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In this chapter I want us to be impressed that we should not function, serve, or meet in a natural way. We may think that serving God, preaching the gospel, or functioning to give a testimony are things that we can do easily and naturally. Actually, however, our service in the New Testament is not like this.
In John 4 the Samaritan woman talked with the Lord Jesus about worshipping God. Her talk was altogether natural. She said, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, yet you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men must worship” (v. 20). Then the Lord Jesus adjusted her by saying that the worship the Father God seeks is absolutely different from this. God is Spirit, so those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness (v. 24). Today by His mercy and under His enlightenment, we can say that we are clear what it means to worship God in our spirit. But it requires much understanding for us to realize what it is to worship God, the very Spirit, in truthfulness.
Truthfulness in John 4:24 refers to God’s truthfulness in which we participate. Then this truthfulness of God becomes our virtue in our human living. Actually, this is Christ lived out in our daily life. We worship God in such a Christ. Christ is the reality of the Triune God, and this reality is God’s truthfulness. This truthfulness in which we participate becomes our enjoyment. Then it becomes the virtue in our human living, which is Christ lived out in our daily life. Today we worship God in such a Christ and in our spirit. This is altogether not natural. According to my study and observation, many of the brothers in the recovery talk about how to meet, how to serve, how to function, and how to preach with a natural view. This is wrong.
If we want to see something concerning the biblical, God-ordained way to meet, to serve, to function, and to preach, we must forget what we think that we understand. We must let go of the things that we have heard in the past concerning the traditional way. How can we escape the tradition of the old, vast, and heavy system of Christianity? In the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens in Matthew 5 through 7, the first blessing is the blessing of being poor in spirit (5:3). To be poor in spirit is to be emptied in our spirit, in the depth of our being, not holding on to the old things of the old dispensation but unloaded to receive the new things, the things of the kingdom of the heavens. To the Jews to be poor in spirit meant to empty out all the old knowledge of the Jewish religion, all the old knowledge concerning Moses, concerning Elijah, and concerning the Old Testament temple, priesthood, offerings, etc. Everyone who was born as a Jew knew a lot. Then something new came embodied in this one person, Jesus. He told us that if we are going to be blessed with the kingdom of the heavens, we first have to empty ourselves in our spirit. We need to unload whatever we have in our spirit. Then we will be empty, and the Spirit of reality can come in to unveil the things concerning this wonderful person, Christ, in an absolutely new way.
During Jesus’ time on the earth, Judaism occupied the Jews and filled them up. In the same way today, Christianity is an old religion that has occupied us and is still filling us up. Whenever we talk about the things concerning God, we have many opinions, concepts, and views that are mostly according to tradition. When we talk about how to meet, we may have the concept that we need to be reverent and exercise a certain amount of fear toward God. Even the architecture of the cathedrals built in the Middle Ages — with the steep roofs, stained-glass windows, and dark, dim atmosphere — was for creating fear toward God. In such places the people sit in pews, and in the Catholic cathedrals there are places to kneel down. This is the concept of worshipping God in Christianity.
In John 4, however, the Lord Jesus revealed that the way to worship God is to drink God as the living water (vv. 14, 24). Furthermore, the New Testament reveals the Lord’s table as the very central worship that we render toward our Triune God. When the Lord established the table, did He tell us to kneel or to prostrate ourselves? What He told us to do was to take and eat the bread, which signifies the body He gave for us. He said to do this in remembrance of Him (1 Cor. 11:23-24). To worship the Lord, to remember Him, is to receive Him into us by eating Him. To remember Him is to eat Him, to masticate Him (John 6:57). To eat the Lord Jesus is to receive Him into us to be assimilated by the regenerated new man in the way of life. This is a new thought concerning the worship that we render to the processed Triune God according to the New Testament economy of God. Instead of this new thought, the natural thought of worshipping God, in principle, is within us.
Thus far, after about nineteen centuries of church history, the Lord has not gained His heart’s desire. We know that He wants to have a group of people to be His organic members. This means that we have to meet organically, serve organically, function organically, and preach the gospel organically. We should not preach the gospel as mere preachers but as priests. All the preachers of the gospel of God should function as priests. Priests are not common people. If we are going to carry out God’s ordained way of preaching the gospel by visiting people, we have to learn to do it as priests. A priest is a person who bears four particular characteristics: he bears God’s image to express God, he has God’s dominion to represent God, he exercises his spirit to contact and receive God, and he receives God as the tree of life to live God. A priest is a person who is so close to God and according to God’s heart. As priests, we are in God and God is in us, so we are one with God. We can go to people with God, bringing God to people. The priestly preaching of the gospel brings God to people and brings people back to God. A priest is also a person who knows God’s heart, God’s will, God’s plan, and God’s eternal purpose. He is one who can teach people and tell people about God, about what God wants, and about what a man should be before God. This is a priest preaching the gospel, and this priesthood is not just our profession but our life.
In the Old Testament the serving by the priests was their daily life. What they ate, how they dressed, and where they lived were part of their priestly service. Their living of the priesthood was their job, their business. A priest serves God by bringing God to man and bringing man back to God. This is the priests’ daily life and also their daily job. Today the New Testament believers are all New Testament priests. As such priests, they should always live a life of being one with God to bring God to man and to bring man back to God. Their living becomes their ministry, their work.
This is why I was so deeply impressed when the Lord showed me Romans 15:16. This verse shows that Paul preached the gospel as a laboring priest of God. He was God’s priest to carry out God’s gospel. He was not carrying out the priesthood in a light way. He was a laboring priest, a ministering priest. In the Old Testament, God wanted the types of Christ offered to Him. Therefore, the priests daily offered all kinds of sacrifices typifying Christ to God. In the New Testament, God wants the New Testament priests to offer saved sinners to Him as parts of the corporate Christ. All the sinners that we bring to God become Christ’s members, parts of the enlarged and corporate Christ. The Old Testament priests offered the types of Christ, but the New Testament priests offer the parts of Christ. In Colossians 1:28 and 29 Paul says that he announced Christ, admonishing and teaching every man in all wisdom to present every man to God full-grown in Christ. This shows that Paul eventually offered the saved sinners to God full-grown in Christ, as parts of Christ. This is what we should do as priests of the gospel.
What is revealed in the New Testament concerning the preaching of the gospel is not shallow. All those who preach the gospel must do so as priests. These priests bring God to people and bring people back to God. They offer these people to God as spiritual sacrifices, as parts of the enlarged, corporate Christ. This is what Romans 15:16 reveals.
First Peter 2:5 and 9 show that Peter had the same thought as Paul. Peter says here that we are living stones being built up as a spiritual house, and this built-up spiritual house is the priesthood. The priesthood in these verses refers not to the priestly service but to the priestly body. This is a group of priests built together to be a “hood,” a body. This priesthood tells out the virtues of the One who called them out of darkness into His marvelous light. To preach the gospel is to tell out God’s virtues. By His virtues we have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light. This was our enjoyment of God Himself as our salvation. Some of His virtues are love, kindness, and mercy. Through God’s virtues we were saved in a subjective way, being brought out of darkness into His marvelous light. To tell out these virtues is to bring God to people. If we merely tell people that we are bringing God to them, they may not realize what we are talking about. This is why we must live a life of telling out God’s love and mercy to us and of telling out His forgiveness of our sins. We must live such a life. Then we go to people to bring such a God in all His virtues to them.
When we go to preach the gospel to people, we must exercise our priesthood. We are priests handling God’s gospel, which includes everything from the incarnation of the Triune God to the New Jerusalem. We must serve God as priests by handling the entire gospel of God. As priests of the gospel of God, we should first get sinners regenerated. Then as nursing mothers we should nourish and cherish these new ones. We have to nourish and cherish them with the word in the Spirit, ministering life to them. We need to nourish them with the milk of the word. By doing this we help them to grow. Then we can bring them into group meetings so that they can be perfected. This fellowship should show us that whatever is revealed in the New Testament concerning how to serve is altogether different from our natural concept.
When the Lord’s recovery began among us, we gathered from Brother Nee all the studies he had accumulated from church history concerning the New Testament way of Christian service. We practiced what we saw from the New Testament. Then because of the Lord’s mercy, we gradually found out that what we were practicing was not so complete. We had many deficiencies. Brother Nee started to restudy the Bible beginning in 1931 for the purpose of seeing more concerning how to meet, how to serve, how to function, and how to preach the gospel. In recent years, especially in the last four and a half years, I have also studied the Word concerning these matters. Today I believe that we are here with the result of all our study. We have studied the New Testament book by book, chapter by chapter, and verse by verse. We cannot find any more verses concerning how to meet, how to serve, how to function, and how to preach. We have nearly exhausted the study of the New Testament concerning the scriptural way of Christian service. If we are wise and would receive the Lord’s mercy, we will see that this is what the Lord wants to do today. This is strategic. This move of the Lord is like a tide.
We must also realize that the goal of the opposition today is twofold: to oppose the God-ordained way and to smear, to put down, and to put aside my ministry. Dear saints, suppose that today we put the God-ordained way aside and we put this ministry aside. What is left here today if we do this? If we reject the God-ordained way, we have no way to go on. I know that if I do not take this way, my ministry will stop. The Lord showed me this ordained way. If I would not take it or pass it on to the saints, I am finished in the ministry. I have nothing to say. The speaking of God stops in me. I want to convince you to not drop this way or reject this way. I love all of you because you love the Lord and the truth. You have sacrificed a lot to take this way. But I am a little concerned that you might be somewhat influenced to be hesitant about taking the God-ordained way. We must be like the wise merchant mentioned in Matthew 13 who sold all that he had to buy the pearl of great value.
When we practice the priestly preaching of the gospel, we are not carrying it out as we did in the past. We need to drop the old way of preaching the gospel. We should not preach in the old way, which is the natural way. We need to preach in the spiritual way. First, we have to know what a priest is and how we can be proper priests. A priest must be one who lives a daily life of revival. He is revived by the Lord every morning, and he participates in and enjoys the Lord’s victory every day. We need to be revived in the morning and victorious and overcoming during the day. We also need to help the saints become this kind of revived, overcoming person. This is the daily life of a priest.
Then we have to realize that the priesthood is for the gospel of God. The first item to practice in the priesthood of the gospel is to visit sinners to get them saved. We need to bring the gospel to them so that they can be regenerated to become parts of Christ. In our old way we had big gospel meetings and invited people to come to us. These meetings were with one person speaking and the rest listening. Most of us were just the helpers, the Levitical serving ones, who served one great priest, a gifted evangelist. That is the old way, but the God-ordained way is not like this. In the God-ordained way every believer is a priest of the gospel, going to people with the gospel. The gospel is just God Himself. We go to people to bring God to them and to bring them back to God. After we baptize them, we need to sit down with them to converse with them. We should not use vain words, nor should we use too many verses from the Bible. We can use a few verses to impress these new ones that today Christ is the Spirit and that now they have Christ within them, in their spirit. We need to learn this new way.
In principle, every New Testament believer must be “crazy,” ecstatic. This is according to the teaching of the New Testament. Ephesians 5 charges us to be filled in our spirit with the Triune God as the life-giving Spirit. Colossians 3 tells us that we need to be filled with the word of Christ. We have to be filled with these two elements every day. Both Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 say that since we are so full, we will sing and speak in psalms (long poems), hymns (shorter ones), and spiritual songs (the shortest). When we are filled with the word and the Spirit, we are “crazy.” It is similar to how a person would feel if he just won a prize of ten million dollars. He would be ecstatic, “crazy.” Such a person is different from a formal, religious preacher. In the traditional and religious way of worship, there is no ecstasy, no “craziness,” no Spirit, and no word. In this old way the Spirit is “in the heavens” and the word is in the Bible, but they are not in us. When these two factors — the Spirit and the word — are within us, they make us crazy. We become like an “electrical toy.” When the electricity is turned on, the electrical toy becomes “crazy” with electricity. We all need to be crazy people who are electrified by the Spirit and the word.
When we go to the home of some new believers in this way to have a home meeting with them, we are full of joy. We will be saying, “Amen! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!” When we get there, we will be singing. The new ones may hear us singing outside their door. When we come in, they can join us. Thus, the home meeting starts before we arrive at their house. With those who have recently been baptized, we should use the time to impress them that the Lord Jesus is in them. We need to strengthen their understanding of the Lord’s presence within them.
In a home meeting, the wife may ask a question concerning a statue of Buddha in her home. She may say, “Before I was baptized two weeks ago, I was happy whenever I saw that statue. Now I am not happy. What is this?” Then we may respond, “You feel this way because that is an idol, and the devil is involved with it. He is the enemy of Jesus.” Then her husband may ask, “Is this true?” We may say, “Surely it’s true. We didn’t have a chance to tell you this.” Then the husband would make the decision to smash this idol into pieces, and we would encourage him to do so right away. This is an example of what it means to nourish and cherish our spiritual children. Eventually, we can lead the new believers to go with us to another home for a group meeting.
The ecstatic way, the “crazy” way, will always make people happy. It always cherishes people. The God-ordained way revealed in the Bible saves us from any formality and religious background. But we have to be filled up. We should not go out with a “flat tire.” All our “four tires” must be full of air. We need to be like a ball full of air. If someone touches us, we will “bounce” over them.
Now we need to consider how to have the group meetings. As we have said, we Christians should be “crazy” all the time. We should be “crazy” with the Lord, filled up with His Spirit and His word. Then we will attend any meeting in a “crazy” way. We should not go to a meeting like a “flat tire,” without being filled with the Spirit and the word. We need to have a new revival every morning so that we can be revived persons. Then we need to continue to exercise our spirit to be overcoming and victorious every day. We need to attend every meeting as revived persons.
The meeting should actually start before we leave our home. We should go to the group gathering singing and praying. While we are on the way to meet with the saints, we may sing, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah! / I have passed the riven veil, / Here the glories never fail” (Hymns, #551). When we arrive at the meeting place, what shall we do? According to our old way, we would sit there in silence and wait for the meeting to begin. But the “crazy way” is not like that. We should start the meeting in our home, singing and praying in the car on the way. When we come into the meeting place, we should continue to pray. When others come, they can join our prayer.
After the prayer someone may share that a certain brother lost his job today. This is fellowship. Then there can be some prayer for this brother. The fellowship brings in the interceding, the interceding brings in the mutual care, and the mutual care brings in the practical shepherding. After praying for the brother who lost his job, someone may ask what his profession is. Then another brother may say that his company needs such a person. This is an example of mutual care and shepherding. We have to practice this. This will make everyone living. Everyone feels free and has the boldness to share something.
Following this fellowship and interceding, questions will be asked. No one should be assigned to answer these questions. Everyone should answer them. Someone may ask what the cross is, and a young brother who was saved just three weeks ago can answer this question. He may say, “Formerly, I did not know what the cross was. But just recently a brother told me that it was a means used by the Roman government to put to death the worst criminals.” His answer is a short teaching. Another brother may continue by saying, “The cross was where the Lord Jesus was crucified. He was crucified there on behalf of us to take away our sins.” Then he may read one verse referring to this. Another brother may say, “When the Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross, He was crucified not only for our sins but also for us.” He would also give a verse to support what he has shared. Another brother can add something more by saying, “Today we have to experience the cross of the Lord Jesus. We can experience the cross by applying the death of Christ on the cross to our situation. When we are about to lose our temper, we need to call on the Lord. This brings us into the death of Christ in the Spirit.” This brother may then continue to share something further concerning the experience of the cross of Christ.
A number of questions may be asked in the group meeting. Some will be concerning the truth, and others will be concerning life. In this way there will be the mutual teaching of the truth and the experience of life. This does not mean that we do not need books to help us. We still need the help from books such as Truth Lessons and Life Lessons. In our fellowship with the new ones, we can tell them that it is best to have books like these in our homes so that we can study a part of a lesson when we want to learn something concerning the truth or life. Then when we are in the group meeting, we can refer to these books when we answer something. We can tell the new ones that they can read more concerning a certain truth at home in their spare time. When we take this way, the answers to the questions in the group meeting will become very rich. This way gives the opportunities to every attendant to use their knowledge and their experience to answer questions. If a new believer is brought into a group meeting, and he attends over forty-five group meetings a year, he will learn much truth. All of us start the meeting in our homes, and everyone in the meeting is a leader and a teacher.
The scriptural basis for the group meetings is in Hebrews 10:24 and 25. When Paul wrote this, he was talking to the Hebrew brothers and telling them not to abandon their own meeting, their Christian meeting. This is because some of the Jewish brothers had left their Christian meeting and had gone back to their Judaistic gathering. In our present situation we need to have a meeting that is our own meeting. We should not forsake our own meeting. We must help all the saints to realize that the group meeting is their own meeting.
The group meeting is a meeting of mutuality in which all the saints participate. Everyone can start the meeting in his home, everyone can fellowship, everyone can intercede, and everyone can render the mutual care and the shepherding. In this way everyone in the group will be exercised to shepherd one another. It is impossible for a few elders to shepherd all the saints in the church. But if the church is divided into group meetings, all the saints will shepherd one another. The group meetings are so easy and so delightful. There is no hardship or any heavy burden on anyone. If someone were charged to be the leader of a group meeting, he would have to prepare a teaching to give, and he would be overburdened. But in the organic way, no one is overburdened. Everyone is ecstatic. When a question is raised, we can all answer, listen, and learn.
Hebrews 10:24 says that we should incite one another to love and good works. It is by this “free way,” the organic way, of having group meetings that we can incite one another. In this way there is no limitation, no assignment, and no designation. The meeting is left open to everyone. All the riches of the attending members will come out in the group meetings, and these are the riches of the Body of Christ.
If a certain brother were charged to take care of a group meeting, probably very few of the saints in the group would pray for that meeting. They would not bear the burden for the meeting, because they know that a brother has been assigned to care for it. If this brother has some helpers assigned to him, they may not even help to bear the burden, because they know that this brother is bearing the main responsibility. This brother has to consider what kind of lesson he should give. He has to pray to get a subject from the Bible with the help of books like Truth Lessons or Life Lessons. Sometimes such a teacher would be exhausted. He may not know what lesson to choose, what lesson is applicable at that time. When we take the God-ordained way of meeting, however, we leave this matter to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit knows what to cover, and He can be one with the attendants in the meeting to raise the appropriate questions. In one meeting many questions can be asked and properly answered. In the old way the riches within only one brother are dug out, but in the God-ordained way everyone has an opportunity to pour out his riches. These are the riches of the Body of Christ. This kind of mutual teaching incites us to love and good works. This is the ecstatic, joyful way to have a group meeting. No one is overburdened, because we all bear the burden.
The group meeting gives everyone the chance to speak. Spontaneously, everyone will participate in the speaking. Humanly speaking, no one can learn a language unless they practice speaking it. By the saints practicing to speak in the group meetings, everyone will learn how to prophesy. It is also profitable for some brothers to act as tutors in helping the saints to prophesy. Perhaps there is a new one among us who has been saved for only six months. A brother who is functioning as a tutor can encourage this new one by telling him not only to speak by answering questions in the group meeting but also to go to the Lord’s Day meeting of the church to speak, to prophesy. He can tell this new brother to enlarge and uplift what he has been speaking in the group meeting for a prophecy in the Lord’s Day meeting. His speaking will be prophesying with the riches of his experience of Christ or with the riches of his knowledge concerning Christ.
When we prophesy in the larger meetings of the church, we should not speak too long. Each one should prophesy for no longer than three minutes. The brothers who are tutors can observe the saints who prophesy and help them by coaching them. They can take some time with the saints after the meeting on the Lord’s Day to give them some helpful adjustments. This is like a coach teaching the players. One thing that we need to remember for all our meetings is that we need to be “crazy” with and in the Spirit and the word.
I would like to say a word to the elders. In our locality we should not do anything in haste. At the present time some of the saints may not feel good about changing our way of meeting from one person speaking to a meeting of mutuality with all prophesying. They may be concerned that nothing will come out if we begin to meet in mutuality and that this will result in a drop in attendance. We need to consider the situation of the saints in our locality. We have to fellowship with the saints who are concerned and with the whole church. We also have to help the prophesying in the larger church meetings. The elders need to do a supporting work. If the church is having a prophesying meeting and nothing substantial comes out in forty minutes, the elders need to take the last fifteen minutes to speak a word to the saints. When we first begin to take the way of meeting in mutuality, this may be needed. A word from the leading ones in the final fifteen minutes will fill in the gap. The elders should exercise to be very flexible in bringing the church into this God-ordained way of meeting. As long as we have a will, there is a way. We have the Bible and many spiritual books that open up the Bible. These can help us to get ourselves prepared to give a word full of the riches of Christ. In some meetings there may be no need for the elders to supply something special to support the meeting. But when we begin to take this way of meeting, the elders and certain gifted ones need to get themselves prepared and need to be on the alert to supply a word full of the riches of Christ if the meeting is empty. This God-ordained way will open up the mine for the riches of Christ to be released.
Every group meeting is a digging meeting, and every district meeting, the larger meeting of the church, is a meeting to exhibit, to display, the riches. If we have fifty meeting together on the Lord’s Day, I believe five will be very rich. They will always have some riches in their pocket. If the others in the meeting do something to support and to supply the meeting, that is sufficient. If they do not, some of the rich ones can function to make up the lack. Therefore, no meeting will be empty.
It would be very difficult for other Christian groups to take the way of all speaking in mutuality. The Bible has not been opened up among them, and they have very few books to help them get into the riches of the Bible. But with us it is different. Many of the brothers and sisters in the recovery have the riches of Christ, and they have the capacity to release these riches for the building up of the Body. They need to be given the opportunity to practice to release their riches. If we will be faithful to take the Lord’s ordained way, I believe that all the local churches will be brought on the right track within ten years. By that time the “custom” of the new way will be built up in the Lord’s recovery.
Furthermore, we should not despise anyone or any church if they do not fully practice the ordained way. Criticism and gossip obviously are absolutely not from the Spirit. Whether a brother or sister takes this way or not, they are still in the hand of the Lord. Whether a church takes this way or not should be left to the Lord. All the churches and all the saints are members of the Body of Christ in the recovery. Whether someone takes this way or not should not concern us. But since we have seen something, we should be faithful to practice what we have seen.
We must also realize that the gifted persons have to perfect the saints. The best way and the best place to perfect the saints is in the group meetings. If you are a gifted person, you should go to a group meeting to perfect the saints in that group. When you are with them, you can observe them and get to know everyone’s condition. Then you can not only perfect them in the meetings but also perfect them outside the meetings by going to be with them. Paul said in Acts 20 that he taught the saints publicly and from house to house (v. 20) and that he admonished each one with tears (v. 31). He taught the saints not only in the big meetings but also in the homes and one by one. This is a detailed, fine work. It takes much labor and time. If I am a person who has the portion, the capacity, and the gift to perfect the saints, I should attend a group meeting all the time. As everyone speaks in the group meeting, I will get to know their real situation. Then I can go to their homes to spend personal time with them. Perhaps I could visit one person each week to have a direct talk with each one of them. This is for the purpose of promoting each one’s gifts, to develop his capacity, and to enrich his speaking. We can render much tutoring by this one-on-one contact. In this way the saints will be perfected face to face by some of the gifted persons. This labor will not be in vain because some saints will be perfected. Eventually, the saints will be perfected to do what the gifted persons do. Furthermore, the gifted persons will produce gifted persons.
In the old way there was not such a result, because the way was wrong. In this producing way we all learn to do something and to share something, and we will fully use our capacity to function. Then the riches of Christ will come out of every member of His Body. We will perfect one another, and everyone will be perfected. It may be that in a five-year period, we will perfect someone. But after this he will perfect us because he has learned more. By this God-ordained way everyone will be perfected, everyone will be useful, and everyone will have the development of his capacity in the divine life. Every saint will be occupied, and no time, energy, or persons will be wasted. The numbers will increase, and the life and spiritual knowledge will grow. We need to cooperate with our Lord to take His ordained way to organically build up the Body of Christ.
