[OBW]

Reviewing the past day of posts, I see two that I will add comments to:

Indiana quoted Nee as saying:

In reading these three portions of the Scripture, we notice that the believers are one in Christ. In the Lord there is no distinction of past status. In the new man and in the Body of Christ, there is no difference whatsoever. If we introduce these man made distinctions into the church, the relationship among the brothers and sisters will be shifted to the wrong ground.

The introduction of various doctrinal differences over the years has created a problem with certain aspects of the oneness of the body. But not all aspects.

Added to all that went before is the problem of "ground." It has always been differences of opinion. And Nee's "ground" is just one more opinion which came along to separate us into yet another (or more) new group. Devising another disputed doctrine called "ground" does not cause the position on it to rise above any other difference of opinion and put the blame upon everyone else.

Then a few posts later Ohio astutely said:

The errant Catholic ecclesiastical paradigm saw Peter as the N.T. vicar of Christ, while the equally erroneous Protestant model viewed Paul as the minister of the age. Both were wrong, and both have long used distorted oneness to bring the church of God under subjection to their lust for power.

The one thing that is exceptional here is the observation that no one is free from error. The Catholics took a rather strange understanding of a simple declaration by Jesus and declared a pope while the Protestants turned Paul into the author of their gospel raising the question of where you find the primary source of their teachings — Jesus or Paul. I fear that the tendency often is to read Jesus in light of Paul rather than real Paul in light of Jesus. I find little to no fault in Paul — except where it is used as the primary source of teaching that does not really follow after Jesus very well (if at all).