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In this chapter we want to see the organic way to care for the church as the organic Body of Christ. The spiritual things in the divine revelation are very mysterious, so God uses physical things as symbols and figures to help us see them. In Ephesians 3:4 the church is called the mystery of Christ. Furthermore, Colossians 2:2 says that Christ is the mystery of God. God is a mystery. If we are going to know God, we have to know Christ. Christ Himself is also a mystery. If we are going to know Christ, we have to know the church. God is a mystery, Christ is a mystery, and the church is a mystery. If the church were an organization, it would not be a mystery. What can give us a definition, an understanding, and an apprehension of this mystery? In the Bible God uses our human body as a figure and as a picture of the church (Rom. 12:4-5). Because the spiritual things are mysterious, pictures are needed to describe them. A picture is better than a thousand words. This is why the New Testament uses our human body to illustrate the church as the mystery of Christ.
If we want to know how to take care of the church as the organic Body of Christ, we have to consider how we take care of our physical body. Surely we do not take care of our physical body in an organizational way. Let us come back to the New Testament to see what it says concerning the organic care for the Body of Christ. Ephesians 5:29 says, “No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ also the church.” Just as we nourish and cherish our physical body, Christ nourishes and cherishes the church. A person loves his physical body by nourishing and cherishing it.
Some have asked me why I am so healthy at my age and why I have lived so long. The first thing I exercise to do is to eat the proper things and to eat well. We should not eat roughly or quickly, nor should we eat when we are angry. We have to learn to eat the right thing by the right way. This is what it means to nourish and cherish our body. We have to nourish and cherish our body in order to live. Every day we nourish our body with at least three meals.
Eating nourishes us, but eating the wrong thing in the wrong way can also kill us. Alexander the Great died when he was thirty-three because of overeating and overdrinking. The proper eating nourishes, but improper eating can gradually kill us. To eat roughly and wrongly is a kind of gradual suicide. Long life, of course, is a gift from the Lord. The length of our life is up to Him, but we still must cooperate with Him. During my life the Lord allowed me to have certain illnesses. These illnesses taught me a lot. By being ill, I learned how to keep myself healthy. We all have to learn how to nourish the church in a proper way to keep the church healthy. We should not try to govern the church. This is organization. To nourish the church is organic.
To cherish the church is also an organic matter. The word cherish is hard to explain. The footnote on Ephesians 5:29 in the Recovery Version says, “To cherish is to nurture us with tender love and foster us with tender care, outwardly softening us through tender warmth that we may have soothing, comfortable rest inwardly. This is the way Christ cares for the church, His Body.” We may illustrate what the word cherish means by the relationship between a mother and her little child. When a mother puts the little child in her bosom, she is cherishing the child. She is warming the child up, comforting the child, and making the child happy. Many times the mother will feed the child while the child is in her bosom. That little child in his mother’s bosom receives everything. He is given a room, a bed, food, drink, and comfort. The mother also rocks him to make him happy. I believe that all this is included in the word cherish. To nourish is to feed, but the mother putting the child in her bosom is not merely feeding; it is the mother affording everything to the child. This is the way that Christ takes care of His Body.
We should take care of the Body in the same way. In our care for the church, there should be no condemning, rebuking, or criticizing. Instead, there should be nourishing and cherishing. To nourish and to cherish are altogether matters in life. They are organic. To control, to rebuke, to condemn, and to criticize are altogether organizational. I still remember what I shared in 1976 when we were on the life-study of Matthew. When we were covering Matthew 20 and 23, I exhorted the elders not to control the churches. The Lord Jesus told us that we are all brothers on the same level (23:8). He is the unique Lord and Instructor among us (v. 10). Once a brother becomes an elder, he is a slave to the saints in a church, and his wife becomes the wife of a slave. The eldership is not a matter of a position in a hierarchical sense. That is altogether organizational.
Then we may ask, “Who should appoint the elders?” The New Testament shows us that the apostles who establish the churches should appoint elders (Acts 14:23; Titus 1:5). Some have said that after the apostles appoint elders in a church, the apostles should keep their hands off the church, leaving it to the elders. These people have said that the apostles have no right to touch or to interfere with the things concerning the church.
Brother Nee’s word concerning this matter in The Normal Christian Church Life was misused by some. In 1948, eleven years after he first shared the messages in The Normal Christian Church Life, he released the messages contained in the book entitled Church Affairs. In this book he mentions clearly that some brothers misunderstood his word in The Normal Christian Church Life. In chapter 9 of Church Affairs he says, “After the meeting in Hangkow, some brothers misunderstood. They thought that though the elders are appointed by the apostles, they did not have to listen to the apostles. This is impossible.” The strongest proof of this is in Acts 20. While the apostle Paul was on his journey, he still had the burden to take care of the church in Ephesus, and he called for the elders of the church to come to him (v. 17). His word to them was not just a teaching but a charge (vv. 18-35). This shows that the apostle had an organic relationship with the churches he established.
Negative things can arise among us because we do not see that the church is organic. If the church is organic, the church does not need to be controlled. Our physical body, strictly speaking, does not need any control. Our body needs to be nourished and cherished. Even an older brother like me needs to be cherished and comforted. This is why I asked at the beginning of this meeting if there was any fellowship and any comfort. This is not my word but my quotation of Paul’s word in Philippians. The apostle appealed to the Philippians for their encouragement and consolation. He begged them to make his joy full if they had any encouragement in Christ, any consolation of love, any fellowship of spirit, any tenderheartedness and compassions toward him (2:1-2). Today I need your encouragement, your consolation, your tenderheartedness, your compassion, and your fellowship to make my joy full.
The day before yesterday many saints went to the airport to greet me. I thought that the brothers arranged this, but I was told that they all went to the airport to meet me spontaneously. In the past year especially, I have been under the attack of the enemy. When I came here to Cleveland and saw you all, I was consoled. I am not a weeping person, but if I were, I surely would have wept when I saw you. Your warm welcome at the airport was an encouragement, a consolation, and a fellowship of spirit to me. This was also your tenderheartedness and compassions toward me to make me joyful. All these things are included in being cherished. When you went to the airport to greet me, you cherished me. You “put me into your bosom.”
All of us need the cherishing. Even the apostle Paul needed this kind of cherishing. I am glad to see so many leading ones gathered together for this fellowship. This is an encouragement to me. The Lord in His mercy and grace has put you into your present responsibility. I hope that we all would learn not to control. Instead, we should learn to nourish and cherish the saints.
In Peter’s first Epistle he speaks to his fellow elders. Peter was an elder in Jerusalem. He charges the elders to shepherd the flock of God (5:1-2). The word shepherd nearly equals the two words nourish and cherish. A good shepherd always loves the flock, and the flock eventually loves this shepherd. They know each other intimately. To shepherd is not to control. In John 21 the Lord asked Peter, “Do you love Me?” Then He indicated that if Peter loved Him, he would feed His sheep and shepherd His sheep (vv. 15-17). The Lord Jesus spoke this to show how we should take care of the church. We should be those who are one with Him to feed, shepherd, nourish, and cherish the church. This is the organic way to care for the church.
The leading ones’ care for the church is not an organizational matter. The church is not an organization. The church is God’s family, God’s household (Eph. 2:19; Gal. 6:10). All the elders should be the nourishing mothers and the teaching fathers (1 Thes. 2:7, 11). This is the way to take care of the church. It is altogether an organic matter, not organizational. The term elder also indicates something organic, something of life. An elder is a person who is mature in life.
To see more concerning the organic service in the Body of Christ, let us read 1 Corinthians 12:28: “God has placed some in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then works of power, then gifts of healing, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.” Administrations refers to the eldership in the church. Helps refers to the services of the deacons and deaconesses (1 Tim. 3:8-13). Administrations and helps are listed with apostles, with prophets, with teachers, and with works of power, healing, and tongues. This proves that both the helps by the deacons and the administration by the elders are not organizational. They are from the Spirit.
Now we need to read 1 Corinthians 12:4-7: “But there are distinctions of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are distinctions of ministries, yet the same Lord; and there are distinctions of operations, but the same God, who operates all things in all. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for what is profitable.” The word distinctions in these verses can also be translated as distributions. These verses are a summary and a governing word of the whole chapter. Of course, they govern verse 28, which lists administrations and helps.
According to our natural thought, the government of the church has nothing to do with the distribution of gifts by the Spirit. But 1 Corinthians 12 tells us clearly that even the service of the deacons as helps and the function of the elders as administrations are distributions of gifts by the Spirit. This has to be something of the Spirit organically, not something of organization. Many years ago I considered that the administration by the elders was not a gift from the Spirit, but later I received the light to see that it is a gift from the Spirit. Since this is the case, it has to be organic.
The spiritual gifts are of two categories — the miraculous gifts and the gifts of life given according to grace. Romans 12:6 speaks of the gifts of life given according to grace. These gifts are the issue of the development of our spiritual function in the spiritual life. In 1 Corinthians 12:28 Paul puts the gifts of life and the miraculous gifts together. Helps and administrations are gifts of life. Since they are gifts, they are something of the Spirit, and they are organic.
In Romans 12:8 Paul refers to taking the lead as a gift according to grace. This refers to the elders in the church. To lead in the church is to administrate. We may consider that the administration of the church is not of any gift, not of life, or not of the Spirit. We may think that it is altogether a positional, organizational matter. But Romans 12 tells us that to lead, to administrate, to function as an elder in the church, is one of the gifts given according to grace. This indicates that the leading of the elders is organic. It is by life and not organizational. These three words — eldership, administration, and lead — are misunderstood by Christians as something organizational. After much study of the Word, we can see that they are not organizational; they are organic.
In the Lord’s ministry as depicted in the four Gospels, we cannot see anything organizational. The Lord did not organize anything. He appointed the twelve apostles, but before He died, He did not make any arrangement for His successors. He did not tell the disciples that after He died, Peter would be first, and John would be second. In other words, He did not tell them that Peter would be the president and that John would be the vice president. There was not such an organizational arrangement.
After He was resurrected, He did not come back to the disciples to make any organizational arrangement. Instead, He said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20). This was His “will” to His disciples before His departure. He told the disciples to go and disciple the nations by baptizing them into the Triune God and by teaching them what He had taught the disciples.
The Lord Jesus’ teaching in the four Gospels became the first part of the apostles’ teaching. Then Acts records that Peter taught the new believers based upon the Lord Jesus’ teaching. That became the second part of the apostles’ teaching. Then following Peter, Paul taught, and his teaching became the third part of the apostles’ teaching. John taught in his Gospel, in his Epistles, and in Revelation, and some others wrote some Epistles in the New Testament. All these writings became the last part of the apostles’ teaching. All these parts of the apostles’ teaching are the contents of the New Testament, which is concerning God’s New Testament economy.
In the Lord Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels, there was no organization. Later, in the book of Acts we see one hundred twenty Galileans organically meeting together (1:14-15). They were living by the Spirit who had been breathed into them on the day of resurrection (John 20:22). Where were those whom the Lord Jesus had saved in Jerusalem and in Judea? All the one hundred twenty came from Galilee. They came together organically, without any organizational arrangement. If the Lord Jesus had organized something, the disciples might have insisted that Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and others from Jerusalem and Judea join them, but there was no organizing. They met together in an organic way. They lived by the Spirit as the breath that had been breathed into them on the day of resurrection.
In the book of Acts, Peter and Paul did not organize anything. The appointment of the seven deacons in Acts 6 was not organizational; it was organic. The apostles said that they should not forsake the ministry of the word to serve tables. They told the disciples, “Look for seven well-attested men from among you, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint over this need. But we will continue steadfastly in prayer and in the ministry of the word” (vv. 3-4). These seven men were full of the Spirit and of wisdom. This does not refer to anything of organization. This refers to life and to the Spirit, indicating that this appointment was altogether organic. This was an organic arrangement. Some may feel that any kind of arrangement must be a kind of organization. Then I would say that this was an “organic organization.” The service of these deacons was organized according to life. Their appointment was organic.
To interpret the Bible properly is not an easy thing. Many have their own interpretation of what the Bible says, but we need the proper interpretation. We need the proper study of the Word and the proper understanding of the Word. Paul charged Timothy to be a person who cut straight the word of the truth (2 Tim. 2:15). This is like the cutting of wood in carpentry. We have to learn how to cut straight the word of the truth properly without bias. This is to unfold the word of God in its various parts rightly and straightly without distortion.
We need to see from the proper interpretation of the holy Word that there was no organization with the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus. In Acts there was no organization either. Acts 14:23 says that Paul appointed elders in the churches that he had established. There is no record, though, of how the elders in the church in Jerusalem were produced. Maybe the twelve became the spontaneous elders there because they initiated the church life, but there is no definite record of this. The first definite record of the appointment of the elders is in Acts 14:23.
After Paul appointed these elders, he returned to Antioch. Acts 15 then tells us of the big problem concerning the heresy of those who said that circumcision was required in order for one to be saved. Paul, Barnabas, and others went to Jerusalem, and this problem was solved. After coming back to Antioch, Paul proposed to his co-worker Barnabas that they return to visit the brothers in every city in which they announced the word of the Lord, and see how they were doing (v. 36). This was just a short time after the appointment of the elders in these cities. These churches and their elders were new and young. Thus, Paul had a sincere concern for them. After the appointment of these elders, Paul went back to take care of them. This shows that it is wrong to say that after the appointment of the elders by the apostles, the apostles should keep their hands off the church, leaving the church absolutely in the hands of the elders.
The apostle Paul went back personally to visit the churches that he had established. As we have seen, he had a concern for the church in Ephesus, and he called for the elders there to come to him. He charged the elders concerning what to do. He also wrote letters to the churches, such as his letter to the church in Corinth. When he could not go to Rome, he wrote a letter to the Romans. He wrote a number of letters to different churches to take care of them, even after the appointment of the elders. This shows that the apostles never gave up the churches.
The New Testament leadership in the Gospels was a person. That person was the Lord Jesus Himself. But from Acts to Revelation the unique New Testament leadership became the teaching of the apostles. Thus, neither Peter nor Paul controlled any church, but their teaching controlled. We can see this in 1 Timothy, where Paul exhorted Timothy to remain in Ephesus in order that he might charge certain ones not to teach different things other than the economy of God (1:3-4). Different teachings are teachings that are different from the apostles’ teaching concerning God’s economy. This teaching is the unique leadership.
The apostles’ teaching is our constitution that governs us. Peter and Paul did not govern the churches. It is the teaching of the apostles, the teaching concerning God’s economy, that governs. John says that if anyone goes beyond the teaching concerning Christ, the New Testament teaching concerning Christ’s person and redemptive work, we should not even greet this one (2 John 9-11). Such a person is a heretic who denies the divine conception and deity of Christ, as today’s modernists do. According to John’s word, we should not have any contact with such an evil person. All of this proves that the governing leadership, after the time of the Lord Jesus, is not a person but the teaching of the New Testament.
With the Lord Jesus and with the early apostles there was no organization. Soon after the time of the early apostles, however, the wrong teaching of Ignatius brought in the human thought of organization. Ignatius said that the overseers, or bishops, are higher than the elders. In other words, the elders are local, and the overseers are regional. But Acts 20 shows that the overseers are the elders. Paul called the elders to come to him, and he told them that the Spirit had placed them as overseers (vv. 17, 28). The overseers and the elders are the same persons, not two different classes of people.
History tells us that Ignatius was a very good brother, but he made a big mistake by introducing the wrong concept of overseers, or bishops, being above elders. He brought in the thought of organization, which ruins the church. His erroneous teaching eventually issued in the Catholic Church, a religious organization according to a hierarchical system of bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and the pope. The erroneous teaching of Ignatius was also the source of the episcopal system of ecclesiastical government. The state churches and the private churches in Christianity have also adopted certain aspects of an organizational system of control. This is to follow the customs of society. Because we were raised up in Christianity and influenced by the practice of Christianity, we may understand the appointment of the elders in an organizational way. We need the light to see that even the appointment of the elders is organic.
It is only when the church has degraded and deviated from the line of life that organization is needed. If the elders take the lead in an organizational way, this indicates that the church has degraded. If the elders live in the spirit by life to nourish, cherish, and shepherd the church, they are not organizational but organic. When a local church is organic, all the serving ones serve organically.
A brother who is a deacon may say that he serves merely because he was appointed and has no choice. This is organizational. If we ask another brother why he serves, he may say, “Praise the Lord! The Lord is within me. He leads me and burdens me to love Him, and I like to serve the saints. I do not care whether I was appointed to be a deacon or not. Even if the church did not appoint me, I would still like to serve more.” This brother’s service is organic. To be in the realm of organization is to be in degradation.
The wrong teaching about the apostles keeping their hands off the church after their appointing of the elders is a degradation into organization. Brother Nee appointed the elders in Shanghai, and he still remained there to help the church and the other churches until he was imprisoned. There was no argument in the Lord’s recovery organizationally, because we practiced the church administration organically, altogether in life.
All the elders should nourish, cherish, and shepherd the church, but they still need the gifts, such as the apostles, prophets, and evangelists, to come periodically to help them. What if the elders in a certain locality reject an apostle? To merely assert his position as an apostle in an outward way would be organizational. He must deal with them and help them in an organic way. He may express his attitude in the following way: “I have appointed you as elders. Even if you now reject me, I still love you. I still love the church. I will still speak the word of God to you and do my best to help the church and heal you.” This is organic.
We need to come out of all the human, worldly, and organizational ways of Christianity. For over sixty-six years, starting with Brother Nee, we have followed the Bible organically. This is why we say that the elders should not control the churches. We have the burden to help the elders shepherd the church, nourish the church, and cherish the church. We will just do our best to minister the word and to help the churches.
Question: In chapter 4 of this book you mentioned that the leading brothers should exercise to “read the saints,” just as the high priest in the Old Testament read the stones on the breastplate. Could you share something further concerning this?
Answer: This is based upon the type of the high priest’s breastplate with the Urim and Thummim (Exo. 28:30; Lev. 8:8; Num. 27:21; Deut. 33:8; 1 Sam. 28:6; Ezra 2:63; Neh. 7:65). The government among God’s people in the Old Testament was neither by autocracy nor by democracy; it was by theocracy, which means that God governed the people directly yet through some agents. Today in the church there should also be theocracy — God’s governing. In the Old Testament there is a type of God’s government. Among the children of Israel, God set up the elders and appointed the priests. The elders did not govern the people according to their opinion or view but according to the direct word from God received by the high priest.
The way that the high priest received the word of God directly was by means of the breastplate with the Urim and Thummim. On the breastplate were twelve precious stones, and each stone bore a name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. The twelve names of the twelve tribes only required eighteen of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The remaining four letters were put on a piece called the Thummim. Thummim means “completers.” These four added letters completed the Hebrew alphabet on the breastplate.
Furthermore, the Urim was added to the breastplate. Urim means “lights.” When there was a problem among the children of Israel, the high priest bearing the breastplate went into the presence of God to seek God’s direction. By the shining of the Urim upon the stones, the high priest received God’s instant speaking. It was in this way that, letter by letter, the high priest was able to spell out a word, then a sentence, and then a paragraph, until the full judgment of God was determined. Then the high priest passed on God’s speaking to the elders, and the elders executed what God had spoken.
We need to experience this type of reading the breastplate in the presence of God. Today we are both elders and priests. If the church has a problem and the elders need to see how the church should go on, they should go to God with much prayer. In this way the elders will become clear about what the church should do and how the church should go on. In the presence of the Lord through prayer, they can read the letters on the stones of the breastplate, which is to read all the members of the church. By reading the members of the church, taking the members as the letters of a divine typewriter, God’s speaking will come to them, telling them what to do and how to do it.
In the Old Testament times the children of Israel had the law of Moses as the constant, written Word, but to have the written Word of God by itself was not adequate. They still needed the instant word of God. They received the instant word by the high priest going into the presence of God to read the names of God’s people. We need both the constant word, the word in the Bible, and the instant word, the word from the present contact with God. The instant word should not contradict the constant word. This means that today our guidance from God should correspond with what is written in the New Testament. By this way we can have the leading from the Lord day after day concerning the church. This matter also shows how organic the eldership should be. The eldership is not organizational, but it is altogether an organic matter. The elders need to be living and exercised in contacting the Lord to be enlightened to read the situation among the Lord’s people.
Question: Could you share something concerning the organic relationship between the churches and the work?
Answer: In every age since the time of Abel, the son of Adam, God has done some work. God has never been silent. He has always done something in every age. Actually, the age is designated by God’s work. God carries out His work by speaking. In every age God works by His speaking. For His speaking, His divine oracle, He always uses a speaker. At Moses’ time, Moses was the speaker. At David’s time, David was the speaker. At Paul’s time, Paul was the speaker. The speaker used by God does God’s work by speaking, by the releasing of God’s word. Surely this speaking, the oracle of God, will result in something.
Today we are in the twentieth century. God is surely working in this century. What is the work of God in the twentieth century? In the twentieth century God is doing the work of His recovery, and His recovery is to build up the Body of Christ. If this is not the work of God today, what is? Surely God does not want to establish and strengthen the Catholic Church and all the denominations. What is God doing today? He is recovering the organic building up of the Body of Christ by the speaking of His ministry.
The speaking one surely wants the result of his work to cooperate with him to carry out God’s work. Let us say that a brother preaches the gospel and that some are saved. Would he not expect that these saved ones would cooperate with him to extend the work of the gospel? Is this not needed? Then this brother may go further to establish all these saved ones as a church through his speaking. Would he not expect that this church would cooperate with him to carry on this work? Paul told the Corinthians that he and his co-workers did not extend themselves beyond their bounds. But he expected that as he and his co-workers worked with them, they would grow, and through their growth Paul could extend his work. In order to see this, let us read what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10:12-16:
We do not dare to class or compare ourselves with any of those who commend themselves; but they, measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves with themselves, are without understanding. But we will not boast beyond our measure but according to the measure of the rule which the God of measure has apportioned to us, to reach even as far as you. For we are not extending ourselves beyond our bounds, as if we did not reach you, for we were the first to come even as far as unto you in the gospel of Christ. We are not boasting beyond our measure in others’ labors, but have the hope, as your faith is increasing, to be magnified in you according to our rule unto abundance, so that we may announce the gospel unto those parts beyond you, not so that we may boast in another man’s rule in things already prepared.
The apostle Paul expected that what he preached to the church in Corinth would cause them to grow. Then through their growth Paul’s work would extend (see v. 15 and footnote, Recovery Version). In other words, the work establishes the churches, and the churches cooperate with the work for its furtherance. This is organic, and it is logical and normal.
Paul told the Philippians that he thanked God for their fellowship unto the furtherance of the gospel (Phil. 1:3-5). What is the fellowship unto the furtherance of the gospel? This was the saints in Philippi participating in the furtherance of the gospel through the apostle Paul’s ministry. This was to help the apostle’s preaching and to cooperate with his preaching.
What is the relationship between the work and the churches? The relationship is this — the churches should always help the work and cooperate with the work to promote God’s work, and the work should try the best to always strengthen the churches, edify the churches, establish the churches, and build up the churches for the building up of the Body of Christ. Thus, the churches and the work should be very much in cooperation and coordination with each other. This is why we say that the churches should be one with the ministry. This means that the churches should cooperate with the work for the promotion of God’s move on this earth. It is logical for a Christian worker to expect the result of his work to cooperate with the work for the promotion of God’s move.
I brought the recovery to the United States, and you received it. You are the result of my work. Should I not expect that you all would be one with me, cooperating with me to promote the Lord’s recovery? What is wrong with this? Some opposing ones have said that we should not say that we need to be one with the ministry, that is, the work. They think that this is to build up the ministry. They are wrong. To be one with the ministry is not to build up the ministry. To be one with the ministry is to help the ministry to go on in order to further the Lord’s move on this earth. Eventually, the ministry does not build up anything for the ministry itself. What the ministry builds up is the churches. Today there are over one thousand churches around the globe. In Mexico, Central America, and South America, hundreds of churches have been raised up within the last few years through the ministry, mainly through the printed publications and the audio- and videotapes.
In order for the ministry to go on, the ministry needs the churches’ cooperation, support, and prayer. This is what it means to be one with the ministry. To be one with the ministry does not mean to build up the ministry. To be one with the ministry means to strengthen and to help the ministry build up more churches. When I speak to the churches in a conference, this does not mean that I am speaking to build up my ministry. I am speaking to build up the churches. The more the churches cooperate with the work, the better. Then the work will receive more strengthening, more help, and more encouragement to build up and to raise up more churches, and even to edify the churches more, to strengthen the churches more, and to build up the churches more. Then the churches will be greatly helped through the ministry.
By the Lord’s mercy I have passed on the Lord’s recovery to you by speaking. I have been outside of mainland China now for thirty-nine years. Through my ministry in these past thirty-nine years, over one thousand churches have been raised up. The credit for this, without question, all goes to the Lord who spoke through me, but without the support and cooperation of the churches, how much could I do? I did not build up the churches directly. I just spoke the word of God. You brothers build up the churches directly. I was surprised when I came here to see how the brothers are so much for the Lord, with the Lord, and of the Lord. This has been your work. My part is to speak the word of God.
All the churches today around the globe were raised up and built up by the Lord’s speaking through Brother Nee and through me. The foundation was laid by the Lord’s speaking through Brother Nee. Then the Lord used me to speak. But the direct building up of the churches is the work of you brothers. Moses did not build up the tabernacle directly. The tabernacle was built by the children of Israel. Suppose that the children of Israel did not cooperate with Moses. What could have come out? I came to this country to pass on the Lord’s recovery to the saints, but if the saints had rejected this, nothing would have come out. However, so much has come out through you brothers. A great part of the credit for the Lord’s move should be given to you brothers and to the churches. We have to realize that the enemy hates this. We need to pray concerning anything negative that rises up against the proper, organic relationship between the churches and the work, the ministry.
