My poor analogy for the assembly

[Guest1]

i have to say a big AMEN.. to all posts herein ..whew

[Paul Cox]

Universal/Local:

I was talking to a brother from a country in Africa one day. He told me how that when the "ground" was taken in a certain locality, many local tribes people attended the meeting. It wasn't long before they all pealed off. Why? They just wanted to wear their local tribal garments, and they wanted to sing (and oh, how they can sing) in their local dialect.

Instead, what seemed to be happening is that they were expected to conform to a certain attire (dark pants, and white shirt) and they were being led to worship in a certain way (clinched fist, with a "Praise the Lord" to the top of the lungs, prayreading, calling, you know). Well, if that was Christ manifest in His Body, then he totally failed in reaching the locals. But, of course, He would never fail.

Someone told me once that the Lord makes Himself perfectly comfortable in every culture. To me, that is the real practical side of the true teaching of "locality." If it doesn't accomplish reaching locals right where they are, then all it is is a worldwide chain, only looking for those who can be comfortable with the charter mandated ways of the chain.

The Living Stream Church (please suffer me to use this name, I believe it with my whole heart) is a world wide chain, of restaurants, if you will, that is only looking for diners who can be comfortable with what is uniquely on their menu, and served in it’s unique manner.

Here is another example. It has been my experience that Christians from India, especially those who were under Bagh Singh (sp?) feel very strongly about kneeling when they pray. For those of us with a L. C. background, could we comfortably kneel with those saints to pray?

But you know, even McDonalds is starting to wise up. In China, for example, many of their restaurants are starting to offer the local cuisine. Maybe there is hope yet for McLSM.

Roger

[aron]

Originally Posted by Roger

Universal/Local:

Someone told me once that the Lord makes Himself perfectly comfortable in every culture. To me, that is the real practical side of the true teaching of "locality," ...reaching locals right where they are, [or else] all it is is a worldwide chain, only looking for those who can be comfortable with the charter mandated ways of the chain.

One of Lee's greivous "misses" was the interpretation of the seven lampstands in Revelations 2 and 3 meaning that all the local churches needed to be identical. Of course, I miss, and you miss, but we are not set up as infallible interpreters of God's word, so when we miss thousands of christian believers don't go tumbling over the cliff. In Lee's case, mandated uniformity resulted in just that. "Chain" churches and the rest, wounded, frightened and confused, driven back out into the wilderness.

Brothers, sisters; how many thousands of christians got cut off from fellowship from one another? And for what? So that we can all have the same "flavor"? What kind of "universal" is that?

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Roger

Universal/Local:

Someone told me once that the Lord makes Himself perfectly comfortable in every culture. To me, that is the real practical side of the true teaching of "locality." If it doesn't accomplish reaching locals right where they are, then all it is is a worldwide chain, only looking for those who can be comfortable with the charter mandated ways of the chain.

Roger,

The ultimate irony of your post is in WN's own work. He promoted "locality" in response to the western missionaries imposing their own culture upon the local Chinese communities. Now LSM, in the name of WN, is doing what he struggled to undo.

[YP0534]

Truly, the doctrine of locality is turned on its head in this group.

[OBW]

Ain't it the truth.

Of course, I would rephrase that to say "Truly, the non-doctrinal doctrine of locality is turned on its head in this group."

[Cal]

YP,

I've been meaning to ask you:

You said the church (assembly, ecclesia) was not universal, but that the Body was. So what do you do with these verses?

"... and he is the head of the body, the church..." (Col 1:18)

"... the church, which is his body.." (Eph 1:22-23)

Don't these verses equate the church with the body? Don't they have a universal rather than local meaning?

[cityonahill]

Come down to Mcdonalds down under and you can order the "Mcaussie burger," the "Brekkie Roll," and the "lean beef burger" just to name a few...(also pay 50 cents per ketchup "tomato sauce" packet) what a rip-off!

In my lowly opinion, I must say that "kingdom culture" is so far beyond our understanding that nobody can define it...Christ Jesus is the glue that ties us all together. To me a "corporate expression" of the church is:
*singing songs of praise and worship with 10,000+ saints on a sunday morning 'at' church in the Western world.
*meeting with college students in a dorm for a thursday "connect group"
*serving the community in practical ways to meet social needs like Christ
*dancing, singing, and ministering with an international team in africa...
*building water wells and planting churches in Cambodia
*having an honest time of fellowship at someones home
*and the list goes on and on and on and on....

This is the church 2,000 years and millions of saints later! The beautiful thing about "kingdom culture" is that it transcends other cultures but doesn't replace them!!!

[YP0534]

Originally Posted by Igzy

YP,

I've been meaning to ask you:

You said the church (assembly, ecclesia) was not universal, but that the Body was. So what do you do with these verses?

"... and he is the head of the body, the church..." (Col 1:18)

"... the church, which is his body.." (Eph 1:22-23)

Don't these verses equate the church with the body? Don't they have a universal rather than local meaning?

Sorry, Igzy, I missed this post.

Simple answer.

No.

The Body is universal.
All assembling is local.

It is merely the doctrine of catholicism that has miscontrued these verses to necessarily require a "universal" aspect to be understood.

You and I are members of the Body. When we are meeting, are we not the Body? Obviously, not the entire Body, but we are in fact the Body for anyone who would care to know it. Yet, we are just locally assembling. So, it is obviously the case that the assembling believers are the Body and that the Body is the assembly. However, the further extrapolation that a reference to the \ekklesia\ in the immediate context of a reference to the Body is necessarily a reference to "The Universal Church" just seems too illogical to entertain at this point. It is not a required meaning. It is the traditional interpretation.

However, I've said elsewhere that I can understand that people think a few verses necessarily mean "Universal Church." But I do disagree with that and stongly contend that holding such a doctrine robs them of the possiblity of seeing the importance and role of the actual meetings of the believers. Still, for those who would insist that these certain verses must refer to the "universal aspect," please, I implore you, radically change your concept and try to find the "local aspect" everywhere that you can. The "universal aspect" clouds the understanding to the point where there are nearly no verses about the "local aspect" and this is clearly not the intention of the scriptures. Try reading all the verses substituting the word "assembly" for instance. It really helps to remove the clouds to remove the poor translation of "church" entirely.

Consider this: aside from the verses in Matthew 18 which Lee taught was "the church you can go to," what are the verses which use the word "ekklesia" that refer to the local aspect in any way that is more than a form of address? In other words, where are the verses which tell us what the "local church" is?

All of us here were in a denomination called the Local Church, some for a very long time, and I don't think we really know what the Bible says on this topic. The "church" is the house, and the "church" is the wife, and the "church" is the new man, etc. Everyone makes these to mean "universal aspect" but then where is the definition of the "local aspect" like this?

Finish this sentence with a verse reference, if you can:
"The local aspect of the church is...."

I may be too limited in my Bible knowledge but I just don't know what is supposed to go here if I make all the verses mean "universal aspect."

But if I say that the assembly is the house of the Living God, I can really see something! If I say that Christ loves the assembling believers as His wife, even as His own flesh? This is something too exciting to utter, really! If I leave the traditional teachings in place, I just have some nice doctrines about the "Universal Church" being important to God, and Witness Lee taught that it had to do with a revised kind of sweet by-and-by of the New Jerusalem where one day we will all be one and God's corporate expression in eternity.

My appreciation is that by making everyone think all the verses mean "universal aspect" the enemy has successfully hidden the reality of the "local aspect" in the verses that we all know and he laughs at us in scorn. Because it is the manifestation of God in the local aspect which will bring about his demise.

Grace to you!