Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
Peter was told by a heavenly messenger to continue speaking "all the words of this life" to the people. What words were they? Paul's epistles did not yet exist. The prophetic word, now made clear, was of Jesus the Nazarene. The prophesied Messiah was "this Jesus".
By contrast, where was the prophetic word called low, fallen, and vain? Nowhere is where. By its own testimony Witness Lee’s ministry was judged as fallen man's natural concepts.
Suppose you quoted Peter out of context, saying Paul's words were difficult to understand, and recommended reading only Ephesians 1 and 2, because the rest of the epistle would only bring confusion and death? What kind of a gospel are you then preaching? What kind of a Bible do you then hold?
The Bible continually stresses "every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." Not just those words which are suitable for your hermeneutic. If you read the RecV Ephesians, you'll get a verse and a page of WL footnotes. Read a page of RecV Psalms, which Paul in his letter to the Ephesians recommended to the saints - "be filled in Spirit" - and you'll get nothing. Maybe a cross-reference. Maybe a footnote panning it as natural. Page after page of emptiness.
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Answer me this. Is this verse a "word from the mouth of God"?:
Matthew 4:9 ""All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me.""
No. It is from the mouth of Satan.
Is this a word of life or a word of death?:
1 Samuel 15:3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'
Even though it is a word from God's mouth, it is clearly not a word of life. Suppose you read and pray read 1 Samuel 15:3, what sort of person would it make you? It would not do your spirit much good.
From these simple examples I have proved that
1. Not every word in the Bible is from "God's mouth", however, every word in the Bible is inspired (is there for a purpose, according to God's will).
2. Not every word in the Bible is a matter of life or can give life. Only the Spirit gives life.
Jesus said "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you--they are full of the Spirit and life.". There is actually no verse in the Bible that says all and every verse in Scripture gives life. I have given two such examples which do not give life - one the voice of Satan, the other God's judgement which brought death.
The Bible is a book of life but that does not me an we do not need to extract the words of life from the Bible, as Lee tried to do with the life studies.
We cannot extract much life from the words of Satan or the words of man, which are recorded in the Bible but are not from the "mouth of God".
I could go on with bible verses that are not from the mouth of God but from fallen man- the false prophets for example,or Job's friends, etc etc.
The bible has God's words recorded in it for sure, but it also has the words of Satan and the words of (uninspired, natural or fallen) man.