johniam

Oh, I gotta add this. During the last 5 years I was in TWI the twig cordo I had saw that I liked rock and roll so he kept giving me cassettes of country music. Best of Geo Strait, Randy Travis, Tanya Tucker. Didn't change a thing. That's probably the real reason they kicked me out of TWI. Who knows?

I'm a rocker myself, but about 10 years ago I worked in this warehouse and 1 day per week they had a country station playing. Lots of comments similar to George's and Out there's could be heard but work still got done. I didn't mind it. I liked Kelly Willis' version of Janis' song "Piece of my heart". I also liked Kelly Willis' face on the CD cover. (wolf whistle) It's funny, though. Many of the songs from that country station have a down beat that is much more driving than that of the supposedly communist soliciting rock music I grew up on. And hows come the so called "capital of country music" (Nashville) has 2 pro sports teams and is a huge city? But overall, music's function is to photograph emotions and it does a good job. You name any emotion which is common to large groups of people and there's probably a style of music to go with it. Country music IMO may be the last bastion of expression for some of the sappier emotions. I know that's not all you get from country music. George, swap that perpetual Waffle house cuisine for a 6 pack of your choice of beer and swap that smelly trucker for a cute waitress and you might soon be in your private heaven. Purgatory at the least.

This thread is sometimes ambiguous: sexy is physical. Sexy is what leads to sexual arousal, whether seen heard or felt. Some of these other things said to be sexy are not sexy, just characteristics that may make a relationship better. I agree with whoever said that the physical stuff just fades in time. Being sexy, however temporary it is, is basically a tool, a prop which some people can use to their advantage. Some people just seem to have a very good grasp on what makes them communicate sexiness: the way they dress, the way they use their voice, their mannerisms, etc. Mostly women, I think. Jeff Foxworthy once said that when men try to be sexy they just come off goofy. But it's PHYSICAL! All that other stuff is good and necessary. I swear some people are so consumed by how sexy they are 24/7 that they don't care about anything else. That would NOT help a relationship. I also agree that to be sexy one has to be confident.

Tore down the HHP?????? That's about as bad as king Ahaz in the OT nailing shut the doors of the House of the Lord. What a circus freak. If "God talks to you and you know it, or He didn't", then will someone please explain to me how in 1984 at my AC, LCM went on and on about how Muhammad Ali was born of the seed of the serpent, a fact not available to know without revelation. But in 1995 during an SNS teaching, he says Ali is born again of God's spirit, but being used by the adversary. I thought wrong seed was permanent. So on one or both of those sharings, God didn't talk to LCM.

quote: By Foreigner Here are all the words - btw Steve Perry is the singer When did that happen? I thought Lou Graham was Foreigner's lead singer and Steve Perry Journey's.

Chris Kattan: I'm going to unbutton the top button..... other men: No! Eez too sexy, eez too sexy!!!!!

If 7UP is the uncola then atheism is the unreligion.

As far as verses go, I'm drawing a blank right now, but as long as the guy believes that 1) God doesn't want him to use birth control, and 2) that God is Robin Hood and makes the rich pay for the poor, and 3) that it's OK with God for this guy not to work......as long as this goes uninterrupted, why should he change? Hey, that's it! 2 Thes. 3:10-15. According to those verses that guy's church is supposed to "have no company with him that he may be ashamed". Is it just possible that the guy is just a leech? He'll take whatever the church gives him and then turn around and take whatever the state gives him. He'll reap what he sows sooner or later, but if you want to confront him with scripture, try the no work/ no eat verse (2 Thes. 3:10) but he sounds like he could rationalize even that.

The common denominator is they're all belief systems. I think atheism is a kind of faith. There is overwhelming evidence that we did not get here accidentally, yet they have "faith" that we did.

quote: You know, things like 3somes, getting high to get to gawd, screwing every possible piffle student, condemning my grandma to hell for voluntarily dieing of cancer instead of believing gawd, pointing fingers at those in need and telling them how terrible they were for not believing gawd, whacking my daughter from age 6 months on for every peep she made that disturbed leadershi+... These things are what twi representatives taught to me so that I could be 'spiritual enough'. Amazing. I believe you, but when I read stuff like this it makes me wonder if "body snatchers" from outer space came down and took over TWI leadership at some point in time. I was never in a ministry like the one you describe, I swear.

I had stayed away from this thread. I play guitar and sing but I don't really know that much about guitars and brand names and technical stuff. But this thread just refuses to leave the front page, so I had to check out at least the last page. quote: Your voice doesn't sound like you've aged a day Socks. Amen! That was cool. On Pentecost weekend I went to a fellowship in Tennessee. Had a great time. One of the other participants was none other than Joe Fair. He played 2 songs at a Sat. night campfire thing and 1 song before a Sun. teaching. Yes, he too has aged. He almost looks like Ted Kennedy without the glasses (God, please don't let him see or hear of that) but just hearing that voice live...it about made me cry. The human voice has power that no other instrument has, IMO. Socks, once upon a time I heard that for the PFAL '77 recording, each member of Joyful Noise was assigned to write a song for it. Was yours the one that went...."no need to fret and worry, no need to rush and hurry, God will do his part for you to receive"??? That's the song I thought of after hearing I Saw the Light from the above post. I also know that it was you who wrote the song Claudettee sang called One Day which was on Royale Tapestry as well as the "God's Team" recording. I'm on to you, so don't be so modest; you have a great voice.

The day it happened to us was Tuesday after Memorial weekend. It rained hard for maybe an hour that night in Fort Myers Beach and the next day we had no bug problem driving on I75 to Fort Lauderdale. They must really pick their spots.

The 2nd picture from the top. That's them.

quote: At a recent STS at TWI, a teacher supposedly (and I don't know who) stood at the auditorium podium and taught about forgiveness and said they all should apologize for how some of US who have left the ministry have been treated by THEM. Supposedly this person brought everyone in the auditorium to tears with his teaching. This resulted in an "innie" family member contacting an "outie" family member and relating the whys and wherefores of his unusual warmup after being previously so cold. This past weekend I was at a Pentecost weekend type fellowship, where I met someone who said she was the housekeeper for a high profile TWI couple until she got kicked out of the corps sometime in the late 80s early 90s. She said she sent the woman a Christmas card every year with updates about her family and such, but never received a card from the woman UNTIL this past year. She didn't say anything about an apology, but she figured the woman was fiercely loyal to the company line and if she was told not to have any contact with "contaminated believers" she just wouldn't do it. But I thought that was kind of interesting.

Last week my family and I vacationed in Florida. We had a good trip overall, but one day we drove from Tampa to Fort Myers down I75. As we got closer to Fort Myers we noticed there seemed to be an awful lot of bugs getting squished on the wind shield. It never got so bad that we couldn't see, but we stopped at a gas station to clean them off the car. I figured a once over with the squeegee/sponge device most gas stations have would do it. So I pulled up to a pump and got out of the van. These bugs were all over the place. They were black with red markings on them. With a color scheme like that they gotta be deadly, right? Fortunately they were relatively docile. They didn't bite, sting, or suck your blood, but they were so THICK! I ended up buying a box of Brillo pads, a tooth brush, and one of those hair brushes with plastic teeth. This place had a hose so between all that we got it managed. I used the tooth brush and the hair brush to get them off the radiator grille and the Brillo for the wind shield, chrome, and head lights; took about a half hour. I even poured anti freeze on the wind shield figuring bugs don't like alchohol. We drove 45 - 50 MPH the rest of the way to Fort Myers on the suggestion of another customer and doing so seemed to make a huge difference. But OMG I felt like I was in the middle of a horror movie when I first got out of the car. Later that night I repeated the application of the Brillo pad and the rest of the trip was bug free. The next day we drove over to Fort Lauderdale where we saw my sister. She called them "love bugs". Some of you Fla. people are probably snickering, but man, next Fla. vacation I'm bringing the 6" razor scraper I use for window cleaning.

If TWI has a tape library, couldn't any tape be subpoenaed?

I think the phrase "return to your old man ways" as TWI taught it is a misnomer. Your old man is with you as long as you are alive, right? The old man is what you do with your mind, not your habits. I think that as the scripture says, evil associations corrupt good morals, but you don't have to be Christian to have that happen. In my experience, yes, I stopped doing some things for the sake of reckoning the old man dead (dope, rock and roll. etc.) but after abstaining from those things for long enough I figure I'm perfectly capable of deciding for myself what I can do and not do. I seriously have NOT done any dope since 1978, but I'm not afraid to, I just don't desire to. There's a whole belief system with that stuff. There is some rock and roll I freely listen to now that I abstained from for years in TWI. Haven't been struck with lightning yet.

Ruth had 7 WS rings, 3 with Boston and 4 with the Yankees.

I'm wondering if he'll retire after he hits #715. His body's shot. He surely doesn't want to embarrass himself plus he hates the media attention he gets. I wouldn't be surprised if he figures he doesn't have enough fumes in the tank to catch Henry Aaron and just ends it.

Dan: Keep in mind that the parable was addressed to Pharisees who were "covetous". So Jesus was willing to humor them and play along with their error about immediate punishments and rewards after death if doing so would allow him to address their covetousness. Eph. 5:5 says that a covetous man is an idolator and Col. 3:5 says that covetousness IS idolatry. So certainly Jesus' prioroty would be to correct their idolatry rather than pick a doctrinal fight with them about what happens after death. By humoring them Jesus was applying Prov. 26:5 - Answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own conceits. quote: If the scribes were wrong about this matter, could they be trusted to interpret the Torah in other matters? The parable discloses a loose thread capable of unraveling a much larger pattern." Oh, yeah! Definitely.

quote: If we have life and consciousness from the moment we are born, I think it odd, that God would blot out our consciousness when we die, then bring it back at the return. If we have eternity and eternal life, we can not be blotted out for a little bit. If that is so, then we do not really have eternal life. And if we could be blotted out so easily, what's to stop God from doing it again somewhere down the road in eternity? How can you totally trust a God who blots you out here and there for a bit? But we don't have life and consciousness from the moment we are born. I happen to be 52 years old. This means that if I have averaged 6 hours of sleep per day (which is probably on the conservative side) throughout my life, then I have slept for over 13 years. I have no problem trusting God that I will wake up each time I sleep. So why should I doubt that God, who is love, will make sure that I get up at the gathering together, and make sure that being awake is part of how we will "ever be with the Lord"?

Thanks, all.

quote: 13But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 15For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 16For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 18Wherefore comfort one another with these words. I don't believe this is talking about people who are dead physically necessarily. OK I have some questions. The phrase "sleep in Jesus" in v. 14 clearly agrees with "if we believe that Jesus died and rose again" earlier in the verse. So Jesus' death wasn't physical? The phrase "them which are asleep" in v. 15 clearly agrees with "we which are alive and remain" earlier in the verse. So our current life isn't physical? The following events...1)the Lord descending from heaven with a shout, 2)the voice of the archangel, 3) the trump of God, and 4)being caught up in the clouds to ever be with the Lord are clearly one time events corresponding to the gathering together. What does this have to do with a believer's walk with God prior to the gathering together? Where is the comfort in being risen from the dead if you're not physically dead??????????

#11 - Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?

There was a king in the OT. Manassah, I think. He was king for over 50 years and he killed a lot of Israelites who were innocent, he forced idolatry on priests and such...did all kinds of really bad things, but late in his life he repented. God noted his change of heart, but there were severe consequences that had to happen anyway. So his "apology" was for his benefit alone, not for the people he'd hurt. George Wallace renounced his racism at some point, but how many black people do you suppose cared? I can't help thinking of Joseph, whose brothers sold him into slavery. Then 22 years later when Joseph was the guy they had to go to for food during the famine, their talk among themselves revealed that they had been extremely guilt ridden for what they'd done. Then after Jacob died some 17 years later they still thought Joseph would do something to get even with them. Some things people do will apparently haunt them for life no matter what apologies are exchanged. I agree it's up to individuals to apologize to whomever they wronged, not for TWI as a corporation to issue a blanket apology to whom it may concern.