Erroneous Teaching of Lee Concerning Natural Affection

[Truthseeker]

Witness Lee's teaching has made a big mistake concerning natural affection. He and LSM always teach us that natural affection comes from our soulish life and we need to deny and crucify it at cross. Here the example:


The case of Nazarite consecration in Numbers 6 requires us to reject natural affection. Read more about it here: https://www.agodman.com/blog/todays-...parated-death/

Or natural affection could be like honey which ferments. This is in the life study of Leviticus concerning meal offering in ch.2 : https://www.ministrybooks.org/books....=N80V1O4WI1YCG

But it's all Lee's personal opinion and there's nothing to do with divine revealation in the Bible. On the contrary, the Lord requires us to have natural affection and He condemns anyone who has no natural affection like Romans 1: 31(Darby version) saying " void of understanding, faithless, without natural affection, unmerciful". Or, in 2 Timothy 3:3 saying " without natural affection, implacable, slanderers, without self-control, savage, not lovers of good."

Here are two examples from Bible proving that the Lord requires us to have natural affection. If not, we'll be like corrupted unbelievers in the last days of this age. With natural affection, we will be like mother who can give up her baby for saving his life(1 Ki 3:16-28). But without natural affection, we'll become like that cruel another harlot who agrees on dividing the baby in two pieces. That's why natural affection is biblical and it pleases God to do so.

[Cal]

Also, Romans 12:10 says, "Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love."

The phrase "kindly affectionate" in Greek is philostorgoi. It is a unique term here, a combination of the word for brotherly love (phileo) and the word for affection (storge).

This clearly states our love for Christian brothers and sister should include human affection. But Lee bluntly taught "no affection." I heard him say it myself. Clearly a doctrine of demons.

[awareness]

I only hope that anyone and everyone that hears or reads Lee's teaching on natural affection immediately busts out laughing.

[Ohio]

This quote is from STEM Publishers, the online go to site for Exclusive Brethren writers. Lee was not the source of this teaching, rather he merely "stole" it from the Brethren.

Leaven and honey were excluded from the meat offering in Luke 2, and it may be well to look at this. Leaven represents evil, and could have no place in the perfect Man. Jesus was absolutely holy. Honey is rather the figure of natural affections, which are good in themselves, but form no part of the offering upon the altar. So our Lord could say to Mary, in John 2, "What have I to do with thee?" We have no doubt as to our Lord's care and love for her from other passages.

The Brethren became famous for inferring the most ridiculous of interpretations from O.T. passages, especially when warring with those they formerly met with. For them everything must be properly interpreted, and it's often amazing what they could dig out of scriptures to bludgeon their opponents and hold their people in bondage.

If you read Brethren literature, e.g. the vindictive GV Wigram, after the Newton and Muller excommunications, you would be amazed at the vitriol-laced interpretations extracted from the Torah, and heaped on these two brothers. For the faithful follower in the Darby Lineage, you would think brother George Muller deserved a far worse judgment than the devil himself. And to think that W. Nee told us these Darby Brethren should be the historical fulfillment of "Philadelphia" the church of brotherly love. Obviously the Savior thought otherwise, and George Muller, while caring for English Orphans, received more direct answers from prayer than perhaps any brother in church history.

The interpretation of honey as "natural affection" was used by Exclusive Brethren to keep their faithful loyal to the program, despite their love for friends and family who might be expelled. This is little different from today's Amish shunning, or what Jewish believers faced being "put out of the synagogue" for believing in Jesus.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by Ohio

The interpretation of honey as "natural affection" was used by Exclusive Brethren to keep their faithful loyal to the program, despite their love for friends and family who might be expelled.

So to the Exclusive Brethren honey/natural affection was/is no laughing matter.

But isn't natural affection well, natural? as natural as breathing, eating, urinating, and daily bowel movements, that we couldn't stop if we tried?

I remember the "unspoken" rule about friendships. But still, I developed friendships in the local church that still lasts up to today.

So ... Denying natural affection is unnatural, and denies, and is an assault on, our natural personhood.

Good luck on trying to stop it. That can't be done any more than changing the color of your hair, or the color of your eyes.

Isn't it a childish notion? I remember it on playgrounds when I was a kid : "If you're gonna be friends with so-and-so then you're not my friend." And in the LC out the door you go for being friends. That's how foolish and absurd teaching against natural affection is. Plus, being against "natural" affection is blatantly mean, hateful, and inhumane ; and a cultic attack on you as a person, usurping you from making your own social decisions.

I guess in the LC they want to completely control you. What should that be called?

[Raptor]

I have always understood this teaching of "natural affection" without causing me much trouble at all. There are plenty of negative examples in the Bible (and even in society). Maybe the issue with some is the words "n...a" themselves? Regardless, this thing is real and can cause lots of problems in God´s house.

Part of what I have understood it to be is what James talks about in ch. 2:1-13: that is, personal favoritism, respect of persons, making distinctions among yourselves, showing partiality. You like someone, you have a click with someone, so you favor them and go beyond what God desires or says in His word, sometimes at the expense of others.

This is partly why probably Peter withdrew from the Gentiles, to hang out with the Jews and got him a rebuke from Paul. Also, probably partly why some in Corinth said, "hey we like this guy Apollos...he´s much cooler than Peter, let´s be of Apollos"....Also did not Jacob care more for Joseph, more than his other sons, ...that was part of what caused his brothers' jealousy.

Did not WL seemingly love and care too much for PL, allowing him to hang around, work and promoting him ....going beyond what God prescribes? That is "natural affection". Look what that caused. And did not the leading brothers care too much for the person of WL and PL and did not remove the evil brother but looked the other way? Did they not apologize to PL, to make WL happy? That´s what I understand it is, to love, appreciate, befriend someone in the flesh or with your self, even if it´s "good", but God is not in it or allowing it.

I´ve heard horror stories about churches in central america, where the elders and other saints that are better off and better educated really "like their own class" and are very racist and discriminatory to the poorer saints/ones with more of an indigenous background. When it comes down to sending some to the FTT, guess which ones always go?

Hypothetically, if you push this "na" to an extreme in a church, you can end up with a social club, full of "clicks" and people relating to others based on family, relatives, likes, dislikes, race, "chemistry", background, money, not based on the love of God, in and through the Spirit.

All these are obvious examples with bad results, there maybe many other contexts where friendships and relationships, maybe family based or "my roommate from college based" and never cause any problems.....until the test comes. I still keep in touch with high school friends, but I have prayed for them and seek a way to share something about the Lord. I don´t like to have friends at work or in the world just for the sake of having a friend to "hang out" with or watch the game with. For me befriending someone, to have a real friend you care for is one you want to share with and give the best you have, which is Christ.


(In society one example of this is nepotism, favoritism, "old boy network". )

[Jo S]

Originally Posted by Truthseeker

Witness Lee's teaching has made a big mistake concerning natural affection.

It depends how you define "natural affection". I don't think the Local Church teaching is in agreement with the actual scriptural meaning. The Greek word for natural affection in 2 Tim 3:3 is "astorgos" which is derived from the Greek "storge" or "familial love".

Jesus does talk about how ONLY having a type of reciprocal familial love is unprofitable (Luke 6:32).

Christians however are to love even our enemies and not only friends and relatives or those in our ideological circles or what have you. So if you're not able to love those that hate you and have hurt you, then maybe you do only know one type of affection, whether you call it "natural affection" or not. Or worse you have neither.

In Timothy, Paul is saying that a time will come when even those that only knew "familial love" will not even have that and so "Father will be divided against son and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against mother; and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law.." (Luke 12:53). He's not talking about actual Christians.

Either way the Local Church teaching is deceptive and full of equivocation. Going to the root, the attack on natural affection actually started with Watchman Nee. Nee stated in The Latent Power of the Soul, "how useless was emotion" and in The Spiritual Man Nee states that "Our natural likes and dislikes do not have any part here; natural affection must lose its power" and other similar things.

If anything, the Local Churches only practice natural affection or love for only those within their ideological family. But even that's in question here.

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by Jo S

If anything, the Local Churches only practice natural affection or love for only those within their ideological family. But even that's in question here.

How I perceived LC practice of natural affection similar to Luke 6:32. It's common to love those who love the ministry, yet as soon as any element of the ministry is questioned, one is turned on in an instant.
I have not seen anyone question the motive for Lee's teaching against natural affection?
Natural affection being scrutinized kind of made it difficult to bond and be built with a brother/sister through whom one can open up to.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Terry

I have not seen anyone question the motive for Lee's teaching against natural affection?
Natural affection being scrutinized kind of made it difficult to bond and be built with a brother/sister through whom one can open up to.

I really didn't become aware that the LC had this type of teaching until I had started attending some of the conferences and trainings and heard it spoken from the podium. I remember when I attended some of the summer college trainings that were held, one of the rules they would have for us was "no engaging in small talk."

I don't know if people really took it seriously or not, but I always did. In fact, I was always relatively introverted to begin with so it made me almost afraid to engage in conversation sometimes, because then when anyone actually did want to just have a normal conversation I would wonder if it was a trap or not.

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Freedom

I really didn't become aware that the LC had this type of teaching until I had started attending some of the conferences and trainings and heard it spoken from the podium. I remember when I attended some of the summer college trainings that were held, one of the rules they would have for us was "no engaging in small talk."

I don't know if people really took it seriously or not, but I always did. In fact, I was always relatively introverted to begin with so it made me almost afraid to engage in conversation sometimes, because then when anyone actually did want to just have a normal conversation I would wonder if it was a trap or not.

I think this is a good example of a disconnect in experiences in the LC. There are some people who don't take things to heart and some who do. Some people who hear a rule and immediately discard it as not for them and don't have the feelings of guilt about it. Some people who take it to heart and are greatly affected by it.

Then decades later when the inevitable problems from the church arise, the ones who didn't take things to heart and were unaffected then try to drown out the ones who did and were affected.

I fell into the "took it to heart and was affected" category.

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Trapped

I think this is a good example of a disconnect in experiences in the LC. There are some people who don't take things to heart and some who do. Some people who hear a rule and immediately discard it as not for them and don't have the feelings of guilt about it. Some people who take it to heart and are greatly affected by it.

Then decades later when the inevitable problems from the church arise, the ones who didn't take things to heart and were unaffected then try to drown out the ones who did and were affected.

I fell into the "took it to heart and was affected" category.

Yeah, it reminds me of when I lived in a brothers house and one of the rules was no watching movies. I was really the only one that attempted to follow that rule. But then I gave up on it since no one else seemed to care. Almost immediately, I got caught watching a movie and got in trouble. Nobody else did though, not sure why. That's the kind of stuff that eventually caused me to become disillusioned with the whole thing.