[Hope]

Hello Mike,

At that time, it was WL who did not like to refer to himself as an apostle. I am sure many of the members in the church in Dallas would have refered to him as an apostle but not as "the apostle." What I do not recall is the standard of quoting WL or saying "brother Lee said." In my post, I did not say many of us did not consider him to be an apostle. I know I did but according to my definition as a traveling minister who preached the gospel, taught the Word of God, established churches and perfected the members that the members could function to build up the church.

I did not see an apostle as someone who had authority over churches. In fact as the authority of Witness Lee grew and also that of Benson Phillips I had a problem with what I heard being stated by many. The reason I can draw a line in our history is because seeing Benson or WL as having some kind of authority over several churches did not match my understanding of the teaching and practice of an assembly.

Please drop the thought of "how pure a lot of it was." I think that is the wrong adjective. I prefer just to attempt to report on the state of affairs not if they were pure or impure. We were surely imperfect in many ways.

Hope, Don Rutledge