[aron]

What's missing from recent posts is a simple but important question: what does any of this have to do with God's economy? Suppose for the sake of argument that going "Oh, Lord Jesus - Oh, Lord Jesus - Oh, Lord Jesus!" all day long was what was shown in the NT text as calling on the name of the Lord. Suppose that "with those who call on the Lord in every place" of 1 Cor 1:2 meant those who were calling ''in the kitchen, in the shower, in the car" all day long, and not "in Corinth, in Jerusalem, in Laodicea" as a point of salvation, and so forth.

In other words, give all the arguments Witness Lee's teaching of "calling on the name of the Lord" their face value, which is giving a lot. But my question is, what does any of that have to do with the economy of God?

It seems to me that the WL-promoted and LC-encouraged practice as an integral part of God's economy rested on two foundational assumptions, neither of which has any textual support that I can see. The first is that "calling" is "drinking" and "pray-reading" is "eating". There is no verse that connects these concepts. It does say to call, and to drink, but it doesn't say that calling is drinking. It does say to pray, and to read, but not to pray-read, and certainly not that pray-reading is eating.

(In fact, Jesus taught clearly what eating was to him, at least -- "My food is... 'X' " which is pretty close to a definition that I can see (John 4:34). Not once have I seen this addressed by a LSM apologist. It's as if the verse doesn't exist.)

The second outright fabrication is that "eating and drinking" is "God's economy". Again, no scriptural basis whatever, except that WL wished it so. God's economy as taught by Paul and Timothy could very well have been "Give to those who can't repay you in this age", there's certainly enough support in both the gospels and the epistles. Or it could be something else entirely. Yet none of that is ever considered, and when I helpfully bring it up, it's ignored.

The whole thing was manufactured in a sense of heightened suggestibility, when "this means that" was taken as if it were so, and never questioned. Later, if anyone cautiously raised any of these issues, they would be called troublemakers, ambitious and divisive, destroyers of God's building and whatnot, and marked for destruction (or at least 10 centuries of unbearable torment).