Quote:
Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah
In my experience the best meetings, the ones that I felt had been visited by the Lord were those in which the testimonies spoke to me. It was not the speaking of the elders that captured me for the LC, likewise it was not the teaching of WL that fed me, and during the really tough times it wasn't the thought of a message from so and so that kept me coming to the meetings.
When it says "all" can speak, I think (from my experience), it means that anyone in the meeting can speak, whether a young teenager, a small sister, a despised brother or sister, etc. You cannot help but have saints of repute, so it is crucial that "all" can speak.
From my own experience I can tell you that both in Houston and later in Odessa there were definitely times when the elders of the church did not want me to speak. The clash of personalities as you said, but the reality is when you speak in the meeting you let the church judge. That is why they never prevented me from speaking. The meeting doesn't belong to the elders, it belongs to the saints.
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I appreciate your thoughts. And they are not irrelevant. But I am not prone to direct my thoughts about these verses based on feelings. There is a reason that Paul said what he did. There is a context. And there are the words.
As I mentioned, with the context of this particular passage, "all" would not seem to refer to the whole assembly. Rather to the whole of the ones designated for the task at hand, namely "prophesying."
And further, in the context of this chapter, and the broader discussion of gifts that began a couple of chapters before, prophesying is not just something that everybody does. It is a spiritual gift. Paul may have actually said that he wished that all would prophesy. And in a similar way, certain denominations say that they believe that all should speak in tongues. But the underlying principle — there are various gifts given to each of us for the benefit of the whole group — suggests otherwise. Paul may desire it. But that is not necessarily the way that "gifts" are passed out. Lee was wrong to insist that it simply means that we all can.
And having a good experience from the testimony of someone who is otherwise not going to be on the list of 2 or 3 prophets does not alter what Paul said. If the gospel and the church was going to be about pure democracy of gifts, about ordered anarchy, then Jesus would not have kept 12 close to himself (and three of those closer than the others) and everyone else just along for the ride. He would not have sent only 70. He would have sent everyone. The result of his teachings would not have been two different things happening at the same time — the apostle's teaching and the breaking of bread from house to house. Both are important. But the teaching aspect of the meetings is not a testimony meeting. It is the clearly articulated and expounded truth from Christ and the scripture. Our testimonies, whether spoken in a meeting, or over bread, or just in the living of our lives, are the proof that what is taught is true.
And for all the claims of those special meetings in which we all "prophesied," we were still mostly focused on the effects of the special realizations of the LRC, the truths taught by Lee, and how they impressed us. Not as much about how our lives changed. Nothing about how we learned how to love our neighbor as we helped a poor person on the street.
I have a new thought that I am chewing on that I will post here in a few days.