[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Drake

Ohio,

Your scriptural argument against the Jerusalem principle is rational. I just don't think I agree with it completely. I will have to think about it.

However, even in Brother Nee's earliest teachings on the work and the churches there is an interaction and dependency between the two. So I disagree with your characterization that the latter teaching introduced an element that was not present before. Yet, I will agree that the model in the earlier teaching was mostly based on Paul's ministry (Antioch principle) and the Jerusalem principle came later and was based on the interaction of the work conducted in the same place as the a big church (Jerusalem). That is, Peter lived in Jerusalem and ventured out but returned. Nevertheless, though Paul had a more pass through model in his earliest journeys he nevertheless appointed elders, assigned apostles to work in churches and instructed those apostles and co-workers what to teach and directed any actions he felt needed to be taken based on what was happening in that local church.

Drake

If the big church in Jerusalem, the "headquarters" of the N.T. church, was such a healthy pattern of love and grace and truth, then the Head of the body would never have seen fit to use the Romans to destroy it.