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Scripture Reading: Acts 1:17, 25; 2 Cor. 4:1; 3:8-9; Eph. 3:8; Gal. 1:6-9; Eph. 3:6-7; Col. 1:24-25; Eph. 4:11-12
Thus far, we have seen that in God’s economy there is one goal and that God has ordained one way to reach this goal. Furthermore, to have the one way for the one goal we must be in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles. One way for one goal cannot be seen in today’s Christianity because they are not in the sphere of the apostles’ teaching and fellowship. There are many different teachings in today’s Christianity. All these different teachings bring people into different fellowships, and the different fellowships are divisions in confusion. In the Lord’s recovery, we have been brought to the one way for the one goal according to the teaching of the apostles to be in the unique fellowship of the apostles. The preserving factor of our being kept in one way for one goal is the apostles’ teaching and fellowship. If we remain, live, and have our being in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, we can have one way for one goal. Otherwise, we will be misled into a divisive situation and have no sensation that we are in something wrong. We can serve God according to His New Testament economy only by taking the teaching of the apostles and by remaining in the fellowship of the apostles.
In this chapter we want to fellowship concerning the New Testament ministry and ministers. The ministry of the New Testament economy is singular and unique, but the ministers of the New Testament economy are plural. In January of 1937 Brother Nee gave a series of messages on the church life in which he told us that all the gifted ones, such as the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers, were given by the Head to the Body for the work of the ministry. He spoke strongly concerning the work of the ministry. In 1969 I was invited to a certain locality where the responsible brother stressed that he accepted all ministries. I enumerated some different “ministries” and asked him if he could receive them. He was forced to say that he accepted all ministries selectively. Although he would not say it, this was an admission that he did not receive all ministries. Even the denominations in Christianity do not receive all ministries. The Southern Baptists could never accept the ministry of the Presbyterians, and the Presbyterians could never accept the ministries of the Episcopalians or Lutherans. Neither would the Roman Catholic Church accept the ministries of the Protestant denominations.
As the recovery is increasing and spreading because of the new way to visit people by knocking on their doors to get them to believe and be baptized, the door is wide open for different opinions and different teachings. Some may ask how our present situation can be managed. From the very beginning of the recovery, the Lord has shown and instructed us not to control the saints. Thank the Lord that we have never controlled the saints through the years. I can testify that in all the years I was with Brother Nee, he never controlled anyone. I hate control. I gave three elders’ trainings from 1984 through 1986, in which I repeatedly charged the elders not to control others. To control others is ugly. To control others is not a glory but a great shame.
Some may wonder, “Since we don’t exercise control, won’t there be confusion?” We must always remember the Lord’s word in Proverbs 29:18: “Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint.” We need a clear vision. Man should not control, but the vision of God’s New Testament economy should exercise control over each one of us. We all have to be under the control of the revelation of God’s New Testament economy.
God has an economy to accomplish something for His eternal plan. God revealed His economy to His chosen ones, such as Peter, John, James, Paul, and others who were working with Paul. These apostles and prophets received a commission from God. God charged them with a commission, and this commission is the ministry. The ministry is God’s commission both in the Old and the New Testaments. In the Old Testament God came down to Mount Sinai and charged Moses with His commission to decree the law. That commission, the ministry of the law, was the ministry of the Old Testament. The ministry of the law in the Old Testament was singular and unique. It was the ministry, not the ministries. In 2 Corinthians Paul calls the ministry of the Old Testament the ministry of letter (3:6) and the ministry of condemnation (v. 9). From the time of Moses many taught the law. The teachers of the law and the prophets carried out the one ministry of the law in the Old Testament, not many ministries. In 2 Corinthians 3 Paul compares that ministry with the New Testament ministry. The ministry of the law was singular and unique, and the New Testament ministry is also singular and unique. The ministry of the law was the ministry of condemnation, and the New Testament ministry is the ministry of the Spirit and the ministry of righteousness (justification).
When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, He chose twelve apostles and gave them a commission, which was the ministry. In Acts 1 Peter refers to the commission the Lord gave them as “this ministry” (vv. 17, 25). Though the apostles were twelve in number, their ministry was uniquely one. All the apostles carried out the same ministry to bear the testimony not of any religion, doctrine, or practice but uniquely of the incarnated, resurrected, and ascended Jesus Christ, the Lord of all. The apostles did not have twelve respective ministries, but they all had one ministry. In 2 Corinthians 4:1 Paul says, “Having this ministry as we have been shown mercy, we do not lose heart.” Paul and his co-workers, the apostles of Christ, had one unique ministry — the ministry of the new covenant for the accomplishing of God’s New Testament economy. In recent years the Lord has made the matter of the unique New Testament ministry very clear to us (see Elders’ Training, Book 1: The Ministry of the New Testament). In the New Testament economy of God there is only one ministry. Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:11-12 that even the perfected and equipped saints, not only the gifted persons like the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers, do the work of the ministry. The gifted ones perfect all the saints to do the work of the ministry that they are doing. We all are doing one work. Although there are millions of members of Christ, we all are doing the unique work of the ministry. The many members do not bear their own ministry. There are many ministries in today’s degraded Christianity, but there are not many ministries in the New Testament. There is only one, unique New Testament ministry.
The ministry is to minister the very essence, the very substance, of God’s New Testament economy. The New Testament ministry works to minister the very substance of God’s New Testament economy into people’s spirit, and this ministry is the ministry of the Spirit, the ministry of justification, and the ministry of life. This ministry is unique. You cannot say that you have a ministry different from the ministry Paul had. If you do have a ministry different from the apostle Paul, your ministry will result in division. If each of us had different ministries, this would mean that we were building something of ourselves for ourselves. These different ministries would cause many divisions. In today’s Christianity different ministries become divisions.
The danger of different ministries can be seen in the inner-life movement. The inner-life movement began in the seventeenth century with the mystics in the Catholic Church, such as Madame Guyon and Father Fenelon. William Law was raised up to express the teachings of the mystics in a more practical way. His teachings were a great help to Andrew Murray, who played a prominent role in recovering the truth concerning Christ as the believers’ inward life and experience. Jessie Penn-Lewis received help from Andrew Murray and went on to see much concerning the subjective death of Christ. Her teachings were published in a paper called The Overcomer. Her teaching on the subjective death of Christ was very good. From the subjective death of Christ she went on to talk about spiritual warfare in a book entitled War on the Saints. Eventually, however, Mrs. Penn-Lewis went to an extreme on the matter of spiritual warfare, and at the end of her life she became preoccupied with demons.
Late in Mrs. Penn-Lewis’s ministry, T. Austin-Sparks was raised up. During a visit to Taiwan in 1955, he told me that when he was young, he was working with Mrs. Penn-Lewis. But at a certain point he realized that he could not work with her anymore because as a sister she exercised too much headship. She took too much of a leadership role as the head. He left her to begin another work, which became his own ministry. Some said that Mrs. Penn-Lewis had a very good ministry on the subjective death of Christ and that Austin-Sparks had a very good ministry on the principles of Christ’s resurrection life. Eventually, Mrs. Penn-Lewis went to be with the Lord, but her paper, The Overcomer, continued to be published. T. Austin-Sparks also published a paper entitled The Witness and the Testimony. These two papers were in competition with one another. Sister Penn-Lewis and Brother T. Austin-Sparks had two ministries to produce two results of the work.
In our early days in the recovery, we read their writings and received much help from them. Both of them knew the Bible well and had spiritual insight. I received a great deal of help from one book written by Brother Austin-Sparks entitled The Release of the Lord. This book helped me to know the truth concerning the release of the incarnated Jesus in John 12:24, that is, that the one grain was released to be many grains. These dear saints, however, made a great mistake by keeping two different kinds of ministries. For two different ministries to be carried out by two ministers is altogether against the principle of the New Testament. The ministries of Sister Penn-Lewis and Brother Austin-Sparks became two kinds of works to produce two groups of people. One group followed Sister Penn-Lewis, and another group followed Brother Austin-Sparks. We must be warned by history so that we do not repeat the mistakes made in the past.
In the Lord’s recovery there is only one ministry. If you say that the ministry is my ministry, you must say it with the realization that what I minister is the New Testament ministry. The New Testament ministry was commissioned by the Lord Jesus to His twelve apostles and then to Paul and his co-workers. Brother Nee had a clear realization that there was only one ministry. The ministry of God’s economy in the New Testament is uniquely one. All the serving ones, the ministers, should participate in the same ministry.
The deciding factor in determining the right ministry, which is the ministry of God’s New Testament economy, is the teaching of the apostles. A person’s work is in the New Testament ministry if he teaches the teaching of the apostles. If he does not teach you according to the teaching of the apostles, his work is not participating in the ministry of the New Testament economy. The unique ministry is the ministry ordained by God according to the apostles’ teaching.
The New Testament ministry, the unique ministry, the ministry of the Spirit and the ministry of righteousness (justification), is to bear the testimony of Jesus and to minister the processed and completed Christ to His believers according to the apostles’ teaching (Eph. 3:8; Gal. 1:6-9). To preach anything other than the apostles’ teaching is to preach something that is not a part of the ministry of the New Testament economy. This is why Paul charged the Galatians to discern those who pervert the gospel of Christ. A gospel other than the gospel that Paul preached to the Galatian believers is not the gospel (vv. 6-9). In other words, a gospel different from Paul’s gospel is not in the New Testament ministry. We should not receive a gospel different from Paul’s gospel, different from Paul’s ministry. The ministry is unique in the teaching of the apostles.
The New Testament ministers (2 Cor. 3:6) are the ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ (Eph. 3:6-7). Whoever ministers the gospel of Jesus Christ as the Son of God becoming a man, dying on the cross for our sins, and resurrecting to impart life into us, is one of the New Testament ministers. These ministers are for the building up of the church (Col. 1:24-25). They are many, yet they have one unique ministry for the building up of the Body of Christ. All the ministers’ different works should be for this unique ministry (Eph. 4:11-12).
Not only the gifted members but also the perfected saints are working the work of the ministry. It should not be that only a few are in the ministry, but all of us need to be in the ministry. When we go out to visit others, we need to speak the ministry. There is one ministry with thousands of ministers. In Christianity there are a few big speakers, but in the Lord’s recovery we need to have thousands of speakers. These thousands of speakers should be ministers in the one ministry. The ministry is not merely the ministry of a few gifted ones, but it is the ministry of each one of the saints. It is the ministry of thousands of small ministers. The one ministry must be our ministry.
