This book is intended as an aid to believers in developing a daily time of morning revival with the Lord in His word. At the same time, it provides a limited review of the International Training for Elders and Responsible Ones held in Bangalore, India, on October 3-5, 2019. The general subject of the training was “The One New Man Fulfilling God's Purpose in Creating Man.” Through intimate contact with the Lord in His word, the believers can be constituted with life and truth and thereby equipped to prophesy in the meetings of the church unto the building up of the Body of Christ.

Cardinal Newman died on August 11, 1890 at the age of 89.Although his mind remained lucid to the end, his body declined to the point that in the summer of that year it became evident to all that the end was near. However, on the evening of August 9 he staged a remarkable rally which was recorded by Father William Neville, his secretary and caregiver in his final years. Not recognizing his youthful step he was surprised when Newman entered his room, and he was"-unbent, erect to the full height of his best days in the fifties; he was without support of any kind. His whole carriage was, it may be said, soldierlike, and so dignified; and his countenance was most attractive to look at; even great age seemed to have gone from his face, and with it all careworn signs; his very look conveyed the cheerfulness and gratitude of his mind, and what he said was so kind, his voice was quite fresh and strong, his whole appearance was that of power, combined with complete calm..." [Ward,"The Life of Cardinal Newman, vol.2,537] At his request he was buried in the grave of his friend Ambrose St. John. On the memorial were engraved the words "Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem"-from shadows and illusions into truth. All of his life Newman had been a soldier for Christ-prepared to do battle for the truth. This is the story of his spiritual journey; emerging from the shadows into the fullness of truth.

The Collected Works of Witness Lee,1969, volume 3, contains messages given by Brother Witness Lee from July 17 through December 28, 1969. Brother Lee remained in Los Angeles through the month of July until the end of August. He made a brief trip to San Francisco, California, and then rested nearly the entire month of September. At the beginning of October he visited San Francisco, California; and then traveled to Phoenix, Arizona; Mesa, Arizona; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Las Vegas, Nevada; and San Francisco, California; a second time. After returning to Los Angeles for one day in the middle of November, he visited Yorba Linda, California; Louisville, Kentucky; Toronto, Canada; East Hartland, Connecticut; Boston, Massachusetts; New York City; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Erie, Pennsylvania. He returned to Los Angeles at the end of December. Regrettably, there is no record of his speaking in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Louisville, Toronto, East Hartland, and Boston. The majority of his speaking in Pittsburgh and Erie was recorded in handwritten notes. The contents of this volume are divided into fourteen sections, as follows: 1. Twenty-six messages given in Los Angeles, California, from July 17 through August 21. These messages were previously published in a twenty-four-chapter book under the title Christ and the Church Revealed and Typified in the Psalms. 2. One message given in Los Angeles, California, on August 16. It is included in this volume under the title An Additional Word in Response to Testimonies concerning Five Secrets of Life Revealed in Second Peter 1. 3. Five messages given in Los Angeles, California, on August 22 through 24. The first four of these messages were previously published in The Ministry magazine, volume 2, numbers 4 through 7, April, May, June, and July 1998, and the fifth message was previously published in The Ministry magazine, volume 2, number 8, August/September 1998, as one section of a compilation of Brother Lee's speaking on migration during the years 1969, 1970, 1971, and 1972. The entire series of five messages previously published in The Ministry magazine appeared under the title Migration in God's Move. 4. One message given in Los Angeles, California, on November 16. This message is included in this section under the title Fellowship on Migration. 5. Seven messages given in San Francisco, California, from August 29 through September 1 and on October 3. They are included in this volume under the title Exercising the Spirit and Walking according to the Spirit to Build Up the Church. 6. Three messages given in Los Angeles, California, on August 21 and 22. They are included in this volume under the title Denying Our Soul-life and the Living, Walking, and Abiding in Our Spirit for the Building Up of the Church. 7. One message given in Los Angeles, California, on September 25. This message is included in this volume under the title Helping the New Believers to Be Properly Grounded in Their Salvation and to Grow in Life. 8. One message given in Mesa, Arizona, on October 15. It is included in this volume under the title Needing to Live in Our Spirit in Order to Meet in the Proper Way. 9. Six messages given in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on October 17 through 20. These messages are published in this volume under the title Enjoying the All-inclusive Spirit in Our Human Spiritfor the Building Up of the Church. There is no record of the first two messages. 10. Four messages given in San Francisco, California, on November 7 through 9. They are included in this volume under the title Fall Conference in San Francisco. 11. Eight messages given in Yorba Linda, California, on November 27 through 30. These messages are included in this volume under the title The Two Trees in the Christian Life. Two of the messages were combined. 12. Four messages given in New York City on December 18 through 21. They are included in this volume under the title Enjoying and Ministering Christ for the Fulfillment of God's Purpose. 13. One message given in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on December 22. This message is included in this volume under the title The Lord's Recovery of the Practice of the Church Life. Its contents were taken from the personal notes of an attendee. Brother Lee spoke two additional messages on December 23, but there is no substantial record of his speaking. 14. Thirteen messages given in Erie, Pennsylvania, on December 24 through 28. These messages are included in this volume under the title The Lord's Recovery of the Church Life. Of the thirteen messages spoken, only two were recorded. The content of the remaining chapters was taken from the personal notes of a conference attendee. Some messages were combined to form the nine chapters in this section. In addition to the above, Brother Lee gave six messages in Los Angeles, California, on August 16 through 21. These messages, together with messages given in 1963 and 1965, were previously published in a book under the title Our Human Spirit. This book in its entirety is included in The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1965, volume 3.

This book is intended as an aid to believers in developing a daily time of morning revival with the Lord in His word. At the same time, it provides a limited review of the Thanksgiving weekend conference held in Phoenix, Arizona, November 23-26, 2017. The general subject of the conference was “The Genuine Church Life.” Through intimate contact with the Lord in His word, the believers can be constituted with life and truth and thereby equipped to prophesy in the meetings of the church unto the building up of the Body of Christ.

This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the remaining eight messages given during the fall 2018 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "The Central Vision." There are three aspects of the central vision. The first aspect is God as our contents, the second aspect is Christ as the mystery of God, and the third aspect is the church as the mystery of Christ. Christ is the mystery of God, the church is the mystery of Christ, and Christ and the church are the great mystery.

This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the nine messages given during the international training for elders and responsible ones held in Leipzig, Germany, from October 5-7, 2017. The general subject of this series of messages is "The Recovery of the Church." The intrinsic significance of the church is the corporate expression of Christ, who is the embodiment and expression of the Triune God. The reality of the church as the expression of Christ is heavenly, "Christly," and "resurrectionly." In time and space, however, the church can deviate and become degraded, deformed, and corrupted due to the enemy's work of producing substitutes for Christ, dividing the Body of Christ, and killing the function of the members of the Body of Christ. From the beginning, God's intention was to have the church, and this was taught by the apostles (Eph. 3:10-11). Although much of the truth concerning the church has been lost or distorted, our God is a God of recovery regardless of what the enemy has done. The Lord's recovery of the church brings us back to the beginning for the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose and original intention regarding the church. For the recovery of the church, we need to overcome the degradation of the church that was brought in according to the principle of Babylon--exercising human ability and effort, hypocrisy, self-glorification, and harlotry. The way to overcome the principle of Babylon is to take Christ as our burnt offering so that He can repeat the life of the burnt offering within us. By this way we can be "Christified" and become His duplication for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate the holy city, New Jerusalem. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah record the return of the Israelites from Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and the city. This return signifies the Lord's recovery of a remnant out of today's division and confusion back to the original ground of oneness for the building up of the genuine church as the house of God and the kingdom of God. To strengthen and enrich the recovery of the church, the Lord needs priestly scribes like Ezra--those who contact God, are saturated with God, and are skillful in the Word of God to reeducate and reconstitute God's people for His testimony and His corporate expression on the earth. The Lord also needs those who are pure and properly aggressive like Nehemiah to build the great and high wall of the holy city for our separation unto God, the protection of God's interests, and the expression of God. Practically speaking, in the Lord's recovery today, we are mainly recovering the proper church life and the proper living of the church. The church life is the corporate living of the perfected God-men, a living in the reality of the Body of Christ. The church life is the life of Christ being lived out through His members in a corporate way. It is our being headed up under the unique headship of Christ and enjoying the mutual flowing of fellowship in oneness as the continuation of Christ's being glorified by the Father so that we may be the corporate expression of Christ. In order for the Lord to return, He must recover the life and living of the church. The church has two main aspects--universal and local. The church is constituted of the universal God, but it exists on earth in many localities; in nature the church is universal in God, but in practice the church is local, in a definite place. Without the universal aspect, the church is void of content; without the local aspect, it is impossible for the church to have any expression and practice. The genuine oneness is the Triune God who as the Spirit today is being added to us and is permeating us, taking us over, and filling us. Only the Triune God is the factor of the genuine oneness. The ground of oneness is simply the processed Triune God applied to our being. In Psalm 133 the fine oil, referring to the holy anointing oil in Exodus 30:23-33, signifies the all-inclusive compound Spirit. This anointing Spirit is the element of our oneness; when the compound Spirit applies Himself to us and spreads over and in our entire being in a gradual way, He makes us genuinely one. If we want to have the recovery of the church, we must have a clear revelation concerning the three most basic, essential, and crucial statuses of the church--as the Body of Christ, as the new man, and as the counterpart of Christ. The Body is the issue of the headship of Christ. Christ, as the One who fills all in all, needs His Body to be His fullness, the expression of the Head (cf. Eph. 1:22-23). For the building up of the Body of Christ, we need to practice the scriptural way to meet and to serve--the God-ordained way revealed in the holy Word. The new man is Christ in all the saints. This indwelling Christ permeates and replaces us to remove all natural distinctions and to constitute everyone with Himself. In order for us to experience the reality of Christ being all the members of the new man, we need to take Christ as our life and our person and live Him, not ourselves. The one new man fulfills God's eternal purpose of expressing God and dealing with His enemy. The church as the Body of Christ and the one new man will become the bride, the counterpart, of Christ. The Lord will return for His bride. The church, the counterpart of Christ, as typified by Eve, is a pure product out of Christ, built out of the uncreated life released by Christ through His death and resurrection. Only those who are regenerated of Christ and who live by Christ as the church can match Christ and complement Him. In the New Jerusalem the processed and consummated redeeming Triune God as the universal Husband will live a married life for eternity with this redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified corporate person as His wife. This will be the consummation of the universal divine romance. The Announcements section 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.

This book is intended as an aid to believers in developing a daily time of morning revival with the Lord in His word. At the same time, it provides a limited review of the International Training for Elders and Responsible Ones held in Leipzig, Germany, on October 5-7, 2017. The general subject of the training was “The Recovery of the Church.” Through intimate contact with the Lord in His word, the believers can be constituted with life and truth and thereby equipped to prophesy in the meetings of the church unto the building up of the Body of Christ.

This is a special combined issue (January/February) of The Ministry. It contains a complete record of the messages given in Anaheim, California, during the 2001 Winter Training on the Crystallization-study of Ephesians. 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. Because of the specific nature of this issue, the usual section of reports concerning the Lord's move throughout the earth has been omitted. The burden for the twelve messages given during the 2001 Winter Training on the Crystallization-study of Ephesians may be summarized by four statements: 1) the dispensing of Christ is for the gradual building up of His Body and the transmitting of Christ is for the sudden raising up of God's churches; 2) God's eternal intention is to head up all things in Christ, the universal Head, through the church, which is His Body; 3) the oneness of the Spirit must be kept diligently by all the believers in Christ with the transformed human virtues strengthened and enriched by and with the divine attributes; and 4) as the unlimited, immeasurable Christ makes His home in our hearts, we are filled unto all the fullness of God—the ultimate, corporate expression of the Triune God.

The entire Bible reveals that God’s eternal purpose and the good pleasure of His will is to have the church. In order to carry out His purpose and pleasure, God made a plan, which centers around the mysterious, incomprehensible Christ who was incarnated as a man, crucified for our redemption, resurrected to be our life, and ascended to the heavens. Specifically, God’s plan is to impart, to dispense, this unsearchably rich Christ into His believers. In Enjoying the Riches of Christ for the Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ, Witness Lee unveils how the church as the Body of Christ is produced by our enjoyment of the unsearchable riches of Christ through His word and by His Spirit. Such an enjoyment causes the believers to grow and be transformed into the precious materials for God’s building. As the believers come together in spirit and in oneness, the work of building is carried out for the glory of God and the defeat of His enemy.