chockfull

Reminds me of one more thing to regret - all the time completely wasted on making Cap'n D0uch3t@stic cards. I remember they used to give us guidance for time spent on weekly schedules - like you could spend so long on making cards for people - like an hour. But for LCM it was like 3 hours or something like that. People would dream up sht to have more and more elaborate gifts and cards. "Well this one is made out of engraved silver threads". Etc. Vomit. It's hard not to cry now thinking about it.

She's delusional. There's a thread here somewhere about them doing almost exactly that to an entire state recently. They may use different terminology now but it's exactly the same thing.

I agree johniam. God looks at these "empties" with enough love to pay a ransom of His only Son for them. But a snooty fundamentalist who had a ransom paid for their judgmental @$$ can now look at them as "less than human"? I guess it just goes to show how God is God and people are dumb.

To me the phrase "you can't go beyond what you are taught" was and is an indoctrination statement. Of course you can go beyond what you were taught. People do it every day. The whole precept of higher education has people with doctorate degrees "advancing" their field of study beyond what their predecessors were able to, standing on their shoulders. There are advances in almost every major field of study annually. Every advancement we have in our world was someone who refused to accept that they can't go beyond what they were taught and going farther. The houses we live in, the cars we drive, the computers we type on. The fact that we can even interact at all is due to someone "going beyond what they were taught". Now maybe VP couldn't go beyond what he was taught. Maybe that's the reason for all the plagiarism. And yes there is an element of that statement that describes how bad habits or unchanging thought patterns can keep someone enslaved when they could walk free. But go beyond what I'm taught? I sure hope I can, because I was taught some pretty messed up practices in TWI. It wasn't what was coming out of their mouths. It was what their actions taught me that was the most messed up.

Well basically the fox leaves him alone so he doesn't dig up any bodies. That's no way to live. But people get real docile when you threaten their families with the ex-communication treatment. john is a security agent for the mob - never sure if he's the one going in the trunk out to the desert. I think pretty much every one of those cabinet members has had to sell their soul for their position of power in TWI. Not many exceptions - one posts here.

Actually probably THE most malicious thing done by TWI, Wierwille and successors is that they USURPED SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. God did not place any of those people "over" us. Christians were set free in Christ, they don't need another taskmaster exploiting them. Bit by bit they changed genuine Christian hearts and service to God into minions to carry out their selfish whims. These selfish whims for Wierwille included many common vices - sex, alcohol, smokes. Wierwille's conscience was so seared with a hot iron on the sex topic that he thought he was healing someone by committing adultery, and fired a guy for writing up a word study on "adultery". Then he trained up his successor (who said "how high" when he said "jump" as an example to all) to basically go from a prudish sexual Baptist background to basically an out of control pig acting like a sex addict and a lunatic. That doctrine was practiced and taught at the inner circle level, as confirmed by Ralph Dubovsky's audio sessions. After that, the 3rd president doesn't have those problems (as she 'bats for the other team' from reports), but lusts after control. The power of micromanagement and "being in control" is her vice, to the detriment of all around her. She's a liar, supposed to sit in the Pres position for 5 years, but can't give up that lust for control even though she is well past retirement age (where they forced Howard Allen to retire at a certain age). And all 3 of them, once anyone showed ONE IOTA of questioning their actions with scriptures, IMMEDIATELY would excommunicate, shun, and blackball people (involving slander and libel), sending people out into the wilderness with the sins of the nation on them (the true definition of scapegoat). However, the one thing they are most malicious about is the easiest thing to correct. All you need to do is recognize that these people do NOT have God's authority in their political positions of power OVER YOU and renounce that power. They have no authority from God to direct me or my family in any circumstance. They have forfeited that authority due to the fruit in their lives, their sin out in the open, their abuse of God's people, their spiritual blindness, their hard hearts in which they have lied about and slandered God's people. And I refuse to act like a victim any longer, refuse to let them frame my spirituality with their slander, refuse to listen to the false prophets and teachers who serve their own belly rather than God. I'm not afraid of them and if they get up in my face I'll call them a whited sepulcher just like Jesus did. What kind of leader? False prophets and false teachers, and false apostles. Don't listen to them.

yeah, a scripture that Jesus probably had memorized by the time he went up before the elders, helping him to astound them. More and more I see that in Christianity very few people model Jesus Christ. Most people model sheep.

hq was always a quagmire of politicians and confidential informants (CI's). the field was pretty much the same with rampant uncontrolled egos by the few in highest positions. I saw people go into those positions and change, the fear of protecting their position overtaking genuine Christian concern and abilities, then they too turned into politicians who developed their own confidential informants. my soul yearns for some real people, real Christianity, not these plastic people with fear-induced clichés who micromanage everything. they are the Pharisees of our day and time.

My "common sense" view of revelation is that God is the Creator. If He needs to get my attention and communicate something He certainly knows how to do it and will do it if He deems it necessary. I mean He can even do extremes - like the Balaam's foot story, if necessary. One such example I have personally is I was traveling down the street on a moped. I hear someone yell "stop" really really loud and it scared me to the point I jammed on the brakes and laid down the bike. I stand up and look around only to find not a soul around, except for the large semi that just ran a stop sign about 20 feet in front of me. I actually looked around for about 10 minutes for who yelled. No pedestrians, no traffic on the street, not another soul. Finally it dawned on me. "That was God yelling at you". "No, couldn't have been. That's crazy." "What other explanation do you have?" "An alien with a spaceship opened a window and yelled through a translator?" "Okay, maybe not". Anyway, yes I talk to myself and always have, and no unlike some I met in TWI I don't think my own thoughts are revelation. Most of life is praying and trying to use the grey matter God gave me. I figure if the Lord needs to get a message through He can although if I ever have a conversation with any talking donkeys I probably won't tell you guys because at least part of the message would be I need to be less thick-headed. And that's private. ;)

It was for me. It was an exercise in the renewed mind not to think about shooting myself while doing it. The ROA big tent was probably the most extreme example of this. 1:30 am and we only have 1 section to go!!!!!

Yeah people got way overboard on those. Sniffing after signs. One of the splinter groups even got to the point where they were having "dueling revelation" messages. "I saw a spider on your head" "No, I saw a frog coming out of your mouth" Reading some of the accounts was like an episode of "The Real Housewives of NYC - Revelation Edition".

"Super Human Powers" and Christ in you. This really isn't that complicated. No, you don't have super human powers available for deployment at your whim. The key is God initiates that kind of stuff. If He needs my involvement in something, He will communicate so I can understand and provide the strength to carry out what He needs. Those times in life IME are few are far between. Most of the time, it's chugging along with common sense going. I mean it doesn't take a ton of common sense to figure out certain things are wrong.

I used to love to sit next to "those" people in the movies who would present a non-stop spiritualization of the plot as it unfolds on the screen. I mean I thought I was just watching an "Ah-nold" shoot em up, not the birth of the new world army following the rise of the seed of the serpent to power thus introducing Armageddon. I mean, my bad. I should have been able to read between the lines on the movie plot description on imDB.

Actually, the "super human" stuff is how they accomplish their shunning practice. If a top leader starts to be overcome with logic, reason, or common sense presented by an underling, then all they really have to do is reject it, and spread some rumors about how the underling is "possessed" or "loves the world" or any number of single-phrase types of slander statements about the individual, and then nobody will talk to them. In practice, TWI uses "Christ's eyes behind our eyes" teaching for the fabrication of tall slanderous tales to keep rank under their cult of personality.

Was the Christ inside him able to get money back from the people who cooked the pizza? Now that would have been an interesting conversation.

When I was in college there used to be a group of people that would stand on the cement benches outside of the common areas and scream at people, basically from an outsider perspective it seemed like their intent was to convict people of sin, then break them down so they would listen to them. They were from a group called "The Door". Now I know fire and brimstone approaches are nothing unique, but sometimes when people get all hepped up on "Speaking the Word - TM" I kind of think that a lot of what I have seen is people prepping themselves to spew a viewpoint at another individual, with no regard for their viewpoints. Along with the standard knocking on doors and accosting people in malls, to try to sell them a class or membership in a group that had no members. I see so much what I term "forced witnessing" among so many groups - the most notable of course are the Mormon and Jehovah Witness 2x2 groups with the church leader casing the neighborhood first. I can kind of tell now whether they are magazine sales leaders or JW church leaders now seeing them casing the neighborhood. The magazine sales leaders all have kids that look homeless gathered around. The JW's look kind of beat up. The Mormons are just their mission kids, out on their own with bicycles, white short sleeve button downs, and clip-on tie selection. Isn't "speaking the Word" just Christian fellowship or fellowship between Christians and others where spiritual topics like God, Jesus Christ, life, the Bible, etc. are discussed? Aren't we doing it here? Don't we do it every day of our lives where we think about God, live scriptures, and just talk to people? People used to ask me in TWI "did you witness to that person?" if we were out, and issue various challenges. I think TWI not only does not have exclusive copyrights to "Speaking the Word", I think that they have a deluded self-centered concept of that which is nowhere close to that which God intended in the Bible.

Interesting thoughts. The prophetic and deuteronomic views and your description of cognitive tension remind me of the conversation regarding predestination, foreknowledge, and free will. You are describing a balance in life and Christianity IMO, and yes I think there are many of those in life and Christianity. Does God move first? Or does He wait until an individual moves first? If He is omnipresent not constrained by time then does it matter? He sees those drawing to Himself and moves, at the perfect time so as not to interfere with freedom of will. I don't see sanctification as separate from salvation. In an OT sense it was Israel set apart from the other nations. In NT it is those accepting Christ. I see it as a facet of salvation, one that if we dwell on helps foster thankfulness, closeness to God in prayer, and a purity from the corruption in the world.

yeah he wigged out pretty bad towards the end. I don't remember everything he ever taught, thankfully. I do have far worse examples, and the smaller the group the wackier it got pretty much. Sounds like some fun. Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year !!!!

Naw it was more the talk about someone's mom's size 13's. Sounds a bit "yo mamma" ish. Besides, what are you getting on about? Where did you disagree with me? I missed that one. I guess maybe it's more your cryptic one-liner quips. Many times people aren't understanding what you're saying. Like here after you explained more you're just giving Nero some advice to stand up to his parents and don't let them frame what goes on in his house. But I didn't understand that before you explained more. It just sounded like you were being jerkish. But hearing what you mean, it's not degrading any conversations at all. That's trying to help. So I guess maybe talk it through more when people disagree? Like I'm trying to do here?

john you have an amazing talent for degrading a conversation from dealing with family members in TWI to "yo momma" jokes all under 1 page. did your teachers tell you this in school too?

I'm thankful that Christians arguing over the internet won't cause their lives to circulate the round bowl because they are "not likeminded and moving as one". But on the other side of that argument, don't make me tell you guys to get a room.

OK cool. I actually did a little bit of work in the Hebrew language - at one point I could sound out letters in text (but didn't have enough of a vocabulary to read). Thanks for the link - I hadn't seen that resource before. I haven't watched all of it yet - just the intro and I'll get to part 4 in a bit. So where you are coming from is the pictographic meaning of individual letters in a word. (BTW that's pretty similar to an anagram, no?) I remember learning those somewhere. So like for the word "jelly" you would give me a "j", give me an "e", give me a "ll", "y", and the meaning of each letter carries significance. I know in English that is absolutely not the case, but the Hebrew language with jots and tittles had some protection around it, so there is a certain element to that. I guess what it boils down to is if you are studying original language in Hebrew, there may be a little added essentials in the meaning of the individual letters in the Hebrew word for sanctified, or "qadash" - with 3 primary letters in the word (6942 for references with Strong's numeric system). Can you detail out for me a little more your understanding of those 3 Hebrew letters in "qadash"?? I think that is what you were getting at earlier, no? good explanation. i'm a little bit familiar, but you had no way to know that. it helps jog the memory. Yes I agree. So it seems after some discussion we are all on somewhat the same path - sanctification having the primary meaning that emphasizes separation from something (sin and the old nature), and some of the Hebrew letter meanings from the symbols present a secondary emphasis of drawing closer to something (God). Makes perfect sense to me and seems accurate. Any detail to add from the etymology of the symbols for Hebrew letters and meanings there?

I'm OK with just having GSC forums as the storage. I can do a search function here for topics. It seems keeping this site up is not too much of a hardship for Paw, and if it ever does become so, I think we would have enough of a warning to be able to preserve content. I might do something like put together a DVD that has a bunch of articles on it, including content from this site, just in case I see the need to educate a fellow Christian that is unfamiliar with TWI. Paper stuff? I mean I still have my old notes files, which don't have a digital counterpart (and I'm not retyping or scanning them). And like 1 box - that has old TWI books in it out of site out of mind until I need space later. Most of my Biblical studies tools are pretty TWI free right now. Except there is influence - still have a Bullinger Bible - cool appendices, and I still have the Aramaiac works from TWI - some of Charlene's recounting the Research Dept. reflected a ton of genuine Christian heart. But I typically try to throw away paper and replace it with digital format that's easier to store - kind of like why the library takes microfiche pictures and throws out magazines. I try to approach the chaff topic with a little common sense. But what's common sense to me is not necessarily so for another. There's a cool book on this topic I like by Julie Morganstern - it's here - http://www.amazon.com/SHED-Your-Stuff-Change-Life-ebook/dp/B004DI7T4A/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1388684516&sr=1-1. I like it because she talks about the emotional aspect of "things", and focuses on organization building around the "new" in your life. Not a Bible verse in the book, but IMO it handles the "burn the chaff" topic so much better than all the canned yearly teachings on "Uncle Harry Day" or whatever. Sometimes I feel like good hearted people with good intentions of helping others many times can be so much closer to what seems to me to be the truth of what God is trying to get at in a verse than a hundred idiots with a mic and a religious title.

I think we are on the same page too. There are different perspectives, but we are all looking at a different angle of the same thing. yeah, VP's "literal definition according to usage" is basically saying "my opinion which is right because of the snow on the gas pumps". I'm trying more recently to go for some kind of boundaries around word definitions for accuracy (words are used because of their precision) along with basically not being a scribe - so focused on grammar that I miss the intent. Me too. It's nice to do this and consider other Christian's perspectives without all the BS baggage we had attached in TWI.

I think I used the word "process" which is misleading. The "process" of sanctifying one's self is the new birth. The general idea I was expressing is pretty much the same one you are - that sanctification involves a separation from the world and its corruption, and a setting aside by God for a purpose. I don't know that I agree with you that a closeness or joining together with God is implied in the definition of the word sanctification - I haven't heard that before, don't see it in any definitions of works I have available. There are plenty of other words that convey that better. Of course, if one is set aside from corruption for the purpose of serving God, I suppose that a closeness is implied. Anyway I guess doctrinal discussions are a blend of trying to be accurate with also trying to not miss the forest for the trees. Where are you getting this from? Hebrew anagrams? A commentary write up? It sounds cool. However, forgive me for being a bit skeptical of claims of "the original understanding". I'd like to look into this further myself. I know the verses where a believing husband "sanctifies" an unbelieving wife, which seems like a clear concept to me. I'm not recalling currently other sections of scripture about two Christians in a marriage sanctifying one another in that fashion - should be unnecessary. Yes Christ sets us apart for himself, or the Father does through Christ, depending on the Trinitarian consideration you support. But yes, we are set aside into one Body, bonded together, as you have stated - it is not I who lives, but Christ who lives through me. I get what you are saying in this free-form commentary. Separate from the world - joined to Christ. To me sanctification is twofold - to be set aside from wrath that is deserved, and to be set aside for a higher calling as a Christian. To me this word emphasizes what you are set aside from and for, as opposed to what you are joined to. Other words in the Bible convey better what you are joined to and the scope of that relationship. So to me the whole "joined" concept is implied rather than defined in sanctification. Actually, the definition kind of emphasizes the opposite - "separated from", not "joined". But hey, maybe the Hebrew anagram clears all that up. Sure I get this too - to me the message is for life ongoing is that if you are spared from wrath and the corruption of the world and set aside for a purpose, it makes no sense to "re-join" yourself to all the things you have been set aside from. Anyways good to think through all the concepts here and to discuss them. Thanks.