Quote:
Originally Posted by Evangelical
Each church mentioned covered a whole city. So presumably each group Jesus spoke to was a "denomination". Most likely the way the people overcame, was to leave one denomination and join the local church in the city.
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Sheer speculation. You can't leave the one local church in the city, just like you can't leave the universal church. There is no teaching that says anyone in the NT "met as the church in the city." This is not a biblical teaching. There is no teaching that says those who meet in other groups, even with names, were not a part of the church in the city.
The church in the city exists. But the Bible never says if you don't meet as the church in the city you have separated yourself from it. Just as the Bible never says that if you don't meet as the universal church you have separated yourself from it.
There is no place in the NT where a group of Christians are identified as not being part of the church. John mentions people leaving, but it's pretty clear he is speaking about people that tried to join the church and weren't true believers to begin with.
Again, for you to insist on your interpretation of oneness, to call others divisive for not conforming to such a speculative model is a worse kind of division than what you imagine they are committing.
You need to understand the the LCM model of locality was specifically designed so that the Nee/Lee group could declare that they were the church and that other groups were not the church. It was not designed to produce oneness. It was designed so that they could say they were for oneness while conveniently feeling justified to exclude who they wanted to exclude. But the justification they use for their model is extremely speculative, which is precisely why the model has been rejected by the larger Body of Christ over and over and over.