Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
James here addresses serious errors in practice which violate the perfect law of freedom, (1.25) and which should have governed our sights regarding LC ministers. Our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, should never be governed by personal favoritism towards any man. The credentials and reputation of any minister should never elevate him above scrutiny by the church. The Lord's throne is founded on righteousness, and no minister should ever sideswipe the demands of righteousness and holiness in his quest to enjoy the glories reserved solely for our Lord Christ.
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Easier said than done. Did WN add some kind of "Good Housekeeping seal of approval" to the LRC in your mind?
Consider Bernie Madoff. He was once the head of the Nasdaq! That adds credibility, people feel a guy like that is already established financially and is not going to threaten his reputation with shady deals. No doubt it was the "respect of persons" that helped him build his business and rob people.
It is a proven fact that crooks in uniforms have an easier time in deceiving people. People tend to trust the uniform and ignore common sense.
The basic principle is you are tempted by your lust. If your lusts are put to death then you will not be tempted. I was fortunate for a couple of reasons. First, I didn't want to be in the church, as a result I spent a year trying to find fault to justify refusing this call. As a result I could care less about the leaders, I felt if the church was real you would see it in the smallest members. Second, after one year I had come to respect the faith of the brother that persevered, yet he was lowly and despised in the church. Likewise one of the brothers that shepherded me was of no account in the church. This caused me to view the dynamic of the entire caste system in the LRC differently. Finally, the brother that brought me in and with whom I lived for a few months was an evangelist in every sense of the word. You could not spend an hour with him without preaching the gospel and visiting gospel contacts. This kept me out of the snare of "being a hearer only and not a doer deceiving yourself".
They tried to convince me that WL's ministry was "deeper and richer" than WN's (WN is high school, WL is college). But I have plenty of self confidence in that regards so I didn't care if WN was high school since I felt I was getting more out of it. So buying books in the bookroom was also part of the caste system that I didn't buy into, fortunately.
Also I had no interest in becoming an expert in WL's ministry like EM wanted. I had wanted to be able to read the Bible and saw WN's ministry as my opportunity to figure out how to read the Bible. So a lot of the lusts that ensnared others didn't trap me.
Still, during that year in which I was trying to find an excuse not to come into the LRC, if I knew what I know now about WN that would have been sufficient for me to reject them.