In Colossians 1:25 the apostle Paul says, “I became a minister according to the stewardship of God, which was given to me for you, to complete the word of God.” To complete the word of God means to complete the divine revelation, which is the Bible, the Word of God. Without the Epistles of Paul, the divine revelation in God’s written word would not have been completed. If these Epistles were removed from the Bible, there would be a great gap, and if we do not have a proper understanding of these Epistles, we neglect a vital part of God’s revelation. Thus, we need to see the central vision of the apostle Paul’s completing ministry.

This issue of The Ministry presents the first eight messages given during the 2006 fall term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "The Reality of the Body of Christ." What is the reality of the Body of Christ? The reality of the Body is first the Spirit. The Spirit is the Spirit of reality (John 16:13), and the Spirit is the reality (1 John 5:6). The Spirit is the essence and the reality of the Body (Eph. 4:3-4; 1 Cor. 12:12-13). From the divine viewpoint, the reality of the Body of Christ is the Spirit. The reality of the Body of Christ is also the corporate living of a group of God-men. As this group of God-men are denying their natural human life by the power of Christ's resurrection, they are being conformed to the mold of Christ's death, and the more they love the Lord, experience Him, and enjoy Him, the more they welcome their being pressed into this mold. As a result, they live God, yet they live God, Christ, and the Spirit in and through their human life. Thus, the Triune God is expressed corporately through this group of God-men. That is the reality of the Body of Christ. In the section on reports, we include a report concerning the Lord's fresh move in Montreal, Canada.

This is a special combined issue (June/July) of The Ministry. It contains a complete record of the messages given in Anaheim, California, during the 2002 Summer Training on the Crystallization-study of Philippians. These messages are being published immediately following the training in order that they might benefit the saints participating in the many video trainings held throughout the earth. The burden for the twelve messages given during the 2002 Summer Training on the Crystallization-study of Philippians may be summarized by four statements: 1) the Christian life is a life of living Christ for the constitution and building up of the Body of Christ; 2) we need to work out our own salvation by obeying the inner operating God; 3) we need to be conformed to the mold of Christ's death by the power of His resurrection that we may attain to the out-resurrection from the dead; and 4) the Christian life is a life full of Christ as forbearance but without anxiety. We also include two reports concerning the free mass distribution of the ministry literature and concerning the Lord's move in His recovery.

“It is sad indeed that there are so many true and earnest believers who think of a victorious Christian life as a “super deluxe” version instead of normality and, in the words of the author, are “so busy enduring their failure that they have no time to enjoy their faith.” The mystery of how to “be” what as Christians we have been born again to “become” is now an open secret in Jesus Christ—that the secret of a changed life is an exchanged life!

In the Lord’s recovery during the past five hundred years the church’s knowledge of the Lord and His truth has been continually progressing. This monumental and classical work by Brother Witness Lee builds upon and is a further development of all that the Lord has revealed to His church in the past centuries. It is filled with the revelation concerning the processed Triune God, the living Christ, the life-giving Spirit, the experience of life, and the definition and practice of the church. In this set Brother Lee has kept three basic principles that should rule and govern every believer in their interpretation, development, and expounding of the truths contained in the Scriptures. The first principle is that of the Triune God dispensing Himself into His chosen and redeemed people; the second principle is that we should interpret, develop, and expound the truths contained in the Bible with Christ for the church; and the third governing principle is Christ, the Spirit, life, and the church. No other study or exposition of the New Testament conveys the life nourishment or ushers the reader into the divine revelation of God’s holy Word according to His New Testament economy as this one does.

This issue of The Ministry presents the first eight messages given during the 2005 fall term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is entitled "The Overcoming Life as Portrayed in Song of Songs." This general subject is based upon an intrinsic revelation in the Scriptures related to our overcoming and our love relationship with the Lord. This is demonstrated in Romans 8:37--the "theme verse" of this entire series of messages, which says, "In all these things we more than conquer through Him who loved us." The Greek word translated "more than conquer" is hypernikao, which literally means "super-overcome" or "more than overcome." Hence, we more than overcome through Him who loved us. According to this verse, the ones who are really loved by God become super-overcomers, more than conquerors. There is a deep, sweet, rich, essential, intrinsic, organic, and experiential connection between love and overcoming. In Song of Songs the lover of Christ overcomes in four stages: in the first stage (1:2--2:7) she overcomes the attraction of the world by being captivated by Christ; in the second stage (2:8--3:5) she overcomes the self, which secludes her from the presence of Christ, by becoming one with the cross of Christ; in the third stage (3:6--5:1) she overcomes the old creation (the physical things) by living in the ascension of Christ in resurrection after her self has been dealt with by the cross; and in the fourth stage (5:2--6:13) she overcomes the flesh, the natural man, the old man, by living within the veil, requiring a deeper experience of the cross. Last of all, we present a concluding set of testimonies from some who participated in the recent gospel move in the Russian-speaking world.

When Gods Word is hid in our heart, it makes it hard for the devil to wage war in our minds. A Word-filled heart will empower hands to do right, eyes to see right, feet to walk right, ears to hear right, and minds to think right. The heart is the dressing room for words and emotions, which in turn are acted out on the stage of life. Dr. Clarence Talley, Sr. offers these golden nuggets of wisdom to those who are seeking the truth that can only be found in Gods Word. Talley contends that life must be faced with a power that is beyond anything man possesses. That power is found only in Gods Word. It is His wisdom personified in Jesus Christ that safeguards us from the wiles of the devil. Without wisdom we cannot handle life. Life will handle us. It will beat us up. It will push us over. It will subdue our efforts. As a result, we need Godly wisdom: wisdom to understand ourselves, wisdom to build better families, wisdom to get along with others, wisdom to handle our personal finances, wisdom to handle emotional ups and downs, and wisdom to live holy lives. Between the following pages lie golden nuggets of wisdom that will benefit the soul, spirit, and body. Access them, download them, and put them to use. Golden nuggets of wisdom

Before the Gospels were written, long before the creeds of the Church were hammered out, Christ followers in Philippi sang a hymn of the Christ who, "although he was in the form of God . . . emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born as are all humans." But this emptied Christ never fit neatly into later theologies of the church, shaped by Greek thought, concerned with being and essence. In Philippians, Paul struggles, stumbling over his own awkward words to express his hope, his eschatological faith, that he might "gain Christ and be found in him . . . and participate in his sufferings by being conformed to his death, if in some way I may reach to what goes beyond the resurrection from the dead." Might we better comprehend Paul's inchoate, even mystical, faith in Jesus Christ with aid from a less empirical world of thought than our western heritage offers? Might the thinking of Mahā[set macron over a]yā[set macron over a]na Buddhism guide us toward an awareness of a truth in the Christian faith that is more profound than anything reducible to historical "facts," or even to human language?

The Cornerstone Biblical Commentary provides students, pastors, and laypeople with up-to-date, evangelical scholarship on the Old and New Testaments. It's designed to equip pastors and Christian leaders with exegetical and theological knowledge to better understand and apply God's Word by presenting the message of each passage as well as an overview of other issues surrounding the text. AUTHOR BACKGROUND Harold W. Hoehner, Ph.D. is Professor of New Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary and is well known for his work on biblical chronology in the first century. He is also the author of a commentary on Ephesians in the Baker Exegetical Commentary series. Philip W. Comfort, D. Litt. et Phil., is senior editor of Bible reference at Tyndale House Publishers and adjunct professor of Religion at Coastal Carolina University. His works include Early Manuscripts & Modern Translations of the New Testament, The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts, and Encountering the Manuscripts. He has authored two commentaries on John and three volumes of poetry. He serves as the coordinating New Testament editor for the New Living Translation, and he is the General Editor for the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary series. Peter Davids, Ph.D. is a Professor of Biblical Theology at Stephen's University. He served as a missionary educator in Europe, training Christian leaders in the German-speaking world, and has written commentaries on James and 1 Peter. He is also co-editor (with Ralph Martin) of The Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Development.