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Originally Posted by micah6v8
I agree that both a seminary and the FTT teach theology. But since FTT is more of a “two-years religious retreat”, rather than as an education institution, it has the flexibility and freedom to also require its trainees to attend church meetings and stipulate timings for praying..
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micah6v8,
Thank you for expanding your reply. I admit that I approached the initial quote by Nee, in explaining his training center, with some bias. So your comments are very helpful, in delineating possible real differences between what he (and later Lee with FTTA) were doing with their work, and what the denominations and other Christians were and are doing with their seminaries.
Nonetheless, most seminaries originally were established not merely to teach objective truth but also to shape and mold those who would become shepherds in the church. I understand that today the mandate of personal transformation may have receded somewhat, or even prominently. But Nee was writing 80 years ago, when the difference was perhaps not so stark as he imagined.
But thank you for commenting. I often oversimplify in order to make my point.
In this light, the real problem with Lee was not that he had bias, and approached the scriptural text with conclusions already in hand, but that he wasn't willing to allow his subjective assessments to be placed in a larger conversation. If he did so, he might have more closely approached objective reality.
According to Lee, Nee had subsumed (absorbed and overtaken) the conversation. And Lee was closely following Nee, so in closely following Lee we in the LC were following the apostles. There was no bias, therefore no need for "much discussion", a la Acts 15:7, which according to Lee would only bring in distortion and confusion.
So let's let go of the experiential side, and just look momentarily at what's presented as objective fact. If you look at Lee's stress in scripture, he typically likes to contrast the vanity of human effort versus the reality of "living Christ". For example, in his exegeses in Psalm 34, he either sees David's vain strivings and imaginations, or the revelation of the coming Christ:
Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
... here is a quote (in red) from the Life-Study of Psalm 34:
Concerning the righteous man, David said, ‘‘He keeps all his bones; / Not one of them is broken’’ (v. 20). This is a verse concerning Christ because David was a type of the suffering Christ. When Christ was on the cross, the soldiers did not break His legs when they saw that He had already died (John 19:33). John said, ‘‘These things happened that the Scripture might be fulfilled: ‘No bone of His shall be broken’ ’’ (v. 36).
Before this Lee says there is no righteous person. Verses 1 through 19 are called "natural". Suddenly in verse 20 Lee is confronted with a referenced verse. He can't ignore it. So he says that we have 19 verses with no righteous person, then suddenly, with no context, one verse with the righteous suffering Christ, then back to "no Christ" again. That is what I mean by szichophrenic. It is a contradictory exposition. You have no reality, then reality, then no reality again.
There were times in describing his sufferings that David typified Christ. When we look at Psalm 34, we can see the mixed expressions of David’s sentiment. Verse 20 refers to Christ, but most of this psalm is not according to the tree of life. Our concept needs to be changed to the divine concept according to the tree of life. As we grow in Christ, our concept will be changed.
I find this to be a wholly unsatisfactory exposition of the Psalms. This is quite perfunctory. If v 20 had not been cited in John 19, Lee probably would have ignored the whole of Psalm 34 altogether.
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In scripture, Lee either sees the vain psalmist, or the prefigure of the NT "Christ-enjoyer". But he refuses to acknowledge Christ Himself unless the NT reference forces him (even then sometimes he balks - see Peter's epistles, for example). So my point is, what's the Christ you're enjoying in your supposedly recovered Church life? The one in the Bible, or the one in your imagination? I see the latter, here. And given the fact that your "Christ" isn't tethered to the larger Christian conversation, I don't see much chance for it to emerge from the dark shadows of your mind.
(I know this wasn't the point of the thread, initially. Please bear with my little excursus).