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In this chapter we want to begin to fellowship on another item, which I consider quite great, that is, how to carry out the ministry. In Book 2 we covered the vision of the Lord’s recovery. Now we must see how to carry out the vision. This is altogether an experiential matter. We may be able to relate quite much to doctrine and visions, but now we must see the way to carry out what we have seen. Concerning the vision, undoubtedly, the written Word is our base. This is also our track to follow and our rule to be under. The way to carry out the vision, however, is our practice. Paul told Timothy to commit the things that he had heard from him to faithful men, who would be competent to teach others also (2 Tim. 2:2). Although this verse does give us a way to carry out the vision, it is still a principle. We need to know how we can become competent to teach others. Because we cannot see many details in Paul’s word in 2 Timothy 2:2, I feel that the best way to fellowship this matter is to check with our own experience.
In the United States we have over twenty years of experience in this matter of teaching. According to my experience and observation, we must first pick up the crucial points of the truth to carry out what we have seen. There is no basic truth that can stand by itself as a single, all-inclusive point. The truth is mainly composed with many points. For instance, consider the great truth of salvation. This one item contains many, many points. We must pick up these points and get ourselves into them.
Even a Life-study message cannot stand on one point alone. It is at least composed with a few points. If you want to get into a Life-study message, you must first read it in a general way. By reading it in a general way, you will be able to realize that some points are more crucial than others. You must, first of all, pick up the crucial points and get into them.
Also, in reading anything we must first understand the vocabulary. If you read the Chinese Bible, you must understand the Chinese language; if you read the English Bible, you must understand the English language; and if you are trying to read the Greek Bible, you must understand the Greek language. No one is capable enough to remember every definition of a word. I do not think that even Webster himself could remember all the things in his dictionary. If you could check with him on the meaning of a certain word, he would probably say, “Let me open the Webster’s dictionary to see.” This shows us that to get into the truth we must have a good lexicon. You should not think that your English is so good that you do not need a dictionary. This still is not adequate. You may be adequate only to a certain degree. I have always considered myself only adequate to a small degree, even in my mother tongue of Chinese. None of us are adequate enough to know the full, proper, and accurate definition of any word. Even those of you who have a master’s degree in English cannot explain a word exactly and adequately unless you go to the best lexicon.
Another problem among all the languages of the world is that the same word has different denotations. The dictionary may give you five denotations for the same word. When a particular sentence uses a certain word, you must have the discernment to realize which denotation of this word to apply. If you do not have a proper understanding, you will apply the wrong denotation.
In the outline of Mark in the Recovery Version, I used the word initiation — the initiation of the Slave-Savior. Before I used this word, I had a great amount of consideration. Mark begins neither with the birth of Jesus nor with His genealogy. Luke begins with the conception and birth of Jesus. Following this, Luke gives us the genealogy of Jesus. Mark, however, begins with the initiation of the Slave-Savior. The word initiation here actually means the same as the word inauguration. Some may say this is inauguration, but how can a slave be inaugurated? It is fitting to say that there is an inauguration for a president. How, though, can a slave be inaugurated into his slavery? This shows that the word inauguration is not suitable to the context. The thought here is the Savior’s coming into His duty, commission, or service. It is awkward, of course, to say “the coming in of the Savior.” Finally, I decided to use the word initiation.
The Chinese translators of the Recovery Version endeavored and worked very hard, and I appreciate this. However, they translated the word initiation into Chinese according to the first denotation in Webster’s dictionary, that is, “the beginning.” To initiate, to begin, something is one meaning; but to initiate a person into a particular club or organization is another meaning. When a person is initiated into a new group, it means that the person is being brought in, introduced, or conducted in. In the book of Mark it is not the beginning of the Savior but the Savior’s being brought in, being introduced, being conducted in. In our translation of the Bible, we should never put something out in a light way. This shows us that we may pick up a point concerning the truth but understand it absolutely in the wrong way and thereby miss the mark. Not only do we miss the mark by doing this, but we make a big mistake. This shows us again that it is not so easy to study the Bible.
Even to study the Life-study messages and the footnotes is not so easy. Sometimes it took me more than an entire day to compose just one crucial phrase in the footnotes of the Recovery Version. This does not mean that I was sitting at a desk for twenty-four hours working on this phrase. But while I was doing things throughout the day, my heart and my mind were considering that phrase. I had to invent some expressions to communicate the spiritual things that the Lord has shown us. Language comes out of culture. A new culture needs a new language, and new points in the culture need new vocabulary. In the entire history of human culture there have never been so many items, not only in the general spiritual field but even more in the field concerning how we are one with the Triune God. Many points in this field are foreign to human culture. Therefore, the human language does not have the vocabulary, because there is not something corresponding to it in the human culture.
By His mercy, in the Holy Spirit and in our spirit we experience something that has never existed and been understood in human culture, so there has never been the kind of vocabulary to express this experience. When I wrote the footnotes, therefore, I had to invent new terminology. In our fellowship concerning the vision of the Lord’s recovery of the church, I was forced to create the adjectives Christly and resurrectionly. I did the same thing in 1971 at Elden hall in Los Angeles, when I said that we need to be “Jesusly human.” If we say that we need to be human like Jesus, this is imitation. This kind of expression bears a wrong denotation. This is like saying that a monkey should be like a man. As a result, we invented the term Jesusly human. We needed a new adjective that did not exist in Webster’s dictionary or any other English dictionary. We should not say that such a term is wrong because no one has ever used it before. We must see that in any culture new words must be invented as the culture is progressing and new things are transpiring. It is easy to read two or three lines in the footnotes of the Recovery Version without realizing that in these lines there are some crucial points that took me one week to express and compose. Therefore, to read the Bible and to read a proper interpretation of the Bible is not so easy.
I found out that a number of brothers and sisters read the Life-study messages as they would read a newspaper. We must realize that there are also some newly composed phrases in the Life-study messages. The expression may be common, but what is conveyed in the expression is not so common. In the Recovery Version of Romans I did not have the time to compose an extensive footnote on the word designated in 1:4. There are a number of messages, though, that have been given on the matter of the designation of Christ and of our experience of designation. (See Messages 2 and 52 through 56 of the Life-study of Romans.) The word designation may seem common to you, but the point is not common. When you read a message on Romans with the matter of designation in it, you should dwell on this point. Do not let it go. Sometimes you need to dwell on one point for two days. Even to pick up one point of the truth is not a light, easy, or quick matter. Many times when the brothers and sisters read the Life-study messages, they do not practice this principle — to learn how to pick up the crucial points.
I hope you would also give me the freedom and the mercy to say something frankly and honestly to you all. Since I have been in America for over twenty-two years, I have noticed that most of the Chinese are far inferior in speaking in comparison to the Americans because of the different educational principles in their cultures. Most American children learn how to speak well, and the mothers check on their speaking. The Chinese are the opposite. Even in their schools they do not train people to speak. The Americans may know only five percent, yet they can speak ten percent. The Chinese may know ten percent, but they cannot speak five percent. When I was listening to the testimonies in the meetings concerning the Life-studies of the Bible, I noticed that the American saints pick up funny thoughts many times, but they neglect the crucial points. They say things to make everyone laugh, but there are not any crucial points to impress people. One brother said that every time he listens to my speaking, he always feels that I do not have the eloquence. However, this brother testified that after I was finished speaking, something of life and the Spirit had gotten into him.
In Ephesians 6:19 the apostle Paul charged the saints to pray for him that he might have the utterance, and in Colossians 4:3 the apostle charged the saints there to pray that God would open a door of utterance. This word in the Greek for utterance is logos, which means “word.” Speaking in the spiritual realm is not a matter of eloquence but a matter of utterance. It is possible that a person may be able to speak quite well and eloquently and still impart nothing. Another person may utter things in an awkward way, but in his awkward speaking, the Spirit is ministered (2 Cor. 3:6). This is the biblical utterance, the logos. This is a word that is not for good listening but a word that conveys “a diamond” to others. Public speakers are trained not to repeat too much, but in the ministry we are not concerned for the rules of public speaking. In the ministry we are serving people with Christ. When you speak, you must believe that the Spirit is speaking with you. You must follow the Spirit’s feeling as to whether what you have spoken has been really taken and received by the audience. Sometimes you may have repeated something twice already, yet in your spirit you have the realization that you did not get through on this point. Therefore, you do not save your “sermon,” and you do not care for your good speech. You must care for the presenting of the “diamond” to people.
Sometimes the mother in a family must repeat herself many times to get the food into her naughty child. Many times I must repeat myself because of your “naughtiness.” I realize that the “naughty boys” did not get it. I do not care for good manners. I care only for my children getting the food into them. Many times in our past we sat under a very trained, educated, and eloquent pastor, but after his speaking, we went home with nothing. For the last ten years, however, many of you have been sitting under a kind of speaking that is awkward and repetitious, but when you go home, you have the realization that an injection got into you, which heals and nourishes you. In our reading of the Bible we must also take this way. We must repeat our reading to take care of a certain point repeatedly. In like manner, when you get into the printed pages of the Life-studies, you should not pick up funny thoughts. You must pick up the crucial points.
I told the saints a number of times that in their corporate pray-reading of the Word they should not make fun or pray with funny thoughts to make others laugh. This means nothing and despises the meeting Spirit. We are pray-reading in the presence of the Lord, and even with the Lord inside of us. How could we pray in a “playing” way? This is wrong. In the same principle, in reading the pages of the Life-study messages, we must learn how to realize the crucial points. For example, when there is a message telling us that Jesus Christ was designated the Son of God, we must consider what it means for Him to be designated. We must pick up this crucial point because today we are the same in principle as the Lord. He was there as a man in the flesh with the name Jesus. We also are men in the flesh, but within us we have the Son of God. According to the flesh, Jesus is out of the seed of David, but according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus was designated the Son of God. We also need to be designated. Do not think that only Jesus needed the designation. Today all His believers in Him need the same kind of designation.
In my messages on Romans I mentioned clearly that this kind of designation of the Lord Jesus should also be our experience. Designation is actually our sanctification. Sanctification is to live out the Lord. Therefore, designation is to let the Lord live out of us. When He lives out of us, this living out is His designation. Now we can see that this is not just a doctrinal, objective point of theology that has nothing to do with us. According to the flesh, our Lord is out of the seed of David, but according to the Spirit of holiness, He was designated the Son of God. Theology would merely tell us that this shows that Christ has two natures — one according to the flesh and the other according to the Spirit. According to the flesh, He is the son of David, and according to the Spirit, He is the Son of God. This is very much like today’s theology. The seminary graduates are trained and taught in this way, yet they never applied these things to themselves. The apostle Paul, however, was not that way, and we should not be that way. In Paul’s very opening words in the book of Romans, he laid a foundation of sanctification. Even Jesus needed the sanctification, the designation. Therefore, we must learn that when we read a proper exposition or commentary of the holy Word, we should not read it as a newspaper. We must pick up the crucial points.
Second, after picking up the crucial points, we must put these points together. In order to have a “bird’s-eye view” of a message, a chapter, or a portion of the Word, we must learn how to put the points together to make a section. For example, there may be twenty-five points in a certain chapter of the Bible, but you must learn how to section this chapter. This chapter may not be a single section, but it may be composed of five sections. Not knowing how to section a chapter is like writing without punctuation, without spaces between sentences, and even the more without spaces between words. If there is no space between words and sentences, it is hard to understand what is being said. In the ancient Greek manuscripts of the Bible there is no space between words and sentences and even no punctuation. The scholars who put out the modern form of the manuscripts spent much time to decipher the word, sentence, and paragraph divisions. There is still some argument as to whether some words go at the end of a sentence or at the beginning of another sentence. In the same way, if we do not know how to section a chapter, we cannot know or understand it. This is like writing a long sentence without any space in between the words.
Many of us who read the Bible and the Life-studies pick up some points, but we do not relate any of these points to other points. You may have the realization that the first seven points of a chapter are the components of one section. Sectioning a chapter in this way gives you a clear view, a bird’s-eye view, of the entire chapter. Then this bird’s-eye view gives you more light through the points you have picked up. First, you pick up the main points, and after sectioning these points, you have a bird’s-eye view. When you look at all the sections, this will increase your light and increase your vision. This makes the entire chapter more meaningful. This is not an easy task. This requires you to become conversant with all the verses and crucial points. To section a book or to paragraph a chapter requires that you have a basic, governing, ruling, controlling, and directing knowledge of the entire Bible. Otherwise, your sections and your paragraphs will be according to your natural understanding. It is quite possible that your section is against the principle of the writing of the holy Word. This is why I do not encourage the young ones among us to go to so many other books. A number of expositions do not give the proper sections of the books. Their sectioning is even somewhat against the principle of the writing of the holy Word. As a result of taking this sectioning, you can be misled.
In our studying of the Recovery Version there are three subsidiary items to the text itself: the outlines, the footnotes, and the cross references. The footnotes are very crucial, but I doubt that many of you realize that some of the outlines are more crucial than the footnotes. I would not say that the cross references are crucial. I would only say that they are helpful. First, in reading the Recovery Version you must learn of the outline. The outline is the first crucial item. I could write a footnote on any verse of the Bible within one day, but I cannot finish the writing of the outline of a book like Romans within one day. When you outline the book of Romans, its entire sixteen chapters must be in front of you. You must have a full understanding of its contents, and every crucial point should have been impressed into your understanding. Then you will be able to make very good sections for an outline. Please do not excuse yourselves by saying that you are not scholars or experts. I am speaking to all of you who are elders, who are taking the lead in the church meetings, and who are taking the lead of certain groups. You must equip yourself with the holy Word. I was told when I was young that when some were asked to give a sermon, they would use the Scofield Reference Bible. They would pick a word such as sanctified and use the chain reference to trace this word’s usage in the Bible. They used this chain reference to make a sermon. This never enlightens or nourishes people. We must be equipped with the holy Word.
To become rich, we need to pick up the points, we need to have a bird’s-eye view of a chapter or of a section, and we also need a bird’s-eye view of the entire book. Finally, we need an ultimate practice — to have a bird’s-eye view of the sixty-six books of the Bible. Then the entire Bible means something to you. We need to progress from the single items of the truth to knowing the outline of a section or of a chapter. From this we need to see the outline, or the bird’s-eye view, of an entire book. Finally, from the outline of a book we must have a bird’s-eye view of the entire sixty-six books of the Bible. When you reach this point, a good foundation will have been laid with all the basic principles to govern, to direct, and to rule your interpretation of any word, any verse, any chapter, or any book of the Bible. You are not only safeguarded but also very much enriched.
You may say that this is hard, but I do not think so. This, however, takes time. You should not read the Bible and the Life-studies in the old way. Whenever you pick up the Bible or the Life-study of any book of the Bible, you must read it in this way. You must pick up the single, crucial points and have an outline of a certain chapter or a certain section. Then you must progress to have an outline of the entire book. After finishing a book you should not go ahead. You must go back to make an outline of this book. Try to do this. This is the basic way for you to carry out the ministry. If you do not have such a basic way, it will be hard for you to speak. Even to learn a language you must learn the alphabet and the spelling of certain words, and then you must learn more words. Then you must learn how to compose a single sentence and progress further to composing a paragraph with five sentences. You must learn the grammar of the language and more vocabulary. Gradually, this kind of knowledge will be constituted into your being. Then you will speak and write the language spontaneously and fluently. You have the capital to do it. Some Chinese immigrants who come to the United States speak with broken English. Instead of saying, “One dollar and twenty-five cents,” they may say, “One dollar two-five cents.” Many of today’s Christians read the Bible in the same principle. They read by using the spiritual, broken language. They do not have the basic knowledge of the spiritual language, since they were never educated in this way. This is why I want to present to you the proper way of how to carry out the ministry. The truths must be constituted into your being. Then you can carry out the ministry.
Even in the playing of basketball, the players must practice what the coach teaches them until this practice gets into their being. Then without any intention and without any thought they can execute the plays and the moves out of their very being. Then they will win the game. After much practice they have the inner sense of what to do and how to handle the ball. Please do not say that to study the Bible in this way is not easy. Many of us have been in the Lord’s recovery for at least fifteen years, but we did not get much of the proper help. This is one of the reasons why we called this urgent gathering. I believe that through our fellowship some help may be rendered to you. If you would pick up this fellowship and go back to practice every day, you will see the difference after only half a year.
