waysider

This only applied to adults. Some who were children in TWI may be of a different opinion.

Some people still line up to give him their lunch money.

The modern usage of "God-Breathed" implies an inherent flawlessness. How can we even be sure that's the message the author of Timothy meant to convey? Immediately following the word "Theopneustos" it says it is profitable (or useful) for doctrine reproof and correction. It doesn't say it is infallible or totally void of error. That's something that's been read into the meaning for whatever reasons.

Will either of these youtubes help?

Someone once said, "The Way is like a bunch of kids playing church." (I don't recall who said it.) The point is, you probably won't find very many scholastic analyses of kids playing church.

Sometimes I think people overthink things too much. It's a book. Or, more precisely, a collection of books and writings. It has multiple authors. They didn't always agree on some points. In fact, sometimes their ideas were in direct opposition with each other. There is not even a universally accepted order (canon) in which the writings should be listed. To think there can be no contradictions seems a little delusional or at least unrealistic. That's why people have contrived methodologies, such as dispensations, to whom it's written, etc. to resolve the confusion. The idea of being God-Breathed is a self declaration, promoted by Paul. It's a little bit like me declaring myself to be an expert. I ought to know because, well, I'm an expert. It's circular. No one can ever really know that they know that they know. Just accept it for what it is and accept that there will be things you will never be able to figure out. My 2 cents (adjusted accordingly for current inflation)

On a more simplistic level, there are scriptures that say God never changes. He's the same today as he was yesterday and will be the same tomorrow, as well. This seems to defy the concept of administrations and chronological segregations of mankind.

There are currently more than 4,500 languages into which the Bible has never been translated....not so much as even one book of it. Word over the World may have seemed like a lofty goal at the time but it was rooted in fantasy. It might have made more sense to first teach everyone Esperanto, the so-called universal language.

But But But...It HAS to fit because it's all God Breathed. I know because it says so in the Bible and the Bible is God Breathed.

Exactly! ....and as BB King once sang, "Nobody loves me but my mother and she could be jiving me too."

All we know about Paul is what Paul, himself, told us.

In FellowLaborers we did something that fit the description of Momentus though I don't recall any name being given to it. People from outside the program came in on the weekend. They paraded us individually in front of the whole group and proceeded to humiliate us, one by one. I haven't a clue how that has anything at all to do with studying the Bible or becoming a more compassionate leader. One person in particular did not weather the storm so well. It's a rather heartbreaking thing to have to sit quietly and watch someone come unglued.

" What I find amazing is that the testimony and teaching of someone who never met the guy and who wasn't taught by anyone who had was given...well...more importance than the guy who was the reason for the whole movement." THIS!!

"Why people choose to remain comfortable in the tiny perverted lockbox of vic's gawd, I do not know." Here's an article that might shed some light on the matter. The research is not very large in scope but it certainly gives pause for thought. "Feeling like you're an expert can make you closed-minded."

The AC is where I heard it, as well.

All because of the "to whom it's written" drivel. PFAL: A class on accuracy.... built on a foundation of private interpretation.

There was always an undercurrent of sentiment that if you were interested in the *milk* of the gospels, more so than the epistles, you weren't really ready for the *meat* of Ephesians.

DWBH said: "Get some new charts please." That's solid musical advise for someone who's been singing the same old songs for too long.

Ahhhh......the salt covenant....forgot about that one. It was used in many ways but especially as a declaration you would never leave the one true household. I did that one, long ago. And then there was the pinky swear. I did that one, too. :P

I wasn't around for much of the LCM years. Most of my memories and experiences are from TWI#1. I took the class in 1972.

"I don't remember VP calling twi the "true household of God". Apparently you're suffering from selective memory. That basic concept is scattered throughout the tapes, books, classes and various class materials. Why do you think Wierwille said you would never find the rightly divided word anywhere else like you would in The Way? What do you think all those teachings were about that differentiated between the household and the family? What did you think it meant in the Advanced Class when VP taught about needing to be in fellowship (with God and with the believers) to receive revelation? Why do you think he said your life would be a miserable failure if you ever left the fold? He must have stated some variation of that very idea literally hundreds of times. On another note: What's that got to do with the letter being discussed?

Does anyone else find it sadly/comically ironic that this whole brewhaha is based on a premise that isn't even Biblical? (ie: dispensationalism)

I've been loosely following the recent news event detailing the beating death of a 19 year old man who expressed a desire to leave his cult's fold. Here, in contrast, we have an incident in which a congregation "shook the hand" of a man who wanted to leave and symbolically said "Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya".

TWI seems to have dropped off the radar because the only presence they ever had was as a tiny blip. TWI did not lose "all" their people, as evidenced by even a cursory search of sources. Their money? Last I heard it was somewhere in the 50-60 million USD range. That's not a fortune in today's economy but it's still a lot of dough, especially when you consider that some of it came out of our wallets. Whether or not anyone considers them dangerous is irrelevant. What makes them dangerous is that their doctrinal DNA continues to influence peripheral organizations like SOWERS, TLTF and so on. None of this, by the way, has anything to do with VPW's resignation letter. I'm just sayin'

I wanted to add to this rather than edit... Some might argue that, because you are the one who is modifying your own behavior, that the fault lies with you. (The old "gun to the head" routine) However, if you are basing your decisions on false or misleading information being fed to you, the fault must be shared by the deceiver. Example: You buy a used car. One of the factors that motivates your choice is low mileage. You later find out the seller altered the actual mileage. It was your decision to buy the car but it was the seller's choice to bias the deciding factors.