Mark Clarke

They are the guys who vipe the vindows. (Sorry... couldn't resist!)

The OT predicts a coming age when a descendent of David (the Messiah) would reign on God's behalf, on a renewed and perfect earth. Jesus, as well as John the Baptist, called this the Kingdom of God, and the followers of Jesus all preached this Kingdom. Oddly, most people hardly ever hear about it in church, but most Bible scholars recognize that it is the most often spoken of theme in Jesus' teachings. Check out my site for more details: http://www.godskingdomfirst.net/

Perhaps the best way to view the "story" is to consider what Jesus himself said was the reason he was sent. Most Bible scholars agree that it was the main topic that he spoke of, but many disagree about what the Kingdom of God means. This is largely because they lost sight of the Hebrew roots of the Bible. If you were to follow the story in the OT, from the promises to Abraham, to the Old covenant with Moses, through the promise to David that a descendant of his would reign forever, and especially the Prophets who described what things would be like in that future age, and then realized that Jesus had all this in mind when he said that he was the promised Messiah, it makes for a more cohesive picture than most other interpretations of the Bible.

On another note, does anyone else remember hearing it said that LCM was not really VP's first choice? I can't remember where I heard it (POP, perhaps?) but it was implied that the other trustees and top leaders were pushing for LCM, but VP wasn't sure he was the best choice. Yet he supposedly went along with it because he was old and tired and didn't think the leadership heeded his advice anymore anyway. Anybody else remember hearing anything like that?

Strangely enough, not only did he miss the I Cor. 13 part, but much of the doctrine wasn't even right. If he was going to steal, he could have at least stolen from people that could back up their doctrine with more Scripture. I have heard it suggested that VP picked and chose the doctrines that would shake up the organized churches the most. He happened to get in right (IMO) about the trinity and the dead being dead, but the dispensationalism that took us away from knowing the teachings of our Lord did more damage than perhaps either of those wrong doctrines. I thought I had gotten to know God through TWI, too, but now I'm not so sure I did. And the lack of I Cor. 13 style love was only one of the missing factors.

Skip was part of Joyful Noise in the '70s, when he was in the Corps, which is probably what is referred to when it says, "It was at this time Skip returned to school in the midwest and did independent production and recording while getting his Degree." Probably didn't want to mention he was in a cult. TAKIT was an offshoot of Joyful Noise that started out being based at HQ in New Knoxville, but then went to LA in 1981 or so, to try and break into the secular music field. They lasted two or three years there before disbanding.

Standing in the dock at Southampton, Trying to get to Holland or France. The man in the mac said, "You've got to go back". You know they didn't even give us a chance.

Last I heard she divorced the biker, while living in Rhode Island. Not sure what happened to her since then.

As far as I know she is in upstate NY and still involved with VF's ministry. I saw her (with husband and kids) at one of their gatherings a few years ago.

Actually, I don't think you will find the notion "our spirits have been judged" in the Bible, if by that you mean that our "spirit" is what is saved, regardless of what we do in the flesh after that. The Hebrew mindset did not make such a distinction. What a whole person believes in, he will act on. Good works come from a good heart and evil works come from an evil heart (Matt. 12:35). "Free from the Law" means that because of what Jesus did, we are not bound by the LETTER of the law, which the Pharisees and people like them used to control and manipulate, while completely missing the HEART of the Law. This does not mean we are free to do whatever we want though. We are under a higher Law now - variously called the Law of Christ, the Law of Love, or the Law of Liberty. It means that while not bound by the legalistic letter, we still are bound by the higher standard of Christ's love. Expecting people to adhere to that standard is not putting them under Law again. Jesus said that unless our righteousness exceeded that of the Pharisees we would not enter the Kingdom of God. Paul said we are created in Christ Jesus UNTO good works. It was never God's intention that we should just "get saved" (whatever that meant) and then live any way we wanted. God is interested in us developing Christlike character by the power of His spirit, and living according to a new life and a new heart, which is to be demonstrated by our works. For more detail, see here.

Very rare in those days. I wonder if he got in trouble for teaching "unoffical doctrine."

First of all, let me say that I don't buy VPW's doctrine either. But this isn't just his ideas. And he didn't explain it well either, since he spoke of body, soul, and spirit as being three parts of man. But the Bible defines man as being a whole entity, and is described as a living soul (Gen. 2:7, etc.) which man became when God breathed into him the breath (spirit) of life. The dichotomy of body and soul, and the whole notion of the soul living on after death without a body, is from Greek philosophy, not from the Bible. This isn't just VPW's idea, it's a known historical fact, as you can see in the quotes from the Encyclopedia Brittanica on my web page. How could they be conscious if they had no brain, since thought and consiousness are functions of a living brain? The verses which speak of no consciousness in sheol do not say that the "soul" went one place and the "body" went someplace else. It says the whole person went to the grave, or sheol. This is how the Hebrew mind always expressed it. The whole person died and the whole person will be raised. This was the common belief in Greek philosophy, but as I pointed out, the story of Lazarus was not meant to be Jesus' teaching on what happens after death. And there is no other Scripture that describes sheol or hades as having two compartments. Paradise is defined as a place on earth (Rev. 2:7) which the context of the promise to the thief indicates is synonymous with Christ's Kingdom on earth. One thing VP did have right (and others acknowledge this too) is that the punctuation, "I say to you today, you shall be with me in paradise" is the best way to render that verse. There is no Scripture that says any of this this. Christ has the keys to death and hades because he was the first one to be raised from death. As such he is the firstfruits of them who will be raised from the dead when he returns. True, he rendered the devil's power of death useless, because it is no longer the permanent end it once was, because of the possibility of resurrection. This is probably one of the most often misquoted verses in the Bible, when it comes to this subject. Paul did not say that to be absent from the body IS to be present with the Lord. The verse reads: "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." Paul believed that this will happen when Christ returns, as can be seen by what he wrote elsewhere, such as I Cor. 15 and Phil. 3. A secondary meaning of the word "soul" (especially with the Greek word psuche) is synonymous wih a person's "life" - as in "my soul" being equivalent to "my life." But it still is not referring to a part of man that lives on without a body after death. In this passage, Jesus was referring to the fact that man can kill the body now, but God would give a new body and a new life to that person at the resurrection, yet if a person is not saved, God could destroy body and soul in the lake of fire. There are two points of confusion here. First of all the word "hell" is translated at different times from two different Greek words. One is hades which is simply the state of being dead, and the other is gehenna, which is the lake of fire in which the second death occurs. The references to "gnashing of teeth" and "the worm dieth not" are not talking about hades (or sheol in the OT) which is simply the unconscious state of being dead. Those references are speaking of gehenna. There will be gnashing of teeeth before they die the second death. The two must be distinguished, which is admittedly hard when both are translated "hell" in the KJV. The second point of confusion is that the verse you refer to (Rev. 16:15) is talking about neither hades nor gehenna, but about evil spirits gathering people for the last great battle. I wouldn't either, but many before and after him have expressed these views and backed it up with Scripture. The word "eternal" is aionios which means "age-lasting" (Young's) or "belonging to the age" (Bullinger). Eternal life is literally "life in the age to come" and refers to life in God's Kingdom that is coming when this present evil age is over. The Bible tells us that eternal life is the gift of God, and is not inherent in man. When the Lord returns he will grant it to the faithful believers (Rom. 2:7; I Cor. 15:53-54). It is only then that we will gain immortality. Until then those that have died sleep in the dust of the ground, and will be awakened at that time (Daniel 12:2).

I find that interesting and surprising. You're right, it was few and far between. The teachings I heard may have talked about the heart, but I never heard anything about the holy spirit being able to change your heart. What I always heard was that holy spirit was for operating "all nine all the time" and having supernatural power, but it was up to my self-discipline and renewed mind to change my heart in accordance with the Word. In fact I remember asking one limb coordinator once about whether the holy spirit enables us to live a better Christian life, and he said he had never thought about that!

Agreed. And if you read it and the Gospels carefully, you find that James was saying some of the same things that Jesus said (especially in the Sermon on the Mount). Of course, TWI said that the Gospels weren't addressed to us either. Pity.

The Hebrew word for "eternity" in Ecc 3:11 is olam which is most often used referring to the age to come. We were meant to live forever, but because of sin we don't right now. We die and await the resurrection in the coming age. Exactly! We go down into the "pit" until the resurrection. The pit is sheol in Hebrew and hades in Greek. It is the state of being dead, but is described in several places as a place where there is no consciousness or activity. It is called "sleep" in many references. The parable of Lazarus and the rich man was never meant to be a teaching on what happens after death. The point Jesus was making was, according to verse 31, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." If he meant to say that the dead were actually conscious in another place, it would contradict many other Scriptures. Besides, the parable doesn't describe conscious disembodied souls. Notice the references to Lazarus's finger and the rich man's tongue. Furthermore, if this were literally what happens at death, then the jugment has already happened for everyone that has died; there would then be no need for the return of Christ to judge the world. And what would be the point of reuniting souls with bodies if they have lived in heaven without them? The whole story was meant to make the point that they would not hear even if someone came back from the dead. It was never intended as a teaching on what happens when you die. Nowhere in the Gospels did Jesus ever promise "heaven" as a destination. The rewards are stored up there (Luke 6:23) but he will bring them with him when he returns (Rev. 22:12). What he promised was life in the age to come, on a renewed earth. He referred to this as the coming Kingdom of God. There is a lot more to this, so rather than rewrite it all, I will link to the page on my website that deals with it. http://www.godskingdomfirst.net/TheDead.htm

The phrase, "Law of Liberty" is only used twice in the Bible - in the epostle of James. Perhaps it would be a good idea to define what that means rather than just throw phrases around that we think we know the meaning of. While Paul said we are not under the Law of Moses, we do have a higher "law" - the Law of Christ or the Law of Liberty. While the Old Testament Law was "weak" in that it could not change a person's heart, it is nevertheless call "holy, just, and good" in Rom. 7:12. But Jesus presented an even higher standard. He taught that God was more interested in our hearts than just our outward actions. One could go through the motions of the Law and be legally "blameless" but still not have a godly heart. For example, if I am angry with a person, and even wished they were dead, I would not have been sinning according to the Law of Moses as long as I didn't act on it. But Jesus said that even being angry was as bad as murder. Likewise, he said that looking on a woman with lust is just as bad as committing adultery. Is this just a stricter set of rules to follow? Or is there something more? Jesus taught about works as fruit coming from the heart. Good fruit comes from a good heart, bad fruit comes from a bad heart. This ties the whole law/grace question in with the most basic issue - the heart of man. The only way to be righteous before God is to have a change of heart. And the only way to change your heart is by God's power. This is what the new birth and the holy spirit are all about, although we didn't learn it that way in TWI. Read here for more details.

There is another way to understand this. As I wrote in my post above, The Old Testament uses the word spirit to describe the breath life that makes man alive, and it says that man became a living soul. This is different from the definitions we were taught in PFAL. In Hebrew (Old Testament) thought, it is the whole man, not any one part of him, that dies, and it is the whole man that will be resurrected in the last days. At that time those resurrected people wll be given eternal life. http://www.godskingdomfirst.net/TheDead.htm#soul

As long as the other kids play nice.

There is a difference between works to gain righteousness and works because you are already righteous. That is the balance presented by James, and Paul and all the New Testament writers. We are not under the Mosaic Law, but we are bound by a higher law - the Law of Christ. Jesus taught it in the Semon on the Mount, James elaborated on it inhis epistle, and Paul spoke of it as well. Love fulfills the Law. To DrWearWord, As T-Bone said, it would help if you quoted Scripture instead of VPW-like cliche's. Looking back over your posts I noticed that you simply expounded your doctrine (most of which sounds like PFAL revisited) with NO Scriptural backup. We have all had PFAL or some version of it (most of us anyway) and that's why this discussion forum is here - we are rethinking what we were taught in order to determine if it is truly of God or not. The Scripture must be our standard, and to that end if you want to prove a point, please give "chapter and verse."

I agree, if by "divinity" you mean that Christ was from God. I don't believe that Jesus was in an way a "mere" man. He was supernaturally conceived by God. But I don't believe he is God - he always claimed to be the Son of God. I have to disagree here. While VP did a half-a$$ed job of explaining it, I think that if you consider it Scripturally, and look at what others have written about it, the Bible does teach that people are unconscious when they die, and only resurrection will remedy that. I wrote on it in detail here I agree with you on the rest of your post as well. I encourage you (and anyone reading this) to check out other writings on these subjects.

Rather than rewriting a whole article, I will just post the link: http://www.godskingdomfirst.net/KingdomLiving.htm#newbirth

Very good point! Interesting. How wold you define "speaking in the spirit"?

Actually I was with the group in Syracuse, NY. It was the leader of that group that first taught about the Kingdom of God among the Ex-TWI groups in NY. VF embraced it but the leader in Syracuse soon split from VF and anyone else who disagreed with him, and that's when I got out of ex-TWI-land. I still like most of what VF is teaching though.

I began re-evaluating what I learned from PFAL when the Ex-Way group I was involved with started teaching new things. I saw how what they taught made more sense than what I had heard before and fit with the Bible better. But then the group started getting into the same "we are right and everybody else is wrong" mentality that TWI had, and when I questioned that, I was "asked" to leave. I went through a period of time where I didn't know what I believed anymore, but slowly I came to form opinions by, (1) reading the Bible IN CONTEXT and not taking isolated verses out of it; and (2) considering what other viewpoints said (horror of horrors!) and seeing what made the most sense. My current belief system is based, not on the "revelation" or "anointing" of one person, but things that many Biblical scholars have recognized for many many years. The primary subject that Jesus spoke about is the coming Kingdom of God, and everything else in the Bible is more easily understood in light of that. For further detail and elaboration, see my website, www.godskingdomfirst.net. I'm not selling anything, I just put it together so that anyone could read systematically what I have come to believe. And for the first time in my life I can say that I believe what I do because I've checked it out, not because somebody or some group told me what I had to believe.

Most Christians believe in "going to heaven" when they die, but if you read the words of Jesus, he never promised that. It was always the Jewish concept of the Kingdom of God on earth. That was what he constantly preached and taught about. And the apostles did the same throughout the new Testament. Heaven refers to either the physical space above the earth, or the abode of God, and is sometimes used to figuratively refer to God, such as "I have sinned against heaven" meant "I have sinned against God." But heaven was never the destination in the teaching of Jesus. Our rewards are said to be stored or laid up in heaven, but Jesus said he brings them with him when he returns. We don't go there to enjoy the rewards any more than we would go to the bank to enjoy our money.