Does 2 Peter 2's warning of false teachers describe Witness Lee?

[awareness]

Originally Posted by bearbear

It's because as I wrote in another thread that if we rely on our own human wisdom we can become easily deceived by Satan.

I think Satan has a better shot at us if we don't think.

For this reason critical self thinking was more than suppressed in the local church. The hive mentality better allowed Lee to usurp Christ, and replace his headship in our life ... which is a trick of Satan. Satan hates self thinkers. Cuz we have free will we are able to reject him ... just as we're free to reject God.

Bro bearbear, and for this reason I think you should go with as much gusto to think for yourself as you put into pinning everything to the Bible, book chapter, and verse.

[Cal]

By its very operation, decision-making requires we believe we know what we are doing. Whether we think we are God-inspired or not, the last thing we think before we do anything is "I believe I know what I'm doing." Otherwise, we wouldn't do it. No matter how much you pray, read the Bible or sense the Spirit, in the end you have to decide. So a certain amount of developed aptitude and self-confidence is necessary. A person who truly had zero self-confidence could never even make the decision to tie his shoes.

So we shouldn't interpret the Bible, or anything else, in a robot-like fashion. And we should not kid ourselves that we can ever be completely out of the picture. The mantra, "The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it." sounds good until you ask the question "What does the Bible actually say?" We have to decide, which puts us right back in the middle of things.

We have to decide to do whatever we do, even if the decision is to do nothing. The Spirit isn't going to animate us like the well-worn image of a hand animating a glove. It doesn't work that way. And it wouldn't be any fun--for us or God--if it did.

So awareness' point is well-taken. We need to learn how to think.

[bearbear]

Originally Posted by awareness

I think Satan has a better shot at us if we don't think.

For this reason critical self thinking was more than suppressed in the local church. The hive mentality bettered allowed Lee to usurp Christ, and replace his headship in our life ... which is a trick of Satan. Satan hates self thinkers. Cuz we have free will we are able to reject him ... just as we're free to reject God.

Bro bearbear, and for this reason I think you should go with as much gusto to think for yourself as you put into pinning everything to the Bible, book chapter, and verse.

I think there is some nuance involved in how we balance our own thinking against applying the word of God, and I'm sorry if I gave the impression of promoting one of those extremes. We all know many have abused the word of God for their own means and Satan even uses the word to tempt Jesus. The word has to be "rightly handled" (2 Timothy 2:15) and I think that comes from us reading it in a way which we first humble ourselves and ask the Holy Spirit who guides us to all truth to give us understanding.

I agree that God gave us a mind which we use to think for ourselves. However I believe we should also make sure that our mind is renewed by the word of God, whereby we gradually take on the mind of Christ as we live and meditate on his words. And what I've come to appreciate is that even though God lives in us, we still get to retain our personalities. I think God delights in diversity and that's why he created everyone to be so different. We can adopt the mind of Christ and still retain the qualities that make each one of us unique. The prophets in the OT all had their own individual styles of speech, yet they were still speaking God's word. Witness Lee on the other hand tried pretty hard to stamp out individuality. Looking at the FTTA trainings is like witnessing Star Trek's Borg but for Christians.

As you alluded to, the problem with the LRC was that Witness Lee was preventing us from using these minds that God gifted us and insisting that we adopt his mind instead whereby we'd become Witness Lee clones knowingly or unknowingly. Instead we should be adopting the mind of Christ through taking in the words that were breathed out by God.

Most of the times when I write my responses, verses just keep popping in my head so I can't help but to write them out. I think the word is living and operative. Once you start meditating on God's word, it can't help but to bust out when you need it. That's been my experience at least, it could be different for everyone else with different giftings.

One book I really enjoyed along these lines was "They Thought For Themselves"

http://www.theythoughtforthemselves.com/

It's a compilation of stories of how Jews came to know Jesus as their Messiah once they started reading scriptures and thinking for themselves, rather than adopting the mind of their Rabbis and Jewish religion which taught them they weren't able to understand scripture by themselves. Jews today are instilled with the idea that they needed the Talmud, the life study for the Jews, in order to receive revelation from God to understand his word.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by bearbear

I think there is some nuance involved in how we balance our own thinking against applying the word of God, and I'm sorry if I gave the impression of promoting one of those extremes.

Well we're not a bunch of Hebrews sticking to 613 laws found in the Torah. The gospels have Jesus quoting scripture but I don't think he lived by matching everything to scripture. I'm pretty sure that he was guided by The Father directly ... which is the living word, not the dead letter.

[bearbear]

Originally Posted by awareness

Well we're not a bunch of Hebrews sticking to 613 laws found in the Torah. The gospels have Jesus quoting scripture but I don't think he lived by matching everything to scripture. I'm pretty sure that he was guided by The Father directly ... which is the living word, not the dead letter.

Agreed. it's always better to get revelation straight from the Guy who authored the bible, and that's why the Jews were stumbled when Jesus seemed to violate their interpretation of Torah when he violated the Sabbath according to their traditions.

That said Jesus made a bold statement when he said heaven and earth will pass away but my words never will. He also told us the only way we could bear fruit and not be cast into the fire was to remain in him and his words in John 15

[awareness]

Originally Posted by bearbear

Agreed. it's always better to get revelation straight from the Guy who authored the bible, and that's why the Jews were stumbled when Jesus seemed to violate their interpretation of Torah when he violated the Sabbath according to their traditions.

That said Jesus made a bold statement when he said heaven and earth will pass away but my words never will. He also told us the only way we could bear fruit and not be cast into the fire was to remain in him and his words in John 15

Yes, he said :

"I have called you friends; for all things that I have read in the scripture I have made known unto you. Jn 15:15