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In this chapter we want to continue our fellowship concerning the practice of meeting. In particular, we want to cover some crucial points concerning our need to pay full attention to the way of speaking.
We must pay our full attention to the way of speaking. If we are going to speak properly, we must get ourselves prepared to speak in the meeting. Unless we are burdened to speak or assigned to speak, we may not have any thought to speak in the meeting. Our thought is that someone else will speak and that we do not need to speak. If you have been a Christian for twenty years and have attended three meetings a week, you have been in about three thousand meetings. On these three thousand occasions, how many times did you consider speaking in the meeting? Possibly you never once considered that you needed to speak. There was always someone there to speak for you. For this reason it is hard for us to change our way today. Our speaking function has been annulled. If a child is not given any opportunity to speak for twenty years, he will be dumb. His speaking function will be annulled by his lack of speaking and practicing. This illustrates our problem today. We have so many saints among us today who love the Lord and are faithful to the Lord’s testimony. However, some who have been among us for many years have been annulled due to the old way of meeting.
When we do speak, we must learn how to speak properly. We must all practice and learn. Over fifty years ago Brother Watchman Nee, the pioneer in the Lord’s recovery among us, saw the light concerning the way to meet. He put what he saw into printed messages, yet we did not find a way to practice it. We had nothing with which to replace our old way of one man speaking in the meetings. Now we have been in the line of the recovery for over sixty years, and we have had much practice and experience. By the Lord’s mercy, we have published a number of books concerning the scriptural way of meeting. Now we have a way. We also have many publications in truth and in life. These publications are a great storage of “groceries.” Our only need is to learn how to cook them.
Whenever you attend a meeting, the first thought you should have is to speak. Get prepared to speak. Whether the actual time for you to speak will come or not is another matter, but you must have the thought to speak. To go to the meeting is to go to speak. To go to a meeting is not to go to listen. To go to a feast is not to go to look at the feast or talk about the feast. At a feast the main thing is to eat. Therefore, the first item of the proper way of speaking is to get yourself prepared to speak in the meeting.
When we speak, we should not overlap others’ speaking. There should be no overlapping but rather a good continuation from one person’s speaking to the next person’s speaking. One speaks while all the others wait; then the next one speaks. Between the preceding speaking and your speaking there must be a little selah, as in the Psalms. Stop for a while; it is more meaningful. Then you will have a good continuation. There will not be noise but a proper voice in a good continuation. Although this may not be too easy with a hundred or a thousand meeting together, the meeting should still have a good sequence and a good continuation.
Our speaking should not be too low without loving the audience’s ears. You may love your throat too much. Instead, you should love others’ ears. Learn to speak audibly. You must sound out your voice so that it may be audible. You are not speaking to yourself; you are speaking to others. We should also not speak too slow to exhaust the audience’s patience. To speak too low or too slow is not good. We all have to hate these two ways of speaking. Furthermore, we should not speak too loud, which hurts the audience’s ears, nor should we speak too fast, which puzzles the audience. Often I was puzzled at someone’s speaking. I could not follow it.
We must learn not to speak too low or too slow; neither should we speak too loud nor too fast. We may learn to speak properly in our homes by ourselves. We mean business in these matters. Our Christian life is altogether focused on the meeting life. If there were no meeting life, there would be no Christian life. These matters are quite important and are worthy of our study.
We should exercise our spirit in all our speaking. Many times when we speak, we disregard our spirit. During the course of our speaking, we may exercise our spirit only when we come to a point that we prefer. Our speaking, however, should not change like the seasons. When we open our mouths to speak, we must exercise our spirit from the first word. Otherwise, we are not qualified to speak. We must be in our spirit and exercise our spirit in all our speaking. This is important, and it makes a difference.
To exercise your spirit does not always mean that you shout. By your experience you know what it is to speak without the spirit, and you also know what it is to speak with the spirit. These points for our speaking require our exercise and practice.
In our speaking we should avoid telling “sea stories.” Some try to lay a foundation for the point they are trying to make by telling a long story, and many times they do this without hitting the subject of their testimony. You do not need to tell these sea stories. To give a testimony is not to give a message. In giving a testimony about your history with the Lord, you may simply say three sentences. This is enough to cover the entire story. Then the listeners will be happy. They will not be so heavily burdened with a long sea story.
Sometimes the brothers may have to tell the person who is giving a sea story to stop and give time for others to share. It is very hard and not so polite to stop someone while they speak in the meeting. This always hurts people’s feelings. However, everyone should consider that there may only be an hour and a half for many people to speak, and a sea story takes too much time. We have seen some who speak in a lengthy way in every meeting they attend. It seems that they have no sensation of time; they care only for their speaking. We are not outside of time. We must care for the hours, minutes, and seconds. We must learn to be limited by time.
We must avoid errors in truth when we speak. It is very easy for us to be mistaken. I may make mistakes in my speaking, but I will not publish any message without polishing or revising it. In this polishing and revising, I make many corrections. Learn to speak the truth. If you do not have the assurance in giving numbers or other details, you had better not do it.
Avoid exposing others in your speaking. It is easy for us to expose someone, even in our testimony, but it is altogether not profitable or helpful. It only damages the situation.
You must avoid anger in speaking. If you are angry, you must not speak. Speaking in anger kills the situation and kills your speaking spirit. Sometimes someone may interrupt your speaking. This may easily make you angry, but learn to hold back your anger, and never speak in anger. At other times someone in the audience may ask you a very peculiar question while you speak. This kind of peculiar question also stirs up people’s anger. Some who listen to your speaking may not like it and may rise up and walk out. Do not be bothered or touched by that. When you are speaking, do not let anything bother you. Do not focus your attention on any distracting element in the meeting. Continue to speak in a pleasant way, avoiding anger in your speaking.
Try to avoid lengthy speaking. This does not mean that you should speak in such a short way that people will have difficulty understanding you. Your speaking should be very easy for people to understand. Some brothers and sisters speak as if they were sending a telegram. This is wrong. It is better to lengthen this kind of speaking, but if you speak too long, this is also not good.
If we have seen that the new way to meet is better than the old way, we must endeavor to learn and practice this way and help others to do the same. We need much learning. We should pick up the burden to practice the new way, having patience with ourselves and with others. In any aspect of human society it is not an easy thing to change a habitual way. This is true not only in a church like that in Taipei with about ten thousand people but also in a church of only one hundred people. Even in a family of eight it is not easy to change a habit.
Some Chinese families living in the United States may find it hard to drop their habit of eating with chopsticks. Two members of the family may want to use forks, but the rest may insist on using chopsticks. They would say that without chopsticks the flavor in eating is spoiled and that with chopsticks every course tastes so good. To put away the old way of meeting and pick up this biblical way is a great change. Some older brothers and sisters and even some young ones who have been with us for a few years may not feel so happy about it. They may feel somewhat awkward. Therefore, we must see the vision of the scriptural way to meet and to serve for the building up of the Body of Christ. We must take this new way, or the Lord will have no way to go on.
In the way of Christianity, how could the Lord edify His members organically for the development of their organic function so that they may build up an organism, the Body of Christ? There is no possibility. We have studied and investigated and have seen that the Body of Christ cannot be built up in the old way of Christianity. At most an organized “church,” a group of people organized together, can be built up. However, that is not something organic. To build up an organism in an organic way, we need all the spiritual organs of the saints to be developed. Therefore, we must take the new way. Sooner or later, if not at this time then in the following years, the Lord will work this out. He needs some to take this new way.
Two thousand years have passed, and there is no Body of Christ as an organism that is built up. According to the record of the New Testament, the church at the time of the apostles was not better than it is today. At that time Paul suffered much. It was he who pioneered the way to bring the gospel to all of Asia Minor, and it was he who taught the saints there. He stayed in Ephesus for three years (Acts 19:1, 22; 20:31). He did much for the churches in Asia and wrote some epistles to them. However, by the time of his martyrdom all who were in Asia forsook him with his ministry (2 Tim. 1:15) due mainly to different opinions. A proper expression of the Body of Christ was not built up at Paul’s time, at the beginning of the church age. The seven epistles from the Lord to the churches in Asia confirm this (Rev. 2:1—3:22).
Two thousand years have passed, and what is here today? Where is the built-up Body of Christ? We must believe that the Lord Jesus cannot be defeated. He will surely do something. He is able. The reason He has tolerated the situation is that He would not do anything by Himself with His divine power alone. He likes to do things in the principle of incarnation. The principle of incarnation is that the divine power must be mingled with the human element. He needs us. On the side of the divine power, there has been no problem. Even two thousand years ago there was no problem. The problem is on our side, the human side. On the human side the greatest problem is the different human opinions.
We should not expect that since the Lord has shown us this new way, and we have brought the new way into the recovery, all the churches will be happy to take it. To think this way is somewhat childish. Do not forget that we all are still human. Therefore, there is the need of some faithful ones—who have seen the vision and the need—to pick up the burden to pray. Prayer is first. Then we have to do something like the apostles, who were pioneers and good examples.
Question: What is the difference between overlapping someone’s speaking and emphasizing a certain point?
Answer: Regardless of how much you would emphasize any point, you should not speak it by overlapping others’ speaking. You must wait until others finish their speaking. Then you may utter something. It is not good to have two speakings overlapping each other.
Question: If something is spoken that is incorrect according to the truth, should we let it go, or should we correct the speaker in the meeting?
Answer: Errors in the truth are in degrees. If the error is to a serious degree, such as denying the deity of the Lord Jesus, it must be adjusted immediately in the meeting, for it concerns our basic faith. On the other hand, a mistake in numbers, such as saying that the Lord fed five thousand in Matthew 15 rather than four thousand, should be let go. To correct people in the meeting is not pleasant. You should avoid doing this unless the mistake is serious and concerns basic truths. If the mistake is serious and concerns basic truths, we should correct the error immediately in order to let people know what our faith is.
In other cases in which an error is made in a person’s testimony, the correction should not be made immediately after the testimony. If you do this, that person may be offended. You may feel to correct the person, but many others may feel that it is better not to correct him. We all have to exercise our love. To stop a speaker who makes errors not only may offend him but also may offend the other saints. It is better to wait until another meeting. In another meeting you may give a little message telling the saints to learn how to follow the trend in the meeting. Give them some illustrations and examples. That will spontaneously correct and change the way of meeting.
