"Until we all arrive at the oneness"
Quote:
Originally Posted by JJ
Agreed that it is more than names that are being addressed. Paul takes the first four chapters of 1 Corinthians to address the divisions, then comes back to it for part of the 12th chapter as well.
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Yes there is more than names being addressed. "Paul" is a name. "Corinth" is a name. Names are inevitable. "Meeting Hall Six of the Church in Taipei" is a name. "The college-age meeting on Tuesday nights at Sister Won's house" is a name.
So to condemn others for what you yourself inevitably must do (protesting all the while that you don't want to, but are forced to) is rank hypocrisy, in my view. Yes denominations are wrong but so are you and I. Only God is good. Any name is a delimitation of God's kingdom and is at best temporary and approximate. Yet we need names just like we need words. Witness Lee condemned the Baptists for being named according to practice (i.e. baptism), but then approvingly cited mainland Chinese Christian groups who were
also being named according to practice (i.e. shouting).
Watchman Nee is a name, and isn't wrong per se. "The Local Church in Des Moines, Iowa, Lovers of Jesus affiliated with the ministries of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee" isn't wrong per se; what's wrong is saying that while roundly condemning everyone else for "taking a name." Did Watchman Nee rise from the dead? So why follow him? Why take (affiliate with) his name? These local church groups might as well put out a big six-foot high sign saying "The Li-ite Church" because that's what they are. Why not be upfront and take the name? "Affiliated with" means "of", just like the Antioch believers were called
"Christianos" at in Acts 11:26 because they'd affiliated themselves with the name of Jesus Christ.
Back to
JJ's point. There is more than just names that are being addressed in Paul's epistle. Lust, pride, greed, selfishness, separatism, exclusivism, judgmentalism, even arrogance. The issue of names just becomes a vehicle for this unclean spirit(s) to work -- "I am not of you; I am of this" -- Christian believers, distracted, begin to seek to delineate themselves
at the expense of other believers, and to use names, positions, and theology to do it.
Anyway, I was thinking about a recent post by a "man becoming God" apologist who used Ephesians 4:13 "...until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ." (NIV). The poster was saying that "the fullness of Christ" showed that "we all" become God.
But how can a ministry that roundly condemns every other ministry as hopelessly deficient, dark, fallen, devilish and satanic ever reach unity in the faith? This ministry predicates Christian unity on either a) The Lord coming in a flash of light and scooping up the ministry's acolytes into glory, and leaving "fallen Christianity" to wail and gnash teeth in darkness, or b) "fallen Christianity" to come groveling and admit that it's all true; that they are devilish and satanic and only God's Present Oracle has the light. Absent either one of those scenarios, how can we all come to the unity of the faith, and the mature knowledge of the Son of God, when one continually condemns every other "poor" and "useless" Christian worker and group? Otherwise, the "we all" of Ephesians 4:13 only pertains to those following this particular ministry and minister. And that's sectarianism defined; sectarian to the nth degree, to the max.
Solving the problem of names won't do it; no, there's something else that's being addressed here.