the regions around the Mediterranean Sea together through the Roman Empire repairing the highway from Rome to Palestine. There was also the aspect of language, in that Greek became the common written and spoken language. It was after all these things were prepared that Paul came out to preach the gospel.
When Paul came out to preach the gospel, he was not in Judea. Rather, he traveled around the Mediterranean Sea with a broad view. This was why in his Epistles he said that in this new man, “There cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, freeman, but Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11). In those days, there were these problems among different groups of people. But in the new man, these differences do not exist. In the new man, everything is Christ.
Today, after two thousand years, God has brought this world to a blended stage so that there are almost no distinctions between East and West. Taiwan has large quantities of goods made in the United States, and the United States also has large quantities of goods made in Taiwan. Both the East and West are blended together. Today, if you want to be a Christian, you cannot be merely a Chinese Christian. Even the more, especially today in taking the way of the recovery, we cannot be like that. We must broaden our view. Today the Lord desires to have His Body. It does not matter whether you are willing or not; He simply likes to group all of us together. Therefore, we all have to see that the former era has already passed. From now on, the broader our view, the better.