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But we don't have to go that deep. It's rather silly to conflate the ground of oneness with the ground of the church. One is a spiritual matter that all believers share in a metaphysical sense as long as they are within the uniting bond of the spirit. The other is the ground of location which God clearly makes a big deal about in the word. Not only can we quote God literally saying this in Deuteronomy 12:11, but he implemented its practice in the book of Acts where we see the practical church life in each city, and the epistles, which were addressed to the ONE church in the ONE city that Paul was writing his letter to. Not ONE in the metaphysical spiritual sense, but ONE in location. Meaning there is only supposed to be ONE church per city.
-Jay
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Again, it's not hard to prove that God wants a particular place of meeting. Deuteronomy 12:11 and the local churches in Acts and the Epistles. We also have verses such as Hebrews 10:25 which say directly to not forsake the assembly.
-Jay
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Now I shall get to the heart of the matter, which I imagine from your repeated insistence on the assemblies mentioned in the epistles is what you are most anxious to hear a rebuttal to. To be honest, it is also the one I am most eager to present a rebuttal to because while in Lee’s estimation (and yours) it is an absolutely crucial doctrine for the church, it is, in my estimation and that of many others, a particularly harmful doctrine, among a few others, which has led to a toxic spiritual elitism amongst the congregations in the denomination known as The Lord’s Recovery (a.k.a. The Local Churches).
Lee’s main argument is the existence of a particular pattern in the New Testament: the naming of the congregations. We have several cities and their associated congregations to which we see epistles written to. Rome (Romans), Corinth (Corinthians), Galatia (Galatians), Ephesus (Ephesians), Philippi (Philippians), Colossae (Colossians), Thessalonica (Thessalonians). We also see a few more churches mentioned in the book of Revelation, where the churches of Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea are also given a spotlight. We have here a pattern. It is a pattern that Lee relies heavily on in order to support his particular doctrine of the ground of the church/oneness/locality. He further tries to support this argument by using verses such as
Deuteronomy 12:11 in which we see God very explicitly commanding the Israelites to come to one very specific place of worship, and this would not be the first time the command was so very explicitly given. Therefore, Lee claims, that because the Lord sought one physical place of worship in the Old Testament which was within the boundaries of a particular city and because we see several churches named after the cities they are found in, this naming scheme must be a New Testament reality of God’s desire for a physical place of worship. As such, the only proper way to refer to our assemblies is by whatever city we are found in, and to turn away from this pattern would be as rebellious and dangerous as the Israelites turning away from the temple in Jerusalem as the one place of worship that unites God’s saints.
In response to this doctrine of Lee’s, I have two main points.