Tom

Oh, I don't doubt that people got raised form the dead. But TWI ain't getting raised from the dead, so I ain't going back. Tom

Hi Wonder & welcome. Here is my take on your question. I suspect that having been all those things you said you were like WC & all those other things that, once upon a time, you may have considered yourself able to simply start a fellowship. Why not now? Gunshy maybe? Think you need the support of a larger ministry? Obviously something was wrong with the design to begin with in TWI, & you don't want to repeat the same mistakes? All understandable; take some time to sort things out. But the point I'm bush-beating around is that you can do exactly that. Furthermore, it is the fellowship that is shared one on one as the spirit of God answers to the spirit of God between believers (the real fellowship)that you miss more than the meetings per se. And that you can have. Check this out. I have been missing fellowship like crazy since I left & been lonely for it. About three months ago, I started taking Karate at a dojo near to the school I teach at with another teacher from the school. I'm learning all this very cool stuff about the Chinese theory of Qi with this other teacher. I've got a head start on it because I've been doing Yoga for years, but I avoided a lot of the philosophy behind it because of the Way teaching that it was devilish. Long story short, this other teacher with whom I'm learning this stuff turns out to be a believer. He is not big on the church that he attends once in a while - thinks it is churchy. We got into a great talk about Qi power, the bible, Christ power, all kinds of stuff, & he suggested that we get together a couple of times a week to study the bible. Now here's the thing. The guy is not a PFAL grad, never attended a TWI fellowship, but the spirit of God works in him. He believes God will work in him and teach him and HE does and we have great fellowship together. Believers are all over the place. You don't need to join a church. Remember, we are the church. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there are more believers outside of church buildings than within. Also, God is supposed to place us in the body where it pleases Him. God does a lot better job than some man at placing us in pleasing places. Get out, jump in, do something you've always wanted to do, live your life. People to fellowship with are in the category of increase. That's God's job. Don't go to church. Open your eyes; your brothers and sisters are all around you. Tom

Ex10, sorry that I'm so late on getting back to you. And I'm sorry that I upset you. For the record, you're right, I did have attitude as in, "I'm here and allowed to talk too, right?," and I'm sorry for that. Why did I have attitude? I thought I perceived attitude in the beginning of your post, ?I don't think anybody here is talking about "letting the horror of the cross obscure the joy..." I could only infer from that post that you believe that I think someone here IS talking about letting the horror of the cross obscure the joy. That places me in an extremely awkward position here with people I love. I was trying not to make it personal. The only objection I was referring to at that point was where Kit made the unqualified statement that she echo?d with Paul (I Cor 1:2) For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Kit qualified her statement in her next post, and I was fine with that. The rest of my post was pretty straightforward. I think perhaps my attitude I my first statement made it hard for you to read what else I said at face value. Maybe you can read it again. I think the points are important and valid, and I can't think of any clearer way of saying what I said. To answer your question, "How do you explain II Corinthians 7:8-11? the key verse being verse 10: "Godly sorrow (over sin) brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret..."? That section of II Corinthians is speaking about the reaction of the people of Corinth to I Corinthians in which Paul determined not to preach anything to them except the cross of Christ because they couldn't hear anything more because they were carnal and divisive. That's why one would determine to preach nothing other than the cross of Christ and godly sorrow over sin is the appropriate response. Then through the cross we come to the realization that we died, were buried, and rose with Christ. Now, we are to seek those things which are above where Christ sits at the right hand of God, our life being in him. Not that we should forget the cross of Christ for we still sin. Actually, I believe that, in a practical sense, it is when we are walking in the light that the blood of Christ is cleansing us from all sin. That is how we stay clean in our walk. It is a continual cleansing - through his blood and his present spiritual activity within based on that blood. But it is still the vision of the hope before our eyes that is our polestar. Hebrews 12:2 looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. It's all there. I agree with you that the post of Yan... was very insightful. If we walk in the light, we experience his suffering. It is the suffering of all - we feel their pain; nevertheless, it is different in the sense that Jesus didn't have to feel our pain. He did take it upon himself when he didn't have to. And besides our pain, he didn't have to feel the pain that is leveled upon those who walk godly. He took that also. We don't have to take that, but if we do walk, we will - in the continual assurance that he suffered likewise before us, and that if we suffer as he did, we will likewise share in his glory. I've been pretty wimpy along these lines since I left TWI, not wanting to suffer simply to fill the bank accounts of those who'd rather not suffer - at my expense. God has been amazingly gracious about the whole thing - still building within. May we see godliness in any future suffering with joy before our face. Tom

It shows, but that doesn't mean I had attitude.

BTW, I have nothing against preaching the cross of Christ. Preach it. I simply disagree with some where they say they do what Paul did and only preach the cross of Christ. Paul preached a lot more than the cross of Christ. He ONLY preached the cross of Christ ONLY to the divisive who couldn't see what Christ's cross accomplished. To those who realized the untiy that Christ's sacrifice brought about, Paul taught truths concerning the one body also. As he should have, else Christ died in vain, Tom

Ex10, Sure someone is; I am. I'm here and allowed to talk too, right? I never said anyone here was talking about letting the horror of the cross obsure the joy, as in, "Hey let's let the horror obscure the joy." Whoever would say such a thing? No one would consciously do such a thing or say that such a thing ought to be done. That's why I referred to it as unconscious blasphemy. Oswald Chambers used the phrase; so can I. I'm not sure it is that simple. I'm all in favor of brokenness in the sense that the love of God our Father and Jesus our Saviour cannot enter into one that is full of himself, but there are many who are broken by sin, yet that is all that they are - broken. It is the gentleness of God that leads us to true repentance, not our brokenness. Whether you have perfect understanding of what Kit is saying or not, I don't know. I didn't think perfect understanding was in any sort of supply these days. That having been said, let me say further that I am not dissing on Kit, or you for that matter; I love Kit. And I think she has an amazing ministry that she fulfills as a true soldier of Christ. I'm just talking as I'm supposed to do in a community forum. THAT having been said, I do not think, "To really appreciate the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, we must understand how sinful and lost we really are/were." I think that to really appreciate how sinful and lost we really are/were, we must appreciate, no - understand, no - accept and so begin to understand the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ. It is the gentleness and longsuffering of God that leads us to true repentance, not the realization of how screwed up we are. That's backwards, legalistic, rehab group mentality. Nothing wrong with the law, nothing wrong with rehab groups; they just don't lead anyone to the repentance that the gentleness of God does. It is still pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps thinking. As I said, it is just His gentleness that leads. Already been driven; I have an immediate and strong aversion to anyone and anything that would drive me anywhere anymore. As much as I can anywhere that I am, I do my best to shake that off. I think that all we can know about our sin is that is that it is pretty ugly, that it really sucks as a matter of fact, and that we want out, but as far as even being "afraid to look at it," and then "turn our eyes upon Jesus..," we can't even really SEE our sin until the standard of righteous living enlightens our eyes. Jesus said, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin," and "If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin," and he hadn't even died on the cross yet. Me too, Tom

I was impressed with most of what you posted, Kit - with exactly the same reservations that Alfa expressed - thanks to you both. I conducted a little experiment a while back and asked the first two people I saw wearing a cross why they were wearing it (admittedly not a very representative # of people to ask). Neither of them were Christian; they were both just wearing it because it looked cool. So what? I don't know. The cross of Christ is awesome, but I think some people do have an unhealthy focus on death and a judgmental attitude toward sin in the name of the cross of Christ. God IS so loving that he gave, and to throw stones at sinners in the name of the cross of the only one who had the right to throw stones and endured the cross instead is the ultimate irony of the religious. I know we all got burned by those who used grace for an excuse to sin, but don't kid yourself; we all still sin. Jesus didn't die so that we could all go about in a state of hatred about what each other does that is not right on. Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was set before him. To let the horror of the cross obscure the joy does insult to Jesus' motivation for doing what he did and the love of the Father who so loved that he gave. IT is an unconscious blasphemy. Paul determined to preach nothing other than Christ crucified because the people he was preaching to didn't yet know the power of God that, by means of the cross of Christ, opens the soul of the sinner to the incredible love of his sacrifice, allowing the sinner to die with him and be born again into the life of the resurrected Christ at the right hand of God beyond the veil of the temple. "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." Not seeing he ever dieth, but liveth. Let's not have the same remembrance of sins that was made every year by the sacrifices of the law. We have a better sacrifice. Let's have; therefore, "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus...by a new and living way, which he has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh," so that we might rather have "our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience," and "consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works." Tom

God hates me. Hate him back; it works for me. Lethal Weapon? I never killed anybody that didn't deserve it. Spoken by John Wayne somewhere or other. I say [dramtic pause] that what you say [dramatic pause; very tense moment] is what I say. Spoken by the head of the Brooklyn gang in Newsies Newzies? [This message was edited by Thomas Heller on November 22, 2003 at 10:33.]

his own interpretation of that "Word" sounds like the spirit of antichrist at work to me. he set himself up as the great "researcher," he built himself an empire de-emphasis by VPW on the cross of Christ couple that fact with the "absent Christ doctrine," the emphasis, not on Jesus Christ as our example, and the character of Christ being formed in each Christian believer, but on "men of God" God's superheroes

mj, I may be totally wrong about this, but here is what I think. Those who "got out" before you did - if it ever comes up - will either let you know that they do not like to talk about God anymore - it is just a personal thing, or (& I think this will be the majority - if, as I say, it ever even comes up) they will say that, of course, they are eternally gratefull that you all got turned on to the Holy Spirit back when, and that, of course, He is a very part of their soul life and always will be (don't you know that? will be the tone). "TWI?" they'll say, "Why do you even bring that up? It was really an insignificant part of what happened. It didn't even matter." It will be a big thing in your mind; it won't even be in theirs. Those who are still in? God help them if they want to turn the crowd on to TWI. The crowd is bigger than that. Trust me. Speaking of being bigger than that, your crowd has roots going back before TWI. THAT'S what you have in common. That will define your reunion. I give it no more than 30 seconds, and it will be as if the group never parted and went their separate ways. Decades will almost instantly dissolve, and it will be exactly like it was BEFORE TWI. EXACTLY!!! It will heal you down in the very center of your being. At least that's what happened to me when my group had a reunion two summers ago. It was the first time I hooked up with my old friends in over 20 years. They stood with me through grade school, adolescence, college, drugs, fights, cops & robbers. TWI? Phhfft! Nothing. Go. Tom

Sounds good, lindy - a matrix within a matrix. I presented my interpretation to some of my 11th grade Matrix fans last school year, & three of them came up with that idea. It has possibilites. Again, I think the Oracle has to be an independent program, though designed by the architect, to be able to produce unbiased predictions. Wordwolf, - comprehensive powers of observation on the different character types, Wierwolves & such. Tom

Thanks for the advice, both of you. Sorry, Zix, my wife is taking a final exam, & when she comes back, we're going to see the movie. I guess I won't miss what I don't know about. I'm looking forward to it.

Yeah, Rottie, PFAL pretended to be more than it was or could be. People have said that the attitude of "I've got the answers!" that VP ridiculed in the class WAS HIS attitude for years, but, even though I've been away from TWI for eight years now (gosh that's not really very long compared to the 25 or so years I was in), I've come to see it in a bigger way. "It's no disgrace to know, err, to not know [VP's Freudian slip, not mine - i.e, it's no disgrace to have all the answers - maybe he felt subconscious guilt for being a pompous a$$ fraud, even back then]. It's a disgrace to indicate that you know when you do not know [OMG, I have this whole freakin tape almost word for word still in my mind]. It's no disgrace to be stupid [ha, seems like a character trait of VP, Craig, & yes, Mike to call everyone who doesn't believe like they do stupid], it's a disgrace to stay stupid when the class on Power for Abundant Living is..." (deep breath - deep sigh) So, PFAL has all the answers to give you all the promises that are on the green card & more - all the answers to rescue you from your stupidity in any category so you don't have to be the stupid a$$ that you are. May God forgive us, we voluntarily subjected ourselves to this degrading abusive bull$hit. So, here comes this kid - 14, maybe 13 years old, whatever. His parents are alcoholics maybe, abusive, divorced. The kid hasn't an example one on how to form a stable relationship with a friend, a lover, how to be a parent - nothing. He or she is a CHILD, maybe a young youth, maybe 40 years old, but doesn't know jack about how to live life. Tada! here comes PFAL to save the day. And this guy with a thin black tie, who smokes menthol shorties like he'll die if he doesn't do it everywhere all the time and has subservients wherever he goes trained to feed him Drambuie when no one is looking, who has a lifelong habit of abandoning his children to...while he... - what's the difference? This pathetic, abusive man teaches this poor kid who is looking for answers and deliverance from abuse that he is an a$$hole who can be smart if he learns PFAL - that all the answers are there. AND (here is the clincher) he will continue to be an a$$hole if he doesn't pick up on this opportunity. Only now he'll be a disgraced a$$hole because he could have gotten his answers in PFAL. Okay, just take the concept of responsibility for all ones actions being on the individaul and stick it someplace dark for a minute or two. Does this kid have any chance in hell of being able to deal with these issues responsibly that all his roll models have cratered to? No, he has no answers. What a motivator! Talk about appealing to fear. VP did it better than anyone he talked about in American society. This person doesn't have answers. He can't. He is not responsible. He has no guilt in this regard unless someone shows him answers and he refuses them. Did VP have anything to offer this kid? Did PFAL? Did VP first partake of the fruit of the wisdom of PFAL and now enjoy a loving relationship with his wife? His sons? His daughters? How about his disciple chosen to receive his mantle, Craig? How about his disciple, Mike? Aw, that's okay VP, Craig, Mike, Donna, Rosalie, whoever abides under the mantle. It is no disgrace to not know. Ah, yes, but it is a disgrace to indicate that you know when you do not know. PFAL can do no more for others than it did for you. Jesus, on the other hand, can deliver to the uttermnost, those that come to him. That realization did a lot to break the spell of PFAL for me. Tom (I'm not going to go back & spellcheck - okay?)

I wouldn't want to derail this wonderful thread & stop the good vibrations, but while we're on a 15 minute break while chin & Steve go get a room, I though I would tell about a news story that I heard on the radio about another couple that got themselves a room. This couple had rented a motel room. She was tied naked and spread eagled on the bed (hey, I'm serious - I really heard this on the news), and he was dressed up in a batman outfit. He got up on the dresser to jump on her, and as he jumped, he got a heart attack. Well, that's fairly serious and sort of hurt the humor of the story - I suppose it would be funnier if I heard a follow up and the fellow was alright - but I suppose that he recovered. But imagine her predicament. All she could do was yell for help until someone heard and got in to find them in this embarrassing situation.

Ariel, Sorry I took so long to get back to you. I just started back here at GS this summer after an extended absence, & I didn't hardly ever use private topics before I left, so I don't look there much. I've responded to you. Please go look & respond back. Curious minds want to know. Tom

Thought some of you sky watchers might find this interesting. If I remember the significance of some of these heavenly bodies correctly: Jupiter is the king planet - standing for Christ. Regulus comes from rex meaning king - standing for Christ. My question is what does the moon stand for? Love in the night? Witchraft? Wierwolves? Just kidding, but Zix, what does it stand for? And here is another question. Do you think you or anyone else can give any kind of reasonable shot at what these conjunctions might be saying on a scale of what we read in The Promised Seed? Or was that kind of significance just for them or just for other certain times? I mean the wise men were supposed to be able to read this kind of stuff. Anyway, here is the article. I just got this article on "Weather bug" on my computer: Amazing Evening Sky Display Tonight 8AM EDT, July 30, 2003 By WeatherBug Meteorologists, Justin Consor and Mark Hoekzema Sky watchers will have another excellent opportunity after dusk Wednesday evening, as there will be a conjunction of Jupiter and the moon. Look for Jupiter left very low in the west-northwest sky beneath the moon, shortly after sunset. Mercury will be above and to the left of Jupiter, but it will be much dimmer than Jupiter. A conjunction is when two celestial objects pass very close to one another in the night sky. In addition, the star Regulus - the brightest in the Leo constellation -will be visible just below and to the left of the moon. Skies will cooperate in most areas of the country, but clouds will likely inhibit viewing in the Mid-Atlantic and down into the Southeast. Clouds from showers and thunderstorms will make viewing hit and miss across the Deep South and west into Texas. Normally clear locations in the Southwest, including southern California may have trouble viewing due to monsoon cloud cover. All the items in the conjuncture will be visible to the naked eye, but Mercury may be very difficult to see especially in urban areas. Try any power binoculars to help view this small planet. A telescope is necessary to see the moons of Jupiter and other features. Jupiter has a striped appearance with alternating white and tan shades, signifying cloud bands moving at different speeds. This occurs because Jupiter's rotation rate is so rapid. Jupiter's mass is greater than the combined mass of all other planets and moons in our solar system. If you were to travel to Jupiter, you would be poisoned, because its atmosphere contains huge amounts of hydrogen, helium, methane, and ammonia. Jupiter will vanish behind the Sun in August, but it will return to our view in the eastern sky before dawn in late September.

Cool, Mars! I just read the thread. It was 12:30 AM, so I just went outside & looked at Mars - thanks Zix & JJ.

Your definition was pretty close, mj. Petard 1) A small bell-shaped bomb used to breach a gate or wall. 2) A loud firecracker. [French pétard, from Old French, from peter, to break wind, from pet, a breaking of wind, from Latin p?ditum, from neuter past participle of p?dere, to break wind.] WORD HISTORY The French used pétard, ?a loud discharge of intestinal gas,? for a kind of infernal engine for blasting through the gates of a city. ?To be hoist by one's own petard,? a now proverbial phrase apparently originating with Shakespeare's Hamlet (around 1604) not long after the word entered English (around 1598), means ?to blow oneself up with one's own bomb, be undone by one's own devices.? The French noun pet, ?fart,? developed regularly from the Latin noun p?ditum, from the Indo-European root *pezd?, ?fart.?

Sirg, Are you saying your flat-out-ignoredness should have had supercession over your rounded-in-interestedness? Mike, If memory serves, what VP said of prophecy concerning future times (he was speaking of the times of the book of Revelation) was that the closer one gets to the time which the prophecy is about, the clearer the meaning becomes.

Peruser, Try "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene. As the back jacket says, "The Elegant Universe is completely readable....Greene threatens to do for string theory what Stephen Hawking did for black holes." - New York

I've finally started learning about the nature of reality. Really! They've figured a lot of it out since the earth was flat and apples falling meant that gravity existed - Einstein's theories of relativity and special relativity, quantum mechanics, and superstring theory. Also, I've been studying the application of these theories to our lives in consequent theories such as systems theories and theories of complexity and chaos. I suppose that all sounds weird, but here's the thing - man's philosophy in the physical sciences precedes his philosophy of everyday life. So, the mechanistic view of reality presented by Newton blossomed in the industrial age resulting in all kinds of situations which were extremely *uncomfortable* for humankind who don't fit into the machine paradigm. A couple of examples that come to mind are children working long hours in factories (the more people working more hours = greater output) and TWI (a machine based operation if I ever saw one). The problem with that is people are not machines. It has been proven that people DON'T produce more output = to the number of hours that they work. There comes a point beyond which - well we need more than work; we're people. TWI? Need I say anything about its obvious failure to meet the needs of humans - for whom Jesus Christ gave his life? Yet, still - why do I find all these subjects so fascinating? Not only because they explain the nature of the failure of TWI, but also because they really do go a long way to explain what TWI should have been. The body of Christ is an organic reality, not a machine. It is just nice to see that science - NOT - falsely so called - & Christ are compatible. Oh well. I'm doing a lousy job of explaining this, but may it please suffice to say that the compatibilty between what I've learned from the bible and the latest realizations of physical science thrills me no end? Okay, some simple and simply great books along these lines: "Timeline" and "Prey" by Michael Crichton and "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene. Fasten your seat belts. Tom

Wow, what a great bunch of posts here lately people, a sweet savour to the heart of God and peace to His people! As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peacethe gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! Beautiful, Tom

Socks, that was poetic & inspired. Thanks. No, I mean REALLY, thanks. Stomach unknotting, Tom

Bye everyone. I'm outa here for a week - visiting my kids. Love ya, Tom

I know. That's the disgrace I was talking about.