afazio - Spiritual Authority

[Trapped]

Trapped said: "1. The title of the document is "Publication Work IN THE LORD'S RECOVERY". If it is simply supposed to be stating what LSM will publish, it should be titled "LSM's Publication Work". Easy."

Originally Posted by Drake

Trapped, this is an argument of semantics. We know who authored the document. They don't need to add their name in the title. I see no infraction in the title... and if there were it doesn't even rise to the level of the crime of spitting on the sidewalk.

You are right! It is an argument of semantics! "Semantics" is a branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. And proper communication is all about the meaning of words. So this is indeed an argument concerning meaning. Thanks for defining what kind of argument it is.

What is the meaning of the phrase "in the Lord's recovery"? What does that mean? I will leave a blank space for you to answer that: ______________________________________________

Why not use the phrase "in the Living Stream Ministry", which is the thing that is actually doing the publication work? This choice of phrase is not insignificant because the reach of the two "entities" (for lack of a better word, although calling TLR "an entity" isn't right, I just don't know what else to use) is vastly different, and is very much at the heart of the matter.

1. LSM: a publishing house located in Anaheim, CA.

Scope: the one building on one street in one city in which it resides (or however it is set up these days).

2. The Lord's recovery: a phrase bandied around "among us" to mean the local churches. I have been "in the Lord's recovery" for a long time and no amount of wordsmithing, protesting, deflection, denying, or arguing will change the fact that "the Lord's recovery" refers to the "proper" local churches around the globe. Period.

"The Lord's recovery " = "we in the church life" = "the local churches" = "the saints" = "those in the the central lane of the ministry" = "those who receive LSM's announcements for the semi-annual trainings" = "those who are on localchurches.org", etc, etc, etc. All referring to the same conglomeration of people.

Scope: worldwide to include hundreds of thousands of people.

By titling the letter "Publication Work in the Lord's recovery", it is communicated right out of the gate that the practices put forth in the document of "being restricted in one publication" are to be adopted by those hundreds of thousands of people in the Lord's recovery. If it is just LSM stating that it will only publish Nee or Lee, which is what you said it is, "in the Lord's recovery" has no business being there.

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Trapped said: "2. The One Pub is signed by "the blended co-workers in the Lord's recovery". If it is simply about what LSM will publish, why wasn't it signed by LSM, rather than by a group who purport to represent and direct the entire Lord's recovery?"

Originally Posted by Drake

Because there is very little distinction? Or if there is a distinction it is the one publishes and distributes the ministry and the other(s) references that ministry in their distinctive ministries. There are many parts of the ministry covering different aspects. LSM the publishing arm and the trainings, DCP, Bibles for America, Bibles for "country", Affirmation & Critique, Lord's Move in Europe, Life-study of the Bible broadcast, etc. and the serving ones sometimes but not always overlap in some of those aspects.

I believe the group of blended co-workers are composed of LSM and non-LSM brothers. Some in the group are representatives of LSM (i.e. are on LSM payroll, have an @lsm.org email address, are authorized to speak as representatives of LSM), while the others in the group are not, and have no legal affiliation with LSM. "LSM" and "the blended co-workers in the Lord's recovery" are two distinct sets of people, yes with some overlap, but they are not the same.

If this innocent document is just LSM stating that LSM will only publish Nee or Lee, why would a group of co-workers that include brothers who have no authorization to speak for LSM be the signatories? Because LSM's legal and spiritual authority stops at their own doors. But the co-workers/brothers/today's-apostles' authority, in practice, reaches into each of the local churches.....thus bringing the proclaimed restriction into the laps of each local church.

Originally Posted by Drake

You're trying to stovepipe the whole. Serving ones could be be involved in different aspects in some way several times a year. To use a secular analogy its more like a university and the different aspects are the colleges. The people who manage the university can be involved in different colleges but all are under the same policies and practices of the university. The co-workers, no matter their specialty all agree on the need for one publication and they use that as a common touchstone from which to execute their individual function.

That makes perfect sense. Why wouldn't it work that way?

In your analogy, as I understand it, the various LSM-related entities are akin to the various colleges in a university, and the blended co-workers are akin to university management but who are involved in different colleges (LSM-related entities).

In this analogy, the students and alumni are the saints in the local churches. If the university is for the producing and building up of educated graduates (i.e. if the ministry is for the churches), why is the university sending a letter out to it's alumni telling them they should be restricted to only read what that university puts out? If the university did a good job, the students should be amply equipped to discern for themselves what will further their academic/human (spiritual) growth.

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Trapped said: "3. How do you interpret the latter half of the very first sentence of One Pub: "...we have long realized that there should be one publication among us." What on earth is that saying? Please explain. Who is "we" and who is "us"? LSM hasn't been mentioned yet in the document by this point, and the signers are not "LSM", so who is we and us?"

Originally Posted by Drake

At minimum the "we" and "us" are the co-workers the signatories to the document. However, if you asked the brothers and sisters in the local churches if they hold the same sentiment I am pretty sure that the majority would agree. Yet, technically speaking the "we and "us" must refer to the co-workers who are carrying out the ministry and signed the document.

This is cute, but "at minimum" is not the whole answer. "Among us" means "among the saints in the local churches". The phrase "among us" is used 23 times in One Pub. In the 8th paragraph we finally get a taste of a definition of what "among us" means:

"But being restricted in the one publication does not mean, and has never meant, that individual churches are not free to produce and distribute materials for their local needs. We have always had publications like this among us, and there have generally been no problems related to these. Songbooks, local tracts, church meeting outlines, testimonies, etc., have long been produced among us without controversy. These are actually not part of the one publication among us in that they do not involve all the churches."

"Among us" means among all the local churches. "Among us" most certainly does not just mean the blended co-workers.

What does it mean that "...we have long realized there should be one publication among us [the local churches]"?

Thanks,

Trapped