afazio - Spiritual Authority

Thanks, Steve! This is a very valuable labor of love on your part. It IS helpful!

I did not previously know about Nee's change in emphasis in 1948. Wow! How could he have been SOOO deceived? It is so obvious in Scripture how Jerusalem "muddied the waters" in the churches by their overarching, almost "weird" as well as "traditional Jewish" take on everything. What is it that the Gentiles must "refrain from MEAT SACRIFICED TO IDOLS" and "from things strangled"? What is it that "some came from James" to the churches in Galatia to confuse things so much that Paul had to confront Peter to his face to NOT go along with those who "came from James" (the head elder of the Jerusalem church----and, of course, Jesus' brother), and that Paul, in his epistle to the Galatians, had to take such incredible pains to distance himself from those supposed "pillars" in the Jerusalem church ("whatsoever they were makes no difference to me; God is the respecter of no man's person"), and also take pains to delineate how little time he had spent with those brothers OR in the church in Jerusalem. And then, what about James' greeting to Paul, where the saints in Jerusalem eagerly boasted to Paul that: "
And when they heard it they began glorifying God; and they said to him, "You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Law" (Acts 21:20-21).

What's even more interesting is that this same error is being perpetuated today in Christendom as, I believe, the origin of "the great apostasy" of the end time. That apostasy is being proliferated by Bill Johnson, Che Ahn and other phoney baloney "apostles" to take over Christianity. It has proliferated worldwide and has infiltrated more of Christianity that is free of it. It originally hid (as leaven in the loaf---almost invisible though endemic) as the New Apostolic Reformation (N.A.R.) however, it has changed its name (in order to remain surreptitious and difficult to identify) to H.I.M. Harvest International Ministry (including Hillsong music, etc. and everything else related to Bethel Church).

This idea of the "apostles" RULING over churches is absurd! Even the true Apostle Paul---who either directly or indirectly raised up the churches he was ministering to---had no DIRECT authority over those churches. The local ELDERS had the authority! Paul's influence was only spiritual, and was subject to whether or not the elders would receive him and his ministry. They were under no obligation to do so (even though Paul spoke strongly to his "babies" in Corinth, even that was subject to the acceptance of the elders in the church there).

That is sort of like me, as a grandmother, exercising "authority" over my grandchildren. I DO, generally, exercise authority over my grandchildren. However, I can only do that under the auspices of my children. I have one son with whom my authority is pretty much unquestioned. I have another son where my authority over his children is much more limited