Love One Another by Watchman Nee

Author:Watchman Nee
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Religion, Christian Life, General
ISBN: 9780935008104
Publisher: Christian Fellowship Pub.
Published: 1975-05-31T22:00:00+00:00

THE WAY OF THE CHURCH

107

As Sardis came out of Thyatira, so Philadelphia comes out of Sardis. The Protestant church comes out of the Roman Catholic Church, while Philadelphia comes out of the Protestant church. We cannot point out which group is the so-called Philadelphia, but it is quite evident that it is a new move of the Holy Spirit. This new move lifts people out of dead Sardis and places them in the position of love of the brethren—in other words, the position of the body where the only recognized fellowship is that of love. This is Philadelphia.

Philadelphia possesses two special features: one, they keep the Word of the Lord and, two, they do not deny His name. Here is a group of people who are led by God to learn how to keep the Lord’s Word. God opens His Word to them so that they can understand.

There is no creed in their midst, only the Word of God. There is no doctrine, only the Word. There is no tradition, only the Word. There is no opportunity for man’s opinion, only the Word of God. After the apostles, this is the first church which the Lord praises, for now a group of people has completely returned to the Lord’s Word. To them no authority other than the Lord’s, no teaching, no creed is of any use.

It is possible for people to be able to preach and understand doctrine and yet not know the Bible. It is possible to learn a creed and accept it without knowing the Word of God. Does this sound somewhat strange? If the church needed a creed, the Lord would have given it to us. Today, people analyze the Bible and form it into a creed. The Bible is infinite in nature, but the creed is definite. The Bible is involved, but the creed is simple. A creed can be understood by the foolish, but the complexities of the Bible are intelligent only to a certain group of people, for it requires a certain condition to understand it. The Word of God is wide open for those with life to enter in; but a creed is something so widely opened that all who desire to may come in. The Bible cannot be understood unless the reader has life and singleness of eye before the Lord, but a creed can be understood by anyone who has a clear mind as soon as it is read.

108 Love

One

Another

People may think the way is too narrow; so they try to widen it in order to get people in. But the Philadelphians reject all creeds; they simply return to the Word of God. “Thou didst keep my word,” says the Lord. In all of church history, only in the era of Philadelphia has the Word of God been so much understood. Only in Philadelphia does God’s Word have its rightful place. In other times, people accepted creeds and traditions, but the church in Philadelphia accepts nothing but the Word of God. They walk according to God’s Word.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.