My burden in this message is to point out what the nature of the Summer School of Truth is. Once we have a clear understanding of the nature of our summer school, we will know what to do and how to do it.
The nature of the Summer School of Truth actually is not a matter of teaching but of ministering or serving. The purpose of our summer school is to minister something to the young people. We may use a restaurant as an illustration. A restaurant is not for teaching about food but for serving food. Those who serve in a restaurant do not merely give people a menu and then teach them about food. Instead, the serving ones supply others with different courses of food for eating. The principle should be the same with what we call the Summer School of Truth. In a sense, our summer school is a kind of school, but actually it should be a “restaurant.” Our intention is not to give the young people a “menu” and then teach them about God. Our intention is to serve, to minister, God as different “dishes” for eating. Thus, the nature of the Summer School of Truth is a matter of ministering, of serving, the Triune God to the young people.
The situation of today’s seminaries is very different from this. Seminary instructors pay very little attention, if any, to ministering spiritual food to the students. Instead of ministering God, these instructors mainly teach theology, the mere knowledge about God. They do not minister God Himself to the students. We do not want our summer school to resemble a theological school or seminary. Our school should actually be a “restaurant” serving the Triune God to the young saints.
In the Summer School of Truth our textbook is the Bible, and all our lesson books are based on the Bible. Our goal is to bring the young people not to the lesson books but to bring them to the Triune God through the lesson books. Our lesson books should be a channel through which the young people are brought to the Triune God. If you realize this, then you will also realize that it is not sufficient merely to teach your class with the lesson book as if you were teaching in a secular school. Everyone in your class should gain the Triune God. Do not bring the young people to the lesson book—bring them to the Triune God through the lesson book. The lesson book is a channel for those whom you are serving to be brought to God and to gain God. This means that your aim is not to teach the lesson book but to bring the young people to God through the channel of the lesson book. This is the nature of the Summer School of Truth.
Through your teaching, your serving, in the Summer School of Truth, everyone in your class should be brought to God. You need to pray and endeavor concerning this. You need to labor to bring every young person in your class to the Triune God, so that by the time you have finished all the lessons, the students in your class will have gained the Triune God and will have been filled with God, not with mere knowledge about God in letters.
We have seen that our textbook is the Bible. Now we need to consider further what the Bible is. Apparently the Bible is the same as any other book—a composition of words. Whereas all secular books are the same in nature, the Bible is different from other books. The Bible is unique.
I would like to point out again that 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed.” The Scriptures are the breath of God, or the breathing out of God, God’s breathing out of Himself. The Bible, therefore, is God’s breath, and God’s breath is the Spirit of God, for God is Spirit (John 4:24). The Greek word for Spirit is pneuma, which is also the word for breath. Thus, we may say that the Holy Spirit is the holy breath (cf. John 20:22). God is Spirit, and the Spirit is the holy breath. To say that all Scripture is God-breathed is to say that the Bible is the breath, the breathing out, of the very God who is Spirit. God has breathed Himself out, and this breathing out of God is the Bible. This is what 2 Timothy 3:16 is saying when it tells us that the Scriptures are God-breathed.
(Teachers' Training, Chapter 1, by Witness Lee)