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Date Posted: 15:00:12 10/25/04 Mon
Author: Chris
Subject: Example from Luke 9:48
In reply to:
Brother in Christ
's message, "Re: New thread on doctrine" on 09:23:05 10/25/04 Mon
Brother in Christ, I think it is a good idea to point out wrong doctrines in UBF messages. There, you have them black on white. Of course, as I already explained, the real UBF doctrine is only tought between the lines and not in written form. A hallmark of spiritually abusive systems is that the real rules and doctrines are unspoken, and so it is in UBF. Anyway, even if you only look at UBF messages, you will find enough evidence that UBF’s fundamental doctrines are wrong.
Let me give you an example from my chapter leader, Kaleb Hong, from his Sunday message on Luke 9 delivered in February 2001 in Heidelberg.
The key verse was Lk 9:48: Then he said to them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all—he is the greatest.”
This is the original passage in German (pay attention to the boldface emphasis, added by me):
Zuerst denken wir darüber nach, das Kind im Namen Jesu aufzunehmen. Das Wort Jesu hat wenig mit den allgemeinen Menschenrechten zu tun, dass die Jünger die Würde der Kinder achten sollten. In diesem Zusammenhang sagte Jesus: “Wer aber einen dieser Kleinen, die an mich glauben” (Mt 18,6a). Das Kind bzw. “einer dieser Kleinen, die an mich glauben” kann für alle Gläubigen stehen, die jeder Jünger im Namen Jesu kostbar betrachten und aufnehmen sollte, aber hier bedeutet es konkret die anderen Jünger. [...] Sie kannten alle die geistliche Ordnung, aber sie konnten z.B. Petrus nicht als ihren Leiter akzeptieren. Denn Jesus war ihr Maßstab, und im Vergleich zu Jesus kam jeder jedem wie ein kleines Kind vor. Doch Jesus wollte, dass die Jünger ihre Haltung ändern und z.B. Petrus doch annehmen sollten, auch wenn er wie ein Kind war. Die Jünger könnten meinen: “Ich will nur Jesus aufnehmen, nicht Petrus.” Doch die Jünger sollten ihn aufnehmen, nicht um des Petrus willen, sondern um des Namens Jesu willen. Etliche sagen: “Ich gehorche nur Gott, nicht den Menschen.” Doch es ist wirklich wichtig, die anderen im Namen Jesu zu akzeptieren. [...] Es ist leicht, die Menschen aufzunehmen, die wir aufnehmen wollen. Aber wir sollen die Menschen aufnehmen, die wir aufnehmen sollen. Anders gesagt, um vor Gott wahrhaftig groß zu sein, sollen wir lernen, Menschen aus der Sicht Gottes zu betrachten und die Menschen von Gott aufzunehmen. Ohne diese geistliche Ansicht betrachten wir die Menschen nach unserem Maßstab. Dann denken wir, dass, wie sie gerade aussehen, alles wäre, und dabei sehen wir Jesus nicht, der hinter ihnen steht. Wir sollen lernen, die Menschen im Namen aufzunehmen, die Jesus gebraucht, die Jesus aufgestellt hat, d.h. die Menschen, die Jesus ausgewählt hat, auch wenn sie wie ein Kind ohne Ansehen sind. Menschen wie ein Kind im Namen Jesu anzunehmen, ist eine Sache der geistlichen Reife.
My translation:
First, let us think about what it means to welcome the child in the name of Jesus. The word of Jesus has little to do with the general human rights, that the disciples should respect the dignity of the children. In this context, Jesus said: “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me” (Mt 18:6). The child resp. “one of these little ones who believe in me” can mean all believers whom every disciple should welcome and look at preciously, but here it means concretely the other disciples. […] They all knew the spiritual order, but they couldn’t e.g. accept Peter as their leader. This was because Jesus was their standard and everybody looked like a little child in comparison with Jesus. But Jesus wanted the disciples to change their attitude and e.g. welcome Peter anyway, even if he was like a child. The disciples could have thought: “I want to welcome only Jesus, not Peter.” But the disciples should welcome him anyway, not for Peter’s sake, but for the sake of the name of Jesus. Quite a lot of people say: “I obey only God, not men.” But it is really important to accept the others in the name of Jesus. [...] It is easy to welcome the people whom we want to welcome. But we shall welcome the people whom we shall welcome. With other words, in order to be really great in front of God, we shall learn to look at people from the view of God and to welcome the men of God. Without this spiritual view, we look at the people according to our standards. Then we will think that how they are looking now would be everything and we don’t see Jesus, who is standing behind them. We shall learn to welcome the people who are used by Jesus, who have been appointed by Jesus, i.e. the people who have been chosen by Jesus, even if they are like a child without reputation. Welcoming people like a child in the name of Jesu is a matter of spiritual maturity.
This is a prime example of a manipulative, twisted and even 180 degree perverted Bible passage, a masterstroke from Kaleb Hong. The Bible twisting is so subtle and hidden that you don’t notice it at a first glance. You will find many typical patterns from UBF messages. Let me point out some of them. First, human rights are degraded without need. The concept of human rights and dignity is rejected in UBF because it needs to be violated constantly in “obedience training.”
Please note that the message was preached just in the time when Samuel Lee was heavily criticized. The main message that Kaleb Hong wanted to instill into the listeners is the following: “Even if Samuel Lee behaves silly like a little child, you have to obey him, because he is appointed by God.” Kaleb twists the whole passage so that it supports this train of thoughts, so it is a completely erroneous thought that has nothing to do with the real intention of this passage. Please read again and notice how carefully Kaleb leads and manipulates the listener. Every single sentence sounds reasonable, but the whole train of thoughs is completely errouneous.
“little child” -> other disciples, particularly Peter, the spiritual leader -> spiritual leaders in general (“men of God”, “people who have been appointed by God” etc.)
“to welcome somebody” -> “to obey somebody”
It is completely obvious that the “little child” in this passage is standing for those who are at the bottom of an imagined “spiritual order,” and not those who claim to be the big bosses. But Kaleb manages to give it just the opposite meaning. With such a technique, he can really read anything out of any passage of the Bible.
It is interesting also to observe how he jumps from the issue of “welcoming somebody” to “obeying somebody,” as if the two things were equal. In reality, the passage does not talk about obedience at all! The trick is to quote a passage that is talking about “welcoming” somebody, then equating “welcoming” with “obeying,” at the same time swapping subject and object, and then drawing completely erroneous conclusions. Then, they claim they “simply study the Bible, believe the Bible, obey the Bible.”
(By the way, Brian used a similar trick when he equated “welcoming” with “obeying” here. He probably learned this kind of Bible tricks from Paul Hong, and both Hongs learned it from Samuel Lee.)
You will find so many erroneous statements in this little passage. Did you notice that Kaleb claimed that Peter was the leader of the other disciples? This is a completely unbiblical view. Of course, Peter had a special role among the disciples, but he was not their leader! Nowhere in the Bible you will find a clue that Peter was their leader. But it is claimed here as if it would be a matter of course.
Another trick is to include tautologies like “we shall welcome the people whom we shall welcome.” They say nothing and everybody can understand them as he likes. They only serve to distract your attention from the critical twists by adding seemingly logical, but meaningless nonsense.
Please also note that Kaleb leaves the last conclusion to the reader, namely to equate the “men of God, who have been appointed by God,” with Samuel Lee. It is very typical that the main message is conveyed “between the lines.” For every UBF member, especially in this situation, it was completely clear that the “man of God” could only be Samuel Lee, “the servant of God.” But Kaleb would not speak it out, because it would be too obvious. And at the same time, he fosters the idea, that UBF leaders are
“men of God”, “Jesus is standing behind them”, “they are used by Jesus,” “chosen by Jesus,” “appointed by Jesus”
He would not admit explicitely that he was talking about UBF leaders, but it was completely clear who was meant.
Kaleb knows very well about that trick to leave the last, critical conclusion to the listener instead of explicitely writing it down. Then the listener will believe it has been his own idea, and will be much more convinced of that idea. He uses this trick very often. He seldom directly forces people to obey against their will, instead he prefers to manipulate them and make them think that it is their own idea.
In order to be sure whether people understood his “secret message” between the lines, i.e. whether they made the “last conclusion,” he had given order that all members have to meet after the Sunday service. In this meeting, we were sitting at a long table, and in strict rotation, everybody had to tell what he had learned from the message. You can imagine how boring it was when 40 people all said the same, all repeated the key verse and some phrases from the message they had written down during the message.
It was interesting that at the Sunday when the above message had been delivered by Kaleb, nearly nobody could follow the Bible twisting, maybe the manipulation was too artificial and elaborate, too absurd. I don’t know why I was the only one who noticed it, normally everybody was very sleepy when Kaleb delivered his boring same-old-soup messages with his wrong pronounciation, but at that time I had started to listen more carefully. Only the last one in the row, Reiner S., the “Abraham of faith” had gotten the hidden message. He said that he had learned that he should obey his leaders, even if he does not understand them. I guess Kaleb was very pleased that at least one had got it. Reiner S. was trained in listening very well to the voice of his master, and understand everything that was said between the lines. I think UBF has a culture of “speaking between the lines” and that was what I hated very much. I like people who speak straight forward.
After the Sunday service, I went to Kaleb and complained that he had perverted the Bible by interpreting the passage in the opposite way it was intended. Kaleb’s answer was, effectively: “Nobody can understand the Bible correctly. You have no right to say that anybody’s interpretation is wrong, because only God knows the real meaning.” This showed me even more about his real mindset than everything else. I left UBF a few weeks later, because I recognized that on this basis it was impossible to speak with him. There was no real fundament. Everything was arbitrary and subject to the interpretation of the leaders. The only thing that was a constant was the belief that these leaders were “the servants of God” and your spiritual superiors. That’s the essence of UBF.
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