LSM's Etymological Errors - Nigel Tomes

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Friedel

8. Somewhere in history (probably in the late-70s), Dr. Philip Comfort joined Witness Lee’s Recovery but in Titus Chu’s jurisdiction. Phil Comfort is still highly regarded in linguistic circles today and he was the chairman of the committee that produced the New Living Translation. He was also one of the two chief editors of the recently published Tyndale Bible Dictionary. While in Witness Lee’s Recovery he produced a kind of concordance on exactly what Nigel Tomes is complaining about now, namely a compilation of word studies from the ministry of Witness Lee. LSM published it and I used to own one but in my cleaning out my shelves of Witness Lee’s books, Philip Comfort’s also got the boot. In the late 1980s I overheard two brothers from the environs of Titus Chu discussing Philip Comfort. One said to the other that he had left Witness Lee’s Recovery because Witness Lee refused to pull him in to be a “helper” with the languages, notwithstanding his obvious expertise and knowledge in Greek. This is second hand, so please do not quote me. Afterwards I started searching for anything written by Philip Comfort and I found a few. However, I could not find any mention or reference by him about Witness Lee or the Recovery Version. Dr. Philip Comfort is today an editor at Tyndale Publishers and he has taught at Wheaton College, Trinity Episcopal Seminary, Columbia International University, and Coastal Carolina University. Quite a catch, one would think, but Witness Lee did not “trust” him enough. Remember, Witness Lee “stood on the shoulders” (as he so famously said on so many occasions) of John Nelson Darby, C H Macintosh, Thomas Newberry, William Kelly, Robert Govett, Vincent, D M Panton, Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, Vine, Henry Alford, Gerhard Kittel, Watchman Nee, Benjamin Wills Newton and others; Philip Comfort’s shoulders were not considered “the right stuff”.

Phil Comfort was a much loved brother who was a gifted teacher. Both W. Lee and T. Chu fought over the "rights" to his talents. In Columbus, Comfort had all the saints reading Lee's books, culling out suitable word definitions for his use in the book mentioned by Friedel above. This was ironical since Phil, from the earliest days, was never a Lee-tape-recorder, and used a diversity of research materials. For example, one time he told me that "for Galatians, Luther was the best ..." He went on to cite a number of authors for each of the NT books.

I believe Phil Comfort saw Bill Freeman as a mentor in the Recovery. One time after a local meeting during the winter of '77-'78, I was with Phil and Bill chatting in the dining room, and Phil casually asked Bill if there was still the "need" to study Greek, since so much had already been written to date. Bill was abrupt and precise, "God wrote in Greek!" At this point in time, Phil had just begun teaching in Columbus public schools, and was only 27, not yet realizing how his life would turn out. Bill sowed (or watered) a seed in Phil that eventually bore much fruit.

Initially Comfort had much liberty to promote outside authors, but as Lee began to reign in the workers during the 70's, Phil had suspicious eyes watching him. Shortly after this, Titus Chu "demanded" that Phil quit his teaching job to serve "full-time." Later still, Titus Chu "demanded" that Phil relocate to Cleveland for further "training." In LC parlance this really means to "beat one into total submission," and this is what TC attempted to do to Phil. Instead Phil returned to Columbus with the LC version of PTSD.

Fortunately, his family support system helped to transition him back to "real life" by enabling him to obtain a Masters in English at OSU. It was during this time in Columbus, that Phil's initial love for the scripture in its original language returned to him, and he obtained his PhD at Wheaton. The rest is history, as Friedel mentioned in his post.