Quote:
Originally Posted by DistantStar
What does the Local Church mean with the Lord's Economy?
While I was there I heard people talk about it (at times it seemed to come out of nowhere), but they never explained it to me.
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Perhaps the reason that it seemed to come out of nowhere is because it did. It didn't come from Scripture or Christian tradition. It was a 'revelation' of Lee, i.e. a construct.
Now if Jesus had said, "My food is to pray-read the Bible" in John 4:34, well, there you go - but he didn't. If Paul had written Timothy, "Remain in Ephesus and charge certain ones not to teach myths, but things that result in God's economy, which is to get the Processed and Consummated Triune God dispensed into you to make you God in life and nature", well okay. But he didn't.
Instead it was a teaching constructed with the barest of ill-fitting parts, and with the necessary ignoring of others, like "food" actually being to obey God's word. To Jesus, God's word wasn't condemnation but the source of life, and now our faith in Jesus' obedience is our source of life.
"Even as I live because of the Father, so you shall live because of me". And how do we follow, and live? By doing as Jesus did, not bruiting noises. By obeying his commands, just as he obeyed the Father. Just as he lay down his life for his sheep, so in laying down our things, we'd be a sweet-smelling savour of Christ. Note that Paul in 2 Cor gives them an example, of Macedonia:
"And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us. So we urged Titus, just as he'd earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. But since you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you—see that you also excel in this grace of giving."
To Paul, this is the "sweet savour" he wrote of in 2:15. This is God's economy, what Paul was teaching in all the churches. This is the overflow of love toward those who can't repay in this age. Remember - they weren't subsidizing the apostle's Golf Club membership, or his-and-hers Lexus' (cough, cough, Hank, cough, cough...) but the poor. It's not man's economy but God's economy.
Now, the objection may be, "But how do you know that 'When you have a feast, invite those who can't pay you' is God's economy? Maybe it's something different from Lee's idea, or yours." Perhaps. But look at the fruit of the idea. In Lee's world, we didn't actually have to DO what the Bible said, that being "dead works" but instead we just "masticated" them and became God. Dead letters became living spirit if we shouted them over and over again. We didn't care for right and wrong, until the stench of the wrong became too great and we had to create yet another web site quoting CWWL chapter and verse, how we had nothing to do with it. That's where pray-reading got you.
So where does 'give to others' get you? All I know is that Jesus said that the servants would be blessed if the Master returned and found them so doing - not delivering lectures and trainings and selling pamphlets, but 'dispensing' and 'ministering' the same way that they were in Acts 6:1 and 12:25. Those men saw Jesus, heard his teachings. Don't you think that their pattern should be closely followed? I do. We have Jesus example, and we have the apostles' interpretation and execution of his commands, and not a word of it on pray-reading. (Yes, 'pray unceasingly' but that also can mean 'pray when you give aid to the poor'.)