Events in the life of Jesus will be symbolized by the seven major feasts of Israel and presented as five stepping stones to the New Jerusalem. These five stepping stones can lead man safely back to the restored relationship with God both in this life and in the New Jerusalem. (Social Issues)

The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1968, volume 2, contains messages given by Brother Witness Lee from August 6 through December 29, 1968. As mentioned in the preface to volume 1, from late July through the middle of November, Brother Lee visited the Far East. From July 25 through August 22 he was in Taiwan, where he was joined by over one hundred forty brothers and sisters from the United States and Canada, along with some saints from Brazil, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Denmark, and West Germany. He then visited Manila, Philippines; Singapore; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Hong Kong. There is no record of his speaking in any of these places. He returned to Taipei in late September, where he remained until early November. Subsequently, he visited Toyama and Tokyo, Japan, before returning to Los Angeles in the middle of the month. There is no record of his speaking in Japan. He remained in Los Angeles for two weeks and then visited San Francisco, California; Vancouver, Canada; and Seattle, Washington, during the next two weeks. There is no record of his speaking in Vancouver or Seattle. Brother Lee remained in Los Angeles from mid-December until the end of the year. The contents of this volume are divided into eleven sections, as follows: 1. Twelve messages given during a training for young people in Taipei, Taiwan, on August 6 through 10. These messages were published previously in Chinese under the title The Lord's Recovery and the Fulfillment of God's Desire. The last two spoken messages were combined. 2. Nine messages given in co-workers' and elders' meetings in Taipei, Taiwan, on August 13 through 17, and in a farewell meeting on August 22. They are included in this volume under the title Turning to the Age of the Spirit. 3. Three messages given to the co-workers and elders in Taiwan in August and September. These messages are included in this volume under the title Fighting for the Truth. 4. Ten messages given in Taipei, Taiwan. The first seven messages were given in island-wide elders' meetings in late September, and the subsequent two messages were given in a church meeting on November 3 and a service meeting on November 4, respectively. Of the first seven messages, the second was previously published as chapter 6 of the book entitled Character. The final message, which appeared in Church News, number 15, November 1968, consists of a report concerning the background of the two messages given on November 3 and 4. The ten messages in this section were published previously in Chinese under the title The Motive, Coordination, and Function of the Lord's Serving Ones. 5. Several messages given in Taipei, Taiwan, in September and October. These messages were compiled and published as a single message in The Ministry of the Word, number 211, January 1969. This message is included in this volume under the title The Practice of the Pray-reading Meeting. 6. Four messages given in Taipei, Taiwan, from October 19 through 22. These messages are published in this volume under the title Gospel Messages. 7. Five messages given in Los Angeles, California, from November 22 through 24. These messages are included in this volume under the title Growing in Life and Serving the Lord for the Building Up of the Church as His Testimony. The final two messages were combined. 8. Fifteen messages given in San Francisco, California, from November 28 through December 1. These messages are included in this volume under the title Various Meetings in San Francisco. 9. Eight messages given in Los Angeles, California, on December 19 through 21. These messages are published in this volume under the title Speaking Christ to Build Up the Church for the Accomplishment of God's Eternal Purpose. 10. Thirteen messages given in Los Angeles, California, from November 17 through December 29. They are included in this volume under the title The Significance, Practice, and Present Situationof the Local Churches. Two of the messages were combined. 11. Two messages given in Los Angeles, California, on November 17 and December 17. They are included in this volume under the title Miscellaneous Meetings in Los Angeles.

There is a development between expectation for the rebuilding of the New Jerusalem/Temple in the Old Testament and the coming of the New Jerusalem/Temple in Revelation. In Revelation, there is a dynamic relation between the New Jerusalem and the Heavenly Jerusalem: the New Jerusalem is the descent of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Moreover, there is no Temple building which was expected as the eschatological promise in the Old Testament but rather God and the Lamb is the Temple. How can this shift be explained? Pilchan Lee examines the exegetical tradition which existed between the Old Testament and Revelation. He assumes that as the exegetical tradition, the early Jewish (apocalyptic) literature functions as a key element for forming the idea of the New Jerusalem in Revelation. John's main argument is that the church (which is symbolized by several images) is placed in heaven now (chapters 4-20) and the church (which is symbolized by the New Jerusalem) will descend to the earth from heaven in the future (21-22).

Includes Journal of the Massachusetts Association of the New Jerusalem Church.

In this issue of The Ministry, we continue the series of messages on the present practice in God’s economy. These messages, given at a crucial time in the Lord’s recovery, unveil the practice of the new way which the Lord gave to the churches through Brother Lee’s ministry and practical leading. In the message which we include here, Brother Lee emphasizes our need to carry out the begetting, nourishing, and teaching in the meetings in the believers’ homes. To carry out the new way, we must no longer build up the big meetings of the church, which have the clergy-laity system as their root. This truly involves a spiritual warfare, so we must struggle every step of the way, especially in prayer, to participate in the fighting service in God’s economy. The subsequent six messages are from the second half of the Living Stream Ministry’s Summer Training of 1997, entitled The Crucial Contents of God’s New Testament Ministry. This training, which followed immediately after our brother’s departure, was a thorough review of the contents of the New Testament ministry, which he brought to us over many years. On the occasion of Brother Lee’s departure, we can consider all that the Lord has unveiled to us, all the truths which were recovered for us through our brother’s faithful ministry, to bring us into the Lord’s recovery and into the experience of Christ and the reality of the Body of Christ for God’s eternal economy to consummate the New Jerusalem. The local churches raised up under this ministry will speak these things, teach these things, write these things, and live these things until we meet the Lord. Last, we include an encouraging report on the spread of the ministry through the marketing of our publications in Christian bookstores. We also report on the work to produce the Recovery Version of the New Testament in the Russian language, which is now in its fifth and final year. A letter from the co-workers in the former Soviet Union brings us up to date on the Lord’s move there in the first training for the responsible brothers and the recent winter training held in Moscow, and letters from Berlin, Germany report on the progress in publishing and distributing books by Watchman Nee in the German language.

This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the first eight messages given during the fall 2016 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "The Failures in the Churches, the Degradation of the Church, the Overcomers in the Church, the Recovery of the Church, and the Stages of the Church." This issue comprises the first three components of this fivefold subject. This general subject unveils the decline of the church and illuminates our need to return to the orthodoxy of the church. The term orthodoxy refers to God's way for the church as ordained by Him and revealed in His Word. The practice of the church that is according to God's original intention was present in the early years of the church before degradation set in. We may say that orthodoxy is the equivalent of the word normal. Thus, the orthodoxy of the church is the normal Christian church life. The overcomers are normal Christians in a time of abnormality. Moreover, the principle of returning to the orthodoxy is the same as that of recovery. In order to be faithful to the Lord and to His word, we must forsake mere tradition and return to what God originally intended for the church. Concerning the actual practice of the church life, three particular matters must become clear to us and real within us. First, we need to have a genuine vision of the church and see the church as the Lord Himself sees the church. From the Scriptures that have been opened and rightly expounded to us through the ministry, may we have the veil lifted from our heart, receive the shining of the divine life, and have the sight under the anointing. Then we will begin to realize what the church is to Christ and how He views the church in its actual condition. In Revelation 2 and 3 the Lord Himself addressed many matters in the church, but before doing so, He presented to John a vision of the church as golden lampstands. In the eyes of the Lord all seven churches--including Thyatira, Sardis, and Laodicea, as actual local churches--were seven golden lampstands. This indicates that intrinsically, these seven churches were the embodiment and expression of the Triune God. Second, we need Christ's view and understanding concerning the degradation of the church. The Lord Jesus is absolutely clear about the degradation in the churches; nevertheless, it is He who regards the churches intrinsically as golden lampstands. Although the churches, in their history and actual practice, may be degraded in various ways, we need to see everything not from our natural perspective but as the Lord sees. Third, we need to know and carry out His way to care for the church in its condition. We are able to do so because we are governed by the vision of the church and have the Lord's view and understanding of the degradation in the church. We need to know how to minister life, how to conquer the satanic chaos, and how to present the truth. The co-workers in particular need to learn of the Lord how to represent Him and how to carry out His administration to establish and maintain the order in the churches. We need to be one with the Lord to minister Him according to the various situations. Message 1 identifies that the weaknesses and failures in the churches are due to the principle of Babylon, which is hypocrisy. To overcome this principle we must take Christ as our burnt offering. As the burnt offering, Christ is the One who is absolute for God and for His satisfaction. When we take Christ as our burnt offering and consecrate ourselves to, in, with, by, and through Him as our burnt offering, we become ashes. The ashes of the burnt offering were handled by the priests in a very stately and dignified way by placing them on the east side of the altar. The east side is the side toward the sunrise and is an allusion to resurrection. By being brought into resurrection, we are brought into the transformation of the Triune God to become gold, pearl, and precious stones, which are the building materials of the New Jerusalem. Hence, the ashes eventually become the New Jerusalem. This should be our daily experience. Messages 2 through 4 show that we need to consider the degradation of the church so that we may be inoculated against the decline. This divine and mystical vaccine will prevent us from repeating the failures in the churches and from falling into degradation. This inoculation will bring us back to the straight way of God's economy concerning the church. We need to take the straight way to be one with the persecuted Jesus by going outside the camp and bearing His reproach. The straight way is for the believers to be brought into the church in the way of life and built up in this life into the Body of Christ to bear the testimony of Jesus. The Lord's recovery is for the preparation of the bride, and in order for the bride to be prepared, the local churches must become in reality both the Body of Christ and the one new man. The Body is an organism through which the Lord can move to carry out His administration, and the one new man is a corporate person who will fulfill Genesis 1:26, expressing God with His image and representing Him with His dominion. In God's wise organic salvation, the Body and the one new man become the bride. Messages 5 through 8 consider the overcomers in the church. Instead of expressing a hope that everyone in the church will suddenly become absolutely faithful to the Lord, the Lord calls for overcomers. The Lord Jesus Himself is the first Overcomer (Rev. 3:21; 5:5), and He will reproduce Himself in those who have the heart to be produced as overcomers. The Reports and Announcements section of this issue contains reports from the January and February 2017 gospel trips to South Africa and Europe. There is also a list of upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link for information related to similar events in Europe.

This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the six messages from the Memorial Day weekend conference, which was a web-hosted video teleconference held on May 28-31, 2021. The subject of this series of messages is "Knowing the Truth, Being Absolute for the Truth, and Proclaiming the Truth in the Present Evil Age." The key statements in the following section embody the crucial truths and the main burden of the conference. The Announcements section at the end of this issue contains a list of upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link for information related to similar events in Europe.