WordWolf

Ah, is this the new "The Day The Earth Stood Still"?

I'm just curious- Other than me and George, is anyone following this thread who is actually willing to post when it's their turn? Or at all?

Oh, this is hardly original. I know I'm not the only person who bought one of those "MOUNTAINTOP CHECKBOOKS" twi printed and sold. They were effectively the same thing.

What a fascinating way to refer to teenagers from someone who once taught high school English TO TEENAGERS!

Your welcome. Of course, it's not really MY explanation. ;) It's been in I Corinthians 1 a long time, and I heard an excellent teaching the inimitable Ralph D did on it once. This now was my own phrasing, spin and application, but the originality is really a matter of STYLE. I didn't originate the SUBSTANCE.

Why? Because those who lack a relationship with God either seek after signs, or after esoteric knowledge in an attempt to find what's missing. (They can feel they're missing SOMETHING, but not WHAT they're missing.) I Corinthians 1:21-24 (KJV) 21For 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. 22For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: 23But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; 24But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. I Corinthians 1:21-24 (NASB) 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; 23but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, 24but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

I thought that Ockham's Razor suggested that- since neither "particle" nor "wave" can fully explain electrons, that BOTH explanations are WRONG and that the actual answer has yet to be found. I had a Chemistry professor in college say that, and it's the best answer I've heard as to why neither explanation works WELL.

In this particular case, an obvious (to me) alternative is that, once again, God is tolerating artificial distinctions which matter to US, but not to HIM. An old example was when God rejected King Saul from being king of Israel anymore, and had David anointed as King. As far as God was concerned, David was king, period. The people, however, were under the impression Saul was still king- which is why Saul still sat on the throne after God rejected Saul as king. (Otherwise he would have had to clean out his desk and leave the building at the end of the day, so to speak.) In the case of the Christians after Pentecost, I can easily see them making distinctions AMONG THEMSELVES as to who is from the Jews ("and still a Jew") and who is from the Gentiles ("and still a Gentile".) In the body of Christ, it's immaterial, there's neither Jew nor Gentile- at least, it matters not to God. PEOPLE keep erecting artificial barriers amongst themselves all through the history of the Christian church. In the book of Acts, mostly it was "Jews" vs "Gentiles." After that, "of Paul", "of Cephas", and so on, mostly. Nowadays, it's largely by denomination, although a lot of Christians have been using specific doctrines as a personal litmus test as to who's a "real" Christian (one who agrees with me) and who walks in darkness and ignorance (those who disagree with me). ============================ I Corinthians 1:10-13 10Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. 11For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you. 12Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, "I am of Paul," and "I of Apollos," and "I of Cephas," and "I of Christ." 13Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? ============================= Now, "no divisions" either meant "no divisions", or "no divisions except that some of you are still Jews and some of you are still Gentiles." ============================= I Corinthians 1:21-24. 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; 23but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, 24but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ============================== Now Jews and Greeks(Gentiles) are mentioned here. This means one of at least 2 things. A) There's still a definite division between the Jewish believer in Christ and the "Greek"(Gentile) believer in Christ, despite much being made of divisions being wrong only a few verses before. If that's the case, God or His messengers are operating with incredibly short-and capricious- attention spans. I can't put my faith in something where the rules change so radically within the same chapter, yet both supposedly apply now. B) The verse refers to those who were called from among Jews and "Greeks"(Gentiles) who are now saved, who ONCE would have viewed "Christ crucified" as a stumbling block or foolishness (as a Jew or "Greek"/Gentile), but now is neither and views "Christ crucified" as "Christ the power of God and Christ the wisdom of God."

I said George Lamsa and victor paul wierwille were crackpots. I didn't name anyone else, and didn't imply it about anyone else. I said that articles in the Way Magazine were de facto or de jure censored to never contradict vpw and always agree with him. I hope you weren't suggesting I called anyone else a crackpot. One might think you meant to do that when you named other specific people I've never heard of and certainly couldn't form an opinion on either way. (Or one might not, depending.)

Actually, from what I heard, at the very beginning of the 1970s, there was a small window of opportunity where things were really great. That was AFTER vpw hijacked the hippies, which meant that twi now had the real deal walking around- St3v3 H33fn3r, J1m D00p, and a few others from the House of Acts, and the people they interacted directly with. This was DURING the time when H33fn3r and D00p pretty much began Way East and Way West out of nothing and grew them by preaching Christ. This was BEFORE vpw decided East and West had grown enough, fired the guys who were responsible from being in charge of both, and consolidated both of them under his own grip. It was a very short timeframe in twi, but it was very influential in twi's history, and most of the membership growth of later years can be traced to it. (You can play "6 degrees of separation" with a lot of later twi'ers and get back to people who joined back then and learned personally from H33fn3r and D00p.)

That wasn't true of everyone's experience, apparently, but it was a common experience, and it certainly WAS MY experience. As for corps being full-time pushers, you actually reminded me of something I flashed back to this morning writing my other post. Those I respected (rightly) really recommended pfal and lauded it to the high heavens, so I signed up for it as soon as I could raise the money. (As a teenager, that was not easy. I didn't have my own Bible for it, but the locals I knew bought me one and it was waiting at my seat for Session 1.) Since I was the first person in my area who signed up for it, I had to then wait for a class to fill in. Meanwhile, HQ sent a corps person to be the next Branch coordinator. At his first visit to my fellowship, he asked if anyone there wasn't a pfal grad. I raised my hand, and he went into Full Sales Mode. As he was still winding up for why I had to sign up for it, the coordinator and assistant coordinator were telling him-in harmony-that I'd already signed up. So, yes, he definitely was a "full time pusher", who pushed pfal at every opportunity. As an eager student, I think he was never quite sure how to treat me-I didn't require any sales pitch, and I wanted to learn. That's not to say he treated me badly, actually, as people go, he treated me probably nicer than most people he encountered, but overall his people skills were atrophied from learning things the corps way, and he creeped me out. He pretty much creeped everyone out, and we were all happy when he was reassigned. I never found out why, but he might have requested it- he had to sense something just didn't "click" between himself and the locals, which meant he got a lot of passive-aggressive "cooperation" as far as he could see it. Yeah, the locals in my area never were big on toeing the party line fully. We sipped the Kool-Aid, but we didn't empty our glasses and line up for more. (If you know what I mean.)

"4. Everybody else (rank unbelievers)" should be more properly called what we heard them called back in twi.... "EMPTIES." Lacking the Spirit of God, they were "empties", "just another empty on the rubbish pile." I'm not even sure Catholics were rated above practitioners of other religions. They were regularly lambasted for being "idolaters"- which is a bit rich coming from a group that practically expected sunlight to shine out of victor paul wierwille's navel. "Idolatry" is an apt term for the standard practices at twi, both then and now.

It really depends on the YEAR more than the place, IMHO. When I got in, everyone was pressured to take the Foundational. All Foundational grads were pressured to take the Intermediate. All Intermediate grads were pressured to take all the other classes, then you were pressured to take the Advanced class. Twi had already, in effect, kicked out my Territory before I was an Advanced class grad, so I wasn't pressured to climb the twi ladder any higher once that happened. If they hadn't, I would have heard about either the wow program, the college division, or the way corps. After that, I would have heard about the next one in line... The main income for twi was the tithe/"ABS", but it's not a coincidence that each and every class cost the students money and cost twi almost nothing, with locals carrying the expenses (site, A/V machines, refreshments....) and each program twi ran, ran at a profit. "You'll grow 10 years in one." Pay twi money to select a place, then tell you to get there on your own, support yourself financially, and spend the year promoting the pfal class and running pfal classes (at a profit to twi each time, with the chance of adding another person to twi giving 10% of their income with each student.) For a group supposedly "running" a program, wows were hardly "supported". In fact, I'm aware of wows who were messed over by HQ, who then asked HQ to partially fix their own mess, were promised HQ would- then were promptly forgotten and left to twist in the wind.

A) George Lamsa was a crackpot whose status in twi was due to victor paul wierwille's reverence of him- and he was twi's all-time crackpot. B) vpw was notorious for taking the work of others and parroting it without understanding, and pretending he was its author. That's why he repeated mistakes made by Bullinger, even when they were easy to disprove (i.e. "the kingdom of heaven is one thing, the kingdom of God is something else.") vpw insisted the New Testament was given originally in Aramaic because Lamsa said so, and the way corps was expected (and required) to do research that agreed with vpw's conclusions. In other words, the Way Magazine is not a RELIABLE or TRUSTWORTHY source on Aramaic vs Greek, and George Lamsa is not, either. (I am suspicious of any work that proceeds from the pen of a crackpot.) You purportedly have lots of other sources at your fingertips. Those would strengthen your case, but these would not- not unless someone is still in awe of twi, vpw, or Lamsa simply because vpw or twi said to be in awe of Lamsa. People still in awe of any of those don't post at the GSC. In general, they flee from the GSC like a vampire fleeing sunlight.

I've mentioned before that a lack of twi suing tends to support they were UNABLE to sue, since they'll sue anything and anyone they can. That having been said, I really look for more than that as support for any claim. I'm still hoping for something we can look through. Not simply to see if what you said is correct, but the general subject of twi lawsuits interests the locals on the board, of whom I am one.

No argument there! However, REAL churches have programs that operate at a financial LOSS because they're designed for the benefit of the people, not to make money. twi, as an organization, NEVER ran anything where a financial profit was not expected. Unless you count vpw's plane, vpw's motorcycle fleet, paying for DAILY Drambuie and cigars for vpw.....

The only training where any real expert education came in was the Dale Carnegie Sales training. That tells you slick vic's priorities right there. The way corps was expected to be a big sales force after graduation. Before graduation, of course, you were unpaid labor, and the prospective pool of victims for vpw and his criminal gang. Considering you all paid for the privilege of working for twi, it was very profitable for them, from a soulless, financial point of view. On the other hand, the wow program was a program where you paid money to run pfal classes and recruit more people to twi, who would then be expected to pay 10% of their income to twi. No, that was also very profitable for them, from a soulless, financial point of view.

Too bad. They would have been interesting. Without court transcripts, are there any legal documents that are accessible to the public that stated the settlement, or is the settlement something we have to completely accept your word on?

James, you've been pasting a LOT on a few subjects. I'd like to point out something. This is the board of twi SURVIVORS, where people learn (if they didn't learn it sooner) that the person who most pushed the Aramaic primacy in their experience was an evil, error-ridden fraud. This automatically predisposes most of the posters to be suspicious of anything and everything they said. That means that, if you're looking for people to agree with you, this is another board where you're going to post and post and barely see any agreement. Whether you want people to agree with you because you think you're right, or because it means more book sales, or it means more people looking to you as some authority, you're looking at "diminishing returns"- especially because you're inspiring the "too long, didn't read" phenomenon. Coming from me, a notice that someone is posting too long really should tell you something...

This error vpw plagiarized was corrected in the Intermediate class, where "all without exception or all with a distinction" was said. It was never pointed out as an ERROR or a CORRECTION, mind you....

What was his obsession with the APACHES, anyway? He was ALWAYS comparing them with the APACHES. Never the Sioux, the Navajo, the Cherokee....

It's closer to "doctrinal" than to being "About the Way", which is specifically concerning the organization calling itself "the way international", and things directly concerning it. The scholarly stuff in general usually belongs in "Doctrinal." Feel free to request a Moderator to just move this thread or any similar thread down there.

Let us not forget that vpw, at times, would single out his German heritage in complimentary terms, and NEVER went on record saying Hitler was bad, that Nazi Germany was bad, and so on. One poster spoke of his daughter being in high school, along with several local twi'ers. Their high school had a guest speaker- a Holocaust SURVIVOR- as in "the Nazis arrested me for the crime of being Jewish and threw me in a concentration camp." The twi high schoolers made a nuisance of themselves and mocked her to the point of driving the guest speaker to tears, stopping when the other high schooler MADE them shut up.