At the time of regeneration, all believers receive the divine life and are begotten as children of God. Yet, this life most grow and it does so by regulation unto maturity and function. This regulation comes from revelation and issues in obedience. This word is crucial for our progress and training in the divine life for our maturity and function in our living and service to God.
On October 5, 1959, Brother Witness Lee began a service training in Taipei, Taiwan, that ended on January 22, 1960. A follow-up training began on February 16, 1960, and lasted until April 2. During that time Brother Lee released messages on the elders' management of the church and continued his synopsis of the books of the Bible with synopses of Numbers and Deuteronomy. After the training ended on April 2, he began another training for young people on April 26, which was intended to last five weeks; however, after the second week Brother Lee became ill. He rested until June 28, at which time he began a five-day co-workers' series of meetings with about twenty brothers (see Church News in volume 1 of this set). After these meetings he held various weekly training meetings with co-workers. His speaking in these meetings included the subjects of the sufficiency, pursuit, and learning of the Lord's serving ones and the law of revival. On September 27 he left for the United States for the second time. He remained mainly in New York and conducted meetings on God's building and held a four-day conference on the ground of the church. He traveled to San Francisco on December 1. On December 5 he went to Los Angeles and stayed there until December 8, at which time he returned to the Far East, passing through Japan, where he remained from December 10 through 19. There is no record of his speaking in San Francisco or in Japan. On December 19 Brother Lee returned to Taipei and remained there until the end of the year. The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1960, volume 1, contains messages given by Brother Witness Lee and personal notes, letters, and reports concerning his ministry from December 1959 through November 23, 1960. Historical information concerning Brother Lee's travels and the content of his ministry in 1960 can be found in the general preface that appears at the beginning of this volume. The contents of this volume are divided into three sections, as follows: 1. Eleven issues of the periodical Church News published in January through December 1960. These issues contain personal letters and reports written in Taipei, Taiwan, and New York City from December 1959 through November 23, 1960. They are included in this volume under the same title. 2. Thirty-five messages given in Taipei, Taiwan, on February 16 through March 17, 1960, as a continuation of a previous training that ended on January 22. These messages are included in this volume under the title Synopsis of Numbers. 3. Nineteen messages given in Taipei, Taiwan, on March 18 through April 1, 1960. These messages are included in this volume under the title Synopsis of Deuteronomy.
The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1960, volume 2, contains messages given and articles and personal notes written by Brother Witness Lee in April through December 1960. Historical information concerning Brother Lee's travels and the content of his ministry in 1960 can be found in the general preface that appears at the beginning of volume 1 in this set. The contents of this volume are divided into ten sections, as follows: 1. Nine messages given in Taipei, Taiwan, in April through August. Chapters 1 through 5 contain messages given in July and August, and chapters 8 and 9 contain messages given on April 1 and 2. The dates of the messages that constitute chapters 6 and 7 are unknown. All nine messages were previously published in a book entitled The Sufficiency, Pursuit, and Learning of the Lord's Serving Ones and are included in this volume under the same title. 2. Four messages given in a training for young people in Taipei, Taiwan, in April. These messages are included in this volume under the title God's Plan and Christ's Redemption. 3. Three sets of personal notes written in 1960, probably beginning on April 26. These notes are included in this volume under the title Witness Lee's Personal Notes. 4. Fifteen messages given in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1960; the exact dates are unknown. These messages were previously published in a book entitled The Elders' Management of the Church and are included in this volume under the same title. 5. A message given in Taipei, Taiwan, probably after the messages contained in the previous section on the elders' management of the church. This message is included in this volume under the title Concerning the Arrangement of Church Meetings. 6. A message given in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1960. This message was originally published in the periodical The Ministry of the Word in September. It is included in this volume under the title Balancing the Church Service and the Goals of the Church Service. 7. Five messages given in Taipei, Taiwan. These messages were originally published in the periodical The Ministry of the Word in October 1960 through January 1961. They were previously published in a book entitled The Law of Revival and are included in this volume under the same title. 8. Ten messages given in New York City on October 14 through November 20. These messages are included in this volume under the title The Nature and Building Up of the Church. 9. Four messages given in New York City on November 24 through 27. These messages are included in this volume under the title Practicing the Building Up of the Church on the Proper Ground. 10. A letter and two sets of questions and answers given in Los Angeles, California, on December 5 through 7. This section is included in this volume under the title Fellowship in Los Angeles concerning the Ground of the Church.
"The entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, shows us that God is our enjoyment. God also has His fullness (Eph. 3:19b). He is full for us to enjoy. His fullness is the expression of the riches of Christ, and the reality of Christ is in the Spirit. We know this by the revelation of the Word. The riches of Christ are revealed in the Word. Furthermore, we can realize God as our enjoyment in our spirit (John 4:24)."
When God created man, He placed him before two trees: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. In warning man to avoid the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God indicated His desire for man to eat of the tree of life, signifying that man should receive God as his life supply. Witness Lee unveils in The Tree of Life that God is not looking for well-behaved Christians; He is looking for those who will experience and enjoy Christ as the reality of the tree of life.
The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1959, volume 5, contains messages given by Brother Witness Lee in November 1959 through January 1960. Historical information concerning Brother Lee's travels and the content of his ministry in 1959 can be found in the general preface that appears at the beginning of volume 1 in this set. The contents of this volume are divided into two sections, as follows: 1. Nine messages given in Taipei, Taiwan, in the fourth part of a training that began on October 5, 1959, and concluded on January 22, 1960. The messages in this section were given in November and December 1959 and are included in this volume under the title Synopsis of Exodus. 2. Thirty-seven messages given in Taipei, Taiwan, in the fifth part of a training that began on October 5, 1959, and concluded on January 22, 1960. The messages in this section were given from the end of December 1959 through January 21, 1960, and are included in this volume under the title Synopsis of Leviticus.
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.
Brother Witness Lee began 1961 in the month of January by giving a conference to the church in Taipei, Taiwan, in which he released messages on the vision of the church, and by holding a series of meetings with the elders and the co-workers, in which he spoke on being in one work under one leadership. After the conference, during four days of service meetings, he conducted two prayer meetings with the laying on of hands for the co-workers. From the end of January until the first part of April, Brother Lee held various meetings with co-workers and serving ones in the districts of the church in Taipei on various subjects related to coordination, the priesthood, prayer, changing the way of meeting, and how to lead the young people. On February 6 through 18 he held a conference for university students and high-school graduates over the winter school break. A summary of the contents of this conference is included in Church News in volume 1 of this set, but there is no detailed record of his speaking in this conference. On March 12 through 14 he conducted a three-day conference in Taipei and gave messages on the priesthood and God's building. These messages, along with a number of other messages, are included in volume 2 of this set in the section entitled The Priesthood and God's Building. At the beginning of April, Brother K. H. Weigh visited Taiwan and had private times of fellowship with Brother Lee. On April 11 Brother Lee traveled to the Philippines. During his time there he held a training for young brothers and sisters in Baguio on April 14 through 28. In this training he spoke on life and building in the book of Ezekiel, from Ezekiel 1, 37, and 47. On April 30 through May 19 he gave messages in Manila on the priesthood and prayer. At that time a spiritual storm was brewing in Manila in which the leading co-workers rebelled against Brother Lee's leadership in the work. On May 20 he traveled from the Philippines to Hong Kong and stayed for one week. During that time, beginning on May 21 he conducted a conference concerning the ministry of the priesthood. After his time in Hong Kong, Brother Lee returned to Taipei on May 27. In June Brother Lee gave a series of messages in Taipei on the subject of the exercise of the spirit and the building of God. On August 3 through 19, in the morning he held a conference in Taipei on Ezekiel, and in the evening he spoke on how God becomes man's enjoyment. At the end of October he traveled to Manila and remained there until the middle of December. At the end of November and the beginning of December, he held another conference in Manila on the book of Ezekiel. There is no record of his speaking in this conference. The messages on Ezekiel given in Taipei in 1961, along with another series of messages on Ezekiel given in 1971 in Los Angeles, California, are included in the Life-study of Ezekiel and are not included in The Collected Works of Witness Lee. During his time in Manila he also conducted a study on the book of Galatians and gave messages on various other topics. There is no record of his speaking on these occasions. He departed from Manila on December 14 for the United States. Brother Lee remained in the United States from the middle of December 1961 through the entire year of 1962. He stayed mainly in New York City until March 1962, at which time he moved to Seattle, Washington. While he was in New York City, he held a series of special conferences on the weekends. During the same period of time, he also visited Washington, D.C., for two days on January 6 and 7 and San Francisco, California, for three days beginning on February 16. There is no record of his speaking in Washington, D.C. After moving to Seattle in March, Brother Lee visited the San Francisco Bay Area and held meetings on two occasions, in April and July. On August 31 through September 3 he conducted a conference in Los Angeles. More than thirty brothers and sisters from San Francisco and Sacramento, California, joined the conference. The subject of the conference was the experience of Christ for the building up of the church. On the last day of the conference many renewed their consecration to the Lord. During the time when Brother Lee was residing in Seattle, he met privately with a few Chinese students from the Far East together with twenty or thirty other Christians. On November 11 the saints in Seattle began to break bread. Although conferences had been planned in which he would speak in Taiwan, prior to these conferences Brother Lee received a clear leading from the Lord to not return to Taiwan but remain in the United States and begin the work of the Lord's recovery there. This was a significant turn in the move of the Lord in His recovery on the whole earth, especially in the spread of the recovery to the Western world. Around the third week in November, Brother Lee traveled from Seattle to San Francisco and Sacramento. After spending three days in Sacramento, he traveled to Los Angeles at the end of the month. There is no record of his speaking in Sacramento. Beginning on December 22, Brother Lee conducted a ten-day conference on the all-inclusive Christ. This was the first major conference after the Lord initiated His recovery in the United States. The attendees at this conference included an American brother from New York City; three responsible brothers from Louisville, Kentucky; one sister from near Chicago, Illinois; five or six Caucasian brothers and sisters and two Chinese saints from Sacramento; more than twenty from San Francisco; plus the local saints and some Caucasian visitors. During this conference Brother Lee conducted four meetings each day, starting at 6:30 A.M. The second morning meetings and the evening meetings were on the subject of the all-inclusive Christ. The first morning meetings and the times of fellowship in the afternoon were on miscellaneous topics. The conference ended on the last day of the year and was followed by fasting and prayer that lasted past 1:30 the next morning. The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1961-1962, volume 1, contains messages given and letters and personal notes written by Brother Witness Lee from November 26, 1960, through September 17, 1961. Historical information concerning Brother Lee's travels and the content of his ministry during this period can be found in the general preface that appears at the beginning of this volume. The contents of this volume are divided into eight sections, as follows: 1. Six issues of the periodical Church News published on January 22 through September 17, 1961. These issues contain letters and reports written from November 26, 1960, through August 23, 1961. They are included in this volume under the same title. 2. A set of personal notes written from December 31, 1960, through an unknown date in 1961. Most of the notes are undated. These notes are included in this volume under the title Witness Lee's Personal Notes. 3. A message given in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1961. The date of the speaking is unknown. This message is included in this volume under the title A Strong Spirit and a Good Deposit. 4. Six messages given in Taipei, Taiwan, on January 10 through 31, 1961. These messages were previously published in a book entitled The Blueprint and the Ground for the Building Up of the Church and are included in this volume under the same title. 5. Ten messages given in Taipei, Taiwan, on January 15 through 24, 1961. These messages were previously published in a book entitled The Vision of the Building of the Church and are included in this volume under the same title. 6. Thirteen messages given in Taipei, Taiwan, on January 25 through April 11, 1961. These messages are included in this volume under the title Coordination in Service. 7. Sixteen messages given in Taipei, Taiwan, on January 31 through April 10, 1961. These messages are included in this volume under the title Exercising the Spirit in Prayer for the Priesthood. 8. Five messages given in Taipei, Taiwan. Messages 1 through 3 were spoken on February 15 through April 8, 1961. The dates for Messages 4 and 5 are unknown. These messages are included in this volume under the title Words concerning the Young People.
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.
