I always enjoy Nigel's expositions of Lee's work. It is very insightful into both the core of that body of teaching, and of what is being done with it today.
But as too often happens with me, I see something in it that is not on Nigel's radar and it makes me think. Inside of the very first example comes this quote in the introduction to the (alleged) parallel between Jezebel in Revelation and "the woman" in Mat 13.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Admin
The sound teachers of the Bible agree that the Jezebel in Revelation 2 is undoubtedly the woman prophesied by the Lord in Matthew 13:33. These two women actually are one. The great harlot in Revelation 17 is also the same woman. Thus, the woman in Matthew 13 is the Jezebel in Revelation 2, and Jezebel becomes the great harlot who is called the great Babylon in Revelation 17.
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Does anyone actually teach that this woman in Matthew 13:13 is a prophecy of Jezebel in Revelation 2? Besides Lee? And what do so many "teachers of the Bible" that we consider "sound" say about the woman in Matthew 13? Do they really see and teach a parallel?
Or did we simply accept it as true because it was said in the manner that it was? Has anyone actually looked into the claim?
I recently learned that there have been studies (incomplete at this time) indicating that when there is a large area of uncertainty or possibility, once someone suggests a point of possible solution, people tend to presume that there is weight to the suggestion and will frame their continued search to the solutions close to the suggested one. So if no one has ever even identified the woman in Matthew as somehow connected with Jezebel in Revelation, once it is out there, it tends to be the default position from which strong proof will be required to move away. But unless the original suggestion includes evidence of some weight, it should take no more evidence to look elsewhere than to prove that it is already solved.
And I have found that Lee's version of the parable in Matthew 13:33 to be quite faulty. He likens the kingdom to sixty pounds of flour. His reading would be "the kingdom of heaven is like sixty pounds of flour into which a woman mixed yeast until the whole of the dough had yeast in it." But my Bible says "the kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough."
So the woman added the kingdom to something else. In the context of the surrounding parables, it would appear to be the kingdom spreading throughout the world. A good thing. Therefore the woman is not some kind of evil. And not a parallel to Jezebel in Revelation 2.
So how much more of the actual teachings of Lee are so completely off the mark? Even if the LSM's sanitizing Lee for the radio is OK, are his teachings really OK?