Closed Brethren
I sat next to this guy in the plane on my way back to Melbourne 3 weeks ago. Had a pretty interesting conversation with him regarding God and brethren stuffs. Guess the world is pretty small after all, he attends a church at South Okleigh runs by uncle Oh Boon Lian's son (those of u from Elim should know who I am talking about). It's a closed brethren church, pretty much like Paramount Gospel Hall in Msia.
Here are some interesting issues we talked about:
1. U must be baptized before u are accepted into their church (though he agrees that baptism does not save u)
2. Newcomers who attend their church must sit at the back rows-separate from the other believers
3. Women cannot participate in worship
4. The use of musical instruments are seen as bringing worldly influence into the worship-which makes it unnecessary (though he says its not absolutely wrong).
5. We'll have the same physical body in heaven as on earth (He wasnt sure of this though)
6. That all supernatural gifts (ie tongues, prophesies) have seized since perfection came: which he claims is the bible, not the 2nd coming of Christ. Reason for this is because the greek word refers perfection to an inanimate object (Pls enlighten me those of u who study greek!)
What I gathered out of this chat with him is this:
1. Firstly, he is very knowledgeable in the Word (he just quoted scriptures offhand)and he basically knew every passage of the Bible that I refered to, considering that he is a pretty new Christian (bout 2 years old I think)
2. He is very firm with the closed brethren's teachings, some of which were mentioned above, and he regarded their interpretation of the bible as the right one (claiming that they read in context, and studied the original language).
While I admire his knowledge, but I also disagree with several teachings that their church holds fast to (albeit being a brethren myself). Are those issues merely human's interpretation, tradition or really the truth? Something for us to think about...
We exchanged contacts, and he invited me to his church. Oh well, we havent been in contact since then.
