The Wisdom of Witness Lee

@sonship said
Witness Lee speaks of the Christian education he owes to teachers in the denominations and Christianity.

[quote] I was born in Christianity and raised up there. I even received my education in Christianity. In my seeking of the Lord, I passed through organized Christianity, fundamental Christianity, Brethren Christianity, and even Pentecostal Christianity. I also entered i ...[text shortened]... archMinBooksDsp.cfm?id=082AEBDEED

The History of the Church and the Local Churches W. Lee

Nice. Though once again, doesn't negate:


'The Lord is not building His church in Christendom, which is composed of the apostate Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations. This...is being fulfilled through the Lord's recovery, in which the building of the genuine church is being accomplished...Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, as well as Judaism, all [have] become an organization of Satan.'

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Nice. Though once again, doesn't negate:


'The Lord is not building His church in Christendom, which is composed of the apostate Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations. This...is being fulfilled through the Lord's recovery, in which the building of the genuine church is being accomplished...Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, as well as Judaism, all [have] become an organization of Satan.'

Say it again. He cannot read and he is pretty retarded.

All other religions are organisations of Satan except the Local Churches based on his doctrine

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

'The Lord is not building His church in Christendom, which is composed of the apostate Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations.

He also wrote:

The interpretation of the Bible has been built up by the entire Body of Christ through the past nineteen centuries.

Christ is building His Body in the past nineteen centuries. So your lopsided biased attack falsely presents Lee as not seeing the existence of Christians of and in Christ's mystical Body in nineteen centuries.

He does. He said he stands upon the shoulders of many teachers among them.

So something not of God can be being built up but captive in the mixture are noteworthy Christians to which he owes a lot.

They like he are all of "the Body of Christ". And she has been in existence for 19 centuries, ie, from the beginning of the church age.

@sonship said
@Ghost-of-a-Duke

'The Lord is not building His church in Christendom, which is composed of the apostate Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations.

He also wrote:

The interpretation of the Bible has been built up by the entire Body of Christ through the past nineteen centuries.

Christ is building His Body in the past nine ...[text shortened]... ". And she has been in existence for 19 centuries, ie, from the beginning of the church age.

'...become an organization of Satan.'


Why do you shy away from this part or try to mitigate it with weak comparisons?

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

The proper balance of things spoken by Lee is what I am interested in.
That is strong words in context and balanced by reasonable and realistic words so as to portray a "holistic" understanding of these matters.

Whereas you are as I described back a few posts -

That is a false accusation probably based on an eagerness to misunderstand.

Most evangelical Christians in the denominations revere Billy Graham the American Evangelist. If ever there was a representative of Christianity it was Billy Graham.

How would Witness Lee think of Billy Graham?
1.) Witness Lee defended Billy Graham here.

Some orthodox Christians in America are unreasonable in opposing Billy Graham. ...
Some believers are opposed to Billy Graham and his crusades because even people from heretical groups attend the crusades. Billy Graham, however, cares only that people hear the gospel. He does not care who hears the gospel. He would preach the gospel even if the devil attended a crusade.

The Perfecting of the Saints and the Building Up of the House of God. W. Lee
https://www.ministrybooks.org/SearchMinBooksDsp.cfm?id=108FFCE4C226

2.) Lee defends him as having a large heart.

This shows that Billy Graham has an enlarged heart. He stands with God and preaches the word to whoever attends. He does not try to please people. He has living faith and receives his burden from God.

The Perfecting of the Saints and the Building Up of the House of God. W. Lee
https://www.ministrybooks.org/SearchMinBooksDsp.cfm?id=108FFCE4C226

3.)Witness Lee admired that Billy Graham encouraged small group meetings.

You may ask, “Without the big meetings how could we have the increase?” In the sixties when I came to this country, the evangelist Dr. Billy Graham was promoting small group meetings. Because Billy Graham found out that many brought to the gospel were scattered in the denominations and eventually became cold, he encouraged people to form small groups to have Bible study and to pray together. What he promoted was the same in principle as what we are talking about.

The Home Meetings—The Unique Way for the Increase and the Building Up of the Church

by Witness Lee
https://www.ministrybooks.org/SearchMinBooksDsp.cfm?id=1986F8ECCC

4.) With many other Christians Witness Lee included Billy Graham as exemplary of being efffective but not in the Pentacostal movement. He mentions him along with his mentor Watchman Nee.

Many Christians are narrow-minded and shortsighted. Once they get something, they would stay with that one thing and make it the unique thing. This is wrong. We have to believe in history. Christianity has been on this earth for nearly two thousand years. Millions have been saved, and thousands became giants serving the Lord, including John Wycliffe; the reformers, among whom were Martin Luther, Madame Guyon, Father Fenelon, Brother Lawrence, Zinzendorf, John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, and Jonathan Edwards; and the Brethren teachers, among whom were J. N. Darby, William Kelly, and C. H. Mackintosh. The Brethren were especially powerful. They saturated nearly the entire earth with the truths that they had seen from the Word. Then there were Charles Spurgeon, G. Campbell Morgan, S. D. Gordon, A. J. Gordon, Andrew Murray, Charles Finney, D. L. Moody, A. B. Simpson, Watchman Nee, and today there is Billy Graham. All these brothers did not take the way of the so-called Pentecostal movement. Can we exclude them? Of course not. We must broaden our view to see the whole matter.

Elders' Training, Book 05: Fellowship Concerning the Lord's Up-to-Date Move, Chapter 1, Section 3) W. Lee

https://www.ministrybooks.org/SearchMinBooksDsp.cfm?id=1989FBEEC7

So I am interested in perspective and balance rather than some sensational false impressions.

@sonship

Do you concede it clumsy language by Lee calling them the organizations of Satan, when the Bible condemns such people to hell?

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

Do you concede it clumsy language by Lee calling them the organizations of Satan, when the Bible condemns such people to hell?

I might not use the word clumsy. If I isolated certain things said by Yahweh about His own nation Israel in the prophets, I might think they were equally as "clumsy".

But I go for the whole picture.

In the letters of Christ to the churches some "clumsy" sayings might compare also.

One church left their first love.
One church exists where Satan's throne is.
One church has some in danger of being hurt by the second death.
One church has some involved in the deep things of Satan.
One church is dead though she has a reputation.
One church has Christ OUTSIDE knocking to get on the inside!

Taken alone a number of statements by Jesus Christ to His own church could seem "clumsy" in the manner of which you speak.

I acknowledge that such words could be exploited or just misunderstood.

If you spend some time on the Contending For the Faith Website you'll see as I did to my surprise people like Jim Ankerburg who leveled criticism like this DOES THE SAME THINGS. Statements from his website could just as well be put forth as destructive to Christians.

https://contendingforthefaith.org/en/responses/

Anyone who looks out upon Christianity and assumes that this is all what Christ wanted should not consider themselves ready to read the book of Revelation.

If this is your assumption that what Christiandom has become is the perfect will of God, better save Revelation for a latter time. You're not ready for this book IMO.

And that goes for some eager people like me sometimes who would like to teach from Revelation to people who are just not ready for that book yet. (I've made mistakes right here on this Forum)

Spend more time in the Gospel of Luke for now perhaps.

Thread highlights so far:

1. Witness Lee viewed Protestants and Catholics as organizations of Satan.
2. Sonship will not separate himself from the above, but digs in.
3. Witness Lee uses a bizarre numerological approach to understanding scripture that wouldn't be out of place in a Dan Brown novel.

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

1. Witness Lee viewed Protestants and Catholics as organizations of Satan.

That's not what we read, he viewed the ISMs as of Satan.

And YOU never gave a better interpretation of the parable of Christ that the kingdom of the heavens is as a meal lump which was totally made leaven by a little leaven mixed into it.

YOU NEVER gave a better explanation of what was in the mind of Christ to say the ENTIRE lump of meal was leavened.

2. Sonship will not separate himself from the above, but digs in.

I presented others things said by the same person.

If YOU ever filled in the ellipses and quoted the ENTIRE paragraphs from which your most offending sentences were lifted, I haven't see in yet.

3. Witness Lee uses a bizarre numerological approach to understanding scripture that wouldn't be out of place in a Dan Brown novel.

Noticing the important of, let us say, the number SEVEN appearing many times in Revelation, and musing on its significance is not numerology. Notice the frequency of the number TWELVE and musing on the significance of its repetition is not numerology.

At least it is not any kind of occultic fortune telling.
And I have read no Dan Brown religious fiction.

I barely have time to explore the riches of the Bible, not only in its symbolism and allegorical employment but its straightforward teaching.

Now since Ghost of a Duke wants to "dig in" and spin the words of Witness Lee to be some kind of hate speech, some more OTHER things he said about Christians not meeting in local churches is in order.

My bolding

Once I know that he is truly a brother in the Lord, I would never question him further to find out whether he is a Baptist, a Presbyterian, or a Methodist. To ask such a question is to be divisive. We are not divisive. We love all Christian brothers no matter whether they are Presbyterian, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, or Episcopalian. I am not a Methodist. If I were a Methodist, I would ask a brother whether or not he is a Methodist. If he were a Methodist, then I would love him. But we are neither Methodists nor members of any other denomination. Rather, we are simply Christians. Instead of being divisive, we love all our brothers, including those in the Catholic Church who are truly saved.

The Kernel of the Bible W. Lee
https://www.ministrybooks.org/SearchMinBooksDsp.cfm?id=22C25FDE07

The third biggest group is the Methodists, with approximately thirteen million members. Especially in their earlier days, the Methodist denomination used the Bible very much. Based upon the foundation that John Wesley laid, the Methodist denomination used to use the Bible to the uttermost. Among all the churches of the Pentecostal movement, the one with the greatest number of members is the Assembly of God. The reason for this is that they used the Bible to establish their assemblies. These statistics show us that the best way for the Lord's children to take is to use the Word.

Here Lee is learning something from the denominations to emulate them in what is good.
Elders' Training, Book 06: The Crucial Points of Truth in Paul's Epistles W. Lee
https://www.ministrybooks.org/SearchMinBooksDsp.cfm?id=22CD52D205

All the different denominations came into existence on their different grounds. Their different names—Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Pentecostals, and others—are the grounds on which they build their church. On what ground are you being built? Do not say on Christ. Every Christian says that. Whatever denomination or group you go to, they will say that their foundation is Christ. But what about the ground where the foundation is laid?

What is our ground? The ground from the very beginning of the Christian era, from the time of the apostles, is the unique oneness of the Body of Christ, kept and expressed in each local church at its locality (Rev. 1:11). This means that we Christians, in whatever locality we are, come together to be the church there.

The Basic Revelation in the Holy Scriptures W. Lee
https://www.ministrybooks.org/SearchMinBooksDsp.cfm?id=2FCF55DE0E

@sonship

It really is a shame you are unwilling to grapple honestly with the following:

'The Lord is not building His church in Christendom, which is composed of the apostate Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations. This...is being fulfilled through the Lord's recovery, in which the building of the genuine church is being accomplished...Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, as well as Judaism, all [have] become an organization of Satan.'

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

I told you to fill in the ( ... ), ellipses of those quotations.

Have you do so yet?

I asked you for an alternative interpretation for the parable of the leavened lump.

Have you done that yet?

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

If Lee thought nothing good could come from Christiandom why did he speak highly of these Christians? Notice "millions" and "thousands" mentioned.

Millions have been saved, and thousands became giants serving the Lord, including John Wycliffe; the reformers, among whom were Martin Luther, Madame Guyon, Father Fenelon, Brother Lawrence, Zinzendorf, John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, and Jonathan Edwards; and the Brethren teachers, among whom were J. N. Darby, William Kelly, and C. H. Mackintosh. The Brethren were especially powerful. They saturated nearly the entire earth with the truths that they had seen from the Word. Then there were Charles Spurgeon, G. Campbell Morgan, S. D. Gordon, A. J. Gordon, Andrew Murray, Charles Finney, D. L. Moody, A. B. Simpson, Watchman Nee, and today there is Billy Graham.

Daniel was captive in Babylon. God was about building His kingdom in Israel not in Babylon. Yet hardly anyone in the Old Testament was as spiritually clear on the future as Daniel.

So though God has people in something which Satan has the greater influence in (like Babylon of old) it does not mean absolutely nothing for God can be accomplished there.

sonship, do you see the fire in the Catholic Notre Dame cathedral as being the destruction of a Satanic symbol?