Quote:
Originally Posted by sandwichboy
Regarding Witness Lee not being the minister of the age. I never really came to that conclusion. It is a subjective statement that cannot be proven. It is the same as saying that the Eiffel Tower is the best tower on the earth. If it cannot be proven then it is an irrelevant statement.
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The burden of proof is on the one who makes the claim. Where in the NT does it say that there's one ministry per age? Only Jesus gets that title. Not Paul - Paul was the "apostle to the uncircumcision, just as Peter was to the circumcision". Paul never claimed primacy, nor did his ministry supersede another.
The claim by WN/WL that there's one ministry per age directly benefits the one making the claim. So it's suspect that there's bias, and motive, since humanity is not perfected. Any claim to there being one person in charge (not Jesus) as "deputy God" should be held with extreme care until it's shown definitively. Otherwise it's probably what it looks to be - someone making up the rules as they go, to benefit themselves.
If you look at the pattern of church history, you see periods where God was evidently doing something of import in various locations, yet neither location was subservient to the ministry evident in the other. Think of Whitefield, Wesley, Edwards. There was some communication, some acknowledgement, some fellowship, but where was the primacy? Nowhere. Nor was there, for that matter, when James and John gave Paul the "right hand of fellowship" to minister abroad.
Where did Philip tell the Ethiopian to report to HQ? Didn't happen. Yet Christianity thrives in Ethiopia 20 centuries after the book of Acts, without evidently ever having the "headship" of some ministry of the age.
And that one gets disfellowshipped simply for pointing out the obvious is testament to what sinking sand it's built on.