Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
This is what so many have been pointing out, both directly and indirectly, for years.
Lee used analogies as proof of concept.
But analogies are, at best, a means of clarifying or understanding a concept that has already been proved.
In other words, you have to establish that something is true, then if that something needs further explanation, an analogy might be useful.
An analogy is descriptive. It has no power to establish, but rather to better understand something else. If you haven't established anything, there is nothing to which an analogy can be made.
An example I like is Lee's extrapolation in some verse (one of Paul's letters, but I can't remember which — makes me feel a little like the writer of Hebrews who says "and somewhere it is written . . .") where the Greek word used is one that has been transliterated in English to dynamo (not in the Bible as such). Then he goes on to bring every related bit of technology related to dynamos into the discussion. So a single statement of the power of God (or Christ) becomes evidence of the power plant, the wires, and the electricity — the triune God.
But nothing is actually there except the power of God. The rest is supposition based on milking a metaphor.
In the case of Lee's theory on God's economy, he creates a lens through which the entire Bible must be filtered, modified, and even excised because of his extrapolations as he declares "it is like when . . . ."
But worse than that, when Paul wrote those few verses in which the term "God's economy" appears (in some translations), he did not say that God's economy was something to teach. Rather it was the result of the collection of healthy teachings. So God's economy is not the source of how to teach, or what to teach, but is what comes from whatever is profitably taught. In other words, God's economy is a very broad thing that encompasses everything that derives rightly from the teachings of the word of God. It is not a limiter by which the word of God is straight-jacketed into some narrowly-defined thing (falsely) labeled "God's economy."
If God's economy is claimed to be a basis for dismissing the word of God as written in favor of something not written, or for simply dismissing parts of the word of God, then it cannot rightly be "God's economy." Maybe the economy of some"god," or self-proclaimed 4th of the godhead. (Can't call it the Godhead because there are only three in that Godhead.)
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Yes, silly me. I believed Nee and Lee’s books that told us to look in the Bible for what other verses say about the same matter first. But since they supposedly had already done that (Nee was a Savant, remember, and Nee his prized pupil). So, all we had to do was sit there jammed into those awful gold chairs an inch between us listening to the little man in the suit with a white shirt, tie, and coke bottle glass eyeglasses explain to the thousands of us around the world for the 10,000th time at least 7 times a year what God’s economy was and how every single verse in the Bible was about it.... and the local churches were the procedure for building the New Jerusalem today....
Well funny thing happened. Sounds like a bunch of us started doing that. Reading what other verses in the Bible say about a matter, and listening to what other Christians were reading from the Bible and fellowshipping with them. And, the Savant and his self declared #1 follower missed some things that were as plain as the noses on their face. Like “God’s economy is in faith” right there! And gee, Hebrews gives a definition of faith and examples of it in action. No need for analogies. Put the two together and there’s the answer.
Hundreds of verses with relevant insights elsewhere were totally ignored because “they were from the wrong tree”, according to Lee. Those very verses fill in key matters that could round out and fill in deficiencies in teachings that ultimately led to abuses. God’s mercy, loving kindness, lampooned, Biblical leadership models, good works, helping the poor, orphans, widows, not showing favoritism. What fruit of the Spirit looks like and doesn’t. Works lived out from a life of faith, Singing and reading every Psalm, Hymns, and spiritual songs with all your heart to the Lord and instruments, James, all of Job, every Proverb. What the Bible really says about husband and wife relationships, brothers, and sisters, the body of Christ, Jesus the Head and not MOTA, the list goes on. Nee and Lee missed a lot! God-men bleh! How about men filled with The Holy Spirit obeying The Lord Spirit to do as Jesus did and lay down equality with God to reach sinners, work together, and relate to them where they are? How about we are all members of the same church... really! One Ekklesia. That’s what I thought we were about!