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1. To be gathered by the Lord into His name — Matt. 18:20.
2. Meeting in mutuality and in speaking — 1 Cor. 14:23a, 26; Heb. 10:25.
3. Meeting to preach the gospel and teach the truth according to the revelation of God’s New Testament economy — Acts 2:42, 46; 5:42; 1 Tim. 1:3-4.
4. Meeting to remember the Lord and worship God — 1 Cor. 11:20a, 24-25; Heb. 2:12.
5. Meeting to pray and to read the Word of the Lord — Acts 12:12; Col. 4:16.
In the Lord’s new move we must practice to have four things — the home gatherings, the truth lessons, the full-time workers, and the spreading of the gospel. These are the life pulse of the Lord’s present move. The first thing that we will fellowship about is how to have the home gatherings. In order to see this matter we must first see the basic principles of meeting.
Every denomination has its own constitution, bylaws, or creed, in which they declare what they believe, how they practice, how they are organized, how they receive members, and how they meet. These constitutions, bylaws, or creeds of the denominations are their “design.” A design is a pattern of the building to come. Based upon such a design they go on to build. From the very beginning of the Lord’s recovery Brother Nee declared that we do not have any creed. We have only the Bible. The Bible is our creed. In other words, the Bible is our design. This is why to take the lead in the Lord’s recovery is not a light thing. To do this you must know, not in a shallow way, at least the entire New Testament. You must understand what is in Matthew, especially in chapters 5, 6, and 7, as well as chapters 13, 24, and 25. Then you must know what is in chapters 14 through 17 of John. Likewise, you surely must know what are the real contents of the Epistles of Paul and of John as well as the book of Revelation. If you know all these things, then you will know how to produce a design.
A crucial, practical part of this design is the way to meet. Every denomination has its own way to meet. The Greek Orthodox have their Greek Orthodox way. The Catholics, the Presbyterians, the Baptists, and the Pentecostals have their own particular way to meet, but in the Lord’s recovery we must come back to our creed of the entire Bible and, in particular, the New Testament. We have spent a great amount of effort to study the different ways of meeting in the different Christian groups, but we would take only what is revealed in the unique design. In this chapter we will consider five principles that cover the New Testament way for God’s people to meet on this earth.
If we have different ways to meet, the Lord’s move will be weakened among us, and this will annul the morale. We will have no impact to carry out God’s work and to fight the battle. This is not a small thing. What we do is not up to our concept. It is not up to the American brothers’ way or the Chinese brothers’ way. All the different races have their own way to gather people. Some Christian groups meet according to the natural, social way, which is not according to the design in the Bible. If we take this way, we will cause division, and this will weaken the Lord’s move. This will weaken the recovery. In our own history some among us secretly changed the way to meet. They even changed the nature of meeting. That kind of leadership was not the proper leadership. That leadership led people astray into a wrong way and caused division. Some were corrupted, distracted, and even to some extent ruined through that way. This kind of leadership surely is not the proper leadership, and this is not the design of a wise architect such as the apostle Paul (1 Cor. 3:10). Therefore, we must come back to the New Testament to pick up the basic principles of meeting. For us to pick up these principles depends upon how much we know the contents of God’s New Testament economy. According to the revelation of the New Testament economy, there are five basic principles of meeting.
Matthew 18:20 says that two or three are gathered into the Lord’s name. The Lord does not say that two or three meet together. The predicate here is not in the active voice but in the passive voice, saying that two or three are gathered. This indicates that when we come to meet, we should not be the ones who take the initiative. Rather, it must be the Lord who takes the initiative. He gathers us. In the world it is the people who initiate a congregation or a gathering. However, sometimes they are gathered. The government, a school, or a club or society initiates the gathering. The initiator gathers the people, and all the attendants are gathered. Our meeting is not initiated by anyone except the Lord Jesus. Every time we meet, it should be He who initiates, who gathers us, and we are gathered by Him into His name.
The word into has been wrongly translated as “in.” According to the best use of the English idiom, no one would say, “Into the name”; there is no such idiomatic expression. The translators took care of the language idiom, but they damaged and sacrificed the real meaning of the Greek text. Language is always according to culture. Today in the Lord’s recovery we have a high culture; therefore, we must have a higher idiom. We must say that we are “gathered into” His name.
This means that if we are not gathered by the Lord, we remain in so many other things. We are occupied, detained, kept, and to some extent imprisoned by many things. We are kept in our families, and in our business, and even by our family and by our business. Wives are kept by their husbands, husbands are kept by their wives, and children are kept by their parents. If there were not the gathering of the Lord among us, who would come to the meeting regularly? Many capturing things, many imprisoning and retaining things, such as our tiredness, our office, and our overtime work hours, are the detaining power to keep us from the meetings. Therefore, we need a powerful One to rescue us, to bring us out from all these occupations, and to gather us into His name. In the New Testament His name always denotes His person. Whenever we meet, we should be gathered out of many different occupations and gathered into the very living person of the Lord Himself.
The Brethren stress this verse very much. They say that all the denominations meet in their denominational name, such as the Lutherans meeting in Luther’s name and the Wesleyans in Wesley’s name. The Brethren declare and boast that they meet in the name of the Lord Jesus, taking His name. I do not oppose that teaching, yet it does not reveal the depths of the truth. The Lord gathers us into Himself. When we are meeting, we are meeting in Him because we have been gathered out of so many occupations and gathered into this living person. This is a basic principle for any kind of meeting — for prayer, for the Lord’s table, for the reading of the Word, or for edification, for building up. Whatever kind of meeting — small ones, big ones, in the homes, in the halls — the principle is first that we are gathered out of all kinds of occupations into the Lord Himself.
Quite often even when we are in the meeting, we are still not gathered; we still remain in our occupation, in our study of our textbooks, or in our care of our children. We are in the meeting, but we are occupied by things other than the Lord. Therefore, we need this gathering, this rescuing. We need to be rescued by the Lord out of so many occupying things and gathered into His name, that is, into Himself as a living person. This is a strong point. I hope that the elders from the different churches would have some meetings to show the saints how to take care of these basic principles of meeting.
In every meeting we should keep the principle of mutuality. The devil has plotted to annul the mutuality in Christian meetings. All the denominations hold their meetings with one or two speakers plus several assistants helping in music, prayer, and reading the Bible. This is one-sided. The entire congregation is the audience, keeping silent with hardly any function. There is hardly any mutuality. However, if you would read the New Testament again, you could see that the Christian meeting is altogether a meeting in mutuality, a matter of one to another. In 1 Corinthians 14:26 one has a teaching, another has a revelation, another has a psalm, another has a tongue, and another has an interpretation. All these are in mutuality. There is not simply one or a few who function. There is no distinction between laymen and clergy. All are functioning members in mutuality. Hebrews 10:25 encourages us not to stay away from the meetings but to be “exhorting one another.” This indicates that the Christian meetings have to be in mutuality. When we all say something, the meeting is altogether mutual, not one-sided.
Speaking is another principle in the Christian meetings. Everyone should speak. In the New Testament even singing is considered as speaking. Ephesians 5:19 says, “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and psalming with your heart to the Lord.” Our singing is a kind of speaking. We speak something by singing. In ancient times the saints spoke the hymns in the meetings. Today Christians in their meetings often use the Psalms. In the ancient times psalms were mainly put to music for singing, but today many Christians use the Psalms not for singing but simply for reading or speaking. They do not have the habit of speaking from their hymnal. We have been influenced by this tradition. We take psalms by speaking, but we do not use our hymnal by speaking. Whenever we call a hymn, everyone will sing it unless we say otherwise. It is understood that when one calls a hymn, we should sing it. We have to change our habit. When we call a hymn, I now prefer that we speak it first.
I hope that from now on, all you brothers who take the lead would try to practice speaking. Quite often when we speak a hymn, it means quite much to us. It may be more significant than singing it. Often when people sing a hymn, they pay attention to the music, to the melody, instead of the words. It is somewhat of a distraction to sing it. However, when you speak it, there are no distractions. We take the words in a pure way. If you use the words plus the music, it is hard to conquer the music. The music may conquer the words. To avoid this kind of conquering, it is better to speak.
To speak means more than to sing. Even to read is not so significant as to speak. Speaking the hymns has been nearly killed, annulled, in Christian practice today. We must come back to the practice revealed in the pure Word. Ephesians 5:19 says to speak the hymns to one another. In mutuality, I speak to you, and you have to speak back to me. This is quite meaningful. The first time I proposed speaking the hymns was in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 1968. That was a wonderful experience of Ephesians 5:19. The major item in our meetings is not the singing but the speaking. The teachers must be speaking, the prophets must be speaking, and all the saints attending the meeting must function by speaking. Your function in the meeting is altogether a matter of speaking. Even to give a testimony is to speak.
The third principle of meeting is to preach the gospel and to teach the truth. However, our preaching and teaching must not be in an unrestricted way. We must be limited by the realm of the revelation of the New Testament economy of God. Our preaching and teaching must also be uplifted. Simply to be limited in the sphere, in the realm, of the New Testament revelation is not adequate. Your preaching and your teaching should be up to the standard. I do not encourage you to preach in a low way. You have to preach in a high way.
In the Bible you cannot see any kind of loose preaching. On the day of Pentecost the first message that came out of Peter’s mouth was quite high, full of mysterious points. Some may point out that this message was given to the Jews, who had much knowledge of the Old Testament. But in Acts 14 Paul gave a message to the Gentiles (vv. 15-17), and in Acts 17 he gave a message that was very deep and very high to the Greeks, the philosophical people (vv. 22-31). When Paul was speaking on the Areopagus, facing the Greek philosophers, he surely had to give a higher, deeper, philosophical preaching. All the terminology as well as the points Paul covered require much time to study. We should not preach or teach in a shallow way. We have to be restricted within the boundary of God’s New Testament economy and be uplifted to the standard of His New Testament economy.
Just before I left my denomination, the preacher gave a sermon in the Sunday morning service on how to kill flies to promote sanitation. This was absolutely outside the boundary of the New Testament economy. In this country some pastors speak about politics and even sex in their meetings. This is terrible. Others speak about biblical prophecy. To talk about prophecy based upon the revelation of the New Testament economy is absolutely all right. But if you talk about prophecy for the sake of prophecy, you are off, and you are outside the boundary. To talk about foot-washing in relation to God’s New Testament economy is all right. But if you talk about foot-washing for the sake of foot-washing, you had better set up a foot-washing church. This speaking causes division. If you talk about water baptism, and it is not related to the New Testament economy, that causes division. Even to talk about the baptism in the Spirit with no relation to God’s New Testament economy causes division. This is why I speak of meeting to preach the gospel and to teach the truth not just according to the New Testament but according to the revelation of God’s New Testament economy. Whatever you teach and preach must be restricted by this, and you must uplift your preaching and teaching to the standard of God’s New Testament economy.
An architect would never allow a high tower to be erected in the middle of a building, unrelated to the rest of it. Those who uplift speaking in tongues raise up a high tower unrelated to the building. To those who do this, it seems that the whole body is only a tongue. The best architect surely would “cut this tongue down to its proper size.” Paul cut in this way in chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians. He surely was the wise architect who did much cutting in 1 Corinthians.
As a layman architect, I designed the meeting hall in Anaheim. I did not make the drawings, but I made the design. In my first design I placed an elevator in the middle of one end of the building. After the concrete was poured, I realized that the design was wrong, and I convinced the brothers to change it. As the unique architect, I made many adjustments. I cut off this corner, and I cut off that corner. This was a great cutting to some of the brothers. Although it cost much to take this elevator out, we just could not leave it in. This illustrates that to take the lead is not an easy thing. We must learn to take the lead by looking into the holy Word to see the entire view of God’s economy — the plan, the arrangement, the design — in His New Testament. We must have a clear view of God’s arrangement, God’s design. To be an architect is not easy.
The stairway in the meeting hall also was designed by me. Certain brothers who were carpenters considered the design to be strange and built a sample of their own design to show to me. It seemed as if I was one who knew nothing about carpentry, yet I insisted on my design. They had no choice but to build it. Eventually, the fire department awarded us an extra ten percent in seating capacity because the stairways and doors were so good. A “layman” designed them. Today whoever comes to the meeting feels so happy about the stairway. No one who comes up these stairs has the feeling that he is climbing. An apostle, an architect, a wise master builder, must be one who can give us the proper design.
To see the basic principles of meeting in the Word is not easy, but to use these principles in the meetings will never cause any division. This way to meet will never give rise to any opinions. Perhaps these principles will calm down all the different opinions. Brothers, take care of the way to meet. Do not easily change the way of meeting. Whatever way you take to meet, you must take care of the matter of division. You must take care of the matter of opinion. The issue of the way of meeting may lead to opinions and result in division, as it did among us in years past.
We must also meet to remember the Lord and worship God. This is a crucial, basic principle that we have to practice. In the church meeting we must do two things — remember our redeeming Lord and worship our God the Father. We remember the Lord by two means — by breaking and eating the bread and by drinking the cup (1 Cor. 11:24-25). This should not be something official or formal; it must be real. This eating and drinking indicates our enjoyment of the processed Lord in His death and resurrection. It is not a mass or holy communion. It is altogether an enjoyment through partaking of the processed Christ through His death and in His resurrection. Whenever we remember the Lord, we have to be in His resurrection through His death so that we may enjoy Him as a feast. Furthermore, this feast is constituted with His body and blood.
Although we may know this, we still have many newcomers and new ones added among us. This teaching should be carried on all the time. We should train the members in the church to know how to remember the Lord. This is more important than the teaching, the preaching, and the prayer. This is to remember Him by enjoying Him.
At the same time we should worship God the Father. This worship is not in the way of Christianity, the traditional way of worship. Hebrews 2:12 reveals a very particular worship to God. This is the worship to the Father by the Son, not only in the church but through the church and from within the church. He says, “I will declare Your name to My brothers.” Then He changed brothers to a synonym, saying, “In the midst of the church I will sing hymns of praise to You.” To sing praises to the Father is the worship to the Father, yet this is a very particular worship. This is the church, constituted with all the believers, worshipping God with Christ in them as the worshipping person. Have you ever heard that the believers constituting the church worship God with Christ in them as their worshipping person? The real worship that the Father wants today is His Son worshipping Him from within all the believers as the church. This is quite deep. This is not just to have a worship with certain hymns and bowing of the head and kneeling down. The only verse that you can find telling us so particularly how to worship the Father in the church is Hebrews 2:12. Certain verses tell us to worship or serve God in spirit and by the Spirit (John 4:24; Phil. 3:3), but even those verses are not as clear as this verse. The particular way revealed in the New Testament to worship God the Father is in Hebrews 2:12. This is what the Father wants — a genuine, real worship that is the worship of all the saints of God with the firstborn Son in them as the real worshipping person.
Hymns, #52 is a very good hymn. It indicates that we are worshipping the Father with the Son. Yet that hymn is not up to the highest standard. It does not give any indication that we worship the Father with the Son inside of us. This hymn says that He leads the praise, but there is no indication that the Son is worshipping the Father within us. The Brethren were brought on further, but after over half a century we are now somewhat advanced. Standing on their shoulders, we have been lifted higher. Today in the Lord’s recovery we should not follow the way of worship from the past. We must come back to see what is revealed in the New Testament economy. This is the worship that we need to render to God our Father not less than every Lord’s Day.
Last, we meet to pray and read the Word. Colossians 4:16 says, “When this letter is read among you, cause that it be read in the church of the Laodiceans also, and that you also read the one from Laodicea.” Perhaps many of us did not realize that this reading was a reading in the meeting. It does not refer to reading by passing the letter to each one of the members. Rather, it is in a gathering. To read the Epistle to the Colossians in the meeting is simply to read the Bible, to read the Word of the Lord.
Every church needs some training regarding the meetings. You must set up at least one week to gather all the saints together. You need to spend at least six nights, Monday through Saturday, to train the saints according to the basic principles of meeting, to train them to meet in the way of the New Testament economy, not in the way of Christianity, in the religious, traditional way. We must uplift the standard of our meetings.
Do not forget that to set up any way for meeting that is not according to the revelation of God’s New Testament economy always leads to opinion and division. Be careful concerning this. Opinion can result in division. Do not easily propose any way to meet.
