[Cal]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Fair enough,

Scientists have recently discovered “mirror neurons” in your brain. So if you smile my mirror neurons will immediately light up imitating a smile and you may even seen the smile on my face. This helps me to feel someone else’s pain, or joy, or sadness, etc. Now imagine if a couple had been living together for 40 years, the mirror neurons are helping the two brains be tuned together so that even the facial and physical expressions mirror one another. This explains how husband and wife can sometimes seem to look so much alike after many years. On the one hand you could argue that this is organic, it happens automatically without any conscious effort on your part (WL teaching). On the other hand you could argue that this will only happen if you have a relationship, it is the result of spending a lot of time together (your interpretation). Regardless, our experience tells us that they are “becoming one flesh” (the Bible’s teaching).

So how is your teaching any different from the Catholics that gave Galileo the boot? I believe that this darkness stems from man deciding what parts of the Bible to receive and what parts to reject.

I said "literally" in the sense of being the same physical body. The fact that a couple starts to look like each other doesn't prove they become the same physical body. Lee taught that because we were the Body of Christ we are therefore Christ. That's the extreme teaching I'm taking issue with. All these factoids you are throwing out don't change that.

I don't argue that one flesh is true. The question is, what does it mean? You seem to think all you need to know is "one flesh" and you'll automatically understand what it means. You don't. "One" in the Bible doesn't always mean "same." It also means so closely related that they can be taken as one.

"One spirit" does not mean we literally become Christ. It means a close intimate spiritual relationship. Take it that way and you will have a lot more progress in growth than you will if you go around thinking you are Christ, or worse, God.

I saw WL’s teaching as a way to attempt to explain how people are transformed into the image of Christ. He had seen the extreme of people trying to be holy, only to become legalistic. I took this to mean that, like the Lord’s word not to worry about things that you can’t control like your stature, that this is something I didn’t need to worry about. Live the Christian life, pray, fellowship, worship, speak, etc. and the transformation will take place.

I still disagree somewhat. The Lord leads and speaks to us about our failings. He teaches us to love, to forgive and to think about others more than ourselves. Doing these things takes an act of will. Yes, we absolutely need the Holy Spirit's help. We are not supposed to "white-knuckle" it, as my pastor says. But neither are we just supposed to pray, etc. We are supposed to be in relation with the Lord and listen to his speaking inwardly and through his word. If we are not loving someone we are supposed to make an effort to love him, not wait till love appears. Granted there's some merit to what you said, but I still think it is somewhat imbalanced.

Likewise you could just as easily look at your teaching and say the same thing. The damage is to the biologist that could have gotten the light that there are organic processes at work that are causing this old couple to look like each other, but you told him there weren’t. You said the word was not to be taken literally.

Ironically, what you are are talking about is probably more a psychological phenomenon than a physical one. In other words, although the couple becomes one flesh at marriage, that's not the end goal. The end goal is that they eventually become one soul. Likewise, although we start out one spirit with the Lord the end result is that we become one soul with Him, that is so much like Him in soul that we become one with him in our thinking and behavior.