As a continuation of the preceding message, I would like to add a few final words. The most important item in the new way is the matter of meetings. The problem with the meetings is not whether they are big or small, but whether they have one person speaking with the rest listening or everyone speaking and listening to one another. This is the key to the meetings and also the focus of the problem.
We know that most of the gatherings in society are carried out with one person speaking and the rest listening. This is the worldly way. The basic principle in any of the meetings called by the worldly people is one person speaking and the rest listening. At best, there are only two or three speakers with the rest listening, but the principle is still the same. As early as 1948 Brother Watchman Nee spoke concerning this matter. In the book Church Affairs, he said that to maintain the Lord’s Day morning meeting is to follow the customs of the nations. He quoted this from 2 Kings 17:8, which says, “Walked in the customs of the nations” (RSV). We can see from the context of this verse that this was referring to the gatherings of God’s people to worship God by following the customs of the nations. According to the types and the revelation in the Bible, the proper gatherings of God’s people, especially the three annual feasts, were meetings where everyone would bring one-tenth of their rich produce, the choice and the topmost part, to offer to God. Thus all could enjoy these portions together with God and before God. This enjoyment was altogether mutual. This matter has been very clearly presented in the messages we have released and even in our hymnals.
According to the revelation in the New Testament, the meetings of God’s children are also in the principle of mutuality. Even when the whole church is gathered together, it should be, and must be, in this manner, that is, “each one has” (1 Cor. 14:26). You speak, he speaks, I speak, and everyone speaks. Moreover, when one speaks, everyone listens. Everyone is speaking to one another and listening to one another. This is the governing principle of the meetings in God’s New Testament economy. Whether a Christian meeting is according to the desire of God’s heart or not does not depend upon the condition of the meeting, but upon the principle on which the meeting is based. In that meeting is there the practice of one person speaking with the rest listening, or is there the practice of speaking to one another and listening to one another?
The desire of God’s heart is that all His people would speak God’s word. Numbers 11 shows us that God descended in the cloud and spoke to Moses. He also took of the Spirit that had fallen upon Moses and gave it to the seventy elders of the people so that they could also speak as prophets. Among them were two persons who prophesied in the camp. When Joshua found out about it, he wanted Moses to forbid them. But Moses said, “Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets” (v. 29). In the same principle, Paul in 1 Corinthians 14 also said, “You can all prophesy one by one” (v. 31). This is the principle of Christian meetings: everyone can speak for God. Only the meetings in this principle are according to God’s desire, are of the New Testament, and are in God’s economy. Moreover, only this kind of meeting is not secular and is separated from the world.