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Scripture Reading: 1 Tim. 2:4; 3:15; 2 Tim. 2:2, 15
The victories we have enjoyed in the past were one hundred percent due to the one accord. I say this as an encouragement to all of us. We all have to be in one accord with no opinions. To carry on the Lord’s recovery we do not need to have any opinion. We should have the confidence in the leadership. You may be a little smarter than the ones who are taking the lead or who made the decision. Yet if you express your opinion, that will only delay the time. Your way may take twenty-five minutes, while the way decided upon may take thirty-five minutes. This ten-minute difference is not worth your opinion. By discussing your opinion, what we want to do may take half an hour or even two hours longer. It may even create dissension or division. This is what we are suffering from today. If the leadership in the recovery proposes to build an idol temple, I will take the lead to oppose it. I believe we realize that the leading in the Lord’s recovery is absolutely according to the entire revelation of God’s New Testament economy. Based upon the fellowship in Book 7 in this series of the Elders’ Training, we have a clear view, a definite vision, a definite leadership, and a definite way for us to go on.
We saw in the previous chapter that materials should be prepared for all the different meetings of the church. By the Lord’s mercy He has given us many messages and has opened up the entire New Testament to us. I do not mean that He has opened up the New Testament to us in the fullest way. I still believe that the Lord will show us more and more in the future, but thank Him that He has really opened up His word in the New Testament to us. Many publications are here for you to labor on. It is easy for you to pick up the “groceries” that you feel fit your present need. You can select some groceries to cook a proper meal for your church at any time according to the condition or situation of the church in your locality. If you would do this and if you know how to do it, you will surely have a success.
I am quite concerned for our meetings, especially for the home meetings. I do not have a bit of confidence in someone’s speaking in each of the home meetings. Just for one gathering of every local church, the speaking has already been a hard problem. For your church to take care of one gathering with a proper message given has been and still is a problem. If you could not handle the speaking for one group so well, how will you be able to handle the speaking for many groups? This is why I do not have the confidence in this practice. I do have the confidence, however, in your laboring in the Word to learn how to prepare the messages, using all the groceries in our present, existing publications. If you are willing to do this and learn how to do this, you will enjoy a success.
For the small gatherings it is better to prepare some living messages consecutively, week after week. These messages should be according to the present need of your local church. You need to consider what the best word would be to take care of the present need in your locality. Also, the ones who are going to take care of the home meetings should be trained and should learn how to be flexible. We expect that all the home meetings would do their best to bring their neighbors, relatives, friends, colleagues, and schoolmates. The home meetings should be very flexible since we should always expect to have some new ones there and some unbelievers. Even if you have something printed for the whole meeting to read, to speak, you must be flexible to take care of the new ones and the unbelievers. This all depends upon the elders training the saints in these matters. We need to put out a message every week for one home meeting. You could use the crucial points we pointed out from Paul’s fourteen Epistles (see Book 6 in this series of the Elders’ Training). But you still need to work on these points, to cook them, and to shorten them.
You have to train the saints and let them know that there is no need or requirement that in every meeting they must finish the printed matter. Sometimes the situation does not allow them to finish it. You do not need to be that legal. You do not need to rescue that message. You have to rescue the meeting, rescue the need. Suppose that one evening in the home gathering over fifteen new ones come. You have to be flexible enough to forget about the message. Just take care of the fifteen new ones to give them a good message of the gospel. Immediately turn that meeting into a gospel-preaching meeting. This is why the saints need to be trained in these matters. All the attendants of the church in that home meeting have to be on the alert to turn that meeting into a gospel-preaching meeting in order to take care of the fifteen new ones. We should not be legal. The message that was prepared can be postponed for next week’s home meeting.
For the Lord’s table meeting it would be good to select some good messages on life and on the life supply according to your study and memory. I call these nourishing messages to bring in a certain amount of nourishment to all the dear saints who come to remember the Lord. After the remembrance rendered to the Lord, half an hour can be spared in the meeting to speak a short, nourishing message. I believe that everyone will receive the nourishment. I have gone to some Lord’s table meetings where this was practiced, and I must testify that I received much nourishment. Therefore, I have the assurance that this can nourish people. I did not speak anything. I sat there and listened to the speaking of those two or three pages, and I got fully nourished. I have the assurance that no one who speaks something could render such a good, brief, crucial, and important word to the saints. These messages can be composed of selected excerpts from our publications. This is the line of nourishment for the Lord’s table.
Then you should also select some spiritual messages from our publications on another line — the spiritual principles of the Lord’s service. At the end of each prayer meeting take half an hour to speak a short article on the spiritual principles of the Lord’s service. Do not despise small things. For the long run this will be very profitable. The saints will receive enlightenment through the speaking of some messages on the spiritual principles of the Lord’s service every week. Those who attend the Lord’s table will also receive some nourishing messages week by week throughout the year.
To raise up children you cannot feed them with all the food they need for twenty years. You have to feed them a little bit at a time, meal after meal, day after day. It takes a long time to raise up a child. Therefore, the elders should learn this way with patience. Do not expect to get things done once for all or overnight. We are not the Creator. The Creator can say, “Let there be light,” but we cannot do that. For us it takes time, especially in the matter of building up the church, which is altogether a matter in life. We need to take time to feed the saints with these messages in a proper way and to do it patiently and regularly year after year, always with some fresh prayer, seeking the Lord’s leading. The principles are right, and the application may be fresh if you have much prayer. The Lord will lead you to have a fresh way to apply all these principles, and what you do will be quite living. This is what the elders should do. It is not hard, because you have a very rich store of groceries.
We have fellowshipped that for the home meetings, the Lord’s table, and the prayer meeting, we need to cook a living message. This can be done by taking excerpts from different books and messages of our publications to make one short message. Everyone who wants to use the materials from Living Stream Ministry in such a way should write to the ministry office for permission. Your application should make it clear that you want to use the material for the purpose of the church meetings. The office will then give you a written answer with directions on how to give the proper credit for the material.
The elders need to labor in the Word. I cannot eat for you, and there is no shortcut way to get the spiritual food into your being. The elders need to come together with some helpers and some full-timers to get into all the publications and prepare material for the meetings. If you are a teacher, you must spend much time to prepare your own materials. Then you can teach the students in the most effective way because you first got into the material. You must labor. Do not try to save any time in your labor. If you save one minute, you lose one percent. Saving ten minutes is to lose ten percent. The saving of time in your labor is actually a real loss. I spent hours and hours writing the footnotes for the Recovery Version. I spent approximately one week composing footnote 66 in 1 John 1 concerning the word truth. You cannot put a big piece of salmon on the table for people to eat without cooking it. I digested what Kittel had to say concerning the word truth, and then I composed the footnote on truth with eight items. To take care of the church the elders need to labor in the Word. There is no shortcut way or no convenience you can take. The more you work on something, the better product you get.
You need to get into all the messages and digest all the portions. Out of your digestion you can make a message. This is the best and most prevailing way. Use your time and do your best to labor. You may not have that much time, but use what time you have, trying your best to do something. It is much more prevailing if you digest portions of the written ministry and then put these excerpts together to make a message.
When I say digest, this does not mean that you have to change. Do not recompose. Just put the excerpts together. When I say for you to digest, that means that you really get into the real meaning of that portion. Then you know which portions to choose. I do not mean to digest and recompose. I do not agree with that. I do not have the confidence that you can do something better. I believe that after your recomposing, all the good flavor in my writings will be gone. Footnote 1 on 1 Corinthians 14:26 in the Recovery Version tastes so sweet; the color is beautiful, and the material is rich. You could not get anything to compare with that, so please do not recompose my writings.
At this point we want to focus our attention on the truth lessons. In 1 Timothy 2:4 Paul tells us that God desires everyone who has been saved to be brought not just to a partial knowledge but to a full knowledge of the truth. Basically speaking, in this century, regardless of what country a person lives in, he must have a basic education. The United States practices compulsory education until a person is sixteen years old, and everyone is encouraged to at least have a high- school education. Without this education as a base, it would be hard for a person to do anything with his human life. For so many years we missed the way to teach the truths in a lesson way, in a way of education, to let the saints have a basic knowledge of God’s revelation. Every person should have a basic knowledge of human education, so he needs to pass through elementary, junior high, high school, and then college.
Throughout the past years what we have been practicing was like the giving of lectures by experts and specialists. We had a college with no classrooms, no classes, no teachers, and no textbook. We would always invite two or three specialists to give lectures. Just consider a university with five thousand students without classrooms, without professors, and without a textbook, only having famous specialists come in to give lectures. Every lecture given is marvelous and wonderful. But after four years what will the students receive? All they will receive is some terms and some principles. They will not have received the proper, basic education. This has been exactly what we have been doing in the past years. Many messages were like lectures, and every church expected the top expert to come to give the lecture.
My present burden is not to go to any place to give lectures. I would rather go somewhere to set up classes. To have a school to educate the young people, we need classes, we need grades, we need lessons, and we need a textbook. If I had not attended any classes in mathematics, and I had just learned from my parents or friends, I may have some fragments of the knowledge of mathematics, but I would not be able to teach others. Whoever composes a textbook for mathematics considers the entire realm of mathematics and picks up some crucial points with some crucial lines. When children study a textbook on mathematics, they should have a clear view of the matter of addition. But we have not done this. Our practice has been to give messages or lectures on topics such as sanctification and redemption.
I know some saints who have been in the church life and under the church’s speaking for over thirty-seven years. If they were asked, however, to give a clear word concerning the Lord’s redemption or concerning sanctification to a group of newly saved believers, they could not do it. Their feeling is that only I and the co-workers trained by me for years can do such a thing. We heard that Christ is our person, and we also heard something concerning the essential Trinity, the economical Trinity, and God’s New Testament economy. But many of the saints cannot tell us what God’s New Testament economy is. The saints have heard many messages concerning Christ’s death, but who can speak something concerning the seven aspects of Christ’s death? Very few can give a proper message on justification in a good sequence and in a full way. It is even harder for many of the saints to speak the deeper truths concerning God’s economy, God’s dispensation, and God’s dispensing. Many messages have been published concerning the Divine Trinity, but how many of us can present a full word concerning the Divine Trinity according to what we have heard in the past years? This is due to the fact that we had no proper way to acquire a spiritual education. We did not adopt the educational way by classes with a textbook.
The popular educational system in the world today is for a person to pass through elementary school, junior high, high school, and then college. If we are going to educate the saints, we must take this system. The good point of this educational system is that it gives people the popular, the common, and the normal basic knowledge. I have come to the conclusion that we must practice this educational system in the spiritual lessons. This is why I have been burdened to publish Truth Lessons. The one hundred ninety-two lessons of this series are meant to be covered in four years — forty-eight lessons per year. With these truth lessons my burden is to upgrade the standard of Christians’ understanding of the truth.
Many Christians have only a very limited knowledge of the truth. They know that we were once sinners destined to go to the lake of fire. But God loved us and gave His Son for us. His Son came to die on the cross for our sins. If we believe in Him, we will be forgiven of our sins, and we will be saved. Then we need to live a good life, and when we die, we will go to heaven. This is the extent of the truth that many Christians have. But now we will have a series of truth lessons that will cover all the crucial points of the entire Bible.
In the first two volumes there are lessons that give us a key view of the entire Old Testament. If you read or study all these lessons, you can have a general view concerning the Old Testament. The view given in these truth lessons is not in the way of today’s seminaries. My burden is not to give people lessons concerning the history, the geography, or the literature of the Old Testament. I care to give people the spiritual significance. The lessons on Adam, Abel, Enosh, and Enoch unveil the spiritual significance seen in these Old Testament saints. Through two lessons we are given a key view of the Old Testament in the entire book of Genesis from Adam to Noah (Lesson 7) and from Abraham to Joseph (Lesson 8). After studying these two lessons, you have a clear view of the first book of the Old Testament, and all the great men in the book of Genesis are covered. By this fellowship you can realize the purpose of the truth lessons.
We also need to fellowship how to teach the saints by the truth lessons. We must use the Lord’s Day or what is popularly called Sunday, since this day is generally a holiday throughout the earth. Most people do not have to work on Sunday, so we must utilize this day to teach the truths to the saints. We must take this way to educate the saints. I would propose that every church spend half of every Lord’s Day on the matter of teaching the truth. Every Lord’s Day morning we may have a general meeting to take care of the “Sunday goers” and general attendants. At the same time and on the same day, if possible in the same building, you must set up classes to teach the truth. The best way is to ask the saints to register for the level they would like to be in based upon their discernment. When they come to the meeting the next week, they should go to the level they have signed up for. If they have some new ones with them, they could bring them to the general meeting, and then they themselves could go to the particular class for which they have registered.
In the same building you could have four classes to teach the truth in addition to a general meeting. If there is a need, you could set up a gospel-preaching meeting. Use the entire morning of the Lord’s Day to teach the saints the truth. The general meeting also comprises a part of the teaching of the truth in a kind of preaching way. The saints who are the interested seekers of the truth and who are not merely the Sunday goers have to get themselves registered into different levels of the truth lessons. The leading ones should set up classes and arrange to have some teachers for these classes. This is the best way to promote the function of the saints.
In a certain locality there may only be fifty saints. But they could be divided into two or three classes for the truth lessons. Each class needs one teacher with a helper. You may have thirty or more in one class, and the teaching of the lesson should occupy only fifty to sixty minutes. After the teaching of the lesson, the class should be divided into small groups of no more than ten. The fewer in the small group, the better. Two saints are needed to take care of each group. They need to sit down with the members of the group to discuss the lesson that they have all covered. There is no need for a detailed discussion, but these two saints should check with the ones in the group to find out what they understood and to give them time to ask some questions. They need to help the ones in the group to become more impressed with all the points of the lesson.
One truth lesson covers many points, so there is no time to develop a point. One particular teacher of a truth class spent a lot of time in one lesson discussing Cain. After he finished this discussion, much of the time was gone. The Life-study messages are full of the expounding and development of particular points. When we came to the matter of the pillar in Genesis, we spent a number of messages to develop this point. However, the truth lessons are another matter. Every lesson is really a message.
We should teach the students in the class by first asking them to open up their copy of Truth Lessons and read. Every member of the class can read a phrase or a sentence of the text in a spontaneous and living way. They should not read the lesson in the same way that they would read a newspaper. While they read, the teacher should stress the main points to impress them with the contents of that lesson. You do not need to explain, expound, or develop. If someone asks you who Cain is, it is sufficient to tell him that Cain was the first son of Adam. Do not go further. If someone would continue to ask you something else, you may need to say, “That is not in the lesson.” The lesson is quite limited to impress us with all the major points. In the teaching of the truth lessons, there is no chance for the one who teaches to show how much he knows. He is only charged to speak this message as a lesson with all the people in the class. I believe that in approximately fifty minutes a teacher can do a good job to impress the ones in his class with the truth of the lesson.
The questions at the end of each truth lesson are for discussion after the lesson is given. They are not for homework. The students need to be impressed with the points covered in that one lesson. Only go as far as the text of the truth lessons with the accompanying questions to impress the saints with the main points. When a math teacher in elementary school is teaching students addition, he does not go beyond his lesson to get into something deeper or higher. Otherwise, he breaks the teaching principle. If the first lesson only requires the students to add the first four numbers, the teacher should just impress them with that much. This is the best way of teaching. Do not talk about anything other than what the lesson teaches. Do not add anything that would cause them to forget what they should be impressed with. Just impress them with the very things that the lesson teaches. Then you are a good teacher.
Lesson 1 is concerning the Bible. If I were to ask you when the books of the Bible were written and when these books were recognized as part of the Scripture, probably not many would be able to tell me. You may treasure the Bible, yet many thoughtful people would ask you to tell them how this book was written. You believe in the Bible, study it, preach it, and teach it, yet you do not know how it was written. This is the purpose of having the truth lessons. The first lesson is to impress the students with the proper, common, necessary knowledge concerning the Bible’s coming into existence.
After the first volume was published, all the saints in Taipei wanted to take the first level. Because they do not know many of the things in the first level, they want to learn from the beginning. In Taipei all the saints began the truth lessons from the first grade. Some of them have been in the church life for over thirty-seven years, but they all attended level 1, volume 1, with some who had just been in the church life for three days. The ones who had been recently saved did not know how the Bible was produced, and the ones who had been with us for over thirty-seven years and many of the leading ones did not know how the Bible was produced either. This shows us the need of the truth lessons.
If anyone continually attends these classes for four years, he will have a full and clear sketch, a full view, concerning the Bible, concerning God, concerning Christ, concerning the Spirit, concerning our salvation, and concerning the church. This will provide a basic education. Then when the saints listen to the “lectures by the experts,” the big speakers, they will understand more because they have the basic vocabulary, the basic knowledge, of all the basic points concerning the divine, spiritual, and holy things.
The truth lessons give people the basic knowledge and may be likened to the textbooks in a school. The messages for the small groups, the Lord’s table, and the prayer meeting may be likened to newspapers or magazines for people’s study and reading. If you had not studied in school, it would be hard to read a newspaper or magazine.
I do not feel burdened to charge the saints to go home and study beyond what is in the truth lessons, but all the elders should promote the reading of the Recovery Version, the “gold bar,” in the homes plus all the Life-studies and other publications by Living Stream Ministry. These will be their library books. Besides attending the meetings to learn the truth, they should read these spiritual publications every day.
We need to realize that actually we are not a school and we do not have graduation. Our intention is solely to pass on the truths to the saints. We should not give the saints any kind of written exams on the truth lessons. Our church school does not have terms or vacations. Most of the saints have to take care of their occupations and families in addition to the church meetings. Just to teach them the truth lessons is good enough. Let them pick up what they can. After four years with four levels of lessons, everybody will be much better. To set up a seminary is too much. We are not burdened to set up any school. Do not go that far. We do not want to set up a real church school to have graduates. To have training meetings to train the saints is okay, but to set up a seminary is wrong. That is going too far. To have the trainings will not cause any opinions or trouble to the churches. But to set up a seminary will cause problems. You would have to decide something such as who the board members would be. Many troubles would then come into the church life.
Do not use the truth lessons for the campus work to teach a Bible study. Many people there have not been brought into salvation or into the church life. The truth lessons are only useful for people in the church life. We train them as our students. No one would open a textbook on the street and begin to teach the people there. The textbooks are used only for your enrolled students. You would not go anywhere to teach people with lesson books. We have many messages and good material for you to go to the campus and use.
I am not narrow and I do not like to dictate, but by His mercy and grace I have gone through the proper process to get into the truth. I am so grateful that the Lord brought me into contact with Brother Nee. I could never forget him, and I am still grateful to him. He was surely the unique person, according to my observation, from whom I could get the unique help. By His mercy I did get the help. After that I spent more time to investigate and dig into the holy Word with the help of many reference books. When I came to the United States, I had the boldness and the assurance to pass on what I had received to you. I am not narrow. I do not like to dictate or control, yet I love you all. I do not like to see you waste your time. This is why it seems that I am so narrow. I would just ask you to study all the publications that come from Living Stream Ministry. You may get some help elsewhere, but with the help, there may be some poison. I like to see you save your time to concentrate your entire being on the Lord’s ministry. You will get the best help within the shortest time, and be assured you will never be poisoned. This ministry is much purified.
What I expect is that all the churches around the globe will take the help from this ministry to go on by the same way so that we may have the morale, the impact, to fight the strong battle for the Lord’s recovery. I have the full assurance that this is what the Lord needs in this age to bring Him back. This is why I am so concerned to see anything that is a little different come into the Lord’s recovery. That will be a real damage. I do not like to hear others uplifting me, but I want to see you get the real help and not be distracted by anything.
You can assuredly receive two things from the ministry — the ministry of life and the way to open up the holy Word. This ministry does not lead anyone into the ministry itself. This ministry actually leads and ushers the reader into the real divine revelation of the holy Word. It is the best opener of the Holy Bible. Any page of this ministry will lead you into a certain verse, chapter, or book of the Bible. I have the assurance that this ministry would never lead anyone astray. It will always help people into the right way of God’s New Testament economy according to His entire revelation. We surely have to thank the Lord for what He has been doing and is still going to do among us.
