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Originally Posted by VoiceInWilderness
Bro Awareness,
I think WN was a scholar of the 1st class. He was extremely well read, an original thinker, and respected the world over and a martyr. I would not say that WL was a scholar in general because it seems he only read Nee and what Nee recommended, but I would say he was a Bible scholar.
I think both were great men of God. WL did get considerably over sold on himself.
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Assuming that Nee read through and utilized that collection of books he supposedly had, there is no reason why he shouldn't be given the same level of respect as someone with a degree. I think Nee ministry has it's benefits if taken with a grain of salt. I have found parts of his ministry (especially his earlier ministry) that indicate he should not be blindly followed as do those in the LC.
As for Lee, I'm sure he loved the Bible and loved studying it. I have become increasingly cautious, however, about what might be "helpful" from his ministry. Why? It's not to say that the was completely wrong, all the time, but he was so quick to dismiss everything that he didn't deem to be useful for his purposes. The quote that Nigel included at the beginning of his writing says a lot about Lee:
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“Since World War II...,” he observed,1 “there has not been one publication that is weighty concerning Bible exposition, the divine life, or the truth.” Neither did seminaries and theological education escape his ire; “Christianity...has been...opening seminaries and educating students of theology. However, these theological graduates have not gotten into the depths of the Bible...” he asserted, adding,2 “Christianity has not published a single book of great spiritual value.”
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I grew up hearing people always talk about how "rich" Lee's ministry was or how much help that they had received from it. As a result, over the years I developed this view that whatever outside sources that Lee referenced were the only "weighty" publications out there besides the ministry. Lee himself said that Nee had done all the work in going through so many publication, so it was unnecessary for him to do so. I think this resulted in Lee only using a small set of reference materials, probably the ones that Nee recommended. So Lee's "rich" ministry was developed in this state of isolation from many of the more contemporary works, and even from a broader selection of traditional reference materials that could have been available to him.
When I look at things more objectively, I see those in the LC people claiming that the ministry of Lee is the "ministry of the age". Looking beyond the LC, where is there any significant appreciation of Lee's ministry among the general Christian public? This is in contrast to Nee's ministry, where you might at least expect some here and there to have heard about and possibly have read Nee. Nee's legacy is that he left something which may be of value to Christians outside the LC. Lee's legacy is overshadowed by his exclusivism, and his know-it-all attitude. I'm not here to say that Lee didn't offer anything of value, however, I think that he destroyed any respect that he could of gotten outside of the LC.