Quote:
Originally Posted by aron
To claim primacy for one's vision or truth is a fallacy and should be rejected. I did not see this when I joined the LC. It was so convenient, to have all the great truths of Christianity encapsulated in one ministry. One-stop-shopping.
The problem is, if there is error (and there is always error of emphasis or omission), there is no way to correct it, and eventually it swallows everything.
But the wisdom of the Bible (surprise!) has the answer. "In the multitude of counselors is safety".
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Exactly. This is why the Bible places the shepherding of the churches in the hands of local elders.
But then ones like Ignatius came along. He was obsessed with a false fear that some local congregation would succumb to Gnostic heresy. So he created the office of the Bishop. Ignatius spoke outrageous things like, "
it is therefore evident that we ought to look at the Bishop as we do upon the Lord Jesus Himself." (
Miller's Church History, p.152)
Andrew Miller responds, "
Scarcely had the voice of inspiration become silent in the Church, that we hear the voice of new teachers crying loudly and earnestly for the highest honors being paid to the bishop, and a supreme place being given to him." (
ibid.)
Sounds like the Recovery
MOTA, doesn't it? If we don't learn from history, then we are bound to repeat it. And that's what has happened. Is not this Witness Lee's greatest error -- self-exaltation -- the bitter spring from which all other errors come forth?
Back to
aron's point about a multitude of counselors, i.e.
the elders in every church. Here we see the Spirit's wisdom caring for the church of God throughout the age of grace. Should error creep into one assembly, it stays there, protecting the rest of the body of Christ. But under the papal/bishopric/MOTA systems, errors are guaranteed to spread like metastasized cancer, enabled by employing agents from headquarters (
think: DCP) attacking the immune system of the body.