SERVING THE LORD BY CARING FOR PEOPLE (1)
Many Christians throughout the centuries have held to one of two extremes concerning our service to the Lord. Certain “spiritual” persons insist that to serve the Lord is absolutely a matter of life. They say that since we have life, we will grow in our service, so there is no need of any training. Those at the other extreme insist that we must receive schooling in order to serve.
I continued by using the example of learning to fly an airplane. I said, “We cannot train a monkey to pilot an airplane, because the monkey life is not good for this purpose. Only the human life can do this, but this does not mean that as long as we have the human life we can all pilot an airplane. If we believe this, we will damage many lives.” I concluded, “Dear ones, by this we can see that we need the proper life plus the proper training. We should not insist on either extreme. Yes, we need life; without life we cannot carry out the spiritual things. However, this does not mean that as long as we have life, we need nothing more. In addition to the proper life, we still need the proper training and practice.”
In the early books of Paul’s writing, such as Romans and 1 and 2 Thessalonians, we do not see the consideration of training, but his later books—especially 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus—are filled with the concept of training and discipline. He said, “The things which you have heard from me through many witnesses, these commit to faithful men, who will be competent to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2). Paul had taught and trained Timothy, and now he charged him to train others with what he had been trained by Paul.
Likewise, in his earlier writings, Paul said nothing about the qualifications of elders, deacons, and deaconesses, but in the later Epistles he pointed out all these qualifications. A man does not merely grow into qualifications; qualifications come from training. Therefore, training is very scriptural. In the past twelve years I have spoken much against many traditional and unscriptural teachings of Christianity. Because of this, some may say, “Brother Lee, did you not tell us that we need life, not teaching?” What I said is that we do not need mere doctrinal teaching. After we receive life, we do not need teachings in letter, but we do need training. Paul learned something from his experiences. Likewise, according to our study of Paul’s writings and according to our experience in the past years, there is the need for training. (The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1973-1974, vol. 2, “The Normal Way of Fruit-bearing and Shepherding for the Building Up of the Church”, ch. 1, pp. 521-523)
The church in Zamboanga 