LSM versus Christian teaching, 1965 - 2015

[aron]

On another thread, I challenged another person to find one minister that Witness Lee acknowledged between the years 1945 - 1995. That's 50 years. As far as I know, there were none.

The poster challenged me to come up with someone that Witness Lee should have listened to. I gave some names, and my reason. The person pressed the issue, and I'd like to take it up here, so as not to drag another person's thread off its track.

Originally Posted by Drake

Let’s stay with the argument you introduced and there is ample and endless time afterward for you to revert to your usual talking points.

You have recommended 5 men that should have guided Brother Lee between 1945 and 1995. Why these 5? What focus or insight would they EACH bring to the ministry of Witness Lee or to him personally?

I recommended about 10 ministers that I've felt easily had things to say, worth listening to. By Witness Lee and the Blendeds, as well as any seeking Christian.

1. They spoke Greek and Hebrew, and could access the text themselves, without Vincent or Vine or Wuest to coach them. Not a minor thing. To actually be able to read the text yourself.
2. They also learned from one another, and none of them presumed to be God's sole mouthpiece on earth. Lee with his various scandals easily showed fruit (to me) that he was not the end-all and be-all he claimed, and was thus a charlatan presiding over naifs and dupes.

Now, to the challenge. Are there any ministers out there between the years 1965 and 2015 that are worth listening to? Has anyone learned anything at all? Or is the LSM the only source of truth and light? I'd like to open the floor.

(I've changed the years to reflect newer sources. I've read some work published since 1995 that was worth reading, and we should keep the discussion up-to-date. So word studies from 1887 are not included, here. They are not bad, per se, but that isn't the challenge. Lee said "there's nothing new").

[aron]

First off, for reasons 1 and 2, I feel that ANYTHING written by the 10 ministers that I cited is preferable to Witness Lee's output.

But I'd like to be more specific.

First off, the perils of being a teacher in a subject you don't know. On the forum, I learned that 'ekklesia' meant 'assembly', or 'meeting', not 'church'. Lee never told me that. He translated 'ekklesia' one way or another depending on if he could call it 'church' or not. So "one church per city" is based on a false premise, not knowing what the Greek actually meant.

Second, I learned that "oikonomia" meant "Stewardship", which implied responsibility and obedience. Look at the parable of the "unrighteous steward" that Jesus taught. Lee instead focused on Paul's use, and ignored Jesus' parable. Lee said it was "dispensing". Again, ignorance is okay if your audience is more ignorant than you, and you can convince them of your word tricks.

[aron]

Now, to my scholars. I will pick one, and open it up to the floor.

Boyarin. Teaches at Berkeley. Knows more about early Christian history than I do, and Lee and the Blendeds. Not a believer. But what a read!

He says ("Border Lines") that the Christians (e.g., Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Cyril of Alexandria) were antagonistic to the Jews. Can't be a Jew and a Christian, says Irenaeus. But I think, if there is every tribe and tongue and nation, all come in, why not the Jews? If Paul says you can't force the Greeks to live like the Jews, why can you force the Jews to live like the Greeks? I perceive big trouble, brewing here.

Notice that at this time, Christianity was spreading. There was no Islam in the Levant. Iran(Persia) was becoming Christian. Turkey was Christian. Greece. Iraq. Jordan. Syria. North Africa. Europe. Asia (India). Egypt. Ethiopia.

But what happened when the Greeks took over, and the Jews were pushed out? They (the Greeks) fought over words like "nature" and "essence" and were divided. Now Islam could come onto the scene, because Christianity was divided.

Look up the Council of Chalcedon. 600 years before the Great Schism, 6 groups left the one faith because they couldn't agree over Greek terms that even today they struggle to interpret. Philosophy rent asunder the tree of life. And I connect this to the loss of the Jews from the Christian testimony. Boyarin helped me see this.

An example. I can learn today, from reading other witnesses, besides Witness Lee. I'm sure there are other examples out there. I open it up to the floor. Thank you, and peace.

[Drake]

Originally Posted by aron

Now, to my scholars. I will pick one, and open it up to the floor.

Boyarin. Teaches at Berkeley. Knows more about early Christian history than I do, and Lee and the Blendeds. Not a believer. But what a read!.

Aron,

You are advocating that a Christian ministry add as counselor and advisor a man (Boyarin) who denies the divinity of Jesus Christ?

Exactly, what value could he add to this or any other Christian ministry in that role?

Drake

[aron]

Originally Posted by Drake

... you never offered the scriptural basis for a ministry needing surround themselves with other ministries or theologians.

In the Acts 15 conference in Jerusalem there was "much discussion" before consensus was reached. In the Lee Model - One Ministry Solo - much discussion is akin to rebellion, or at least uncertainty. Decisions are made by fiat.

The Lee Model is not biblical. It is Oriental Despotism.

That's fine when the Despot is Jesus. Not fine when the Despot is a fellow sinner, struggling to make it home to the Father. In the Lee Model we have to naively assume that the Max Minister Solo is somehow transformed beyond failure.

Instead we have Max Minister Solo installing his sinful son who ravages the churches. Failure. This does not "build up the church", all the published books notwithstanding.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

In the Acts 15 conference in Jerusalem there was "much discussion" before consensus was reached. In the Lee Model - One Ministry Solo - much discussion is akin to rebellion, or at least uncertainty. Decisions are made by fiat.

The Lee Model is not biblical. It is Oriental Despotism.

That's fine when the Despot is Jesus. Not fine when the Despot is a fellow sinner, struggling to make it home to the Father. In the Lee Model we have to naively assume that the Max Minister Solo is somehow transformed beyond failure.

Instead we have Max Minister Solo installing his sinful son who ravages the churches. Failure. This does not "build up the church", all the published books notwithstanding.

I followed the GLA quarantines fairly closely, having lived thru this stuff for years. The closest they ever got to an Acts 15 conference was the Phoenix Accord. LSM and its Blendeds never honored that dictum.

LSM's basis for quarantine was never the Word of God. They constantly went back to the biased and self-serving teachings of Lee. How else do you justify excommunications for young people playing guitars and old people writing books?

[Drake]

Originally Posted by aron

In the Acts 15 conference in Jerusalem there was "much discussion" before consensus was reached.

Try again, aron.

In Acts 15 those in fellowship were all in the same ministry.. The law mentality was the problem in the first place as stated plainly in v5. They did not invite unbelieving scribes and Pharisees to advise them. That would have been against the NT principle. In the same way, your idea to include Boyarin or unbelieving scholars like him as a counselor to a christian ministry is unscriptural and violates the principle of the NT ministry.

Drake

[aron]

Originally Posted by Drake

Aron,

You are advocating that a Christian ministry add as counselor and advisor a man (Boyarin) who denies the divinity of Jesus Christ?

Exactly, what value could he add to this or any other Christian ministry in that role?

Drake

Boyarin sees that the Christian theology necessitated itself on defining an "Other" which was the Jews. They defined themselves out of their source.

Then (this is my idea, not from Boyarin) the gentile-only Church began to break apart as the abstract overlays, undefinable and unprovable, became levers and wedges for Satan to install himself in the flock.

Lee and now Kangas and Philips say, "The church became degraded". They don't show how. Boyarin shows us how.

[Drake]

Originally Posted by aron

Lee and now Kangas and Philips say, "The church became degraded". They don't show how. Boyarin shows us how.

How does Boyarin show us how Ephesus degraded?

Drake

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Drake

Aron,

You are advocating that a Christian ministry add as counselor and advisor a man (Boyarin) who denies the divinity of Jesus Christ?

Exactly, what value could he add to this or any other Christian ministry in that role?

Drake

Why would you have a problem with that?

LSM had an unsaved profligate running the show for years, with all the elders and co-workers submitting to him.

What value did Philip Lee bring to your Christian ministry?

Oh yeah, he was Witness Lee's most trusted co-worker.

Oriental Despotism at its best.

[aron]

Drake, the scripture repeatedly says that in many counselors is safety. Where were the many counselors when Daystar was launched? When the Young Galileans or the New Move was enrolled? Who if anyone counseled when Philip Lee was installed?

And that went for theology too. No idea was too wacky. If Lee liked it, we sang a ditty forthwith. Nobody counseled.

That's why I said that he only listened to the voices in his head.

[Koinonia]

Originally Posted by Drake

Aron,

You are advocating that a Christian ministry add as counselor and advisor a man (Boyarin) who denies the divinity of Jesus Christ?

Exactly, what value could he add to this or any other Christian ministry in that role?

Drake

I also don't think it is helpful to your argument, aron, that you would choose an unbeliever as your first example.

[Drake]

-2

HERn, that is documentation referencing how Brother Lee defined ekklesia. That is what I was asked to provide.

Drake

[aron]

Originally Posted by Koinonia

I also don't think it is helpful to your argument, aron, that you would choose an unbeliever as your first example.

Okay. I used it as an example of how we could learn from someone's ministry, other than Lee. I learned to think critically about the "Fathers", where before I was passively uncritical.

Something went terribly wrong with the faith. And, why did the faith of Christ go from 100% Jewish to 100% gentile? And are these two statements related, and how?

And what was the consequence of that transition, from Jewish to Greek? Chalcedon [philosophy, camps, schisms, rupture]? And thus an open doorway for Islam?

But if it makes people uncomfortable nevermind. I'll use another example, an overtly Christian one.

(And most of Boyarin's thought I don't follow. He just gave me a fresh set of eyes to look at an old problem. Valuable)

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

First off, the perils of being a teacher in a subject you don't know. On the forum, I learned that 'ekklesia' meant 'assembly', or 'meeting', not 'church'. Lee never told me that. He translated 'ekklesia' one way or another depending on if he could call it 'church' or not. So "one church per city" is based on a false premise, not knowing what the Greek actually meant.

Not to naysay your thread, but here I'm having trouble following here.

As a rule, the Lord and the Apostles did take common words, mostly Greek ones, and attach special meanings to them that carried spiritual connotations. For example the Greek word "pneuma" which to the Greeks meant (Kittel abridged p. 876) "wind or breath" and by extension "life or even soul." To the Biblical Authors, however, pneuma took on a whole new semantic. We could discuss dozens of other Greek words, like ekklesia or charis, in a similar construct. Thus the translator must decide, often with some difficulty, what the writer originally intended, hence the variant translations of "church, assembly, or congregation."

Concordant translations attempt to remedy this apparent translation incongruity by fixing one English word to each Greek word. If you have ever read one of these translations, such as the Concordant Literal New Testament by A.E. Knoch you readily understand the difficulty. (Btw, he was the grandfather of the former, and quite beloved Anaheim elder, who resigned under pressure with John Ingalls during the Philip Lee scandal.)

The "one church per city" doctrine is based on false premises, but in my view not a translation problem. The New Testament never prescribes "one church per city" nor "one assembly per city."

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Concordant translations attempt to remedy this apparent translation incongruity by fixing one English word to each Greek word.

But sometimes we can't use one word, and have to use several. The RecV does the same thing as the other translations. Acts 17:41 "And with these words he dismissed the assembly". We can't use the word church because it doesn't fit.

But I was left to find this out on my own. So am I the sole oracle of God, unable to learn from others? No. I'm just another bozo on the bus. Like you and Witness Lee. The LSM problem wasn't that they were imperfect. It is that they pretended to be the end-all and be-all. "Nobody else has anything of value."

So I ask, Does anyone out there besides Witness Lee have anything of value? Is Drake right?

I used Daniel Boyarin as an example of someone who showed me something. The Christian schism was not caused by unbelievers but by believers, fighting over abstract overlays like "nature". And this followed hard upon the expulsion of the Jews from the assembly of the faith.

Originally the assembly was all Jews. Then they let in the gentiles. Then the gentiles expelled the Jews (See e.g., 'Dialog with Trypho the Jew'). Then the gentiles turned on each other.

So I learned something, and not from Lee or the LSM. Fancy that.

Anyone else?

[aron]

The LSM model says, "Christianity got degraded", and so there's this need of recovery. But how did it get degraded? I always read people like Cyril uncritically. I mean, he's a doctor of the church!

But then I read of his expulsion of the Jews from Alexandria, and the 'Christian' mob that literally tore apart the pagan philosopher Hypatia at his incitement. I read Justin with new eyes. I think about what Ireneaus said. I negin to think, to consider, to possibly see. Lee never brought me any of that.

[OBW]

I have not been a follower of this thread, but started reading through it today. The quote, below, from one of the earliest posts, concerns an area of concern to me as I have been reading in the Bible in recent years. I did not attribute it as it is not peculiar to the one making the post, but a common position that permeates the study of theology.

As a rule, the Lord and the Apostles did take common words, mostly Greek ones, and attach special meanings to them that carried spiritual connotations. For example the Greek word "pneuma" which to the Greeks meant (Kittel abridged p. 876) "wind or breath" and by extension "life or even soul." To the Biblical Authors, however, pneuma took on a whole new semantic. We could discuss dozens of other Greek words, like ekklesia or charis, in a similar construct. Thus the translator must decide . . .

As I have studied other words, such as those used for life, I note that the Greek word zoe has been given some pretty hefty religion-specific meaning that it did not otherwise carry. And Lee took it one step further by declaring it to simply mean "God's life."

But there is no evidence that the word is not intended to be understood exactly as any Greek (or someone understanding Greek) would understand it. In its purest form, it means something like "the fullness of life." Like what a Bud commercial would call "gusto." I have to admit that if we are looking for the fullness of life, then it is best realized through a life lived in Christ. But that does not alter the meaning of zoe.

My problem with the presumption of special religious overtones or alternate meanings is that it is a way that those with a desire to get certain things out of the Bible succeed. If you can assert an alternate meaning of a word, then you can alter what you get out of the Bible. In my recent readings, I am realizing that I am not a very good Calvinist. I believe fully in security of salvation. But to get to certain points on the (6 petals?) of the TULIP, I have to already accept the full Calvinist dogma as true to manage to dismiss those pesky verses that unravel certain parts — like the so-called double predestination.

I do not want to get in a discussion of Calvinism, but rather state that in each of the cases mentioned, there is a reading that is fully consistent with the rest of the scripture and with our understanding of who God is without inserting a special definition that is not otherwise obviously called-for. In other words, if the plain reading doesn't get you there, don't presume that layering on a novel meaning not explicitly stated within the scripture gets you anything.

Now I do not suggest that new, added definitions should simply be rejected. But I would suspect that most of any such re-defining would turn out to be simply finding an existing meaning other than the primary. But if we start with the idea that the scripture is to all of mankind and not just the theologians, then having it written in a kind of "code" (or private lexicon) where words no longer mean what the average reader would understand seems to go against this.

Of course, maybe this is the reason that some have recently suggested that having the printed Bible in everyone's hands is the reason that there are thousands of doctrinal differences, ranging from minor to very serious (even heresy to some). If you leave it to the theologians, at least they will mostly remain together even as they spend lengthy times hashing out meanings on things (even beyond lifetimes). Even the RCC, after centuries, has come around to some of Martin Luther's thinking. Not excusing other RCC errors, but noting that over time serious theologians (as opposed to those of the armchair variety — like me) do listen to each other and often something comes from it. Does it result in unity? Not really. That is still because of Christ (as has been spoken of so clearly in another thread) and not because of doctrinal unity.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by OBW

As I have studied other words, such as those used for life, I note that the Greek word zoe has been given some pretty hefty religion-specific meaning that it did not otherwise carry. And Lee took it one step further by declaring it to simply mean "God's life."

But there is no evidence that the word is not intended to be understood exactly as any Greek (or someone understanding Greek) would understand it. In its purest form, it means something like "the fullness of life." Like what a Bud commercial would call "gusto." I have to admit that if we are looking for the fullness of life, then it is best realized through a life lived in Christ. But that does not alter the meaning of zoe.

Dr. Philip Comfort, noted Greek scholar, would disagree with you, at least on your first point.

Firstly, PC taught that "zoe" to the Greeks meant "life in action," without divine connotation, of course, much like you describe it. Zoo and Zoology come to mind.

Yet, in the New Testament, the word "zoe" takes on new life, so to speak, and as such it must be defined by its usage by the writers of the Bible, and not by secular Greek writers.

[aron]

Different words have different meanings to different groups of people, even contemporaries who have much in common. For example, the word "fellowship" is different in LSM-affiliated local churches, than from others: it Carrie's little of the sense of mutuality, discourse and reciprocity found elsewhere.

Likewise, a Jew from the diaspora, Saul of Tarsus, would likely have had a vocabulary different from both the Galileans and the Jerusalem cohort. Yet they all believed in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. ( even the concept of "resurrection" wasn't evenly held, as Paul's letters show).

This thread was started to challenge the notion that LSM does, or should, hold a monopoly on contemporary Christian discourse. One of the LSM-fueled mantras is that there is nothing "out there" of value; rather, that multiple voices will bring confusion and discord.

I recently read a review by NT Wright of Daniel Boyarin's book on the apostle Paul. Clearly Wright disagreed with most if not all of Boyarin's conclusions. Yet he respected Boyarin's work as valuable, as a needed part of the discourse, if only to help us understand our thinking. This, to me, approaches the core of Jesus' world - it is only as we approach and even embrace the "other" as best we can, that we truly become ourselves. Those who shut themselves off in narrowness of self lose the path, the golden thread.

Having one voice define one meaning for the Christian collective is doomed to failure. I cannot overstress that Watchman Nee's perceived strength was his ability to allow multiple voices to simultaneously compete within his consciousness. Only then could an approximation of objective truth begin to emerge.

[Evangelical]

Originally Posted by aron

First off, the perils of being a teacher in a subject you don't know. On the forum, I learned that 'ekklesia' meant 'assembly', or 'meeting', not 'church'. Lee never told me that. He translated 'ekklesia' one way or another depending on if he could call it 'church' or not. So "one church per city" is based on a false premise, not knowing what the Greek actually meant.

On this matter I think you have no case because "called out assembly" is Lee's preferred definition for the word ekklesia, not church. If you had read Lee's books you would have understood well that ekklesia means assembly. In a number of his books Lee defines ekklesia as the assembly or congregation. Lee writes it is best to translate ekklesia as assembly, not church. He also cites Darby who renders ekklesia as "assembly".

[aron]

Originally Posted by Evangelical

On this matter I think you have no case because "called out assembly" is Lee's preferred definition for the word ekklesia, not church. If you had read Lee's books you would have understood well that ekklesia means assembly. In a number of his books Lee defines ekklesia as the assembly or congregation. Lee writes it is best to translate ekklesia as assembly, not church. He also cites Darby who renders ekklesia as "assembly".

But there can clearly be more than one assembly per city. In the LSM/lc they do it all the time - they just relabel them meetings. But the Greek is the same.

Do you think anyone out there besides Lee had value, in the years 1965 - 2015?

I give Boyarin as my example.

[Evangelical]

Originally Posted by aron

But there can clearly be more than one assembly per city. In the LSM/lc they do it all the time - they just relabel them meetings. But the Greek is the same.

Do you think anyone out there besides Lee had value, in the years 1965 - 2015?

I give Boyarin as my example.

"One church per city" does not mean one assembly or meeting per city.

If it did, we would not have multiple meetings per city would we?

[Drake]

Originally Posted by Evangelical

On this matter I think you have no case because "called out assembly" is Lee's preferred definition for the word ekklesia, not church. If you had read Lee's books you would have understood well that ekklesia means assembly. In a number of his books Lee defines ekklesia as the assembly or congregation. Lee writes it is best to translate ekklesia as assembly, not church. He also cites Darby who renders ekklesia as "assembly".

Aron,

Thanks for starting this thread.

The above is correct. The called out assembly definition iwas one of the first changes to my understanding of "a church" when I came into the Lord's Recovery.

It's well documented.

Drake

[Evangelical]

Aron has asked

"Do you think anyone out there besides Lee had value, in the years 1965 - 2015?"

To answer such a question we must first define value, or what is valuable, and it really depends.

I found the writings of Daniel Wallace valuable on the topics of the role of women in the church and whether or not the English bible has significant translation errors in it. I could not address these matters using Lee's life studies, for example, as they are not for that purpose.

Aron has said that he found Boyarin valuable. On the matter of oikonomia I find Lee to be valuable because he ties it back to God's grace. I doubt that Boyarin's definitions would be valuable to me because he does not know about God's grace.

In general I find that Lee or Nee has already covered the most important things that we should know, in relation to our salvation. While there are many authors out there who can cover the same or similar ground, they generally do not present it in a holistic way or in terms of our salvation that we can understand on a personal level. I find Lee's books often have more depth and detail but without becoming too unnecessarily theological or doctrinal.

For example Rick Warren's purpose driven life has nothing on Lee's book "The Purpose of God’s Salvation" which starts with Christ being the purpose which I think is a fundamental truth. Warren's book is more about us using our gifts and talents and becoming what God wants us to be.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Evangelical

Aron has said that he found Boyarin valuable. On the matter of oikonomia I find Lee to be valuable because he ties it back to God's grace. .

On the matter of Oikonomia I do not find Lee to be valuable because in the parable of Jesus (Luke 16:1-8) Oikonomia is not about grace but about stewardship, or responsibility, or obedience. (See the Greek of verse 3: "Oikonomian") It goes all the way back to the fall in Genesis 3. Obedience.

Jesus was the Obedient Lamb of God. He was the Obedient Steward. We see Him by faith, and live. That is grace. But even then He asks us to obey.

The Lee-esque cheap grace is worthless, because we don't see Jesus' obedience. It's just the Processed Triune God. A conceptual, abstract smoothie.

No value to me.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Evangelical

For example Rick Warren's purpose driven life has nothing on Lee's book "The Purpose of God’s Salvation" which starts with Christ being the purpose which I think is a fundamental truth. Warren's book is more about us using our gifts and talents and becoming what God wants us to be.

You'll notice in the conversation that began this thread (elsewhere) I never cited Warren. I don't find him bad per se, but not very interesting.

If Lee is 3rd grade, Warren is also 3rd grade. Neither one is very substantive.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Drake

Aron,

Thanks for starting this thread.

The above is correct. The called out assembly definition iwas one of the first changes to my understanding of "a church" when I came into the Lord's Recovery.

It's well documented.

Drake

Then why is Psalm 22 translated "assembly" but Hebrews 2:12 which quotes Psalm 22 it is translated "church"? If "assembly" is preferred, why not consistency?

Did Lee bend to convention here, and go against his preference? Why doesn't Lee explain this discrepancy - where is the documentation you say exists? I've never seen it.

[Drake]

Originally Posted by aron

... where is the documentation you say exists? I've never seen it.

Too numerous to list. Go to lsm.org, click "online publications" and in the search field type ekklesia.

Here is one reference posted here for your convenience.


1. The Called Out Assembly, or the Assembly of the Called Out Ones

In the Bible the church is first called the assembly. This is revealed by the Lord Jesus Himself in Matthew 16:18, where He speaks concerning the universal aspect of the church, and in 18:17, where He speaks concerning the local aspect of the church. The Greek word translated “church” in these verses is ekklesia, composed of two words: ek, out, and kaleo, called. Put together, these two words mean a called out congregation or an assembly of the called ones. Hence, according to the literal sense of the word, the church is the assembly of those called out of the world by God.

In ancient times the mayor of a city would sometimes call the people together as a congregation, as an assembly, for a particular purpose. The Greek word used to denote such a gathering is ekklesia (cf. Acts 19:41). The point we would emphasize here is that the word ekklesia, according to biblical usage, refers to the church as a called out congregation. The church is a congregation called out of the world unto God for His purpose. It is much better to translate ekklesia not as church but as assembly. The Brethren teachers insisted on this, and the congregations among the Brethren were known as the Brethren assemblies. I agree with their use of the word assembly. The word assembly is better than the word church.

Although there is no plain mentioning of the church in the Old Testament, there is a picture concerning the church as the assembly. When the children of Israel went out of Egypt, they came to the foot of Mount Sinai. There they were formed into one coordinated entity to assemble before God with the tabernacle as the center and the twelve tribes as the circumference encamping around the tabernacle (Num. 2). Thus, they became one corporate body, the ekklesia, the assembly of God’s called ones. For this reason, the New Testament calls them the ekklesia (Acts 7:38, the word assembly is ekklesia). On the one hand, they were called out by God from Egypt (signifying the world); on the other hand, they were the congregation gathering before God. The children of Israel did not have the nature of the church; they were merely a type, a picture, showing us that the church is the assembling together of those who have been called out of the world by God through His redemption and saving power."

Conclusion of the New Testament, Message 207, Witness Lee

[Evangelical]

Originally Posted by aron

Second, I learned that "oikonomia" meant "Stewardship", which implied responsibility and obedience. Look at the parable of the "unrighteous steward" that Jesus taught. Lee instead focused on Paul's use, and ignored Jesus' parable. Lee said it was "dispensing". Again, ignorance is okay if your audience is more ignorant than you, and you can convince them of your word tricks.

Lee says oikonomia means stewardship, right here:

http://www.ministrysamples.org/excer...T-ECONOMY.HTML

and here:

http://www.ministrysamples.org/excer...ODS-GRACE.HTML

Lee taught responsibility and obedience towards "God's economy", or house-management, stewardship, administration , so again, you have no case.

What Lee did, in Life-Study of Ephesians for example, is tie God's economy back to God's grace and our salvation. This is where the meaning of dispensing (of God as Grace) comes in. If you take out the dispensing you are taking out God's grace!

Did any of these other authors you cite who talk about oikonomia talk about the dispensing of God's grace (as Lee did)?

If not, I cannot see how these would add more value or be more valuable to a born again Christian.

On the one hand, we can have a "dry" definition of what oikonomia means from very knowledgeable people and they are in most cases correct. Now anyone could interpret God's administration as the religious organizations and authorities and the rules and traditions that they should or must follow.

But Lee presents it in a way which ties it back to God's grace and our fellowship with other believers - this is the dispensing, and comes back to the core essence of what God's administration is about. This is why Lee is more valuable than Boyarin, who as an unbeliever does not know about God's grace.

[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

On another thread, I challenged another person to find one minister that Witness Lee acknowledged between the years 1945 - 1995. That's 50 years. As far as I know, there were none.

The poster challenged me to come up with someone that Witness Lee should have listened to. I gave some names, and my reasons:

1. They spoke Greek and Hebrew, and could access the text themselves, without Vincent or Vine or Wuest to coach them. Not a minor thing, to actually be able to read the text yourself.

2. They also learned from one another, and none of them presumed to be God's sole mouthpiece on earth. Lee with his various scandals easily showed fruit (to me) that he was not the end-all and be-all he claimed, and was thus a charlatan presiding over naifs and dupes.

Now, are there any ministers out there between the years 1965 and 2015 worth listening to... or is the LSM the only source of truth and light? I'd like to open the floor..

One of my referenced scholars was Daniel Boyarin, and this was challenged because he's not Christian. But I responded that he's influenced the contemporary discussion.

Like the poster Ohio, I got interested in church history, to better understand how we got here. Some time ago, I was reading about the Chalcedon Rift (4th Ecumenical Council, 451 AD), six centuries before the Great Schism, and came to the conclusion that the church had lost its way (they were arguing over the meaning of the word we'd translate ‘nature’, as pertaining to Christ). Then I was considering the loss of the Jewish heritage and its effect on thinking in the Christian church, and came across Boyarin’s “Border Lines”. It was an astonishing work.

More recently I’ve been reading two books by Oskar Skarsaune, a Norwegian Christian scholar. One's called “In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish Influences on Early Christianity” and the other is an edited book called “Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries”. Here's a quote from the preface to the second work, which shows Boyarin's impact on contemporary discourse of the origins of Christianity.

(also note how Skarsaune speaks to point #2 in my original post, about not being dogmatic in one's assertions, and being willing to learn from others' views).

Originally Posted by Skarsaune

In the early stages of this work, our common perception was that we were concerned with a category of people who by their very existence somehow refused to take in in the reality of what was happening around them – the “parting of the ways” between Judaism and Christianity. Then, in 1999, Daniel Boyarin published his intriguing book Dying for God: Martyrdom and the making of Christianity and Judaism, in which he challenged the paradigm of the parting ways in a groundbreaking manner.

In 2003 a new book appeared; challenging the traditional paradigm already in its title: The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Eary Middle Ages (ed. A.H. Becker and A.Y. Reed), a conference volume based on a joint Princeton-Oxford conference in 2002. These were not the only publications to signal a shift in scholarly attention… prior to any of these, Simon Claude Mimouni had published his magnificent survey Le Judeo-Christianisme ancient: essays historiques (1998). One could add several more titles to these, including Boyarin’s own follow-up of his pioneering work mentioned above: Border Lines: the Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (2004).

With regard to the present volume, the process behind which has been quite independent of any of the above projects, this has meant that while we were at work, a paradigm shift was going on around us. From the marginal position described by Visotzky, Jewish believers in Jesus and Gentile Christian Judaizers moved to the very center of scholarly interest. The present volume, however, is not meant to be a programmatic programmatic statement of scholarly debate about old and new paradigms. There is hardly any one position in regard to this question among the contributor of this volume. What unites us is a common conviction that the phenomenon of Jewish believers in Jesus has its own significance in the history of Christianity, and also for the history of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity.

Neither authors nor editors think of this volume as a definitive history of Jewish believers in Jesus during the early centuries (first to fifth centuries C.E.). Nor have the editors made any attempt at unifying and streamlining the points of view expressed in the different contributions. We have regarded it an advantage that the book contains more than one opinion on some of the problems treated. There is, at present, no established scholarly consensus on the different themes treated in this volume. This goes for the many large as well as many of the smaller questions. In this way it’s hoped that this volume, rather than summing up current scholarship, may in some measure contribute to it. A continuation of this history through the centuries until our own time is at an early stage of planning. This is a report on plans, not a binding promise.

My point is this: if you want to see the face of Christ, read the works of those who can help you see. Even those who don't agree with you, and with whom you don't fully agree. I completely disagree with much of Boyarin, starting from but not limited to his refusal to accept Jesus' resurrection from the dead. But he thinks differently from me, and forces me to think differently in response. As a result, I feel that my opinions are more grounded, not less grounded. Again I say this is what Watchman Nee did - he availed himself of disparate sources. Nee didn't have to agree with everything he read, but he was willing to use different materials to help him see Christ.

Contrast this to the "sickbed theology" of LSM, which says, if anyone reads from other sources, they might get 'poisoned' spiritually, or 'confused'... what an admission of weakness!