Quote:
Originally Posted by HERn
After twenty-something years being in The Lord's Recovery (TLR) I think I'm on my way out, but don't know how much to leave behind. TLR helped revive and restore my love of The Lord that I first had at my conversion. It did this by bringing my attention back to Christ and Him alone. I hope my restored love is genuine and not some type of fakery. I will also miss what we call The Lord's Table Meeting (TLTM) where I could express and pour out my love to Him by singing and prayers. For those of you who have left TLR how were you able to continue this type of corporate worship? Also, for those of you who had the same experience of recovering your first love for The Lord do you feel it was genuine and how did you continue to cultivate this after leaving TLR?
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Thoughts from an outsider:
Love Christ Himself - through lovingly speaking directly to Him and obeying His revealed will in the Bible, believers in Christ and all men as Christ Himself would. (Deu 6:5, Matt 22:38,39, Mark 12:31)
Keep the Bible - 66 books in the English versions. The NKJV and the NASB are useful versions. The Blue Letter Bible is a good free tool for iOS and android with MANY translations. 2 Tim 3:16,17
Keep the Lord's Supper (1 Cor 11:23-26)
Keep preaching the Gospel (Matt 28:19-20)
Keep immersing new believers
Keep making disciples (translation: be a friend to those who love Christ, and share Christ with them through His Word, helping them to grow.)
To help deprogram yourself, read a couple of hermeneutics books. (Hermeneutics are principles of interpretation. MOST of Biblical hermeneutics is general and would apply to secular literature as well. Special hermeneutics applies to prophecy.). One that is simple enough for most, but technical enough to be useful is How to Read the Bible for all it's Worth by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart. It won't "convert" you to any denomination. It is pretty generic in most regards. It should make you humble enough to see that everyone is at least a little inconsistent in how they interpret the Bible. You can find used copies on Amazon.
Recognize that in Christendom there is pop-literature (candy), general commentaries which tell you what someone thinks a passage means, (junk-food), technical commentaries which tell you what words mean and look carefully at history and context (food), and reference material such as atlases, Bible dictionaries, Bible encyclopedias, lexicons, concordances in English, Hebrew and Greek, books on hermeneutics, and very meaty books that exhaustively analyze one particular doctrine (meat) and so forth. These can help you carefully determine the details of a passage of Scripture so that you can accurately determine its intended meaning to the original hearers, and then faithfully apply it to yourself today. You can know with certainty what most of the Scripture meant to the people it was originally written to, and by extension what still applies to you today explicitly (You shall not murder = you shall not murder duh!!) or what applies in principle (you shall not muzzle an ox while it treads the grain = a worker is worthy of his wages 1 Corinthians 9:9; 1 Timothy 5:18)
IMHO - anyone leaving their spiritual roots, no matter how troublesome needs to apply 2 Timothy 2:15 more than most, "15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.". It was written to a missionary church planter who was called to lead, but it is no less applicable to those who hear the Word (like the Bereans, who tested Paul's teachings against the Scrpture to see if what he taught was true.). Acts 17:10-12
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In the last 24 hours I have read most of the 800+ posts of this thread. I am an outsider to the LC. My first exposure was when I attended a meeting in the Old Town part of Tacoma, Washington in the mid eighties. A month ago, I started having lunch with a member of the LC here in town and have been trying to understand the LC. Reading this thread from end to end has given me a lot of caution.
In contrast to all of you who are disillusioned with the LC, I am disillusioned with Christendom. Most of what calls itself the "church" is repackaged Catholicism (with a Pre-eminent Professional Pastor instead of a Catholic Priest).
None of it is simplicity we see in the New Testament. It is a like a show where we come in and watch a few others stand in front of us and perform. It isn't each member doing his or her part. Everything I've read here about the LC being a means to fund Living Stream's publishing business is everything I don't like about the "Church of Christ", Baptists (affiliated and independent), Presbyterians, Lutheran, Pentecostals, Assemblies of God, "non-denominational" churches etc ... The money may go to a local staff and to a mortgage on a building, instead of a publishing house, but it is still a career to most of them. Modern churches all have the same format with a slightly different spin; none of which represents the simplicity and purity of the New Testament church.
What has got me to look at the LC is the ideas (though from this thread, it doesn't sound like the LC really practices it) of a weekly Lord's Supper where all partake, all contribute a hymn, a prayer, an insight from their personal study of the Word.
"How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification." 1 Co 14:26
I attended a Plymouth Brethren (open brethren) congregation many years ago. The Lord's Supper was church. Over the years, they went the way of the rest of Protestantism with a pre-eminent elder that was paid and a paid staff and ... You get the idea.
I believe that Christ's church is so much less than what is currently called church, and as such is really so much more. Much less works, plans, business and entertainment of man and much more of Christ in you sharing with Christ in me (true fellowship), and Christ expressing Himself to us through us. It is like a fragile plant to be nurtured rather than an activity to be planned, scheduled and orchestrated. You cannot make things grow, you can only provide healthy conditions for growth.
Did any of the early congregations of the LC (pre-1974) successfully continue apart from WL and Living Stream? I would really like to get together with fellow believers that are willing to drop tradition and not add to what is revealed in the Scripture.
Well this is a long first post. Thanks in advance for any responses.
