Mike

Hi T-Bone, The weather has been good here in San Diego, so I’m playing catch-up in my business and bills. I realize I have left a lot of dangling sub-topics but that’s somewhat the nature of these bound-to-be-frayed threads. I just don’t have the time to do much more than this post for a little while. Maybe a day or two. Who knows. I have been reading though, as best I can. I saw Don’tWorryBeHappy has moved his sideshow to another thread where it can proceed unheeded by the facts and truths from the positive side, and that’s fine with me. I think he has, like I said here before, a round-about kernel of righteous anger in the axe he’s grinding against splinter group leaders. Funny how I tend to go against them from the opposite direction. Now isn’t THAT cause to pause?! I go after splinter leaders for not being pro-vpw enough, and Don’tWorryBeHappy goes after them for not being anti-vpw enough? Contradiction, anomaly, paradox, conundrum? No. I’m focusing on the Christ-within that was manifested by vpw&co while Don’tWorryBeHappy is focusing on the old-man-nature manifestations of vpw&co. So I’m saying splinter leaders are sloppy in dealing with the good that came from TWI-1. Don’tWorryBeHappy is saying splinter leaders are sloppy in dealing with the bad that came from TWI-1. *** I’m focusing (along with a small number of other posters here) on where God was successful in finding a team of leaders who would literally receive and carry out His Word better than anything in 2000 years Don’tWorryBeHappy is focusing (along with a large number of other posters here) on where the adversary was successful in finding a smaller team of leaders who would fall into his fear/greed traps. *** The leaders involved in TWI-1 had Christ natures and old man natures, and both natures got exercised. I have reported here that I can fall on my face several times in one day. But then again, I can get up several times in one day as well. Even in one hour’s time I can manifest both natures, back and forth, many times. It’s not always like this, but it happens. Sometimes I’m much more committed and steady... and stay flat on my face for weeks. I’m learning to reverse that and walk with God more steadily. Fortunately, God is there faithfully to forgive me EVERY TIME. (hint: topic, topic, topic) God was there for that TWI-1 team too, ready to forgive and move on with the work. Let’s talk about TWI-1 for a bit. Take several hundred people like little old me all working together, but crank up their Type A personality traits to Eleven, and watch the fur fly! Probably most of the time it’s low level old man nature interactions, with occasional flare-ups of intense activity as bunches of them all fall simultaneously, like teamwork, to do the adversary’s work (of many varieties, not just sex). But then there are the MANY MORE low level Christ-Christ interactions with occasionally spectacular breakthroughs with light. THIS light is what I focus on now. This is exactly what I saw when I was working a twig in the 70’s in NY, then when I was on HQ staff in the late 70’s, then again working a twig in CA for the early 80’s, with a break to go WOW in there too. I saw waves of light and darkness coming from thousands of actions and interactions in all those settings. Many people were in and out of fellowship, knocking each other out, and helping each other back. It was marble cake in motion as I said in Post #913. Our Romans 7 dual nature is the key to it all, explaining what the heck happened, and what the heaven happened. It’s in many other scriptures too. Shall we list them soon? I try to make it go away all the time for myself and I’m successful. Apply the knowledge of our dual nature to this situation. What would you want to focus on more? Shall we be forever stuck focusing on actions and then the white washing of some group dirty old man natures? No, not if that means suppressing the brilliant light that’s 2000 years unique emanating from the same group of people’s Christ natures. When I say “group” here I mean Dr, plus his previous teachers, and his editors, and all the support jobs that printed and distributed that brilliant light, in other words ALL the staff and Corps and volunteers, both at root locales and on the field. I’d like to offer a possible correction here. What I think you really mean to say, to use words most accurately, is that “Some facts are out on TWI’s favorite idol.” I can agree to that. BUT... I’m sure not ALL the facts are out. There are plenty "other sides" we'lll never hear. I'm sure some of those facts are fish stories with 25 years of stretching. I'm sure some of those "facts" are wrong interpretations. But some dark facts ARE out, I’ll grant you that. I just don’t think they are worth the time and focus. I refuse to try and sort out such a mess. Also, to some degree, the truths areout about light from God’s team that produced the written PFAL teachings, book and magazine form, that we were told to master and that we did NOT master, not even close. The truth is out of the TREASURE that awaits all who seek it in the writings. My gosh, this isn't a commercial. The books are out there already! I’m for brilliant light focusing. It’s there for those who want to see it. We once saw it. We can see it again.

All the NT originals were lost. All the originals were copied in such a way it required Stevens and others to “criticize” the fragments and “correct” them. The ink of these Critical Greek Texts was still wet 1500 years after the originals were lost. The oldest manuscript fragments date back to which century? The 4th or 3rd? The oldest intact NT dates to around 800 AD and is in Latin. Looks like something got pretty darn lost and/or shredded and scattered. *** I celebrate here often that God can and does re-issue His Word. I refuse to believe a bunch of people who believe there are three gods will get revelation from the One God in re-constructing the originals as Stevens and the others tried. Sorry.

I'm delighted to hear your words. Thank you again for this exchange. I don't remember any of the details of our exchanges in the past. I’ve had combat with too many people here to remember them all. A few I do, but in time that can blur easily. I focus on remembering the ideas that come up more than the names. Maybe if we all posted actual pictures of ourselves I’d do better here. You mentioned an epiphany or yours on another thread. I don’t know if I was involved there or similarly elsewhere, but if I was I’d be happy to re-enter those discussions here or in PMs to translate between friendly mode and combative mode ways of putting things. This offer I’d like to extend to everyone here, but when I meet someone like you and what you’re saying now, I see it as an opportunity to broadcast this invitation. I was never combative in my ministry days. I had to develop that skill in 1988 when I noticed leaders needed confrontations more and more. I was very clumsy at first and made many mistakes. I still blow it at times (was suspended here once, and almost a second time) but I think I’m better. I vastly prefer the friendly approach. Many times here I’ll be swinging away at many combatants. Once it was 74 posters who were simultaneously food fighting with me. I didn’t count them; one of THEM did the counting as a way of trying to persuade me with numbers. When I’m in such a fray and a new poster comes in who doesn’t know me and I don’t know them, they tend to pick up with the side of the majority and chime in with them. There have been times when I used combative mode WAY TOO MUCH on them, not realizing their relative newness to the fray. I have felt badly when I noticed later that that happened. I think some people like Tom Strange got initial impressions of me that way, or seeing me deal with a newbee that way, and we’ve been antagonists ever since. When you mentioned your epiphany it reminded me of this. Do you think that these kinds of communication-connects help develop better abilities in forgiveness? I do.

Not to be argumentative, but I thought I WAS in my PFAL mode all through this exchange. Do you possibly mean "combative mode"? THAT mode I felt I had dropped for you.

brideofjc, You wrote: “Contradicting yourself, Mike! Read again your first line....then read your own contradiction of your own words.” Ok, let’s read them together. I wrote: “The Word of God is protected and impossible to harm. It’s spiritual.” Notice I didn’t say Bible or written anywhere here. Before humans, before writing was invented, before there was an Earth, before matter and energy were created there was God. Before the written Word existed, there was God and in his mind was His Word and will. God had foreknowledge of what He was GOING TO have written much later, but it wasn’t in written form. This is what I meant when I wrote at the end “It’s spiritual.” What God remembers having had put into written form is protected and impossible to harm. That’s what I meant when I wrote at the beginning “The Word of God is protected and impossible to harm.” Then I wrote: “Once God gives His Word to be written, then THAT form of His Word is in the senses realm and CAN be damaged and even lost. The written forms of God’s Word are NOT nearly so impervious as the same Word in God's mind. That original manuscript of the written Word and any copies that are made are the charge of human beings. Those documents are subject to mis-copying and forgeries and even destruction.” Following the pattern I saw Dr take, when I write “The Word of God” I mean what’s in God’s mind, and it’s spiritual, not physical. When I write “Bible” I mean that same Word of God but put into physical written form. Do you see the difference? There is a spiritual Word of God that is always pure, and then there is the same Word in written form that starts out pure, but can be corrupted because it’s in the realm run by the god of this world. This will end someday. Let me know if you see this apparent contradiction reconciled now and we can move on to some other points.

Hi T-Bone, Thank you much for this exchange. I was highly motivated to answer you in as much detail as possible, considering the late hour. I do wish more conversations here would go that way for me. I trust you see that my relationship with Jesus Christ is rich and well thought out, and not altogether missing like I suspect some grads were headed long ago. I saw the ministry as marble cake in motion. There were light spots and dark spots and they were all swirling around in motion. I did my best to avoid the dark and bask in the light. This worked well for me until the early 80’s and it started to get tougher. I started seeing that the situations I had been hearing a few scattered friends complaining about were starting to become more and more manifest. The dark spots increased as LCM and the first large Corps (like 6th and 7th) were taking over. Earlier I mentioned twice that where the active hand of the true God is, not far will be the active hand of the adversary to mess things up. This is why it was marble cake. *** You wrote: “And I'd just go nuts in the gospels – relishing every word and deed of my Lord...” I did that too. But here’s another thing I did. Have you ever noticed in a red letter edition of the KJV that there are several red passages in Acts, and I don’t mean at the beginning, before the Ascension. The road to Damascus incident is in Acts THREE TIMES! The first account is in the chronological slot, early in Acts, and is told by the narrator, Luke. The other two are much later and are flashbacks where Paul is describing the incident. If you take a word processor and paste those three passages from Acts into it a blank document, what you have is remarkably similar to Colossians Chapter One. I have often found that these three accounts that include direct quotes of Jesus’ (and recorded by the writer of the Gospel of Luke) are not NEARLY as well known as Jesus’ words in the 4 Gospels. *** I’ve noticed in many theological circles that Paul is looked down on. Some churches actually don’t count Acts and the Epistles as doctrine and they SAY SO openly. Many other churches quietly steer people away from Paul giving a myriad of excuses. It is very difficult in traditional circles to reconcile Paul with the 4 Gospels. Paul and his epistles (and hence the ministry of Jesus Christ seated at God’s right hand) are irrelevant to them. There was something similar in the ministry. There were TVTs that made the 4 Gospels irrelevant. I did NOT get the impression that the Gospels were irrelevant from PFAL, just that there was an even MORE relevant Gospel of Paul. In the first century the curriculum God laid out for newborn baby Gentile Christians was first the Word spoken by Paul and then his written epistles followed. THEN much later the Gospels were written, kind of like an Advanced Class. This is the same order we were given the Word, first spoken in the film class, then the collaterals, and THEN finally came “Jesus Christ Is Not God” and “Jesus Christ Our Passover” and “Jesus Christ Our Promised Seed.” We finally did get our exposure to the Gospels and lots of detail about Jesus’ walk on earth, but only after we saw his ministry at God’s right hand, which is bigger. *** Unfortunately, there were those dark spots in the marble cake. I saw individuals in leadership positions who would brag about not being a “Jesus person” and say terrible things like “Jesus was dead and gone.” I saw some actually put down the Jesus of the Gospels as a wimp. All these dark distortions were derived FROM the teachings of Dr, but NOT ACCURATELY. Dr had a heart for the Jesus of the Gospels, but I saw these individuals develop a dark heart towards him, due to their sloppy idiotic handling of Dr’s teachings. I had to quietly “mark and avoid” them. Most unfortunately, they got more and more power and were harder and harder to avoid. *** I’ve seen it posted here that Dr did not like even saying the name “Jesus” without saying “Christ” right after it, or preferably before it, but that he liked “Christ” all alone best. This is a grand distortion of Dr’s teaching, and reflects the kinds of individuals I mentioned above. I have found OODLES of places in the collaterals where “Jesus” alone is the dominant nomenclature. I saw individuals who would visually cringe and then “reprove” at the mention of “Jesus” alone, but never did I see or hear or read Dr do that. If there was a particular passage that called for “Christ” all alone or “Christ Jesus” and someone would mistakenly use “Jesus” alone, I could see a cringe and a correction, but it was clear to me that Dr was not at all into the “Jesus phobia” those derelict individuals were propagating. There were TVTs that grew up to spread this and the marble cake eventually turned black with mold. I’m very thankful for the light spots that did shine through and bless us all. I’m very thankful for the light that was preserved in the written forms of PFAL. I’m very thankful for this discussion with you in your allowing me to get this all out.

In order to avoid spreading myself thin I only want to post one thing here and move on. Any comments to me can be made in PMs or in the "A note on forgiving thread." Thanks One of the reasons I did NOT go into the Corps was because I didn't think I was ready to be toughened up. I saw VERY CLEARLY that the Corps program was advertised as being just that, like boot camp, and I avoided it because this was so clearly made known. I'm talking about 1975 to 1985. After that was everything was different, and by 1987 I was going gone. The advertising I'm talking about was largely verbal.

bride4ofjc, You wrote: “Oh, Puhleez, Mike....your view of God is small indeed, if you think that He hasn't watched over HIS WORD. Do not the Scriptures assert that "He magnified HIS WORD even above HIS NAME?” The Word of God is protected and impossible to harm. It’s spiritual. Once God gives His Word to be written, then THAT form of His Word is in the senses realm and CAN be damaged and even lost. The written forms of God’s Word are NOT nearly so impervious as the same Word in God's mind. That original manuscript of the written Word and any copies that are made are the charge of human beings. Those documents are subject to mis-copying and forgeries and even destruction. Jeremiah 36 contains the record of such a destruction. It was the written form that was cut up into pieces and then thrown into a fire. The spiritual Word of God that came to be placed on that scroll was NOT destroyed, and God made arrangements to have it written again, with many words added in the second version. Another instance of the written Word being lost is recorded. It was lost for some time under the debris of a ransacking of the temple, but later found. Jeremiah rejoiced over this finding of these lost scriptures. The Word of God as it was written in the stars (before Moses) was corrupted over time and eventually totally lost with no replacement, not in the stars anyway. The last people I know of who could accurately read anything of detail in the stars were the Magi some 2000 years ago.

T-Bone, You wrote: “Jesus warned of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees – which was a theological system that bred hypocrisy. I tend to think vp's doctrine would fall into the same category – a belief system with a primary concern for appearances rather than matters of the heart. Of course, that's just my opinion. I'm interested in your thoughts on that.” When you say “vp’s doctrine” do you mean the whole ball of wax? I am very careful to distinguish between TVTs and the written record. It’s impossible to trace the origins and proponents of the TVTs. It seems many grads were loaded with TVTs and that gave rise to lots of baloney. I think your opinion is focused on those TVTs and their consequences. If you would come back to work the written materials, and them exclusively, you’d find that it’s a different picture there. As far as appearances go, they are important and had to be taught. I could see that, and I could see that some took that too seriously. We were HIPPIES, or many of us were, or like hippies. We had been indoctrinated into “letting it all hang out” and wearing torn and dirty clothes and not bathing. We needed some teaching there. And matters of the heart? I saw plenty of that taught. I’m sorry if you missed it. It’s not too late to see plenty of heart in the written forms of PFAL. *** You wrote: “In regards to Paul's warning of counterfeits – and even your own mentioning of the devil's activity – I was wondering if you could mention specific reasons why you think vp was a genuine minister of God." He led me to the True God. He showed me how to read the KJV and other versions and see past man’s religious baloney. We love God because He loved us first, and Dr showed me that God is love and that He loved me. From Dr’s ministry I was able to throw out the baloney of the RC Church that had plagued me with guilt and condemnation. From PFAL I received a strong desire to help others see that God is love. I know Dr to be of God by the fruits that grew in my life from his teaching. I know from the Word that his old man nature was not worth two cents, just like mine. *** You wrote: “I was intrigued by your reference to religious folks stuck in the 4 gospel time administration [which, I guess, you also lump me in that category]. vp's teachings focused more on showing the application of PFAL principles rather than developing a relationship with Jesus Christ. Has Paul's warning of some who pervert the gospel of Christ ever been a concern of yours in the struggles you mentioned in a previous post? In other words - did you ever think vp perverted the gospel of Christ?” I see the perverted gospel in churchianity where a relationship with Jesus Christ is counterfeited by emotions. Some of those emotions, in the early stages of this counterfeit process, can be genuine reactions to genuine understanding of parts of God’s Word. But, from my experiences, later on those emotions fade, as all emotional feelings do. When this happens the person who HAD experienced them naturally wants to recharge them because they felt good. By then he had absorbed the prevalent counterfeit teaching that THOSE FEELINGS were a relationship with Jesus Christ. I remember nuns in the RC Church describing this as the reason they joined the convent. In a sense they think of themselves as married to Jesus. They do whatever they have to do to artificially pump up those emotions. When those endorphins finally do flow they feel like they are “in love” with Jesus and that is their counterfeit relationship. I used to try and do this when I was a child in Catholic School, but being a male, I felt that it was impossible to go this route as efficiently as a female could, and I felt cheated. Later on in life I found that some Protestants had found non-homosexual ways of duplicating the nuns’ approach, and they could get the endorphins flowing. The charismatic movement of the time even brought some of this to the RCs, but by then I was bowing out. I suppose in other locales and in other centuries RC priests and monks may have gone this route of having an “emotional” relationship with what they thought was Jesus. I also know now that brother-brother love can be quite strong and even emotional at times without introducing any sexual elements. I would expect that the apostles had such a brother-brother relationship with Jesus, and THOSE relationships were genuine. However, those relationships were not strong enough nor spiritual enough to satisfy God Who wanted more for us. That relationship didn’t do them much good when they were out of Jesus’ presence, and it totally failed them during and after the crucifixion. There was a time when Jesus told them that it would be good for them that he would leave. The kind of relationship that they had with him would be ending soon, he was telling them. Then that time finally came and he was removed from their sight. What PFAL taught me was that the flesh person of Jesus Christ was removed by God from sight, and those flesh relationships were terminated FOR A GOOD REASON. That reason was that God had a secretly planned a BETTER kind of relationship for them. The ministry of Jesus Christ on earth, in the senses realm, was spectacular, but it ended. He ascended and sat down at the right hand of the Father. In II Cor. 5:16 we are told “Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.” Trying to go back to knowing Christ after the flesh is bound to end up in counterfeit soup because it is no longer available. You can’t call Christ on the phone and meet him at Starbucks. If you do it’s either another road to Damascus incident, or the more likely “spiritual problem.” The relationship we can have with Christ starts with receiving “Christ in you the hope of glory.” Then that is improved and it becomes Christ in you THE GLORY! This is the “Christ formed in you” teaching that so few heard or remember of Dr’s, even though he did it three times that I have tape of, and probably some more. I have posted one of the transcripts here, but I don’t know if it survived the pruning of a few years ago. My relationship with Christ is, IN MY WORDS, like the relationship a theater actor has with the role he plays. An actor is not the character he plays, but in time an actor can “identify” with that part. This can be a identity problem for that actor if it goes too far. For us, going all out in this PFAL sponsored relationship is void of problems. (Gal 4:18) In my RC taught relationship with Christ I had to follow him at a distance. In my PFAL taught relationship to Christ I get to fill his shoes and walk his walk. I take the place of the absent (flesh) Christ wherever I go, as long as I live in that mind of Christ PFAL teaches and not in my old man nature. This is the whole point of the remaining verses in II Corinthians 5. Let’s look at them. I Cor. 5:16-21 Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. In this passage Paul is teaching that the old relationship with Christ is past, and that the new one was in full swing for Paul, but not yet for the Corinthians. They had pneuma hagion and could SIT, but they were carnal. They hadn’t yet gotten Christ FORMED in their soul/minds. They had Christ CREATED in them spiritually, pneuma hagion, but their minds were carnal, old man nature minds, for the most part. Paul was teaching them so they too could rise up to this superior relationship with Christ. Paul was acting in Christ’s place for them. They weren’t up to that speed yet, so the “us” and the “we” in there refers to Paul and Timothy, the “you” refers to the Corinthians. I don’t see this kind of relationship taught in churchianity. I see mere emotionalism there at best, and a counterfeit christ-relationship at worst, especially when the trinity is brought in and it’s a god-man counterfeit christ that’s in that relationship. This is what Paul was talking about when he warned us not to pervert the relationship he had the revelation to teach. Paul’s gospel shows us the ministry of THE MAN Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of God. The relationship with Christ we can have is to become LIKE him as I John 3:2 teaches. To see the fullness of this requires PFAL because it was lost before the apostle Paul died. Full recovery took 2000 years and divine intervention. The Word was lost in the first century and then re-issued to us in PFAL in a new format, but the same ideas as Paul’s, with an added element. Paul ministered to God’s people by revelation to help them move into the Grace Administration, while Victor Paul helped God’s people by revelation to move into the into the Appearing Administration. Interestingly, the notion of the Word being lost and re-issued comes up in my next response to brideofjc, as well as elements being added in the re-issue.

Yeah! I was trying to think of WHAT the heck was being implied there. I guess I'm too innocent. If you can understand my post #899 you'll see that the mind of Christ Jesus shows up WITHIN the written forms of PFAL.

Oh yes, I have noticed that, my infrequent mention of Jesus Christ. It’s quite deliberate. It might even be regarded as bait by some. Others had noticed it long ago here, and we had many rounds on it. Press me on this and I might drag them out. As I mentioned in a few posts above, it’s not VPW, the man, that I often do refer to, but the written forms of PFAL, which come from not only Dr but also his editors and also his teachers, and ultimately from God via Jesus Christ. Long ago I found out that typing out the ASCII Characters “Jesus Christ” a lot, along with any kind of positive blather (no need for accuracy here) certainly is a great way to impress religious people. Since I’m not trying to do that at all here, REFRAINING from that practice is a great way to flush out those who are so inclined. I prefer to mention JC's ASCII label when it seems pertinent. More so, I act from that Christ in me and people get to see how the ministry of Jesus Christ is supposed to work nowadays. Religious people are usually stuck in the gospel administration and can’t pick up on this very well. I act as I see him act now, not then. I try be LIKE him, as a sermon in person, rather than a mere name dropper. Remember, the name of Jesus Christ, in the Biblical/Oriental context, is a lot bigger than an ASCII string, like it is in Western culture and churchianity. The real name of Jesus Christ includes his credit rating, reputation, family, accomplishments, attitudes, and abilities. I mention those things all the time. But the BIG mentioning (cue the orchestra) of the name of Jesus Christ (doojable, brace for comm’l) that I do a lot is when I mention (drum roll) HIS MIND, which was given to us in printed form (choir sings “PFAL”) to assimilate into our own being as an alternative to our rotten natural man minds with rotten man-made religiosity. Anyone want to try some “mind of Christ” for a change?

No, to both. The man we know to be is Jesus Christ. The goal is to be LIKE him. Sorry, men was a typo of mine that was fixed after you quoted me. ******* No, to both. The man we know to be is Jesus Christ. The goal is to be LIKE him.

I wish we ALL were the man we know to be. ******* And it was the case that SOME of Uriah's people (and even progeny) DID somehow forgive David and it's documented in the texts. John Scheonheit did a Way Magazine article on it in the early 80's. ******* The man we know to be.... How did those people forgive.... There's a connection here. It was brought up here before, so I'm going to search my archives for it. ******* socks, Don't blow it. We're on a roll.

The greatest learning in forgiving comes when it's difficult.

I'm glad some of Uriah's soldiers and family saw that would be self defeating.

Quoting myself, I want to give this idea a little more time. One of the mechanisms I have employed to HELP ME FORGIVE is recognizing the intensity of the battle we were in. BECAUSE God was doing such a mighty work in the PFAL revelations, we should EXPECT the adversary would want to thwart it at all costs. Every opportunity to get someone off or to cause confusion had to be exploited. It was wartime. Collateral damage [OUCH! :( I never hit this language oddity before] is a common thing in war. How do soldiers forgive each other when it happens?

Don't blame me. I haven't brought that up for years! ******* Hey wait a minute. To which "this" do you refer? ;)

The earth is STILL shaking from his walking.

You may have a misimpression of my process. In ancient posts here I reported how I was often suspicious of the doctrine. It seemed too good to be true at times, things like “heaven bound” and all. In some ways I didn’t like Dr's personality either. I got along with his brother Harry, but I had problems thinking like Dr, and I didn’t like his sense of humor at all. I saw some culty hero worship attitudes developing in some grads in the 70’s and this distanced me all the more from him, not wanting to be so emotionally involved. The ideas taught in PFAL and in the scriptures intrigued me to no end, but I was FAR from jumping in with both feet and thinking like vpw. I wanted to at times, but couldn’t. I wanted to have instant believing and get instant results like I saw many others doing, but for me it was a very slow and methodical process. The twenty years I took to resolve the trinity issue involved ALL the scriptures that had anything to do with Jesus being God or not. My decision was not based on one handling of one chapter in the scriptures like John 1. For several topics (like “heaven bound,” SIT, The Canon, Are the Dead Alive Now, administrations, and especially for the trinity) I developed a strategy in my daily KJV reading. For each topic I devised a symbol to place in the margin whenever I ran across a verse having ANYTHING to do with that topic. For the trinity it was a capital “T” with a circle around it. *** After several years I had a very large collection of “T” marks that were easily retrievable. I noticed in my trinity debates with other Christian groups that they had NEVER done such a thing: kept track of verses for BOTH sides of the debate. They only had collections of pro-trinity verses. Likewise, all the grads I knew only collected anti-trinity verses IF they collected any at all. This bothered me, and seemed sometimes like the “vp clones” you mentioned above. There were a few like me who were stand-offish, but there were quite a few clones developing as time went by, especially in the Corps. You may have drifted towards these kinds of people, and hence your mis-characterizing “how we all thought alike while in TWI.” Drifting towards the more maverick corners of the ministry, I had to take some heat at times, but I knew it was important to be as thorough as my skills allowed. In some ways I was ahead of the “shifting” you just talked about. I was way behind in getting my mind and actions and enthusiasm in gear with the program, but I was way ahead in dealing with many of the issues that now grab people here. I went through the “plagiarism crisis” in 1974 or 75. I dealt with some of the sex TVTs in 1978, ten years before the Scheonheit Paper on adultery. In his paper he deals with 14 of those TVTs in the appendices. I was a twig leader then and several of us worked on exposing about 11 of those same TVTs. (my memory is weak here; 14 and 11 sounds right though) *** After many years of collecting “T” symbols in my Cambridge Wide-Margin the next step was to collect them together in a notebook, dividing the “pro” from the “con” verses. After a few more years of working this entire collection of HUNDREDS of verses and passages my decision started to solidify. I urge you to be more thorough than going with the feelings of just one chapter in John. Is your process of “Shift Happens” still an on-going one? I had oodles of feelings come and go dealing with both “pro” and “con” trinity verses. When those feelings subsided there was a massive amount of evidence tilting towards the relatively simple old idea that made Israel unique: One God. This trinity issue is just one example of how I resisted the cloning process. My process continued into 1998, when someone here in San Diego showed me Dr’s Last/Lost Teaching. That year I came to see that EVEN WITH MY GREATEST ATTEMPTS TO BE THOROUGH, even with all my thousands of margin symbols and my organizing notebooks for many (not just trinity) of the top doctrinal points, it was the surprising case that STILL there were many things in PFAL that slipped by me unawares, or that were forgotten. That’s when I started getting as thorough with written PFAL (book and magazine form) as I had been with my KJV materials. *** Set the clock ahead a few years to the present. It may look to you that NOW that cloning process has finally hit me and that now I am a vpw clone. No, that’s not at all the case. Because I have more and more these past ten years worked myself towards the WRITTEN forms of PFAL and worked more and more AWAY from the spoken classes and SNS tapes and TVTs, my mindset is much more a “Composite Clone” of not just vpw, but of all his previous teachers, AND of the grads who helped edit and even “ghost write” for those books and magazine articles. Some of those editors post here or have posted in the past. I believe those TWI editors got revelation as they did their jobs, that Dr’s previous teachers got revelation, and that Dr got revelation in putting it all together. I see the active hand of God in there, which means the active hand of the devil was not far away. This last clause is an idea few seem to have ever considered. Your view of my process needs this update to be accurate.

brideofjc, Since others have mentioned it, no, the orange fonts suck. Plus you might want to refrain from using the “Carriage Return” (also known as “Enter” or “Paragraph Mark”) at the end of each line you type into your word processor, except when you want to mark a paragraph, where you might want to use two such keystrokes. Maybe a little less bold fonting, too. That will help make your posts look a LITTLE less like a Chick Publication. *** I sense that you had a very short stay at TWI and in PFAL from several things you’ve said in the past. Just to clue you in, many of the varied refugees from TWI are massively turned off by negative motivation to side with the God of heaven. If you’re looking for converts here for your pretty traditional sounding church, I think you are going to find even less here than I do. And THAT’S saying something significant, right folks! *** You wrote: “Mike, if you would like for me to diagram the sentence for you....I'll be most happy to do that for you, to bring you up to speed. Also, i edited my post from earlier after you wrote this one.” No thanks. I find that when discussions enter this stage it seems to always degenerate to the “My expert is better than your expert” kind of logic. I’m not interested in your experts, though, not at all. I’m bored with official scholars and am most cynical of their product. The only thing I see coming from traditionalist scholars is a post-Reformation revival of Phariseeism trying to rival the Spanish Inquisition. *** I had written: “We know copyists started forging counterfeit trinity passages at a very early date, earlier than most surviving manuscript fragments. You are not working with God's written Word at all, but man's working of the originals.” Then you responded with: “Do ya mean....because the Doc told you that???? Those who have the charge of examining fragmental papyrii, Mike, copiously compare and recompare to all known existing fragments which are carefully documented, numbered and with modern technology scanned into computers so that human hands no longer have to touch the fragile pieces.” No, it wasn’t Dr that got that to stick with me. It’s only been ten years now since I decided to meekly receive what God has offered us in PFAL. Before that I was often oscillating every six months between doubting Dr to verifying from outside sources what he said. It was a variant on when I complained of above, as I went to see what other group’s experts had to say. Just to give you two examples: The trinity formula forgery that is in I John 5:7 is easy to see as added from almost any modern version or Interlinear, in addition to it’s scatterbrained logic. And the controversy in the supposedly “without controversy” verse of I Timothy 3:16 was due to a double forgery. I found Bullinger’s note that in a British Museum’s manuscript the forged ink turned to colors differing from the context after many centuries of aging. When I originally heard Dr teach these things I put them to the side for verification, along with many other things. But the trinity (notice I don’t use a capital “T”) was especially important for me to verify. I figured that if Dr was wrong on that one there would be hell to pay and more, vestiges of my RC background no doubt. Anyway, I went to many trinitarian people and churches as part of this process to hear their side(s). There were times when I left those places in tears, praying to God for help as to who to believe. Do you have ANY idea how long that process dragged out to? Try over 20 years. I think it was well into the 90’s that I finally felt free in saying goodbye to the trinity, goodbye to the old man with lightning to punish, goodbye to the bizarre bird, and goodbye to the godman hippie. Some people’s mental makeup requires an institution with buildings and property for them to feel safe. Some people need a long “dignified” history to verify truth for them, as in “time tested.” Some people need a large crowd believing along with them for verification. I have seen all the above to be hopelessly flimsy. In my VPW verification years I spent a lot of time with traditionalists, debating and hearing their side(s), as well as witnessing to them things like “heaven bound” and SIT. My previous impressions, that all the evil of the world resided in the RC Church, were dashed to pieces. I knew there were some jerks in TWI at the time but I’d take PFAL jerks any day over the rotten Protestant trinity people I ran into. I have spent enough time looking at experts on the scriptures as well as experts on experts and I’m done. God led me to PFAL twice and I’m staying. *** You wrote: “Paul was a product of the Diaspora and therefore his family was Hellenized....so yes....Paul's primary language was most likely Greek. As I said to 2027, Greek was the LINGUA FRANCA of its day. The same way that later on FRENCH became the language of diplomacy and if you wished to be understood while travelling the continent, you automatically spoke French. In the same way, Paul spoke Greek when in public...he probably spoke Hebrew when practicing Hebraic religious customs in his family home, but it wouldn't have been his primary language. There's a good chance that his everyday common language was Aramaic. He probably spoke Latin as well since the ruling country was Rome.” I found it interesting to note what language Jesus spoke to Paul in on the road to Damascus. Acts 26:14 And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. As for your language skills, did you learn them from the official sources or from some upstart organization? That’s a trick question. *** You wrote: “Believe it or not Mike, the scribes were pretty accurate in their work, which is why that modern textual critics can admire that extant mss thousands of years apart are exact copies of one another. Were there probaby goofs? Yes. But when there were, they then made marginal notes to show their errors. Sounds honest to me.” I don’t doubt that there are honest researchers, in addition to the adversary’s plants, and I don’t doubt their sincerity. There’s no amount of human brains nor modern gadgetry that will unscramble what the adversary scrambled 2000 years ago. That requires divine intervention, and we know God often does things a “little” differently than institutional expectations, don’t we. I’m willing to bet my life that divine intervention took place in 1942 and continued until 1985. Actually, it looks like you are referring to the Old Testament scriptures from what you posted above. The whole reason for the Critical Greek texts was to iron out the thousands of variant NT manuscript points, and STILL those texts vary from each other. There WAS great agreement between an older Dead Sea Scroll copy of Isaiah and the traditional texts. But I’ve never heard of such agreement with New Testament books. Neither have I heard of a Masorah fence for the NT.

circle jerk???? were you reading waysider's CF&S post too many times or something? *** It was their 10th anniversary, which was almost ten years ago, I think. It was before they got kooky. Regardless of all that, they DID (and probably still do) have some powerful Biblical research resources. I'm sure they put all those resources (in their very early years) on finding as much dirt in the collaterals as they possibly could. Instead, though, they had to admit the collaterals were impressive on the front page of their 10the anniversary newsletter issue. Around that same time I was personally told twice that if I disciplined myself to the collaterals then I'd do pretty well in life. In the collaterals they wanted to find dirt; they had the ability to find dirt; they found no dirt. I find that interesting if not more.

You don't have any clue, do you? Wow! You really want to see that guy thrown into hellfire! If you could loose that traditional picture, plug that word "this" in there and read the whole context it should be obvious what "this" refers to. You have traditional blinders on. *** And please don't forget that you are working with documents that are copies of copies of copies, including errors, and with deliberate forgeries in there to boot. We know copyists started forging counterfeit trinity passages at a very early date, earlier than most surviving manuscript fragments. You are not working with God's written Word at all, but man's working of the originals. Do you think the originals were in Greek or in Paul's native tongue? If not Greek, then add in a man-made translation process between your copies of copies of copies. Actually, when you factor in the extreme dislike for Dr they all had at CES, their "endorsement" was actually a reluctant admission. When you take that into consideration, it does add credibility.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?

Hi Neo. Welcome back. ******* I do not feel compelled by context to supply the word “one” along with “this.” It’s traditional fire and brimstone and hell that urge most theologians to lean on “this one” or “this person” or “him” to fill that slot. They just HAVE to find a way to throw SOMEONE into hell. I don’t feel that compulsion at all. In fact, I feel the context urging something completely different. Let’s look at the verse without the “one” supplied. Remember that Bullinger has a note that indicates an emphasis in this word “touton.” For that reason I’ll use ALL-CAPS for “this.” I Cor 3:17 If any man defile the temple of God, THIS shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! :) Notice I painted the fonts warm red for the WHOLE verse this time, and not just the second half. There’s more, much more, but it’s late. I’ll put it all together tomorrow if it rains, and maybe even if it doesn’t. “Let a smile be your umbrella, but don’t get a mouthful of rain.” Joey Reynolds 1962