Reflections on Today’s Daily Bread
Dear Readers:
We, the administrators of UBFriends, were deeply moved by this morning’s Daily Bread passage and accompanying commentary that appeared on ubf.org. Because of our laziness, pride and poor spiritual conditions, we had given up writing our Daily Bread reflections for a very long time. But today we repented because the DB page was so excellent! It seemed so fresh, so relevant, as though the author was personally writing it for us and for all our readers! So we decided to reproduce the DB page here. And we invite you, as the Spirit leads, to share your thoughts and reflections in the Comments section below. Please meditate deeply on this and write about how it applies to you. We look forward to hearing from you.
THE ASSYRIAN ARMY THREATENS JERUSALEM
2 Kings 18:17-37
Key Verse: 18:36
But the people remained silent and said nothing in reply, because the king had commanded, “Do not answer him.”
Prayer: Lord, thank you for leaders who encourage us to stand strong in our faith. Help me to keep my faith when the devil is planting fear and tempting me to take the easy way.
One Word: Do not talk to the devil
Today’s passage tells us how God’s people were being threatened by the army of Assyria. But in reality, they were being threatened by the silky voice of Satan who was speaking to them so smoothly, tempting them to give up their special identity and calling and mission to be a kingdom of priests and holy nation and Bible teachers for the whole world. Through this passage, may God teach me how to stop listening to the devil and win the victory to keep my faith and mission strong to the end.
Part 1: We are depending on the Lord our God
The field commander of the Assyrian army brought a message to King Hezekiah to shake his confidence. He used cunning tactics of propaganda and psychological warfare. Instead of merely talking to the king, he shouted in the Hebrew language so that all of Hezekiah’s soldiers could hear. He spread vicious lies about God’s servant. He acted just like people who publish slanderous articles about God’s servants on the internet, where young sheep can see and become suspicious and turn against us and rebel against God’s call to campus mission. They should not do such things. In the past, we tried to stop these enemies of the gospel with lawsuits and by prayerfully hacking into their web servers. That worked for a while but now we need a better strategy based on God’s wisdom. What should we do?
Part 2: The temptation to compromise and not give up
When we see rumors and lies being spread about God’s servants on the internet, we are tempted to stop respecting and obeying our spiritual leaders. We know that those words are not from God because they only talk about problems and spread human thinking instead of teaching the Bible 1:1 as God commands. Still it is tempting to listen to them because sometimes they say things that are smart, quoting from the Bible and all kinds of intellectual Christian books to make us confused. They say that God’s work is a losing business because our Sunday worship numbers and conference numbers and offerings have been going down year after year. What can we do?
In that situation, King Hezekiah had said to the soldiers, “Do not answer them.” So they said nothing. Like the holy Jesus who stood on trial before Herod and said nothing. Through this passage, we learn the secret of how to defeat all those who spread Satan’s lies. We must not talk to them. We must not listen to them. Instead we must ignore them completely and go back to the Bible and keep our mission to the end. Then God will defeat them in his own time and his own way give us absolute victory!
One young man used to be very zealous for God. He married by faith and wanted to be a missionary to Russia but decided instead to go to Detroit. But he used to read all kinds of slanderous things on anti-ubf websites. He would zealously defend God’s servants against the slander and testify to God’s work in his life. But his shepherds sensed this was unhealthy. They counseled him to stop talking to the devil, but he wouldn’t listen. Eventually it corrupted his mind. He forgot God’s grace and gave up his mission and became like a mental patient. Through this we learn that we must not talk to the devil.
One word: Don’t talk to the devil
ROFL and LMFAO!
We have a winner guys.
I have to sincerely confess and repent that I have stopped writing sincere, repentant, heart-moving testimonies and daily bread for almost a decade. May God forgive my sins for not sincerely struggling to humbly accept one word of God with my whole heart each and every day. Instead I have been filled with all kinds of human thinking from reading too many books. Also, a proud mind and a rebellious mind grew in me. Because I stopped writing testimonies, I also completely abandoned my prayer topic to raise a 120 member fellowship. May God have mercy on me, a wretched worm who is totally unworthy and ashamed to show myself before God’s great and humble servants.
Based on today’s daily bread, I am reminded of a young man who was so much loved and served by God’s servants for 24 years. But he became very very unthankful and ungrateful, forgetting how much he was loved and served by God’s servants, and how God servants provided him with the best and most wonderful shepherdess that he could never find anywhere else in the whole wide world. Even though God blessed him so much, yet he began to listen to the devil through his smart mind and human thinking. He also began engaging with all kinds of sinful pleasure-seeking hedonistic people and rebels against God’s work. He stopped feeding sheep and abandoned God’s wonderful holy mission for campus students. He stopped doing Daily Bread and so he could not but only listen to the devil more and more. May God have mercy on him.
One Word: Trust God and God’s servants absolutely and don’t talk to the devil! Otherwise you may become like this ungrateful young man.
Nice. This could serve as a DB reflection on just about any passage from the Bible.
Oh dear, so true. It is a reflection of how I studied the Bible and wrote testimonies every single week for 27 years!
Today has been a stellar day at ubfriends! I haven’t laughed so much in one day, all day long for quite a while, well not since I talked NickM several months ago. We both nearly dropped our phones laughing recalling an incident where I accidentally sent some Korean missionaries through downtown Detroit on a visit one time…they were so pissed at me, but in keeping face, they just gave me dirty looks the whole visit.
It’s scary how easy it was for me to slip back into that ubfish mindset, generating line after line of testimony text with very little effort. And how hard it would be now for me to actually teach or preach intelligently on this passage today from a Christotelic standpoint. I could certainly do it, and I think I would do it well. I believe I could give an inspiring message. But it would require a great deal of careful thought and prayerful meditation.
Ok so I don’t live in ancient Hebrew culture, I have never lived under the reign of a king, I don’t know what it’s like to be in a war, I’ve never met a prophet in camel’s hair, I’ve never lived in the Old Testament times before the cross of Jesus and I have no little knowledge about who these people are in this passage. So I have very little to say here in terms of any life principle these verses might teach me, an American man living in 2014 with 4 children and wife doing her PhD.
I do see a few things, however. I see that there is a king here who is challenging the identity of another king, who is the king of God’s people. I remember that Samuel expressed God’s lament over the Israelites wanting a king in the first place. Establishing a kingship hierarchy was going to cause the people of God a lot of headache and trouble, God warned. But the people insisted on having kings rule over them, as if God wasn’t enough to be their king. They wanted a king to protect them and so now they had to obey their king.
Instead of addressing the problems of the kingdoms around them and becoming a beacon of light and peace and love as God wanted, they now had to play the games of the world, making absurd deals and resorting to bribery with other kings just to stay alive (2 Kings 18:13-16). The king here acted poorly just as other kings of Israel had done, even giving away the sacred temple furnishings. And so they opened their community up to ridicule and mocking and further attack.
Today’s passage shows one example of the conundrum the people of God face when they try to live as the world lives– with kings and authority and servants and such. This isn’t the vision of God’s kingdom Jesus presented to us in the sermon on the mount. This is not the kingdom message of Jesus’ gospel, which turns kingly authority upside down.
The other truth I see here in this Scripture is that God’s people will have our identity challenged by people claiming to hear God’s voice. So I need to be confident in who I am when people think I might be filled with an evil spirit. For example the challenging king says in verse 25 “The Lord himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.” So both this king and the king of Israel claimed to speak for God. Both claimed to be serving God.
It is the same today. Many claim to be following Christ, obeying Jesus, etc. But who really is doing so? I ask God to give me discernment and my own thinking ability so I can find out who is listening to God and who is not. And I also pray to have eyes that see and ears that hear so that I don’t fall into the trap of obeying a hierarchical authority that has strayed from God’s kingdom vision.
I was thinking about what I would say if I were asked to seriously explain this passage from a Christian standpoint. I would have taken a similar approach.
Oh wait… I meant to say:
Today’s daily bread was so yummy that I am now fully satisfied by chewing God’s word. I feel like a new cow chewing cud for the first time! So I repent for not doing daily bread since 1999 and for faking it every morning by only memorizing the ‘one word’ in case somebody asked me about it that day. And with great humility and many tears I have decided to come back to my senses. I will give up my senseless freedom and joy and peace and hope and find true freedom true joy and true peace by studying 1:1 bible study every week faithfully with my stuffed bear. I am so sorry that I disobeyed God’s servants direction to do this. Please accept my humble repentance for I am the worst of sinners and do not even deserve to be called a sinner.
I made a decision of faith! Amen! I will give up my senseless blogging and being a bad influence on so many precious young little ones around the world. I realize that many little ones have been led astray by my bitterness because they have no ability to think on their own. Instead of reading the Christian greats like Spurgeon and Augustine, I now see their folly and will only listen to the best bible teachers in the world, the ubf people who have God’s best ways.
I will become more prayerful and rejoin my leaders at ubf in their silence. You have been waiting for me like the prodigal son’s father, longing for me to return, so now I return. I am giving up my pig slop life. No longer will I date my wife or spend time for my children. I will sacrifice them like Isaac on the mountain. To show my sincerity I will shut down all my blogs and spend 3 hours early in the morning doing daily bread, becoming like Jesus who got up so early in the morning. Please pray for me to do daily bread 400 times a year! I know there are only 365 days in a year but by faith I will do 400 times! In that way I will live as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation!
One word: Live as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation!
Much better. Welcome back to the fold.
Now where’s my metal folding chair… I must go find it and sit on it.
But seriously: Are there any current ubf members out there who attended a DB meeting today? If so, what kinds of things did you hear? I’m curious to learn what people are saying these days. OK to share anonymously, if you prefer.
I spoke with my pastor at bible study. He didn’t really want to talk about it. He couldn’t understand that my point was not that this was not true, but that the implications of this DB was that we should not speak to people who speak against UBF. He said everything was God’s work or Satan’s work (Sorry BK) and that if a sin was personal the church should gather and discuss their sin and how they can be helped, but if the sinner is trying to influence others and spread false teachings they should be asked to leave. He said “In UBF we openly discuss.” I told him this wasn’t true and he laughed at me as said “How long have you been in UBF?” I said a few years and he boasted “I have been in UBF for 30 years.” I asked if by “discuss” he meant the 4 reform efforts and he said that there was a committee in UBF that openly talks about issues and reconciles problems (Sorry Ben I didn’t mention this in our call, I am looking at notes now). I asked if he could give an example of a person being asked to leave and he said in 1990 a group of charismatics in Chicago were predicting the apocalypse in 1992 and seeking gifts of the holy spirit. They were asked to leave. He said recently some chapters were becoming charismatic and “Our ministry is bible study not spiritual gift. Holy spirit comes from 1-1 bible study and group bible study. Then I talked to him about Brian’s book a bunch. Paul said he had at one point wanted to pioneer Detroit but he was led to St. Louis. I mentioned that it was highly unChrist like to call Brian Satan, and that if we call him an enemy Christ tells us to love our enemies. Paul said all he knew about Brian was he had a bad experience pioneering Detroit. At the end of bible study Paul prayed for Brian.
“group of charismatics in Chicago were predicting the apocalypse in 1992 and seeking gifts of the holy spirit”
Just some background info: That group was probably the “Mission for the Coming Days”. It was led by a charismatic Korean, and it does not amaze me that some of the Korean missionaries felt attracted by their prophecies.
Many of the Korean missionaries feel “dried up” in UBF, they long for charismatic worship like water in the desert. Since they have no real theological education and discernment, and only learned to blindly and humbly trust in “spiritual authorities” with power posture and self-confidence, I can well imagine how attractive the Korean “Mission for the Coming Days” must have been for some Korean UBF missionaries. It even had the word “mission” in its title.
Here is a report by a former Chicago UBF missionary about what he called the “christmas massacre” of 1989 ( Koreans often dramatize in the wording, I guess he called it a “massacre” since being expelled from UBF meant to have lost mission, calling, salvation, i.e. spiritual death for any dedicated UBF member).
I think we need some daily bread training here for all you backsliders. You don’t have to do Daily Bread, but it is what the bible says to do:
“This is not the only way to meditate on the word of God. However, we do make this suggestion according to the Bible’s own advice on meditating on God’s word.
Also, this is not the only kind of meditation one should do. Using the example, again, of a loaf of bread, if you only saw slices of bread every day, it would be difficult to imagine what the loaf originally looked like. In the same way, we come to the Bible in small passage and learn, and we also need to big studies and meditations to see the Bible as as a whole with a message. For example, meditating on what the entire book of Genesis is talking about. And then, thinking about parallels in the books of Genesis and Revelation. But for daily eating, we need to do daily bread and come to God’s words. You, plus the bible, plus writing, plus everyday.”
And if your neighbor’s dog poo’s too much, just do daily bread with a partner and forget about it. It could change your life! Your wife will serve you better and your children will get all A’s in school!
Here is what our leader said:
“My main suggestion in this case is to get a partner or two. Ecclesiastes 4:12 says, “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
I have experienced this first hand many times. As I shared already, I could start and continue daily bread for 2 years because of the commitment to my wife. Also, last summer, I shared daily bread with two brothers. One of those brothers also wrote daily bread every day for 1 year, without missing 1 day. Daily Bread changed my life in terms of my attitude and relationship with my wife, with my coworkers, with my neighbors and with God. I despised my neighbors. They double or triple park. They don’t scoop up their dog’s poo right away. But Provers 14:21 said, “He who despises his neighbor sins, but blessed is he who is kind to the needy.” I was made at them, but I realized that I was the one sinning! It was a shock. I should have been kind and saw them as needy people.”
I’m speechless.
Hi Brian and Joe, I co-authored the “Daily Bread Workshop” that you quoted here. Maybe it is because I helped write it, but I do feel that how you’ve presented it here is making it out into very different that what was initially intended. Making a commitment to read the Bible each day with my wife and others to learn from it actually changed my mind and perspective in how I relate to my wife, my children and even my neighbors whom I despised. I experienced a renewing of my mind through the word of God. But the “daily bread” we were trying to write about or practice was definitely not the kind of testimonies or booklet indoctrination that is being presented in this article and its comments.
If I may add something else, it was written for one of our local conferences. Personally, I haven’t used the daily bread publications or read the summaries in years. I can’t remember the last time I did. At the very core of what we were trying to do was to encourage people to read the Bible for themselves, without relying on a shepherd to tell them what it means, without relying on the summary to them the “meaning” and application, without the sunday message manuscript, without all of this spoon feeding what the Bible says according to our own UBF ways. We found some scripture to help encourage this and still help people to take an active approach to their learning and meditation through writing, which might carry some familiarity in the UBF context. I still write daily, but I always try to remove such filters except to have eyes to see how the passage is testifying about Jesus. The 1:1 correlations, as expressed in the DB book summary in the article, is problematic on too many levels. Ultimately, it doesn’t even point us to Jesus.
Charles, thanks for pushing back and for giving us more background on the workshop material.
As I read the material, I sensed that its purpose was to help people to look at Scripture for themselves, without using the DB book as the interpretive lens. That is a laudable goal. Perhaps some in the audience did hear that message. Another message that came through very strongly was the need to continue to do it every day. “You, plus the bible, plus writing, plus everyday.”
In my experience, people consistently over-estimate their ability to remove their interpretive lenses. If someone has learned a particular way of interacting with Scripture based on the DB booklet, they will continue to interact with Scripture in that way long after they put the DB booklet down. Until their assumptions are identified and challenged and actively resisted, they will continue to make those assumptions day after day, year after year, without even realizing that they are doing it. They will continue to look at the Old Testament and see ancient Israel as a metaphor for UBF, OT warfare as a metaphor for campus ministry, and so on. People cannot stop doing something until they recognize what they are doing and are shown a better alternative.
In theory, it might be possible for someone to discover better ways of looking at Scripture on their own while continuing the practice of writing UBF Daily Bread reflections every day. But in practice, I don’t know of anyone who has actually accomplished that. I don’t know of anyone who was able to successfully come out of ubf-centric ways of looking at Scripture by themselves, without completely putting aside the ubf materials and methods and immersing themselves in non-ubf sources, non-ubf books, non-ubf preaching for an extended period of time. The ubf voices in our heads are very loud and tend to drown out everything else, including our own emotions and thoughts; the ubf voices need to be silenced for a while before we can hear ourselves think, before we can listen to voices of other parts of the church. In my experience, we really cannot find better ways of understanding the Bible on our own. We need Christians from other traditions to show us. And we need someone to identify the peculiarities and implicit assumptions of the ubf interpretive lens, as I tried to do in these two articles:
http://www.ubfriends.org/2012/07/16/an-imaginary-report-by-joe-2005/
http://www.ubfriends.org/2012/07/23/my-letter-to-joe-2005/
I didn’t really find much objectionable here besides “Your wife will serve you better and your children will get all A’s in school!” I am not sure that directly follows, but i don’t put anything past prayer.
I think those words were Brian’s.
Yes those are my words :) That is what I heard when I read that part of the ubf article. I appreciate what Charles tried to do in the article but I am really put off by the idea that just because a ubf person has a good intention, the result is automatically good. If ubf people need anything they need to start getting multiple reactions and perspectives and then start changing and reacting and actually growing. I respect Charles for starting to do that. Good intentions do not automatically produce good fruit, and often produce the opposite.
@Joe, The ubf voices in our heads are very loud and tend to drown out everything else, including our own emotions and thoughts; the ubf voices need to be silenced for a while before we can hear ourselves think, before we can listen to voices of other parts of the church. – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2014/05/06/reflections-on-todays-daily-bread/#comment-13317
I fully agree with all you’ve said in your reply. For me, this began by quitting the UBF published materials, such as Daily Bread books. One day I just realized that the voice of the booklet was louder than the voice of the passage, and I was no longer able to read the passage without having the interpretation of the booklet being forced. I didn’t want to have to battle with two, often conflicting, voices. Because of this, I was being cautious not to jump to another person or ministry’s materials for fear of the same loud voice speaking over the passage. This kind of drowning out of the passage with someone else’s voice was also experienced in the early days of message training. Once, on a Sunday before delivering a Sunday message on Acts, someone came up to me with a copy of RonW’s manuscript on that same passage and asked me to deliver it. I had to say, No, even if my manuscript was not as thoughtful or insightful or “heart-moving.” At that stage in 2012, in preparing the workshop, we also simply wanted people to have a Bible first, other materials second, step in coming to the Bible. (This conference was based around 2 Timothy 2:15).
@Brian, if ubf people need anything they need to start getting multiple reactions and perspectives and then start changing and reacting and actually growing. – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2014/05/06/reflections-on-todays-daily-bread/#sthash.b3DRdpiY.dpuf
Yes, fully agree. I am seeing that our “seminary” of sorts has been testimony writing based on someone else’s manuscript. This tends to have many teachings to simply be accepted, because that is what has been said by someone senior than you. It also leaves us to accept whatever interpretation we came up with in our own testimony writing as sound doctrine and there is a lot of blowback when questioning those interpretations.
@forests, yes, those were Brian’s words. At that time, my kids were not even in grade school! :) I actually missed that conference because my daughter was born on that Friday, so I was in the hospital with my baby and wife till Saturday and took care of them at home on Sunday.
We really need a youtube channel where people act out these things. We need our own Betty Bowers for ubf!
Speaking of training, anyone have thoughts on the accuracy of this 6 stage model, presented at a ubf director’s conference in 2010?
I used my experience to fill in the model below based on this ubf slide
The Six Stages of UBF Training
Sheep Training
Stage 1: Birthing
Goal – commit to bible study
Starts after first bible study
Stage 2: Rooting
Goal – adopt the UBF worldview
Starts after Sunday service attendance
Stage 3: Growing
Goal – pursue more training
Starts after sharing Life Testimony
Shepherd Training
Stage 4: Disciple Training
Goal – identity
Starts after joining common life
Stage 5: Soldier Training
Goal – obedience
Starts after college graduation
Stage 6: Leader Training
Goal – loyalty
Starts after Marriage by Faith
No wonder MBF kept being pushed on me. They wanted to slide the ruler down. I had shared a life testimony and wrote reflections on every chapter of genesis, AND was in common life. I was perfect!
I don’t think there are so strict phases and time frames. It depends a lot on the individual and the culture, and the leaders adapt their training depending on how much “grip” they have on an individual. Typically in Germany, students graduate and marry about 10 years later than e.g. in Russia. We all underwent “soldier” and “leader” training years before graduation and marriage.
In the 18th chapter of 2 Kings the King of Assyria tries to persuade the Israelites to compromise and give up their city. The King Hezekiah orders his people not to listen and the Israelites obey.
It was once said that the biggest lie people ever believed was that Satan does not exist. Maybe churches shy away but I am thankful for finding a church that so easily can cite specific instances of Satan attempting to destroy God’s work. I am thankful that my good shepherd Paul was able to tell me how his work remained strong in light of some Charismatics that attempted to seek the gifts of the Holy Spirit in 1990. I realize from this passage that everything is either God’s work or Satan’s work. Since Christ commanded us to make disciples among all nations anything that works against this is from Satan. This includes dating. I am thankful God has given me such a discerning heart to stay away from Satan here. I am thankful that God’s gift of intelligence to me makes my accidental transmission of Satan’s lies incomprehensible. I hope one day to start a house church with a good shepherdess who ends testimonies with ‘one word’ and can play piano well. I know God will provide all things in his perfect time which will incidentally align with my shepherds. I pray that God would use me as a source of blessing and that I would be a blessing to many nations as a great shepherd. I pray that I can become an Abraham of faith like Shepherd Ben, who is truly a man of God. I hope that I am never swayed by the terrible influences of Cs Lewis and St. Augustine when they conflict the clear teachings of God given through my shepherd. I pray that in resisting Satan I will learn to be obedient to God, but more importantly my shepherd- without whom I am a lost sheep apart from Christ. I sincerely repent for my rebellious actions in the Philippines. The depths of my depravity know no bounds. I have not been patient with God’s time. My prayer is that you make me a shepherd to 1 sheep, and help me to establish a house church after I finish my graduate studies.
OneWord: Listen to my shepherd, not Satan
Not sure whether to laugh or to cry!
Forests,
Sounds like you need “New Generation Empowerment” courtesy of Germany ubf, that is if you want to be a world-class shepherd. Maybe these high quality presentations will save me from being Satan’s servant?
2010 Leadership Forum Presentations
Seminar 101: Introduction to Outreach and Fishing
Seminar 102: Hardcore Contents of 1:1 Bible Study
Seminar 103: Discipleship Explored
Bonn UBF Public New Generation Empowerment
Ok now I’ve made myself nauseous. These slides literally reek with stench.
I am torn between being serious and laughing. But I’m quite sure that any traditional UBFer who reads this will immediately conclude that they are being mocked, ridiculed and insulted (once they figure out and realize what is happening!).
And then they will affirm to themselves and among themselves that they just have to be silent and don’t respond because God will surely punish all those Satans and devils who dare to insult, ridicule and mock sincere sacrificial servants of God who are giving their lives for the campus flock of God’s sheep.
My roommate asked if this pleased Jesus (after a torrent of laughter). I quoted GK Chesterton in Heretics
“Mr. McCabe thinks that I am not serious but only funny, because Mr. McCabe thinks that funny is the opposite of seriousness. Funny is the opposite of not funny and nothing else. The question of whether a man expresses himself in grotesque or laughable phraseology, or in stately or restrained phraseology is not a question of motive or of moral state, it is a question of instinctive language and self- expression. Whether a man chooses to tell the truth in long sentences or short jokes is a problem analogous to whether he chooses to tell the truth in French or German…The truth is,as I have said, that in this sense the two qualities of fun and seriousness have nothing to do with each other, they are no more comparable than black and triangular…In short, Mr. McCabe is under the influence of a primary fallacy which I have found very common in men of the clerical type. Numbers of clergymen have from time to time reproached me for making jokes about their religion; and they have almost always invoked the authority of that very sensible commandment which says ‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” Of course I pointed out that I was not in any conceivable sense taking the name in vain. To take a thing and make a joke out of it is not to take it in vain. It is on the contrary to take it and make it for an uncommonly good object.”
Great quote. I love GK.
Jesus laughed a lot and if we are honest, some of the post-Pharisee discussions had to have gone down something like this post. Really, the Pharisees were angry over eating grain on the Sabbath? In any case, ubfriends is an unmasked community.
Here is a passage from the Daily devotional I use
“It takes God a long time to get us to stop thinking that unless everyone sees things exactly as we do, they must be wrong…Jesus said, “Go . . . and make disciples. . .” (Matthew 28:19), not, “Make converts to your own thoughts and opinions.””
http://utmost.org/
(May 6th)
I miss Lent.
Admit it, John: You need people to do this (or something like it) from time to time, or your job would be even more impossible.
Thanks for adding your perspective Charles. In a real sense it was mirrors like this that helped me see my own blindspots.
As I read that training article more closely I find some really really good advice (I am being serious). For example, this seems like ubfriends material:
“It is like eating. Food is not enjoyable if something else has already eaten it for you. Also, we are not birds who need a mother to chew and digest it for us and then give it to us to eat. After you’ve eaten, then it can be beneficial to see what others may have to say about the passage or even to compare what you wrote with theirs and learn even more. But each person should spend the sufficient time on their own with the word of God. Just you and the word of God. After that precious time, then you invite others to the eating fellowship. Others may have written something very good. Mother Barry or Dr. Lee may have written and expounded on the passage well. But surely Mother Barry or Dr. Lee would not approve of you substituting your own meditation and writing time with their meditation and writing time. They would be doing a disservice to you if that were the case. We need to come to the word of God first.”
My only objection to this is that SLee WOULD have approved and demanded that you substitute your own meditation and writing with theirs, at least until you are trained. That is exactly how SLee taught the other Koreans and that’s how most of my life narrative became dictated to me.