In order for us to build up the church as the Body of Christ, we need to practice prophesying, the excelling gift for the building up of the church; this is to practice the scriptural way to meet and to serve (1 Cor. 14:1, 4, 24-25, 31).
The will of God is that His Christ would be everything to us and that we would build up the church as the Body of Christ.
For us to build up the church, we need to exercise to function in the meetings of the church, exercising our organic function in the Body of Christ.
The Lord desires to recover the church meetings in mutuality with all members functioning in the Body for the church as the Body of Christ to be built up.
But if we look at Christianity in general today, it is mainly those who are more “gifted” or trained in seminaries that function, while the regular Christians do not function but rather listen, silently participate, and do not exercise their organic function.
If in our body only 10% of the members would function, our body would be paralysed; if only some of the members function – or over-function – the body cannot grow and be built up in a normal way.
Even among us in the church life, if we consider our meetings, there’s the danger that it is only a group of saints would function in the meetings, while the rest of the saints may regularly not share…but the Lord wants ALL the saints to share and function.
When the gifted members not over-function but perfect the other members of the Body to function even as they do – but in a smaller measure, then all the saints can function for the building up of the Body.
This means that, on one hand, we personally need to seek the Lord, enjoy Him, be filled with Him, and absorb Him in our daily time with Him, and we also need to experience Him and live Him daily.
This requires our cooperation with the Lord so that we may digest and assimilate Him, and so that we may have Him constituted into us.
On the other hand, we need to allow the gifted saints to perfect us, that is, to help us function in the same way they do but in our measure; then, we will function as an apostle, an evangelist, a shepherd and teacher, or as a prophet.
When we come to the meeting, we shouldn’t wait for others to function first; we should simply exercise our spirit and praise the Lord, thank Him, and sing to Him, and we should release the portion of Christ that we have enjoyed and experienced.
When we all function, when all members function and practice prophesying, the church as the Body of Christ is built up little by little.
We need to Practice Prophesying by Speaking for the Lord to Build up the Church
In the practice of the God-ordained way for us to meet and to serve, we emphasize the matter of prophesying, which Paul calls “the excelling” gift for the building up of the church (see 1 Cor. 14).
To prophesy in the New Testament doesn’t primarily imply that we predict the future; rather, it is speaking building up and encouragement and consolation to men (v. 3).
To prophesy according to 1 Cor. 14 is to speak for the Lord, to speak the Lord forth, and to speak the Lord into others by ministering Christ into them.
In the meetings of the church our focus is Christ; we enjoy Christ, we exalt Christ, we focus on Christ, and we speak Christ.
When we come together, we should bring something of the Christ we have enjoyed and experienced, and we should practice prophesying for the building up of the church.
This we should do not only when we meet, but even throughout our daily life; as those who are growing in the Lord day by day, those who have their spiritual gifts being developed, we need to learn to practice prophesying by speaking Christ into others every day.
Speak the word in season and out of season – this is to speak the Lord as life into others whether we feel like it’s the right time or not.
If we daily practice to speak something for the Lord, when we come together to fellowship we will spontaneously practice prophesying by speaking for the Lord in the meetings of the church to build up the Body of Christ.
We all can prophesy one by one; as we prophesy, we build up the church. If there’s only one man speaking and the rest listening, the congregation can be built up, but the Body of Christ as an organism can never be built up.
But if all the members of the Body function by prophesying, the Body is built up.
There’s a great difference between one person speaking for one hour every Lord’s day morning to give a message, and twenty to thirty different saints speaking for 2-3 minutes; in the first case we may enjoy some things, but in the second case we are all edified and we build up the church.
Regardless how excellent a speaker may be, and regardless how trained, burdened, and zealous a brother may be for the Lord and for the saints, he cannot be the only one functioning for one hour or so on Lord’s day morning.
Rather, all the saints should bear the responsibility to speak something for the Lord, even the new ones.
The more we enjoy the Lord, the more we have something of Him that overflows from us; our heart overflows with the good matter, and we can speak what we have composed concerning the king, the One whom we love.
When we all function in the church meetings and practice prophesying for the building up of the church, our meetings are full of the riches of Christ – they are like a feast!
Our prophesying and all the saints prophesying is like a big love feast with many courses and dishes of Christ, for we have enjoyed Christ, we experienced Him, we are learning to speak Christ, and we speak Him forth for the building up of the church.
Furthermore, such a meeting is not boring or monotonous, with a routine schedule or dry activities; we enjoy the Lord in all His riches as He is speaking in and through the saints.
Oh, may the Lord recover our practice of prophesying, the excelling gift for the building up of the church!
Lord Jesus, recover our practice of prophesying in the church meetings for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ! May we and all the saints learn to speak for the Lord and speak the Lord into others not only in the meetings of the church but even daily in our interactions with others and contact with the saints. Amen, Lord Jesus, may we practice prophesying as a way of living – may we allow You to be wrought into us and fill us, and may we cooperate with You to speak You forth into others day by day and meeting by meeting!
We Practice Prophesying in the Meetings of the Church for All to Learn and for the Body to be Built up
According to 1 Cor. 14:31, we practice prophesying in the meetings of the church so that all may learn.
We learn by speaking and we speak so that we may learn; our prophesying is not as if we are experts but as learners, for we all learn, we all are being perfected, and we all seek to build up the Body.
We need to learn to prophesy through many experiences of speaking for the Lord and speaking Him forth into others.
We learn to prophesy by being equipped with the Word of God; we need to take the word of God by means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit (Eph. 6:17-18), breathing in the breathed out word of God (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
We learn to prophesy by praying ourselves into the Spirit and by living and walking by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25).
Most of all, we learn to prophesy by practicing; we need to practice prophesying in different ways, at different times, and with different people, both one-on-one and corporately in the meetings of the church.
In the sense of the divine dispensing, the entire Bible consummates in all prophesying (1 Cor. 14:3, 24-25, 31).
A very practical and real way for us to cooperate with the Lord for the carrying out of His economy, which is His dispensing, is that we would prophesy in the church meetings so that we may dispense God into man.
When we practice prophesying, when we speak for God and speak forth God with God as our content, we minister God to the hearers and we bring them to God.
We or others may have some problems that we struggle with, we may have some puzzling situations and some troubling thoughts, and when we’re in the prophesying meeting and hear all the saints speak for the Lord, something from the Lord will shine on us and He will have a way to touch us.
Just as the psalmist in Psa. 73, when we enter into the sanctuary of God – our mingled spirit and the church – the Lord has a way to reveal something new to us, to expose the secrets of our heart, to answer our questions, and to give us revelation of His purpose.
If only one person speaks and the rest listen, people may not get all that he speaks; but when we have twenty or thirty speaking in the prophesying meeting, the Lord will use something spoken by someone to touch us, to correct us, to adjust us, and to perfect us.
When others come in and see all saints practice prophesying, the secrets of their heart will become manifest, and they will be convicted by all; they will fall on their faces and admit that God is among us.
It is not because a particularly more-gifted person speaks something and everyone is touched, but that all saints practice to prophesy by speaking for God in the meeting of the church, and in this way God has a way to speak, reveal, convict, edify, and eventually build up the Body of Christ.
In a meeting where all saints practice prophesying the saints get corrected, they are built up, they are supplied, furnished, and equipped. Hallelujah!
Even a young person who has enjoyed the Lord and shares something for two or three minutes can minister to us.
When a high schooler sees something of God’s economy and His desire to end this age, and he or she prophesies, the Lord has a way to rekindle our love for Him, and He can touch us and infuse us with His purpose even more.
No matter how old or young we are, no matter how much we have been a believer, we all need to speak for God and speak forth God with God as our content, for in this way we minister God to those who hear.
God desires that each and every one of His believers would prophesy, that is, that each of His believers would speak for the Lord and speak Him forth (1 Cor. 14:1, 31; Num. 11:29).
Prophesying is the particular gift for the building up of the church, for by prophesying we minister Christ for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ.
Lord Jesus, do whatever You need to do to bring forth the organic function of all the members of the Body of Christ. May we all practice prophesying in the meetings of the church for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ. Amen, Lord, we want to learn to prophesy, for You desire and we desire that we speak for God and speak forth God! May we daily enjoy You and experience You. Bring us further with You, dear Lord, that we may live a prophesying life, a life of practicing to speak Christ to those around us day by day. Oh Lord, amen, have a way in us and among us! May we all exercise this excelling gift of prophesying for the building up of the organic Body of Christ!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1988, vol. 4, “The Excelling Gift for the Building Up of the Church,” pp. 449-452, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Will of God (2020 spring ITERO), week 8, Meeting to Know and Do the will of God.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Our spirit we must exercise / To take the Word most inwardly, / And then to give the Spirit forth; / The two as one with us should be. / Lord, may Thy Word in me become / The Spirit as my life supply, / And may Thy Spirit in Thy Word / My true expression be thereby. (Hymns #815)
– We must ever preach the gospel, / Learning how to prophesy / For the building of the Body, / Thus the Lord to glorify. (Song on, We must ever preach the gospel)
– In meetings Christ to God we bear / And Christ with one another share, / And Christ with God enjoying there, / We thus exhibit Christ…. / The testimony and the prayer, / And all the fellowship we share, / The exercise of gifts, whate’er, / Should just exhibit Christ. (Hymns #864)
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