Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
With all respect OBW, sometimes I'm just not sure what exactly you are saying, and trying not to assume anything, it's easily to be "mistaken."
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The problem I see with your complaint to me is that you are not addressing what I am addressing, but something else.
I did not say that there is no ministry to God. Whether, as some others have suggested, that prayer is not always in that category, I cannot say.
What I did say was that the assignments in ministry in Ezekiel were based upon past sins of the particular clans, not upon choice. So if there is something to glean from Ezekiel 44, it would be to always be setting your mind and will on the Spirit. And repenting for your failure to always do it (which we will all need all the time).
And at least on portion of my prior posts that you quoted was concerning the nature of an order or priority of ministries by the Levites as a whole. There was surely something different about serving in the inner courts. We probably would equate that in these days to our worship to God, and our prayer (or at least certain parts of it). (BTW. I'm not sure why you had to make a disparaging remark to me about what prayer is. I had not even addressed prayer specifically (if I recall correctly). And in you comment, you acknowledge that some prayer is a kind of request to God. Not sure why it should be treated as something so poor and low as to warrant the comments about "send off to God." That just seems like some old LRC observations about how low Christianity's prayers are.)
But Ezekiel makes no comment about which comes first. It also doles out the lower assignments based on punishment/reward. Surely we are not to view the various aspects of our service/ministry to God in that way. Not in this life. And how would we apply Ezekiel in this day? Pray that God is not finding that my grandfather wasn't much of a follower and sought more after money than after God?
So I request an alternate passage to establish the priority that Nee seems to find in Ezekiel 44. The responses are good passages. But not for the purpose of the current "quest." And I keep getting dissed as if I am dismissing anything about those passages when all I am doing is failing to find a link back to this thing that Nee tried to teach in this little booklet.
It is as if ZNP, and now you, are changing the subject and accusing me of arguing against other things not related to the topic of this thread. I am not arguing against prayer as a ministry. I am not arguing against what the scripture clearly says about what Mary did.
I am arguing that those are not being linked to Nee's assertions. The only commonality is the word "ministry" or even "service." That does not make the instruction in those passages relevant to the question raised by this booklet of Nee.
I am not just trying to disprove Nee and Lee. I am actually quite dumbfounded as to how much I am now seeing Nee as nearly as bad as Lee. The only difference is how he acted toward his followers. He is being seen more and more to have played very loose with scripture. I think he sincerely believed what he was teaching. Probably the same for Lee.