Quote:
Originally Posted by Hope
Mike,
Great reminder. See bold text above.
Surely it is not the age of denominations. Surely it is not the age of some subset of the church. But then the Lord did issue a call for overcomers to the seven churches. In 1 Cor. Chapter 11 Paul did referred to those who “were approved.” He also warned us to be careful how we build. By the way what do you feel is to build with wood, hay and stubble? What is to build with gold, silver and precious stone? Should we care?
Hope, Don Rutledge
A believer in Christ Jesus who desires to be a true disciple.
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I don’t necessarily know what is wood v gold. But in the context of 1 Cor 3, the persons who were being referred to as “building” with anything were not the Corinthian believers, but the ones who they had decided to take up sides behind. Please refer to the entirety of the chapter, noting the transition in verse 9 which identifies Paul and the others that the Corinthians were aligning behind as workers while they, the Corinthians were the building. The ones who are then building in the following verses are not the Corinthians, but the workers — Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and others.
It is interesting that Paul did not define wood, hay, stubble, gold, silver, or precious stones. He simply said that what got built into the church would be tried and the one who built it would suffer some sort of problem/loss (not clearly stated) if his work burned. Paul didn’t even say that the Corinthians were responsible to make the determination about what was wood, hay, or stubble, or was instead gold, silver or precious stone — at least not within the context of these verses. He told them that the workers were coming to build and that what they built with would be tried. (This — the building by the workers — might be somewhat of a parallel with Ephesians where there are the apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers that equip the saints. Equipping with wood in that context would be parallel with these verse in 1 Cor.)
Paul was telling the Corinthians that picking sides was not their concern. That is not entirely consistent with other verses where there is a charge that some be denied the right to teach, but in most cases, those kinds of admonitions were clearly to the leadership, such as in Paul’s letters to Timothy and/or Titus. Peter and John also had things to say about the discernment of the believers concerning teachings and teachers. It is not clear that this was to be personal discernment or the collective discernment of the assembly. I would lean toward the latter, more like the council in Jerusalem recorded in Acts 15.
I do not say that we should not care about what is kindling v what is fireproof. This is especially true of those who have responsibility to care for the flock. But the flock itself is not necessarily the source of that determination. I realize that this is a little too much like a clergy-laity issue, but the scriptures seem to point more in this direction than in any other. I fear that this is one of those places where we fall back into the mindset that we learned from Lee and the LC. If the leaders are true servants of the flock, the “evils” of the kind of clergy that Lee talked against are not an automatic thing.
As for the letters to the seven churched in Rev 2 & 3, each church was clearly in differing circumstances, yet none were told to abandon their particular place of worship and flee to one or more of the others. The charge and challenge in each case was to be strong, diligent to overcome, not to change to some other way of meeting or to “take the ground.” While each letter ended with the general admonition to hear what the Spirit said to the churches (plural), there was otherwise no indication that any one was admonished to be like another, except to the extent that each could read of the positive things that were said about the others and thereby have a pattern to follow.
This is a general discussion of my understanding on this. We could nuance things, as has Gubei and others, but what I have outlined here is sound and scriptural. Pursuing the things of peace would not seem to be consistent with always feeling obligated to have your radar out to discern the wood from the gold. Too much of the LC-type discernment is about putting borders around truth and practice such that many things that are allowed in the freedom of Christ are deemed not allowed. Look at Romans 14. It seems that the LC is the weaker believers always going out of their way to find believers who have more freedom than they observe in their restricted consciences. It is true that Paul said that the stronger ones practicing their freedom in front of weaker ones could stumble those weaker ones. But the LC claims to be the strongest, yet puts more restrictions on freedom in Christ than almost any others. They seem to go out seeking to find those who are not bound as they are (almost too parallel with “seeking to devour”). If there are Judaizers going out from James in these days, metaphorically speaking, I think it is more likely the LC than any others.