My Journal

I came across these. I'm going to assume the remarkable similarity between Washer & Tong's message was coincidental (God lead).

From @53:25 time frame of Paul Washer's sermon on "Song of Solomon (Prayer as Communion):

"I'm so sick tired of proper theologically correct reformed preaching, where we are all amazed at...explaining everything coldly and calculating as though God were a mathematical formula. Listen to me, the worst thing that can ever happen to a preacher is for him to become civilized and respectable, there ought to be a sense that any man who proclaims God ought to be somewhat of a mad man, because he's speaking about the glories of God..."

@36:25 of the same sermon, Paul Washer took it to himself to confront interruption of his sermon, just like Dr. Tong.

Similar message from Dr. Tong @2:58:40 of his recent Taiwan sermon "即時串流" (It would appear that they have taken it down from Youtube, good thing I made of copy of it):

今天特别是归正神学运动的人，他们讲的都是。。。这样那样哇这个很好，传道都是知识，没有信息。。。

So I was thrilled to hear Dr. Tong said in the sermon that he has invited Paul Washer to this November's summit in Jakarta. After hearing also that he will be one of the speakers at the Ligonier Conference 2017, now I only wish to find the recordings of these later.

1. By His blood (1 John 1:7)
2. By the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5)
3. By His Word (John 15:3)

So that means any other creative ways are unbiblical. For example: By counseling, by friendship, by caring, by repentance, by any righteous act, etc.

A church's health can be determined by what and how much of the pastor's sermon the congregation takes in. Emphasis on the "What" and "How Much", not "whether or not the congregation likes the sermon".

If that has failed, nothing else matters: Not loyalty, not commitment, not morality, not hospitality, not social charity. It is at best, a very long lasting but temporal charity organization.

One might say, better a long lasting charity organization than worshippers of cheap talks.

I shall respond: If it be the ministering from the mouth of our Lord, it ain't cheap talk.

Then some might reply: Some pastors can't preach it!

I will say: Oh but your relationship to the church must be built on the pulpit, which is the tool from which the voice of the church is generated.

"Must the pulpit be the only source of His Word in a church?"

Pulpit or not, there must be preaching and teaching of the word of God, what better place than the pulpit to convene the one and only thing (Luke 10:42) that is needed?

The one who receives least, always love to blame his incompetence on others, always has some excuses to complain about.

I once heard of this topic, but only the topic, and thus I had wondered about the content. Now, I have finally found it.

After Rev. Lin asked me for information on Witness Lee, I did a brief research and concluded as follow:

A good source of analysis, admitting that they were wrong about Witness Lee and trying to give honest accountability about it: http://www.equip.org/PDF/EnglishOpt.pdf

Witness Lee: "...The entire Godhead, the Triune God, became flesh." In his book "God's New Testament Economy" pg. 218, chapter 21 - The Seven Spirits (2). Commenting on John 1:1.

My assessment can be concluded in my response to Rev. Lin:

Dear pastor, I've come to some conclusion about Witness Lee, particularly after reading http://www.equip.org/PDF/EnglishOpt.pdf

It seems that what's wrong with Witness Lee's core believe isn't much on doctrinal issue. He appears to be building from firm foundation. However, the problem is with his play with words in different places: e.g. Lee affirmed both "Trinity is not about 3 persons" and "Trinity is about 3 persons". Either he lacks the language (doesn't matter which language) to explain his point or more likely he doesn't care. This results in many of his followers become extremists or even heretics.

The characteristic of Witness Lee is nothing new. It is also not unlike Alex Tseng. My guess is pride. They got their doctrine memorized from orthodox textbooks, but out of pride, they do not care how they teach it, they may even wish for others to misunderstand them, so that they could show how right they actually were.

This is no wonder Alex would appear to defend Witness Lee's main doctrine all the way to prove that he is not heretic. Or perhaps he has financial supporters from Lee's camp (My very hypothetical guess).

While Alex's problem is (at least in his later years) probably an avoidance to focus on evangelical work (maybe he has come to believe that seminary teaching is not the same as and can replace evangelical work), Witness Lee's problem more likely has to do with his love in mysticism/personal enlightenment. Either sources feed into one's pride.
I'd put all this in the same category as "idolization of the academia". So yes, they certainly have no problem citing you all the textbook doctrine you want to hear, but the problem you would most likely face is not with them but with their extremist followers while the originators of these chaos prefer to hide in books and their sponsors. Dealing with these originators is usually a waste of time, because they are not doing practical theology: Just like baseball fans who love to comment and criticize, but are never really capable of playing in the game themselves. I'd rather put my focus on those affected by them.

That's about all I have concluded in a short time. I've spent most attention on Western heretics, not much on Eastern heresy.
Hope I can enlighten something for you.

Sincerely,
Tim