Elvis has left the building

[aron]

I know that I am in a minority on this, even among ex-LCers, but it seems to me that the "New Testament basis" for our collective assembling and testimony might have included practices which are not really helpful.

I remember how Ezekiel chapter 10 describes God's glory departing from the temple. They still had the building and the practices, but God was no longer interested in participating.

Likewise, to me, the epistles to the messengers of the seven asian assemblies in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 indicate to me that the "NT basis" for our collective testimony isn't mayhaps what we think it was. You know, remember those books like "how to meet" and "the practice of the elders and co-workers", etc.

Maybe they were building with a failed model. Maybe Nee's "Normal christian church life" wasn't really what God wanted.

Maybe those seven asian assemblies were kind of like a representative sample for the whole body to consider. Certainly there is a universal character to the writing.

1:1The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

So here is John, who as a young man had seen John the Baptist contend in the desert with the "brood of vipers" coming out of Jerusalem, then Jesus likewise struggling with the religious ones, then at the end of his life, from Patmos, John sees the same pattern repeating itself. Form without substance. The Glory of God is leaving.

So if we obsess over the form (the ground of the church, how many elders, who (if anyone) is the apostle, etc etc), without realizing we are building with a failed model.

On a positive note, we have Dorcas making shirts for the elderly sisters, we have John and James and Peter reminding Paul to "remember the poor", which Paul says he is eager to do, we have Philip going down the south road out of Jerusalem and finding an Ethiopian reading Isaiah, etc.

There are indeed a lot of good examples. But just because something happened in the NT doesn't mean we need to try to slavishly imitate it. The only things I can see to slavishly imitate is to love God, love our neighbor, try to follow the Spirit. Forgive one another as God has forgiven us.

The organizational stuff is a waste of time. It is no wonder to me that the "NT template" which Nee and Lee tried to build with has been accompanied by unrelieved turmoil.