Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave
My point in all of this is that you need to test whatever you have learned because WL and his cohorts have been like chameleons throughout the years and have changed their doctrines to meet rising criticism. Part of the problem for them is a result of WL's wide use of allegory to interpret scripture. "Spiritual" allegorism gives you the "feeling" that you have special "inner" knowledge that other Christians don't have and a feeling of being deeper and more spiritual than others.
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Dave, let me give an example of the type of thing (I think) you're talking about. I grew up believing that
gophers are a biblical metaphor for ambition. I believed this because Witness Lee taught it.
I just looked up
"gopher" in the concordance at
biblegateway.com. There is only one mention of the word "gopher" in the Bible. And it's not even about gophers. It's Genesis 6:14, where God commands Noah to make an ark of "gopher wood." Got the same result for several translations (including KJV, ASV, Darby, etc.). A few versions don't contain any mention of the word "gopher" at all (NIV, for instance, translates the verse as "cypress word," with a footnote on "cypress" indicating that the meaning of the Hebrew word is unclear.)
If I'm wrong, or if I'm missing something, someone please correct me.
Because as far as I can tell, the teaching concerning "the gopher of ambition," that I learned from the ministry of Witness Lee, is not based on the Bible. Because gophers aren't in the Bible.
Should I be surprised? Does this even matter?
