«　WEEK 5　DAY 6　»

　　1 Cor. 1:2 To the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, the called saints…

　　12:13 …In one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and were all given to drink one Spirit.

　　I heard that some have brought in the teaching of autonomy. … I strongly reproved this error. This kind of speaking and practice cannot be brought into the Lord’s recovery. Everyone likes this practice because everyone likes to be independent and equal. No one likes to be under anyone else. But we have to realize that the church of Christ is not a political institution. The church of Christ is an organism just like our body [Eph. 1:22-23].…This is not an illustration, but a statement of a fact.

　　The church is absolutely an organism. Since the church is an organic body, there is no way for it to be separated or autonomous. The Bible uses our organic body to describe the church, the Body of Christ. This is a most thorough description, and by it many problems can be avoided. (CWWL, 1988, vol. 4, “A Timely Trumpeting and the Present Need,” p. 25)

　　A certain financial matter may be a local administrative affair, but even in such a matter, the churches should depend on one another. Sometimes a certain church should communicate, fellowship, with another church even in the matter of material needs…. Even in material things we cannot say that the churches are independently autonomous.

　　The churches should not be absolutely independent of one another. All the believers should depend on one another, and all the local churches should depend on one another. Especially in spiritual things we should depend on one another. The church in a certain city may need help from the other churches in life and in its building up. The local churches should be in a situation of mutual dependence. The concept of autonomy is awful because it makes the churches separate from one another. We should not forget that all the believers in this entire universe are one man. (CWWL, 1988, vol. 3, “The Body of Christ,” p. 390)

　　In 1 Corinthians 4:17 Paul says, “Because of this I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, even as I teach everywhere in every church.” In all the churches the apostle Paul taught the same thing. His teaching was the same universally, not varying in any place. Concerning this matter, we need to look at the seven epistles to the seven local churches in Revelation 2 and 3. The word of the Lord to one church is the word spoken by the Spirit to all the churches (2:1, 7). At the beginning of each epistle, it is the Lord speaking to a specific church (vv. 1, 8, 12, 18; 3:1, 7, 14), but at the end of all the epistles, the Word says, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22). What was said by the Lord to the church in Ephesus was the word that all the churches should hear. Every epistle was a particular word to a certain church, yet this particular word should be heard and taken by all the churches.

　　On the one hand, the elders of the churches have the right and the position to carry out the local administration of the churches independently. On the other hand, all the churches should listen to the word that the apostles have received of God, which is the teaching of the New Testament. On the one hand, the churches are local separately. On the other hand, all the local churches are still the one Body of Christ, which is an organism, not a federation, which is an organization. We need to meet as local churches separately according to what the New Testament says, but all the local churches are still the one Body of Christ. (CWWL, 1988, vol. 3, “A Timely Word,” pp. 68-69)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1989, vol. 4, “The Advance of the Lord’s Recovery Today,” ch. 4; CWWL, 1990, vol. 2, “A Brief Presentation of the Lord’s Recovery,” pp. 413-420