Apostles

[OBW]

Unto: I am not going to try to give a definition. But I believe that there is something in the realization that the church is mostly a collection of those who follow, have been baptized, and who obey rather than who have studied like they are in seminary. It does give a different light to the meaning of the things we are currently discussing.

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

I do know that the NT says "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" so although the elders are watching over the flock, ultimately the responsibility for your walk as a Christian is up to you. So if you receive the teaching of someone that leads you astray, no doubt they will be judged, but you also will be held accountable.

At some level. And to the extent that you find that you have been duped into following something that is not even really scripture, then I would say you are correct. But I do not expect that everyone will necessarily be up on all the criteria for excommunication. So while I agree that tossing TC was not a reasonable exercise of those criteria, the members in many cities who hardly even know it happened have no basis for saying it was or was not correct. In other words, they are not culpable, and they have no basis to complain to their leadership concerning what happened.

As for what it will mean at the judgment is not a certainty. Even for those who have somewhat better knowledge, but were susceptible to follow the misapplication of scripture of the BBs, I'm not clear whether that is almost like being one of the BBs and will be punished.

In any case, the LRC position seems to be that only those who qualify as near-leadership in their personal application of the LRC brand of righteousness (sometimes something that looks more like unrighteousness) will get to miss the millennial summer school.

If that is the case, then the way that Jesus taught to the masses would seem to be deficient because he didn't tell them a whole lot of this kind of stuff. Instead, it was reserved for the somewhat smaller group that followed everywhere, and even some for only the 12.

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

RG's teaching that even if you are wrong, if you are following "the Apostle" you are right, in my mind is a bogus teaching.

I would agree. And this is different from diligently learning from someone and following the best that you can in general. That teaching of RG was meant to cause people who could see through the unrighteousness to ignore it and continue following it anyway. I am not saying "don't exercise any judgment." I'm saying that to the extent that you don't have cause to make the judgment, accepting the judgment of someone whom you have come to trust is not a deficient thing.

And returning to the 12:

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

This word in Matthew "28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen." Was spoken to all Christians.

Actually, only to the 11.

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

And I was not saying that we should not have an answer. But the context of Peter's statement was to the question raised by someone who observed the difference in your life — whether relative to your old life, or to the normal lives of the rest of society around you. Surely we have the wherewithal to say something about the Life that changed our life. But that does not mean that we individually should have the knowledge to get into a full-fledged debate of apologetics about our belief system. I think if you look at what I said before, you will see that I said Peter's statement was not about apologetics, or even about going out an preaching the gospel, but about simply acknowledging the source of the change in our lives.

I agree that none of this changes whether or not there are or are not apostles. Or whether or not someone needs to be able to spot the genuine article and differentiate it from the false. But I do have some level of thought that maybe it is not everyone's responsibility — a responsibility for a church of 1 to get right or fall so hard.

In other words, while I can make a significant case for differentiation between the kind of "believe what we tell you to or else" position of the LRC leadership and the common acceptance of "the way I learned it," the overall pattern of teachers imparting what they have learned to the whole of a flock who will then, for the most part, take it to heart and change their lives and live by it is pretty much what we see in the NT.

But because of the peculiar nature of the things that Lee taught us, we now have the impression that all of the NT was written to every Christian and that we are to be just as knowledgeable on all the doctrines and teachings that Paul was. In other words, be Paul without the status of Apostle. I don't see it. Especially if I read the gospels then assume that whatever Paul is writing is supposed to marry up with them. When I do try to harmonize them, I begin to see a legitimate tiering — not in the way of a hierarchy, but in responsibility. There are those whose gift and service is to teach and lead the rest of us. Their failure is not necessarily ours. Notice that Jesus did not fault the Jews who had sort of given up as much as those who were the teachers and did a lousy job of it (being nice to them).

So whose job is it to detect apostles? And depending on your answer to that question, what do we think we are doing here debating the existence and/or qualifications for a present-day apostle? We might just be in over our heads (unless one or more of us is legitimately a teacher).

But it doesn't seem like we have actually arrived at any kind of conclusions. More like realized that we can't even agree on the bounds of the discussion.

This is not a barb to anyone. It is an observation of the whole discussion. It is disjointed because everyone is talking from their understanding of each term. We can't agree on what is an apostle in the first century. Or definitely how to determine who was in and who was out. (And that is just one more problem with so many of these kinds of what I will call esoteric discussions. It is more about who is in and who is out than something of spiritual benefit to us all. And then someone will say that we shouldn't even be talking about Lee then. But Paul gave too clear a criteria for rejecting teachers. And Lee failed. Don't need a degree in discerning teachers to see it. And don't need to worry about "apostles" to do it.)