Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
Digging deeper into the NT record, Apostle Paul never become anything like the MOTA, the oracle, the pope, etc.
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For me, the definitive NT moment of Paul v/v the original apostles is in his account in Galatians. There, Paul is recognized as having responsibility for outreach to the Gentile.
Galatians 2:6 As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message.
7 On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised.
8 For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9 James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised.
10 All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.
Here, Paul sets up his apostleship, and circumscribes it as one of outreach. By his own writing, he's not anything to be described as MOTA. Later, he returned from his outreach mission on Pentecost, bringing alms for his nation (Acts 24:17; cf Gal 2:10). Peter, by his speech in Acts 2 on a previous Pentecost, was "apostle to the circumcised", proclaiming the Good News (gospel) to the Jewish race, many who were living abroad.
To me that's the vision of the age: the resurrection of Jesus. In the narratives of Witness Lee and Lee Man-Hee and other self-styled prophets and apostles, the vision is typically centered on themselves, and their own mountain-top experiences, not the resurrection of Jesus. Oneness in their groups subsequently depends upon the degree of submission to their vision and their purpose. All of this is quite contrary to the gospel preached by Peter and Paul.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/06/asia/...hnk/index.html
One key for my understanding the spirit behind the Watchman Nee/Witness Lee phenomena is that they're not unique, but are found among a variety of similar ones, in which charismatic post-Protestant leaders created sects which are arguably not Christian at all. The groups take great pains to appear Christian, because this gives them the patina of legitimacy, and a solid recruiting base.
But when you get into the actual phenomena themselves, they're antagonistic to the gospel preached by Peter and Paul. "Love one another" becomes "obey without question". The incessant Us/Them narrative alienates and isolates group members from family and other Christians. The Bible is a prop in their passion play: heavily used when convenient, and then discarded, ignored, or contravened when unhelpful to their vision of primacy.