Quote:
Originally Posted by Hope
Thus whenever "the ground of locality" comes up stand back for there is going to be plenty of action.
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Don,
Yes, but what is a Local Church discussion forum without a spirited discussion of the "local ground?"
Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
But if you have to beat the others there, then there is something more than just the “ground” that is important to your meeting. It must not be acceptable to be in their group rather than in your own group.
In effect, there were sects that grew out of Nee’s teachings.
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Mike,
I've thought for a while that the local ground teaching is as much a tool to discredit all other groups as it is one to validate the LC. Any group that does not hold to the teaching becomes "easy pickin's" for LC refutal. They've shot 'em down for years with smirks on their faces.
The problem comes in when another group claims to be the city-church in a city in which an LC church resides. How can anyone know for sure in this case which is the true city-church?? Outside of blatant evidences, no one can. But the LC churches choose to either ignore or discredit these groups, a blatant contradiction of what they claim to believe. This basically torpedoes the whole church model which the LC has been following for the last 30 or more years. This is what I've been trying to show in this thread.
Oh, they've come up with all kinds of peripheral self-validations, mostly unscriptural or mis-scriptural. "We are in 'God's Economy'" (as if no one else is). "We have fellowship with other churches" (as if no one else does). "We are one with God's up-to-date ministry" (how can you possibly know that? besides, it's irrelevant.).
What's interesting about the above LC arguments is that they are all about self-promotion. They've got nothing to do with fulfilling the mission of the church, but rather are about defending their turf and lifting themselves up. They are about saying they are something no one else is. Why is that so important to them? It's juvenile. My seven-year-old is in that stage now. He always has to be first. Hopefully, by age ten, he'll have outgrown that.