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First and 2 Timothy speak about the training a person must receive in order to serve God. Although these two books are short, the points that they cover encompass the entire content of God’s economy. What Paul said here is entirely not doctrinal but experiential. He used his experience to train his young co-worker.
Based on this, we have extracted twelve items for our exercise, although these books speak of closer to twenty items, including the way to help the older men, perfect the young men, care for the sisters, and treat the elders. All these are also items for our exercise. Among all these items, however, we will list the more important and fundamental matters, such as those concerning the Spirit, life, Christ, and the Bible. Exercise is a matter of the spirit, soul, and body. First Timothy 4:8 tells us that “bodily exercise is profitable for a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the present life and of that which is to come.” Paul does not say that exercising the body is not profitable and that we should not care for it. Rather, he says that there is a difference in the profit of the different kinds of exercise. It is necessary to exercise the body, but it is not as profitable as exercising unto godliness. To exercise unto godliness is to exercise to experience God, enjoy God, and live out God. In other words, it is to exercise to be with God.
Paul did not speak of God merely in a doctrinal way. Rather, he wanted us to enjoy God, experience God, and live out God in order to be with God. This is entirely not for doctrine but for experience and enjoyment. For this reason the first item is the exercise of our spirit. Second Timothy 1:7 says, “God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of sobermindedness.” Power refers to our will, love to our emotion, and sobermindedness to our mind. This indicates that having a strong will, a loving emotion, and a sober mind has very much to do with having a strong spirit.
Man has three parts — a spirit, a soul, and a body. In our soul is our personality, our person, which also has three parts — the mind, the emotion, and the will. This is very wonderful. God is the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — and man is a tripartite being of spirit, soul, and body. Then in man’s soul, his personality, there are also three parts, which should not be divorced from his spirit. The soul, made up of mind, emotion, and will, surrounds the spirit. When the spirit wants to come out, the will of the soul must be strong, and the emotion of the soul must be filled with love. In the same way, for the spirit to pass through the mind of the soul, the mind must be sober.
The word sober has a profound meaning in Greek. It means that the mind has to be not only clear and understanding but also balanced and unbiased, not emphasizing one aspect while neglecting another. Today people in this world are all sick in this way. We may say that almost everyone has a problem with his mental condition. This is because every person’s mind is unbalanced. Many people sleep too much, and others work too much to make money. Both are unbalanced. Whether in making money or in sleeping, if a person has no control, there is something wrong with his mental condition. Those who overcare for nice shoes, pay too much attention to fashionable hairstyles, or love ease while hating work are all unbalanced in their mind. If the mind is balanced, everything will be balanced and regulated. We all need to be balanced.
To be sober means not only to be balanced but also to have self-control, being able to control oneself. A balanced person is one who has full control over himself, one who can restrain himself. Today people in the world are all sick. They cannot control themselves. They have gotten off track because their mind is unbalanced, and their spirit is not strong enough to rule and reign over their mind. This is the condition of the present age. The purpose of our training is to bring us back to the right track, the exercise of our spirit, so that our spirit will be strong to rule and reign over our mind. If we want our mind to be balanced, we need to have a strong spirit.
On the one hand, our spirit needs to be strong, and on the other hand, it also needs to have love. Some people love without a standard. They love good things, bad things, right things, and wrong things. They love recklessly without balance. This is because their spirit is not strong enough. If their spirit were strong, it would balance their love. Some people are so strong that they do not have much love. Being strong without having love is not balanced. A Chinese saying tells us, “Be both strong and gentle in dealing with others.” Gentleness is a matter of love. We must be strong but gentle and loving; then we will be balanced. This balance is in our spirit.
We need to exercise our spirit to let our spirit come out. The way to exercise our spirit is to call, “Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus!” When we do this, we are balanced. Those who like to joke will stop joking, those who talk nonstop will shut their mouths, and those who are not joyful will begin to smile. To call “O Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus!” is to exercise our spirit. This causes our mind to be balanced.
We often speak of the Lord’s presence, but almost the whole of Christianity has neglected the key to the Lord’s presence. They have not seen how the Lord can be with us practically. Second Timothy 4:22 tells us where the Lord’s presence is. This verse says, “The Lord be with your spirit.” By this we can see that the Lord’s presence is in our spirit.
Many theologians and Bible scholars rightly unfold the truth, but they have never seen that the Bible, especially the New Testament, tells us that man has a spirit and that today the Lord is the Spirit in our spirit. Three verses in the New Testament place God’s Spirit together with the human spirit. The first is John 3:6, which says, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Here there are two spirits: the first is God’s Spirit, and the second is our spirit. Then 4:24 of the same book says, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.” Fearing that people would not understand this word, the translators of the Chinese Bible added heart before spirit: “worship in heart-spirit.” This addition makes the word even more difficult to understand. Is this the heart, or is it the spirit? In the same way, earlier translators of the Chinese Bible added soul before spirit. This also caused much confusion. Is it the spirit, or is it the soul? In order for people to have the proper understanding, we must have the proper translation of this verse. The third verse is Romans 8:16, which says, “The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.” All these verses show us that God is in our spirit.
Someone may ask why man needs a spirit; is it not enough for him to have a heart? This question has a simple answer. We may use the example of eating a treat. It is the heart that desires to eat something special. However, we cannot see or locate our heart. We cannot receive the treat and eat it with our heart. The heart can only desire; it cannot receive. Our heart desires the snack, but our hand must reach out to receive it, and our mouth must eat it. We must use all three — the heart, the hand, and the mouth — in order for the snack to get into us. In the same way, man’s heart can only desire and love the Lord, but it cannot receive the Lord. It is man’s spirit that receives the Lord. Our heart is a loving organ, while our spirit is a receiving organ.
In Ezekiel 36:26 the Lord said that He would give the children of Israel a new heart and a new spirit. If the heart and the spirit were the same thing, the Lord’s word here would not make sense. This passage clearly tells us that God gives us two things: a heart and a spirit. Eventually, the Spirit of God must also enter into us. When the Spirit of God enters into us, He enters into our spirit, not our heart.
We all know that the Lord is with us, but in what way is He with us? I am afraid that many people do not know the answer. Paul told Timothy, “The Lord be with your spirit” (2 Tim. 4:22). This clearly points out that the Lord is with us, not in our mind or our heart but in our spirit. Again, we may take eating as an example. When food enters into us, it enters not into our mind but into our stomach. Our stomach is the organ that receives food. We all know that the Lord is the bread of life, but many people do not know how to eat this bread and into which part of us this bread enters. The Lord is the bread of life, and the Lord is the Spirit. If the Lord were not the Spirit, how could He enter into us as the bread of life? If He were not the Spirit, He could not abide in our spirit.
The first thing we who serve the Lord need to do is exercise our spirit. Doctrines do not avail; only experience can help people. Therefore, it is very important to have experience in exercising our spirit. Because of the large number of people in the church life, it is difficult to avoid friction, so we may spontaneously give people a long face. Likewise, there are often things that make us happy in the church life, so we may burst into laughter in an unruly manner. Neither of these reactions is from the spirit, and we ourselves are not in the spirit when we do these things. Our outburst of laughter when we are happy is in the soul, and our giving people a long face when we are unhappy is also in the soul. We do not have two souls; we simply have one soul with several faces. When the soul is smiling, do not think that it is the spirit. It is still only the soul. A long, frowning face is one of the appearances of the soul, and a smiling, laughing face is another appearance of the soul. To genuinely exercise the spirit is to neither laugh nor weep if the spirit is not laughing or weeping. In other words, all our walk and behavior are under the control of the spirit. To exercise the spirit is to let the spirit take control.
By nature, sisters easily shed tears. If you want something from the sisters, the most effective way is not to say much but to shed tears in front of them. Then they will immediately offer their help. The brothers, however, are complicated in their minds, like Judas was. When Mary anointed the Lord Jesus, Judas calculated in his mind and asked, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” (John 12:5). This is a picture of the brothers, who have calculating minds. Therefore, when you go to see the brothers, you need to be rational and be able to give a clear account.
The sisters, though, do not care much about accurate accounts. In the family life there are often quarrels because the husband keeps too clear of an account, and the wife’s thinking is muddled. The two sides of the account cannot be balanced. However, if the husbands are clever, they will shed a few tears in front of their wives. On the other hand, the wives should exercise their mind to clearly settle their accounts. In this way the husbands and wives will get along better. This is the secret to maintaining a good relationship between husband and wife and having a peaceful life. However, we are now the saved ones. Whether we are husbands or wives, we must exercise our spirit. If the spirit wants to laugh, we laugh, if the spirit wants to weep, we weep, and if the spirit is silent, we do nothing. The key to our daily walk is the spirit. Without the spirit nothing avails, but with the spirit everything works. Therefore, we all must exercise our spirit.
The second item we need to exercise is to call on the name of the Lord. Calling is different from praying. Whereas to pray is to ask or tell something to the Lord, calling is simply to breathe. We may tell the Lord, “Lord Jesus, today I will go to Keelung. Please keep me and let there be good weather so that I can arrive smoothly.” This is to pray, to tell the Lord what we want. It is different from calling. Calling is to cry out with a loud voice, “Lord Jesus! Lord! O Lord, I need to go to Keelung. Lord, You know that I need good weather.” This is calling, not praying. The Lord is our breath of life. If we want to take Him in more and more, we need to take a deep breath. If we merely say in a common way, “Lord, today I need to go to Keelung. Please let there be good weather so that I can see my friend,” we have not breathed very much. However, if we cry out, “O Lord Jesus! O Lord, I need to go to Keelung. Lord, You know this,” we will take a deep breath. Medical reports tell us that the best key to good health is to breathe deeply. If you want to be healthy, you need to take deep breaths every day. In the same way, calling on the Lord not only makes our spirit strong but also makes us healthy.
When we lead people to salvation through door-knocking, we help those who have believed and received the Lord to pray. At first the new one may say in a low voice, “Lord Jesus, I am a sinner and should go to hell, but You love me and saved me.” This kind of prayer may give no sense of the spirit and no sense that he has received the Spirit. If we would rather lead him to cry out, “O Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus, I love You,” he will pray himself into the spirit. Yes, the first kind of prayer may be able to lead a person to salvation, because the Bible says, “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13). This verse does not say whether one should call in a loud voice or in a low voice. It simply says that whoever calls shall be saved. According to our observation, however, a person may be saved without a strong experience of salvation. On the other hand, if he calls with us two or three times in a loud voice and says, “O Lord Jesus, I am really a sinner. O Lord, save me,” we will have the assurance inwardly that he has received the Spirit and is saved.
When we go door-knocking, we need to exercise our spirit so that when the door is opened to us, the very first word we utter will allow the spirit to come out. This does not mean that we need to cry out loudly, “I am from the church in Taipei!” This will not work. Rather, we all must have the habit of exercising the spirit so that when we simply talk to people, our spirit comes out.
A proper and simple way to exercise the spirit is by calling on the name of the Lord. Regardless of our age, we all have to exercise to call on the Lord. This may not be easy for the older ones, but it certainly should not be difficult for the young ones. Those who seldom call on the Lord in the meetings often go home judging people, reasoning about who called well, who did not call well, who called wildly, and who called gently. This often happened in our early years when many people felt that sitting properly was more important than calling. However, they did not realize that their sitting properly deadened the meeting. Just as to take a deep breath requires us to stretch our whole body, our spiritual health requires us to breathe deeply by always calling on the name of the Lord.
Certain Bible-teaching denominations tell people that once they enter the meeting, they must remain silent enough to hear a pin drop. As a result, those meetings are not able to enliven people. Rather, they kill people. The quietest place in the world is a cemetery. It is very orderly where the dead are buried. However, Christian meetings should not be dead. Rather, they should be filled with joyful singing and praising. Psalm 27:6 says, “I will offer in His tent / Sacrifices of shouts of joy.” This is the proper way to meet.
The third item that we should exercise is prayer. It is when we exercise our spirit and call on the name of the Lord that we can pray properly. When we pray, we must continue to exercise our spirit and exercise to call on the Lord. Someone may say that since he shares a room with others, his crying and shouting will not allow them to rest. Please remember that we can exercise our spirit, call on the Lord, and pray quietly. We can use a voice that others cannot hear, including our wife or roommate. In a voice that only we can hear, we can call and pray softly, “Lord! O Lord, I love You. Do remember Your church.”
Godliness is God lived out through us. However, we must exercise the above three items before we can live out God. First Timothy 3:16 says, “Great is the mystery of godliness: He who was manifested in the flesh.” Godliness is God manifested in the flesh. We are the flesh, and godliness is God manifested and lived out from us. Paul encouraged Timothy to exercise unto godliness more than to exercise his body. Many of us exercise the body more than godliness. In our living, we must exercise unto godliness according to Paul’s charge.
The fifth item of exercise is to lay hold on the eternal life. This follows the above four items. Once we exercise to live out God, we will be able to lay hold on the eternal life, which is the life of God, God Himself. If we want to live out God, we must live by the life of God within us. If we live by ourselves, what we live out will definitely not be God, but if we live by the life of God, what we live out will be God. In 1 Timothy 6:12 Paul says, “Fight the good fight of the faith; lay hold on the eternal life, to which you...have confessed the good confession before many witnesses.” This verse mentions two matters, to fight the good fight and to confess the good confession. To fight the good fight is to go against today’s situation, to go against the fashion of the age. According to the situation today, both Christians and non-Christians do not live by the eternal life of God, nor do they know what the eternal life is. People in the world think that this refers to everlasting life, the everlasting blessing that they will enjoy when they go to heaven. They do not know that eternal life is a life by which men should live today. The Lord has raised us up in order to bear this witness and fight the good fight of the faith.
When Christ was on the earth, the Pharisees and Sadducees hated Him because He fought the good fight against them. The Lord fought with them by laying hold on the eternal life. What He fought for was the testimony that God was being lived out on earth. Likewise, Christians on the earth today should also live out God by His life. This is our testimony.
The sixth item of exercise is to be empowered in the grace of Christ (2 Tim. 2:1). We all know that the grace of Christ is Christ Himself. The expression the grace of Christ is simple, but its meaning is broad and profound. Christ is the embodiment of God, and grace is the Triune God dispensing Himself in His embodiment into us as our enjoyment. This grace is the Triune God Himself. The Triune God, by being embodied in Christ, gives Himself to us as grace. Second Corinthians 13:14 says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” According to the grammar of the Greek New Testament, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ means that Jesus Christ is grace, the love of God means that God is love, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit means that the Holy Spirit is fellowship. Without the Holy Spirit there is no fellowship, without God there is no love, and without Jesus Christ there is no grace. God is love, Christ is grace, and the two are one. Therefore, to be empowered in the grace of Christ is to be empowered and strengthened by Christ through knowing and experiencing Him.
First we need to exercise our spirit. Then we need to call on the name of the Lord. When we combine these two, we have prayer. Then God is able to live out from within us, and we lay hold on the eternal life and let Christ be our grace. In this way we come to the seventh item of exercise, which is to equip ourselves with the Scriptures. All Scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16). It is God breathing Himself out. To us the Scriptures are the Word, but in reality they are the breathing out of God, the expression of God Himself. Hence, today when we read the Bible, we must do it in the way of breathing. God breathes out, and we breathe in. Through this breathing out and breathing in we are enlivened.
We do not merely read the word of God, but we read the word of God by means of prayer, that is, we pray-read the word of God. John 3:16 says, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.” We should not merely read or memorize this verse. This will only make our mind complicated, and it will not give us life. We need to exercise to turn this verse into prayer: “O God, You love the world. O God, You love the world!” The more we pray, the more we have the feeling to say, “O God, You love me. Thank You that You love me.” In this way we are enlivened, and we receive the life in the word. This kind of pray-reading is a breathing in. God’s speaking is the breathing out, and our reading His word in the spirit of prayer is a breathing in. By breathing in and breathing out, we receive life.
The eighth item of exercise is to rely on the indwelling Holy Spirit. Although 1 and 2 Timothy are simple, they contain the thought of indwelling. Paul charged Timothy to guard the good deposit through the indwelling Holy Spirit (2 Tim. 1:14). In Greek deposit is like the money in a bank. If we exercise in the first seven items, many good things will be deposited into us. At this time we should rely on the Holy Spirit who dwells in us to keep this inward deposit securely. We should keep it not merely by the memory in our mind but by the Holy Spirit. Although we have much spiritual deposit within us — God, the Lord, and the word — if we do not rely on the indwelling Holy Spirit but walk according to our will, this inward deposit will be nullified. We must live and walk by the indwelling Holy Spirit so that we can guard the deposit in us, which is of God, is spiritual, and is good.
The ninth item of exercise is to cut straight the word of the truth (2:15). The word cut in Greek was originally used in carpentry, meaning to saw lumber rightly and straightly. In the same way, when we “saw” the truth today, we need to cut it rightly and straightly without twisting, slanting, or distortion. Many people’s expounding of the truth is a distortion. Their expounding is not straight; it is distorted. As God’s workers and those who serve Him, we must cut straight the truth.
The tenth item is to exercise to speak the economy of God. Today many Christians not only do not know how to preach God’s economy, but they do not know what God’s economy is. Many do not even know that there is such a thing as “God’s economy” in the Bible. The word economy can also be translated as “plan,” “arrangement,” or “household administration.” The Chinese describe a learned and capable person as one who is “full of economy in his inner parts,” implying that he is full of plans and arrangements.
If a person wants to know God’s economy, he must first know the Triune God. This is because God in His economy is triune. He is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father is the source, the Son is the expression, and the Spirit is the entering into us. God being triune is for the purpose of dispensing Himself into us. The Divine Trinity has a divine dispensing, and what He dispenses into us is the Triune God Himself as our life to regenerate us, sanctify us, and transform us so that we may be conformed to the image of His firstborn Son and become God’s many sons. The aggregate of the many sons is the Body of Christ, which is the expression of Christ, and the constituents of the Body are the many members, the many saints, who function in the local churches for the expression of the Triune God. This is God’s economy.
Regrettably, the crucial truth of God’s economy has been mostly lost in Christianity. Even the fundamental truth of the gospel is preached in a way that does not attain to the biblical standard. We thank the Lord that we recently were able to print a suitable gospel booklet, The Mystery of Human Life. The booklet tells us that man was created by God as His vessel, His container, for the purpose of containing God, who enters into man’s spirit. Only this kind of gospel truth can match God’s economy. We all need to learn to preach in this way. We should not preach by touching a little here and a little there in the sixty-six books of the Bible. In the end this will leave people with an ambiguous impression of the Bible.
Some people, for example, have emphasized the practice of the washing of feet in John 13. They have taught that before partaking of “holy communion” they should first wash one another’s feet. They insist on this practice, and eventually they have became a “foot-washing” denomination. In the sixty-six books of the Bible, they see only the practice of the washing of feet in John 13. They say it is the way to love one another, and they condemn those who do not practice it. Without the washing of feet, they say, there is no love for one another, and without loving one another we do not appear to be the Lord’s disciples and thus are not worthy to partake of the Lord’s supper. Such a teaching is the result of not preaching God’s economy.
There has been endless debate on baptizing by sprinkling and immersion. Some people have even said that we should follow the footsteps of the Lord Jesus, baptizing only in the Jordan River, since this is where He was baptized. Some have said that since the Jordan is so long, we need to study history to determine which part of the river the Lord stood in for His baptism. This kind of debate is meaningless and is also the result of not speaking God’s economy. We must remember not to argue about such things when we contact people. Rather, we should preach God’s economy. Only God’s economy edifies people.
Having passed through the above ten items of exercise, the final result is that we are sanctified. Sanctification means to become God in life and in nature but not in His Godhead. In earlier years this truth caused a great stir among Christians in the United States. As the children of God, we are begotten of God. According to nature, dogs give birth to dogs, cats to cats, and tigers to tigers. Even among human beings, people give birth to children of the same color. A person gives birth according to what he is. Since we have been begotten of God, we certainly are “gods,” that is, the children of God, who are the same as He is. Of course, this does not refer to the divine person of God, the Godhead, as the object of man’s worship. We are speaking here of the life and nature of God. It is in life and in nature that we are the same as God. Every child is the same as his father in life and nature, but the child is not the father. Likewise, we are children of God and the same as God, but this does not mean that we have the status and person of the Godhead. God has not only begotten us, but He is also carrying out the work of sanctification in us. Through sanctification He transforms us.
As a result of all of the above, we know how to conduct ourselves and how to go out of and come into the house of God, which is the church. This means that in the house of God we know how to deal with different kinds of people, fellowship with them, receive their help, and take care of them.
The above are the points that we who learn to serve the Lord should exercise. In conclusion, those who go door-knocking to bring people to salvation and baptism must have the spirit of the Olympic athletes. Before going to the competition, the athletes prepare every day. Then when they are in the games, they are absolutely watchful, and they endeavor to do their very best. If they do not endeavor, they will not win the prize. When we go out, we must have this kind of spirit. Moreover, we must work and speak absolutely according to the way we have been trained. We should work and speak only according to the extent that we have been taught. In this way our service will definitely be effective.
