Nee's 'Ministry to the House or to the Lord'

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Indiana

I started this thread with the upcoming conference in mind on the “ground of the church”, which is a term first used by Watchman Nee.

Many of us used to think that here Nee had uncovered the "Holy Grail," the missing link, the long lost truth, the underlying reason why the body of Christ had become a "dismal failure, hopelessly divided, totally unable to fulfill God's eternal purpose," or other equally serious sounding spiritual terminology. But here Steve Isitt points to the obvious -- the "ground of the church," the foundational basis for all Recovery exclusivism and vision, was a term first used by Watchman Nee.

With such all-encompassing Biblical importance, this phrase just begs the question -- why did the Bible never use this term? Why in the world is it absent from scripture? How could the "ground of the church" be so important that the New Testament completely missed out on it? No wonder the rest of the body of Christ is so "hopelessly degraded," as WN and WL ingrained into us. How could they possibly be expected to "see" something that was not even there?

The Bible tells us plainly that Christ is the foundation of the church (I Cor 3.11) and no one can lay another. The song reinforces this, "The church's one foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord." Watchman Nee, however, felt that this was inadequate and decided to add something to the Biblical record. He surmised that this foundation needed a "proper site," aka the "ground of the church." For over 1900 years the church had never had this "site," and it sorely needed to be "recovered." This was to become the long lost secret ingredient needed to accomplish God's plan, His economy.

70 years after Nee's original invention, we now have the benefit of hindsight to ascertain the fruit of this new teaching. Instead of bringing oneness, the Recovery is hopelessly divided, quarantining whole regions and countries full of loyal members. Instead of bringing blessing, their numbers are dwindling, marginally replenished by subsequent generations. Instead of impacting the entire body of Christ with high peak truths, the Recovery is known for little more than being the most litigious group of Christians in history.