The Gospel Versus "God's Economy"

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Since exiting the LC's, I have often been surrounded by Messianic Jews. They long to introduce O.T. customs into the church, convinced of a great deficiency in the church. Having spent my Christian life in extremely "pro-Israel, anti-Jewish" Protestant customs, I find this somewhat alarming.

Perhaps I turned the conversation wrong by mentioning it at all; my point was larger than simply that the fact that I never heard of the "Jewishness" of the characters of the NT; especially the King of the Jews, while with either the Baptists or the LC. A bigger point is that every one of us has a part to see of this Jesus. My sight may include some aspect like what I covered; someone else has another part. ZNP is covering the blessings in the Torah; ViW has a blog on the psalms... only then can we see the "real Jesus" begin emerge. If we restrict it to "one vision per age", with only one witness per age and everyone else supposed to "get in line", then our Christ will be so much the poorer. That is what I felt Trapped was alluding to: a generation of "church kids" who never found their own voice or vision, who were force-fed Witness Lee's So-Subjective Christ. Yes, but it was his Christ, not theirs.

Originally Posted by Ohio

Should we celebrate the Sabbath, should we live according to the Torah, and is the Feast of Tabernacles for the church? It seems that both Messianic and the Pentecostal Christians have opened the door wide to OT practices.

I daresay that I never meant to suggest anything like this in my writings. The Acts 15 conference settled this kind of issue forever. The Jews cannot force the gentiles to keep the law. It is written.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

I daresay that I never meant to suggest anything like this in my writings. The Acts 15 conference settled this kind of issue forever. The Jews cannot force the gentiles to keep the law. It is written.

I didn't post to challenge you, but to voice a troubling issue for some, post LC, which I have faced relevant to the thread topic.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

I didn't post to challenge you, but to voice a troubling issue for some, post LC, which I have faced relevant to the thread topic.

It speaks to the theme of how quickly another Jesus can show up. Acts 15 seems so decisive to most of us, yet for a few it's easily side-stepped. That goes for a lot of things. But there is strength in numbers; in the "many waters" spoken of by the prophet. Strength, and safety.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

It speaks to the theme of how quickly another Jesus can show up. Acts 15 seems so decisive to most of us, yet for a few it's easily side-stepped. That goes for a lot of things. But there is strength in numbers; in the "many waters" spoken of by the prophet. Strength, and safety.

Interesting . . . I spent my time in the LC's convinced that there was "error in numbers," and being part of Gideon's Army assured us of safety.

[awareness]

I think I'm gonna cut Lee a little slack here, at least as far as 'another Jesus" goes.

What I see in the New Testament is, the church between Jesus and Paul being Jewish, and then with Paul gentile. And their Jesus's weren't the same.

Early church history reveals there were lots of different kinds of Christians, as the movement developed. I read of one early group that only had one book about Jesus, and it was a Gnostic book, I think the gospel of the Hebrews, or some such. But they had Jesus. Isn't the Jesus of the gospel sort of like that? Wasn't He kinda-sorta inclusive?

All I can say is the Jesus I've grown up with, I think I can safely say, isn't the Jesus James the brother of Jesus conceptualized. Likely James cited daily Saddur, which I guess was a kind of Jewish Life-Study. Tho I doubt a Lee Life Study could hardly compare. Was the Jesus of James the original touchstone and standard by which any different Jesus would be measured by?

At any rate, Jame's conception of Jesus certainly wasn't the one I grew up with, nor the one I had in the local church.

The trouble with Lee's Jesus was that he was trying to make it mine. And we shouldn't take someone else's Jesus. Yours isn't mine. Mine isn't yours.

I think this has been framed as something like, 'One Jesus, many Christ's.'

[aron]

Originally Posted by awareness

What I see in the New Testament is, the church between Jesus and Paul being Jewish, and then with Paul gentile. And their Jesus's weren't the same.

Let me make an analogy here. Suppose I want to learn about Fred Smith, what he was like. Suppose I say, "Well, I surely want to interview his neighbour. They lived next door for years. But I won't ask his child, because the boy was young, and he's obviously biased." Does that make any sense?

Surely the neighbour and the boy have unique views, but of the same man.

Paul was clearly necessary; without Paul, you and I would not be writing about James, here. Christianity would have died when Jerusalem was destroyed.

And to simplify the Jerusalem/Jewish wing of the church as "James" oversimplifies to an extreme. As I said, Peter and John were law-keeping Jews. And I see no evidence that John ever stopped. And Paul said in Acts 22 that he was baptized by a law-keeping Jew.

If we want to simplify, let's say that, "Love fulfills the law"; beyond that, I think all voices should be heard. It's the sound of many waters. God did it, to His glory and honour. The spiritual crime of Lee is that he only wanted to hear his own voice. And he convinced us this was necessary. "To avoid confusion."

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

The spiritual crime of Lee is that he only wanted to hear his own voice. And he convinced us this was necessary. "To avoid confusion."

I love this.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by aron

If we want to simplify, let's say that, "Love fulfills the law"; beyond that, I think all voices should be heard. It's the sound of many waters. God did it, to His glory and honour. The spiritual crime of Lee is that he only wanted to hear his own voice. And he convinced us this was necessary. "To avoid confusion."

Well it's okay if he preaches another Jesus. As I pointed out, there's many Jesus's. Just don't push it on me. ; then Lee would be violating my sovereign relationship with Christ.

But ... unless I missed something ... we still haven't figured if Lee taught another gospel. Cuz even early on, in the history of Christianity, there's been other gospels ; early on, besides salvation by grace, there were, for example, salvation by following the law, and salvation by gnosis. There were actually early Christian groups that held to a different gospel other than grace. Didn't Paul have problems with some of them? That's how early other gospels sprang up.

Lee certainly didn't teach the latter two, law and gnosis. So if Lee taught another gospel, what was it? And what was the original genuine gospel, to measure it by?

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Interesting . . . I spent my time in the LC's convinced that there was "error in numbers,"

If so, then why did Nee need 3,000 'spiritual classics' to understand the Bible? Why was numbers a strength and safety for Nee, but with you or I it would only engender confusion? Face it people, we wuz robbed - our spiritual rights were taken from us by a con artist.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

If so, then why did Nee need 3,000 'spiritual classics' to understand the Bible? Why was numbers a strength and safety for Nee, but with you or I it would only engender confusion? Face it people, we wuz robbed - our spiritual rights were taken from us by a con artist.

Fortunately for us in the Midwest, we did not subscribe to "only Lee." Maybe we did not have 3,000 classics, but we had at least two, Chu and Lee. Having two, opened the door for three, and four . . .

As I have mentioned before, the Midwest had "another Lee," and that prolly saved us from having "another Jesus." The Midwest subscribed to an "early-Lee," which corresponded to earlier books put out by LSM. After Lee passed, TC had all the FTers compile pertinent Lee quotes on the ministry, the work, etc. because they so greatly differed from Later-Lee and the Blendeds.

It was a total waste of time. The Blendeds rejected reason. Their own books. Scripture too. The time had come to amputate the Midwest.

Anyone who has seen the famed "Phoenix Accord" from 2002, could see disaster on the horizon. The signatories were all the key players in Cleveland and Anaheim. Supposedly it was an Acts 15 summit. Of sorts. Actually it read more like a punishment assignment for naughty school children to write. In effect, "We agree to play nice with each other. We will nicely discuss our differences. We will not bad-mouth one another. We will not call each other names." Quite embarrassing on face value. Like the Acts 15 accord, it accomplished little.