'Henceforth know we no man after the flesh' (2 Corinthians 5:16)

[SteveB]

'Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom;
teaching and admonishing one another
in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.'
(Col. 3:16)

@JoshebB - replies #2,#3, #5, #8, #10, #12, & #15
@SteveB - replies, #4, #9, #11, #14, #16

Hello there,

Thank you for your input. I have followed your discussion, and have found it thought provoking, and revealing. It has been an object lesson in itself. There has been a great deal of sound teaching as well as admonishment delivered with grace. I would not have missed it this morning. May God give us grace to receive both within the love of Christ Jesus our risen and glorified, Saviour, Lord and Head.

Love to you both, for your time and consideration of the question in had.
In Christ Jesus
Chris

Focus on learning to follow Jesus.
I became a believer in 1977.
During my early years, we were getting to know each other and in certain circumstances, we focused on our pre-christ lives. For whatever reasons, we thought it would be helpful... I think it did more to put questions in our hearts and minds that fomented suspicion and doubts.

The passage you selected i think is a great passage.
I see it as telling us to not focus on our/their pre-christ life, but to focus on how to build up, strengthen, encourage and edify believers.
It's too easy to get emotionally abusive towards people who love Jesus today, but were not godly people before they met Jesus.
The Jesus movement in those early years was filled with ex-everything's.

If you saw the movie- Jesus Revolution- i was there, a decade later.
Greg L. was teaching Monday evening Bible studies, Love Song, and other groups did the music, and some Saturday night concerts.

Paul's statement in Philippians 3 which i selected are about...

Forget your past.
Focus on Jesus.


So.... grow in Jesus.

Pray and ask God for some godly friends, and learn to grow in Jesus.

While the "temptation" is to learn about their pre-Jesus lives, please understand.... sometimes there are uglies in our pasts that people just don't know how to get past.
This is likely why Jesus says that the world will know we are his by our love for each other, and to love one another....

Sometimes just being loved by people is more than some people know how to cope with. It's a strange dynamic, but they'll freak out and leave.

 

[JoshebB]

Hello @JoshebB,

Your words in reply #2 (above) caught my eye and touched my heart, for I could identify with them. It is indeed possible for 'factual words from one person to obstruct God's work in another'. Unfortunately, as you say, we often have to learn such things by experience, either personally or indirectly through the mistake of another.

Thank you very much for all your contributions in this thread, for they are nourishment for the spirit.

In Christ Jesus
Chris

Thank you for the kind words. Any particular points of agreement or disagreement with Post #2's reply to the op's inquiry? Any additional or subsequent points of inquiry?

 

[JoshebB]

i already answered.
if you're not actually paying attention, i can't help you.

What are the repeated passive-aggressive off topic comments about?

 

[SteveB]

What are the repeated passive-aggressive off topic comments about?

Well, if you think they're passive aggressive, then you've succeeded in removing yourself from any further discussion.
See you in eternity.

 

[JoshebB]

Well, if you think they're passive aggressive, then you've succeeded in removing yourself from any further discussion.
See you in eternity.

That's not an answer to my question and the passive aggressive nature of the off topic comments is not a matter of perception. Post 24 is another example of off topic and unnecessary passive aggression. Post #4 is wrong. That's not personal; that's factual. Benevolence, not ill-will was intended. I did not post any negative personal insinuations, but I received several. I would, therefore, like to know what the repeated passive aggressive off topic comments are about.

Just answer the question asked, please.

 

[Pancho Frijoles]

Thank you for the kind words. Any particular points of agreement or disagreement with Post #2's reply to the op's inquiry? Any additional or subsequent points of inquiry?

Is like to complement your excelent discussion with Mathew 25:31-46.
The saved, the sheep on the right, did not know men according to the flesh. The “mind of Christ” operating in the minds of the saved enabled them to see Christ in every fellow man and woman in need, and act accordingly.
One of the most important effects of living in Christ (perhaps the most important one, and the one we are judged by) is seeing our fellow men as Christ sees them.
Every man is a Christ, in the sense that it is a potential king, priest, judge, miracle-maker…a person who can get crucified, resurrected, ascended to heaven and sit on the throne of Christ… a column of the temple of God…a being that is “in the image of God” (the re-created Adam, so to speak).

 

[JoshebB]

Every man is a Christ....

Can we amend that to say each person (let's not forget the women ) can be a person anointed by God? That's what the words "messiah," and Christ" mean and since we do not hold the position or office of "Christ," anointed is the wiser alternative. We're not Jesus. We cannot and do not save the world (or anything else for that matter). There's only one Jesus (and I am not him). I post good sometimes, but no one wants me to be King in my current state .

 

[Pancho Frijoles]

Can we amend that to say each person (let's not forget the women ) can be a person anointed by God? That's what the words "messiah," and Christ" mean and since we do not hold the position or office of "Christ," anointed is the wiser alternative. We're not Jesus. We cannot and do not save the world (or anything else for that matter). There's only one Jesus (and I am not him). I post good sometimes, but no one wants me to be King in my current state .

Yes, I totally agree with the amendment. Thanks for the correction, my friend.
Although I used the indefinite article “a Christ”, I should not have capitalized “christ” and used instead the direct meaning of “anointed”, which in turn fits well with roles of king and priest that were also acquired during an anointing ceremony.

 

[JoshebB]

Yes, I totally agree with the amendment. Thanks for the correction, my friend.
Although I used the indefinite article “a Christ”, I should not have capitalized “christ” and used instead the direct meaning of “anointed”, which in turn fits well with roles of king and priest that were also acquired during an anointing ceremony.

A little digressive from the op, but I used to belong to Witness Lee's The Local Church. That group used to be a cult (I understand it has now reformed its teachings to fall in line with historical, orthodox, mainstream Christian thought, doctrine, and practice) but I did not realize that because I was a new convert to Christ. One of the biggest, most alarming teachings that prompted my departure was that when we take communion, we are taking Jesus' literal flesh into us and it is combining with our own and gradually making us into little Christs. That sounds a little ambiguous so I went up after the service and asked the "pastor" about this and he assured me those words are to be taken literally and explained to me how thousands of Jesuses are being made every time we take communion (but only TLC communion, btw). Even as a new believer, I knew that was wrong, so left.

 

[civic]

A little digressive from the op, but I used to belong to Witness Lee's The Local Church. That group used to be a cult (I understand it has now reformed its teachings to fall in line with historical, orthodox, mainstream Christian thought, doctrine, and practice) but I did not realize that because I was a new convert to Christ. One of the biggest, most alarming teachings that prompted my departure was that when we take communion, we are taking Jesus' literal flesh into us and it is combining with our own and gradually making us into little Christs. That sounds a little ambiguous so I went up after the service and asked the "pastor" about this and he assured me those words are to be taken literally and explained to me how thousands of Jesuses are being made every time we take communion (but only TLC communion, btw). Even as a new believer, I knew that was wrong, so left.

We have a similar experience I was once as a young believer part of Dr Gene Scotts church and was baptized there in 1981. My best friend and their family at the time got me into watching him on TV. We would have bible study at their home and his brother and sister went to ORU and got degrees from the university and I was just learning the bible. The mom had major influence over her kids and she was never wrong lol. But as I learned the bible and studied it daily I adventually began questioning his teachings and demeanor. I finally after 2 years stopped supporting his ministry and considered him to be a cult.

 

[JoshebB]

We have a similar experience I was once as a young believer part of Dr Gene Scotts church and was baptized there in 1981. My best friend and their family at the time got me into watching him on TV. We would have bible study at their home and his brother and sister went to ORU and got degrees from the university and I was just learning the bible. The mom had major influence over her kids and she was never wrong lol. But as I learned the bible and studied it daily I adventually began questioning his teachings and demeanor. I finally after 2 years stopped supporting his ministry and considered him to be a cult.

The Local Church sent a small group people to my home every day for three weeks to tell me I was in danger of losing my salvation if I did not return. Not a word of that sentence is an exaggeration.

 

[civic]

The Local Church sent a small group people to my home every day for three weeks to tell me I was in danger of losing my salvation if I did not return. Not a word of that sentence is an exaggeration.

Yes thats how cults operate out of fear. So glad you escaped and leaned from your early experience brother. The deceiver is an expert as what he does and those who are being deceived are mostly unaware of it unfortunately. Its no wonder why Jesus and all the Apostles have so many warnings about in in the N.T. writings. Most of the epistles are addressing false teachings that had crept into the congregations.

My mother in law in the early 80's was into watchman nee so I'm familiar with that movement. I had a few of his books.

 

[JoshebB]

My mother in law in the early 80's was into watchman nee so I'm familiar with that movement. I had a few of his books.

Nee and Lee were two completely different men with two completely different theologies and two completely different views on the Church. I'd still put Nee within the pale of orthodoxy (although I disagree sometimes). I cut my teeth on New and Francis Schaeffer - two completely different thinkers from two completely different perspectives. My knowledge of Nee may have been what inclined me to be uncritically accepting of Lee. I met Lee in person and spent a four-day weekend listening to him teach on the dispensation of the Church. I don't recall ever hearing anything untoward (even though I always considered the idea there's only one true church in any given city incorrect). The devil was in the details.

We are not becoming individual Christs.


That's just wrong. There is only one Jesus, one Lord. God anoints many, but there is only one Anointed One. I am not him. Neither are you.

Thank God
​

.

 

[civic]

Nee and Lee were two completely different men with two completely different theologies and two completely different views on the Church. I'd still put Nee within the pale of orthodoxy (although I disagree sometimes). I cut my teeth on New and Francis Schaeffer - two completely different thinkers from two completely different perspectives. My knowledge of Nee may have been what inclined me to be uncritically accepting of Lee. I met Lee in person and spent a four-day weekend listening to him teach on the dispensation of the Church. I don't recall ever hearing anything untoward (even though I always considered the idea there's only one true church in any given city incorrect). The devil was in the details.

We are not becoming individual Christs.


That's just wrong. There is only one Jesus, one Lord. God anoints many, but there is only one Anointed One. I am not him. Neither are you.

Thank God
​

.

Amen to that my friend

 

[Complete]

* Thank you, @JoshebB and @civic for your testimonies.

I found some typed notes in a drawer this last week, which I had typed for a friend some years ago, from notes that he had written by hand, recording the research which he had undertaken, when finally seeing the errors within the Jehovah's witnesses. He had been with them for eighteen years, before a question arose in his mind, (as in your case) concerning the truthfulness of what he was being taught from the Watchtower: and a period followed in which he researched thoroughly the issues that concerned him; asking questions of those in authority, before finally leaving at great loss to himself, for he worked for the organisation and lived in a tied house. He lost his home, his wife and family, his job, and was ostracised by the membership at large, and found himself entirely alone and homeless.

Later, thankfully, the Lord brought Him to salvation, and I met him on a Christian holiday party in the Lake district, where he became a friend who was a great blessing to me, in the Lord: and used his experience to help those who ministered among the Jehovah's Witnesses, to bring them to salvation.

What impressed me, when reading the notes, was the absence of anything concerning himself, nothing was mentioned about the losses he incurred: he merely provided the evidence of errors found; and glorified God for His love and grace; Who, rescued him and brought Him to Himself so wonderfully.

In Christ Jesus
Chris