Steve Lortz

You were an A-GANGER!?! I am THUNDERSTRUCK! I spent four years in M-Div aboard the USS POGY SSN647, a Sturgeon class, steamin' fast attack homeported out of Pearl harbor. The memories of things I haven't thought about in 34 years are cascading back. I can hear the hiss of steam as we would bypass around and open the Main Steam Root Valves. I can hear the chatter and blast of the steam traps as we'd blow them down to the bilge. I can smell the hot lagging. I can feel the poppet valves through the throttle handwheel as they'd lift. One of my memories is of the time an A-ganger had to dive into the #1 Sanitary Tank (that's where we stored the poop until we had enough to warrant blowing it overboard) to clear the inboard sea-valve, which had been fouled by a pair of skivvy drawers somebody (nobody ever confessed) had flushed. Cleaning him up when he came out of that tank was more diligent than going through de-con coming out of the reactor compartment! You have EVEN MORE of my respect now, Gen-2! A synchronous aspect of the effects of your post is that God taught me these things about the deceitfulnes of MY OWN heart in the engine room of the Pogy, years before I ever heard of TWI or even knew how to open a Bible! Love, Steve

In English, there is a particular figurative meaning for the word "heart" that finds expression in the phrase "to learn something by heart" or "to know something by heart". It means to have practiced a thing to a degree that it can be said or done reflexively, without any need to pay attention to saying or doing it. When a person first learns to drive a car, that person has to pay deliberate, very close attention to each and every action: where he puts each foot, how he holds the wheel, how he moves the wheel, where he looks, what he looks for, how far to depress the gas pedal, when to switch to the brake, how far to depress the brake pedal, how hard to push it. But as the driver gains experience, he can do all those things and pay attention to something else. He can do all that stuff on "automatic pilot", so to speak, and devote his attention to eating a cheeseburger and grooving to his favorite song on the classic rock station while he breezes down the highway. Say our experienced driver is riding in the passenger seat while a friend is driving the car. The friend comes to a situation where our person would normally brake, but the friend doesn't. Our experienced driver finds his right foot stomping uselessly on the floor. It's a reflex. Our person has learned to drive a car "by heart." Some people call this process, of learning by heart, "internalization." When we practice anything to the point that we can think it or do it, paying absolutely no attention to what we're thinking or doing, we have internalized that thing. Now this English figurative definition of "heart" certainly doesn't have an exact, one-to-one correspondence with the use of the Hebrew word leb in Jeremiah 17:9a, and the word could well mean something else in a different context, but I think there is good evidence for thinking Jeremiah's use of leb here means something very similar to "what a person has learned by heart." Proverbs 2:1-5 "My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee... and apply thine heart [leb] to understanding... ...Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God." Proverbs 3:3 "Let not mercy and truth forsake thee... write them upon the table of thine heart [leb]:" Proverbs 4:4 (As Gen-2 already pointed out) "He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart [leb] retain my words..." Proverbs 4:20-23 "My son, attend to my words... ...keep them in the midst of thine heart [lebab, the innermost part of the heart]... Keep thy heart [leb] with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." Proverbs 6:20-21a "My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: Bind them continually upon thine heart [leb]..." Proverbs 7:1-3 "My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee... ...write them upon the table of thine heart [leb]" There are a lot more. It's interesting to note that many of the places where the Bible uses leb in this sense are concentrated in Proverbs. There are a lot of uses of leb in Psalms also, but they seem to carry some different senses. All for now. In the old days I would have labored all day long and far into the night writing massive, convoluted posts. That was before I was diagnosed with bipolar mood disorder (the mild form, I haven't had any psychotic breaks like my wife has had) and learned how to recognize and deflect my manic swings. 40mg of generic Paxil per day helps, too! Have fun, guys! Our salvation doen't depend on THIS. Love, Steve

Soooo..... what do I think the word "heart" means in Jermiah 17:9a? Nearly every word has a literal meaning, and a range of figurative meanings. The literal meaning of "heart" is the organ located near the center of the torso that beats. Nowadays, we know that the heart is the organ that pumps blood through the circulatory system, but they didn't know that at the time the Bible was written. For a long time, a general figurative meaning for "heart" has been the seat of the emotions. Figurative meanings arise as metaphors based on some feature of a thing. I think the heart as the seat of the emotions arose because, when a person is excited by the release of adrenalin, a powerful emotional experience, the heart beats noticably faster. I think the Hebrew word "leb", translated "heart" in Jeremiah 17:9a had a broad range of figurative meanings. I think the Greek word "kardia", translated "heart" in the New Testament had a broad range of figurative meanings. I KNOW that the English word "heart" has a broad range of figurative meanings. I also know that none of those sets of figurative meanings match exactly. So I'm going to look at a few verses that lead me to think that "heart" has a particular figurative meaning in the verse in question, but first, it's time to go eat Cheez-its and watch Project Runway with my wife. Love, Steve

Roy, I found your post on "meat and milk" to be very appropriate to this discussion. I could summarize what I want to say about "be not high-minded, but fear" in a single brief post, but then it would just be more milk, not good milk, but a lump of curdled milk. It was interesting to read something from the view point of someone who is studying Orthodoxy. The interdenominational school where I taught was destroyed because the board, who were evangelical protestants, decided to fire the two teachers who were American Orthodox. The whole faculty, who were mostly evangelical protestants (I was a covert heretic, I told 'em I was a Free-Range Christian), resigned in solidarity with our American Orthodox brothers. I have studied meat and milk in Hebrews 5:12-14, and it relates to DrWearWord's post about judgment, but that's a topic for another thread. I say "Amen" to your closing prayer, Gen-2. The problem with TWI was not that they served milk. They served kool-ade. Love Steve

Interesting that you should bring up Einstein. I spent six years in the US Navy nuclear power program (I never had any experiences as extreme as the ones you've described as having while you were in the service. I have a great deal of respect for you!). In the training path, we had to comprehend enough quantum mechanics to understand the six-factor formula of reactor kinetics, by which we operated the power plant. To Einstein, making things simple didn't mean dumbing them down, so much as turning them inside out. In the 20th century PFAL, Wierwille turned my understanding of the the Bible inside out. I've been working for the past few years on turning my understanding of the Bible right side out again. Unfortunately, I've developed a suspicion that Jerome and Augustine, in the fifth century, also turned our understanding of what Paul wrote in the 1st century inside out. I find figuring out stuff like this entertaining, like the Sudoku puzzles I work before going to bed. I'm only good at the medium level puzzles. The hard ones frustrate me. I'm better at recognizing patterns in words than patterns in abstract symbols. The symbols in Sudoku aren't really used as numbers. Not everybody enjoys this sort of thing. That's why I put this thread in the Doctrinal section. I build cardstock models. I also post on the cardstock model website forums. I appreciate the perspective you are bringing to this discussion, and to you also, I extend an exhortation to hold my feet to the fire. Make sure I don't forget how childish I really am. Love, Steve

Dittos to your first observation. I don't think the understandings of the Old Testament written into Hebrews were necessarily eisegesis. They wouldn't need to be if the O.T. passages were written with double meanings possible. I can see where God would have used double meanings to keep hidden the mystery described in Ephesians 1:9&10, a mystery which was first revealed through Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:36), not the same as the mystery first revealed to Paul, and definitely NOT a period of time. But we can save that discussion for another thread. Good stuff, Gen-2! We will be looking at Proverbs 4:20-23 before long also. Love, Steve

Alice was in the middle of a discussion with Humpty Dumpty (Through the Looking Glass, chapter 6) "I don't know what you mean by 'glory,'" Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously "of course you don't---till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'" "But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice objected. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean---neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master---that's all." More later... Love, Steve

My brother used to teach humane letters to seventh-graders. One of the first things he would do when introducing philosophy was to make his students come up with a definition for "definition". He and I would argue about it, in front of the students, after each of them had written his or her definition. It wasn't a phoney, argument! We each had our own favorite definition of "definition", and they weren't the same. We felt that part of our pedagogic duties to seventh-graders was to introduce them to the reality that not all questions have pat, easy answers. In fact, we saw their educations as one long introduction to exercising judgment. My brother believed that a definition of a thing is a description that is neither too broad nor too narrow. My idea of a definition is a description that gives the category the subject belongs to, and then tells how the thing differs from other members of the same category. I only had a handful of verses in mind, but your earlier post, Bob, sent me back to the concordances and I found a passel more of verses that apply. I'm going to stick to the original few. But first, an interlude.

In my opinion, judgment is the mental activity whereby the mind compares two or more pieces of information and concludes how they are related. The verbal expression of judgment is a sentence, in both meanings of the word. I think the exercise of judgment is necessary, if we are endowed with freedom of choice. We are to judge the merit of our decisions and actions, but we are NOT to judge other people in the sense of justifying or condemning them. That responsibility belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ ALONE. There are three forms of objective evidence regarding a person's decisions: their words, their actions and their fruit. I CAN judge Wierwille's decisions based on his words, his actions, and his fruit. I believe his decisions were evil. What Jesus says to Wierwille when V.P. stands in front of Him is up to J.C. Love, Steve

Stick around, DrWW, we're gonna get there. And I encourage you, as well as Bob, to hold my feet to the fire also. The image I hold in my mind of this thread is a bunch of friends sitting around a campfire in the evening, exchanging their thoughts, with you guys ready to grab me and toast my feet when I utter the foolishness I can sometimes be prone to. I "whole-heartedly" agree! Love, Steve

Oh... and in the course of this thread, I will often be writing "I think it means this..." In PFAL Wierwille told a story about a Sunday school class, if I remember rightly, where Jonny Jumpup says "I think it means this," and Maggie Muggins says, "I think it means that..." and all the other characters put in their two cents worth. At the end of the story Wierwille declaims with great conviction "We DARE NOT say "I think it means... !" In truth, all we CAN say about what it means is what we think it means. When Wierwille taught PFAL, he was really only telling us what HE thought the Bible means! In practice, Wierwille's dictate "we DARE NOT say "I think it means..." morphed into "You DARE NOT think!" All for now, more later after I've spent some time cogitating. Love, Steve

Both Roy and Bob remind me that I can't just talk off the top of my head. How can we consider why Jeremiah would have written "the heart is deceitful above all things" without first coming to some sort of agreement about what WE mean when we use the word "heart" in OUR discussion? Bob, in the manner of a good exegete, goes to what is actually written. I'm going to have to spend a little time investigating the points Bob has brought up, and see if I need to readjust my thinking. I chose Jeremiah 17:9a to start with, but before we're done, the whole of the context, from Jeremiah 17:5 through 17:10 will come into play. Hold my feet to the fire, Bob! I still have a lot of way-brain to overcome. Love, Steve

"Be not high-minded, but fear:" Why do I think this is a key verse in understanding the evil that Wierwille taught and did? It's going to take me a number of posts to explain, and it may look at times like I'm wandering far afield, so I thank you in advance for your patience and forebearance. It may be that we will have to pause for detailed discussions about issues that come up along the way. That's a good thing. This is a multi-faceted problem which could be approached from a number of different ways, but I'm going to start with Jeremiah 17:9a, "The heart is deceitful above all things". This is a categorical statement. It doesn't say "Some peoples' hearts are deceitful above all things." It doesn't say "Everybody except Steve Lortz has a heart that is deceitful above all things." It says "The heart is deceitful above all things." Why would Jeremiah write something like that? I know we all could jump in with lots of speculation, but since this is a thread about how we read meanings "out from" or "into" the scripture, please have some kind of scriptural basis if you respond to this question. I have three particular verses in mind. See if you can guess which ones they are! Love, Steve

Thank you for your kindness, Bob. I have to say that by myself I'm a pretty mediocre soul. It's just that the Lord has had a lot of patience with me. Not because of who I am, but because of who He is! Love, Steve

Romans 11:20&21 say, "Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee." I believe Wierwille taught that Romans 9-11 is addressed to somebody other than Christians in order to rationalize his own high-mindedness. And it was his high-mindedness that led to all the evil practices described on this website. He taught us also to be high-minded, and those who have tried to perpetuate his works have done so, complete with high-mindedness and evil practices. There's a lot more to this, but too much for right now. Love, Steve

Amen, brother cman! Preach it! Love, Steve

I'm sorry to hear about the development of Victor Barnard's "progress." I first met him at Momentus. He was one of the alpha-males that the trainers beat down as an example to intimidate the rest of us. I felt sorry for him. I also felt a connection with him because of the years I had spent in the Twin Cities. I hadn't known him when I was in Minnesota, but at the time we took the Momentus training, he was in contact with other people who had been very near and dear to me. He sent me a copy of his paper on the church as the bride of Christ sometime after Momentus. It's very sad to know that he has gone the way of Dale Sides, John Lynn and so many others who decided not to throw the baby out with the bath water, without bothering to figure out which was which. I'd almost guarantee that his later hard-hearted harshness was one of the "benefits" of the Momentus training. Love, Steve

The law was actually to put a limit on "blood feud", the only justice there was in pre-legal societies. It means, "If somebody puts your eye out, that's the worst thing you can do back to them. You can't kill 'em. You can't chop their hands off. If somebody knocks ONE of your teeth out, all you can do to get back at them is knock ONE of their teeth out. You can't knock out two. At least that's what I've read. Love, Steve

Bob - Sometimes my thinking races faster than I can read and write, and I don't communicate as well as I want to. That's what happened when I foolishly called inerrancy "foolish" on that other thread! I have had to deliberately slow down and focus while reading both geisha's and your posts. I don't think you and she are in as much disagreement as it might at first appear. Love, Steve

I don't think you derailed the thread, geisha. I am remined of something my brother used to say when he was teaching his students, "Words have meanings, meanings lead to ideas, ideas lead to actions, actions have consequences. Therefore, words have consequences." Your posts, geisha, remind us that we aren't just playing some Greek crossword puzzle. Wierwille's horrific depredations were the consequences of his eisegesis, his habit of making the Word say what he wanted it to say. The fruits of all the wonderful Christian leaders you point to are the consequences of exegesis, reading what the Word actually says. In your post of 8:24 am today, you wrote, "....they are praying to God. Not with perfect knowledge....but as Christians....in relationship to Jesus Christ....the same God." [emphasis added - Steve] I think the primary thing about being a Christian is to be in relation with God through Jesus Christ. The written Word is a secondary aid to that relation. But Wierwille taught that "the written Word takes the place of the absent Christ," and the way things worked out, of course, his INTERPRETATION took the place of the written Word. More later... Love, Steve

Not to worry. One of the things I've learned to value since leaving TWI and CES is Socratic discourse instead of lecture. The discussion will go where it needs to go, and will wander back to the relative merits of exegesis and eisegesis from time to time. I also thank all you other posters! It's going to take me more time to consider all this stuff than I have at the moment. Love, Steve

Thanks for your responses, geisha and cman. Monty Python's Life of Brian is one of my all time favorite movies. Quality humor plays a lot of the same word games as quality theologizing. When I first went to see Life of Brian (I think I had gone to a twig meeting or two, but I hadn't yet signed up for the class), I didn't find it offensive at all. To me, it didn't seem to be making fun of Jesus or anything holy, but rather of the bizarre "religious" ideas and practices people come up with on their own. I'm sure if I watched the whole thing through again, I'd find plenty of my old "way-brain" in it, too. It was and still is very funny. When I wrote "Wierwille preached a great many things that I consider to be true about God and the Bible...", I did it with the intention of recognizing that not everyone believes the same things I do, and that's okay by me, de gustibus non disputandum est, "to each his own", etc., etc. I don't see this thread as an argument for or against the truth of the Bible, I see it as a re-appraisal of whether or not the things Wierwille taught line up with what is actually written in the Bible from which he taught. Sorting out what the Bible actually says from the fallacies and superstitions Wierwille read into it has been a useful tool in helping me flush my mind of the errors I so used to take for granted. Edited to add, "flush my mind of the errors I so used to take for granted, and the arrogance they bred." Love, Steve

Roberterasmus has been running a thread about the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture which set me to thinking about the other side of the equation, not about the accuracy with which the Bible was originally written, but about the accuracy with which we read it. The two words in this thread's title, "exegesis" and "eisegesis", indicate two different ways of reading. "Exegesis" stands for reading the meanings "out from" what is written. "Eisegesis" stands for reading meanings "into" what is written. One of the greatest causes of confusion in The Way International stemmed from the fact that Wierwille preached exegesis but practiced and taught eisegesis, often in the very same lesson. He preached learning from what the Bible says, but he taught us how he made the Bible say what he wanted it to say. There's a difference between teaching and preaching. When a person teaches, he or she moves dispassionately from point to point, showing how the points are related, hoping to induce understanding in the student. When he or she preaches, the person exhorts to decision with great passion and conviction. One of the reasons PFAL was so effective was because Wierwille was a master at mixing emotional preaching in with his teaching, sometimes combining both in one sentence. Wierwille preached a great many things that I consider to be true about God and the Bible, but he practiced and taught errors that were his downfall, and the downfall of all those who remain within the group-think he fostered (which includes all the splinters I am familiar with). Wierwille's preaching of truths was camoflage for his transmission of errors. His preaching acted like a stage magician's "misdirection of attention", attracting our attention away from the tricks he was pulling as he "taught" the meanings of words. One of the most glaring examples, in my opinion, of Wierwille preaching exegesis while at the same time practicing and teaching eisegesis occurred in PFAL when Wierwille did the section on "we have to get 'to whom addressed' correct." Wierwille chose Romans 9-11 to illustrate how important it is to realize who a section of scripture is addressed to, teaching that Romans 9:1 through 11:12 is addressed, not to Christians, but to Jews, and that Romans 11:13 through 11:36 is addressed, again, not to Christians, but to Gentiles. Closely reading Romans 9:1-11:12 demonstrates that the passage is NOT addressed TO the Jews. It is ABOUT the Jews, but NOT addressed TO them. Likewise, carefully reading all of Romans 11:13-36 shows that the "you Gentiles" of Romans 11:13 are NOT unregenerate Gentiles, but rather the Christians in Rome who had come to Christ from Gentile backgrounds. Why would Wierwille preach so adamantly the importance of getting "to whom addressed" correct, and at the same time, so totally screw up the passage he used as an example? The implications are enormous, both for the license he allowed himself to sin, and all the rest of his theology. Love, Steve

Well, it looks like this is not going to be a brief quest. I'm about 70 pages into Paul and the Stoics by Engberg-Pederson. It looks like he's building a model of the thought that Paul and the Stoics had in common, and then he will look at the writings of each in light of that model. I'm going to continue to plow through it in hopes of odd pieces (odd to E-P, not to me) that might help me understand. I've also decided to go straight to the horse's mouth (or as close as I can get, being igerrant of Latin), and I bought a Penguin Classics edition of Seneca's Dialogues and Letters. I briefly looked at a couple of translations of The Correspondence of Paul and Seneca on the internet. It's too shallow to be informative about the issues I'm interested in. Love, Steve

You know... people weren't inclined to think these ways about death before World War I. I guess a few winters in the trenches in the midst of random, industrialized slaughter of fellow human beings can change a culture. That and a few saturation fire bombings. Even with our cars and iPods, we're more savage than we realize. Love, Steve