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Originally Posted by Nell
It might be helpful, on another topic, to determine how many of Witness Lee’s teachings are based on turning a description into a prescription/command to be obeyed. One church one city, for example, is a classic.
Nell
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Well, you reminded me of a Bible teacher who once said that every verse has three applications: Historical, doctrinal, and spiritual.
I think Lee's problem was not merely mixing up descriptive and prescriptive. He twisted the words and forced them to fit his "doctrinal" interpretation or opinions, and that's chaotic.
For example, James 1:1 Lee's remark said,
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The tribes of Israel. This indicates that this Epistle was written to the Jewish Christians, who had the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory (James 2:1) and were justified by faith (James 2:24), regenerated by the word of truth (v. 18), and indwelt by the Spirit of God (James 4:5), and who were members of the church (James 5:14), awaiting the Lord's coming back (James 5:7-8). However, for the writer to call these believers in Christ "the twelve tribes," as God's chosen people were called in His Old Testament economy, might indicate that he lacked a clear view concerning the distinction between Christians and Jews, between God's New Testament economy and the Old Testament dispensation. Perhaps he did not see that in the New Testament God had delivered and separated the Jewish believers in Christ from the Jewish people, who were then considered by God a perverse generation (Acts 2:40). In His New Testament economy, God does not consider the Jewish believers to be Jews set apart for Judaism but Christians set apart for the church. As members of the church of God, they should be as distinct and separate from the Jews as they are from the Gentiles (1 Cor. 10:32). Yet James, a pillar of the church, in his Epistle to the Christian brothers still called them "the twelve tribes." (This might have been the reason that he addressed the word in James 5:1-6 to the rich class in general among the Jews.) This was contrary to God's New Testament economy. See note James 2:21.
But the verse says, "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting."
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Are the 12 tribes equal to Jewish Christian? Why didn't Lee stick to the verse itself?
And the interesting part is Lee interpreted the 12 tribes as Jewish Christians, then blamed James for lacking a clear view between Christians and Jews, between God's NT economy and the OT dispensation.
Well, I am looking forward to the day when Lee meets James. James would ask Lee, "Why did you change my words and then blame me for your interpretation?"