Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
I do not deny that we should use the good (and now well-trained) minds that God gave us.
But the purpose of it all was not to be spiritual and go to the New Jerusalem. Yes, that is the final stage as described in Revelation. But is that really the goal? Some land of walls and cubits and gates and leaves, etc.? Or is it that the description of the return of the redeemed to the place as God's image bearers relative to the "nations" that continue to exist to the end? We read through a few chapters of a clearly metaphorical description of the spiritual war that goes on behind the daily battle of life that we face and then fail to realize that the ending is no less a metaphor.
|
The LR believe in a metaphorical, physically-spiritual New Jerusalem, not a material one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
We disdain those that speak of "going to heaven" then pine away for a different version of it. What it is difference?
But when I read the accounts of what Jesus said to the people (not just to the 12, or even the 70 or other number that were in training to be the leaders). I see talk about living righteously, even hungering and thirsting for it. I see the primary command for our lives being encapsulated in a single word. And the word is not "church," "saints," "economy," "dispensing," or any of the other things that so captured out minds in the LCM (and in many other places as well). The word was (and still is) "love." Love God and love neighbor as self. Try to read the gospels without the overlays of spirituality. Of everyone being an evangelist. Or a disciple (in the sense of the 12). What did Jesus teach the people?
And when we then go to read Paul, why do we think that he is given authority to dismiss what Jesus said? We would never admit to that. But we do it all the time when we presume that the Christian life is about seeking to be crucified with Christ. Or so many other "spiritual" things. But Paul didn't say to be crucified with Christ. He said because we are we should live differently. We should think on our fellow Christians differently that just what they are in natural terms (slave, slave owner, Roman, Jew, etc.)
|
The New Jerusalem is not a "different version of heaven". According to Revelation 21:2 New Jerusalem is not heaven because the Bible says it comes down from heaven. It is heavenly (in nature), but it is not heaven.
How are we going to do what Jesus said and be the person He want us to be?
How are we going to live righteously?
How are we going to heal people?
How are we going to put the sermons into practice?
We need the dispensing of the Holy Spirit for that. An engine doesn't run by itself without the right fuel inside of it, powering it.
The gospels by themselves is not the whole picture. We have Paul's writings that teach us about life in the Spirit so we can do and be everything we are supposed to do and be.
Paul (not Jesus) said this:
Galatians 3:3 says "Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?"
Jesus told us what we have to be and do, but Paul told us how to do it.
This is why we need the teachings of God's economy etc which focus on the Spirit.
Contrast that with the denominations who talk about God, Father, Jesus, with barely any mention of the Spirit.
Witness Lee and Nee for the most part is just expounding Paul's ministry.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
You despise the sermon of the Catholic priest. And presume that I am suggesting we should still just be Catholic (or EO). But look at the actual sermons for the people. They were not about "the intrinsic processing of Christ as the Spirit for the revealing of the seven-fold intensified Spirit that now lives in our spirit." Or any other strictly "spiritual" nonsense that has no application to my drive home on 121 this evening. If you despise the sermons of the average Catholic priest, then you hate the ones Jesus gave to the people sitting on the side of a mountain. He didn't tell them some fancy constitution. He gave simple instructions in the ways of living righteously. He healed people and sent them home to live differently.
We have it all wrong. We were created to represent God as his image bearers but think that salvation is for the purpose of getting out of Dodge and to heaven or the New J. Not to bear His image in a dark, perverse world, but to escape to a meeting where we can be invigorated to tolerate the fallen world.
And I will return to the use of our good minds. John warned that there were some that had been among us who went out and were now a problem. But we know better than to be captured by their nonsensical teachings.
Returning to the use of our minds. It is through the mind that we realize what we are called to do. What is the right was to live. We read. Or we listen. And we respond. You want it to be an effort in significant thought to conclude what is to be done. But it is really quite simple. We hear the word. It commands and directs our living. Those who say that we should not do things because of a command are ducking from their unwillingness to obey. But it is not so hard to know what to do. And even the simple obedience arising from faith can do this. From those who hear those "poor" sermons and realize it is something they should do.
Do you think that if they do what they are told that they are somehow not "in the vine"? If so, please explain how you think that is true. I will muddy the waters by noting that what they are told to do is from the scripture. It is not contrary to the teachings of Christ, but is fully in keeping with it. What could possibly make them not "in the vine"?
|
To "bear God's image" we need God to live in us and shine forth out of us.This is what the teachings of God's economy, if applied, are meant to accomplish.
Otherwise we are just copycats, with the outward form but not the inward reality.
Practical righteousness is the goal or outcome of the church, saints, God's economy, dispensing. The way of God's economy ensures that it is of Him and not of ourselves. Without these things, we could not fulfill Galatians 3:3.
The average Catholic priest and protestant preachers do not focus upon the Spirit. Many, do not even focus upon Jesus. That is what I know as a fact from my time in the denominations.