Go forth into the wilderness

[aron]

In some sense I have been "wrecked" by my time in the Lord's Recovery movement in that I have not gotten similarly immersed in any other group since my departure. For a few years I think it was the "ground" that held a firm grip on my brain; I was posessed by the notion that there was a superior way with superior teachings and practices, and even though I was not "in it" and "sold out" as before I still held it as the standard and thus couldn't similarly give myself to any fellowship. So I met with groups sort of as a prolonged visitor, even formally joining one church because that was their m.o. for fellowship.

But in the last few years I have read about the Lord's Recovery from a critical perspective on this and other forums, and have begun to read other sources of biblical interpretation as having merit in their own rights (at least worth considering, if not agreeing uncritically). And eventually I moved away from my post-Lord's Recovery "home church", and once again became an occasional visitor. On friendly terms with everybody (I hope), yet fully committed to no organization. I cut mental/emotional ties with the Lord's Recovery, and don't see a pressing burden to pick up formal association with any other group.

Today I was reading a commentary on Galatians chapter 4, where the author says that Paul uses a rare composite verb "sent forth" in only this one place. God "sent forth" His Son, born of a woman, born under law. The greek root translated "sent forth" is the same as the word "apostle" in English. The author says that this composite greek verb is only used in one place in the OT LXX: in Leviticus 16:21,22, where Aaron "sends forth" the scapegoat into the wilderness.

So I thought maybe God laid hands on (anointed) the Christ, and sent Him forth into the wilderness of a fallen humanity (Galatians 4) similarly how Aaron sent forth the scapegoat in Leviticus 16. I never saw the word "apostle" in this light, as a reject, the "scum and offscouring of the world", as Paul put it (1 Cor 4:13). I always saw an apostle as sort of like what we would call a bishop; not only firmly entrenched in an organization but even rather high in it. Like a deputy authority, as some have termed it.

Today I feel like a "sent forth" one, but with no authority over anyone, just the command from my Lord to exercise self-control in all things, and to carefully make my way through a post-church wilderness. And in this wilderness I occasionally find myself in some interesting 'gatherings of the called-out ones'. So even in the wilderness the ekklesia lives on. Cf Acts 7:38