Quote:
Originally Posted by Steel
Fellowship is something all born again believers can enter into if they choose to.
If one chooses not to do so that is their decision which is between them and the Lord.
In today's society, fellowship is considered to be the exchanging of thoughts between people... In and through and environment of mutual respect and receiving of these thoughts by each of the participants.
But this is not what scripture tells us fellowship is.
Unfortunately, as with many words and concepts that are found in scripture, fellowship is yet one more word/concept that has become corrupted and therefore misunderstood.
This is what true fellowship is...
The "...growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love..." that can only take place when/as believers are "...holding to truth in love..."... Which can only take place when/as the Son of God is revealed to believers... And believers apprehend this revelation.
Anything that is not the above... Is not the fellowship of the body of Christ.
Anything that is the above... Is the fellowship of the body of Christ.
Hallelujah that all born again believers... Weak or strong... Comely or uncomely... Mature or immature... Have a part in this.
Because we all have Christ in us.
And His love working and operating in us.
And His love is the center/source of the fellowship of His one body... The church.
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The quote above fronts such a vast sea of ignorance that one hardly knows where to start addressing it. I can see that
Steel is comfortable swimming in such waters, but for the sake of the readers I’ll try a few comments.
First of all, if you read
Ohio’s post (#928), you'll see what 'fellowship' in the LSM churches actually consists of. As Ray Graver put it to Bill Mallon, “We do what we are told”. That was in the hey-day of Philip Lee as the office, but today it’s little changed: Do what you are told. I do appreciate RG’s candor. And it's not coincidental that he's long-time "right hand man" to the current LSM president.
Second, regarding ‘mutual respect’ which you say society values. A little of that in the LSM would go a long way. Where is love, if there's no respect? There is no mutuality in the LSM cosmos. It's all top-down fiat. Fellowship, by any conventional meaning, simply doesn’t exist.
Now to holding the truth: When John the Baptist came out of the desert, and they asked him, “Are you the Christ [Messiah]?”, and “Are you the Prophet?”, those concepts were formed and passing through the populace. There was a back-drop of cultural expectations. The dialog of the gospels didn't occur in a cultural or conceptual vacuum.
But the dialog was largely lost, and so people like John Calvin and John Nelson Darby and Watchman Nee and Witness Lee who looked at scripture in a vacuum and said “this means that” and "this proves that" were free to form their own unique, subjective, and personal conclusions and impose these on their (usually captive) flocks.
In the past 50 years there's arisen a field of inquiry called Second Temple Judaism(s), which studies the culture(s) in which the gospels arose. These scholars and students are still ignorant, as are we all, but they're making some small progress. See, for example, the series "Discoveries in the Judean Desert". But Lee would have none of that: he was deliberately and proudly ignorant. “I haven't learned anything from anyone in 45 years”, he told us. He was God’s Oracle, and didn’t need to humble himself and learn. Watchman Nee had already read all the good spiritual books, right? Nothing left to read - nothing (besides Nee) worth reading since 1925. What arrogant presumption!
https://global.oup.com/academic/cont...cc=us&lang=en&
The epistle to the Ephesians was written by Paul with a back-drop of Jewish culture and understanding. It was written to Gentiles. But look at the “both” of Ephesians 2:16 – it is
both Jew and Gentile. The whole section of vv 11 thru 22 amplifies this.
But in the 100% Gentile Recovered Church promulgated by Lee, a word could mean anything he wanted. So the “Prophet” Jesus, as had been asked by the Jews to John, and referenced by Peter in Acts 3:22-23, and by Stephen in Acts 7:37. . . you know what Lee taught? That Jesus was “a prophet like Moses” because: a) he was human like Moses; and b) he prophesied like Moses! See, “You can all prophesy one by one”! That was his exposition! See the RecV footnotes in Deuteronomy 18:15-19.
And the Psalms: according to Lee some 70% of them were “fallen”. . . we could go on and on. Ridiculous teachings from an ignorant human imagination, received by the isolated and captive flock as oracles of God. What kind of ‘church’ is this? What kind of ‘fellowship’ is found, here? Absurd.
Brothers Lee and
Steel may be far above me, assuming a resurrection from the dead, a judgment seat and a wedding feast (all of which I believe). But their ideas are absurd. Love cannot exist there. It has no room to breathe.
I'm not requesting a return to “Jewishness” in any shape or form; rather that we Gentiles humble ourselves and begin to appreciate what was lost. Slowly the Lord will return our portion: if we seek we will find. But if we arrogantly presume to have laid hold (see, e.g., “high peak truths” . . .) our blindness remains. The 'church' we create will look a lot like what
Ohio testified of. The Imaginarium of one fallen human being. The King-dumb of Lee.