«　WEEK 3　DAY 1　»

　　Acts 1:8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses...unto the uttermost part of the earth.

　　26:16 ...I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a minister and a witness both of the things in which you have seen Me and of the things in which I will appear to you.

　　What the ascended Christ wanted to use to carry out His heavenly ministry for the propagating of Himself so that the kingdom of God might be established for the building up of the churches for His fullness was not a group of preachers trained by man's teaching to do a preaching work but a body of His witnesses, martyrs, who bore a living testimony of the incarnated, crucified, resurrected, and ascended Christ. Witnesses bear a living testimony of the resurrected and ascended Christ in life. They differ from preachers who merely preach doctrines in letters. In His incarnation, Christ carried out His ministry on earth, as recorded in the Gospels, by Himself to sow Himself as the seed of the kingdom of God only in the Jewish land. In His ascension He carries out His ministry in the heavens, as recorded in Acts, through witnesses in His resurrection life and with His ascension power and authority to spread Himself as the development of the kingdom of God from Jerusalem unto the remotest part of the earth, as the consummation of His ministry in the New Testament. All the apostles and disciples in Acts were such witnesses of Christ. (Life-study of Acts, pp. 542-543)

　　According to the revelation in the book of Acts, everyone who is raised up and sent out by the Lord is a witness of the Lord....[In Acts 1:8] the word witnesses is not related to our normal understanding of a witness who gives testimony in a legal case in a law court. In the New Testament the meaning of a witness is primarily to bear a living testimony of Jesus Christ in His crucifixion and resurrection. This is repeatedly emphasized in the book of Acts (v. 22; 2:32; 5:32; 26:16). (CWWL, 1986, vol. 1, "Three Crucial Matters for the Increase and Building Up of the Church—Begetting, Nourishing, and Teaching," p. 563)

　　When the Lord Jesus appeared to Paul, He commissioned him, appointing him [both] a minister and a witness. Concerning this, the Lord said to him, "Rise up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a minister and a witness both of the things in which you have seen Me and of the things in which I will appear to you" (Acts 26:16)....A minister is for the ministry; a witness is for the testimony. Ministry is mainly related to the work, to what the minister does. Testimony is related to the person, to what the witness is.

　　According to the book of Acts, Satan could instigate the Jewish religionists and utilize the Gentile politicians to bind the apostles and their evangelical ministry, but he could not bind Christ's living witnesses and their living testimony. The more the Jewish religionists and the Gentile politicians bound the apostles and their evangelical ministry, the stronger and brighter these witnesses of Christ and their living testimony became. In His appearing to Paul on the way to Damascus, the Lord clearly told him that He appointed him not only a minister but also a witness. We have seen that as a living witness of Christ, Paul had testified concerning Him in Jerusalem and would testify of Him in Rome (23:11).

　　As recorded in Acts, the ascended Christ carries out His ministry in the heavens through these witnesses in His resurrection life and with His ascension power and authority to spread Himself as the development of the kingdom of God unto the remotest part of the earth.

　　In all the trials through which he passed, Paul was not merely teaching or ministering; he was continually bearing a testimony. (Life-study of Acts, pp. 594-595)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1986, vol. 1, pp. 563-570; Life-study of Acts, msg. 5