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Originally Posted by NeitherFirstnorLast
Wow brother, that fact is itself eye-opening! I wasn't in the LSM church for nearly as long as most who post here - I couldn't honestly say that I'd read a book or heard a teaching one way or the other about it yet; I'd only heard testimonies like I illustrated here to demonstrate it.... but to know that it was a practice taught by Witness Lee, and in fact yet again added to, really shows where the heart of the man was... if the hidden histories don't already demonstrate that clearly enough. That's the whole reason they're hidden, after all: Cover his nakedness! Don't be like Ham and expose him or you'll be cursed! No one can know he is really a drunkard!
The funny thing about that Bible story (Genesis 9:24-27), often used by the leadership in Anaheim to demonstrate how we mustn't ever expose these sins of the past, is that it was Noah and not God who laid a curse on Ham, his own son. And Noah cursed his son because his son offended his pride. Further, God did more than expose Noah's nakedness to Noah's children, He permanently recorded the incident FOREVER in His Word: Noah's nakedness has been exposed to Billions of people for now and forever.
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Actually, the 10% tithing quota was rarely mentioned until this time. It was that extra 5% which was stressed at the time, and thus, it was implied to all that their 10% was already being given.
That 5% was often discussed. WL wanted, on an average, 1 of 20 in every church to serve full-time. Some churches had more, and some had less, so funds were established to collect from the churches and distribute to the full-timers. It was a crazy math. When the numbers were tallied, and yes questionnaires were sent out to all the churches, the number in the Lord's Table meeting was used. That included students, women, and children. LSM published a book at the time with all the numbers.
WL would say that "19 could support one," but think about it. Out of that 19, possibly only a handful were professionally employed. And that "one" could be a family with children. I always found it hard to believe that as a former accountant, WL's full-timer math created an impossible church burden. But since none of us were entitled to an "opinion" only WL's word was heard, and our role was to be faithful to carry it out.
Looking back, the call for full-timers was more about wresting control from all the elders than it was about the evangelization of the whole earth. The full-timers needed LSM to "train" them, and LSM need all the church's money to support them.
And, by the way, Noah cursed Canaan and not Ham. I do believe that there is much more to that story than we were taught, and speculations abound ...