[OBW]

Well, there you have it. Someone said it in a different way. And maybe in a way that will get at the minds of those who think that it is safe to retain Lee while thinking through what of his might have been error.

Paul said to reject certain kinds of teachers. Not to do the "separate the meat from the bones and feathers" thing. That doesn't always work. And that kind of exhortation presumes that we have everything we need to discern the difference. Maybe as a group we do. But as individuals we don't. And the smaller the group, the closer it is to being no more resourceful than one.

That is the reason there are teachers. That is the reason they went to the Temple for the Apostles' teaching. That is the reason Timothy was left in Ephesus while they did not yet have sufficient resources of their own.

It has been only about a day ago that I agreed with Ohio that it might be wise for him to retain Lee since he had nothing before. But given the permeating nature of Lee's errors, I might revise that sentiment now. He knows the core of the faith. He has been able to read for himself for many years, going all the way back to the time just before the Revelation training. (And I was there as well.)

The better advice might be as follows. Don't intentionally retain Lee. If it is not something necessary at the moment or something you are looking into, don't so much retain it as just not consider it. Once it is forefront for whatever reason — sermon series, small group study, covered in some book you are reading — intentionally presume Lee was wrong. That does not mean intentionally presume the other source is right. But no matter how hard you try, the result will probably be no better than lowering Lee to one of two or more viable readings. Take in what you see, not what you were taught to see. Allow the competing interpretation(s) at least equal standing or consideration.

How do you decide what to analyze in this manner? Anything where you find yourself questioning those fine Christians around you simply because it was not the way you learned it in the LRC. I'll be honest to admit that I have not always ended out in complete agreement with those fine Christians. (But neither have I found my way back to Lee in those situations.) But I realize that I can continue with them anyway. You really can be one with people you don't agree with 100 percent on all issues.

Have a problem with there being a preacher, or even a team of preachers? Read the Word. It actually seems to indicate that there are those who should teach the rest of us. Think that means we are just too stupid? Remember that we all have an anointing and at some level we do know. Think Babylon was something to simply flee from back to Jerusalem (and is a type of Christianity v the LRC)? Discover that at least one of the significant figures in the rebuilding of Jerusalem went there for a while, then returned to serve the king of Persia. And it would seem that God was ordaining that it was time to scatter the Jews throughout the world as the start of the blessing of the Gentiles that would be fully realized when Jesus sent the disciples "into all the world." No special status for those who returned to Jerusalem and deficient status for those who did not.

According to Paul, Lee did not qualify to be a teacher. He (Lee, not Paul) should be rejected as a source of truth. Why simply rejected? Because you really can't tell the meat from the bones. We have been conditioned to accept Lee's teachings as meat and everything else as bones. We were taught that this was the Spirit. You can't even rely on what you simply think is your sense of the Spirit. The Spirit may instead lead you to take the rowboat or the helicopter with a well-educated preacher rowing/flying rather than just remain on the roof while the waters rise around you waiting for that direct, "I can sense it directly from God" kind of speaking. If we just need the sense of the Spirit, then we don't really even need each other. And Christianity will truly become the chaos and anarchy of churches of one.