Quote:
Originally Posted by Friedel
Not so.
These statements have no basis in the Bible. "Ministry" is used often in the New Testament and Paul even said to the Romans, "I magnify my ministry" (Romans 11:3). To Timothy he wrote: "Fulfill your ministry" (2 Timothy 4:5).
Just because Witness Lee abused this word and made it exclusive, as if it belonged to him alone, does not invalidate it so that it should be scrapped.
"Ministry" carries within itself the sense of "serving" and that should be our goal.
We should never allow our disdain of Witness Lee's contemptible acts of lying, misrepresentation, etc. to want to delete words from the Bible. That is not for us to decide. If God put them there, who am I to touch them?
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I think you missed the point. It is not that the word "ministry" is missing from the Bible. It is that there virtually no comment on ministry outside of the peculiar ministry than any particular person has.
It surely is important that the ministry that anyone claims to have is soundly within the charge for those who are called to minister. But nothing other than being within that rather large scope is distinctly defined as "the ministry" in the way that Lee talked of it. And the way he talked of it was to assert that his ministry was "the ministry" and that all others qualified as "so-called ministries" and were off the mark of "God's economy."
(I know that putting God's economy in quotes may be controversial, but it is not because God does not have an economy, but because what Lee called God's economy does not resemble anything that I can find as the logical content of such an economy.)
"The ministry" is to go forth to disciple, baptize, and teach (to obey). That is the way that Jesus put it. Paul repackaged it into functions of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers (quite reasonable coming from the person who inroduced the idea of gifts given to the body as needed). But the content really did not change. Paul spent a lot of time teaching them to obey. He sent several letters to point out where they were not obedient. And before that, he had come through as an apostle and evangelist, being specifically sent by God to bring the good news to the people.
You are right that ministry brings the meaning of serving. And it should be the goal of everyone who has a ministry. And at some level, we all have a ministry. Not like Paul. Or like any number of modern "ministers" of our day. We mostly have "one talent" ministries. And that's all we have been asked to do.
And that one talent ministry does not need to be entirely on board with any particular man's ministry, whether Lee's or anyone else's. Just consistent with the message of Christ.