We need to Avoid Differing Teachings and Focus on God’s Economy to Protect the Church

For us to build the wall, we need to avoid differing teachings and focus on the healthy teaching of God’s economy.

We need to build the wall to protect the church from differing teachings, which are contrary to the teaching of the apostles; we need to hold to and uphold only the healthy teaching of the New Testament economy of God, and we need to repudiate and reject any teaching that is different.

On one hand, we need to hold Christ as the Head and be under His headship to build the wall.

On the other hand, we need to stand against the differing teachings, the teachings that seem to be from the Bible but actually, they are not part of the teaching of the apostles.

May we be those who cooperate with the Lord today to build up the wall in the church life; may each family build the wall and may every saint build the wall so that the kingdom of God would be among us. Christ must be not only our life but also our Head.

The church life today is a miniature of the New Jerusalem; in the New Jerusalem, we have a great and high wall that separates anything that is not of God from what is God Himself.

Today we need to be headed up in Christ, taking Him as the Head and allowing Him to head up our being, our daily living, and everything about us under Himself as the Head.

We need to enthrone Christ in our being and have every detail of our daily life under Him as the Head.

This is why we call on the name of the Lord, lovingly saying, O Lord Jesus!

We call O Lord because we want to enthrone Him. We enthrone Him in big and small situations.

We take Him as the Head in big and in small things.

May we allow the Lord to expand and enlarge our experience and enjoyment of Christ from Him just being our life to Him being our Head.

May our church life be enlarged and expanded, strengthened and safeguarded by our realization of the headship of Christ.

May we honour the headship of Christ, and may we exalt nothing and no one else besides the Lord.

The church as the city of God is built not only with Christ but also with the headship of Christ; Christ needs to be not only our life but also our Head.

When we experience and enjoy Christ as life, we have the church as the house of God.

When we realize the unique headship of Christ, the church will be enlarged to be the city of God, the kingdom of God.

Amen, may the Lord’s kingdom come in us and in the church life! May His will be done in us and in the church life.

May we as believers in Christ and saints in the church life take the lead to be headed up in Christ so that through the church God would have a way to head up all things in Christ (Eph. 1:10).

We need to Build the Wall to Protect the Church from Differing Teachings which are Contrary to the Teaching of the Apostles

Another way to build the church is to protect the church from differing teachings, the teachings which are contrary to the teaching of the apostles.

The differing teachings refer to the teachings that are not in line with the economy of God.

In 1 Tim. 1:3-4 Paul charged Timothy to tell those in Ephesus not to teach different things.

They were teaching Jewish things, traditions, fables, and teachings of men; they were to teach only God’s economy which is today.

To build the wall is not to swerve, not to veer, and not to miss the mark of God’s economy.

The differing teachings in 1 Tim. 1:3-4, 6-7, 6:3-5, 21-21 and the heresies in 1 Tim. 4:1-3 are the seed, the source, of the decline of the church.

They are the source of the decline, degradation, and deterioration of the church.

In those days there were the Judaistic teachings and the Gnostic teachings; these were the philosophy of that age with some religious overtones.

It was a mixed bag of trendy philosophy of the day. Such differing teachings invaded the church and penetrated it, seeking to destroy it by degrading the church.

Teaching differently tears down the building of God and annuls God’s economy. Even a small amount of teaching in a different way destroys the recovery.

We may say that we have just a little teaching, but what does it matter? It is like the leaven in Matt. 13; a little leaven causes the whole thing to become something different.

The leaven is all the evil things and the evil teachings. this woman, the Roman Catholic church, took some teachings and mixed them with the pure word of God (signified by the fine flour), and what came out is something completely different in nature.

Instead of being a small, unleavened bread, the church as a whole has become a big lump, full of leaven, and evil.

If we mix differing teachings with the teaching of the apostles, just to make the teaching of the apostles easier to take in, to be a bit softer, we dilute the truth, and degradation comes in.

Today in the Roman Catholic Church they talk about Christ, but that Christ is leavened; there is confusion and spiritual fornication (Rev. 17). We have to be strict about this matter.

Some people say that we’re so small, so narrow, and so intolerant.

But actually, when it comes to the matter of the teaching, the smallest person in this universe is God Himself; He’s the most intolerant of anything that is not He Himself, anything that is not His pure word.

If we mean business with the Lord and want to build the wall to protect the church, we need to remain in the healthy teaching of God’s New Testament economy and avoid differing teachings.

We need to fight and build the wall, to strengthen the protection and separation; therefore, we need to come back to the word of God.

We need to read the Bible and remain in the pure teaching of the word of God. Teaching differently tears down God’s building.

Even a small amount of differing teaching, a teaching that differs from God’s economy, will bring in destruction and degradation.

For the administration and shepherding of a local church, the first thing needed to terminate is the differing teachings of the dissenting ones, which distract the saints from the central line of God’s economy (Titus 1:9).

We are not narrow-minded people; we are not small people.

When it comes to the world, God loves the world; He came and visited the sinners, the tax collectors, and the prostitutes.

This should also be our heart, for this is the heart of God; God’s heart is for man.

But when it comes to Himself, to His economy, and to who and what He is, when it comes to what He does and His testimony, God is intolerant both in the Old and in the New Testament.

He is a jealous God. May we cooperate with Him and be one with Him today, focusing only on the healthy teaching of the apostles so that we may build up the wall and protect the church from the attacks of the enemy.

And may we stand against any differing teachings, rejecting anything that is not in line with the healthy teaching of the apostles.

Lord Jesus, we want to build the wall to protect the church from differing teachings! Amen, Lord, keep us in the healthy teaching of God’s New Testament economy. Keep us in the teaching of the apostles, enjoying the Lord and being in the healthy word of God. Keep us reading the Bible, teaching the Bible, and allowing the word of Christ to dwell in us richly. Save us from welcoming or condoning any differing teachings. Save us from falling into degradation, decline, and deterioration by teaching different things, things other than God’s economy, which is in faith. Amen, Lord, keep us in Your word. May we avoid the differing teachings of the dissenting ones and remain in the central line of God’s economy for the building up of the church as the house of God and as the kingdom of God!

We need to Avoid Differing Teachings and Focus on God’s Economy concerning Christ and the Church

We build the wall to protect the church and safeguard God’s interests by avoiding differing teachings and focusing on God’s economy concerning Christ and the church (1 Tim. 1:3-4; Eph. 3:9; 5:32).

The ministry in the church life in the Lord’s recovery helps us to get into the apostles’ teaching and have an appetite for the word of God.

We need to know the teaching of the apostles and remain in this teaching, rejecting and avoiding any differing teachings for the sake of the preservation of God’s testimony.

When something that is not the apostles’ teaching is introduced, we should not accept it but rather, we should reject it; this is for the protection of God’s testimony.

We must avoid differing teachings and concentrate on God’s economy. There are at least two sets of teachings that come from a certain kind of philosophy or ideology.

In Rev. 2-3, we have three kinds of teachings: two with the worldly church in Pergamos and one with the apostate church in Thyatira.

First, there’s the teaching of Balaam, the teaching of the Nicolaitans, and the teaching of the so-called prophetess Jezebel.

These are things that have come in to turn the church of Christ into a degraded thing, a mixture.

In the church life we need to reject any kind of teaching that is different from the teaching of the apostles.

We need to come back to the apostles’ teaching in the word of God.

Why is teaching so important, and why do we need to focus only on the apostles’ teaching, rejecting any differing teachings?

It is because the enemy through the teaching can influence man; through the current ideology, which is infused into the teaching in the many “churches”, the enemy infuses his thought into man and influences man.

For the enemy to gain us, he needs to gain our minds; once he puts in us a certain concept, a particular philosophy, and a certain system of beliefs, we will start to believe that, and we will subscribe to that in our daily living.

We need to fight for our minds and in particular we need to fight for the minds of the young people.

Many times we look at the younger generation, the things they are being taught, and the things that the world puts into them at such a young age, and we are very concerned.

Especially those of Generation Z or the millennials and their children.

The philosophy of the world has invaded and infiltrated the minds of many of the saints and the young people.

This doesn’t mean that we all need to be with the “older saints” to be preserved and that only the “older generation” knows the things that we all should know.

We all need to return to the Word of God and remain in the apostles’ teaching.

Look at the situation with Lot and Abraham; they were together, but Lot distanced himself from Abraham until he lived right there in Sodom and Gomorrah.

Abraham prayed and interceded for him, and God considered Lot as a righteous man, but he lived in a lawless place that had to be judged. Oh, Lord.

There was a righteous man living in a place of fornication, immorality, lawlessness, and godlessness; he was torturing his soul with much suffering by living in such a place.

He himself might have maintained his standard of morality, but this was not true of his family.

His wife turned her head and looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. His two daughters used a depraved means to ensure that they would have a seed from their father.

What about our situation today? Are we now used to what we see happening around us, and are we callous to the things that our young generation is subjected to on the internet, on social media, and in society?

We are not talking about politics, nor do we have an agenda; we simply need to reject and avoid differing teachings and remain in the word of God, focusing only on the teaching of the apostles (Acts 2:42).

When it comes to the word of God, we need to take the divine standard of human morality – there is NO compromise.

There’s no such thing as relative truth or relative morality. It’s black and white; it is being righteous and not being righteous – there’s no compromise.

There are many things practiced in Christianity today that the Bible strongly condemns and even history proves that they are idol worship and evil, things such as Christmas or Easter.

As soon as we lower the standard of the truth and welcome differing teachings, we will give in to these things in Christianity.

We are not “holier than thou” nor do we point fingers at others; we ourselves want to remain in the healthy teaching of God’s economy, and we need to reject and avoid differing teachings, thus building a strong and high wall in the church for the safeguarding and protection of God’s interests.

May we bring these matters to the Lord and honestly tell Him,

Lord Jesus, save us from paying attention to differing teachings; keep us in the healthy teaching of God’s New Testament economy! Amen, Lord, we want to remain in Your word and read the Bible every day. Shine on us through Your word. Expose any differing teachings in us and in the church life. We want to stand in the truth and let the truth operate in us. May we be saved from being infused with the philosophy and ideology in the world today. Save us from being saturated with the current trend in the world. Save us from bringing any mixture into the church life. We want to focus only on God’s economy which is in faith. We only want to know Christ and the church. Amen, Lord, enlighten our conscience with the truth in the Bible and keep us in the healthy teaching of God’s New Testament economy. We want to build the wall by avoiding any differing teachings and concentrating on God’s economy concerning Christ and the church!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by Minoru Chen in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1984, vol. 2, “Elders’ Training, Book 3: The Way to Carry Out the Vision,” pp. 268-271, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther (2022 winter training), week 8, entitled, Building the Wall of the City for the Protection of the Church as the House of God.
• Further reading on this topic:
  – This good deposit is the mark / Of God’s economy, / Without it we will miss the aim / Of His recovery. / The myst’ry of the common faith, / A conscience pure requires; / A holy, separated life / For us the Lord desires. / This outline of the healthy words, / In faith and love we’ll hold; / All different teaching, fruitless talk, / Reject with spirit bold. (Hymns #1285 stanzas 2-4)
  – Not the law of letters, / But the Christ of life / God desires to give us, / Saving us from strife; / It is not some doctrine, / But ‘tis Christ Himself / Who alone releases / From our sinful self. / Any kind of teaching, / Any kind of form, / Cannot quicken spirits / Or our souls transform; / It is Christ as Spirit / Gives us life divine, / Thus thru us to live the / Life of God’s design. (Hymns #541 stanzas 1-2)
  – All the other teachings used improperly / Are the “winds of doctrine,” spoiling unity: / Blowing saints away from Christ who is the Head, / Building not the Body, tearing down instead. / Thus we must relinquish doctrines of all kinds, / Only keep the faith that oneness we may find. / In the Lord the Spirit we are one indeed; / Just to keep this oneness is our only need. (Hymns #832 stanzas 2-3)