Mike

Retemories are for everyday living believing. Direct revelations are for special believing for miracles.

Not by science, that's for sure.

Scripture believing is for normal health and normal healing. Direct revelation is for special believing and miracles.

I started asking leaders in the 1980s if they had any prophet's phone numbers in their Roladex. It made them angry, and it made my point. There were not many miracles past the 70s, and there never were any prophets.

Maybe we miscommunicated. Let's start over. What's on your heart?

He had no revelation from his Father to accept that challenge. The devil tempted him with believing scripture for a miracle.

I saw plenty of the same, though on a lesser scale. While I am thankful for all the great teaching I got from many, many people, there were more and more boneheads in leadership like that, as time went by. I can only pray they got smarter after a few mistakes like that. Maybe years later.

Both times you listed all the things you did there was no mention of you getting a direct revelation from God for what to do, in this case. It looks like you were doing the same kind of thing I was doing in my car: Pumping up believing in scriptures with every technique we could come up with. But we both were trying to effect a miracle without the most key ingredient: a direct revelation from God saying "It is miracle time!" Have you had a chance to notice the simultaneous discussion with So_crates on scripture believing for normal health and immune system healings, while direct revelation is necessary for miraculous events and healings?

I did not say that. I said there are often a lot of ups and downs in normal healings, and that the scriptures can help that go better. Why did you summarize it in the direction you did? Could you not see that I was implying that we christians could do it without the scriptures, but that it would be better with them? Are you TRYING to misunderstand?

Oh. I think I missed some of what you meant. Atheists can believe their immune system (and the Medical system) will work, and not have to use scriptural promises. But it would work better for them if they did. Remember, this part is a daily persistent thing, and it has ups and downs. Sometimes it challenges us to get a normal healing. With scriptures that can be a less challenging healing.

Yes. We were taught that all healings are from God, even normal immune system healings because He designed the human body. The rain falls on the just and the unjust, and same with healings, normal healing that is. Miraculous is different.

Was that a scripture you believed? Or was it a direct revelation from God?

I am going to wing it fast, because it is Saturday night and I've got dance fever. We can get back to it. This may apply to OldSkool, also. My impression is that believing the promises, like 3 John 1:2, is an everyday thing for overall health, and normal healing the immune system supplies. But sometimes a medical condition can get way out of normal healing mechanisms already in place. In other words claiming that 3 John 1:2 promise daily by believing is one key health protector for maintaining good internal chemistry and fighting off normal diseases. But it may not be enough to work a healing when things go over the edge, so to speak. This would be something in the miraculous category. Nutshell: Normal health and healing comes from believing scripture promises. Miraculous healing comes from "special believing" a direct revelation from God. By "special believing" there I mean the manifestation of believing, or possibly labeled "believing-faith" by VPW? That is the best I understand it so far.

Because I forgot most of the material. LoL But I remember it all fitting nicely. I marked all the pistis spots in my Wide Margin, and still have it. Did you read all those Gospel verses that I posted on page 8, about 3/4 down the page? As I was assembling that, I was recalling working with all them almost 50 years ago. Trust and believing are almost the same idea. I wish he had explained it better, but VPW's handling of "faith" was awkward. AI think his vocabulary was a little "bent" by being in the ministry and very churchy, where in modern English circles "faith" has a special sound, a charisma, just from how people handle it. But how they assign it in Bible translations is pretty hodge podge. If I had my way all the places where VPW prefers the word faith, I understand him to mean "special believing" but he never clearly or explicitly said it that way. I don't think the collaterals ever get into this much, but I should check someday. I think VPW's use of the word faith communicated well to him and his vocabulary, but to the rest of us it was confusing. I distinctly remember having to put on my Sherlock Holmes hat to understand this, and I had a hard time ever explaining it to anyone. Faith is a super buzz word in ministry circles, artificially so, and only in modern English and I think in SOME SCRIPTURES it should be translated or footnoted that way. Special believing or super believing seems interchangeable to me with faith, but even to my Western Ears, that sounds almost blasphemous. I have learned to resist it. The main idea in the word "believing" is trusting a promise enough to bet your life on it.

Thanks for that. Thanks much. I think much the same. I really do harbor the most loving of deep love for everyone here. I never have said this, but have often thought it, the main reason I come here is I love you folks, all of you. I fell into a long-suit early in my ministry life of helping new grads understand the class better. I just wanted to love and that was one way. Some people made coffee, I tried to figure out what was bugging new grads about the new material. I watched like a hawk all the new students as they SIT in Session 12. At first it just fell into my lap; like they'd ask me. Eventually I realized it was a calling, and a duty. If God steered so many great teachers in my path (not merely vpw), so that my deepest questions got answered, then it was my duty to pass them on. Kinda like an echo of the 1942 promise/deal. Anyway, thanks again for the Brotherly Heads Up. I have to admit, sometimes I totally forget this Jesus commanded perspective, that we love one another. I am thankful for when I remember, though.

I have read this story before and I feel for you. Out of respect to your son and your very delicate situation, I will not comment now, but read it again very carefully, and pray for an good way to respond or not to respond at all.

I think I see how some may have mis-read my WoW car trip story, especially if they read it fast. I put a red font LATE EDIT sign to help skim reading. Here is how the amended story looks now: I've been there and done that myself; sometimes spectacularly. When I was going out WoW in 1982 my car had an aluminum head that had cracked, but I got if fixed “semi-miraculously” and was off in running a cross country trip from San Diego to Ohio. LATE EDIT: I was joking about "semi-miraculous" But my new head cracked in the Colorado Rockies! I could tell, because I had to limp on a blown head for weeks prior to its fixing in San Diego, and I was now limping again. But I was answering a call from God! I had resisted acting on the WoW challenge for 11 years, but now finally I am giving God a year of my time and heart. I had put my business in the hands of 5 grads, with verbal promises they would give it all back to me on my return. No cracked aluminum head was not going to stop this Ambassador for Christ! No sirree! I started picturing in my mind the aluminum poles that hold up the huge Rock of Ages tents, and how strong that metallic bond was. I was a Physics major, and it was easy to imagine my cracked head “healing” up by God’s power. It would be so easy to work those atoms around, bring in a few needed neutrons or protons, or scoop up aluminum from the road dust…. I was into “the believing images of victory” that we all were galloping with in those days. As I limped up each hill I’d make these mental images stronger to defy the wobbles in the my car engine’s strength. As I coasted down the next hill I’d be thanking God for that head to he healed on climbing the next hill…. and the next… and the next… Arrrrggghhhh!! It was mentally exhausting. It was a miracle I made it to Ohio in time, though !!! LATE EDIT: I was joking about that miracle arrival. My diagnosis was right; cracked head. I had a sick feeling when I saw the aluminum poles and how strong they looked at the big tent. It took another 6 years before I could figure out what went wrong. Can you see it?

Did you at least re-read to see I did NOT heal my aluminum block, and that I limped into New Knoxville on 3 cylinders, and had to give up the car. I tried and failed. Then, the one sentence that may have thrown you off was where I jokingly said that it was a miracle that I made it to N,K. Nothing miraculous happened; I was wrongly applying what we were taught in the class. I was applying a TVT to my car and it BACKFIRED! Did you miss that pun also? Please re-read with a fresh mind. You were reading hooky pook in there much more than I wrote into it.

I have worked it for many years. I heard a Pistis Seminar on tape in 1973. VPW earned my respect in his written works, from me working them carefully since 1971, even before I took the class.

If you look at the long list (correct link below) you will see many passages where both forms faith and believing, noun and verb are all mixed together. I don't buy your analysis of the breakdown. Here is the correct link to page 8, and 3/4 down: https://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/25457-god’s-budget-and-double-doors-on-the-scarcity-of-miracles/page/8/

Here are the verses from that list where Jesus appropriately teaches people when they were not believing right. Actually there are a few in there that are in the Gospels, but not spoken by Jesus. Plus, my link and page number were wrong, I will fix them now. OldSkool, these are the places where Jesus told people when they were not having or doing faith/believing/pistis/pisteuo (spelling?) MATTHEW CHAPTER 8 9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this [man], Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth [it]. 10 When Jesus heard [it], he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. MATTHEW CHAPTER 8 25 And his disciples came to [him], and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. 26 And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. MATTHEW CHAPTER 17 16 And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. 17 Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. 18 And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. 19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? 20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. 21 Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. MARK CHAPTER 4 39 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith? MARK CHAPTER 16 9 Now when [Jesus] was risen early the first [day] of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. 10 [And] she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept. 11 And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not. 12 After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country. 13 And they went and told [it] unto the residue: neither believed they them. 14 Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. LUKE CHAPTER 1 18 And Zacharias said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years. 19 And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings. 20 And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season. 21 And the people waited for Zacharias, and marvelled that he tarried so long in the temple. 22 And when he came out, he could not speak unto them: and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple: for he beckoned unto them, and remained speechless. LUKE CHAPTER 8 24 And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him. JOHN CHAPTER 20 29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed [are] they that have not seen, and [yet] have believed.

I agree. I hobbled into New Knoxville on 3 cylinders. That is what I wrote. READ IT AGAIN !

Did you fail to read the story carefully? I totally failed to heal it. I was wrong. PLEASE read carefully what you criticize. Egads! You guys, I didn't write it THAT bad!

Here is the link. It is on page 8, and 3/4 down: https://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/25457-god’s-budget-and-double-doors-on-the-scarcity-of-miracles/page/8/ I can go get a few of the verses for you later.

The evidence is in that you only skim read my post. You missed the major points and the details. Please read it again, carefully. Everyone else who DOES read that carefully will know you really dropped the ball there. I can give you a link to the Gospel link. You were the one who inspired me to do that.