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Scripture Reading: 1, 4-5, 1 Cor. 14:12, 24, 31, 39a
In the previous chapters we have seen our need to help sinners to be saved and become the organic members of the Body of Christ. This is the first thing we must do for the building up of the Body of Christ. After the sinners have been saved, we should continue to take care of them by nourishing and cherishing them continually. If we do this, the newly saved ones will be fully established. If we do not nourish and cherish a newborn babe and take good care of him, it will be very difficult for him to remain alive. In order for a little one to survive, we must have an adequate care for him that he may be established.
To establish the new ones means to qualify them to learn something more. A mother knows that before a baby is three months old, she cannot tell him many things. She needs to feed, nourish, and cherish him and let him grow for three months. After growing for three months, the baby will have more capacity. The mother will have the opportunity to instruct the baby, and he will be able to receive her instruction.
After the new ones are established, we should bring them together with other saved ones in small groups of fifteen to twenty or twenty-five. For only one or two to be saved is not adequate to form a small group. Therefore, we need to help more new ones to be saved. Two or three brothers or sisters can join together to bring several newly saved ones to form a group. These brothers and sisters can then work together. Much work will be required to perfect the new believers. In Greek the word perfect mainly means to equip. Perfecting may be illustrated by the training young people receive in the military service. The new believers have to be equipped. This involves instructing them. We have to teach them, and we have to feed them, not just with milk but with solid food.
Some may wonder how the new ones could go on so quickly. Many teachers have found that little ones have a great ability to apprehend things. Every kind of life has its ability. In the human life there is an ability to grasp and understand many things. The newborn Christians have the divine life. With the divine life there is also the divine ability. We have to believe that the saved ones have received something divine within them. Therefore, they have the capacity, the ability, to understand what we say.
We should bring the new ones out of their homes to join with other Christians. This is to bring them into the habit of not simply existing by themselves in their own homes but coexisting with other Christians. Now that we have brought meetings to them, we have to bring them out of their homes to gather with other Christians. They can rotate their meetings in different homes. This will make them happy, build them up, and provide contact and togetherness with the saints. This togetherness brings much benefit to their Christian life. Children learn a lot by being together. When they come together, they teach each other. Quite often I have seen little ones “tutoring” each other, and sometimes those little tutors do a better job than their mothers can do. They have their way to talk about things. They have their own language and new vocabulary. They understand each other even when their mothers do not. This is why we have to bring the new ones together with some new saints.
As we have seen, we must first help sinners to be saved and become living members of Christ. Second, we have to go to them quite often to nourish, cherish, and encourage them. Then we must form groups of these believers. We have discovered that the small groups are crucial. The cherishing, exhorting, and consoling of the believers for their perfecting takes place in the small groups. In 1 Thessalonians 2:7 Paul first says, “We were gentle in your midst, as a nursing mother would cherish her own children.” It is not easy to be so patient, gentle, and tender in caring for little babes. Without grace one cannot do it. Then in verse 11 Paul also likens himself to an exhorting and consoling father. Exhorting, or entreating, implies a lot. Sometimes it implies a warning, and sometimes it implies rebuking, but with it is also the consoling. Martin Luther said that in disciplining children we sometimes must first spank them and then give them an apple. This is wise. Many parents have learned that if they only charge their children, the children will not receive the charge. After rebuking, parents must console and “warm up” their children. Then they will do what they were told. Paul said he was a nursing mother, feeding the believers with milk, and an exhorting father, disciplining, teaching, instructing, and charging.
In Acts 20 Paul told the elders of the church in Ephesus that he had stayed with them for three years (vv. 17-18, 31). Acts 20:20 says, “How I did not withhold any of those things that are profitable by not declaring them to you and by not teaching you publicly and from house to house.” Paul taught and admonished them publicly in big meetings and also from house to house. One by one he had many home meetings with them. This building work was done day and night, without ceasing, and with tears (vv. 31, 19).
In the group meetings a continuous fellowship should be maintained among the attendants. Then they will know each other and will offer prayers to God for one another. They will have a mutual care for one another. Someone may ask a question, to which one brother will give an answer while another strengthens his answer. This is the way in which they will learn the truth. We should build up an atmosphere in which all the attendants of the small groups are anxious to know the truth. Perhaps the saints in a small group would sing the song “Oh, He’s the wonderful Spirit in us” (Hymns, #1113). A new one may then ask a brother concerning the wonderful Spirit. This question will afford a good opportunity to give this one a teaching. After one brother speaks something about the wonderful Spirit, another brother can add a little. Then one sister adds a little more, and another sister gives a little testimony to confirm this teaching. This way of meeting is living, rich, and flexible. To hold a group meeting in a religious way full of legality is too dead. We must be living and very flexible, keeping the meetings so flexible. Everyone should be free to speak. However, no one should speak nonsensically. Everyone should say something meaningful. In the small group our teaching should be carried out in this way.
We should also promote the seeking after life. We have to stir up a hunger for this. In the small group meeting a newly saved and established one who is not yet strong in life may ask something concerning seeking after life. A brother may answer, “The life we seek after is not the plant life, the animal life, or even the human life. We seek after God’s life, the divine life, the eternal life, which is Christ Himself. We need to have this life added into our being more and more. Brother, you have been saved for three months, and you have this divine life, but even we who have been in the Lord for over fifteen years still feel that we do not have enough of the divine life. Therefore, we need to seek life more and more. It is the same with you.”
If the newly saved one is a thoughtful person, he may ask how to seek after the divine life. A brother may explain, “We must seek after the divine life in everything, even in the way we comb our hair. We used to do everything by our own life. Now that we have another life, the divine life, God’s life, we must have a change. Do not live by your natural life. You have to live by the divine life. Even when you comb your hair, you must do it not by your own life but by the divine life. When you comb your hair by your natural life, you comb it in a natural way. You may comb it simply according to the modern style. It is not easy to avoid this because the modern style may be quite attractive and tempting. However, within the modern style there is the devil. Are you happy with that? If you comb your hair by the divine life, the devil will be chased away.” This kind of talk will help the entire audience. They will all realize why they need the divine life.
After meeting in small groups like this for one year, all the attendants will enjoy much help, edification, building up, teaching, and instruction. This kind of teaching is much richer than the common way of teaching. This kind of meeting may be considered as an improved Bible study. Pick up this principle and try to practice it. You will find many benefits in this way of meeting.
After only one year everyone in the small group can be very useful. They will have experienced many things. Then they will need to go out to repeat for others what has been done for them. First, they should go to visit new ones in their homes by knocking on their doors. These new ones may be their relatives. Within one or two months they should get at least two or three baptized. All the young believers will be able to do this. After they baptize people, they should right away go back to their homes in the way we did for them the previous year. They should have home meetings with them to nourish, cherish, and take care of them. Then after three months they should bring them together to have small group meetings. We should tell the young believers to do for others what we have done for them. They have learned and experienced many things. We are the first generation, and they are the second generation. Now they have to work on the third generation. After another one and a half years, the third generation will produce a fourth. Generation after generation the church will increase.
The larger meetings of the church are not the same as the home meetings and the group meetings. The bigger meetings are for speaking for the Lord and speaking forth the Lord, speaking the Lord out. The Lord is in us. Now we need to pour out what is stored within us by speaking. We should speak forth the Lord into others, speaking the Lord out of ourselves and into others. This is to minister and dispense Christ, to serve people with Christ, like a waiter serving people with food. For this we need a larger meeting so that many saints can come together to do the same thing—to mutually speak for the Lord and speak the Lord to others. This is to exhibit Christ. Every week we have morning watch, home meetings, and small group meetings. Through all these activities we taste Christ, enjoy Christ, and experience Christ. We have an accumulation of Christ within us. Now we need to have a bigger meeting for the saints to come together to display the very Christ whom we have experienced. This display is an exhibition by speaking for the Lord and speaking the Lord forth, speaking the Lord from within us into others. In this way the riches of Christ are released. This is the scriptural way to meet, and it is altogether different from today’s common practice.
First Corinthians 14 promotes prophesying in the meeting. Many have misunderstood prophesying. They think that to prophesy is to tell people of things beforehand. In China and in the United States I attended a number of Pentecostal meetings and heard some prophecies of this kind. In 1963 I heard a prophecy that said Los Angeles would have an earthquake, and the whole city would fall into the ocean. The next year the same kind of prophecy was made in San Francisco. This was published in the newspaper, but it was never fulfilled. To prophesy in 1 Corinthians 14 does not denote this kind of foretelling. To prophesy means to speak the Lord with the Lord’s word under His inspiration. We should not speak our own word or our own matters. If we speak our own word, that is not prophesying. We must speak the Lord with the Lord’s word. If we are one spirit with the Lord, and the Lord is one spirit with us, we will speak the Lord with His word, being inspired by Him. We will have the inspiration to speak the Lord. Every day throughout the week we have some experiences of the Lord, so we have the riches stored up within us. When the church comes together, that is the time for each one of us to release the riches we have enjoyed of the Lord by speaking Him with His word under His inspiration. This is to prophesy.
Prophesying excels the other spiritual gifts (v. 12). It is the particular gift for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ (vv. 4-5). Prophesying is excelling because it builds up the church. No other way or gift directly builds up the church as much as prophesying. First Corinthians 14:1 says, “Pursue love, and desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.” In this verse prophesying is above all the spiritual gifts. Prophesying is the high point. We have to pursue love and desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but we should especially speak the Lord out from within us into others.
Verse 12 says, “So also you, since you are zealous of spirits, seek that you may excel for the building up of the church.” If we seek to speak in tongues, our seeking is too low. We should rather seek to excel by seeking the top gift. To prophesy excels all other gifts. No other gift is as excelling as prophesying. It is the top gift.
First Corinthians 14:31 also promotes prophesying. This verse says that the believers can all prophesy that all may learn and that all may be encouraged. Prophesying here is not to foretell. It is to teach and to encourage. Therefore, all can do it. Verses 24 and 25 say, “If all prophesy and some unbeliever or unlearned person enters, he is convicted by all, he is examined by all; The secrets of his heart become manifest; and so falling on his face, he will worship God, declaring that indeed God is among you.” By saying “if all prophesy,” Paul indicates that we all can do it, and we all should do it. The believers should all prophesy to convict people and to examine people.
The characteristic of prophesying is that prophesying ministers Christ for the organic building up of the church. As we have pointed out, this is carried out mainly in the larger meetings of the church. We should pursue prophesying and desire to prophesy (vv. 1, 39a). Moreover, we need to learn to prophesy (v. 31).
As we have seen before, we should first preach the gospel so that sinners are made living members of Christ. Then we need to have home meetings to nourish, cherish, and establish the new ones. We further need to group them together, to have fellowship with them, to pray for them, to have the mutual care, to teach them the truth, and to promote the seeking after life. By this the new ones will be perfected to do for others what we are doing for them. Then once a week we should come together to practice speaking forth the Lord, to minister the Lord to all the saints. This should not be by just one or two speakers but by all the saints mutually. We should have mutual speaking, mutual listening, and mutual building up. This is the direct organic building up of the Body of Christ. Therefore, it is the excelling way.
In order to learn to prophesy, we need to enjoy the Lord in a portion of the Word every morning. The way to do this is by pray-reading. Do not try to pray-read a whole chapter. This may be compared to eating a breakfast that is too large. We should choose a portion of the Word consisting of ten or fewer verses. Among these few verses there may be two verses that we especially enjoy, and we can concentrate on these. By doing this every morning we will receive inspiration, and we can take notes on the spiritual inspiration we receive. They do not need to be long notes; short notes with certain points as reminders are adequate. Then we should put all the notes, the inspirations of the past six mornings, together on the last day of the week to compose a prophecy for a three-minute speaking by exercising our spirit. Our speaking should not be too long or too short. Limiting our speaking to three minutes will help everyone to preserve the time in the meetings.
It is best to have some tutors, tutoring us on how to compose a prophecy. Those who know how to do this adequately can go out to visit some new ones to look at their composition to improve it or adjust it and to help them learn more. We should then practice speaking what we have composed, checking to see whether it is three minutes or more. If it is too long, we can shorten it. In this way we will have a proper prophecy prepared in writing. On the next day, the Lord’s Day, we will go to the church meeting having something. This will fulfill 1 Corinthians 14:26, which says that when we come together, “each one has.” Everyone has something. When our time comes, we will speak, not read, our prophecy, and when we speak, we may add something to make it richer and more living.
In the past many were afraid that they had nothing to speak. Some may even have thought of not coming to the meeting. To attend the meeting was a hard matter for them. They considered that they did not have anything to speak and did not know how to speak. They felt that while the elders had much to speak, they did not have anything. However, through what we have learned about how to prophesy, our situation has now changed. Now we can have something, and we can have the boldness to take the opportunity to speak. Formerly, we may have waited for the meeting to be over so we could be dismissed. Now, however, we will be waiting for the opportunity to speak. We will be anxious to have time to speak. For this reason it is better not to have one or two hundred meeting together. This is too many. According to our experience, it is better to have about fifty, at most seventy, in a meeting. When we reach eighty, we should divide into two meetings. If there are fifty, about one-third of the attendants can speak. Twenty speakers can each occupy three minutes, using exactly one hour.
We should also always be ready in our spirit to receive the instant inspiration of the Spirit. If we are living a revived and overcoming life and are one with the Lord, we will always be ready to receive instant inspiration.
We also need to have the spiritual insight into all matters through the enlightening of the divine light, that is, through the enjoyment of the Lord in the Word. If we have the Word, and in our spirit we are ready to receive inspiration, then we will also have the insight over all things, even in all matters, through the enlightening of the divine light. Prophecy is always composed of the Word, inspiration, and the divine light. We need to put all the foregoing principles concerning prophesying into practice for the organic building up of the church.
