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Originally Posted by UntoHim
So let me get this right. The "ground of the church" is something biblical and God ordained, but it was "never known" for the first 1900+ years of church history? ... the understatement of understatements that stands out is "AS FAR AS WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DETERMINE". Here we are, over 50 years of the Local Church movement in America, and these dear Christians have formed a full-blown denomination (complete with it's own faux seminary - the Full-Time Training), and everything is based upon "as far as we have been able to determine".
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As I mentioned on this forum previously, one could make the case for the "one church per city" model in existence with the Puritans on New England's "virgin soil". Like Calvin's Geneva in Europe, wherever the Protestants triumphed, they brooked no competition. If you were not "in the church life", you were expelled or even killed (e.g. the fate of Anabaptists, Quakers, and other groups).
How is this different from the Nee model of 1937? Not sure, except it clearly didn't come from China's "virgin soil" and is therefore disqualified?... other than that, Nee's 1937 church model looks like a splinter sect, among the dozens or even hundreds of Protestant splinters, basing its existence on the declaration that it's not a splinter. Talk about majoring in the minors.
Oh, and btw, the RCC before the Protestants also had the "one church per city" rule. The RCC certainly wasn't a splinter sect (tho the Greek Orthodox & Syrian Orthodox & Russian Orthodox would disagree!) It was all about the one holy catholic apostolic church back then. Funny how we seem to come full circle. Our logic leads us round and round, like a dog chasing its own tail.
Anyway, with the "as far as we have been able to determine" clause, it doesn't appear to me that they looked very far, or very diligently.