Philip Comfort, former Local Church Elder Turned Scholar Passes Away

[UntoHim]

Below is an obituary announcing the passing of Philip Wesley Comfort.
Philip Comfort Obituary (1950 - 2022) - Legacy Remembers
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One element that's conspicuously absent in the Obit. is Phil Comfort's early involvement in the 'Local Church". Phil Comfort was a 'leading brother' in the Church in Columbus, OH in the early years.

I believe that Phil Comfort along with other brothers from the Cleveland OH area (e.g. Tom McNaughton, Bill Gilbert, Chris Yap, etc.) moved to Columbus as part of a "migration" organized by Bro. Titus Chu --when "migration" was an important component of the "Lord's Recovery"/Local Church movement in the 1970s & early 1980s. In that era the view propagated was that every church & denomination was part of Babylon. Only the Local Church, meeting on the "ground of Oneness, "one church, one city" was a genuine/biblical local church (like in Acts). Hence the mandate of the Local Church was to "capture every city" by establishing the "Church in [city X]" and recruiting believers to join the "local church."

I don't know how much Phil Comfort "bought into that ideology." Phil had a great interest in Scripture and desired to learn & use NT Greek to delve deeper into God's Word. He was especially interested in the Gospel of John. I believe that caused tension between Phil Comfort and the regional apostle--Titus Chu which spilled over to some of the leading brothers in the Ohio churches. The attitude of some was "why are we supporting you (financially?) and giving you a platform to minister when you spend your time equipping yourself as a Bible teacher/writer, etc.

By the early/mid 1980s Phil Comfort was clear "which way the wind was blowing" and left Columbus & the Ohio local churches and pursued his labor in Biblical Greek & NT writings & became widely respected Bible scholar & writer (among evangelicals). Looking back the Local Church movement lost a valuable brother who simply did not "conform to the Local Church mold."

Nigel Tomes
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