Witness Lee on the local church: The Recovery of the Ground and Practice of the Local Churches
Witness Lee on the local church: Oneness

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E. The Building Up of a Local Church


Finally, Witness Lee describes the biblical way in which a local church is edified and built up: The gifted persons perfect all the members of a local church to do the work of the ministry. These gifted ones do not build up the church directly. Rather, they serve to bring all the other believers into function, and it is by the functioning of every member that a local church, and thus the Body of Christ, is built up:

A local church is built up by the functioning of all its members with the perfecting of the gifted persons, such as the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers (Eph. 4:12), through:

1) the preaching of the gospel to get sinners saved and baptized (Matt. 28:19);

2) the feeding of the new believers in their homes for the growth in life and in truth (John 21:15; 1 Pet. 2:2);

3) the perfecting of the saints in the group meetings for the building up of the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:12); and

4) the prophesying in the church meetings for the building up of the church (1 Cor. 14:1-5, 23-26, 31).

The gifted persons carry out their ministry in perfecting all the members of a local church in a locality, that all the members of that local church will be able to do what the gifted persons can do (Eph. 4:12) in the above-mentioned four items, for the building up of that local church, issuing in the building up of the universal Body of Christ. The gifted persons do not build up the church directly; rather, all the members who have been perfected by the gifted persons build up the church directly. (32-33)

This precious recovered truth of the local church ground and practice is a hallmark of Witness Lee’s ministry. Although it is merely touched upon here, it is covered in much greater scope and detail throughout the vast catalog of books that Witness Lee devoted to the subject of the proper practice of the church life for the building up of the Body of Christ.