On the 1989 LT teaching tape
History of Great Commission Part 2, Dave Bovenmyer spends a good portion of the tape talking about newspaper criticism the movement received. Most of it he blames on anti-Christian attitudes in the press, although at one point he does admit that church in the movement excommunicated 60 people for inappropriate reasons.
Anyway, immediately after discussing newspaper criticisms, he says the following about critics of the movement:
Just as there's lots of victories, lots of successes, lots of good things that happen.. the Devil is always trying to throw in something that's going to distract us.. or.. keep us from being effective. So there are some, today, that- former leaders, generally.. or men that in some way have become bitter or resentful.. that- uh.. that are very much enemies of Great Commission. And- uh- let me just read a verse here that's kind of interesting. Paul had the same type of man. And- um- here's one place in Philippians chapter one, verse 15..
"It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry" - isn't that interesting? "some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry but others out of good will, the latter do it in love knowing that I am put here for the defense of the Gospel, the former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains."
Their goal was to stir up trouble for Paul. And they were trying to, evidently, lead Christians away from him in certain cases. If you look in- later on in Philippians uh.. chapter.. chapter three, toward the end here, verse uh.. 17. "Join with others in following my example brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we have- we gave you, for as I have often told you before now say again, even with tears, many lead- live as enemies of the cross of Christ."
I believe he's talking about Christians here that he know- knew or- in many cases former leaders, they were- they become enemies of the cross of Christ. I remember reading Hudson Taylor's biography a while ba- uh many years ago.
[...snipped a story about a former friend and critic of Hudson Taylor...]
The devil will raise up enemies like this and I think some- a lot of times it's to see if we're gonna rejoice or not! [laughs] And uh.. Hudson of course did, he kept on going, and God just overcame his enemies. Paul had the same type of people- you know, it's interesting at the end of- uh- second Timothy, Paul talks about how all who are in Asia - all who are in Asia have turned against him. Imagine that? A whole nation of churches.. Ephesus, one of the largest churches that Paul- just that Paul started, they all had turned against me..
[...]
Don't be amazed if there's enemies, don't be amazed if there's people that are bitter and resentful- uh- that's something that's going to happen. We don't want it to happen but- but it's something that ah- that will happen so- but it- so we should not be- think of it unusual. It's easy to think well if there's people who think we're doing something wrong, well, we must be doing something wrong! Well we may be, and if that's true we want to learn everything we can, but on the other hand, ah- just cause someone is accusing you doesn't mean that you're wrong at all. Necessarily.
So uh- anyway.. What I- I'm just sharing that there- uh, because there's, ah, there's been some of that through our history and wanted to bring out some of the, some of that type of thing in our history as well as a lot of the good things.
What I find interesting is that he seems so dismissive of critics of the movement, generalizing them as resentful and bitter, only two years before the Statement of Church Error was released.
