[Ohio]

Personally I think nearly every LC "storm" can be traced to Lee's transition from the "Antioch Principle" of church administration and ministry to the "Jerusalem Principle" of church administration and ministry. Sometimes I simply state these as "early-Lee" and "later-Lee." When LC leaders from around the globe during the so-called "New Way" clamored that the "nature of the Recovery had changed," this is what they were referring to.

Particularly troublesome to Drake was this comment I made from the above post, "Some have referred to this as the "Jerusalem Principle" practiced by Judaizers who were in some cases sent out by James." I'll try to expand on this statement, and hopefully others can wade into the discussion.

Apostle Paul fought his entire ministry with Judaizer "dogs" who stirred up the Gentiles to attack his ministry in every place. I will leave it to the readers to find all of these stories on their own; just open any of his epistles. While Paul was in Antioch, some came "from James." (Galatians 2.10-14) They came from the perceived spiritual and administrative center of the church in Jerusalem, headed up by James, the younger brother of Jesus. They brought with them great "authority," so that even Peter and Barnabas got carried away by their hypocrisy.

Apostle Paul established churches with elders as overseers, and no centralized authority. For a time he worked out of Antioch, later out of Ephesus, and still later out of Rome, but he never made any of these a headquarters for other churches. This was the Antioch Principle.

If we read Acts 15 carefully concerning the council deciding the ever antagonizing matter of circumcision, the reason it was held in Jerusalem, was not because it was some spiritual and administrative center of the church, but because it was the source of the problem. The problem came "from James," so Paul and Barnabas went to James in Jerusalem to resolve this problem.

Unfortunately for the entire church of God, the established decree (cf. Acts 16.4) by the apostles and elders had little effect. The churches in Galatia were apparently lost to Judaism. The persecutions from the Judaizers never stopped. God's solution was to destroy Jerusalem, which Jesus Himself had prophesied some 40 years earlier. Unfortunately still, the early church then made Rome and Constantinople their new headquarters.