Local Church Discussions - View Single Post - What is the New Testament Definition of a Church

aron · 12-08-2016, 01:43 AM

Evangelical,

I do see the logic, here. But it doesn't extend past the vanishingly small realm of theory. As soon as it confronts the real world, that of actuality, or what really exists and has continued to exist, the Nee/Lee 'locality' corpus falls apart. It's an idealization, a subjective dream world. The local church as Nee & Lee imagined doesn't exist. It never has been an actual fact or objective reality as described by them.

For example, Mary McDonough wrote a treatise on the "Three Parts of Man" in Brookline Massachusetts USA in 1922. When this tract began to circulate, was she then in error? Or did her extra-local ministry make her an apostle?

http://www.tripartiteman.org/historical/mcdonough.html

How come Jessie Penn-Lewis' extra-local "War on the Saints" makes her an apostle, when she can't even be an elder in a local church?

The problem I have with the Nee/Lee school is that if you accept it uncritically as a kind of Kiplingesque "Just So Story" it's all well and good, but if you try to critically engage it, or conversely to implement it somehow, then it quickly becomes quite thin. But in the LC you don't critically engage the Ascended Master's oeuvre. You passively receive, and let the Blendeds worry about implementation.

12-08-2016, 01:43 AM	#504
aron Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Natal Transvaal Posts: 5,631	What is the New Testament Definition of a Churuch Evangelical, I do see the logic, here. But it doesn't extend past the vanishingly small realm of theory. As soon as it confronts the real world, that of actuality, or what really exists and has continued to exist, the Nee/Lee 'locality' corpus falls apart. It's an idealization, a subjective dream world. The local church as Nee & Lee imagined doesn't exist. It never has been an actual fact or objective reality as described by them. For example, Mary McDonough wrote a treatise on the "Three Parts of Man" in Brookline Massachusetts USA in 1922. When this tract began to circulate, was she then in error? Or did her extra-local ministry make her an apostle? http://www.tripartiteman.org/historical/mcdonough.html How come Jessie Penn-Lewis' extra-local "War on the Saints" makes her an apostle, when she can't even be an elder in a local church? The problem I have with the Nee/Lee school is that if you accept it uncritically as a kind of Kiplingesque "Just So Story" it's all well and good, but if you try to critically engage it, or conversely to implement it somehow, then it quickly becomes quite thin. But in the LC you don't critically engage the Ascended Master's oeuvre. You passively receive, and let the Blendeds worry about implementation. __________________ "Freedom is free. It's slavery that's so horribly expensive" - Colonel Templeton, ret., of the 12th Scottish Highlanders, the 'Black Fusiliers'