Quote:
Originally Posted by Igzy
Let me try again. Two groups in a city. Both receive all believers and keep the faith. But each has different teaching and practice focuses. Both claim to be the city-church and to have the elders who are by necessity over the whole city. Each thinks the other is sectarian. Which one is the true church? I submit that, all things being equal, neither can know to the point that they can have the boldness to say the other definitely isn't. In other words, neither can do what the LCs do in claiming that everyone needs to join them, which amounts to an arbitrary requirement which is a seed of division.
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I have a fundamental disconnect with this model, which is probably related to what Igzy is driving at. I am going to "think aloud" here and see if this is so.
I got a big red flag when I saw elders described as being
over the whole city. Igzy maybe didn't characterize it this way deliberately, but the characterization, to me, highlights the absurdity of the hypothetical situation outlined. Elders are those who are the most mature in life, and therefore are the leading sheep. They take the lead to follow the Lamb wherever He may go.
Now the other sheep, depending on maturity, will either follow or not. If they are wise they will follow. If they are foolish and immature they will wander around in circles and be blown by every puff of wind that passes by. They will not progress very far in the race.
The elders are beneath everyone. They came to serve, just as the Son of Man came not to lord it over others but to serve. Recall when the Lord girded His loins and washed the disciple's feet, and commended them to do likewise. The elders,
of their own initiative, due to maturity in life, and due the exalted vision of the glorified Christ which calls them forward, take the lead to be dust, to be nothing, to be beneath the feet of all, to serve all and not to be served by others.
Instead we have seen a top-down phenomenon; the elders are appointed by Central Headquarters, and then become the vehicles for imposing external demands upon the believers. To quote Igzy's scenario: "Everyone needs to join us (and then do what we say)".
Rather, the elder should take the lead to fall into the earth to die, and this is "leadership" precisely because it inspires other, mature saints to follow their example. This seems to be the opposite of the LSM model, which is tied to centralized, "top-down" earthly models of so-called "leadership".
I think this is related to Igzy's "Two groups -- who's the Boss?" dilemma, and in a causal way. But proposed scenario didn't make the issue explicit, which I wanted to do.
Believers have the authority to be children of God (John 1:12). Believers don't have the authority to tell others what they "need" to do. Lee got this basic christian truth wrong, and many have followed him in this error. I contend that it is behind the scenario Igzy depicted.
John wrote: "Diotrephes loves to be first" (3 John 1:9). There is a great warning, and a salvation, in that statement, if we are willing to hear it. Let Diotrephes' error be a salvation to us all.
p.s. I missed Igzy's last post while writing mine. His ending comment about the pre-adolescent "need to be first" I think shows that he and I are not so far apart in our thinking. I had ended my post the same way. My stress was that this is a root cause, and not effect, of the "one city-one church" dilemma.