Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
I hope, for their sakes, that they don't openly say anything like that because anyone with a brain would realize that Jesus said He would build the church. There is nothing in that statement that suggests that he will fail if we don't organize to help him out. And it surely doesn't support the raising up of any kind of "one unique minister of the age."
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Are you really serious? Paul said that he was a wise master builder, compared other ministers to those that build and water, and urged us to imitate him. If someone takes the Lord's word that He will build the church and interprets that to say that in this age the Lord's unique work is the building of the church how do you draw the implied meaning from that as "He will fail if we don't help"?
Why not rather the sentiment "I am about my Lord's business".
Second, there are many ministries in the body. That is a very scriptural and well supported statement. To say that WL was "A" minister of the age does not in any way, to my opinion, cause serious problems with the NT. To say that he was "The" minister of the age does. I heard RG for over a year develop his teaching but never once did he supply any scriptural evidence that, in my opinion, ever warranted changing "A" to "the".
They did use the analogy of Elijah and Elisha. The basic principle is that you don't create a teaching based on a type, rather their should be a clear NT teaching, such as for Baptism, and the types should then fill in some of the picture. Creating this teaching that WN passed the mantle to WL was in my mind, very poor Biblical scholarship and had no foundation in the NT. On the contrary I felt that analogy was much better suited to the OT ministry and the NT ministry. As a result I didn't take RG seriously. His writings were not published by LSM and his speaking could just as easily demonstrate that there was no central control over what brothers spoke.