Igzy,
You really didn't address the primary thrust of my post. It was not an effort to say Lee never said anything right or noteworthy. But was it uniquely his?
And my review back through what I think I can honestly say that I got from Lee and the LRC comes up with one primary thing.
I got pushed out of the old.
But where I got pushed is a different story. I admit that it was a good thing to step outside of the Assemblies of God. And I learned (after the fact) that I need to pay attention to what is being asserted by any teacher. Fortunately, most things that I now find questionable fall into the category of "rational assertion that could be true, and is not inconsistent with what we know is true, but is not established as true." Those really don't bother me.
Lee taught us to use more than one verse. To look all over scripture. Then he littered many of his messages with "unimportant" verses (not really on topic, not that any verse is ever simply unimportant) and really only one verse (often misappropriated) upon which his point would rest. Not all. In some of them he really went all over scripture. But too often in a questionable way. Finding (or manufacturing) a precedent by which he reinterpreted what was in his primary verse/passage.
I got told that unity was very important. And it could only happen in a newly founded division that refused any external unity. Then contrary to his teaching that all efforts to have unity in the midst of differing denominations and such is a waste, I realize that it is quite real and is more unified than much of his own sect.
And when I read the one thing that you give as an example, I stop and ask myself whether it is actually true.
Is the Church God's dwelling place, or is His dwelling place people and the collective of that is the Church? I know that may seem like 6 of one an 1/2 dozen of the other, but it is not. The great differentiator is whether it is the people, or it is the collective. When I read through the gospels, I see commands to people concerning their life and belief. When I read Paul, even if "church" is mentioned, virtually all of the discussion is about people and their living. It is not about some collective.
Is the emphasis on the people and there is an overlay in the form of a name for the collective? Or is it that there is a collective but to make it happen you have to "get dirty" by dealing with the individuals?
I think it is the former, not the latter. The church is not irrelevant or subservient. But it is what comes to be through the lives of the people. Other than an occasional look at the ultimate result, the church is nothing outside of the people. It doesn't happen by focusing on the church. It happens by focusing on the people.
I don't care to quibble over heaven v the Church as God's "prime" dwelling place. Scripture tells us that he is in both. He is all and in all. I do not believe that anything makes one or the other "prime."
Yes, God lives with us. Not just in heaven.
I'm not closing the doors to the possibility, but on what basis do you conclude that God's desire is to make the hearts of people his
primary dwelling place? I see that he comes to dwell in/with us. But
primary?
In one place, earth is the footstool. Then, in the end, it is the location of the great city and the Throne of God. But I don't find the Church as God's
prime dwelling.