Bipartite or Tripartite Nature of Man?

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Freedom

I might be opening a can of worms here, but I wanted to have a discussion on this subject. The POV that I'm coming from is that as I became disillusioned with the LC, I realized that much of what they call exercising the spirit was just show. This led me to question just what importance the teaching of the human spirit/three parts of man actually had. When the actual practice of the teaching was bizarre things like yelling and shouting, it just made me start to wonder what purpose it all really served in the first place.

Great questions.

First of all, exercising our spirit has much to do with exercising our conscience to obey the Lord and righteousness, and exercising our faith in the face of the endless difficulties in life. The LC methods of exercising the spirit by raising the volume is no different than the Pharisee who stood on the street corner "praying" for show. Someone needs to direct these fine folks to an available "closet," like in the recent video WarRoom.

I found, after years of "practice," that connecting our spirit to our mouth is both good and bad. I have always loved the verse in Psalm 81, "open your mouth wide and I will fill it," which helped me many times in my walk. Personally I believe public calling on the Lord was helpful decades ago in the Recovery, but like every other practice, it got institutionalized into a morbid decaying ordinance. That was all too evident during the Whistler quarantine of TC after 3 hours of so-called testimony, "let's all rise and call on the Lord 5 times."

Paul told Timothy to "pursue ... with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart." (2 T 2.22) Even in Paul's day this practice had become a show. I am convinced that anything in our Christian life can become just a show. Once calling on Jesus got degraded in LC-land, prayer followed, as did testimonies and prophecies. Raise the volume and get me a few Amens! And, btw, the LC's are not the only Christians in danger of this.

As far as believing the 3 parts of man being the truth, cast in stone, I am not so sure it matters. What is crucial is that we realize there is a war within us. We have a self that needs to be denied, because it is just contrary to God and His ways, but there are numerous LC extremes here that are more damaging than helpful.