johniam

quote: What if TWI's interpretation of the written Word [the Bible] or supposed "direct revelation from God" conflicts with one's conscience? Like Ananias in Acts 9, or Peter in Acts 10? No problem.

Bolshevik: Romans 1:18 - 3:20 is addressed to Jews and gentiles. Note 3:22 - even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference. Before Christ there was a difference (Jews and gentiles). In the verse you partially quoted the gentiles in the OT could be saved if their consciences allowed the law, or enough of it, to be written in their hearts, even if they never read or heard the law as written by Moses, but not today; you need to be born again, and if anyone hungers and thirsts God will make sure they get witnessed to against all odds.

I always thought it was related to 1 Tim. 2:8 - I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting. Also, there's supposedly an Orientalism here about the lifting of your hands is symbolic to letting go of any anger or hostility toward anyone.

quote: So, if without Christ, we know the difference between right and wrong. With Christ, i dunno. . . Right and wrong are selective in the human mind. Some things really are not right or wrong, but strictly within the human mind, right and wrong are selective, not automatically bound to God. There's no getting around it; if mankind had a connection to God without Christ, then his death and resurrection were not necessary.

I still say that if, as the religious pov says, the conscience is a built in hot line to God that everybody is born with that always knows right from wrong, then Christ's sacrifice was unnecessary, which is obviously wrong. Conscience is a function of the mind triggered by regulation or violation of our habit patterns. We CALL it conscience when those habit patterns involve a moral issue, but the conscience functions also on non moral issues. For example: every time I have ever moved from one house or apt to another a major comfort zone is violated. Namely, showering. Anybody here NEVER take a shower? Possibly some of you only take baths. But now in the new place I have to relearn how to adjust the hot and cold spiguts and if I'm in a hurry, it's not pleasant. There's nothing moral about showering, it's just something people do, yet that part of your mind responds to a violation of your habit pattern until it becomes the habit pattern. Remember in the Christian ettiquette book how Dorothy said to practice until the correct way becomes the habit instead of the incorrect way? Before Genesis 3 Adam and Eve only knew good, not evil, as my wife pointed out. But they still had their minds, their habit patterns. That's what they responded to. God made their minds to simply have the capacity to adjust to the newly acquired moral issues that came with their fall and subsequent banishment from paradise. Before the fall in Gen. 3 humans and animals were to eat plants, not other animals. It must have initially bothered their consciences to now have to eat animals to survive (because the ground was cursed), yet they made the adjustment. I'm guessing animals ate other animals first and Adam saw this and concluded that he could do it, too. The point is, the conscience is not a rigid my way or the highway brick wall. It is flexible...adjustable...thank God. The idea that there is a built in right from wrong indicator that everybody has access to is just a "convincing sounding argument" that some people use to control other people. It can happen in religion, psychology, and any other belief system with a premise.

quote: Yeah - I've got the same questions - I dunno...but I've been thinking about it more since I read your post...gonna let that percolate awhile...browse through some commentaries and systematic theology books...er...uhm...probably come back more confused No offence, but this is what I meant about second guessing every spiritual decision. Sure, it's good to think about what is put before you, but God doesn't want us ignorant about stuff. Sound doctrine prevents this confusion.

quote: If there is indeed cerebral evidence that bears God's signature – what would it be? It would be universal and still exist – for the Bible to state all are without excuse. What things would be common between the Creator and all humans – who are made in His likeness? I happen to think the things that qualify us as human are the very things that make us like God: we have the capacity to love, to forgive, to invent, to reflect, to have abstract thought, that we have a desire to be fair, to do the right thing, and have compassion towards someone less fortunate than ourselves. Perhaps when our conscience is smitten and we feel shame or regret it's from intuitively knowing we have fallen short of what we know we can or should do. Maybe that's along the lines of verse 18 "all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who)suppress the truth in unrighteousness" and verse 32 "although they know the ordinance of God" – is it a thing of suppressing what we know to be true? Ignoring our conscience? Yes, either side could go around the world on this (and we sure do) but...Rom 7:18 - for I know that in me (that is in my flesh) dwelleth NO good thing, and...Eph. 2:1 - and you hath he quickened who were DEAD in tresspasses and sins. Dead means dead and no means no. There is no part of our flesh that precludes the need for Jesus Christ's finished work. quote: Very good, Listener. I think it really just boils down to, "Love God and love your neighbor" - if you're doing that, then you're doing alright. Loving God includes loving His word which means you have to deal with doctrine. No act of love Jesus ever did (or us) did not have doctrine behind it (John 7:16 - ...my doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me) so any so called love for God and neighbor that doesn't include specific doctrine is flawed.

Great post, Twinky. Good points.

quote: While there is something about the training of our conscience [as MacArthur said – likening its function as more of a skylight than a light bulb – see my post #16] – there appears to be something innate – built into it by God – noting the phrase "that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them" in verse 19 of Romans 1. Sure, God designed the human mind to hold and accomodate His word. Since you DID quote from Romans 1 then I should bring up the double standard about homosexuality. If it's plagiarism or adultery then oh yes "let your conscience be your guide" but if it's homosexuality, then who cares about a conscience. I think THAT is what Romans 1 is leading to, but that's a whole 'nother thread. quote: This "therefore no condemnation" thing makes my skin crawl and I don't know why right now. I read it in context, and if you lump conscience in with the flesh, then it's saying you have no conscience or your conscience can't be trusted. To me that says you can't trust yourself to know the difference between right and wrong, and ignores what T-bone said. So the next step is no matter, no condemnation. Seems like another way to tune out right from wrong. Perhaps the way it works is the conscience is a part of walking by the spirit because of "19 because (AL)that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. " Well, I don't understand, so I'm not being too articulate. OK, you want substance about not always trusting your own mind? Prov 28:26 - He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool.. Prov 3:5 - Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding John 5:30 - I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge and my judgement is just because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me Romans 7:15 - For that which I do I allow not; for what I would, that do I not, but what I hate, that do I. Romans 7:22,23 - For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members 1 Cor 4:3 - But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man's judgement: yea, I judge not mine own self You're right, you don't understand. requote: Perhaps the way it works is the conscience is a part of walking by the spirit because of "19 because (AL)that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. " Oh, so Jesus Christ died in vain because man already had a spiritual connection with God by simply having a conscience? Christ's sacrifice wasn't necassary? God didn't love the world by giving His only begotten son? God was really a child abuser? Like I said, I refuse to blow off the good news.

Well, after 20 plus replies there ought to be a voice of dissent. VP taught, both in God's Magnified Word and in the Lifestyle of the believer, that man's conscience is his servant, not his master. And that is true. But we have all been brainwashed to believe that we should "let our conscience be our guide" (Jiminy Cricket from Pinnochio) and also check out the gold fish in Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat. That fish is the self appointed conscience of that story. Conscience is moral awareness, true, but it's still based 100% on what we've been previously taught. It's our habit patterns. In that film The Prevailing Word VP said that children will never lie to you until the adults teach them how. One show I watched was 'Judging Amy'. It's your basic liberal socialist propaganda show like others, but Amy is a juvenile court judge who can be brutally honest when rendering a judgement for other peoples' kids, but in dealing with her own child, a teenage girl, she refuses to be honest. She won't even admit that she (Amy) used dope when she was a child and young adult, so of course, her daughter frequently lies to her about stuff and Amy can't put 2 and 2 together to save her life. If you teach kids either verbally or by example that it's OK to lie they'll pick up on it and their consciences won't bother them for doing it. But like I said, a conscience is a man's servant, not his master. We all know the scripture about someone's conscience being seared with a hot iron. This person's habit pattern was to do the word, then they do something they know is off the word the first time and their conscience bothers them a lot, but the more they do it, the less their conscience bothers them until finally it doesn't bother them at all. What about the reverse of that? Instead of having your conscience seared with a hot iron, how about having it "cleared with cool living water"? Romans 8:1 says there is no condemnation. What exactly is this 'condemnation'? Judgement? Condemnation is more than just feeling a little pain once in awhile; it's part of the 'dead in tresspasses and sins' package we inherited from Adam. Our habit pattern, no matter what our background is, included much judgement and abuse based on the common expectation of death we all have, again inherited from Adam. So when someone says, "there is therefore now no condemnation", this is quite contrary to our habit pattern isn't it? The first time you consider "no condemnation" your conscience literally bothers you: "No no, that can't be right. It's just too good to be true." But the more you consider that Christ paid for "no condemnation" and it's not dependent on your own works, the less it bothers you to think that "no condemnation" could actually be true, until finally, it doesn't bother you at all. THAT is renewed mind! I don't speak for all, but I absolutely refuse to allow a group of self appointed prosecutors to blow off the good news of "no condemnation" just because VP was human. If your habit pattern is now to figure out every way possible that pfal was a scam, then you'll reap what you sew, and be second guessing every spiritual decision you ever make.

I could have sworn that I saw Dorothy Owens playing organ somewhere in that video. The weird thing is that a few years ago me and my next door neighbor were playing Neil Young and Doors songs at a local coffee shop and everybody in the crowd is 50 or so and I'm looking out there and thinking "why are we playing for all these old people? Oh, yeah!" But back in the day it was people our current age that used to make fun of us for liking that music. Come to think of it, when I was a child the ONLY time I ever saw an old person wearing blue jeans was in Greenwich Village in NYC. It stands to reason that it's easier to be a hip old person if you were a hip young person. Thank God for our generation.

Now that I think about it, yes in reality God is able and willing etc. but in the LCM administration God supposedly added a 'won't spit in your direction' clause.

quote: I heard this as well although I was not in this class. I do know that VP always recommended those two books for reading, and I distinctly remember him telling us that the Jews that were in Isreal today are "frauds". (His words not mine) He said that they were not of a "pure" bloodline The bloodline argument makes sense to me because even by the time of Christ only the 2 tribes of Judah and Benjamin could prove they were full blooded Israelites thanks to Ezra but the other 10 tribes had been mixed with their captors the Assyrians beginning 750 BC or so. So if their overall bloodline wasn't pure even then, how could it be 2000 years later? I never heard VP himself say anything about Jews but Stanley Reahard posted on waydale that in 1981 she and Bo were at a night owl at HQ and VP said the US fought on the wrong side in WW2. She wanted to leave then as a result. Also, at my AC in 1984 LCM said the holocaust was a hoax and people left. I think some TWI leadership leaned toward a conspiracy theory which had Jews out to get us or something, but even if that's true so what? In the book of Esther there was a guy who really was out to get the Jews. Esther and Mordecai didn't freak out and try to organize a Hitler youth movement of their own, they just believed God and got their deliverance. That's all anybody today can do. When I think of possible conspiracy theories, the Jews are way down on my list.

I still think believing equals receiving, but whatever the situation there's a point at which you've done your best thought and action and no sense worrying about it. Whatever happens happens. Believing what God says equals receiving, but believing something my stupid mind came up with might just fail. The closest I came to fearing that bad things might happen to me was when we left TWI. We were forced out and treated with shame. To give an idea of the atmosphere of the last twig we attended, the leader said that not absing was like holding up a sign to the adversary that said "HIT ME!". But we didn't stop praying and God came through for us and still does. The thing that gets to me is...who is the idiot who came up with this religious standard that says that if you don't believe God 100% perfect you are a bad believer? I don't think it was VP. I remember as far back as 1980 Vince F was teaching a SNS tape and he was saddened that people were being treated like some kind of criminal if they skipped twig for 2 weeks or something harmless like that. Back then it was a few people who did this. By 1994 when we left it was everybody...or else!

Isringhausen is looking good so far this year. I went to a game late in '05 against Houston. It was a competitive game but it came down to the closers. Houston scored the winning run off Izzy and Brad Lidge was lights out. Izzy was no better last year; I was glad that Adam Wainwright was successful. But so far this year his fastball has some pop to it. Today he got his first blown save of the year in 5 tries but it was caused more by the Wrigley field wind than his pitching. Cards still won the game, but after seeing him have mixed results for the last few years, I'm impressed with what I see so far this year.

Dot: that's really cool. Just like Moses and the burning bush and Peter and the sheet full of animals, God gave you a non verbal before eventually getting to the verbal message. Best part: you don't get hurt. That's one thing TWI had right: that even God Himself is both able and willing to help little ME (us). Most church people I've met seem to think that God is like some corporate big shot or high profile celebrity...that He couldn't possibly have the time or the inclination to get involved with MY life. But He does.

Being on the field, we all heard that the paper named names and read like a tabloid. At least, that's what I heard from the last twig leader I had in TWI. Then I read it on waydale. Didn't name names; came off to me as an extended word study on adultery. Before that I was willing to give TWI the benefit of any doubt about the alleged sex scandal stuff. That discrepancy was really the first clue I had that..."somebody's got to be a LIAR"!

I don't remember many of my dreams, but this one was just too weird. I dreamed I was at HQ just a few years ago. I went in the auditorium and people came up to me and greeted me (including LCM himself) even though I was deemed "contaminated" when I left TWI 10 yrs earlier. After this I recall looking around the room and everywhere I looked someone was chewing out someone else. It appeared as routine as manifestations for a TWI fellowship. Also, when LCM came up to me to greet me, he looked like that scene in the movie 'Poltergeist' where the guy is picking his skin off his face and throwing it in the sink. He looked like he was decomposing, yet walking around as though everything was fine. He told me I could hang around if I wanted. Cheerful tone of voice.

quote: A proper "grilling" just isn't complete without some marinade or something, and you're definitely getting grilled.... Ha! And here Ted Nugent says you can't grill it until you first kill it.

Wow, a student of the Word AND a Star Trek fan. That's incredible. It seems a little odd to me that a Trinitarian wouldn't believe that Christ's reign wasn't eternal. It would seem to me that if someone thought he was God they would be likely to think that his reign was eternal since he's an eternal being. I'm not a very knowledgeable scholar in this matter but that would seem to be logical to me. I think it's possible for Christ to rule over the house of Jacob forever and still be subject unto God, since it seems to me to be at least possible that the New Jerusalem will be a location on the third Earth. BTW this is jeaniam, not John. I forgot to switch AGAIN. My bad. Sorry.

Yeah, I loved it when he came to town and did a presentation on OT history. I did what he suggested about reading the straight history first a few times, THEN filling it in with the law, lists, geneologies, prophets and other stuff. I liked the way he taught the book of Esther, too.

Yes, I feel I understand the bible and TWI played a big part in that. VP once said that the best scope of understanding the bible we'll ever get is from reading and rereading the bible; not from classes, word studies, etc. If you get settled into the habit of having your eyes and mind in the bible, THAT'S when God can show you stuff, not so you can be puffed up, just so you can be more peaceful. I agree with VP that if 2 or more people read the same scripture and come to completely opposite conclusions, then God is not 100% part of that equation, but I've heard many people sum up TWI by saying the bible didn't make sense until TWI.

Consider that the first humans were a married couple who later became a family. I think there's a point where children are capable of forming their own intentions independently of whatever their parents' example is (Samuel's kids) but it is also noteworthy that in the literal first family, the first kid killed the second. I think both in society and in stuff like TWI the parents have first right of refusal in matters dealing with their kids, yet we've lived in communities where overly aggressive social workers wanted to take away that right from us. TWI leaders certainly did the same.

I'm wondering where the word 'swearing' in the bible ever got associated with current 4 letter words. At least nobody in TWI ever grabbed anybody's crotch to get ordained or anything...did they?????

quote: And don't even get me started on your flawed views of psychotherapy. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about Is that so. I relate a personal experience and I don't know what I'm talking about? That sounds eerily familiar. Women post on GSC claiming to have had personal experience with VPW. Others downplay that personal experience and you get all up in arms about that, but somehow it's OK for you to downplay my personal experience. Nice double standard.