Quote:
Originally Posted by markpaul
This is all the more dangerous to me because I would be misled to a direction not to God under the cover of Bible by the trick Lee did. I think it's almost impossible for an ordinary Christian to have perspective to see his or her Christian leader is leading him/her to a direction not directing to God.
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The way that WL used his teaching of “God’s economy” was very crafty. First of all, his usage of that phrase took up a completely different meaning than what it actually means in the Bible.
In 1 Tim 1:3, the NIV renders Paul’s charge as being to “not teach false doctrines any longer”. In the RcV, a different rendering is used: “not teach different things”. Why is this significant? It is readily apparent that “false doctrine” has a much more precise meaning than “different things” What exactly does it mean to “teach different things”? Do you see what I’m getting at here? The phrase could mean just about anything.
WL took advantage of this. He also told everyone that “doctrines kill”. He took the emphasis off of doctrine and placed it upon the idea of “different things”, which he so presumed to define. Eventually, the notion within the LC became that to “teach different things” is to teach anything not taught or endorsed by LSM. The worst of this was when WL began dismissing entire books of the Bible.
In 1 Tim 1:4 (NIV), teaching false doctrine is put in contrast to “advancing God’s work”. It’s a simple charge, I think we all can understand what Paul was trying to convey here. Other renderings of “God’s economy” in verse 4 include: “the stewardship from God” and “godly edifying”. These other translations seem more meaningful, at least to me. Therefore, I think WL’s focus on the word ‘economy’ allowed him to take an idea that perhaps had some esoteric undertones when compared to the more well-known phrases, and he ran with it. In essence, he made a huge deal out of a simple matter and eventually constructed it into a false doctrine, trying to assign a meaning that had nothing to do whatsoever with the context of these verses.