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A group of young saints recently consecrated themselves to serve full time. Seventy to eighty of them are from the church in Taipei, and the remaining one hundred twenty are from other places. The majority of these saints are between twenty-five and thirty-five years old, and they need to be trained in all aspects. However, the atmosphere of prayer for such a training is lacking. We cannot depend merely on a certain person to train them. We must increase our prayer, and we must have a spirit of prayer. These days are for prayer. We should even fast and pray.
Only the Lord is the Spirit, and only the Lord can train us. We should never think that we are establishing a theological seminary. Today’s Christianity depends on theology, which is of no profit in accomplishing God’s economy; hence, we cannot take the way of theology. Theology emphasizes neither life nor the Spirit, but we emphasize both life and the Spirit. The natural man tends to care for knowledge and organization, not for life and the Spirit. We cannot walk according to the tendency of the natural man; neither can we be without knowledge, because even though the writing of the Bible is according to the Spirit of life, the written Word is through knowledge and is knowledge. If there were no written Word, God could not put forth the revelation concerning life and concerning the Spirit. Therefore, we need to have knowledge. It is regrettable that Christianity leans toward knowledge and does not stress life and the Spirit. In the Lord’s recovery we need to have proper knowledge of the Bible; however, we must not focus on knowledge. We must focus on life and the Spirit.
The brothers and sisters who desire to be in the training full time must have a new beginning with the Lord. This requires much prayer. How the training should be conducted requires our prayer. We should pray by ourself, when we come together in small numbers, and in the meetings. As a rule, we should pray unceasingly in the training meetings. We should pray and pray and pray. When our prayer is thorough, we will be clear concerning how to lead the training. Without sufficient prayer we will not know how the training should proceed. If we merely listen to messages to gain knowledge, we are taking a way that is not according to the Lord’s leading. Hence, we should have a spirit of prayer.
The full-time trainees who are twenty-one years old should continue with their education and not consider full-time service until after they finish their college education. Every morning, from Monday to Friday, all the trainees must study the Recovery Version and the Life-studies. They should study the text, the footnotes, the Life-studies, and the cross references. How much they study the cross references depends on their time. However, they must read through and understand the text of the Recovery Version and study the footnotes. In addition, they must read and understand the Life-studies.
When we study, we first need to read the text according to the outlines. Once we understand the text, we can read the footnotes. After we understand the text and the footnotes, we should find the corresponding portion in the Life-study messages and go over the Life-studies with the text and the footnotes. I hope that the trainees will study five days every week, from eight o’clock in the morning to twelve noon. After studying for an hour, they can take a fifteen-minute break. It is better to study in groups of three or five. Saturdays should be set aside for service. If we are willing to practice this, after four years we will finish the entire New Testament.
We should pursue the truth by studying the Recovery Version and the Life-studies, but we should never consider this as our theology. The term theology is misleading. We have only the Bible; we do not have theology. The problems in Christianity began around the second or third century when the church fathers developed a theology from the Bible. In the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325, the so-called Nicene Creed was instituted to determine the important doctrines and theology. On the one hand, the creed was written according to the New Testament, but not all of the books in the New Testament were recognized at the time. On the other hand, the creed was written according to the teachings of the church fathers. For some, the creed is now more authoritative than the Bible.
Even though some people advocate the creed and consider it to be according to the Bible, the creed is not as complete as the Bible. For example, Revelation, the last book of the Bible, speaks of the seven Spirits, but this is not in the Nicene Creed. Moreover, the items in the Bible that are included in the creed are not covered in a detailed way. Furthermore, the Bible is different from all other books. Although scholars spend much effort to study the writing style of the Bible, rarely can one describe the style clearly. For example, it is difficult to define the style of writing in the Gospel of John. It differs from the style of writing commonly used by writers, and the topics, central line, emphases, and structure of the sections in this book are not immediately obvious to a reader. It is as if the points in this book are scattered like stars in the sky with here a little and there a little. Hence, we cannot systematize the Bible by applying systematic theology.
In 1983 I released a series of messages in Stuttgart, Germany, concerning the central view of the divine dispensing (see chapters 1 through 10 of The Divine Dispensing of the Divine Trinity). I have since studied the relationship between the Father and the Son, the Son and the Spirit, and the Spirit and the Father and found many important points. One point is that the Son comes with the Father. This is a crucial point. However, the theology in Christianity does not emphasize the Son coming with the Father. Not even the creeds point out that when the Son was on the earth, the Father was with Him. Christian theology is even general in the way it says that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit coexist simultaneously. Unless a person studies this subject, he will not notice that the Son came with the Father.
Due to the incompleteness of the creeds, the British Brethren declared that they wanted the Bible, not the creeds. Later the Southern Baptist Church, one of the largest denominations in America, also declared that they wanted the Bible, not the creeds. The Church of Christ made the same declaration. More than sixty years ago, when we were raised up by the Lord in China, we also declared that we do not care for the creeds; we care only for the Bible. The creeds are not wrong, but because they are incomplete, they unavoidably cause people to err in their understanding.
In 1984 the Southern Baptist Church put out a publication with a list of all orthodox Christian groups, and we were included in this list. They also commented on several of our books, including The Economy of God. Their conclusion was that even though Witness Lee’s exposition of the Bible may not be considered wrong, he adheres too closely to the lexical meaning of the Scriptures; hence, theologians who follow the creeds or base their beliefs on the various Councils find my exposition difficult to accept. After I read their conclusion, I said Hallelujah, because in America our slogan has always been “Return to the pure Word of God.” The theology in various denominations in Christianity is not pure, but the truths in the Lord’s recovery are entirely based on the Bible. Our interpretation of the Bible is based on the Bible, not on our own views.
Since the time of Brother Nee the light that we have received has been progressing and increasing because we follow the Bible in our exposition. For example, before 1939, when Brother Nee spoke of our co-death with Christ, he stressed reckoning, based on the writings of A. B. Simpson, the founder of Christian and Missionary Alliance. One of Simpson’s hymns says, “There’s a little word that the Lord has giv’n... / Let us reckon ourselves to be dead to sin” (Hymns, #692). According to this hymn, the word that the Lord has given us is reckon. Brother Nee translated this hymn into Chinese. From 1938 to 1939 Brother Nee gave the messages in The Normal Christian Life in which he emphasized reckoning. However, after 1939 Brother Nee saw that the fact of our co-death with Christ in Romans 6 can only be experienced in the Spirit revealed in Romans 8. Therefore, mere reckoning does not avail; we must be in the Spirit, because the fact of our co-death with Christ is only in the Spirit. In this matter Brother Nee had a great advancement.
Another example is concerning church practice. In 1934 Brother Nee conducted a Bible study with the co-workers in Shanghai to study the church. The messages were published in The Assembly Life. After he completed the draft, Brother Nee asked me to write a preface to the book. In this book Brother Nee said that we did not have official apostles who establish churches; hence, no elders can be officially appointed. Hence, at best we were unofficial apostles establishing unofficial churches and appointing unofficial elders. Three years later, in 1937, Brother Nee gathered the co-workers in Shanghai and gave messages that were later published as The Normal Christian Church Life. In these messages he said that there are still apostles today and that an apostle is one who is sent out by the Lord. Since there are apostles, there are churches that are established by the apostles and elders who are appointed by them. This shows that Brother Nee had a change in his understanding concerning this matter. In 1948 several co-workers and I went to Brother Nee’s home in Foochow, and we stayed with him for some time. While he was speaking with us, he said that in 1937 we clearly saw the line of Antisoch, but we neglected the line of Jerusalem; however, we should stress the line of Jerusalem. This does not mean that he had a different view, but it shows that his view became more complete.
These examples show that we care only for the Bible, not the creeds. If a person cares for the creeds, it is not possible for him to change, and neither is it possible for him to advance. In a few years we may see more than what we have already seen. Our expounding of the Bible progresses and advances whenever we receive light. We cannot set up a creed to replace the Bible; this is evil before God. Although many denominations stress the creeds over the Bible, they cannot deny the fact that the Bible is a higher authority.
From now on the full-time trainees must concentrate on studying the Bible. In the Lord’s recovery we care only for the revelation of the Bible. We strongly disagree with the way of theological seminaries, which distorts the understanding of the Bible. Hence, the full-time trainees must realize their urgent need to know the Bible. But we will not set up a seminary or a Bible school to address this need. Instead, every trainee must spend half a day to study the Bible, until they are well versed in it. Your foundation in the Bible is not solid; therefore, we need to rise up and catch up, putting in a good deal of effort to study the Bible.
It is difficult for the saints who are past sixty to study the Bible in this way. Nevertheless, it all depends on their effort. For example, I now study the Bible more than I did fifty years ago. However, you should not think that I have studied the Bible thoroughly or that I have achieved success. I am still a student, and I am still studying. We study because we realize that our knowledge and experience fall short of the riches in the Bible. I therefore hope that the full-time serving ones will have a good beginning. You should not desire to be a spiritual giant or to become famous. You should serve in coordination with the brothers and sisters in your locality and spend half a day to study the Bible.
How you study is entirely up to you. You may take notes or underline the text. The only rule is that you set aside four hours every morning to study the Bible. I hope all the full-timers will accept this assignment. The saints who are part-time should also make an effort to study the Bible.
Furthermore, the brothers and sisters who serve full time need to budget their time and make a schedule. Every morning from Monday to Friday, you must study the Bible for four hours and then serve in the afternoons and evenings and on Saturdays and Lord’s Days. We have two major trainings every year. The summer training is around the time of the American Independence Day, and the winter training is around the Christmas and New Year holidays. While other people are enjoying their holidays, we are working and serving. This is what a full-timer should do.
Concerning your service, there is the work with children, the work on school campuses, and the gospel work in the community. We need further training in these areas. No matter which service we take part in, we must use four hours in the morning to study the Bible.
When we serve in coordination with the brothers in the church, we should keep the principle of having no opinion. From this time forward, we should begin to build up our character. Our nature is inherent, whereas our conduct is cultivated. Thirty percent of our character is innate, and seventy percent is cultivated. As we begin to serve the Lord, we should not only read the Bible and study the truth but also be trained in character for the Lord’s service. The character needed for the Lord’s service is higher than that for any other occupation.
The first and primary condition to cultivate a character for the Lord’s service is to go against our disposition. If our disposition likes to talk, we should stand against our talking. We all share the common disposition of having opinions. We need to pay attention to this matter. After I was saved, I began to read the Bible in English and noticed that it differed from the Chinese translation of the Bible. I even wrote my older sister and said that the English translation was better than the Chinese translation of the Bible. In addition, I wrote down the verses that differed and their corrections based on the Bible in English and mailed the list to her. At the time, I enjoyed doing it. Later, as I had more learning, I felt that what I had done was childish and naive.
After many years I realized that the Chinese Union Version is a good translation that is even better than the King James Version. The strength of the King James Version is in its good English structure. However, the King James Version was translated in the 1600s, and the manuscripts it is based on are less accurate than the manuscripts discovered later. In the 1800s a group of British and American Bible scholars formed a committee to revise the King James Version, but they had different views on many points, including whether to use the name Jehovah. The British scholars, who advocated using Lord, published the Revised Version. While the American scholars, who advocated using Jehovah, published the American Standard Version. This version was completed in 1901.
Western missionaries translated the Old and New Testaments into Chinese using the Revised Version and the manuscripts in the Hebrew and Greek languages. This translation is called the Chinese Union Version and was published in 1919. It is widely used by Christians in China and is one of the best translations into Chinese. The language is of a high standard, and it is based on manuscripts that are more accurate than those used for the King James Version.
You will not encounter the difficulties that I encountered as a new believer when you study the Bible, because we have been studying the truth for the past sixty years. Hence, you will not waste your time. As we learn the Bible, we should have no opinion. I hope that we build up a character to learn without opinions. We should never criticize a version of the Bible as being wrong, even though our translation of the Bible is based on years of experience as well as the studies of many scholars throughout the generations.
It took us a significant amount of time to translate the Recovery Version into English, and we are still revising it. Several full-time brothers in America are currently comparing the Recovery Version with the Greek text with the view of publishing a revised edition. When we were working on the Recovery Version, we consulted many translations and the best reference books. The Recovery Version is not something produced from our imagination, neither was it done by merely consulting a Greek dictionary and a few reference books. Rather, we took the original text as our basis, and then considered the strengths of different versions. After careful evaluation and consideration, we made our decisions.
Even more time and effort were spent to write the footnotes. We are standing on the shoulders of all the orthodox biblical scholars over the past nineteen centuries. We collected and consulted writings from the time of the church fathers until the present day. None of our work was done hastily. Therefore, we should not criticize the footnotes that differ from our concept; rather, we should learn from them. We should not have any opinions, because opinions damage a person greatly.
Likewise, when we learn to serve in the different localities, we should not disapprove if there is something in the coordination that differs from our view. Our disapproval shows that we are naive. In order to build up our character for the Lord’s service, we must learn to have no opinions. When we study the truth, we should be diligent without having any opinions, and when we serve the Lord, we should labor diligently without any opinions. We should always learn to work without opinions. If we are vacuuming a room, we should do it thoroughly and not criticize, which is to express an opinion. I hope that as we serve, we will have no opinions. We will know only to be diligent and to labor by doing more and learning more. We should all build up such a character. Then we will become useful persons.
In the future many of us will be able to give messages according to the Bible. The way to give a message that will stir up people’s interest is to speak according to the Bible, that is, to speak by expounding the Bible. This is the most powerful way to speak. There is no book that can meet the standard of the Bible. Therefore, the best way to give a message is to expound the Bible, but this requires a thorough knowledge of the Bible. Gaining such knowledge takes extensive training. Hence, we must spend the next four years to lay a good foundation in the New Testament. We can begin with Paul’s fourteen Epistles and read them in sequence, starting from Romans. After the fourteen Epistles, we can read the Gospels, Acts, and James through Revelation.
Another burden of the training, which will be brought up in subsequent fellowship, is that every full-timer should help a small group. This does not mean we will lead the small groups; we will help them. On the one hand, I am concerned that the full-timers may become proud upon hearing that they are qualified, designated, and commissioned to help the small groups. On the other hand, the brothers and sisters in the small groups may say, “Didn’t Brother Lee say that there are no responsible ones or leading ones in the small groups? Why then does he ask trainees to help us?” We need to see that in order to avoid doing things in a natural way in the small groups, the small groups need the help. In order to help the small groups, the trainees need to know the complications related to a small group.
In the Lord’s recovery our practices are not mechanical or organizational; they are organic. Hence, it is wrong for the full-time brothers and sisters to help the small groups in an organizational way. Our help must be organic. It is not easy to know what is organic and what is organizational. In the training we will be perfected to help the small groups, after which we will be assigned to a small group. If our attitude is that we know how to help people and, hence, we are the coach, what we do will become organizational. We should have the attitude of being a brother or a sister, who is a member of the Body, meeting together with our brothers and sisters in a small group. We should not feel that we are there to help others and that the other members must receive our help.
We must be organic in the small group. This is not easy, but if we learn, every small group will be revived. For example, in a small group gathering, if a person suddenly brings food and invites everybody for a feast, should we join them? Or should we give a message telling them that a small group meeting should not be worldly? What is the best way to handle the situation? A brother may say that we need to turn to our spirit, eat in spirit, and bring everyone into Christ through eating. This may sound good, but it is not so easy to carry out. One way to handle the situation is to not do anything. We can simply eat with them, not expecting to do anything, because there is not much we can do under that kind of atmosphere. Therefore, the best way is to not do anything and to not say anything. Just eat with them.
After we finish eating, we should not look for an opportunity to correct them. Even if we would tell them that material things are a type of spiritual things, we should speak in a careful way, because if we are not careful in our speaking, it can be insinuating. The most appropriate way is to say something uplifting when we are invited to speak. We should speak Christ but not say anything related to eating. Mentioning the food is like exposing a scar. We must avoid speaking in this way. We should only speak something inspiring so that they may get the benefit. Perhaps we will not have the opportunity to help them on that day, or even on the second or third visit. If we can endure until the fourth meeting, perhaps by then we will know how to work in a small group.
The time will come when the Holy Spirit will prepare an environment to render help in a spontaneous way. Therefore, as we go out to help people, we should not seek to be quick, nor should we focus on quick success. It may be that we visit them for half a year, and we still cannot help them. Please remember that there is no wasted effort. As long as we are going, this is better than not going.
We should realize that they are not completely without feeling concerning eating the feast. There is some feeling in them, but how deep and how strong their feeling is depends on how much weight we have before the Lord. If the apostle Paul were there, they would have a heavy feeling. Therefore, it is likely that due to our presence, they will begin to feel something. Therefore, we do not need to do something immediately. We simply need to go again and again. I believe that the Holy Spirit will give us an opportunity, and our effort will not be wasted. To learn to not do anything is an important lesson. We are doing a spiritual work, and this is the secret. May we all have this exercise. Gradually, the small groups will be delivered from the natural way of doing things, and people will receive the supply of life from us.
