CHRISTIAN
MEETINGS PART II
A. Every denomination has its own constitution, its by-laws, or creed. These creeds, or constitutions, or by-laws of the denominations are their "design." A design is a pattern of the building to come.
B. We only have the Bible as our design. A crucial, practical part of this design is the way to meet. Every denomination has its own way to meet. The Catholics, the Preysbeterians, the Baptist, and the Pentecostals have their own way to meet, but in the Lord’s recovery we must come back to our design of the entire Bible.
A. To be gathered into the Lord’s name - Matt. 18:20
1. Matthew 18:20 says that two or three are gathered into the Lord’s name. The Lord does not say that two or three meet together. This indicates that when we come to meet it must be the Lord who takes the initiative.
2. The word "into" has been wrongly translated as "in" in other versions of the Bible. According to the best use of the English idiom, no one would say "into the name;" there is no such idiomatic expression. The translator took care of the language idiom, but they damaged and sacrificed the real meaning of the Greek text. Today in the Lord’s recovery we must say that we are gathered into His name.
3. If we are not rescued and gathered by the Lord no one would come to the meeting regularly because we are occupied, detained, kept and to some extent imprisoned by many things. Many capturing things, many imprisoning and retaining things, such as your tiredness, your office, your overtime work hours, your worldly enjoyment, your family, your business, are the detaining power to keep you from the meeting. Quite often even when we are in the meeting we are still not gathered; we still remain in our occupation, in our study of our text books, or in our care of our children. At times we not only think of our business but even bring our merchandise to the meeting and do business with the brothers and sisters. We are in the meeting, but we are occupied by things other then the Lord. Therefore, we need to be rescued by the Lord out of so many occupying things and gathered into His name, that is, into Himself as a living person.
B. Meeting in mutuality and in speaking - I Cor. 14:23a, 26; Heb. 10:25
1. The Devil has plotted to annul the mutuality in Christian meetings. All the denominations hold their meetings with one or two speakers. This is one-sided. The entire congregation is the audience, keeping silent with hardly any function; the pastor speaking for them, the assistant pastor praying for them and the choir singing for them. There is no mutuality. A meeting with one man speaking with out mutuality kills the function of the members of the Body of Christ. Just like when our hand is bound and not allowed to function for a certain period of time it will be paralyzed. You surely do not want that a member of your body gets paralyze. Christ likewise hates to see a member of His Body getting paralyzed; He wants living, healthy, normal, and functioning members of His Body.
2. In the New Testament you could see that the Christian meeting is altogether in mutuality, a matter of one to another. In I Cor. 14:26 one has a teaching, another has a revelation, another has a psalm, another has a tongue, and another has an interpretation. All these are in mutuality. There is no distinction between laymen and clergy. All are functioning members in mutuality. "Exhorting one another" in the meeting in Heb. 10:25 indicates that the Christian meeting have to be in mutuality. When we all say something, the meeting is altogether mutual, not one sided.
3. The word "each one has" in I Cor. 14:26 indicates that when we come to the church meeting, we should have something from the Lord to share with others, whether a psalm, a teaching, a tongue, and an interpretation for the Lord’s glory and satisfaction and for the benefit of the attendants - their enlightenment, nourishment, and building up. This is like the Feast of Tabernacles in ancient times. The children of Israel brought the produce of the good land, which they had reaped from their labor on the land, to the feast and for their mutual participation in fellowship with the Lord and with one another. We must labor on Christ, our good land; that we may reap some produce of His riches to bring to the church meeting and offer. If we are lazy to labor on the word and do not prepare our spirit to function in the meeting our meeting will be empty, silent, weak and dead - no enjoyment and exhibition of the riches of Christ.
4. In the Christian meetings everyone should speak. Even singing is considered a speaking (Eph. 5:19). Often when people sing hymn, they pay attention to music, to the melody, instead of the words. The music conquers the words. To avoid this kind of conquering, it is better to speak the hymn.
C. Meeting to preach the gospel and teach the truth according to the revelation of God’s New Testament economy - Acts 2:42, 46; 5:42; I Tim. 1:3-4
1. Today some preachers speak about sanitation, politics, and even sex in their meetings. In the Bible, you can not see any kind of loose preaching. We should not preach or teach in a shallow way. We have to be restricted within the boundary of God’s New Testament economy, and to be uplifted to the standard of New Testament economy.
D. Meeting to remember the Lord and worship God - I Cor. 11:20a, 24, 25; Heb. 2:12
1. Satan rebelled against God because he wanted to be worshipped instead of God. He even offered to give to Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory to tempt the Lord Jesus to worship him (Matt. 4:8-10). Today Satan is so busy giving to the people all the things, pleasure, money, and glory of the world to occupy them and cause them to forget the Lord and not to worship God. Thus, we must be delivered from the Devil’s strategy and always attend all the Christian meetings, especially, the bread- breaking meeting every Lord’s day to remember the Lord and worship God the Father.
E. Meeting to pray and to read the word of the Lord - Acts 12:12; Col. 4:16
1. We should have a corporate prayer and pursuance for greater blessing and supply.