Quote:
Originally Posted by Evangelical
It is clear from the text that the divisions arose when they assembled together.
Either this occurred when they all assembled in the one place (most likely), or they assembled in various meeting homes across the city.
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But even you admit that there could be multiple places of meeting. The problem that Paul was talking about was not acrimony between two different meetings, but between those in one meeting. So if they met in more than one place (something you allowed for) then there was a problem between those within each separate meeting, not between those in one meeting v those in another.
When it comes to your insistence that they were otherwise all meeting together within one city, that is a presumption created by an overlay that ignores the clear inference that in certain places there was more than one group that was referred to as "the church." Nee waved his hand and dismissed this by saying it couldn't mean that because of the on church per city rule.
Classic "begging the question." Dismiss contrary evidence to a rule by stating that there is a rule. That is the after-the-fact response to bad evidence. Up front, it is called cherry-picking your evidence. Find the things you like and make a rule from it. Then use the rule to dismiss the evidence that inconveniently disproves your rule. Or hide the fact that the contrary evidence exists and hope no one ever notices. Nee did that when he created the rule in one book, then had to address the contrary evidence in a second book, but invoked the rule to help dismiss it.
You simply restated the same commentator snippet. He never states that there is a single assembly in Corinth or that there should only be one. He just says that when an entire assembly gathers together (as opposed to meeting in smaller home or neighborhood groups like many do today — I believe even the LRC at times) . . . . You are forcing the one church per city rule onto Gil. He didn't say it. But you continue to say it as if he did.
In the sense of the whole body of Christ, there is one church in a city, just as there is one church universally. But as a matter of practice, there have been assemblies where there are assemblies. And in some cases even in the early church where there may be only a small number in an otherwise large city, there is evidence of churches meeting in houses. So much so that the recipient of at least one letter was requested to greet those who met in a particular house church. The Nee/Lee presumption that it was either somewhere else, or just the rest of the assembly that the letter's recipient's were part of doesn't work. That would make the words of the master linguist of the NT writers into one of the most obtuse statements ever found in the Bible. Speak of them as if they are in another assembly when they are not, or refer to a distant house church (somewhere outside of Rome without stating its place) as if it is down the street.
Something about swallowing camels and straining at gnats comes to mind.
You and your system are entrenched in rules that take more than the words actually in the Bible to arrive at, yet dismiss those that are simply stated. It is so backwards. I guess that you should call yourselves the sehcruhC lacoL . And declare it to be the more spiritual name.