Even if I could agree with the current administration of the LSM about all the points of doctrine, and I certainly can't at this point because of how far they are now ranging from the pure Word of the Bible and even from the reasonably arguable Word of the Bible, the consequence of the practices are ABSOLUTELY the litmus test. I think the word is "fruit" in the New Testament.
I've used this phrase a couple of times recently and it really describes the situation for me: They ended up throwing the saints themselves under the bus of the Local Church.
The teaching about the universal "Local Church" somehow caused all of us over time to lose our clarity about what God actually wanted in the meetings of the believers and eventually a system grew in place that chewed up and spit out not just our families and our brothers and sisters in the denominations but even the very members with a heart for the Lord and for the group.
To paraphrase a friend of mine, DON'T TELL ME that you love the brothers when they are dropping like flies from your callous neglect and myopic misapprehension of God's purpose and you tell the story of Lot's wife to the survivors in response!
The thing I realized today about the difference between the notion of "universal church" and the Body is that the one tends toward uniformity while the other inherently recognizes the many different life functions. The "universal church" has the same everything everywhere, all blended up into some kind of metaphysical smoothie. But, as similar as they are in form and appearance, and acknowledging the real inward mingling of the life substances, fingers and toes have VASTLY different functions in the body. Not to mention the rather striking visual distinctions between ears and elbows. The multifarious wisdom of God is displayed in the local assembly because it is the rich expression the many members of the Body's functioning.
Seems to me if we were all supposed to end up homogenized God wouldn't have invented fingerprints and DNA. We
do share the same life and nature but we
don't all need to wear the same necktie.
All the different portions are the glory of the meeting, not its shame. If you go to a pot luck and everybody brings the same 3-bean salad, I think we might all throw up.
At least, I think the Lord would.
Even if you repeated the highest things, how does this shame the enemy? This is what the monkeys do! This is what the babies do!
So, saints, I'd say:
Quote:
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1 Cr 13:11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I reasoned as a child; when I became a man, I had done with what belonged to the child.
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