Search
The way for the church to practice the God-ordained way to meet and to serve is first through the exercise of the New Testament priesthood of the gospel by preaching the gospel through visiting people. We must first bring people to be regenerated and baptized. This is to produce new believers by begetting them. Then we need to raise up group meetings to build up the new ones, to perfect them, and to raise them up. To raise the new believers is harder than to beget them. All parents know that begetting a child is easy. After the delivery of a child, a mother must feed her child several times a day. Although this can be troublesome, it is not difficult. However, to raise a child for over twenty years is not easy. After being fed, a child begins to grow. Eventually, the child must be sent to kindergarten. Later, he must be sent to elementary school, junior high school, and high school. At home also the parents must do many things. They must instruct, correct, and discipline the child. They must also provide food, clothing, lodging, and many other items. Much has to be done in order to properly raise the child. After more than twenty years the child will graduate from college. Then he will be useful, not just for making a living but for doing things that can help his society. Raising the new believers is the purpose of the group meetings.
Acts 20 reveals Paul’s heart and practice regarding the raising up of the believers. He called for the elders from Ephesus to meet with him in Miletus, and he told them, “Therefore watch, remembering that for three years, night and day, I did not cease admonishing each one with tears” (v. 31). He said, “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” (v. 20). Paul exhorted and admonished the believers, both publicly in the big meetings and privately from house to house. He did not withhold from telling them of all the things they needed in order to live their daily life according to the will of God. He told them all the things concerning God’s counsel, the mysteries of God’s economy, and he told them how to fulfill God’s eternal plan concerning the mystery of God, Christ (Col. 2:2), and the mystery of Christ, the church (Eph. 3:4, 9-10). Raising up the new believers in the way that Paul did cannot be accomplished merely by the big meetings of the church. Even the home meetings for feeding the believers are not adequate to raise them up in this way. To raise up the believers in this way requires the group meetings.
If only a few saints know the proper way to preach the gospel and have group meetings, they will be able to go anywhere and raise up new believers within a short time. They will be desperate to get a few people saved and will then teach them in the way that Paul did. These new believers, who formerly might have been heathens who knew nothing about Christianity, will have a very good group meeting within a few months. Many of us, however, came from the background of traditional Christianity, and it is not easy to change our way. Even if we practice the group meetings, we may not do it in the new way. Our oldness and staleness damage our practice of the group meetings. We need a change of mind. We all are able to change, but whether or not we change depends upon our desperation. We must not merely receive the speaking in these messages and appreciate and agree with all the points. We must be desperate to have a radical change. Without this desperation we will still have group meetings with spiritually old saints in the old way with the old concept. This is not effective. We must be stirred up to have a change. We desperately need a new start and new group meetings.
It has been good that we have had group meetings in the past. They accomplished something. However, we can always find a better way in anything we do. This is why we need a coach to help us to “play ball.” If we have never been coached, we will not have the proper way. Our group meetings of the past were better than nothing, but we must realize that they might not have been carried out in the coached way. We need coaching. We should not “play ball” in any way we desire. If we are coached, we will learn how to “play” properly, and we will be successful.
Paul received the revelation of God’s economy, which he revealed in his Epistles (Eph. 3:3, 9). We, however, were not born nineteen centuries ago, and we did not receive the revelation directly from the Lord as Paul did. Nevertheless, we have a better heritage than Paul had. Paul did not have nineteen centuries of church history to study, but we have studied church history very much, not just to learn the facts of history but mainly to discover what the best way for the church is. We have tried to learn which ways worked and which ways did not work. During the past five years we spent much time to reconsider all the practices of Christianity over the last twenty years. We tried to learn what God’s ordained way is and what the biblical way to preach the gospel is. We studied and restudied the Bible, and we eventually discovered from Paul’s writings the truth of the New Testament priesthood of the gospel. Every preacher of the New Testament gospel must be not an ordinary person but a priest. Then we compared this truth to the practices of gospel preaching in the Catholic Church, the state churches, and the denominations. We considered how the Brethren, the Pentecostals, and the free groups preach the gospel. We also studied how we preached the gospel in the past. Now we have learned that the top way—God’s ordained, biblical way—is the way we are passing on in these messages.
The “new way” is the God-ordained way and the biblical way. The church has been on the earth for almost twenty centuries. I have the full assurance and confidence that now is the time for the Lord to carry out His new way. The carrying out of the new way can be compared to the tide of democracy on the earth today. The political history of the past six thousand years has consummated in democracy, and now the Eastern European countries, the former Russian satellites, have turned from autocracy to democracy. The carrying out of the Lord’s way, also, is like the coming of a tide. The God-ordained way to meet and to serve is recorded in the Bible, and every word spoken by the Lord will be fulfilled (Matt. 5:18; 24:35). His words were not spoken in vain (Isa. 55:10-11). Therefore, we must learn to take this way. If we mean business with the Lord, we must make a decision to have a radical change in our understanding concerning the Lord’s way.
The problem among us is that we have become old and stale, and we have not adopted the new way with desperation. If we will be desperate, we will have a success. Our lack of desperation can be seen in the way we visit people. In the past we have gone to visit people too lightly and without adequate preparation. Even in the matter of speaking the language of those whom we contact, we have not been adequately prepared. Those who visit a Korean-speaking family should be able to speak Korean. We have been too loose in choosing whom we send to contact certain persons. If we send brothers from ethnic minorities to visit a middle-class Caucasian family, they may not be properly received. The family may be cold toward them. On the other hand, if four middle-aged Caucasian brothers and sisters visit the same family, they will not be rejected. The doors and hearts of that family will be opened. Likewise, if we want to gain a Japanese family, we should send Japanese brothers and sisters to visit them. We have not considered these matters thoroughly. We have acted too lightly. We must mean business with the Lord, or we will waste our time.
We need to reconsider our ways. We have practiced the old way for many years, and it was not effective. This should compel us to take the new way. We have no choice but to take this way. To take the new way is not difficult. We must simply pick it up and make the decision to go on according to it. According to our study and experience, we must first go to beget new believers. Within two or three weeks we can beget two or three new ones. Then we should form a new group meeting with these new persons, and we must strictly practice the new group meeting according to the way in which we were coached. Then we should continue to make improvements when possible. We should try our best to follow this way.
