Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
I would say that the NT reveals enough to recognize that a Lord's table meeting under the Form that is practiced by those groups would be consistent with what is revealed. But that is very different from declaring that it is what the NT reveals.
The NT reveals no particular Form. But it reveals enough that certain Forms could be understood as meeting what is revealed. In other words, the way of "doing the table" in the Brethren, the LRC and some others is within the boundaries of what is revealed by the NT. But there is nothing which makes those "what is revealed in the NT" in such a way that they are the way it should be done.
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I'll stick my neck out and be more specific. i won't be able to explain it all tonight, but hit a couple of main ideas.
The doctrine of the "Perspicuity of Scripture" means that the Scripture is adequately clear.
The doctrine of the "Sufficiency of Scripture" implies that it has everything we need for life and godliness.
Another starting presupposition for me is that we as individuals are first and foremost called to be disciples of Christ, and as such have and need no intermediaries. We are priests of God. God the Holy Spirit distributes gifts as He wills, and not all have the same gifts, but all are equal in Christ - as man and woman are equal in worth - but we have differing roles in the body.
I believe that 1 Corinthians 11 - 14 provides enough breadth, context, and detail to describe what the New Testament church was as an example to future generations. These combined with 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, Ephesians 4 and others paint a picture of the church offices of elders who shepherd the flock exercising over sight, and servants (aka deacons).
1 Corinthians 14:26-40 describes a church meeting where "all" disciples are free to speak forth what the Lord has been making real to them in their life in an orderly manner.
This is not practiced as the "main" service in any assembly that I have been a part of except an open brethren assembly that I attended more than 20 years ago. Most churches have no meeting like that at all, and most are highly planned and organized by the pastoral staff, leaving no room for the disciples to be exercised. Believers become "attendees".
While this "control" in most churches isn't cult-like in the mold of LSM that I have read here and other places, it is stifling to spiritual growth except to the naturally intelligent, who are considered spiritual.
I would like to suggest, that a Lord's table meeting where all are free to share is the "baby" that you should keep from the LC/LSM/the Lord's Recovery and throw out all of the other abusive, personality cultish stuff that is documented on this site.
Don't exchange a cultish intermediary between you and Christ for a more traditional intermediary non-cultish, but equally wrong, over planned, professional pastorate.
Some of us who have never (or in my case only once) stepped foot in an LC meeting have been deeply wounded by immoral, unscrupulous, carnal leaders in various Protestant churches including having marriages broken or teen children led astray, and not to greater commitment to Christ, but to compromised morals and moral confusion.