The Ministry - What Is It?

[OBW]

This may not be the best title for the thread, but it is one of the topics that we are littering Olvin's testimony with.

And maybe Unto can move some of the more controversial posts to this location.

- - - -

My opening post is not directly on "the ministry," but rather on "life."

Still I challenge all who post here to do this: take your biblical understanding; subtract all the revelation you have received from "the ministry" and consider what you are left with. Can you minister life with that?

My question is "what is this life that is being talked about?"

I am not talking about the life that we receive from Christ and that is continually infused by the Holy Spirit (when we turn ourselves for that infusing). What is this "life" that we are supposed to be ministering? Something besides the truth of Christ? Something that is disconnected from our daily life? Something that you have to feel?

My problem is not that there is no "life" but that what I see described in the Bible is all around me in the lives of many Christians who never heard a single word from "the ministry." Who never considered that there is a "ground" for the church. Who love God and their neighbor without any special teachings like "the ministry's" version of God's economy. Who understand obedience to Christ and know that it is important — so much so that a letter was written about it by James.

And the "life" that really matters would not be so dismissive of the words of scripture, such as those of that letter by James, or much of the Psalms. That "life" would not direct anyone to suggest that right and wrong are irrelevant, or "from the wrong tree." Right and wrong are not from the wrong tree. The only "tree" issue is which one you get your version of right and wrong from. And since Lee dismisses right and wrong from the landscape of importance, he is likely operating from "the wrong tree."

Lee is clearly not hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Just for dispensing. The righteousness will come without hungering and thirsting for it.

Or so Lee says.

But from the beginning it was not so.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by OBW

n is "what is this life that is being talked about?"

Well as I see it in the context of the church life while I was in it "Life" is the opposite of "death."

So using the term Life sends chills of fear, from it opposite, death. It's a method of control.

After all, who wants that great bogeyman death? So run hard to life, whatever it is, to avoid that awful death. And the hook is set.

Using the term "Life" ends up, just being a way of driving the herd closer to the leader, from fear of death. In this context Life, even if not known what it is, is to be desired, and death to be avoided. And death ends up being anything that threatens the leader and or his movement.

This forum is death to those in the local church ... and is to be avoided. And Life IS NOT this forum.

Does that help OBW?

[aron]

Originally Posted by OBW

What is this "life" that we are supposed to be ministering? Something besides the truth of Christ? Something that is disconnected from our daily life? Something that you have to feel?

I will address this by first quoting Olvin from his introductory thread.

Originally Posted by Olvin

I believe that "it IS God's eternal purpose to have a group of people created in is image and likeness to be filled with Him as life to express Him and represent Him." You say this is "high-sounding doctrine that misrepresents God". I have shared the simple truth with grade school children. Were we not made in his image and after His likeness? Is this not for the purpose of expressing Him and representing Him? Is not taking Him in as food (life) a major theme from Genesis to Revelation. I hope I don't need to share verses to prove I know what I'm talking about. And brother, the human life will remain a mystery unless man understands he was made to be filled with the life of God. Now there is very little that is high sounding about that. Do you eat and drink the Lord by reading and prayer? All who eat me shall live because me... unless you eat... you have no life. What a simple word, not high sounding at all. Do you have something a little more down to earth to minister by way of "doctrine" than this.

There are a number of major themes in my opinion, which run from Genesis to Revelation but we don't cover because we have filters, or lenses, derived from personal experience, personal disposition, church history, social culture, and theological training. So we see what we see. I had to get way outside the "ministry" before I started to see things other than what I had been spoon-fed. In the meantime I ministered, post-LSM, what I had, such as judicial redemption versus organic salvation. Stuff that yes I got in the Local Churches affiliated with the ministries of Nee & Lee. I'm very grateful for it but I'm also very grateful that I learned to read "C-A-T spells cat" when I was in second grade.

But life isn't something defined by Macintosh or Pember or Penn-Lewis or Darby or Sparks or Lee. We know the life is found in Jesus, and His Spirit that gives life, but the major themes of this are often only tangenitally touched here, by us. Because if they were realized the world wouldn't look the same. So I won't go too deep into the idea of Life here; I'm not qualified.

Of ministry, however I will say two things. First - Jesus is the minister of the heavenly tabernacles, not Paul or Lee or Nee. There is only one heavenly minister and we are all pale imitations. So the confidence game of today's self-styled apostles is a joke. It isn't a ministry it is a fleece-the-sheep game. And we seem to love to play. Lee wasn't the first, nor the last, nor the most successful in this regard. Ministry was an opportunity for him and Living Stream Ministry, Christians on Campus, Lord's Move to Europe, Emanna, Defense and Confirmation Project, Bibles for America, Rhema.org, and other tentacles of human endeavor to make themselves manifested.

Second, you can perhaps see this, for example, in the above 'do you eat and drink the Lord by reading and prayer' question. Paul the apostle twice told the saints to 'eat and drink the Lord' by singing the Psalms. Lee the apostle with the ministry of the age said that was too low. In the ministry of Lee, the Psalms were mostly fallen and natural. So Paul's recommended singing-Psalms "be filled with Spirit" in Ephesians and "let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" in Colossians got thwarted and supervened by the ministry.

[aron]

Originally Posted by awareness

Well as I see it in the context of the church life while I was in it "Life" is the opposite of "death."

So using the term Life sends chills of fear, from it opposite, death. It's a method of control.

After all, who wants that great bogeyman death? So run hard to life, whatever it is, to avoid that awful death. And the hook is set.

Using the term "Life" ends up, just being a way of driving the herd closer to the leader, from fear of death. In this context Life, even if not known what it is, is to be desired, and death to be avoided. And death ends up being anything that threatens the leader and or his movement.

This forum is death to those in the local church ... and is to be avoided. And Life IS NOT this forum.

Amen and amen. This forum is not a place to find life. It is a place to say "beware the ministry". Only Jesus has the true ministry of life. If you want life don't look here. Look to Jesus.

The only advantage this forum has over LSM is we don't charge money, and we don't elevate ourselves above the flock. We don't lord it over people. We don't require conformity.

But Jesus is in heaven, next to the Father's throne. He's not tapping away on a keyboard touting some "truth" about "life" or "ministry". This place, this forum, is rather like an Angie's list or a Yelp site, warning the potential consumers about the shell games being played by supposed ministers out there. Beware. I got suckered in, so that you don't have to.

[Cal]

Looking at several dictionaries, none seems to define ministry as the contents of a ministry. Ministry refers to the office of a minister, not the contents, or things, he distributes, if any.

The Greek word for ministry (diakonia) comes from another Greek root word which means "to run errands." Essentially a minister is a servant who executes the commands of another.

The term, deacon (in Greek, diakonos), is derived from diakonia.

https://bible.org/seriespage/meaning-new-testament-ministry

The clearest demonstration of the breadth of New Testament ministry is achieved by a survey of the multitude of services that are denoted by the New Testament term diakonia (or its verbal counterpart). Here are some of the instances of the word groups related to Christian ministry.

A. The ministry of those women who cared for the material needs of our Lord (Mark 15:41; Luke 8:3).

B. The ministry of feeding the widows in Jerusalem (Acts 6:2-3).

C. The ministry of preaching the Word (Acts 6:4).

D. The work of the Old Testament prophets (1 Peter 1:12).

E. Personal ministry to the apostle Paul (Acts 19:22; 2 Timothy 1:16-18; 4:11; Philemon 13).

F. Ministry to the financial needs of others (Acts 11:29; 12:25; Romans 15:25f; 2 Corinthians 8:4; 8:19-20; 9:1).

G. The ministry, in general, to the saints (Hebrews 6:10).

H. The ministry of an apostle of Jesus Christ (Acts 1:17; 20:24).

I. The ministry of reconciling men to God (2 Corinthians 5:18).

J. A particular short-term task of service (Acts 12:25).

[OBW]

Great post.

What about the broader "works of ministry" in Ephesians. Less specific, and probably not really talking much about "teaching" ministries, but the practical "ministering" things that so many of the other verses talk about.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by OBW

Great post.

What about the broader "works of ministry" in Ephesians. Less specific, and probably not really talking much about "teaching" ministries, but the practical "ministering" things that so many of the other verses talk about.

Right. Ministry appears to have many applications in the NT, which kinds of pushes against the "one ministry" idea. However, the NT does use the phrase "the ministry." However, as I said, "ministry" does not appear to refer to the contents of the ministry, what is ministered, rather it refers to the office. So those commissioned with spreading the New Covenant (all of us) have the office in this ministry.

[rayliotta]

Originally Posted by Igzy

Right. Ministry appears to have many applications in the NT, which kinds of pushes against the "one ministry" idea. However, the NT does use the phrase "the ministry." However, as I said, "ministry" does not appear to refer to the contents of the ministry, what is ministered, rather it refers to the office. So those commissioned with spreading the New Covenant (all of us) have the office in this ministry.

What about "this rich ministry"? Is that phrase ever used in the New Testament?

[rayliotta]

Originally Posted by aron

Of ministry, however I will say two things. First - Jesus is the minister of the heavenly tabernacles, not Paul or Lee or Nee. There is only one heavenly minister and we are all pale imitations. So the confidence game of today's self-styled apostles is a joke. It isn't a ministry it is a fleece-the-sheep game. And we seem to love to play. Lee wasn't the first, nor the last, nor the most successful in this regard. Ministry was an opportunity for him and Living Stream Ministry, Christians on Campus, Lord's Move to Europe, Emanna, Defense and Confirmation Project, Bibles for America, Rhema.org, and other tentacles of human endeavor to make themselves manifested.

Definition of confidence game, according to Google: "a swindle in which the victim is persuaded to trust the swindler in some way."

This is from the wikipedia article on confidence trick:

Originally Posted by wikipedia

"A confidence trick (synonyms include confidence scheme, scam and stratagem) is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their confidence, used in the classical sense of trust. Confidence tricks exploit characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty, honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility, naïveté and greed...

...A short con or small con is a fast swindle which takes just minutes. It typically aims to rob the victim of everything in his or her wallet.

A long con or big con (also, chiefly British English: long game) is a scam that unfolds over several days or weeks and involves a team of swindlers, as well as props, sets, extras, costumes, and scripted lines. It aims to rob the victim of thousands of dollars, often by getting him or her to empty out banking accounts and borrow from family members."

Well, the Lord's Recovery is a lot more complicated than merely some big scam. I mean, it is, right? But then, why does this definition of "long con" sound so remarkably familiar to me? Hmm.

Anyone ever seen the Jim Carrey movie, The Truman Show? Anyone else get goosebumps watching it? I know I did.

Life is short, folks. You don't have time for the Lord's Recovery.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by rayliotta

Anyone ever seen the Jim Carrey movie, The Truman Show? Anyone else get goosebumps watching it? I know I did.

Good morning, and in case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!

Not a fan of Carrey, but I liked that movie.

But no goosebumps, wasn't born with those.

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by awareness

Well as I see it in the context of the church life while I was in it "Life" is the opposite of "death."

So using the term Life sends chills of fear, from it opposite, death. It's a method of control.

In the context of the LSM churches, life is every positive thing and death is every negative thing.
So if your spirit causes you to be inwardly disturbed, it must be death. After all the Spirit causing your spirit to feel convicted couldn't be of life could it?

[Cal]

My registration, especially after listening to Olvin, is that for LCers "the ministry" are those sets of beliefs that they happen to embrace. In other words, it's a grandiose title to give their theology the air of absolute unquestioned legitimacy. It's much like their calling their movement "God's move" or their churches "the Church." It's just more of their saying we're unquestionably right and everyone else is unquestionably wrong. Or at least, we're unquestionably more right that anyone else.

I understand wanting one's beliefs to have the stamp of God. But knowing for sure that is always the case is not possible. God doesn't want us walking around with that kind of self-assurance. It clearly produces arrogance and intolerance. We are too easily mistaken. And believing we cannot be mistaken is, you guessed it, the biggest mistake. Even Paul when writing the Bible once only said "I think I have the Spirit of God." At least once when writing the Bible he didn't know for sure whether what he was teaching had the stamp of God.

[OBW]

Originally Posted by Igzy

My registration, especially after listening to Olvin, is that for LCers "the ministry" are those sets of beliefs that they happen to embrace. In other words, it's a grandiose title to give their theology the air of absolute unquestioned legitimacy. It's much like their calling their movement "God's move" or their churches "the Church." It's just more of their saying we're unquestionably right and everyone else is unquestionably wrong. Or at least, we're unquestionably more right that anyone else.

I understand wanting one's beliefs to have the stamp of God. But knowing for sure that is always the case is not possible. God doesn't want us walking around with that kind of self-assurance. It clearly produces arrogance and intolerance. We are too easily mistaken. And believing we cannot be mistaken is, you guessed it, the biggest mistake. Even Paul when writing the Bible once only said "I think I have the Spirit of God." At least once when writing the Bible he didn't know for sure whether what he was teaching had the stamp of God.

A little like saying something is biblical, I guess.

Or what people mean when they assert that the Bible is inerrant (meaning that it means literally what they think it means and not something else).

Maybe the better way to say anything is to assert that something is what you/I understand the bible to say or at least suggest.