[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

Spiritual sisters who can write are just presenting subjective assessments, no more real than anyone else's. But they're no less real than Witness Lee's subjective impressions, which I believe is what scares the blendeds to death.

Originally Posted by Galatians 3

27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise.

There is no male nor female. What would it be like if we had a meeting and said, "Jews only can speak; Gentiles sit quietly in the back"?, or "No slaves allowed in this meeting! Slave-holders and free-men only!" Would we not be making distinctions? So why say that when sisters speak forth their subjective impressions of Christ, that it is of some inferior measure? Aren't we making distinctions here, contrary to the apostle?

Of course the apostle Paul himself said that he preferred if sisters were silent in the church, and do not teach, but Paul was nodding to the times. Paul wasn't going to set a slave free (Onesimus) if the society held him as a bondman. And Paul wasn't going to overturn social conventions vis-a-vis the accepted roles of women and men.

Or, was Paul really contradicting himself? There is no male or female, except when females try to speak - then there's distinction? I doubt it. Paul didn't care about male or female, black or white, rich or poor, young or old. But he recognized the parameters that society had set, and wasn't going to let the freedom in Christ Jesus be a wedge into existing class structures, to put society at uproar.

But social conventions have turned. So if we today in church make social or class distinctions, opposed to society, what supports this? Our religious notions and concepts, not the truth. We are now driving wedges, contrary to Paul's example.

Put another way, the society has finally caught up with the truth revealed in scripture (see Col 3, below). There's no longer slave nor free, no longer black or white, no longer male or female. If someone can do the job (work, think, write, cook, speak, add and subtract, hammer, teach, fly a plane, whatever) then we make no distinctions.

Originally Posted by Colossians 3

9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, 10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him-- 11 a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.….

This section in Colossians is followed by a long speech on the duties of everyone according to God's selection: children, fathers, wives, husbands, mothers, slaves and masters etc. God has made distinctions among us; we are what we are. BUT we should make no distinctions among ourselves. The "new self" and "renewal" is a new set of eyes, where we can both see the situation - political, social, economic, whatever - and honor it, yet also see that God's love obliterates these temporary phenomena. So we do what we do, "as to the Lord".

Watchman Nee was at least circumspect enough to hear the voices of women around him. Either a) his circumspection overturned some divine law, and corrupted and undermined his ministry, or b) if his ministry was legitimate, and indeed aided by the experienced counsel of these many women, then his supposed followers (Lee and the Blendeds et al) have created their new distinctions, to oppress whole classes of believers. I'm not sure how they can have it both ways, here. It's either one or the other.