Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) reason I left LR

[SM]

Greetings from India- Kerala State, in the precious name of our Lord & savior Jesus Christ.
Need to introduce myself in brief.
I was born in a episcopal denomination family with 4 siblings, having basic religious values taught & practiced and had Sunday Church & regular family prayer every day, my parents were religious and often believed & practiced prayer. I personally thought religion to be man made stuff and means to apiece ones soul & community gathering and security more than Godliness , at a very young age was caught up among worldly friends and start smoking & occasional drinking & watching all movies & trained myself as boxer and had many friends , gang up almost every day for playing, strolling in the city, taunting ladies etc.
I was poor in studies & IQ, so had related discrimination & complex issues.
even i was thrown out of a school not faring well and as disciplinary action , had strong feeling of ending my life which was full of darkness & aimlessness.
At the age of 25 , i happen to attend a convention conducted by a Hindu converted Christian in 1991, which i intend to find fault , but the encounter there i had with Living Christ brought a marvelous transformation in my life.
The very next day experience Holy Spirit filling 19th Oct 1991, and I knew what Born again means , I was a New Creation, born of God, halleluiah, never looked back, i left all alone from my family to a Born again congregation , and start reading bible in a new way , now Bible, Jesus & Holy Spirit became my companion , wanted to honor God every where no matter what the price may be , even left secular studies & job to study bible in a bible school and preach Gospel to all, but the experience in Bible College was not encouraging, so quit it, start self study and self preaching the Gospel of Christ that i know and experienced, had strong feeling of Water Baptism, as i attended and read scripture , but refused for few months , considering that i have taken child baptism and is not required, until was convinced from Scripture the true meaning of baptism and its not for Child or adult baptism , but for those who believe in Jesus Christ and is born again , has to declare their inward transformation , as outward expression through public testimony that my old man is dead, and is buried and now new man is risen from dead with Christ resurrections power to lead a new life, i happily experience the true water baptism with joy 3rd Jan 1992 .
I moved from cities to cities in India, preach Gospel, then finally wanted my own source of income to support my self and needy, started business , but debt issues lead me to Gulf Countries in Oman, Kuwait, UAE, i attended mostly reformed Pentecostal Churches where Bible was given importance and a prominent place, until 1993 happen to be not satisfied with the small fellowship that i was in , they started giving more importance to outward expression of gifts and initial serious bible living was slowly replaced with outwardly show, at that time i happen to meet few saints from Local Church(LC), of Witness Lee, their songs was very much attractive and was drawn slowly to that fellowship and quit the old one by bidding farewell.
In 1993, was when i started fellowshipping with LC, i was warned by some friends about this group as cult, and i rebuked them for judging without knowing the reality and reading some negative comments from Internet sites.
But i was alerted & and cautious, start reading many negative stuff and positive stuff to judge myself from the Scripture , whenever i read Witness Lee ,i took Scripture and tested (Acts 17:11), which actually kept me safe , i used to discuss with my wife the issues that i see is not scriptural, since we had no other group to join, continued and had good family ties with all Siants in The Church, the more i read Witness Lee stuff, and Recovery Bible, the more i am convinced there is so many unhealthy and cultish nature approach in this group, still i continue and marking all problem in every reading, In LTM , Lord table meeting, and all other meetings they always take Witness Lee writings and very few even carry bible, which was very troublesome for me.
I had decided not to speak from WL books, but the Bible Portion which they consult and share, i read directly from Bible , which staunch WL old members were not happy, but i continue , until Dec, 2020, we slowly drift away to another Pentecostal Group and informed few elders in the Group of my disagreement with WL Church practices and teachings. They are silent in a deceptive way, and am expecting them to come to us for discussion and clarity, for which i wait, if Lord permits to speak truth in love .
I have to admit that this group in local level they are careful to be humble & lovely brother and sisters, we still love them and are careful not to attack them, we still want to be a good Christian brothers and sisters, irrespective of the false teaching and practices , there are some good stuff which in general missing in many fellowship outside LC:-
Some of the disagreement areas were as below, i cannot pin point all here but in nutshell :

● Allegorizing many passages in the Bible
●Ground of the church —one church per city.
●The minister of the age / Apostolic continuation
●A higher lexicon
●Being Philadelphia while everyone else is one of the other seven churches, or even Babylon.
●Claiming that Jesus is now the Holy Spirit.
●That Jesus is simply the Father.
●That to say that the "three" of the trinity are "persons" is to be tritheistic.
● The processed God ,concept is heretic.
●Partial rapture, multiple rapture
●Dispensational discipline/ millennium exclusion.
● About mankind, Regeneration distorted view of WL.
●Gap theory
●Deification/theosis — man becoming God
● Calling the name of Lord in vain by screaming repetition mantra
● "Amen ", misused repeatedly & in a meaning less way most of the time .
●Pray-reading in a way of mindless repetition
●Depersonalizing God into processes like watermelon
● Convenient interpretation and plagiarism (quote others as WL own view)
● teaching -devil dwells in the flesh of the believers .(personified )
● hypothetical statements in almost every interpretation, ignoring the context.
● adoption ( huiothesia ) an important teaching rejected and instead teach natural sonship, which Only begotten Son of God , Jesus is , no one else.
● Obsequious behavior of saints , replaced Holy Spirit role for WL...
●Cultish interpretation of 1 Cor 15:45 , Jesus became Holy Spirit .
● Mingling: an heretic teaching promoted all over the place .
●Pope type centralized messages and control, no freedom of exposition based on text and context , if done , considered denomination .
●Discourage bible study and teaching , only WL writings , even bible reading to focus on what WL said about the passages.
●Prayer pattern not as Jesus or apostle taught , Pray to The Father through Jesus in communion with Holy Spirit , but LR always chant "Oh Lord Jesus ", only ABBA Father for small portion of Father worship at Lords table .

* The Concept of Trinity is confusing , not scriptural and against Orthodox Christian belief dont use " Persons" instead "Three-One".
Confusing statement, say Father, Son, Holy Spirit is distinct but distinct in what ? Person, being , ?, God send His Son bible says but he make fun of such notion .
* Patripassianism is taught in his writing, to say Father suffered with Son, which 2nd century Tertullian and Hypolydian refuted such teaching brought by Paraxeas and Noetus of Syria.

still more, cannot remember, will share when Lord permits

[OBW]

Pretty good list. A few comments:

Allegorizing. This is an interesting point. Nee and Lee were fans of the idea. They used it more than the NT writers did themselves.

And this is even a problem in reverse. If things were allegories, metaphors, etc., they sometimes tried to make them into facts. (And many Christian writers of all kind do this.) The most common place is with Revelation. A book of pictures and metaphors constantly understood as literal.

Rapture and Dispensational Issues. Popular ideas of the last 200 years that were never thought of in these ways in the 1,800 years prior. Not saying there couldn't be anything true about them. But they are too vaguely embedded in parables and metaphorical writings to generate the kinds of certainty that are being taught. If anything, the whole purpose was to instill the idea that we need to be ready, not to spend time trying to figure out how literal the words might or might not be.

Gap Theory. While I have little use for claims of certainty on this idea, I am fairly certain that from the beginnings of creation until the appearance of man, and the events up to the flood are likely to have involved much more significant amounts of time than the 6 days and the limited number of years recorded in Genesis. The detailed chronology of creation was not its purpose and therefore I have no problem with this. As for a pre-Adamic race that was destroyed, I cannot say, but I have reasonable skepticism about it.

But there is one question. You seem to have been warned about the LC early in your stay there and rather consistently used "unapproved" sources and methods in your study, yet stayed around long enough to have that many things to disagree with. If I had started seeing many errors like that, I would have moved on before the list got that long. Something made you want to stay. What was it? You indicate that there was nowhere else to go. Was this because you were influenced by the notion that the LC gives of "nowhere else to go," or was it that isolated a place with truly nowhere else?

[SM]

Greetings Bro.in the matchless name of our Lord savior Jesus Christ.
1. Allegorizing is a dangerous tool, many false doctrines, practices & belief have crept into the Church in doing so, we should put full -stop where Apostles & Jesus has done so & never attempt to give meaning to each & everything in OT specially out of context . Let Scripture speak for itself ..
2. Like Rapture & Dispensational issue, Gap theory in my learning is also New age invention to validate and find answer to modern science assumption ,& criticism of Bible , anyway we just believe as The Word given to us without any question , until & unless it is clearly & explicitly stated in Scripture .
3.When i mentioned i had no other fellowship to go, i meant not because of compulsion from LC, but , due to my leading deep within to investigate & to see for myself what they truly teach false Gospel as they are accused off.?. I personally don't buy third party conviction until myself is convinced, yes warning from my spiritual friends helped me to be extra careful , to examine every statement uttered & read there. I believed i have learned many lessons good & bad through this difficult journey with LC . I consider them to be my brothers & sisters , hijacked by the enemy , should pray & speak the truth in Love to help them to abandon the obsequious way to saying Amen to anything & everything WL books say, turn to the Scripture and its pure revelation to be brought back to true fellowship with the Lord .
Peace & Grace be to all.
Amen

[aron]

Originally Posted by SM

I believed i have learned many lessons good & bad through this difficult journey with LC...

Amen to that!

Originally Posted by OBW

Pretty good list. A few comments:

Allegorizing. This is an interesting point. Nee and Lee were fans of the idea. They used it more than the NT writers did themselves.

And this is even a problem in reverse. If things were allegories, metaphors, etc., they sometimes tried to make them into facts. (And many Christian writers of all kind do this.) The most common place is with Revelation. A book of pictures and metaphors constantly understood as literal.

What are some examples of lee and nee doing this? Not sure I know what this is.

[OBW]

Maybe "allegorizing" is not always the correct term. But they made examples and metaphors out of things that weren't. For example, in one place the scripture says "power," the original used a Greek word dynmos (sp?) that translates into "dynamo" in English which they expounded as meaning power generation, transmission over wires, and the practical application of electricity to some device, such as a light bulb. Not necessarily an incorrect statement. But not what the word/passage was saying. So it is, at best, possibly true, not definitely true.

I realize that this one item does not establish some error. But the propensity to this kind of thing with respect to what is not actually there is an invitation for error. Yet they sold it as God's unique word for his unique ministry (paraphrased).

[UtahGiant]

Originally Posted by OBW

Maybe "allegorizing" is not always the correct term. But they made examples and metaphors out of things that weren't. For example, in one place the scripture says "power," the original used a Greek word dynmos (sp?) that translates into "dynamo" in English which they expounded as meaning power generation, transmission over wires, and the practical application of electricity to some device, such as a light bulb. Not necessarily an incorrect statement. But not what the word/passage was saying. So it is, at best, possibly true, not definitely true.

I realize that this one item does not establish some error. But the propensity to this kind of thing with respect to what is not actually there is an invitation for error. Yet they sold it as God's unique word for his unique ministry (paraphrased).

Ah I see. Yeah I’ve noticed that a lot. It’s sometimes difficult to notice because some of it sounds good you know?

[Nell]

Originally Posted by UtahGiant

Ah I see. Yeah I’ve noticed that a lot. It’s sometimes difficult to notice because some of it sounds good you know?

While not an allegory, Lee had a “habit” of taking a descriptive passage, e.g., a description of the 7 churches in Revelation, and turning it into a prescription/doctrine/teaching for how the church is supposed to be “structured”, i.e., “one church/one city.”

The story about Noah and his sons (description) became the “prescription” for delegated authority.

Nell

[OBW]

Originally Posted by UtahGiant

Ah I see. Yeah I’ve noticed that a lot. It’s sometimes difficult to notice because some of it sounds good you know?

Yes, even when listening to him live with all his quirks, it often did sound good. It just seemed so right. At least to the uncritical mind. And most of us listened to the "turn off your mind and get your spirit in gear" manta and were therefore uncritical.