Twinky

Agh, that's just pants!!

I got into a spat with Johniam about this some months back. Some worldly wisdom is just that. Wisdom. It's unwise to cross the road without looking both ways. Should we deny that? (See you in the hospital!!) God gave us "common sense" and a brain to think with. It's certainly not spiritual wisdom to deny our God-given thinking powers, our common sense. If you read Proverbs, you'll see that a lot of that is just "common sense" - how to live nicely with other people. How to behave in a socially responsible manner. And yet, Proverbs is often accepted as a collection of helpful sayings that were common at the time. Even though "common sense," does that confirm or negate that the sayings in Proverbs are also Godly wisdom? What about the wisdom of a surgeon operating on a human body? The wisdom of a non-Christian parent tenderly teaching a young child how to live - not to hit other kids, not to tell lies and so on? Now philosphies of men, wordly wisdom about the meaning of life and the existence of karma, nirvana, re-birth, reincarnation, dog-eat-dog approaches to life, etc - those are a different matter. These are the references to wisdom of the world: 1 Corinthians 1:20 KJV Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? Read 1 Corinthians 1 | View in parallel | Compare Translations 1 Corinthians 1:21 KJV For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe . Read 1 Corinthians 1 | View in parallel | Compare Translations 1 Corinthians 2:6 KJV Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought : Read 1 Corinthians 2 | View in parallel | Compare Translations 1 Corinthians 3:19 KJV For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written , He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. Read 1 Corinthians 3 | View in parallel | Compare Translations 2 Corinthians 1:12 KJV For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward. Read 2 Corinthians 1 | View in parallel | Compare Translations Quite interesting that the refs are all in Corinthians and not in other books of the Bible (now somebody will try to contradict that!) - where the inhabitants loved to argue. VPW made a bigger deal of "wisdom of the world" than it ought to have been, as a control issue, so that people ended up taking in what VPW said the Bible said, and disputing what is or is not wisdom, rather than simply focusing on getting to know what God really wants and imbibing God's wisdom.

Well done, BB. :eusa_clap:/> Really good financial saving, but the real saving is to your own health, of course.

Accidents can happen, Johniam, though less likely in baseball where there isn't a bounce (like in cricket) to potentially deflect the pitcher's aim. In these days of hard hats and (optional) cages round heads that sort of accident (or design) shouldn't happen at all. Compare and contrast: Baseball helmet and Cricket helmet

Allan, condolences (again) to you and all your family. Your bro in law musta been a real no-nonsense character to have raised all his siblings - and his own kids. Seen it and done it all before - no pulling the wool over his eyes. Nice (?) of some of the Wayfers to attend but I hope they didn't get to speak, mouth off the usual platitudes. I can't imagine what a full-blown Wayfer funeral would be like, but compassion and caring are not words that spring to mind readily. They obviously weren't either of those things when your bro in law went to the home fellowship. Contrasting that with the various funerals I went to last year - I think there were 6, maybe 7 - the Christian funerals were all uplifting, joyous, celebratory and very loving. Mostly, the gospel message and the Hope were held forth, because that's what the deceased would have wanted - but not in a preachy way - in a loving and tender way. The bereaved family were cared for, before, during and after the funeral. The gatherings afterwards were lovely. By contrast, non-Christian (non-believer) funerals were sad, dull events with a gloomy party afterwards. I imagine a Wayfer funeral would be the worst of both. Well done on your bro in law escaping the oppression.

The rapid "no debt" policy was early 90s. Salaried WC came somewhat later, mid or late 90s. I know one person who wanted to enter the WC - had a lovely house, small mortgage, careful in handling money; to enter the WC he had to be debt-free - and ended up selling the house at least $50,000 under value. He could've rented it out for way in excess of the mortgage - TWI could in fact have made money on it, on tithes on the rental income, it coulda paid this person's way through TWI...but no. What sort of financial management is that? To compound the injury, this person didn't even survive the first year of WC. But who would want WC with ties to an area - with a house, kids in good schools, roots in the community... I'm a bit ambivalent about whether or not people should incur debt. I do a lot of debt counselling and see the misery that out of control debts causes in the lives of individuals and families. People need to learn better financial management. For some people - perhaps they should never ever ever have any kind of debt. For others - a carefully thought out debt may lead to a much better physical life. Like it or not, western culture is very debt-oriented and it would be much better to acknowledge that and encourage proper financial planning/management and responsibility than to legalistically ban any form of debt.

Sometimes I rummage through old threads and I found this one. Wow, and to think I daren't buy a house (=going into debt) after they'd kicked me out - and I watched prices rise and rise. Of course now they are falling and falling... I bought a house and I pay less on mortgage than I would if I rented. I found the house after months of searching "in my own strength" after I'd finally got mad with God and said if He really wanted me in this city, he had to do something about somewhere for me to live. Funny thing, but I found this house the very next day. The finance to buy the house came together completely miraculously; I still don't know how it happened. Lot of amazing things happened there. And now I am self-employed, He always makes sure there is money for everything I reasonably need inc the mortgage - and then some left, to give to others. So glad that God has an eye on the future and knows what will be best for each one of us, long-term, in this lifetime.

Only the busboys get T-shirts, JT. But ask nicely and you might get a refill on the coffee.

JT, it's the grandson reinventing his granpappy's pride and joy, ably assisted by henchmen trained by his granpappy. Reinvent? Read, carbon copy. Ham hates SOWERS and has posted much information about their activities. Maybe you'd want to PM Ham.

I'm still here...! I never went away...! You never had to do without me...! Oh. You were talking about things to eat. Hmm. I will go and get some lunch ... :) Twinx

Could it be, then, that we survivors who continue to post here - are in fact the ones keeping TWI alive? At least in our own memories! Perhaps this board gives TWI an indirect presence and fame? (= "no publicity is bad publicity")

I think that's why most of us still hang around here - to see if others need help. Not so much the demise of TWI that is slowly killing this board, but Paw hived off the Political forum and as soon as that happened, many others left the board. So obviously people were visiting to get political and considering TWI as an afterthought (not perhaps a bad thing!) rather than dealing with cult recovery and then doing politico stuff as an afterthought.

Well done! Now try that with the Europe game...that's hard.

Hey, I guess TWI did its bit for keeping population down - with its directives as to when couples could have children - no kids permitted before age 35 - which is getting on a bit for a woman, it's easier to have a child when a woman is younger.

Yeah, lots of those little countries - part of the breakdown of the Russian grip. Lots of inter-tribal differences - breakdown of Czechoslovakia, etc. What would be really difficult would be a "place the Stans" game - Pakistan maybe people could find, but Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan...? Would be all near the Russian border. That would be sooo difficult.

Go on, you lot. Have a go. Tell us how you did. No "score" or time, but you do get to learn where some places are.

Johniam, as far as the parts of the UK are concerned, there are 4: Wales (to the West), England (to the East), Northern Ireland (as in Not In the mainland) and Scotland (the bit that's left - at the top). There is a difference between "Great Britain" or "Britain" and "the United Kingdom": Politically, Great Britain also refers to the island itself together with a number of surrounding islands, which constitute the territory of England, Scotland and Wales.[/url] All of the island is territory of the sovereign state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and most of the United Kingdom's territory is in Great Britain. Most of England, Scotland, and Wales are on the island of Great Britain, as are their respective capital cities: London, Edinburgh, and Cardiff. The kingdoms were united firstly England and Wales; then England (and Wales) and Scotland. Europe is a different matter and some Brits hardly want to belong to Europe! But of course they do. What they don't want is to be part of greater Europe - the European Union. Which is a political creature that wants to be a super-state. There are many countries in Europe and the other game will have you scratching your head a bit. Well - it had me scratching my head! I find it interesting that most people in Europe and other countries (like Australia and New Zealand) have a fair idea where the states in the USA are, It is a pity that is not reciprocated by Americans. My friend in NZ did the 50 states game and came up with a result almost as good as yours, Johniam. A little bit better than my result, too. And he's never been to the USA!

Interesting posts you pulled up there, WW.

Spade? Maybe he should have been spayed. (yeah I know that spaying refers more usually to the female of the species) But it seems like Rosie, or R&D together, emasculated him anyway. Thomas, if you click on the Wiki link above, you'll see lots of Loy people, some first names, some surnames. Starting with St Loy (588-660). No doubt one or both of his parents just thought it was a nice name. Maybe even it's a family name - he never said, just apparently detested the name.

:offtopic:/> What I'd like to know is why anyone would want to call their son after a spade!?! No wonder Craig disowned the name. Unfortunately, he didn't know when to stop digging. Or when to stop ploughing his neighbour's field. Or neighbours' fields (in the plural). Wikipedia Loy Irish loy association Loy (spade) photo I know Loy is a not-unpopular name in the USA. But really...

I'm sure Jesus submitted a 15 min schedule when he was passing through Samaria and met the woman at the well... sorry, love, you're unscheduled, so can't stop to talk to you now. ...or even meeting and calling his disciples. Peter, you're scheduled for 3.15 to 3.45, and it's now coming up for 4pm, I have to go... ...or on the way to raise Jairus's daughter and the woman with the issue of blood touched his clothing...Sorry missus, my appointment diary's full for today, could you come back the day after tomorrow at 10.15am? It'd be fascinating reading LCM's 15 minute diary. 5pm, SNS (it was, in those days. 5pm. I think) Therefore...3pm, get showered up ready, 3.15 put on clothes, 3.30 get to auditorium, 3.45 have a cup of coffee, 4pm sexually assault one of the staff members 4.15 assault still in progress, 4.30 have another shower, 4.45 get dressed and have another cup of coffee, 5pm prance out onto stage...

Not just out of the epistle, excie...left out of TWI really.

No poll with this - but I was earnest and passionate to begin with; learned to become hard and overly demanding in the corps; had a good WoW year but I wish I'd been kinder to my WoW family and not expected so much of them; then after that TWI started going for me and life became abject misery and utter confusion. I've learned a lot about kindness and compassion since then. Oh, and peace of mind. Thank God.

Yeah, tricky one that. Hawaii moved, too. But apart from that, a fun game.

Okay, so you proved you know some US states with the "50 states" game. How well do you know Europe? Try this: Countries of Europe Sure, you heard the names of some of the "new" countries on the news...but do you know where they are? It's hard! (I won't tell you how long it took me - nor how how many goes I had at placing Croatia, Kosovo and some of those places)