Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt
Here is what I have come to understand about the "vision". In simple terms, the "vision" was a vision of the practical expression of the oneness of the Body of Christ on the earth through the testimony of a group of saints gathering together on the ground of locality.
In my mind, this is where the idolatry lies.
|
I think the teaching is fine in and of itself, but even as a teaching it's not nearly as big a deal as the Local Church made it out to be and among them it was in fact turned into something that is probably rightly called idolatry.
If you and I meet seemingly randomly at the grocery and we end up sharing the verses we've been enjoying so that I can see the Lord's shining on your face and you can see Him shining on mine and those around us can see it too (tell me I'm the only one this has ever happened to) then, right at that moment, what do you have? I'm in this place and you're in this place and when we meet and Christ is displayed there, we are the assembly in this place. You have "the practical expression of the oneness of the Body of Christ on the earth through the testimony of a group of saints gathering together on the ground of locality," as long as you don't require that the "whole church" come together to satisfy some religious locality test.
It's really not rocket science.
The reality of Christ manifesting practically in the meetings of the believers constitutes something
very unique and
very important in the universe. But the Local Church takes a couple of little verses in Matt. 18 and turns it into the excuse to have standing orders from LSM for the latest HWMR books. The stretch is incredible and I'm sure no one else made the leap with me just now. Let me try phrasing it this way: once you have your "church you can go to" then you must have all these other things in place and handled correctly according to the teachings of the "universal church," which of course includes all the things we've all been vomiting up here for weeks and months.
Poppycock!
When we receive one another freely without judgment wherever we happen to be and Christ is present in those meetings and thereby glorified in His saints, that poor little locality doctrine just has nothing else to do.
Please don't try to turn it into the foundation of another particular flavor of "universal church" whatever you do!