FOR THE BUILDING UP
OF THE ORGANIC BODY OF CHRIST
By Christ, the Head of the Body,
Constituting the Members of the Body into Gifts
through the Dispensing of the Riches
in His Resurrection and Ascension
The divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity is for the building up of the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:7-16). Through this divine dispensing, gifts have been constituted by Christ as the crucified, resurrected, and ascended Head. As the Head of the Body, Christ constituted the members of the Body into gifts through the dispensing of the riches in His resurrection and ascension (vv. 7-10).
By Christ, as the Head of the Body
in His Ascension, Giving Some Apostles,
Some Prophets, Some Evangelists, and
Some Shepherds and Teachers as Gifts
to His Body, to Dispense to His Body
All That He Is, Has, and Has Attained
The particular gifts He gave to the church were some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers (v. 11). These gifts do a perfecting work until all the saints in the Body are perfected. All the saints will be perfected to do the work of apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers. The professors in a college make their students the same as they are after a period of years. At the beginning the students who enter the college are merely students. But eventually, they can become professors with the ability to teach. In Christianity the perfecting by the gifts, which corresponds to the teaching of the professors in a college, is not that widespread. We also must admit that we have lacked this kind of perfecting in the past. This is the reason that we need to change our practice from the old way to the new way. The new way is a way in which all the gifted persons perfect the other members of the Body of Christ to do what they do. In this way all of the saints will be perfected.
The perfecting of the saints by the gifts is for the work of the New Testament ministry, for the building up of the Body of Christ through the dispensing of the riches of Christ (v. 12). This perfecting is so that all the members may arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, and at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (v. 13). Perfecting is a matter of dispensing. Thus, the new way is a matter of dispensing. It is not merely to teach.
In the new way of group meetings, we do not like to assign a teacher or leader to any group. We just encourage the saints to come together. If someone has a problem, we encourage the saints to fellowship, to pray for each other, to help each other, to care for each other, and to shepherd each other. There are no assigned teachers or students. Everyone can ask, everyone can answer, everyone can teach, and everyone can learn. This issues in the perfecting of the saints to function for the building up of the Body of Christ.
(The Divine Dispensing for the Divine Economy, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee)
