Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay
Now you also bring up an interesting and truthful point that those in the denominations ARE technically a part of the body. But are they standing on the correct ground in their locality is the real question. So while although they are genuine believers, and our brothers and sisters, and members of the body, which also we are, they just so happen to be in a situation of division with regards to how they meet. I am wholly convinced from the Bible that this matters greatly to God. There is just simply far too much in the old and new testament regarding this that just can't be overlooked. It really really matters to God. It's not something that Nee and Lee concocted on their own, our of their supposed ambition to control or whatever. No, this is biblical. This matters to God.
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Jay, I think you'll find on this forum many equate the local church ground as a doctrine of dirt. My dad and mom still adhere to the ground doctrine. Others I know still do even if the end result is not to meet anywhere.
There is no technicality. We are all part of the Body.
1 Corinthians 12:12-26
Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
I raise the question for those who accept the ground of locality doctrine. Who is to say the local churches affiliated with Living Stream Ministry are not on the proper ground?
Who is to say which church is meeting on the proper ground?
What do you do when in a given city you have multiple congregations claiming to meet on the proper ground?
As for the local churches, I believe they're ministry churches.
When ones fellowship is based on a Christian publishing company, that is the outcome.