Views expressed do not necessarily represent those of University Bible Fellowship
Title: Discipleship Methods within UBF
Title: Discipleship Methods within UBF
Purpose of this
article: To show the difference between
the principles I was taught in the outer layer of UBF which were in many (but
not all) ways good except for a lack of objectivity and what I later learned
from Samuel lee loyalists in the inner layer of UBF which suppressed the
authentic discipleship style I was taught earlier within the same
organization! I also wish to make
suggestions for how to increase objectivity in Bible study, which might help
improve the discipleship process in an area that was lacking.
Disclaimer: It is
a problematic oversimplification to put UBF members into two camps but it saves
much writing space just keep in mind that people are more complicated than I
explain they might behave like Samuel Lee loyalists in one situation but not in
another and might be only partly loyal to Samuel Lee rather than completely
loyal.
Two contrasting
methods of Bible study I witnessed at UBF
First method or stage: Bible discussion with freedom to disagree
This is the better method I was initially exposed to. People discuss Bible passages freely maybe
they figure those who have not yet “accepted” UBF or should I say “Jesus” will
leave if they are not allowed to disagree at this point. Unfortunately we were taught by word and
example to privately interpret (the private interpretation is called “personal
application”) the Bible like an inkblot to suit our desires or the desires of our
Bible teachers/authority figures, this is “the will of men” but it is called
being “led by God.” Being led by the “will
of men” is not what is meant in the Bible by being led by God and is not the
source of any prophecy such as God revealing who you should marry, etc.
None the less, I do not consider it to be real Bible study
unless we are allowed to consider alternative ideas otherwise nothing new is
discovered so this is an improvement over the next method listed. Perhaps this friendly non-objective ink-blot
approach in which we emphasize “personal application” without useless
head-knowledge helps us lose objectivity in reading the Bible and makes us more
susceptible to Samuel Lee’s manipulations in the second method I list or
perhaps it is not a different method but another stage of a single over-arching
method.
I am going to suggest that if there was a way to add
objectivity to the first method UBF could actually be doing something very good
for the culture if the second method was avoided. That is when they initially allowed me to
disagree in Bible study and did not try to get me to obey authority figures (so
heavily) I benefitted from Bible study.
Second method or stage: Copy Samuel Lee
The Sunday Worship Service Message determines what you need to repent
of not independent thought and neither examination of conscience nor
consideration of external circumstances independent of the message calendar
cycles.
This is the method I saw later. The Bible study, testimony writing and
message were all on the same passages and strongly linked together. I got rebuked for spending time contemplating
the Bible passage and deciding what to repent of on my own (although I did not
figure out why this is why my testimonies were disliked until a long time) on
the other hand one day I saw someone who was with the organization a longer
time than me taking a highlighter and highlighting portions of the Sunday
worship service message they told me they were finding what to repent of for
testimony writing. I conclude based on
years of observation that the person who writes the message determines praise
or criticism of testimony writings. How
can everyone sincerely have to repent of the same things at the exact time the
message is written following a cyclical pattern in which old messages written
by Samuel Lee before he died are reused wouldn’t people maybe have to repent of
said sins some time other than the very week the message was given like weeks,
months or years later rather than spontaneously on that very week? What do I mean by this?
No room for original ideas the Sunday Message is based on Samuel Lee
I noticed that rather than going through the whole Bible
there is a pattern of doing the same set of Bible books (and I assume messages)
repeatedly this is what I mean by a cycle.
Now the part about the messages originating from Samuel Lee I know in
multiple ways. 1. I helped the Pastor
proofread the messages he was “writing,” he explained, he uses (apparently by
“use” he did not mean “read” but “copy” and edit) the messages from censored (I
am omitting the name) chapter and adds praise or suggestions for improvement of
what people in his current chapter are doing. 2. I downloaded a sermon from
Chicago, a message from censored Chapter (my Pastor uses for message writing) and
a message from my Pastor’s Chapter (if my memory is correct) in order to look
at three different messages to understand the chapter of the Bible I wanted to
study really well, but they were so close to being identical I thought I
accidentally printed out the same organizational chapter’s message multiple
times, only to find out that it was from different organizational chapters but
the messages were almost identical except for the part the Pastor edits to praise
and criticize his members or other time
and location specific details that would apply to his Chapter but not the other
messenger’s Chapter 3. The Pastor wanted me to edit one of his messages to do a
Sermon when he did not like my message, I agreed to do so but did not
plagiarize and instead told people that I edited his message if they
complimented me on “my message.” 4. I
downloaded one of his really old messages and it was not even an edited copy of
Samuel Lee’s message as far as I know it was an exact word for word copy of
another message of Samuel Lee I downloaded that or so close I could not tell
the difference to an even greater extent than before (not even a separate
section for praise and criticism of local members to make it different.) I
think there has been more variety in UBF messages as the time after the death
of Samuel Lee increased, in some Chapters at least.
How to avoid listening to Satan’s or perhaps God’s voice by 12 one to
one cloning sessions per week
Once I was concerned about being tempted
by sin so I told an authority figure at UBF and this person said I should spend
time teaching Bible students so I should not be tempted like King David did
when he would not go to war (raising Bible students is not the same as killing
people in war and this is clearly a private interpretation of scripture not a
logical one but perhaps he meant to spiritually raze Bible students which is
not a good interpretation but a humorous war pun.)
I wish to suggest that the many busy activities we are told
to do prevent people from listening to important information God would desire
them to receive but they mistake avoiding “empty head knowledge” as blocking
out Satan’s voice. I used to wonder how
they could have time to teach twelve one to one Bible studies but I now realize
it is not teaching at all but merely using the “copy and paste” method which
might make it a more attainable but less spiritually beneficial goal. Below is a compilation of my understanding of
how an ideal shepherd would spend their time listed in order of importance with
actually reading the Bible on your own near the bottom. I would also point out that the fact that
this authority figure not wanting to help me with my sin problem but instead to
get me to raise more disciples showed he was making disciples of
disciple-making but not disciples of Christ.
My overall view of
the two camps within UBF (see disclaimer at the beginning)
The graph and table below although an oversimplification
(see Disclaimer) represent my overall view of UBF. I wish to suggest that the outer teachings in
the table below are good but the inner teachings are bad. Some people on the outer layer following the
outer teachings construct positively to society in some ways, but later they
are exposed to the inner layer teachings and they either stay because they approved
of the outer layer teachings and may still be helpful or embrace the inner
layer teachings and harm society in certain ways or leave UBF. UBF is not a lay ministry movement if the “lay
ministers” cannot teach Bible study on their own but must copy from Samuel
Lee. Regarding the doctrine of the
Universal Church-UBF was not non-denominational or interdenominational as I
have been told at different times as I was discouraged many times (although not
100% of the time) from associating with other Christian groups. The Samuel Lee loyalists on the graph below support
the dangerous inner layers of teachings promoted by Samuel Lee. I would suggest that if those who currently
label themselves as part of UBF choose to live according to the outer layer
they were originally presented with on the table below rather than the inner
layer they were later presented with it would help society (although maybe
Koreans are told the inner layer up front or more quickly because the inner
layer in my opinion is the tenants of Confucianism (obey the bureaucracy) they
were already taught by their society)
Non-exhaustive
suggestions for a starting point at better Bible interpretation
This is only a starting point but I wish to address 5 points
1. In addition to using information within the Bible we
should use information outside the Bible to interpret the Bible and determine
the Canon of scripture. By saying this I
am not proposing a bureaucracy to canonize scripture as the Roman Catholic and “orthodox”
Churches have voted on the Canon and voted on interpretations but instead I
propose using logic, reason and historical methods to show fulfillment of prophecy
to determine the Canon and to interpret scripture.
Jesus did not physically write the New Testament he gave a
deposit of faith through teaching individuals, who later wrote what he did and
said and this deposit of faith included more information than the text that was
physically written in the new testament. We should to try to get a better idea what the
early deposit of faith was understood to be by various different individuals
close to the time different revelations were given to Jesus and other alleged (see
Deuteronomy 18) prophets using historical methods looking at texts outside the
Bible. Additionally we should keep in
mind archeology, geography and studies on cult psychology when we interpret the
Bible and the deposit of faith and try to determine what the early deposit of
faith was.
We should not forbid
alternate ideas although we can disagree with them upon careful
examination. If we are not allowed to
even examine alternate ideas it is not really Bible study. It is critically important to understand that
when UBF people are claiming God is leading them to knowledge in answer to
prayer about who someone should marry or whatever this is extra biblical
revelation and therefore contrary to their common claim of going by “scripture
alone,” or one must understand that Martin Luther might not have meant what
people sometimes claim he meant by “Sola Scriptura,” that is that perhaps what
Martin Luther originally meant by Sola Scriptura has been misunderstood if he
ever taught that. Martin Luther
supposedly frequently quoted the “Church Fathers” rather than going by “the
Bible alone,” if that is true perhaps he thought information from sources
outside the Bible was important.
2. We should view historical events in scripture in which
God gives no moral commands and makes no statements as to the actions which
occurred as being morally right or wrong as having no direct moral teaching but
being historically accurate and potentially useful for determining the canon of
scripture through fulfilled prophecy.
Although the historical event does not contain direct moral teachings it
may strengthen the case of which texts should be considered canonical by revealing
fulfillment of prophecy through historical methods and by strengthening the
case of canonicity of scripture it may reveal the legitimacy of other portions
of scripture in which God actually gives moral commands or makes statements
about specific events being morally right or wrong. A useful but non-exhaustively complete way to
decide if the historical event might contains a moral command is to see if it
contains phrases such as God said, “……”, if it does one should next distinguish
between God talking prophetically about history or actually making moral
statements or making some other sort of statements, finally if it is a moral
statement we should use logic to see if it even applies to us in our current
decision before deciding it has personal application as opposed to the standard
UBF method of private interpretation in which we assume everything has personal
application and the passage means we are led by God to __________ (insert your desire or your authority figure’s
desire here) [Remember 2 Peter 1:20-21.]
3. We should be careful with metaphors to avoid loading the
language to fit a private interpretation of scripture in order to fit men’s
will rather than God’s intended meaning (when those two are in conflict.) We should avoid quickly accepting
metaphorical meanings of scripture which are neither from where one part of
scripture teaches another part of scripture to mean the alleged metaphor nor
where the alleged metaphor would be a common meaning to those cultures or
individuals to which the portion of revelation containing the alleged metaphor
would have first read or heard it as opposed to a metaphorical interpretation
made up at a much later time or in (a) distant culture(s) which would not be
understood by those in the original culture(s) at the original time frame the
message was given.
4. Be careful of considering the time in which a revelation
was given in regards to moral things in some cases the moral teachings were
only meant to apply to certain time periods, locations, nations etc.
5. Use of set theory and logic in general to decide if a
command could apply to your circumstance by understanding which moral commands
over-ride (rather than contradict) other moral commands and which moral
commands apply to who in what circumstances as opposed to assuming all portions
of scripture are to be used for personal application in all circumstances in a
manner similar to reading an inkblot.
Below are some figures that will be used to explain how to do this
further. These figures were drawn by me
on a computer accept for the three pictures in figure 1 which I copied from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_theory
Definition of Symbols
U “union” often
indicated by the word “or”
“intersection” often
indicated by the word “and”
~ Not
T True
F False
X→Y If X then Y this
is not the same meaning as Y→X
X↔Y Biconditional if means both X→Y and Y→X
X→Y = T means if X is true than Y is true
X↔Y = T means X→Y = T
and Y→X = T
Explanation of use of
diagrams and symbols for Biblical interpretation
The purpose of these diagrams is to explain a method to help
understand how to apply Bible verses when it looks like two moral commands
appear to contradict each other or to show how some moral commands might not
even apply at all in certain situations and also to explain the limitations of
this method.
Regarding Figure 1
The purpose of the top two pictures in figure 1 are two show
the meaning of “intersection” and “union” a “union” often being indicated by
the word “or” and an intersection often being indicated by the word “and.” The bottom of the three pictures shows a case
in which A intersects B. If there is one
command that teaches to do a specific action in circumstance A and another
command teaches not to do the same action in circumstance B such that there
appears to be a contradiction where A and B overlap one cannot use the method I
am describing here to resolve the alleged contradiction at A intersection B and
should use some other method to determine what action to take or not take when
the circumstances described in A and B overlap in such a way that some parts of
B do not overlap with A and some parts of A do not overlap with B as in figure
1.
Regarding Figure 2
If there is a command to take a specific action in
circumstance C then one does not know from that command anything at all about
whether or not the same action should be done in circumstances that are not
within C and one would need information from elsewhere to make that
determination. Likewise if there is a
command not to take a specific action in circumstance C then one does not know
from that command anything about whether or not the same action should be refrained
from under circumstances that are not within C.
Regarding figure 2
and point 2 (earlier) about morality and historical events
If the Bible said that what someone did in a specific
historical event was good one cannot generalize it to all situations because
they only did it in the circumstances they did it in likewise if the Bible said
that what someone did in specific circumstances was bad one cannot generalize
it to all situations either based on the same reasoning. If the Bible simply mentions that someone did
something without stating it was good or bad it is not stating that what they
did is either is good or bad at all and UBF should stop using these historical
examples to tell people what to do or not do.
It is also problematic to paint someone as a villain or a hero and use
that to claim specific actions they did were good or bad because they are a
villain or hero and then generalize those actions as good or bad for people to
do today.
Even if bad things happen to someone when they did something
(in the Bible) it does not always mean the type of action they did is a sin,
read the book of Job or read about Jesus suffering and you will see at least
one example in which someone can have bad things happen to them for reasons
other than having committed a specific sin one should also consider the
passage, “Blessed are they which are persecuted for
righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” Mathew 5:10 KJV likewise
good things have happened to people even though they sinned, “ For
I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” Psalm
73:3 KJV and good things happening to people does not mean an action they did
was not a sin and cannot let us know that a type of action someone did in the
Bible is not a sin.
However if one already knows that murder is
wrong and understands based on observation of historical events through the
scientific method that an action would cause death one can understand that it
would be wrong to do that action if it is morally wrong to cause that death but
this is a different issue, yet nonetheless important to mention to prevent
misunderstanding.
Regarding Figure 3
If circumstance E is within circumstance D such that
circumstance E does not occur unless circumstance D also occurs but moral
commands appear to have a contradiction such that people are told (or given
permission) to do a specific action in circumstance E but forbidden from doing
the same action in circumstance D then the permission or order to do that
action in circumstance E over-rides the command not to do that action in
circumstance D, we can know this because if it was the other way around and not
doing the action in D over-rided doing the action in E then being told you can
do the action in E would be meaningless since the possibility of doing the
action would never occur. Likewise if
you are forbidden from doing a specific action in circumstance E but allowed or
required to do the action in circumstance D then forbidding the action in
circumstance D over-rides allowing or requiring the action in circumstance D
for similar reasons. In short if the
directions for E conflicts with D you follow the directions for when you are in
circumstance E for circumstance E but only follow the directions for
circumstance D when you are in circumstance D and not in circumstance E.
This type of reasoning can work for figure 3 but can not
work for figure 1 as I already mentioned.
If two contradictory commands both share areas where they do not overlap
as in figure 1 this reasoning does not work, but if one command is always
included within the other command it contradicts and the other command includes
some area which does not overlap then this reasoning can be used.
Regarding figure 3 in
regards to historical events
Although one should not make blanket
statements that something is right or wrong based on an action of an individual
being described as right or wrong in a specific event one can still get hints
to look for exceptions to general rules.
For example if one would think what someone did was wrong based on a
general rule but their action is described as morally right this might be a
hint to look for other rules that are exceptions to that general rule elsewhere. Likewise if one would think what someone did
was good based on a general rule but their action is described as morally wrong
this might be a hint to look for other rules that are exceptions to that
general rule elsewhere. These exceptions
of course would not over-ride the general rule in all cases although it is
possible that someone misunderstood the general rule altogether and it is not a
matter of finding other rules that are exceptions but re-understanding the
general rule altogether.
Some
additional information about logic
A
fallacy is something that is not true 100% of the time that people tend to
assume is true
Sometimes
a fallacy maybe true, in fact one reason people fall into fallacies so easily
is because many fallacies are often true but not true 100% of the time. I will talk about two common fallacies that
are not true and one type of reasoning that is true involving contrapositions.
1.
Fallacy of affirming the
consequent
Incorrectly assuming X→Y
= T always means Y→X = T
Example
Bill Gates is
rich.
Therefore, Bill Gates
owns Fort Knox.
Accessed online on 2018 February 4
2.
Fallacy of denying the antecedent
Incorrectly assuming X -> Y =T always
means ~X -> ~Y = T
Example
If you are a ski
instructor, then you have a job.
You are not a ski
instructor
Accessed online on 2018 February 4
Example
of fallacy denying the antecedent in Mark 16:16
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved,
but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
Mark 16:16 New International Version
Accessed online on 2018 February 4
A)
If someone believes and is baptized then they
will be saved is true
B)
The fallacy of denying the antecedent would be
to assume if someone does not meet the requirement of both believing and being
baptized they will not be saved.
C)
Actually
someone could believe and not be baptized and potentially be saved without
contradicting Mark 16:16
3.
Contrapositive statements
X→Y
= T ↔ ~Y→~X=T always is true
For example if a animal is a dog it is a
mammal is true
Then if a animal is not a mammal then it is
not a dog is also true
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraposition
for additional information
Contrapositive
Switching the hypothesis and conclusion of a conditional statement and negating both. For example, the
contrapositive of "If it is raining then the grass is wet" is
"If the grass is not wet then it is not raining."
Note: As in the example, the contrapositive of any true
proposition is also true.
Accessed online on 2018 February 4
End of article
This article was written and last edited in May 28 of 2015
and has not been edited and expanded again until February of 2018. I am leaving it unfinished as I do not
remember how I was going to end it. I
hopefully will have opportunities to give examples of misinterpretations and
how to spot them using the method I outlined here in other future articles.
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