Steve Lortz

You know... the ancient philosophers went through some of the same arguments when they considered whether or not the cosmos existed within a void; and if the cosmos DID exit within a void, whether or not it was FALLING through the void. Love, Steve

All I can say, WordWolf, is... I gotta love ya, for taking on the task! Love, Steve

I have to ask myself, "If Wierwille actually believed what he was teaching in PFAL, specifically regarding 'To Whom Addressed', then why did he lie about the content of Romans 9:4?" It's easy enough to see that Romans 9:4 is ABOUT the Jews. It doesn't say "This passage of scripture is addressed TO the Jews". It says, "Who [Paul's brethren] are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;" It DOES NOT SAY, "This passage of scripture is addressed TO the Israelites." In the middle of a section of PFAL where Wierwille was touting the IMPORTANCE of paying attention TO WHOM a section of scripture is addressed, he lied about TO WHOM a specific section of scripture, Romans 9-10, was addressed. Was Wierwille conscious of this lie? He glossed over it. That was the one verse in this part of PFAL that he referenced without having us turn to it in our Bibles. Why? Because his lie would have been too apparent? I can only conclude that Wierwille knew what he was doing. That would make him, in my opinion, a con-man and a grifter. If Wierwille did it WITHOUT knowing what he was doing, he was an ignorant fool who had no business setting himself forth as a teacher of God's Word. Love, Steve

In some ways, the topic of dispensationalism has been my hobby horse. There have been times here and elsewhere that I've run threads on the questions Wierwille's brand raises. I haven't felt so directly involved with this thread, but that's enjoyable. I can pop in and out and see what other people are thinking without having to drag my butt to the library incessantly to argue my points. There are times, also, when we need to look at things, and mull them over, instead of engaging in lightning flash repartee. That seems to be one of the refreshing aspects of this thread. I'll consider some of the things people have written, and get back to it in a few days time. Love, Steve

Back in the late winter of '82, I went to TWI's 40th anniversary weekend in Chicago. The hotel was a big one, and the TWI event only took up half the giant conference room. Guess what was going on in the other half... a HUGE Amway meeting! "The Way" and "Amway". There were certainly some interesting dueling witnesses in the restrooms during breaks! Hah :-) Love, Steve

George wrote, "Anybody else notice that all the police/crime dramas are dreadfully 'overwritten'? Used to be they could just lay out the facts and see the trail lead to the perpetrator. "No more. The trail looks like it's heading that way, but then it has to take at least 3 turns before we can see how it's going to turn out." The first courtroom show formula I figured out was "Perry Mason". There would always be some minor character introduced early in the show who would drop out of sight, not to be seen again. That character would always turn out to be the one who did it. My wife would get psuedo-mad at me for correctly predicting the culprit, based not on the evidence given, but on the writers' devices. It's always a dead give-away, too, when some high-powered, big bucks star is in the show, and doesn't seem to have a very big role. In that case, the big star usually turns out to be the bad guy, especially if he/she has been portrayed as all sweetness and light. That's more of a Jessica Fletcher give-away. My favorite cop show is "Reno 911". It would be interesting if they added a courtroom phase to it. Maybe they could marry "Reno 911" with "Texas Justice" :-D John Laroquette could come back on as the prosecutor. Who would be the defense attorneys? Love, Steve P.S. - I love all the shenanigans in "Chicago".

A few observations on the material of this thread: First: The Pearly Gates will be part of the New Jerusalem, not "Heaven". As such, they will be on earth. There will be twelve of them. Second: TheSongRemainsTheSame accurately quoted TWI doctrine, The original idea that prompted Darby to develop dispensationalism, as we know it, was the concept that God is creating two different races to inhabit eternity in two different places: the Jews, a physical people on a physical earth; and Christians, a spiritual people in a spiritual heaven. Wierwille's doctrine reflected Darby's teaching, though in a much more vague and muted way. In Stoic cosmology, the dominant cosmology at the time the New Testament was written, there were considered to be four elements; earth, water, air and fire. The earth is the realm of... you guessed it, earth. Earth is surrounded by Oceanus, the realm of water. The realm of the air extends between the surface of the earth and the orbit of the moon. The space from the orbit of the moon to the celestial sphere of the fixed stars is the realm of fire. Beyond the fixed stars is the Void. The anciencts considered deities to be intelligences of fire, just as we are intelligences of earth and the daimon are intelligences of air. Therefore they considered the Heavens, that area between the orbit of the moon and the fixed stars, to be the abode of the gods. The statement "anything above the surface of the earth is heaven" would not have been regarded as accurate by the original writers and readers of the New Testament. Third: The dichotomy "Mike" refers to between the 5-senses and the spiritual realms is a spurious distinction introduced into Christian thought by neo-platonists, primarily in the third and fourth centuries AD. "Mike" may believe he has actually seen this dichotomy as part of acquiring "mastery" of PFAL. If he has, it has been an hallucination induced by his "advanced Christ formed within" spirit. Fourth: How is the judgment going to be executed? John the Baptist said that Jesus was going to baptize with spirit and with fire (Matthew 3:11). In the parable of the tares and the wheat (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-42) Jesus indicates that there will be a trash fire between this age and the age to come. I think the fire Paul described in I Corinthians is the trash fire Matthew teaches will occur as part of the end of this age and the coming of the next. I also believe it is the baptism of fire John referred to. I think we're all going to go through it, not necessarily in alphabetical order. I don't think it's going to be much fun in the process. That will depend on how much store we set by our errors. I think we're ALL going to be surprised by what does and does not make it through. Love, Steve

Regarding "no friends" and "fully sharing", not only could we not fully share, in theory, with anyone outside TWI; in practice, we couldn't fully share with anyone inside either. We couldn't share our questions and doubts. TWI cut us off from fully sharing with ANYONE! It turned into part of their program of manipulation, generating isolation. Love, Steve

"I have no friends when it comes to the Word!" Friendships in the Way became very conditional and very shallow. The reality became, "I have no friends :-( " Love, Steve

Taking a break from shovelling snow. It's profitable as well as entertaining to compare notes on what we think "this" means, or "that". Certainly not something we were encouraged to do in TWI. I feel strongly about the conclusions I've come to, and I'm willing to argue them (in the finest sense of the word "argue"). But the truth is, I also am one of the blind men exploring the elephant. I will tell you an elephant is like a rope, because I first came across the tail. You others may well tell me it's like a wall, or a snake, or a tree, or a leaf; depending on the particular part YOU came across first. All of you can learn something from what I write. The objective elephant's tail IS like a rope. But I need to stay receptive to the things YOU ALL have to teach ME also. The objective elephant is more than its tail. There are two levels of knowing things. One level is knowing ABOUT something. Knowing ABOUT something is impersonal and indirect. It occurs at a linguistic level. It can be talked about using analytical language. I think the Bible uses "gnosis" in this sense at times. The other level is KNOWING something by direct, personal experience. KNOWING something occurs at the pre- or sub-linguistic level of the mind, and it cannot be expressed in analytical language. Poetics (in the broad sense of the word; story-telling, figures of speech, formal poetry, myth-making, fables, parables... even comic books!) are the only forms of language that can express KNOWING. That's why it's called "poetic knowledge" in the classical education movement. I think the Bible sometimes uses "epignosis" to refer to what I might call "poetic knowledge". Several times, Vertical Limit has written words to this effect, "If you think of it on a more personal level, things make more sense." I take this as an appeal, on Vertical's part, for us to consider the poetic, as well as the analytical, sense of what the Bible and we ourselves mean when we use the phrase "born again". I can extract the meaning of what the Bible says from the words and the grammar used ("exegesis"). That's what Wierwille claimed he was teaching us to do in PFAL. In reality, Wierwille was drilling us in a system of "eisegesis", reading foreign meanings into the text by subtly distorting meanings and grammar. PFAL focused almost entirely on acquiring knowledge through analytic means. Remember the Intermediate Class, and how the manifestations were analyzed to death? All of the poetic knowledge transmitted in PFAL was knowledge of submission and bondage. As I say, I can extract the meaning of what the Bible says from the words and the grammar, but the information extracted will be mere knowledge. Only when I can connect the extracted meaning with my experience of the Spirit will I have poetic knowledge, or "epignosis". Time to go fling a few more shovels' full (of snow... not the other stuff)! :-D Love, Steve

This thread has effected me more than anything else has in a long time. I was at Gunnison the night POP was read. The world seemed to have turned inside out. Actually, it was the beginning of turning my mind right side out again. Thank you all for helping me understand it better. Love, Steve

I just saw your most recent post, Vertical. "I certainly do believe in Grace though... agreed?" Agreed! My difference with Wierwille is this; I believe the grace of forgiveness and salvation we have received is the "bringing to pass" of promises God made to Israel, Paul agrees, The mystery that the Lord revealed first to Paul was not some secret "period of time of grace", but rather, That's why Paul could say to the Gentile believers, The grace we have received rests on the rock-solid promises of God's Word, not on the hot air of Wierwille's "administrations"! Love, Steve

By the way, Vertical Limit asked three questions I said I would answer after he answered mine. "What is time to God?" Time is one aspect of God's creation. God invented it. I believe God designed man to experience time as the instantaneous NOW, with a memorable past and an unknown (to man) future, so that man could exercise freedom to choose. From God's point of view, forgiveness through Jesus Christ's death on the cross has "always" been available. From man's point of view, that forgiveness did not become available until it was actually accomplished within time. Prior to Christ's death on the cross, and his resurrection, all man could do (including Jesus) was to trust God's promise that it was going to happen. "Wouldn't The bride of Christ be spotless?" I'm not exactly sure where you're going with this one, Vertical. Wierwille taught that we have to regard the "Church" as distinct from the called of Israel in the Gospels because the "Church" is the Body while Christ's followers in the Gospels are the Bride. I believe Ephesians 5:30-32 indicates that the Bride becomes the Body through the one-flesh relation of Genesis 2:24. I don't believe in the spurious distinction dictated by Wierwille's scheme of "administrations". So, yes, indeed, I do believe Christ is cleaning us up. "Did Jesus die for all or just for those after his death?" Jesus DID die for all, but the complete outworking of his sacrifice will not be manifest in time until he executes the judgment. The salvation we have received will not be complete before the resurrection/gathering together. Even John says so, I hope these answers help you see where I'm coming from, Vertical! Love, Steve

Vertical Limit - Thanks for the expansion of thought in your last post. I think I see where you're coming from now. You consider that John's baptism was effective in dealing out forgiveness, and that the gift of holy spirit was given to the twelve before the Day of Pentecost. You wrote, "So that we can live without remembering sin that has held us back from walking after the Spirit." That shows me that I was jumping to a conclusion when I confused what you were writing with some of the things Wierwille taught about "sin conciousness". Thanks for clearing those things up. While I may view some of your positions as arguable, there's only one thing you bring up that I think is pertinent to my take on Wierwille's Wacky Dispensationalism. You wrote, "I believe that the 12 were born again before Pentecost, they had already received the gift of Holy Spirit..." I take it from what you wrote there that you would also disagree with Wierwille's statements to the effect that Pentecost is the "birthday" of the Church, and that the "new birth" was not available till the the Day of Pentecost. Can I take it that you would also disagree with Wierwille when he taught that Pentecost was the beginning of some previously secret "administration of grace"? Love, Steve (For fans of semi-formal discourse, the process Vertical Limit and I have been performing over our past few posts is called "probing". Probing consists of asking questions and giving feedback, not for the sake of persuasion, but to clarify for each other what our positions are. Probing helps keep us from talking past each other.)

Dittos for "My Man Godfrey". And speaking of William Powell, any of the "Thin Man" movies. Did you know Myrna Loy was a star in silent movies. The latest thing I remember seeing her in was a "Columbo" episode. What a lady! What a career! Lillian Gish was cool, too. "Gold Diggers of 1933", especially Ginger Rogers singing "We're In The Money" in pig-latin, and the Busby Berkley number of "The Forgotten Man". "Roman Scandals" or just about any other Eddie Cantor movie. "Forty-Second Street" "The Big Trail" with John Wayne. And one of my all-time favorites, "It Happened One Night" with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert! They just don't make 'em like that anymore. Love, Steve

I remember "Sonny" from "I, Robot" and it's been more than three days. Does that count? :-) Love, Steve

Vertical Limit - You wrote, "We aren't in any hurry are we?" Please forgive my impatience. We spent decades marinating our minds in some of this stuff. It's no wonder we might need a little while to soak, getting the stains out :-) I'm honestly intrigued by what you meant when you posted the passage from Hebrews, and while your meaning may have seemed obvious to you, I just didn't get it. I'd like to hear you articulate your thinking more fully. I appreciate the contributions you make to the discourse here, and I'm thankful for the feedback you give me. Love, Steve

Answer my question first, Vertical, are you saying something else happened on Pentecost? If so, what? Discoursing with the highest of regards and friendliest of feelings, Love,Steve

I also don't understand what you meant, Vertical, when you quoted Hebrews 9:8-10:39, emphasized the words "as pertaining to the conscience", and then wrote, "...it talks about being not conscience of sin". If you want me to understand, you're going to have to spell it out in a little more detail. Love, Steve

I'm not sure what you're trying to say, Vertical. On Pentecost Peter said, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Acts goes on to say, "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized..." I say the events of Pentecost were partial fulfillment of the New Testament, not the beginning of some wholely new thing, and that those events came about when they did because Jesus had mediated the New Testament by his death on the cross. Are you saying something else happened? You wrote, "The old testament people also benefited from Jesus' death." What do you mean by "old testament people"? The people who were under the covenant of Deuteronomy 5-28? People who lived during the time period covered by Genesis through Malachi? The "vikings and apaches" who lived when the law was in effect for Israel? Jesus' death will possibly benefit ANY of those people in the resurrection. Love, Steve

Vertical Limit - You wrote, I didn't write, "forgiveness first became available". I wrote ," the forgiveness part of the New Testament first became available." A special forgiveness of sins was part of the promised New Testament, You yourself, Vertical Limit, quoted Hebrews 9:15, "And for this cause he [Jesus Christ] is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." What do you suppose that verse is talking about? Jesus Christ mediated, by his death on the cross, the New Testament; that they which are called ("For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call" Acts 2:39, Pentecost) might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. The New Testament was NOT mediated before Christ's death on the cross, The forgiveness part of the New Testament became available AFTER the cricifixion, and was embodied in baptism with holy spirit, first available on the Day of Pentecost. You quoted a lengthy passage from Hebrews, but you highlighted only five words, "as pertaining to the conscience.The rest of the passage, 67 lines worth (that's LINES, not just words), you characterize as "a lot of other good info". That "lot of other good info" confirms the things I've said about the forgiveness we've received being the result of the New Testament, and NOT the result of some secret "administration of grace". I have some VERY SERIOUS problems with Wierwille's teachings about "sin consciousness" (by the way, it was sin "consciousness", not sin "conscience"; two different words, two different meanings). Wierwille was a monumental sinner. Not just an "Awww shucks, how can you blame HIM. EVERYBODY sins. Any red-blooded American boy would have done the same" sinner. He used the respect he gained by impersonating a man of God to rape teenage girls and keep it secret. MONUMENTAL! Wierwille rationalized his sin by teaching that, under the "administration of grace", sin is only sin if you think it's sin. If I don't think raping teenage girls and keeping it secret is a sin, then, VOILA! I have not sinned. Otherwise, I would be committing the sin of sin consciousness. Go back and read that passage from Hebrews without putting Wierwille's spin on it, Vertical Limit. There's a lot of good info there :-D Love, Steve

On the Day of Pentecost, the forgiveness part of the New Testament first became available; the New Testament that had been promised to the believing remnant of Israel, and mediated by the death of Jesus on his cross. On the Day of Pentecost, Jews were being baptized into that remnant, and the gift of holy spirit was poured out to confirm these things. Before we return to what Wierwille's scheme of "administrations" says about Pentecost, let's make sure we have the whole story. Luke/Acts says: What feature of Wierwille's dispensationalism is conspicuous by its ABSENCE!?! Wierwille taught that Pentecost is the "birthday" of the Church. He taught that the "new birth" was not available until the Day of Pentecost. He taught that people first got "born again" on Pentecost. Yet the Word of God NEVER uses "birth" or even "conception" terminology in relation to Pentecost. There's a whole section in the PFAL book about the "New Birth", yet the phrase never occurs in the Bible. Wierwille had NO scriptural foundation for teaching that ANYTHING or ANYBODY was "born" on the Day of Pentecost. Biblically, Pentecost could not have been the start of a secret "administration of grace". Love, Steve

Why baptism? When a person born Gentile wants to convert to Judaism, there are a number of things he has to do. One of those things is the "mikveh", or ritual submersion. "Mikveh" was also practiced in the first century. The ritual bath was a signal part of the process when a person was initiated into Judaism. Some modern scholars call this process "conversion/initiation". Which raises the interesting question, weren't the people John was baptizing ALREADY Jews? What were THEY being converted/initiated into? The tradition of a "remnant" of Israel that continued to believe in spite of the nation's backsliding began in I Kings 19, When Jesus was walking around in Galilee, Judaism (sometimes called "Second Temple Judaism") was diverse. It was not a monolithic religion. It was split into a number of sects (or "denominations" as we might think of them). The major sects we are aware of were the Sadducees, the Essenes, the Pharisees, the Herodians and the Zealots. The Sadducees were the religious party in control of the Temple under the political authority of the Romans. They were on top of the heap (since the whole nation of Judaea existed to serve the Temple), and were pretty happy with the status quo. Neither the Essenes nor the Pharisees were happy. They thought the Romans were there because the Judaeans were not keeping up their end of the Old Testament. They wanted God to step in and remove the Romans. In order to bring that about, they wanted to purify Judaea, each in their own way. The Essenes believed the Sadducees had corrupted the Temple service, so they set up a sort of "Temple Priesthood in Exhile", standing by to restore things when God brought them back into the Temple. The Pharisees believed Judaea needed to be purified by extending observance of the Temple service laws to the WHOLE NATION of Judaea. Herod was the political ruler over the territory that included Judaea. He was an Idumean (Edomite), not a descendant of Israel. His power depended on the good will of the Roman emperor. The Herodians were Herod's political clients. They also were happy with the status quo. The Zealots were far from happy with things the way they were. They engaged in provocative acts and assasinations, both political and religious. They would have been suicide bombers if there had been man-portable bombs back in those days. Some of these groups may have considered themselves to be the believing remnant of Israel. We know the Essenes did, and they used mikveh as a part of the conversion/initiation process FROM other forms of Judaism INTO what they conceived as the believing remnant. I believe John's baptism was part of the conversion/initiation process into the GENUINE remnant of Israel. I think that's the reason why Jesus had to be baptized. Not to wash away HIS sins. He didn't have any. But to identify himself with the genuine believing remnant. How does baptism into the believing remnant of Israel tie in to the events of Pentecost? One of the first things Peter did on that day was quote from Joel, Now let's look at the tail end of the passage from Joel, Salvation was in the remnant of Israel that Day of Pentecost, and Jews were being baptized into it. The observers said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "What shall we do?" (Acts 2:37) Peter said, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." (Acts 2:38) "Repent and be baptized... for the remission of sins..." The remission of sins God made available through Jesus Christ on the Day of Pentecost was a provision of the New Testament Jesus mediated on the cross. All of these quotes regarding forgiveness are passages from the "Old Testament" expounding on the New. The quote from Jeremiah, isn't, but the quotes from Ezekiel and Isaiah are specifically associated with outpourings of holy spirit (Ezekiel 36:27 and Isaiah 44:3). On the Day of Pentecost, the forgiveness part of the New Testament became available. That New Testament had been promised to the believing remnant of Israel. Jews were being baptized into that remnant. And the gift of holy spirit was poured out to confirm these things. After Pentecost, there was another sect or religious party in Second Temple Judaism, the "followers of the way", who later came to be known as "Christians". Love, Steve

Sooo.... What exactly was it that happened on the Day of Pentecost? We see references to baptism in Acts 1:5; 2:38&41. What was the significance of baptism? To understand that, we have to consider what exactly WAS the "Old Testament"? and what eactly IS the "New"? Let's start in Jeremiah, A side note of acknowledgement: I first read many of the ideas I will put forward here in the works of James D.G. Dunn, particularly in his "The Partings of the Ways". When we say "Old Testament", we usually think of the whole book, from Genesis to Malachi, but the truth is, the "old covenant" is a very narrow part of the big book. The "Old Testament" is fully presented in Deuteronomy 5-28, and is summarized in Deuteronomy 29. The law, by itself, was NOT the covenant. The covenant was God's promise to establish a people unto Himself, and to be their God. The covenant set up the status of Israel as the chosen people. The law was a means for Israel to maintain and manifest their status as the people of Yahweh. Notice Deuteronomy 29:13, "That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God" and Jeremiah 31:33, "and [ I ] will be their God, and they shall be my people." This is covenant terminology. The Old Testament was flawed, and God knew it, "And ye shall be my people, and I will be your God." This passage from Ezekiel uses covenant terminology. It refers to the New Testament promised in Jeremiah 31 and elsewhere. Notice that the New Testament will not be a testament of works ("I do this not for your sakes, O house of Israel") but a testament of grace (but for mine holy name's sake"). Notice verse 25 refers to sprinkling clean water, verse 26 to a new heart, and verse 27 to God putting His spirit within. Verse 26 parallels Jeremiah 31:33. Although I'm not going to quote it extensively here, Isaiah 43:16-44:5 agrees with and reinforces the passage from Ezekiel 36. I will pull up a few verses from Isaiah, And again in Ezekiel 11, The first century Judaeans weren't just expecting a messiah. They were also expecting a New Testament that would be characterized by grace, new hearts, and an outpouring of holy spirit. That's all the time I have to post now. Next stirring episode, what does baptism have to do with all this? Love, Steve (I've got some typos in here. I'll have to clean them up later, so thanks for your patience) edited to clean up typos - Steve

Vertical Limit - Before we're done with this, we'll see exactly what the Pharisees were up to. Love, Steve