Mike

I too found friendship with Sirguessalot. He and Pamsandiego and I met for coffee once years ago. He is one of the very few GreaseSpotters I have met in "real life."

Yes, very telling. I have my objections to attaching much meaning to debates. That they influence people who watch them is obvious, but that a debate is able to discover or derive truth is very doubtful to me. There are all sorts of limitations to how far a debate involving a complex topic can go. But this video is not aiming after something so subtle as ultimate truth. It aims at spotting invalid tactics, only. Four tactics: Twister, Wrangler, Dodger, and Liar. How many of them can we spot here? I saw the Wrangler tactic used on me in recent weeks by Nathan_JR, then by you, Twinkie, and then by Charity. Three in a row. I was asked how I felt about God, empathy, and fellowship with Jesus by these folks, respectively. Each time, what I offered was just not enough. I spotted the pattern after Twinky and Nathan's wrangle, so when Charity set me up for a third time I asked her if she was going to do the same wrangle, before I answered to her setup. My question sailed right over her head, and she immediately found my answer falling short. The Twisters here are abundant. I am always hit with "So, Mike, that means you must hold the following ridiculous idea as true..." when never such an implication is even close to my position. The Dodger is probably what Rocky was latching onto, trying to apply the video to me. There are proper dodges and there are improper dodges. But this video is only talking about dodging that happens WITHIN a formal debate. I dodge the entire debate at times, like Raf's thread "Actual Errors in PFAL..." because I disagree with the premise and methods of the debaters. Dodging the entire debate can be a totally honest move. It is in ENTERING the debate, with the implied promise of willingness to conform to the debate's logical discoveries, that the tactic of dodging is properly seen as dishonest. The fourth category, the Liar, is a bit more extreme, but nonetheless, I see that being attempted here once in a while.

I am NOT saying, nor implying what I bold-fonted above. The GP is to be taken as a summation of the pattern in the scriptures. Trying to fiddle with the words in the GP, to unveil the mechanics of the spirit/natural boundary is NOT what it was designed to do. The GP is designed to help students read the Bible with clear understanding. The GP sums up all the Bible verses, OT and NT that use the word spirit to indicated God was REALLY working with someone, that He was REALLY talking to that person, that He wrought might works by the hands of that person. The collaterals don't generate new doctrine. The GP is there to help explain the established doctrine in the ancient scriptures. If the GP had additional secrets locked up inside it that fiddling with it's words would reveal, then it would be generating new doctrine. That would be wrong. I wont go there. The GP is not "akin" to Biblical doctrine. The GP is provided by God to us modern people, to help us understand better the ancient Biblical doctrine. The fact that the GP was provided by God does not mean it is akin to Biblical doctrine. It means that the GP helps ups understand Biblical doctrine in an authoritative way. It is "authoritative help" and not new doctrine. This might correspond to phrase "inspiration of explication," that I picked up from Karen Martin, years ago when we discussed the God-breathed nature of the collaterals.

The way God set it up, and the way it is documented in the Scriptures, there needs to be that "spirit upon" or that "spirit within" for good communication to take place. That is the reality. You are simply objecting to the grammar that VPW uses to describe this reality, with phrases like "God cannot...." Those phrases are FIGURES OF SPEECH and are not to be taken literally. Sure God can do phenomena, like the handwriting on the wall, but a lot more heart-to-heart and detail can be communicated when the scriptural formula of spirit upon or spirit within is added to the formula. Ask God why He set it up and had it written that way. And while you are at it, ask Him why He hid Jesus from our sight with a cloud on the day of the Ascension.

I thought it showed some progress on the part of TWI-4 to change their goal back to WoW. Had they gone one step farther, and announced at the same time that it was in error to say that WoW had been accomplished, then it would have qualified as a genuine E.C.N.. It sounds like you were lumping me in with them. I never thought that WoW had happened when Craig said it had. I was long gone from TWI by then. It sounded crazy for him to say that WoW had been accomplished.

LoL I'm sorry. I didn't catch myself saying that. Could you explain this some?

It really is surprising how much the GP (Great Principle) comes up in the film class, and how hard VPW hammers it out. So far I found 7 different segments that it is in: 10, 11, 38, 42, 50, 52, 55. Here is the first one, segment 10, where the red fonts are the GP and the blue fonts are the supporting context, or the reasons why the GP. */*/*/*/*/*/*/* (PFAL’68 seg. 10) We saw from John chapter four verse twenty-four that God is what? Spirit. God is Spirit. God being Spirit can only speak to what He is. God cannot speak to the natural human mind. This is why the Word could not come by the will of man, because the will of man is in the category of the natural realm. God being Spirit can only speak to what He is, spirit. Like things in the natural realm can be known via the five senses. The natural senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. Things in the natural world can be known by the five senses, but God is Spirit. God being Spirit can only speak to what He is, which is Spirit. God cannot speak to your brain cells. God cannot speak to your mind. God can only speak to what He is. You see this is a law. God never oversteps His laws, God never breaks any laws. God being Spirit can only speak to what He is, Spirit. This is why the spirit of God had to be on all the holy men of God who spoke as they were moved by the holy spirit. The spirit of God had to be upon these men otherwise they could never have received revelation as Paul declared in Galatians that he received it by revelation. They could not have received it by revelation if they had not had the spirit of God on them.

I think you are taking the GP too seriously, like it was Biblical doctrine. I am daring to insert one word (the word "really") to make this GP more easy to understand. The GP is a a summarizing text to explain a common Biblical occurrence. If you put that word "really" in there it can make sense. God cannot REALLY speak to the natural man's mind, but He can if that mind is augmented by some learning that is in the spiritual direction, then the word "spirit" can apply (not in the same usage #, though) to those new brain connections.

-There are lots of ways the word "spirit" can be used. I am talking about one such usage. Example. The day before Jesus was baptized he did not have something that he did have the day after he was baptized. It is to denote that something that the word "spirit" is used. -Sure, they have connections, but the Bible also has plenty of verses that document vast differences between spirit and flesh. I find that the PFAL teaching on body/soul/spirit was eye opening and clarifying. The scriptures make sense with that in mind. I found that it is easy to drift from the PFAL teaching on body/soul/spirit. I did not know I was drifting, but I was, and I have proof in the writings I did on science in the 1970s. I was writing about the brain and free will being beyond science and UN-explainable. That means I was moving the word "soul" from the natural realm to the spiritual realm. I did it so slowly, that I didn't run into contradictions and puzzles until years later. Around 1995 I caught myself in major error, and was amazed at how far I had drifted, unknowingly, from the simple PFAL teaching that body and soul are in the fleshrealm, the natural realm. So, cman, when you refer to the "body soul spirit bs teachings" I figure you may have drifted a little, yourself. If you want to see some of the many verses that document vast differences between spirit and flesh, we could start looking in the Gospels to see how Jesus divided spirit and flesh. -I'm only talking about a ONE TIME EVENT, not an on-going process such as learning, growth, and expanding horizons, as you rightfully bring up. The ONE TIME EVENT that I am talking about would be in the OT where a prophet "get" spirit upon him. One time a prophet student asked his teacher prophet if he could get a double dose of the spirit interface. The student was seeking and driving his mind to not rebel against the things of God, so he was building new circuits in his brain to make hearing God work better. The other way this ONE TIME EVENT of getting spirit can happen is in the NT where a natural man receives holy spirit for the first time. Once such a one time event happens, then a lifetime of learning can take place, and this spirit interface can grow and get stronger, as well as the brain/mind/soul can learn every day as life progresses. -You are right; drive-trains, linkages, interface modules are not Biblical words, but modern tech words. In the Bible the word "spirit" is used. The same word "spirit" is used in about 8 or 10 other ways in addition to being used LIKE an interface module or drive-train linkage. The portion of your quote I bold-fonted is too difficult to comment on, because it mixes the modern terms with the Biblical. The purpose of the spirit upon a prophet in the OT was to help him orient his mind in an unnatural, super-natural direction. That is no small feat for a natural-man's mind, a God-rejecting mind.

It's not installing a radio, but it is installing thought patterns that counter the natural thinking of God's thoughts being foolishness. It is installing thought patterns that go against the natural man's deep inclinations. It is unnatural to think beyond our senses data.

This quote was taken from another thread, on the Great Principle, here: https://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/25403-great-principle-whitewashed/#comment-626569 Let’s finish the go-kart analogy. What you need between the engine and the wheels is LINKAGE. If this were a piece of computer hardware, it would be called an INTERFACE. In the Word it is called spirit upon, or spirit within and is similar to these common intervening mechanisms. In the OT are many accounts of the need to have spirit to have a real deep, detailed conversation with God. Even Jesus needed it, and finally got it from his cousin John the Baptist. I have been looking into this for many years. The Great Principle is brought up a lot in the film class; a surprisingly large number of times. Each time there is contextual teaching about where it came from. A large part of Great Principle (GP) came from 1Corintihans 2 section below. I’ll get into the many appearances of the sometime soon. */*/*/*/*/* I wondered at where VPW got the GP from. At first I thought it had to be in scripture, but couldn’t find it. Then for the following years I gave it the name on my paper folder’s tab: “The Enlightened Postulate” because it looked like VPW just plucked it out of nowhere, having no backing in scripture. I had drifted into thinking he might have got it by revelation. But in the past 25 years I have seen some more detail to this whole story. I now think that VPW saw “spirit upon” in the OT as an interface mechanism, like the go-kart linkage. Key to this topic is remembering that the things of God are foolish to the man without spirit. I slightly modified the KJV below to reflect the spirit usages given at the back of RHST. 1 Cor 2:9-16 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. 10 But God hath revealed them unto us by His spirit 5 gift: for the spirit 5 power searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit 4 self of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit 1 God of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit 8 devils of the world, but the spirit 2a gift which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the spirit 5 power teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit 1 God of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. 16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ. */*/*/*/*/*/* For a natural OT man who happens to seek God and drive his mind to consider these “foolish” things of God, any assistance in this learning process by God would help build a new set of synapse settings that could counter the natural reflex to scoff and be repulsed at the things of God. This could be how the spirit is “put upon” them. They needed something to get something built within their natural mind, that is at least pointed in the right direction to hear from God. This new and unnatural network of brain cells (this interface of neuron settings) can resist the reflex to scoff at and be repulsed by the things of God. This would give God more to work with as these new brain connections are built strong enough to get heavy revvy. */*/*/*/*/* In my often scoffed at “dog and cat analogy” for the GP, this interface might be likened to an Elon Musk brain implant in a pet’s brain that makes it able handle human language better.

How'd I do on that, not mentioning the collaterals, ma'am? I haven't gone back to read my post yet, so I'm hearing TV game show music in my head as I prepare to go read it. If you were my English Comp. 101 professor, and considering the brevity of my requested essay, what grade would you give me? Try to keep that grade separate from the grade you'd give me as a Theology professor would, reading the same mini essay.

Right. I got to pay some bills, myself. The power I mentioned was in the context of being able to better help someone.

…and here we are. Charity, you wrote, over on the Great Principle thread: It would be nice to hear you talk more about the "ever present Christ, spiritually with in us." What does this mean to you? Other than being inside us, how do you fellowship with Christ throughout the day? Why do you ask, Charity? I have posted on this often, but I guess it was before you got here, or on a thread you didn't read recently. I am really trying to bow out of this thread and others, and let things calm down a little here. Plus, I have to work and pay bills, so typing everything everyone wants me to type out is just impossible. And now you want me to type out a fresh essay on the "ever present Christ, spiritually with in us." How about a few lines? …instead of an essay? Am I going to be graded on this for what I don’t include? That’s what happened with others who ask me things like this. Are you in line with them, and is this your “gotcha” set-up? This is, hopefully, only a rhetorical question, and you are not, and really concerned about me. … that I missed the brass ring of Christianity and got sidetracked by the collaterals. */*/*/* With that ever present spiritual Christ in me I am given the job of ambassador, to physically represent Jesus Christ while he is physically absent. I am to love others as Jesus loved others, so I study Jesus’ love in the Gospels and Paul’s love in the Epistles. So my duty is to imitate Jesus, to act out my best understanding of “What would Jesus do?" I can relate to him this way. There have been times in my life when I was kinda stuck in how to do handle a situation with another person. “HOW did you do it!??” is one of the prayers with my understanding I send Jesus’ way, occasionally. I also relate to Jesus and often try to thing through how he grew up and matured. I know he fixated on the OT scriptures that were about him. He dreamed them, and thought about how he would someday act them out. I can relate; I do similarly. If I am going to manifest the power that comes with that Christ within, I know that love has to be the energizer. I can only know that power by focusing on his example of love…. Yes I really do read the Gospels. Why do you ask, Charity?

Golly! This is your 3rd "one last thing" post. Tell you what. I am trying to have a smaller footprint here to help others ignore me and not waste time on my trolling. I will answer your question over on my thread “Jumping to Concussions…” Let’s jump over there, ok?

Hi Charity. You began and ended your post with: Mike, I cannot see this ever happening because of the corrupted ministry traditions, practices and doctrines which continue to this very day. ... Mike, I highly doubt that much has changed since my involvement in twi. -I reluctantly agree that TWI-4 inherited some skeletons in the closets, and that changing that is difficult. We can pray for them at HQ, and wait and see, and reach out in love to them. This strategy has done me well these past years for my contacts with local leaders and with scattered Internet thinkers still in TWI. I am rooting for HQ to be as together as what I saw on the field. */*/*/*/*/* You wrote, "Then, after still more time, any Bible version can be opened far from any collaterals, and the matured student receive nourishment. Mike, you know this is only allowed if this new "nourishment" agrees with twi's doctrines. If not, your leaders will not be happy campers. Yes, and rightly so in many cases. I was a twig leader twice, and had to deal with one or two doctrinal trouble makers over the years who were disrupting the learning and focus of others on the collaterals. I find that the corruptions and the traditions we agreed upon above had not penetrated the collaterals, so the nourishment was good when collaterals were the focus. I know that TWI’s doctrines and traditions have some timed deviated from the collaterals. But the big message is that God gave us a boost in the murky field of Bibles and translations and manuscripts. I am not a happy camper when I see people taking shots at the collaterals, but I know many of the practices and traditions and teachings of all the TWI administrations have inherent human problems.

There is a better analogy, very similar to the filter or the rose colored glasses. The analogy I use is the collaterals forming a necessary God-provided window into the Bible. If it were merely a VPW provided window, I'd not be interested. Such a window is necessary because centuries of obfuscations hiding and burying the Word under the "temple debris," like in the OT. Example: PFAL teaches zero consciousness immediately after death. Even the KJV has oodles of verses that say this plain as day, yet religion misses it systematically. That the dead are not alive is a necessary component of the "filter" or the "binoculars" or "window" that is necessary to read the Bible with understanding. There are other components to this window: body/soul/spirit, new birth, Return of Christ, heaven bound, extra rewards, SIT and 8 other manifestations, seated in the heavenlies, agape love, Romans 10:9.... there are about 10 more, I think. I made a list somewhere.

I think that it is good and proper TEMPORARILY for new students to see whoever teaches them the foundations and the collaterals as benevolent. After a short time, the new student can learn to use the collaterals for herself to see the Epistles and the rest of the Word. Then, after still more time, any Bible version can be opened far from any collaterals, and the matured student receive nourishment. But, as so many temporary taxes morph into permanent ones, so this student dependency on the ministry is milked by corrupted ministry traditions and practices. and made permanent.

I had written, and you quoted: “This same exact process works for us.” You asked: Who is us? Are you imagining you're reaching out to everyone in every twig (or home) fellowship? No. In that one group of sentences, “us” refers to all human beings, at all times. That group of sentences says God is loving in the way He works with all us human beings, at all times. I went on to say, that when any of us are in fellowship with God, He is able to do much with and for us. He is much more limited, and can’t really talk to us much when we are out of fellowship, walking contrary to His will. When we walk contrary to His will then we cut ourselves off from some of his blessings and we expose ourselves to more trickery of the adversary, which was how we walked contrary to His will in the first place. But God makes getting back in fellowship with Him very easy, and that exposes us more to other blessings He has to help us. This is explicitly true for believers, but we know God’s gracious blessings extend farther than just believers. So, the “us” referred to all humans, but really strongly for believers. */*/*/*/* You wrote: You DO know your audience here is much different, right? Partially right. The audience here is different all right, but NOT AS MUCH as you think. We have a lot of points in common. I keep posting them and you keep saying to others to not read them. I guess by that logic, you aren’t reading this either? I still think lots of people come here who are proPFAL (not nearly as much as me), and they come here for news of what is going on lately, or they come to learn the history of the distant past at TWI went down. I was one of them in 2002. I get Private Messages PMs from about one very proPFAL person per year who either never post or dis so rarely. I think it is a good guess there are a few more who don’t PM just like they don’t post. Some people come here to connect with old friends, again like I did, and they may be all shades of proPFAL, and deserve to hear another side, other than the pure evil VPW. Another way I address this is by my preference of staying on one thread at a time. I really blew it there over the holidays, and I apologize for that. I am trying to get back to that. Wish me luck. */*/*/*/*/* You wrote: When are you going to address your GSC parasite role? I am right this minute, and have been for weeks. I hope you are reading this. :) I wish you great success figuring out a way to reach your INTENDED, IMAGINED, HOPED FOR audience. I will say this. I wont be doing this for another 20 years. I am happy with the tiny audience I do have, and I will try to be less of a parasite. How about you help me in this? I’ll start posting all my responses to these threads I have backlogs on (7 folders) in one thread, the Jumping to Concussions thread. You can help me by reminding the others when they want to converse in the too many other threads. It is way too complicated for me to keep up with multiple threads. I’ll try to get back into a cage to keep the commotion down.

Hello again, chockful. I just wanted to re-write, possibly making this a 4th edit, some of my response to you above: I have been open and honest about VPW causing problems at TWI. Where I differ from most here is: I am not primarily focused on VPW’s sin and his problems. Nor do I count all of his teachings as tainted by his problems. Some of VPW’s teachings are tainted by his flesh, but I think they are located more in the old Corps tapes and in his campfire sharings, or private conversations. I understand (but not sure) that some of his musings on Corps tapes were deleted from the University of Life versions of same. But of course, many of these unrecorded words of his did leak out to the grad population and were circulated. In my early years I was an eager recipient at times, of these kinds of leakages of the more private sharings of VPW. I have a large essay cooking, and have posted early partial drafts here of years ago, on the topic of “Private Conversations With VPW.” I feel such things have severely polluted the TVTs we all were exposed to. (TVT = Twi Verbal Traditions) Unlike most here: I believe that when VPW was in fellowship, he and God were able to be very efficient in working the Word and the 1942 promise, and teaching it to us. When VPW was out of fellowship, that working relationship was seriously impaired. This same exact process works for us. God is just always FAITHFULLY waiting for us to return to a rich fellowship with Him, so we can work most efficiently with Him on His projects, and gain a marvelously great view of the Return, as we attempt to fill the empty shoes of the physically absent Christ, by the authority of the ever present Christ, spiritually within us. What I believe is that when VPW was out of fellowship, most of his team of helpers with the books and magazine articles and live teachings were in fellowship. Some of his SNT tapes were bland, compared to others. Maybe that was due to the defects in his old man nature and walk that week. It happens to us all… except the religious goodie-goodies. And it really happens to them, just more subtly and more intensely. We ALL are in that Romans 7 boat of Oh! wretched men that we are. I got to know some of these people that were VPW’s helpers very personally. What I learned from my face-to-face years with VPW, his family, and his 400 head count of staff at HQ, was that we all were doing our best to walk in fellowship with God, and to magnify each other’s efforts, and overlook others (and our own) shortcomings, and do our best to get the Word out. We also, each and every one of us, failed miserably at this at times. I so thank God for the First Epistle of John. I noticed last week that a chapter in the Gospel of John (15?) that read a lot like this Epistle. It was fun. This Epistle rescued me from RC guilt that was massive in my era of the 1950s. That organization changed a lot since then, but in my day it was a pure Mary and guilt religion. It was just a week or two into my first twig that I was led through that whole Epistle, verse by verse.

Hi, chockful. You wrote: Edited 3 times to sound plausible. Not buying it. Gosh, it sounds like you are desperate, again, to criticize me. I have NEVER heard anyone accused of editing too much, to sound too plausible. Your criticism here is nearly the exact opposite of Rocky’s against my writing style. Maybe if you and Rocky compared notes you could bang out something that is more discouraging to me. I just feel sorry for you, spinning your wheels so hard to criticize like that. */*/*/* chockful wrote: No of course ALL the problems aren’t due to VPW. But the fact you can’t be honest about the ones that do exist indicate an unnatural attachment to the guys image. -I have been open and honest about VPW causing some of the problems. Where I differ from you is I am not totally focused on VPW’s problems, nor do I feel a need to punctuate all my writing with repetitious moaning about all his problems. Nor do I count all of his teachings as tainted by his problems. Unlike most here, I believe that when VPW was in fellowship, he and God were able to be very efficient in working the Word and teaching it to us. When VPW was out of fellowship, that working relationship was seriously impaired. This same process, of God waiting for us to return to a rich fellowship with Him, so we can work most efficiently with Him. I protest your insistence that the only way I can be honest is to ditch my carefully constructed paradigm, and then join you and the others with their confusion theology. */*/*/*/*/* chockful wrote: And the blindness to very clear commandments that Jesus was supposed to be sent to fulfill the law is astounding. -I am not following you here. Maybe this needs re-writing. Which very clear commandments do you have in mind here? */*/*/*/*/* chockful wrote: I am starting to look at what is your benefit to “playing dumb” in certain areas. … Like for instance thanking me for information that is 1 click away w/r to who the BOD are. While at the same time selling yourself as some great liaison to HQ. This, again, sounds like a desperation tactic: insisting I play dumb. What was only one click away were the mere names and maybe faces of the leadership, the same things I saw in the 80th anniversary video feed. It sounds like you did not read my response to someone else on this yesterday. What I thanked you for were the pieces of information that described their personality a little and their duties and methods. The names and faces meant nothing to me that were one click away. */*/*/*/*/* chockful wrote: Similarly the mark and avoid of the RnR folks. You steer very widely clear of knowing anything about that, but it was the main issue before the current group’s ascent. -Absolutely no steering here going on. I only get a little bit here and there on RnR and it sounded kinda boring. Similarly to the above paragraphs, I knew none of the names involved in RnR except Bob Moynihan, and I had not interacted with him nor heard him speak since 1979. I have not focused much on RnR because it seems to have little bearing on what I want to do. Had he not passed away, I might have tried to contact him for first hand info, but I only have so much time to spend on all this. */*/*/*/*/* chockful wrote: To me the logical explanation is you have some form of unstated incentive to being that dumb. -Try communicating with me better, and your logic will have a stronger base to it than guessing with extreme bias and a strong dose of ignorance of me and my goals. You are wandering in darkness like “some form of unstated incentive” that could be dispelled very easily with a little bit of conversation and a healthy dose of 1 Cor. 13 */*/*/*/* chockful wrote: No other readers don’t have an agenda. Especially new readers. They are here because of damage TWI caused. … You are here to blame them and us and whitewash. -I am not here to blame anyone, especially people ground up in the machinations of TWI. It may sound like I am blaming you and the others at times, but I am not. I always include myself in the list of people who failed to hear and act on VPW’s call to get crackin’ with the collaterals in 1985. I always include myself in the set of grads who gradually drifted away from the foundations and bought into false T.V.T. doctrines. I always include myself when I say that there were many things in the collaterals that were missed or that could not yet be absorbed by us. Blame is not the game I am playing; it is solutions. Blame is excluded from E.C.N.s for a good reason: proper fixing of blame is impossible for us to do accurately, and it is not our job to try. But to objectively identify where problems happened, and then do something about it, are things we can do. */*/*/*/*/* chockful wrote: You know speaking of giving one of the Pharisee things I like to bring up is how those in high places enact this Pharisee law of corban. … Meaning they don’t pay a tithe off of their salaries on staff. And the excuse is the government. But at the same time they can sit in judgement of others regarding the same issues. … So in reality all the direct employees of TWI don’t have to live in the same environment that the volunteers do. … For most positions this balances out because staff means minimum wage. Oh except for the high positions which carry six figure salaries with no tithe burden. …What hypocrites! Can you see Jesus at the return calling them out on this? And using the term “whited sepulcres” like he did when Herod had them act outside the law while publicly speaking like he was carrying out the law? …Then also many of these Pharisees use their family money to advance them in a system they couldn’t otherwise. And work other ways they can own homes that they deny others from doing. …What hypocrites! Don’t you agree ? …Living contrary to the same laws and system that they judge others with. …Yes paying out what is pretty commonly calculated at well over a million USD out of the working man’s abundant sharing is evil. Yes not disclosing your books and making your Pharisee salaries public is evil. Yes paying Craig a higher wage than a schoolteacher for making teaching recordings for 5 people is evil. …These things aren’t rocket science. But they are hidden for the benefit of a few Pharisees. I distinctly remember Feb. 1976 when I started working at HQ. Howard Allen asked me how much I wanted to get paid. I was figuring on lowering my N.Y. income some, due to the lower rents and costs in rural Ohio. But Howard threw me an additional curve that made my head spin. He asked me if I wanted to have my tithing and abundant sharing taken out of my salary before the check is drawn, or do I want to give separately off the full check each time? It still makes my head spin a little thinking about that. I know that lots of things were done wrong there, and may still be wrong. I constantly remind myself and others here that VPW admitted in July 1977 that the whole ministry was focused and working toward a PFAL’77 goal that was NOT GOD’S WILL. That is what he admitted to, in front of at least 100 staff at lunch, when he aborted the mission of PFAL’77 being a replacement for the PFAL’68 film. So in my model of TWI-4, I include the possibility they have inherited some corrupt practices regarding money and leadership lifestyles and pensions. Yes, I see hypocrisy there. Many judgements made revolving around tithing, giving , and monitoring the same, were horrendous. Just the constant issue of “what counts” for abundant sharing was so piddly and law like. I already asked the local leaders if the Blue Forms were still used, and upon hearing they were, I said please keep me off them. The Blue Forms are against my religion. My policy, and I will tell TWI leaders this upfront: TWI-4 cannot demand my respect; they must earn it from scratch. Their connection to TWI-1 is merely legal and 5-senses, and I scoff at it being a smooth transition of power between the administrations. My policy toward TWI-4, nice and friendly they may be, is that they are guilty until proven innocent of all the horrors of previous administrations’ mistakes and sin. I am willing to give personal money to local TWI believers, and to local leaders, BUT ONLY if they promise it wont go straight to HQ. I will not give money to TWI-4 until they prove themselves worthy of it. Just because they are nice and friendly now does not mean that they are smart and efficient, and good at hearing God’s still small voice. I will pay TWI-4 lots of attention, and tithe plenty of advice to them, but they have to open the money books to all (plus a few other things), before I would give money to them.

Would co-dependancy similarities include you scolding Nathan_Jr and OldSkool, a few minutes ago, on what they should not do? ? ? Or should I recognize that you have some kind of a waiver on boundaries? */*/*/* Can you tell me what you accomplished with that string of posts from you immediately preceding this? Did you get Nathan_Jr's and OldSkool's straightened out? And what did you accomplish in scolding me, again, that I am wasting my time. Were you wasting your time there, or not? */*/*/* On the lighter side I also noticed that you didn't say anything about my bad writing skills in this latest posting frenzy of yours. Does that mean I am improving?

I will manage. I mentioned this because sometimes I have some difficulty, due to the large number of people I debate with simultaneously. I imagine other people, like new readers, may have similar difficulty. Putting a face to a poster's name will increase that poster's individual impact, and assist memories in an impersonal medium as a text forum.

I listened to a whole pistis seminar in the early 1970s. Somehow my branch leader got a hold of some reel to reel versions of the seminar at HQ. I marked all my Bible's locations of pistis in my Cambridge Wide Margin from it. Ten years later I discover that a friend had done the same thing, marked all his pistis locations the same way I did. But it seemed like we heard different seminars, because we compared out Bibles and discovered we had different markings at a few difficult spots. I could tell from the tape I heard that the seminar was still a frontier research project, done by committee. The tape was just the last meeting in the seminar, where the committees report their findings. I could tell that there were a few snags in the process, with VPW interrupting overruling several times. It seemed to be totally unfinished. On seeing the changes from my pistis seminar notes between my friend's later pistis seminar notes, and nothing appearing in print anywhere afterwards, I concluded that the topic was still open and unfinished. But it was close to finished. I think TWI-4 either found a more finished seminar tapes, or they worked out the unfinished business, and printed it all up just recently. This always was a pretty difficult topic to master, and I wonder if it is even really needed. My best understanding is most places where pistis appears in the text it means "believing" in modern English. But it is also apparent that in a few places, after Pentecost, where pistis means (from context) a "super version of believing." Another way of putting it is "REALLY believing." If this sounds familiar it should. Two other instances of "really" are on the table for consideration. One is in the film class: "No man can REALLY say that Jesus is Lord but by holy spirit." and the other is my take on the Great Principle's inverse version: "God cannot REALLY speak to anything but what what He is, which is spirit." I got the impression that VPW was trying to teach us that in some of these places where pistis is contextually special, that a whole new word should be used, and that is "faith." I could never figure out why he just didn't explain it that way, that most of the time pistis means ordinary believing, but when pistis means "really believing" then the special word "faith" should be used. Summarizing my understand of this complicated topic: Pistis means believing in most Bible verses. When pistis contextually is special, then we use the word faith.

Ok, I am happy to hear that. Honest. I must admit that there are many posters here with names that blend badly in my mind together. Rocky has made a similar point months ago. Those posters who have pictures, especially of their face, are easier to remember and easier to treat as a human. I only vaguely remember, Rocky, what you said, but it made sense to me at the time. Sorry if I got it wrong. But, waysider, I have noticed that I tend to merge the people behind the posts if they have names that are all in lower case, and no picture. I apologize if I lumped you into what I perceive is everyone's point of view, that VPW was never in fellowship and never walked with God and never blessed many very much. BTW, I use my real name and an artist friend drew my cartoon face. But that was drawn 20 years ago, and I don't have that much hair any more.