TO ANNOUNCE CHRIST AS THE GOOD NEWS
After this kind of experience we will come to the meeting with something of Christ. We will come to the meeting with the riches of Christ, not in our mind but in our very being, because we have experienced Him and we have enjoyed Him. If we come to the meeting with these riches, we will surely have something to say. So we have to learn how to pick up the phrases, the terminology, and the expressions from the Bible. This is why we all have to study the Bible. We all may have something to say, yet if we do not have the expression, we have no way to utter it. For instance, if I am in an English-speaking meeting, yet I do not know any English, I may have something of Christ, but it would be impossible for me to utter it to you. Even if I have the knowledge of English, I also need the terminology, expressions, words, phrases, clauses, and sentences from the Bible. This is why we all have to read the Bible and the valuable spiritual books. From those books, spontaneously we will pick up many things. Even today in the elementary schools the teachers teach the young ones composition by reading. They have to read and read and read. In the same way we must have the experience and enjoyment of Christ’s riches as an accumulation, a storage, in us. Then we must read the Bible, and this will enrich our store. Also, we must read some spiritual books such as the Life-studies to pick up not only the knowledge but also the expressions and terminology to express what we have enjoyed of Christ. Then surely the home meetings will be rich. We will not be able to avoid it. We will have the riches and the utterance, and these riches and utterance will match the filling in our spirit and the strengthening into our inner man. If we have these four items, we will be the enriching, strengthening, refreshing, and renewing factors of the home meetings.
Now we are equipped with four things: the filling up in our spirit by the all-inclusive God; the strengthening into our inner man with might through the Holy Spirit; the experience, the enjoyment, of Christ’s riches; and the speaking. We have to realize that when we speak the experiences of the riches of Christ, our speaking is just the announcing of Christ as the gospel. Whatever we speak will be the gospel, the good news, the glad tidings. Acts 5:42 says, “They did not cease teaching and announcing the gospel of Jesus as the Christ.” In this verse the Greek word translated “announcing the gospel” is the same word translated “announce…as the gospel” in Ephesians 3:8. In Ephesians 3:8 it is to announce the riches of Christ as the gospel; in Acts 5:42 it is to announce Jesus Christ Himself as the good news. This word in Greek really means something stronger than preach, so Darby renders it “announcing.” Some other translations use the word proclaim. The Greek word is a predicate indicating that we are announcing, we are proclaiming, we are preaching, we are speaking Christ and His riches as the gospel, as the glad tidings, as the good news. The Concordant Literal Version translates this word as “bringing the evangel.” Evangel means the “gospel, the glad tidings, the good news.” Evangelize is the predicate. This is to evangelize with the riches of Christ. Evangelize means “to preach, to proclaim, to announce something as the gospel.”
Therefore, in all the home meetings, whatever we would speak would be the gospel, the good news to the hearers. I often have been hungry to get something in the home meetings. If one would speak Christ, that would be a glad tiding to me. If we are full of the enjoyment of the riches of Christ as we are going to a meeting, when we open our mouth, it will be the announcing of the riches of Christ as glad tidings to the attendants. This surely will enrich, strengthen, refresh, renew, and make our home meetings attracting and full of power to hold and to uphold. (CWWL, 1985, vol. 3, “The Home Meetings–the Unique Way for the Increase and the Building Up of the Church”, pp. 143-144)
The church in Zamboanga 