Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
What is now understood as "God's Economy" is a far cry from the original book on the subject. This explains why different brothers in the Recovery have completely different views of what "God's Economy" refers to. Most brothers I knew took their understanding from the Greek texts in the Bible, and the original teaching by WL. Nowadays "God's Economy" has come to mean an exclusive view, focused singularly on the ministry of WL, and exclusive to the Recovery.
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Nothing has changed. Read the first chapter of TEOG. It is a primer in disregarding, even ignoring scripture. There is essentially none there. And he tricks us into accepting his "just God dispensing himself into man" definition through a vague reference to some "careful study of the entire Bible" which he site absolutely none of.
And so when someone goes to other verses in which the given understanding of TEOG is used to alter the reading, then that verse is, in turn, used as evidence that TEOG really is all he says it is (which is essentially every place that Lee brought it up as a reason to reread anything in a different way than it obviously read).
That is not "later Lee." The fantasy in TEOG in 1963(ish) was no different from the fantasy of Nee in
Spiritual Authority (
Authority and Submission) in the first couple of chapters, and Nee's dismissal of home churches as meaningless in
Further Talks since to understand it as it obviously should be understood was in contradiction of the "one church in a city" doctrine.
These guys are not reading scripture for enlightenment. They are reading scripture to find where it might be construed to say what they already think is true. And if necessary, rewrite a little of it through the application of some overlay to get the job done. For Lee, "God's economy" seems to have served him well in many cases. It doesn't matter that there is a rich meaning to God's economy that would not do what Lee wanted. He grabbed it, tied it up, and led it all over the place as his proof that his misreading of scripture was really right.
It's the same old story. Same old song and dance.
They played the pipe for us and we danced. In Lee's case, we danced all the way to the bank.
Maybe the average LRCer doesn't think of God's economy as this thing that trumps words, grammar, and logic. But they are buying what Lee said that was not the words, grammar and logic of the sentences provided in scripture. And when asked why he thinks it is true, one of those overlays, like "God's economy" is given without much meaningful explanation. "It's just what is supposed to be taught, therefore we must be misreading this verse."
BTW, Lee may not have put all the negative stuff into a lot of serious messages about James in a training prior to when I left in 1987. But he had said plenty about James "missing God's economy" by focusing on "works" and other such nonsense. I heard some of it first hand.
My problem is not with God's economy; it is with what Lee did with it to effectively lead the LRC astray.