Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
So how do you read a parable in which the words "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough"? You could argue that something bad is put into something good. But since it is described as worked "throughout," and it is understood that leaven results in the permanent alteration of the nature of the thing it is put into (dough, grape juice, etc.) then you would need to have a theology that causes the Kingdom of God to be permanently changed by the introduction of something evil.
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Your understanding is that leaven results in a permanent alteration of the dough?
Why, then, does Paul write the Corinthians to "
Purge out the leaven"? See 1 Cor. 5:7.
If, based on your logic and not the Word, you think that the kingdom "dough" cannot co-exist with leaven, then your argument deflates after Paul's exhortation.
Plus, the good in the kingdom clearly co-exists elsewhere with unclean things, as with wheat and tares, and good and bad fish, just from the Matthew 13 parables alone.
However, I can understand the need for latitude for our varying interpretations of the leaven in Matthew 13:33 several ways.
Nonetheless, my original question remains. Something negative sifted its way into the fellowship of the believers. Satan is not the called the subtle one for nothing. I suspect the introduction of leaven into the fellowship was earlier, and worse, than most of us have heretofore realized. So attempts like Nee's to create a "normal" NT-based church-life just codify ad-hoc attempts by well-meaning but fallen men to organize God's move on the earth.
Nee's "recovery" was no different from Wesley's and Luther's organizational efforts, or the "catholic" and "orthodox" attempts preceeding them, except that perhaps it was worse in thinking it was better.
Based on the epistles such as Galatians, and 1 Corinthians, based on what I see in Acts which deviates from both Jesus' example and teaching, the negative tone of the epistles to the messengers of the Asian assemblies in Revelations 2 and 3 is not surprising.
The Hebrews had failed at their God-appointed mission, and by the end of the NT the Christian assemblies were faltering as well. Why should we try to emulate their organizational efforts? My argument is that the degradation of the church was perhaps far earlier, and more pernicious, than we realized.