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Taiwan is truly a good location that is most suitable for us to start practicing the new way, because the life here is stable and secure, education is at a high level and available to all, the economic condition and public security are extremely good, and transportation is especially convenient. In particular, we should be grateful for the various conveniences provided by the government that facilitate the gospel. This is a rare opportunity and a rare location.
In 1984 we compiled official statistics, which included more than six hundred churches from the six major continents over the whole earth. Today in less than three years, the total number of churches on the whole earth has increased from over six hundred localities to more than eight hundred localities. In addition, the number of churches is evenly split between the East and the West, which is very marvelous. More than four hundred churches are in the Far East and Australia, and more than four hundred churches are in the Western Hemisphere. These eight hundred or more churches are spread out in more than forty countries on the six major continents.
Currently, the country with the greatest number of churches is the United States, with a total of more than one hundred. Why then do we choose Taiwan as the place to begin to practice the new way? It is because the population here is concentrated and because we have had forty years of history here since we first arrived in 1949. We believe that the various conditions here are very suitable for us. Of course, many brothers and sisters have come from overseas to join the training and to coordinate with the move of the Body. Therefore, due to the different needs, the expense is relatively high, yet we feel that no matter how we look at it, this is the best place for us to start practicing the new way.
The Lord has already added to us many newly saved brothers and sisters, and we also have had meetings with the new ones in their homes. However, we truly desire to have an opportunity at this time to come together so that we can know each other better. Since many new believers have just entered into the church life, we would like to clarify where we stand among the many sects of Christianity. Some have heard that we are called “the church in Taipei,” so they ask, “Which church in Taipei? What kind of name is this? Why do you use a general term as the name of your group?” I believe that many of you desire to know more concerning this matter. Here we would like to briefly explain this practice and the reason behind it.
The title of this chapter is “Our Church (Chao-hui) Life.” The title is simple, but the implication is quite extensive. Generally, people are familiar with the term chiao-hui (religious society), but our usage of chao-hui (assembly) in place of chiao-hui does have a basis. In the Bible the Greek word for church is ekklesia, which is composed of two words, ek and klesia. Ek means “out,” and klesia means “called”; the composition of these two words means “the called-out ones.” Thus, the Greek word refers to all the called-out ones within a city. In the New Testament times this is the word that the Lord Jesus used when He mentioned the church in speaking to the disciples. This word includes the meaning of hui (society, or congregation) but not the meaning of chiao (religion). It also includes the meaning of chao (call).
From 1860 to 1870, after some brothers in the United States were raised up, they studied the English word church. The origin of this word can be traced back to a Germanic word that is mainly used to refer to the building where Christians gather for church services. During the nineteenth century, the Brethren of England felt that this word could not express the significance of ekklesia in the Bible, so they changed church to assembly in their hymnals, in their Bibles, and in all their literature. Assembly means “the called-out congregation.” Therefore, we are not the first ones to use the word chao-hui (assembly). After 1915 a charismatic movement began in the United States that established a group, the Assemblies of God. Seventy years ago it spread to China, and in Chinese their name was translated as shen-chao-hui (God’s assembly, or God-called congregation). Thus, this word was very appropriately translated by a group of brothers according to the original meaning in the Bible.
Recently, we have begun to work on publishing the Chinese Recovery Version of the New Testament. This translation is being produced according to the Greek text, using the current Chinese Union Version as a reference, with modifications and annotations. During this process, we felt that since we are making a new translation, we should change the incorrect translation of chiao-hui (religious society) to that of chao-hui (assembly). Therefore, from now on we will use chao-hui instead of chiao-hui in all of our publications in order to convey the proper meaning.
When the Western missionaries first came to China and were translating the word ekklesia, they said that according to the word tzung-chiao (religion), this “hui” (society, or congregation) is a kind of “chiao-hui” (religious society); thus, the word chiao-hui came into existence. Of course, back then there was no such word in the Chinese vocabulary. This term chiao-hui was invented by the members of the Imperial Academy and the elderly Chinese scholars who were hired by the Western missionaries who came over to China to preach the gospel and translate the Bible. Today many other religions also use this word, such as fo-chiao-hui (Buddhist religious society). Therefore, we feel that it really needs to be changed. Today the Buddhists call themselves fo-chiao-hui, but they would not call themselves fo-chao-hui (Buddha-called congregation). Only the church of the Lord is a called-out congregation, so it only makes sense that it should be called chao-hui (assembly). However, due to the conventions established in society, to outsiders we still refer to ourselves as chiao-hui (religious society), but actually we take chao-hui (assembly) as the proper expression.
Our church life began in 1920. At that time the Lord raised up in China a group of young people, mostly college students. Later in Foochow the Lord gained a young student by the name of Watchman Nee. Since his grandfather had been a pastor, he was a third-generation Christian. However, he was not assured of his salvation until he was seventeen years old, in the year 1920. Shortly after he was saved, he fervently loved the Bible. He was very good at studying; he not only knew the Bible well, but he also saw much light in the Scriptures. He compared the truth and revelations in the Bible with the various conditions in Christianity at the time and discovered that many things in Christianity are not found in the Bible.
At that time Brother Nee was a sophomore in college, and he was very proficient in the English language. Therefore, he read many books published in English and also many biographies and lectures of famous people, and he also thoroughly studied the history of Christianity. He deeply felt the need to put something into practice — a group of Christians in China coming together to meet and to worship according to the Bible. That was the beginning of the meeting among us.
In this way the first meeting took place in 1922 in Foochow. In 1949 the brothers felt that a portion of the saints should leave mainland China and go overseas for the spread of the Lord’s work. So that year a group of brothers and I came to Taiwan. Back then the number of saints who came from the mainland was at most four or five hundred. These four or five hundred saints spread throughout the major cities in Taiwan and began to meet. Soon afterward I was invited to the Philippines. I worked in this way for ten years, going back and forth. In 1961 I deeply felt that we should start the work in the West, so I went to the United States to observe the situation there. In the following year, 1962, I received the burden, settled down in the United States, and began this recovery work in English, which has continued to this day.
We are speaking of the church life in particular for a few reasons. First, we hope to eliminate denominational divisions. The situation of denominational divisions is the outward, present condition of Christianity. Of course, this divisive condition of denominations has not come into existence only recently. This situation of denominational division began, at the latest, from the time of Luther during the Reformation and has continued to this day. Certainly this is not according to the Bible at all. However, this kind of situation had occurred at an even earlier time, in the time of the apostles. For example, some among the believers in the church in Corinth went as far as saying that they were of Paul, others said that they were of Cephas, and still others said that they were of Apollos; one faction who thought highly of themselves told others that they were of Christ (1 Cor. 1:12). Paul very much detested this and exhorted them to do away with this situation.
Therefore, since we worship God according to the Bible, we cannot accept the traditional denominations nor participate in the traditional divisions. Therefore, we do not take a particular name; we say only that we are Christians. We truly do not desire to take another name. This may be compared to the natural world in which there is only one moon. In the United States there is the one moon, in all the countries in Asia there is the one moon, and in Europe there is still just the one moon. The moon is simply the moon. If you must give it a name, calling it “the moon in the United States,” or “the moon in Taiwan,” it is all right. But regardless of what you call it, it is still the same moon; it simply appears in various places. For this reason, we are very careful with the matter of name.
However, in this age and in any country, as long as there is a religious gathering or a religious activity, it must be officially registered with the government for permission. That is why we applied and registered with the government as “Assembly Hall of the Church in Taipei.” Normally, we still call ourselves the church in a certain place. For example, in Hong Kong we are “the church in Hong Kong,” in Taipei we are “the church in Taipei,” and in New York we are “the church in New York,” and so forth.
We do not recognize denominations because we do not agree with division. All believers, regardless of their differences in the doctrine or practice of baptism, as long as they have genuinely believed in the Lord and received the Lord, are those who belong to the Lord as the members of the church. If they are in Taipei, they are the members of the church in Taipei; if they go to Los Angeles, they are in the church in Los Angeles. This principle saves us from the division of denominations.
Second, the clergy system must be abolished from our church life. The so-called clergy system is a group of people in Christianity who, after studying theology and receiving a theological education, come out to do the evangelical and ministerial work. In a typical Christian organization we can see a group of people who are the preachers, pastors, teachers, and choir directors. They are the clergy. Once these clergymen come to a meeting, all the other saints merely sit there passively. Related to the church, the saints do not have to do anything other than attend the meeting and offer money, because from the time they are saved, they are never taught to do anything.
According to the Bible, this practice is altogether against God’s desire. God desires all who are saved to be the members of the Body of Christ. The church is the Body of Christ, just as we have our physical body. This body has different members, and different members have different functions. If all the members of my body do not function accordingly, I will become paralyzed and numb; my body will not be a body anymore.
This is the general condition of Christianity today. Only the clergy is active in the meetings, and the congregation is inactive. Metaphorically speaking, the saints are not living; they have become numb. According to the Bible, we can never accept this. Therefore, among us we do not want the so-called preachers and pastors and other practices of the clergy system. We hope that some brothers and sisters will be able to serve the Lord full time, but this does not mean that being full time is their lifelong occupation. This year they may come out to serve the Lord full time, and after four years if they have the leading from the Lord and are willing to do something else, they can go and do according to the Lord’s leading. This is like the apostle Paul; although he was the greatest gospel preacher, he did not have preaching the gospel as his job. On the one hand, Paul preached the gospel, but on the other hand, he made tents with his own hands. He did not make tents for his own living only; he even labored with his hands to provide for the needs of those who served and preached the gospel with him (Acts 18:3; 20:34).
According to the Bible, therefore, there is not a profession of “preacher.” We are now encouraging the saved college students not to go to work immediately after graduation but to spend one or two years learning to serve full time, if possible. On the one hand, they will endeavor in the learning of truth, getting to know the spiritual things, and on the other hand, they will be exercised in the matter of service in the house of God. If after two years, after they have been equipped in this way, they go out to get a job or do some business; this will be very good. Therefore, we truly hope that every brother and sister can be perfected and participate in some kind of service. Some brothers and sisters may feel that they can go full time right away; that would be the best. Some may feel that they can go half time and some one-quarter time, while some may feel that they can set apart their nights and holidays. These all serve the Lord; these are all good. In any case, we should all minister; we should all participate in some kind of service.
At this time there is a meeting in almost every home, and we very much encourage all who are saved in each household — the husband, the wife, the children, and the parents, every member of the household — to be active in the home meetings. For example, the little brother can call a hymn, the big sister can pray, the older brother can read the Bible, and the younger brother can say a little word. Everyone can function in a home meeting, building up one another. Of course, the new believers may not know very much, so some who have been saved for a longer time need to have a home meeting with them. This is not going to their homes to be their family pastor or their family preacher; it is to meet together with them as saints in the church.
We do not have preachers, we do not have pastors, and we do not have gospel giants preaching the gospel while others listen. We are simply a group of saints — some only eighteen, nineteen, or twenty years old accompanied by one or two older ones — going out together to knock on doors and visit people to bring the gospel to them. Thank the Lord, people are happy and willing to open the door and receive us. This is truly the work of the grace of the Lord. Therefore, we all need to see that there is no clergy system in our church life.
Third, we need to tear down religious hierarchy. The clergy system turns the saints into “laymen.” In Christianity there are two groups of people attending worship services: one group is the clergy, and the other group is the common believers other than the clergy, the laymen, who merely attend worship services and listen to the clergy’s preaching. In our church life, however, there are only the brothers and sisters, only the members of the Body of Christ, each carrying out his function. There is no clergy system.
The clergy system is related to religious hierarchy, so in order to abolish the clergy system, religious hierarchy must be torn down. This may not sound like a good idea at first. An ordinary person might say, “Religion is good because it teaches people to do good. If religious hierarchy were torn down, would the world not be in chaos?” Here what we call hierarchy is hierarchia in Greek, which is a group of clergymen from among Christians organized into a system of religious hierarchy. For example, the pope has the highest rank in Catholicism; this is a kind of religious hierarchy.
Some time ago when I was touring the Vatican, there were only seventy or eighty cardinals, commonly called “red-robed bishops,” serving at the side of the pope as his cabinet. Now there are more than one hundred. They are referred to in this way because they all wear red robes. Under the red-robed bishops are the other bishops, and under these bishops are still various ranks, all the way down to the monks and nuns. This is the organized system composed of their clergy, which is a religious system. Besides Catholicism, Protestantism also has denomination after denomination, each with its clerical hierarchy. For instance, the Episcopal Church has bishops, the Presbyterian Church has pastors and a presbytery, and the Baptist Church has not a presbytery but a system of pastors. These are all religious hierarchies.
We must destroy and tear down these three things — denominational divisions, the clergy system, and religious hierarchy — because they kill the functions of the saints as the members of the Body. These denominations, systems, and hierarchies depend on domination, and domination is a kind of bondage. This is the reason why Christianity today has deteriorated, degraded, and even become corrupted. Indeed, we see that when the clergy system becomes an organization, it controls, dominates, and puts the saints under bondage, causing them to lose the functions they should have as the members of the Body of Christ.
After years of study and seeking before the Lord, in 1985 we felt that we should thoroughly correct our situation. This is because in all these years, although we have rejected denominations, the clergy system, and religious hierarchy, the way we meet and the way we preach the gospel have fallen mostly into forms; they are too rigid. This is indeed unavoidable, for the church has been on the earth for nearly two thousand years, and the traditional way of meeting after so many years has evolved into the situation of one person speaking and everyone else listening. Christians gather together and hire an eloquent person to speak to the congregation; this is the traditional way of meeting. As for gospel preaching, it is also a matter of finding a large place of gathering and inviting people to come to listen to the gospel. These traditional practices are not evident in the Bible; therefore, their efficiency is very low.
Because of the need for research, I did my best to investigate the statistics of the increase in the number of people in Christianity. After I investigated for a few years, up to the end of October of 1986, the report I received was that four out of the five major denominations had not increased in number, but instead, the number decreased greatly. Consider the example of Taiwan. Currently, the population of Taiwan is at least nineteen million, but out of these nineteen million there are less than five hundred thousand Christians. There are more than three million six hundred thousand Buddhists and more than one million Taoists, yet the number of Christians barely reaches five hundred thousand. This means that for every one hundred Taiwan residents, there are only two and a half Christians.
Christianity was first brought to Taiwan by the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. It has been more than one hundred fifty years since then, but today their number is only somewhere between ten and twenty thousand. Statistically, we have over forty thousand people, second only to the Presbyterian Church. In any case, these numbers all reveal that less than three out of one hundred people in Taiwan are Christians. How pitiful this condition is!
The reason behind all this is none other than the traditional practice in Christianity, which not only kills the functions of Christians but also numbs the Christians themselves. This practice renders all the saints “unemployed,” unable to do anything. Christianity has had to take the way of seminaries and of recruiting theology students in order to train a group of clergymen who specialize in doing ministerial work. When these clergymen want to do something, they gather a congregation to maintain their clerical position. This gathering kills and nullifies people’s functions and numbs the people. That is why we can say that this practice has no power whatsoever.
In 1962 I settled down in the United States and started to work. In 1964 I began to compile statistics. That year I obtained some numbers: The whole United States had a population of over two hundred million, half of which, one hundred million, were Christians. Among them, fifty-five percent were Protestants, and forty-five percent were Catholics. In other words, there were fifty to sixty million people in Protestantism in 1964. These fifty to sixty million people, after twenty-two years of work, increased by a total of nine million. By simply looking at the number nine million you may feel it is big, but if you look carefully, the base number was fifty to sixty million. This means that there was less than one percent increase per year. Perhaps among one hundred people, not one person had led someone to believe in the Lord in a whole year. Only about half a percent of the people were led to believe in the Lord. This power is really very small.
In the last ten years we also have lost the power of increase here. For this reason we are stirred up and forced to take the new way. At this time, after more than two years of research, not only have we changed the way, but we also have put it into practice. In the full-time training, five to six hundred people are carrying out the experiment every day, and after three and a half months of testing, we have seen that it is a definite success. If we walk according to the new way, in one year the total number of people will increase at least threefold, and the number of functioning and useful ones will at least double. I hope that everyone will see this clearly. In conclusion, we are emphasizing putting aside the negative things. We reject denominational divisions, we abolish the clergy system, and we completely tear down religious hierarchy.
Today there are two main things that we have to do on the positive side. First, we have to proclaim a pure, high, and complete gospel. Pure means without mixture. Today the gospel preached in Christianity is mixed and impure. This reminds us of the parable the Lord Jesus spoke to us in Matthew 13, about a woman taking leaven and hiding it in the meal (v. 33). We know that the meal is Christ Himself, but today’s Christianity takes leaven and mixes it with teachings concerning Christ, thus confusing the pure truth of Christ.
Furthermore, the gospel preached in Christianity today is too shallow. They preach merely things like the forgiveness of sins and deliverance from hell. These are certainly correct, but they are too shallow. We all know that the growth of any creature requires an outer skin and also an inner content. For example, in order for a baby chicken to grow up, it must have feathers and skin on the outside so that muscle can grow on the inside. Today the gospel preached in Christianity is a “skin-and-feathers gospel,” which speaks only about the brevity and sorrow of human life and how believing in Jesus results in not going to hell, having a better living, and receiving blessings and peace in the human life. These are all too shallow and cannot make known God’s eternal economy, His eternal plan.
In preaching the gospel, the first thing we speak about is the mystery of human life and the meaning of human life. What is the meaning of human life? It is to be a vessel of God to contain God within us. We need to be persons who contain God, who are filled with God, and who take God as life so that we may become God’s expression and God’s declaration. This is full of light. This is a part of the pure and high gospel.
Second, we need to lead people to come to the full knowledge of the truth. There are many books among us that have messages concerning the truth. When a new one is saved, we should set up a meeting in his home, of which our main purpose is to lead him to come to the knowledge of the truth. First Timothy 2:4 says, “Who desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth.” God desires all men to be saved and completely enter into the ministry of the truth. In short, God desires all men to be saved and also desires each of them to understand the truth.
We are here not criticizing but using facts as an illustration. Today we do not hear much truth in Christianity. The saddest thing is that in the chapels in the United States we hear of nothing but marriage, careers, or other things such as raising children, none of which is the pure and deep truth. The Lord has shown us and entrusted to us that we should speak the pure and deep truth. In Matthew 28, when the Lord Jesus had passed through death and resurrection, He came back in resurrection into the midst of the disciples and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (v. 18). In heaven or on earth, all authority has been given to Him; He is the Lord of heaven and earth. Therefore, He sent out the disciples with this authority and said to them, “Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (v. 19). This is to baptize them into the Triune God.
The Lord Jesus also said, “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” (v. 20). On the surface, Christianity keeps this word, but if you go deeper, you will discover otherwise. I was born into a Christian family. I was a fourth-generation Christian according to my mother’s side of the family. From childhood I never attended a school run by the Chinese; I always attended schools run by the Americans. I attended worship services from my youth, and the schools also forced us to attend them. I am quite clear about the whole condition of Christianity. The gospel and the truth they preach are very simple. Some of the Lord Jesus’ words spoken in the Gospel of Matthew, for example, are not simple, but Christianity applies them in a simple way. For instance, in the Gospels the Lord said, “Come to Me all who toil and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (11:28). He also said that we should love one another (John 15:12) and that we should be humble, so that whoever wants to become great among us shall be our servant and slave (Matt. 20:26-27). Christianity does not apply words such as these in a proper way.
John 14 through 16 speaks of the mystery of the Triune God — how the Triune God is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, how the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son, and how the two are one. Furthermore, the Father and the Son, who are two yet one, are realized by the Spirit. This realizing Spirit has entered into us to abide with us, revealing to us all the reality of the Triune God within us — from the Father to the Son to the Spirit — that this reality may become our experience. Since my youth, I have never heard this kind of deep message in Christianity. However, in Matthew the Lord Jesus said that we should observe all that He has commanded us. The Lord also said, “Abide in Me and I in you” (John 15:4). The Lord was telling us that He, the Lord, lives inside of us through the Spirit as His reality. Therefore, the Spirit’s coming and being inside of us is the Lord’s being inside of us. Now the Father and the Son with the Spirit come together to us to make an abode with us. This means that the entire Triune God comes into us to abide with us (14:23). This is a deep truth in the Bible.
In addition, Matthew 5, 6, and 7 speak of the decree of the kingdom’s constitution, which is also extremely profound, crucial, and practical. However, these truths have become veiled mysteries among today’s Christians. No one understands them, and no one speaks about them.
In the last days of this age, the Lord has raised us up and given us a twofold commission: on the one hand, we are to dispose of everything negative, and on the other hand, we are to preach to people — not in part but in full — the pure, high, and complete gospel. This preaching is not done through inviting a spiritual giant to do the speaking; that is not according to the Bible. The Lord wants us to go. We all know that the first time God came to man with the gospel was in Genesis 3. When man fell, he hid himself out of the fear of God. At that time, God did not call to him from the heavens, but He Himself came to the garden of Eden and called toward the place where Adam and Eve were hiding, saying, “Where are you?” (vv. 8-9). God was the first to go to someone’s “door” to pay him a visit. Four thousand years later God Himself became flesh, put on a physical body, and came among men as a man to go to men’s doors to pay them a visit. He went to the door of Zaccheus, and He went into the house of Zaccheus (Luke 19:1-10). He also paid a visit to the Samaritan woman beside the well (John 4:1-42). During His three and a half years of preaching, He did much work of visiting, never doing anything by calling people to organize a meeting or inviting people to a meeting. For many years the precious truth among us has not been able to be spread because our practice is contrary to the principle in the Bible. Therefore, we need to go against our former practice, no longer inviting people to come but going to where people are.
Thirty years ago in Taiwan we saw a group of medical people who went out to give injections. They all rode a bicycle, and on the bicycles was the sign Injections in Your Home. Not long ago in the United States the business of food delivery began, which specializes in delivering food to people’s homes. Today our preaching of the gospel and the truth is not inviting people to our “restaurant” but delivering food to their homes. Not only do we need to know people’s situation, but more importantly we need to preach to them the pure, high, and complete gospel. Then little by little we can teach them the pure, high, and complete truth. In this way the Lord will be able to gain a proper church prepared as His bride so that He can come back to marry us. This is our commission today.
(A message given in a conference on February 1, 1987, in Taipei.)
