Quote:
Originally Posted by Igzy
When I was in the LRC, pray-reading was not about prayer and it was not about reading for understanding. It was for using the word as a vehicle to get more in the Spirit. It wasn't praying so much as it was declaring or speaking. It's not bad in itself, it just (like everything else in the LRC) got taken to an extreme. And it got touted as the greatest thing since sliced manna.
That's what is really annoying about the whole thing. The LRC couldn't just have a practice. They had to believe and try to convince everyone else that their practice was the greatest thing ever and that everyone else is a complete idiot for not realizing as much.
I agree with OBW to this extent. Books like "Lord.. Thou Saidst" were not written to encourage a broad audience to pray the Word. They were written to defend an LRC practice which LRCers called praying the word, but which just as easily could be called "chopping verses into pieces and repeating the pieces over and over in the hopes of achieving a spiritual experience."
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My experience was that I never "got" pray reading. I heard glowing testimonies of the practice, but I just filed those away under something I didn't understand. However, when RG shared his booklet with us, I understood that. Since then I have had many wonderful experiences of praying the word of God. For example, I shared before how I rebuked BP in a meeting, and how I stood up to the threats of JD and the elders in Houston, and how I wrote a letter to the elders in Texas rebuking them, etc. How do you do that, it is rebellion, and not get excommunicated? The answer is simple, you pray the word and speak that. When you speak the Lord's word in prayer your head is covered.
Now because of this I never felt "pressured" to pray read in that way.
So it may be that my understanding of that book was not its intended meaning, how could I know what RG intended? I am not omniscient. But I will say this, there were four things that RG shared as elder that left an indelible mark on me. All four of them had to do with standing on the Lord's word and having faith that God would honor His word. Second, my impression of RG was that he never asked more of anyone than he asked of himself. I do not believe that he was a hypocrite. What I do find easier to believe is that in his zeal to be absolute he was deceived. That is the most credible interpretation I have at the present. The biggest surprise for me in coming to these forums was to learn of the errors of BP and RG. WL was not a surprise, and I had already pegged PL by meeting him once without having to know any details.