| Author | Comment | evanpyle
(7/27/00 7:21:56 am)
| Re: The Not-so-Great Principle
It occurs to me that the thrust of what the Way taught in these last two instances is to put limits upon what God can do and to remove limits upon what man can do.
That's backwards.
Even dangerous.
| Orange Cat
(7/27/00 8:11:28 am)
| Re: The Not-so-Great Principle
These are great Jerry. You've really got me looking forward to your next post(s). Thanks
Orange Cat
| Rafael Olmeda
(7/27/00 10:10:35 am)
| Re: Jesus Speaking in tongues
If I am writing to an English speaking audience about my grandmother, who spoke no English, and from time to time I decide to quote her in Spanish and then translate, that is my prerogative as a writer: it is NOT proof my grandmother spoke in tongues. Jesus spoke that language. He was quoted in that language. That is NOT proof he spoke in tongues.
Blame me. I'm with the media. | prosper now
(7/27/00 10:59:12 am)
| JBarrax
Great points, Jerry. There was even a donkey that received the word of the Lord too!
| pjroberge
(7/27/00 11:15:52 am)
| Re: Rafael Olmeda
Again, you are missing my point. Please forget the TWI mindset for a moment and ask yourself this one simple question: Why are there only a few verses that the phrase "being interpreted" is used?
If your theory is true, why is this not used every time Jesus spoke instead of just these few instances.
There are many things that we learned wrong in TWI, and re-evaluating them is important. How does Jesus speaking in tongues violate The Word other than our preconceived ideas?
| Moses848
(7/27/00 12:40:20 pm)
| Jerry
Hey Jerry---me again. I have been following this thread and your statement here--
God can speak to whomever He wants to whenever He wants to however He wants to. Because He's GOD!! Sorry, I'm ranting again. The doctrine that God only speaks to spirit-filled people sounds appealing, but it makes for a very small God and some very big-headed people.
just was such a blessing. Have you ever read Dave Hunt? I think at this point you would appreciate his book "The Seduction of Christianity" You can take what you will out of it---we are not required to read Christian authors as we would the Gospel.
Check it out---I really think you will be amazed. He is quite familiar with Kenyon and I swear it was written about TWI---although I know it wasn't.  LOL
| Rafael Olmeda
(7/27/00 4:26:47 pm)
| Jesus in tongues?
You assume I have a TWI mindset. You are mistaken.
Let me be really, really clear:
There is no indication here that Jesus was speaking in tongues. He was speaking in a language he knew and understood.
And there is NO indication that he interpreted.
Ronald Reagan, in announcing a treaty with the Soviet Union, once spoke a few words of Russian at a press conference. I don't remember the Russian words, but the English translation was "trust, but verify." When he spoke in Russian, it was to make a point. He wasn't manifesting the gift of holy spirit. You would probably ask him why he didn't give his whole speech in Russian. The answer: he was speaking to Americans.
Mark was writing in Greek. He chose, for whatever divinely inspired reason, to quote Jesus in the Lord's original language, then translate for his readers. That is not not not not not not not not not evidence that Jesus spoke in tongues.
Sorry, I'm really not with you on this one. If anyone else is, please help me see his point.
"If your theory is true, why is this not used every time Jesus spoke instead of just these few instances."
Answer: to do so would be cumbersome. It is more likely that these expressions had made their way into popular usage - we today know "Eli Eli Lmna Sabachthani," and we know what it means. The gospel writers knew that not every reader would be fully familiar with the source of these expressions or their exact meaning. Capice? (which is, being interpreted, Understand?)
"How does Jesus speaking in tongues violate The Word other than our preconceived ideas? "
Because it didn't happen. There is no evidence that it happened. Quoting Jesus speaking in his native language is HARDLY proof that it happened. That's how.
Blame me. I'm with the media. Edited by Rafael Olmeda at: 7/27/00 4:26:47 pm | John the B
(7/27/00 7:01:01 pm)
| J B
(same initials as mine).
This is a great thread, and I congratulate your insight.
Did I initially misjudge you, or have you been going through some kind of spurt in spiritual depth ?
John
The rest of y'all have been putting a lot of meat on the plate also, and I thank you for that.
| JBarrax
(7/27/00 8:04:56 pm)
| Re: J B et al
OC, Moses, Prosper, Thanks much. Your appreciation means a lot.
JB. Thanks...I think. 
Peace
Jerry
| Yeshuas disciple
(7/27/00 8:31:05 pm)
| time to kill the sacred cow.
You can call me "Yesh" if you want, Jerry.
Do I dare hold a knife to the throat of the sacred cow of PFAL? That, of course, being the "awesome" session #5.
Anybody willing to go there with me? I have a real problem with the "hope of glory" being something that we have now.
That seems to nullify the proposition of hope as the scriptures define it.
Romans 8:24,25
For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
The hope that we all have is that of the return of Jesus Christ, right??
Then how can something that we have in us be the hope of glory? We will not receive any glorification unless it is from the Lord at His return, correct?
Here's what I think the deal is with Colossians 1:27.
First, remember that the word "Christ" was a word that the Greeks commonly used for the annointed priests of their gods. The term appears frequently in Greek literature in that manner. Would it be OK if I were to substitute Jesus' accurate title into that verse? I'm going to try it and see how it turns out....
"....which is Messiah in you, the hope of glory:"
hmmmmmm.....doesn't seem to convey things too well does it?
Tell you what, I'm going to leave "Messiah" there and take the center reference notation in my good, old King James Version seriously. Now look what I have.
"To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Messiah among you, the hope of glory:"
Hmmmmm.....guess what? I think that goes a little better with the next verse which says..."Whom we preach..."
Well, whom do we preach?? Jesus the Messiah, that's who.
When will He be among us? At the realization of our hope....His coming.
That, I believe is the correct understanding of Colossians 1:27. There is much more that I have drawn from the scriptures to come to that conclusion but I'll leave it here for now and see if I survive the lynching.
What do you think, Folks?
Howard (please don't blame Mary for this one)
| Orange Cat
(7/27/00 9:11:16 pm)
| Re: time to kill the sacred cow.
I've wondered what the "Christ in you" folks of twi felt toward the WWJD folks. Probably looked down on them.
Christ in you was somehow twisted to make the focus on YOU. You've got the power! Well...that doesn't seem to leave much room for humility and other like vices (grin) - vices, that is, in the eyes of twi.
I gotta admit that reading it just like Yesh/Howard says makes a whale of a lot of sense. The emphasis seems to be back where it belongs. Not on us but on Him.
Linguistically, I've often thought that changing "Christ in you" to "Christ with you" - or better "among" as rendered above is a much more straight forward Semetic thought. Back when I was obliged to believe that the NT was written in Aramaic, I was keenly aware that the word (prefix really) "in" is just as legitimately translated "with."
Thanks Yesh. You've given me some refreshing food for thought.
Orange Cat
| Outin88
(7/27/00 9:40:27 pm)
| Re: time to kill the sacred cow.
On a related topic of what YD and OC wrote, check out the following web site, an interesting sharing on Jesus Christ Coming and going among us. Please let me know what you think. I'm no research guru, but it looks to be accurate.
BTW the person who wrote this is also a former wayfer.
God bless Ya'll.
hometown.aol.com/SSand281...NGOING.htm
| Freendeed
(7/27/00 10:14:48 pm)
| Time to bury the dead smelly sacred cow !
""The Class"" started out right in the beginning with "the more abundance
doctrine to get us hooked, and once we were hooked, we were had. ""The Class"" taught us to be
arrogant, and full of ourselves because we were the elite who knew it all. Now I realize that I know squat! God
knows it all and He will teach us, He is THE TEACHER!
What about Paul's little trip to Jerusalem! change some punctuation to fit our
doctrine and presto chango it wasn't God's will. Well A few Sundays ago my wife and I were visiting Her Brother and went to Church with Him (something that we would have cringed about before), and the Pastor read Phil 1:12 "But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel; v13 So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places; v14 And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
This really blew my mind, God is in complete control! by Paul's imprisonment Christ was manifest in all the palace of Caeser! and the brethren were much more bold to speak the word. This made much more sense than Paul didn't do the will of the Lord, and we can prove it by changing the punctuation. We really should have paid heed to the Grand exalted Wizard of OZ we He told us to check it for ourselves! But as I realize now this class was brainwashing 101! Now that I've taken my brain off the rinse cycle, and put it on spin dry, I see these things alot clearer, (God did it really) Has anyone else seen this too! By the way everything wasn't wrong but
a lot of Wierwille's foundations were.
| JBarrax
(7/29/00 12:16:54 am)
| Re: Time to bury the dead smelly sacred cow !
The Not-so-Great Principle and the errors surrounding VP's handling of II Timothy 3:16 and its related verses are taking some time for me to work through. In the meantime, here are a few leftover nits that I haven't yet picked with session one. This is kind of relevant because Free mentioned above that ""The Class" started out right in the beginning with the more abundance doctrine to get us hooked...". I'm not so sure about The Class starting out right, but I do think it was designed, at least in part, to get us hooked. First, the part about not starting out right.
I've already mentioned that John 10:10 is taken out of context. I'd forgotten to add that the Five Keys to Receive ANYTHING from God ["And you'll notice I've underscored the word anything"] are mostly VP's opinions mixed with some common sense. But biblical keys they are not. We've already discussed the believing=receiving key, so I'll let that one lie. What I find amazingly silly is VP's "documentation" of the fourth "key", Having your need and want parallel.
By the way, this was horrible English. The word "parallel" is a mathematical term that's entirely inappropriate. How many of us learned to mentally substitute another word
like "balanced" that makes more sense? But I digress. VP said, in order to get prayers answered, we must have our need and want parallel. Then he ushered us to Matthew 18:19
Again I say unto you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
What does this verse have to do with needs and wants??? Nothing. It speaks of people praying together. Then he referred to John 14:13 and John 15:16, neither of which makes any credible reference to needs and wants, and the word "parallel" is nowhere to be found. Does anyone remember the tortured language VP used to try to make the connection?
"If we have our need and want parallel we ask anything according to his will-how can it be his will if we don't---know his Word? His Word is his will. That gets our need and want parallel. If we know his Word we can parallel it off like."
Sheer brilliance. And what of God's ability equals His willingness? This one runs headlong into VP's law of believing. If God's ability and God's willingness are never at odds, why didn't the children of Israel enter the promised land when they got there? As Joshua and Caleb testified, it was God's will for them to go in and take the land He had promised to their fathers. They said it was God's will to give it to them. Was He able to do so?
I think VP's five keys, especially the last two, are merely common sense things he'd observed in people or his arguments against other pastors' teaching about unanswered prayers. If you need five dollars and pray for a million, you're not going to get a million. VP probably wanted to
alleviate the concern Christians have about praying for things that may not be the Lord's will. Knowing it wasn't enough to just give his opinion, he tried to turn them into "keys to tap the more abundant life" and insert them into the scripture. Well intentioned, perhaps, but still sloppy "research".
And speaking of sloppy, the most brazenly wrong statement regarding the keys is his assertion that every record of deliverance in the bible contains all five of these keys. Hogwash. Balderdash even! When I started my review, I was amazed that he said that and then, as proof, went to Mark chapter three's account of the man with the withered hand.
Where in that passage of scripture does it say that the man had his need and want parallel? Where does it say he realized that God's ability was equal to his willingness? Where does it say he knew what to do with his healing after he got it? Did Jesus ask him, "Now if I heal your hand, what are you going to do with it?" No.
So why did he choose this particular passage? That's how he got us "hooked".
Imho, he chose this section because it depicts a man getting no help form the hard-hearted synagogue (church) leaders and shows Jesus getting angry at the church people. This, I think, is the beginning of VP separating "the followers of the Way" from mainstream Christianity. He started right away telling us that it was okay to be angry at Church people and to not expect anything from them but criticism. Otherwise the selection of this passage to show 'all five keys' makes no sense.
Peace
Jerry
| evanpyle
(7/29/00 7:43:15 am)
| Re: Time to bury the dead smelly sacred cow !
I find myself popping onto waydale just to see if Jerry
has posted his next remarkable epiphany.
Great work Jerry, and I agree that choosing that record was purposeful.
It occurs to me that attempting to segment spiritual knowledge into arbitrary and 'clunky' "Keys" tends to cloud the 'sweep' of the spiritual message in the Bible. Quite opposite to a set of (un)reliable keys, the Bible depicts the acts of a loving and awesome God, who changes not, acting into a wide variety of situations in many different ways.
| JBarrax
(7/29/00 8:34:33 am)
| Re: clunky keys
Evan you're too kind. I'll be
traveling today so I wont' be able to post again until tomorrow. Still working on II Timothy 3:16.
God Bless
Jerry
| Orange Cat
(7/29/00 8:36:05 am)
| Re: Time to bury the dead smelly sacred cow !
Amazing work Jerry, not only because you state your case so well, but I bet many of the readers are saying to themselves - "ya know I noticed that too the first time I sat through the class. How come we let it slide?" Well the slide stops here.
Man and what appalling English - - the colloquial language obscures the point VP's trying to make.
Orange Cat
| Freendeed
(7/29/00 10:53:07 am)
| Re: Time to bury the dead smelly sacred cow !
Jerry, Sorry that I didn't make myself clearer, What I meant was that right from the beginning
Wierwille used the more than abundance doctrine to hook us in the first two minutes of pfal.
Freendeed
| Prothimos
(7/29/00 2:22:37 pm)
| Re: Time to bury the dead smelly sacred cow !
A couple of observations...
One - the "Christ in You" Doctrine really went back to the old lie in the Garden. "...ye shall be as Gods..." I mean it had a small god in a little bit bigger Christ in US. The emphasis was on US (individual) with the implication of superiority and arrogance that permeated TWI. Not that I think it is real important but it is a point worth mentioning, the
Greek word for "you" is plural. I think this is the way it should be understood in English as well because "you" is also plural in English, right?
Now we can see the importance of it being one body and many members. Christ in you plural, ie. the church, the hope of glory. Also in Ephesians, it says we have access "by one Spirit unto the Father." One Spirit! If I'm not mistaken, somewhere along the line VP taught that it was "All of God in ALL of Christ in YOU" this is sheer nonsense because if it was ALL of God in ALL of Christ in ALL of ME, then logically, grammatically and Biblically, there wouldn't be any left for anyone else. I think He mentioned this when He taught that verse in First Corinthians chpt 2 about the devil not crucifying Christ had he known there would have been "many Christs" or "all of Christ in every believer" to contend with as a result of Christ's victory at the cross.
Jerry's point about the five keys and the usage of Mark 3 and the man with the withered hand is brilliant ...it did foster an attitude that it was ok to get angry at "religious" people (anyone outside
waythink) also what if the guy used his hand to pick his nose afterward...would that be considered knowing what to do with it after you got it?
Recently, I listened to the first couple of minutes of PFAL and was amazed at How wrong the whole premise was. John 10:10 was definitely used out of context (material abundance was the
hook) and He said it was a verse that literally changed his life. Well, I got news for anyone with ears to hear...John 3:16 is a verse that LITERALLY changed my life. And I don't recall having my needs and wants
parallel to get it...lol
God Bless
Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.
| evanpyle
(7/29/00 2:40:03 pm)
| Re: Epistles, to whom?
Prothie, your post reminds me that it occurred to me some years ago that the Pauline church epistles are most definitely NOT addressed to individuals. They ARE most definitely addressed to CHURCHES...the ones mentioned and, by extension, all churches everywhere.
Wierwille made the common error of looking at these epistles from a 'me' point of view, rather than a 'we' perspective. The 'me' view gives, imo, a stilted view that emphasizes me-me-me, certainly evident in way culture.
The Pauline books that ARE addressed to individuals are nOT about our rights and powers etc, they are about service in the Church as a minister of the gospel.
Hmmmm
|
|
