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Scripture Reading: Acts 20:32; Eph. 1:13; Acts 8:4; 1 John 1:1; Phil. 2:16; 1 Tim. 6:3; 2 Tim. 1:13; Eph. 4:29; Heb. 6:5; 5:13; 1 Cor. 12:8
VI. What aspect of the word of God should we speak?
А. The word of grace — Acts 20:32.
B. The word of truth — Eph. 1:13.
C. The word of the gospel — Acts 8:4.
D. The word of life — 1 John 1:1; Phil. 2:16.
E. The healthy word — 1 Tim. 6:3; 2 Tim. 1:13.
F. The edifying word — Eph. 4:29.
G. The good word — Heb. 6:5.
H. The word of righteousness — 5:13.
I. The word of knowledge — 1 Cor. 12:8.
J. The word of wisdom — v. 8.
In the previous chapter I indicated first that in order to speak for God, prayer is indispensable. Second, I said that to speak for God also requires the filling of the Holy Spirit, which is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We have already mentioned that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, or the filling of the Holy Spirit, is a matter accomplished by the Lord. It is the last of the seven great accomplishments of the Lord. We have believed in the Lord, and we all have faith; therefore, we need to enjoy these seven great accomplishments of the Lord.
I have been speaking for the Lord for more than fifty-three years. I cannot say that every time I speak for the Lord I am filled with the Holy Spirit or have the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, but I can tell you that many times I knew that indeed I had the filling of the Holy Spirit; this was undeniable. We do not pay much attention to outward miracles; however, in the past when I spoke for the Lord, such things as miracles and wonders did occur. Nevertheless, we do not like to emphasize these things.
We all should realize that the Lord in whom we believe is the Lord who accomplished these seven great items: as God He was incarnated; He passed through human living; His all-inclusive death solved all our problems; He was resurrected, and He caused us to be resurrected together with Him in order that we might be regenerated; then He became the life-giving Spirit and breathed Himself into us; He ascended to the height and was made both Lord and Christ; and as the outpoured Spirit, who is also the Spirit of power, the economical Spirit, He poured Himself upon us, the church.
Today the One in whom we believe is such a Lord. Let us enjoy all that He has accomplished. When you exercise to speak the word of God to others, you must believe that you have the Spirit within you and that you also have the Spirit upon you. You have the Spirit of life, the essential Spirit, within you and the Spirit of power, the economical Spirit, upon you.
Praise the Lord! We pray, and we believe that we have the Spirit of power upon us. We also speak the word of God to others at all times and in every place. Then what kind of word should we speak? There are ten major categories of the word of God: the word of grace, the word of truth, the word of the gospel, the word of life, the healthy word, the edifying word, the good word, the word of righteousness, the word of knowledge, and the word of wisdom. First, the word of grace and the word of truth are a pair. Second, the word of the gospel and the word of life are another pair. Third, the healthy word and the edifying word are also a pair. The good word and the word of righteousness are the fourth pair, and the word of knowledge and the word of wisdom are the final pair. Altogether these constitute ten categories of the word of God.
To speak the word of God to people is to speak these ten major categories of the word. This does not mean that besides these there are no other categories of God’s word; rather, it means that on the whole, these are what people need the most today. Both believers and unbelievers need the grace of God and the truth of God; they also need the gospel and life. They need the healthy word and the edifying word; furthermore, they need the good word, the word of righteousness, the word of knowledge, and the word of wisdom.
Let me give you a simple explanation. The Lord Jesus is the Word of God. John 1:1 and 14 say, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us..., full of grace and reality.” Read footnotes 145 and 171 on John 1:14 and 17 in the Recovery Version. Those footnotes explain clearly that grace is God coming to be enjoyed by us. The Lord Jesus is God. When He became flesh, He brought God to man, and the God whom He brought is grace. When God is enjoyed by us, He is grace. At the same time, when this God is realized by us, He is reality, which is the proper meaning of the word truth. The word truth in Greek means reality. God is grace, and God is reality. When God is enjoyed by us, He is grace, and when God is realized by us, He is reality.
The third category is the word of the gospel. The gospel is the Lord Jesus Himself. Acts 5:42 clearly says, “They did not cease...announcing the gospel of Jesus as the Christ.” The Greek word translated “announcing the gospel” is a form of the verb euaggelizo, which carries the connotation of preaching the gospel. Hence, the word in Acts 5:42 may be rendered “preaching the gospel,” indicating that the gospel is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Romans 1:1 through 4 speaks of “the gospel...concerning His Son...Jesus Christ our Lord.” Thus the gospel is the Son of God. Therefore, to speak the word of the gospel is to speak the Lord Jesus. The more we speak the Lord Jesus, the more we speak the word of the gospel.
It is a pity that very few Christians labor on the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus is a wonderful person, and His name is called Wonderful (Isa. 9:6). He is God, and He is man; He is the complete God, and He is also a perfect man. Why do we say that He is the complete God? Because God is triune — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (Matt. 28:19). Jesus is not only the Son, but He is also the Father (John 14:7-11; 10:30), and He is also the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). He is God who became flesh (John 1:1, 14). This God is not only God the Son, but He is also God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. He is the entire and the complete God.
God became flesh by entering into the womb of Mary. Therefore, in His conception there were both the divine element and the human element. He obtained the divine element through the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18, 20) and the human element through Mary. Conception requires two elements; one element alone cannot cause conception. For conception to take place, there must be two elements. The Lord Jesus has these two elements: one is divine, and the other, human. Therefore, the One who was born was a God-man. He was truly God and also truly man. You must believe and thoroughly understand these things. Then when you speak to people, you will surely impress them.
One of the major points of the gospel is life. John says, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life” (1 John 1:1). Here the Word of life denotes the Lord Jesus. When you read the context, you will see that the Word of life is the Lord Jesus Himself. If you have not labored and have not learned, how can you speak? I am only giving you an outline here, but you must spend time regularly to dig out from the Bible the word of grace, and you must also spend time to dig out the word of truth. You must also dig out the word of the gospel, which is the word concerning the Lord Jesus, and also the word of life. Store all these kinds of words within you, and when you speak to people, use them according to the situation.
Now we come to the healthy word. Some words are not healthy, but all healthy words contain life, and health pertains to life. No one would say that a house is healthy, for a house does not have life and therefore has nothing to do with health. If you desire to speak healthy words, you must have life. Healthy words surely are words with life. You must realize that in all the healthy food that we eat there is the element of life. The things you eat must have an organic nature in order to make you healthy and supply you with life.
When Paul wrote 1 Timothy, the church had entered into a dangerous period. He knew that some had come out teaching differently; therefore, in chapter 1 he says to Timothy, “I exhorted you, when I was going into Macedonia, to remain in Ephesus in order that you might charge certain ones not to teach different things” (v. 3). For the believers to receive the different teachings would be like their eating stones or lumps of coal; these things are not nutritious. Paul also says, “If you lay these things before the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus” (4:6). To be a good minister, first you yourself must eat nutritious and healthy food, and second you must supply others with what you have eaten. Sometimes we talk at length with people, and we even quote verses from the Bible, but these things may all be husks. We must give people healthy food. Sometimes we do not need to talk so much; simply to give people an “egg” or a “glass of milk” would be good enough.
In 1948 I went to Foochow to hold a conference. After the first meeting I was given a glass of Foochow orange juice. Although I was very tired from speaking, after drinking that glass of Foochow orange juice, I was immediately refreshed. I told Brother Nee, “Your Foochow orange juice is really wonderful.” Therefore, when you go out to speak, you must exercise to give people “a glass of Foochow orange juice.” Do not give them a large piece of “sweet potato”; that may not be as nutritious. You must learn to experience the words of God; they are nutritious.
Some of you have heard me preach for thirty-six years. I have preached in Taiwan for thirty-six years, but not until recently did I mention to you the seventy weeks in Daniel 9. Why did I not mention this before? Because there is not much nutrition in the seventy weeks. Therefore, even though I mentioned this recently, I was not very interested in it. When I was young, I met with the Brethren. They taught this matter daily. While I was with them, for years I experienced very little spiritual growth because the things I “ate” were not healthy enough. If I were to speak to you for a year concerning the seventy weeks, you would all die spiritually because you would all be eating unhealthy food. Therefore, we must exercise to select from the Bible words rich in nutrition, healthy words. These healthy words are the words of the Lord Jesus (1 Tim. 6:3).
Furthermore, we must speak words that edify people. Ephesians 4:29 says, “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but only that which is good for building up, according to the need, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Grace is God Himself. Words that contain God are good words, and they will build up people. You young people often like to pry into other people’s business. This does not build up people, and this does not dispense God into people. Older people even the more like to inquire about others’ business. This is a trap and a snare. Here I am not only speaking the truth, but I am also speaking about our experience. We do not know how many times we have been entangled by Satan’s snare. By being entangled in this way, we hurt others and we also hurt ourselves.
It is most difficult to speak about the good word and the word of righteousness. We might guess that the good word refers to some lovely or beautiful words spoken by the Lord Jesus; perhaps this is what is meant by the good word. This may be somewhat close, but it is still not adequate. The word of righteousness is the most difficult to understand. The book of Hebrews speaks of these two categories, the good word and the word of righteousness (6:5; 5:13). In this book Paul advised the Hebrew believers not to remain in the good word but to go forward to the word of righteousness. He likened the good word to milk and the word of righteousness to solid food.
You all can differentiate between the word of knowledge and the word of wisdom. These are the two kinds of words mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:8. The deeper and higher word is the word of wisdom; the shallower and lower word is the word of knowledge. The words written by Paul in 1 Corinthians 1 are somewhat general; thus, they are the word of knowledge. They speak in a general way about the Lord Jesus’ dying for us, His accomplishing redemption for us, and His relationship with us. These are the words of general spiritual knowledge.
However, in chapter 2 Paul says, “We do speak wisdom...God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom which has been hidden, which God predestined before the ages for our glory” (vv. 6-7). This is deep. This wisdom is the deep and mysterious things of Christ, which are also the deep and mysterious things of God (v. 10). In chapter 3 Paul speaks on the deep and mysterious things. In verse 9 he says, “You are God’s cultivated land, God’s building.” What grows on cultivated land are vegetables. How can vegetables become building materials? Paul also says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth” (v. 6). These words seem shallow and easy to understand, but their meaning is very deep. These are words of wisdom. However, to speak concerning the crucifixion of Jesus, concerning verses such as John 3:16, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” and concerning the fact that we all are sinners — these are words of knowledge. But whenever life is mentioned, that is something deep and mysterious. In 1 Corinthians, from chapters 3 through 10 what is spoken are words of wisdom; it is deep and mysterious. In 6:17 Paul says that we the believers have become one spirit with the Lord; this is very difficult to speak about, and this is not shallow or easy to understand. We need to labor properly upon words such as these.
