Table Of ContentThe Ministry of God’s
Word
W N
ATCHMAN EE
Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc.
New York
Copyright ©1971
Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc.
New York
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 0-935008-28-4
Available from the Publishers at:
11515 Allecingie Parkway
Richmond, Virginia 23235
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
CONTENTS
Part ONE: THE MINISTER
1 Three Kinds of Ministry 7
2 The Contents and Delivery of the Word 21
3 The Course and Ministry of Paul 33
4 The Peak of the Ministry of the Word 47
Part TWO: THE WORD OF GOD
5 The Basis of the Word 61
6 The Need for the Holy Spirit’s Interpretation 73
7 The Need for the Holy Spirit’s Revelation 87
8 God’s Word in Christ 105
9 Knowing God’s Word through Christ 121
Part THREE: THE MINISTRY
10 The Foundation of Ministry 137
11 Revelation and Thought 151
12 Burden and Word 169
13 The Discipline of the Holy Spirit and the Word 189
14 The Word and Memory 205
15 The Word and Feeling 219
16 The Word and the Release of the Spirit 233
17 Some Helps in Speaking 259
Part FOUR: THE OBJECTS OF THE WORD
18 The Objects of the Word 289
The contents of this volume comprise a series of messages which
were delivered in Chinese by the author during a training period for
workers held in Kuling, Foochow, China, in 1948.
All quotations from the Old Testament are from the American
Standard Version of the Bible (1901), unless otherwise indicated.
All quotations from the New Testament are from the New
American Standard Bible: The New Testament (1960), unless
otherwise indicated.
P A R T O N E
THE MINISTER
1 Three Kinds of Ministry
1
“But we will devote ourselves . . . to the ministry of
the word” (Acts 6.4). The matter of serving people with
God’s word is called the ministry of the word; the
person who so serves is called a minister. “Ministry”
points to the matter, while “minister” speaks of the
person. The ministry of the word occupies an important place in the
work of God. There are definite principles to be learned by those
who preach the word of God and serve people with God’s word.
From the Old Testament time to the New, God always is found
speaking. He spoke in the Old Testament days; He spoke while the
Lord Jesus was on earth; and He continues to speak in the New
Testament church. We learn from the Bible that God has a prime
work to perform on earth, which is, to utter His own word. If the
word of God is taken away, then almost nothing is left of God’s
work. No word, no work. When the word is eliminated, the work is
reduced to near zero. We must therefore recognize the place of God’s
word in His work. Once the word is removed the work of God ceases
immediately, for God operates through His word; He treats His word
as His work. The work of God is filled with His word.
How does God utter His word? This is a very special and quite
remarkable method: God’s word is spoken through the mouth of
man. Not only is there the word in the Bible; there is also the
minister of the word. Were God to speak directly by Himself, He
would have no need for the minister of the word. Since His word is
delivered by man, the minister of the word becomes a real concern.
How very significant is man, therefore, in the work of God. God
employs no way other than man to deliver His word. God is in need
of a special class of people to be the ministers of His word.
8 The Ministry of God's Word
Briefly stated, one can find throughout the whole Bible three
different kinds of people whom God uses to preach the word. In the
Old Testament God’s word is spread by the prophets; hence we have
the ministry of the prophets. Once again, at the time of the earthly
pilgrimage of the Lord Jesus, God’s word became flesh; and thus we
have the ministry of the Lord Jesus. And finally, in the New
Testament God’s word is propagated by the apostles; with the result
that we have the ministry of the apostles.
The Old Testament Ministers of the Word: The Prophets
In the Old Testament God chose the prophets as the men to speak
His word. These many prophets spoke according to the visions they
received. Even a person such as Balaam could speak for God, for
Balaam was a prophet; his prophecies were some of the greater ones
in the Old Testament. The way by which the Old Testament prophets
could serve as ministers of God’s word was through the word of God
coming to them. Balaam, for example, prophesied as the Spirit of
God came upon him. He spoke in spite of himself. God set aside his
feeling and his thought and gave him revelation. The word of God
came to him irrespective of his condition. He neither added his own
opinion nor mingled his own feeling or thought in with God’s word.
In other words, God merely employed the man’s mouth to utter His
word. This is typical of the Old Testament ministers of the word. The
Holy Spirit gave the word to a particular individual and so controlled
that person that there could be no error in God’s word as propagated
by him. Though God used the person, there was little, if any, human
element involved in this type of revelation. Man merely spoke the
word of God without adding anything to it.
Nevertheless, in the Old Testament we do find people such as
Moses, David, Isaiah, and Jeremiah whom God employed as
mouthpieces in a way which was more advanced than that of Balaam
and other prophets. The words which Moses wrote were mainly what
Three Kinds of Ministry 9
God had commanded him. As the Lord spoke, so spoke Moses.
Isaiah recorded vision after vision which the Lord had shown him. In
this respect these prophets functioned under the same principle as
Balaam. But in another respect Moses and Isaiah were quite different
from Balaam. For we know that whenever Balaam himself came
forward, his personal feeling was so wrong that he was condemned
before God. While under revelation, Balaam spoke the word of God;
but as soon as he spoke by himself, he manifested sin, error and
darkness. This was not true of Moses. Though he largely spoke
according to what God commanded, yet there were times before God
when he spoke as he felt. During these occasions he was not looked
upon as doing anything wrong; instead, his word was recognized as
also being God’s word. This shows that Moses was more used by
God than was Balaam. The same is true of Isaiah. Most of his
prophecies came directly from the visions he received from God, but
sometimes he himself began to speak. David and Jeremiah expressed
their own feelings before God even more than Moses and Isaiah. All
of these prophets approached the way of the later New Testament
ministers; even so, they acted mostly under the same principles as the
rest of the Old Testament prophets. They spoke when the word of
God came to them.
The Minister o f the Word in the Gospels: The Lord Jesus
When the Lord Jesus came to the earth, the Word became flesh
(John 1.14). The Lord Jesus Himself is the word of God. He clothed
Himself with flesh and became a man in the flesh. Whatever He did
and said were all God’s word. His ministry was the ministry of God’s
word. The way God’s word was spread through the Lord Jesus is
totally different from that through the Old Testament prophets.
Earlier God merely engaged man’s voice to propagate His word.
Even John the Baptist, the last of the prophets, was but a voice in the
wilderness. The word of God simply used his voice.
10 The Ministry of God's Word
Not so with the Lord Jesus. He is the Word become flesh. The
very Person is the word of God. In the Old Testament the word came
upon man. The word and the man were two separate entities. The
former was simply spoken by the latter’s voice. Although with
Moses and David it was somewhat different, the basic principle of
the Old Testament was that God merely engaged the human voice. In
incarnation, however, the word of God was clothed with a human
body; God’s word became man. It was no longer the word coming to
man, nor was it God’s word using the human voice. The word
instead was dressed in man; therefore it had human feeling, thought
and opinion, though it remained God’s word.
If man’s opinion had entered into God’s word during the Old
Testament period, that word would have ceased to be the word of
God. For in the instant that human feeling, thought or opinion is
mixed in with God’s word, the latter turns imperfect, impure, and
unclean. It is the ruination of God’s word. To maintain the purity of
His word, nothing of man’s opinion, thought and feeling may be
mingled in. When the word of God was voiced by Balaam it became
a prophecy. But if Balaam had attempted to add his own feeling and
idea to it, it would have immediately ceased to be God’s word, for
the nature of the word would have been changed. This fairly well
sums up the Old Testament situation.
With the Lord Jesus, however, God’s word used not only man’s
voice but his thought, feeling and opinion as well. His human
thought was God’s thought; so too were his feeling and opinion
God’s. This is the ministry of the word which God was able to obtain
in the Lord Jesus. How vastly unalike it was from the Old Testament
way. God did not want His word to be merely word; He wished it to
be like a person. He delighted in having His word become flesh. This
is one of the greatest mysteries in the New Testament. It was God’s
desire that His word should carry human feeling, thought, and idea
through a personality. It was this kind of ministry which the Lord
Jesus possessed.
