I believe Ohio and I are in agreement that it seems to us that something happened in Lee's thinking in October 1984 once he had completed the outlines and notes for the Life Study of Acts, or, "put down his pen" as he phrased it at the time.
I saw a post elsewhere that FPO gave with a quote from
Fellowship Concerning the Urgent Need of the Vital Groups and scanned my meager bookshelf to see if that was one of the titles I'd somehow ended up with after all these years. It was around 1991 or 1992, so, it wasn't likely, but it was possible.
Don't have that one.
Do have THIS one:
Vital Factors for the Recovery of the Church Life
Guess when this was spoken? October 1984, in Seoul, Korea.
If there was a moment of turn from the right path, this was it.
From Chapter 4, "THE FACTOR OF THE PROPER PRACTICE OF THE CHURCH LIFE":
Quote:
In order to know what is proper regarding the church, we need to study the Bible. I have been studying the Bible concerning the matter of the church since 1925. In this chapter I wish to present to you a brief outline of this matter. This brief, accurate, and clear outline is the cream of my nearly sixty years of study concerning the church. I am happy to present this outline to you. My desire is to impress you with the proper practice of the church life according to the Bible.
There is nothing wrong with the church itself, but the way Christians practice the church life might be wrong. Out of all the different ways of practicing the church life among Christians today, it is difficult to find one that is right. To be right in the practice of the church life is to be according to the Bible. The proper practice of the church life is not according to culture, not according to society, not according to any kind of religious background, and not according to our imagination; it must be absolutely according to the holy Word of God.
CHRIST BUILDING THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH
The church Christ is building is the universal church, not the church in a nation or the church in a city. In Matthew 16:18 the Lord Jesus said to Peter, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church.” In this verse the Lord considered Himself as the rock (cf. v. 16). Christ Himself is the very rock upon which the church is built. The church in Matthew 16:18 is the universal church, the one church in the entire universe.
Witness Lee - Vital Factors for the Recovery of the Church Life
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