Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
What is this "life" that we are supposed to be ministering? Something besides the truth of Christ? Something that is disconnected from our daily life? Something that you have to feel?
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I will address this by first quoting Olvin from his introductory thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Olvin
I believe that "it IS God's eternal purpose to have a group of people created in is image and likeness to be filled with Him as life to express Him and represent Him." You say this is "high-sounding doctrine that misrepresents God". I have shared the simple truth with grade school children. Were we not made in his image and after His likeness? Is this not for the purpose of expressing Him and representing Him? Is not taking Him in as food (life) a major theme from Genesis to Revelation. I hope I don't need to share verses to prove I know what I'm talking about. And brother, the human life will remain a mystery unless man understands he was made to be filled with the life of God. Now there is very little that is high sounding about that. Do you eat and drink the Lord by reading and prayer? All who eat me shall live because me... unless you eat... you have no life. What a simple word, not high sounding at all. Do you have something a little more down to earth to minister by way of "doctrine" than this.
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There are a number of major themes in my opinion, which run from Genesis to Revelation but we don't cover because we have filters, or lenses, derived from personal experience, personal disposition, church history, social culture, and theological training. So we see what we see. I had to get way outside the "ministry" before I started to see things other than what I had been spoon-fed. In the meantime I ministered, post-LSM, what I had, such as judicial redemption versus organic salvation. Stuff that yes I got in the Local Churches affiliated with the ministries of Nee & Lee. I'm very grateful for it but I'm also very grateful that I learned to read "C-A-T spells cat" when I was in second grade.
But life isn't something defined by Macintosh or Pember or Penn-Lewis or Darby or Sparks or Lee. We know the life is found in Jesus, and His Spirit that gives life, but the major themes of this are often only tangenitally touched here, by us. Because if they were realized the world wouldn't look the same. So I won't go too deep into the idea of Life here; I'm not qualified.
Of ministry, however I will say two things. First - Jesus is the minister of the heavenly tabernacles, not Paul or Lee or Nee. There is only one heavenly minister and we are all pale imitations. So the confidence game of today's self-styled apostles is a joke. It isn't a ministry it is a fleece-the-sheep game. And we seem to love to play. Lee wasn't the first, nor the last, nor the most successful in this regard. Ministry was an opportunity for him and Living Stream Ministry, Christians on Campus, Lord's Move to Europe, Emanna, Defense and Confirmation Project, Bibles for America, Rhema.org, and other tentacles of human endeavor to make themselves manifested.
Second, you can perhaps see this, for example, in the above 'do you eat and drink the Lord by reading and prayer' question. Paul the apostle twice told the saints to 'eat and drink the Lord' by singing the Psalms. Lee the apostle with the ministry of the age said that was too low. In the ministry of Lee, the Psalms were mostly fallen and natural. So Paul's recommended singing-Psalms "be filled with Spirit" in Ephesians and "let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" in Colossians got thwarted and supervened by the ministry.