johniam

Belle: Yeah, Claudettee was on the ministry anniversary songs, but she wasn't on the Pentecost songs, and vice versa for Debra O.

Just for grins I checked out the way website. If you click on the year in review you can hear the MSNBC ad plus music from this year's Pentecost and ministry anniversary presentations on windows media player. Music sounded good, but the only ones I recognized were Trudy (Baine) Yates, Claudettee (didn't look bad), and Debra Olthouse. That song 'Power of Pentecost' still sounds very good to me, but over all they look like any church presentation.

The '76 Yankees got swept in the WS by the Big Red Machine, but they won the next 2 WSs. So it CAN happen.

I had a limb leader who said Mormons had a good work ethic. Brigham Young U. must be the Mormon version of Notre Dame, although I hear that former Bears QB Jim Mc Mahon is not a Mormon and he went to BYU.

Actually, Sudo, Noah was on the ark for a year and ten days. It's probably a good thing that God made those animals dread humans otherwise the animals would have figured out by observation how to trap and conquer mankind. How's that for biological "affirmative action"?

I find that if I eat an average sized meal immediately before grocery shopping I'm much less likely to impulse buy.

I think the law of giving and receiving supercedes tithing. If your attitude is to give you don't even have to think about a percent. It says give and it shall be given unto you. It doesn't say it has to be 10% before it kicks in. Tithing might be as training wheels if people aren't used to giving, but you can't buy God's grace, so why try?

I think it depends on the person, but their individual motivation can't be legislated. This 57 yr old woman could be motivated by...a) a heart felt personal desire to give love to offspring...or...b) an egotistical desire to be thought of as a mom where acquiring a child to her is no different than picking out a dress or some other material object. Either one is possible and every thing in between. But so what! When I think of China and how women are allowed to have 1 child and only 1 child and how if a woman is found to be pregnant with a 2nd child the state comes over to her house every day and takes 2 hours to explain the state's position and why she should get an abortion immediately and how most women over there give in and get the abortion...yeah, when I think of that, I say more power to this 57 yr old woman. At least she is apparently willing to pay for this herself rather than farm it out to the taxpayers. If she's willing to pay 25K for this procedure then she can pay for services to her twins that she herself might not be able to do. My mother was born in the stockyards neighborhood in Chicago. Her dad left her mom when she was 12. She ended up in STL on her 4th try with a foster home. My dad died when I was 9 after 32 plus years of marriage and I remember the determination my mom had to shake off the bitterness and get on with her life. Everybody has to make this choice! Your life wasn't determined by how your parents decided to bring you into the world. Those twins will have the same opportunity as everybody else to enjoy their lives or not regardless of which type of motivation mom had in getting them here. It's not the same thing as having a crack baby, is it?

Yeah, even 20-25 yrs ago some people in TWI over emphasized biblical accuracy just so THEY would look like the ones with all the answers, so they could control every conversation, etc. Funny, I thought egotism was taboo in TWI. The concept of biblical accuracy is OK. Take, for instance, Acts 4:12. There is no other name (Jesus the Christ) given among men by which we must be saved. I don't need to check greek to understand that; it's simple and either it's accurate or it isn't. I would not back down on that just to please my kids, but that doesn't mean I don't love them. I wouldn't back down on some of the election issues either.

Belle: Yeah, they're not normal. I hear that Walter Cummins himself can't get any more copies of "Demonstrating God's Power", yet Dean Ellenwood has been out for awhile and has several tapes for sale on his own website which includes really old songs like "God's Love".

My understanding is that you could perform a song at church or somewhere all you want as long as you don't make an income doing so. I play Dean Ellenwood's song 'It's gotta be God' all the time in fellowships and such. People love it. Why would Dean object? Also, a bar band plays covers of other peoples' songs every gig and nobody cares.

There's two sides to this coin: 1) MJ412, I couldn't say it better; there is comfort in the scriptures, long and short term, not by making them mean whatever one wants them to mean, but by rightly dividing them. 2) If someone is emotionally distraught, THAT's not the time to pound the accuracy of the word in someone's head. They need love, they need a hug, or what amounts to it. Remember the one liner...they won't care how much you know until they know how much you care. I think TWI got that one right, even though as time went by they practiced it less and less.

Evan: quote:Which agrees with God has given them the spirit of slumber lest they see with their eyes and are converted. So in 1 Samuel 19:9 where it says an "evil spirit from the Lord was upon Saul" you think that means God sends all evil spirits? I thought God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

Evan: quote: "free will" (a concept wholly absent from the Bible, incidentally) Evan, did you just post that, or did somebody MAKE you do it?

Raf: quote: From our flesh point of view" you are correct. But I didn't think we were looking at this from a flesh point of view. All we have is our flesh point of view. If the unforgiveable sin is rejecting Christ and nobody is confirmed as having committed it until they die then it doesn't make sense for Jesus to say "neither in this world neither in the world which is to come". No. It has to be possible to do something in THIS world which can't be forgiven in the world which is to come, or verse 32 doesn't make sense.

That makes no sense at all. So God blinds the minds of those who don't believe in Him? Right.

Raf: quote: If someone who was once "born of the wrong seed" recognizes his error and turns to Christ and confesses Romans 10:9,10, SHALT he be saved or not? Yes, he shall, but that's a pretty big "if". From our flesh point of view it doesn't look like there's any reason why anyone couldn't turn to Christ and get saved, but God says in his word "hath never forgiveness...nor the world which is to come". I looked in Mark 3 where a similar dialogue is mentioned. Both in Mark and Matthew the tip off was that those people said he casts out devils by Beelzebub etc. So to speak a word, or blaspheme against the Holy Ghost is to really believe God is the devil. The only way those Pharisees could reconcile Jesus' healings and miracles was by attributing them to the devil. They were so locked in to their false doctrine. Surely THEY were going to heaven! Surely THEY were on God's side. This agrees with John 8 when they said "will he kill himself" in response to Jesus saying "where I go you cannot come" because again surely THEY were going to heaven! Notice that in Matthew 12:33, the verse right after the one in question, he compares both spiritual powers with trees and fruit. Can't have trees and fruit without a SEED, right? The devil cannot create life but he can steal, kill, and destroy.

Then please explain Matt. 12:32. (NOT be forgiven him, neither in this world nor that which is to come)

Another thing. Perhaps there's no easy solution for the dilemma... a) someone is considered so vile that they are shamed in front of the whole town...yet, b) they are free to go out in public like everybody else. Maybe they should all be put in colonies like leper colonies used to be. The laws have to be adjusted somewhere!

I think it sends a mixed message to a community when a) someone is considered so vile that they are shamed in front of the whole town...yet, b) they are free to go out in public like everybody else. This leads to a dangerous witch hunt mentality, IMO. Witch hunting is a form of lust that, like all forms of lust is never satisfied. What's REALLY worse? One child molester, or 9,999 witch hunters in a town of 10,000? Nobody on my street even talks about that stuff. Krys: Yeah, I'd want to sell my house, too, but who'd want to buy it?

I think originally the half hour segment on seed of the serpent was in PFAL session 7 or 8, but was taken out because too many people, after listening to the segment, thought they themselves might be born of the wrong seed. Even on GSC apparently the concept is too too radical.

Song: Yeah. PFAL '77, but to my knowledge it was never used as a substitute for the '67 PFAL film class, nor did it change any basic doctrine.

Rascal: That sounds like a good situation. My family went to a Presbyterian church from '99-'00 and that minister was cool. He knew we were ex way but he did not go out of his way to "put us in our place" or anything like that. The trinity would have been a problem with him, but he's the only church minister I've really been exposed to since leaving TWI. Sadly, that same minister was run out of that church last year by the "old school" faction in the church. Oak: I was asking a question more than trying to make a point. Rascal's right; you can't just put all ministers and church members in a box just because they're not PFAL grads, yet the trinity does seem to be a sensitive issue with many of them. The only point I was implying with the post is that it's possibly human nature to question leadership, not just in church, but anywhere.

This thread reminds me of elementary school. Back then (60s) a lot of teachers were control freaks. If you did anything at all they could possibly perceive as questioning their authority they'd abuse you verbally, physically, and emotionally. This wasn't a perochial school, either. Yes, in a perfect world it's much easier for teachers if students just shut up and take everything in, but realistically, this can't happen consistently. Our minds are supposed to develop by comparing what we're taught and weeding out whatever doesn't make sense. Isn't it ironic that VP got so much heat for questioning the trinity? Hey, Rascal, did you question the trinity in that Methodist church? Just curious.

WW: Good point, except that if someone's behavior is "descended" from the devil, this is more binding than if their behavior is descended from the first camper, the first cattle-rustler, the first musician, the first metalsmith. I mean, the devil is a spirit; pure evil at that. If I'm descended from a musician, I can still be a good person sometimes, but if I'm descended from the devil, figuatively or not, this is a more malignant condition, no?