Featured The City Church

Knollys ended up concluding that Church was "an Homogenial word, As Water in the Sea, in a River, in a Well, and in a Spoon, is called Water."

books.google.com/books?id=wGVnAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA9

Knollys notes that Church is used in Scripture for the general assembly [Heb. 12:23 "the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven"], as well as for all the assemblies of a city/town/village[I Cor 1:2 "the church of God which is at Corinth" Rom 16:1 "the church which is at Cenchrea"], as well as for each particular assembly [Col 4:15 "Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the church which is in his house."].

Knollys also notes 1 Corinthians 14:34, where the church in Corinth is instructed to "Let your women keep silence in the churches."

 

Even if I were to grant you that, which I don't due to the context, to say that this is Jesus explaining what a local church is or how it operates is not doing justice to the text.

 

Based on the unity which Christ called His church to, I have to agree with Nee. Of course, I've already been persuaded biblically prior to ever knowing Nee's view on the subject.

The first objection, which we've already heard, is that a city like NY has too great a Christian population to practically have one gathering, and I think that Nee was an intelligent enough fellow to understand that, as well.

The way in which this works out practically, as I would argue it did in the early church, is that the city is a network of small congregations. I know, some/most Baptists will lose their minds over such an idea, but I think there is evidence that in large cities and regions, there were city/regional churches made up of smaller congregations. A house church in a city was not an independent entity. It was not a law unto itself. It was part of a network of churches in that city, which also means that there was some structure of leadership, which again is not an idea which many Baptists could not even entertain. . .

 

Question and Answer - How does the teaching of Watchman Nee differ from the teaching of Reformed theology?

 

You will find that my original post contains more than a reference to this one verse.

 

So how's your fellowshipping with these Watchman Nee folks nearby you going?

Oh, it's not?

 

I agree. I think what happened is that small groups/congregations met for fellowship, and then gathered in large regional meetings.

 

Yes, he gives the example of water. You can use the same word whether it is in the sea, a stream, a well, or a spoon. Likewise, in the Bible church is used of each of the churches in a city, or of all of them together.

Knollys did not limit the word church as the kooky Nee/Lee nondenominational denominaton does.

 

You may consider some of the ideas of Nee and Lee as unfaithful to the Scriptures, but they certainly were not "kooky."

Watchman Nee was a church planter in China. He desired churches thrive in China. His work continues in the typical underground church in this day.

Witness Lee was and American who worked with Nee in establishing the Chinese churches and later in life encouraged western churches to function in a way he considered more closely aligned with the Scriptures.

Neither were "kooky" and frankly much of their writing is worth consideration.

 

I don't agree that there should only be a single church in each city. Doctrinal errors so infest the local assemblies that such will only occur when "We all get to heaven."

However, the desire may be good, and even Scriptural, the application marred by sin.

The consideration that a statement of faith may be used to divide is true.

What Lee desired (toward the end of his life) was such a focus upon Christ, that disagreements would be settled by everyone resolving to be a manifestation of Him rather than clinging to some manner of worldly thought that was clung to more favorably then the Scriptures.

 

Baptist Press

 

OF COURSE the denomination powers are going to push back.

What do you expect?

There is prestige, honor, authority, money, power at stake. Pride, Lust, at the heart.

How else would you expect denominations to react?

 

Have a quibble with kooky?
Have a quibble with aberrant?
Take a gander at nondenominational John MacArthur's take on the sect:

cdn.gty.org/sermons/High/1301-K.mp3 [starts approx. 50 minute mark]

QUESTION: ...a born-again Christian, but he is a member of what is called the Local Church. Can you tell me anything about that?

JOHN MACARTHUR: "The Local Church is also known as the church of L.A. or the church of San Francisco, the church of Chicago, the church of Phoenix, the church of New York. They basically take the roots of their movement from the writings of Watchman Nee."

"Watchman Nee was a great Chinese Christian who wrote many books: Sit, Walk, Stand...But anyway, Watchman Nee had this idea that because in the New Testament you had the church at Philippi, the church at Ephesus, the church at Thyatira, the church at Sardis, the church at Thessalonica, da-da-da-da, that that's the way it ought to be today. So you gotta have the church at Canton, the church at Peking, the church at Hong Kong, the church at whatever. And so that was his vision. And so he outlines this in some of his writings, that should be only one church."

"there was a guy who was kind of a protege of him...Watchman Nee wrote in one his books that the thing that he felt he did not want ever to happen was that any of his writings would be the generation of a denomination. But that's exactly what did happen. Witness Lee came along behind Watchman Nee and Witness Lee is the guy who started the Local Church. The Local Church is...it's kind of funny because they've got a whole bunch of branches already in Los Angeles. They've got the church of Los Angeles Sepulveda, the church of Los Angeles South L.A. and the church of Los Angeles Orange County"

"Witness Lee came along and took this concept from Watchman Nee and then he developed a thing which is called 'pray reading.' And what that is, what they do in those services, they're highly emotional activities. They don't put any signs up. It's almost like a clandestine thing. They're very, they're very aggressive though on college campuses and so forth and they believe they're the only church with the only inside track and so forth. But they have this pray reading thing where they read their Bible and then they say things in between to kind of induce an emotional thing"

They follow the teachings of Watchman Nee...of Witness Lee, whose major book is titled Christ Versus Doctrine...They believe that doctrine is what has destroyed the church so you must eliminate all doctrine....all they really do is induce an emotional feeling out of that, kind of, rather ecstatic kind of reading. And they tend to look down on every other movement.

"As to whether they're Christians or not, I would imagine they probably have about the same mix as other groups of people who do know Christ and who do not. But it's very, a very strange group."