Quote:
Originally Posted by Freedom
It might appear that Lee spoke about the same thing. But there are hints that to him "standing on the ground" meant something entirely different. To me, the biggest thing that would evidence this is that Lee criticized the non-denominational and free groups just as much as he criticized the denominations. Though Nee did teach a practice of having one church per city, he also clarified that by saying that if a "local" gathering already existed, it should be joined rather than starting a new one. When did Lee ever teach or practice that? Lee taught people to move to different cities and "take the ground" there, regardless of what was there already. In fact, I doubt there was every any significant effort made to see what local gatherings should be joined.
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He did not write "if a local gathering already existed", he wrote:
"Please remember that a
church can only be established in a locality where there is
no church. If there is a church in a certain locality, we can only join it; we cannot set up another one."
You can see he used the word church, not gathering. A church, according to Nee, has a precise definition:
"Anything that comes short of a locality cannot establish a church. If there is no locality, there is no church."
" If any group is not
built upon the ground of locality, we can see that it is not the church. "
"Once we disregard locality, we immediately lose the ground of the church."
So Nee could never have regarded a free/non-denom group as being a church because they disregard the locality. So according to Nee's definition, a "free group/non-denom" is not a church because it is not established on the ground of the locality. They are established on the basis of being sectarian/split from the church /denomination they are free from.
Also,
"In the New Testament there is one method and one alone of dividing the Church into churches, and that God-ordained method is division on the basis of locality."
A division on the basis of being free or non-denominational is clearly not what Nee had in mind.