Mike

That's complicated timing, because of the 3 passages in Acts that have to be harmonized. First, though, please give me that timing with some more detail. You wrote: "...Saul was blinded before he tried to have more followers of Jesus Christ murdered." That's the part I always saw as the devil being right there, on the Road to Damascus prepping Saul for his plan when he got there, and BOOM! The devil's plan was interrupted, and he was aware of what was happening! Saul was his main man, you know. This was his high priority in the spiritual war. Seeing and hearing a conversation like the others there, he freaks and tries to kill Saul. Anything but allow Saul talk to the Savior. You wrote: "Then he was healed of his blindness when he became a follower of Jesus Christ." Oh yes! I remember that much better than the above. That was just my mental image as I would read. But this second quote from you is ....<cue the orchestra>... IN THE CLASS! Da Da Da Daaaaaaah! This is the part where God gets to have His will happen in full for Paul's starting out as a Christian. So, is there some kind of "idiom of permission" in there that God blinded him? Or is it you assume the devil must be out of the picture, and by the TIMING you say proves that God did it? I think I saw you were the advocating that. Forgive me if I'm wrong. But more than one was. I know lots of people who think that " IF it happens, then it MUST be God's will." That is a standard, common attitude on the streets and in the churches. Of course, that formula doesn't work too well for when sin happens. LoL But I usually don't challenge that when thy say "If it happens, then it MUST be God's will," because they are too far gone to tinker with that Postulate.

I just got home. What did I miss? Boy oh boy! You folks seem to be (I peeked above) really into having Saul blinded by God. I always thought the devil did that, and was trying to kill him, but God was able to protect his life, like with Job. God's will was for him to see, so He made immediate provisions to heal Saul's blindness.

. QUICK QUESTION: Does Jesus Christ need to be present to bless us?

Again, YOU underestimate the risen Christ. I think you are confusing the risen Christ before the Ascension with the risen Christ after the Ascension. And why do you harp on Jesus the man? It says in 1 Timothy 2:5 that there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. This is the post-Ascension, risen Christ, and it calls him a man. Do you have an “identity crisis” about Jesus Christ? My identity is an ambassador for the man while he is gone. I got the same connection to the Father he had; we all have this. Are you uncertain or confused about who he is – then or now? No. The angels in Acts say THIS SAME JESUS is coming back in the future. Right now he is a life giving by what he did. I am looking forward to seeing him come back. Until then I am content with knowing him by doing his work from the spirit he made available for me. If God want me to communicate with him in ANY way directly, that is God’s business. So far, I see God made it His business to hide “this same Jesus” for a while until he returns, and we have the spirit he provided to Comfort us in his absence.

Primarlly, it's Paul's Epistles: For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. (1 Thess 2:13 KJV)

If something is absent, it's not here, it's not present. Right. God in Christ in you? Yes, God was in the man (physical), Jesus Christ when he walked the Earth, before the Ascension. Then via Pentecost, we get the spirit from Christ, or holy spirit, in us. We do NOT get Christ the flesh and bones man in us. We get the spirit that Christ made available for us, and having that Christ-given spirit in us was shortened in the Bible to say Christ in you. That means “the spirit from Christ in you.” It does NOT mean Jesus, the man, in you. How can Christ be in you if Christ is absent? Christ, the man, is not in you. He is absent, hidden says Acts 1:9 and he is coming back. He’s absent right now. God removed Jesus' personal flesh presence from us for His very good reasons. The power is in Christ, at the right hand of God, AND it is in the spirit from Christ in you here on earth. That is why it is IMPORTANT for you to be an ambassador, Jesus the man, with his power, is absent. So the only place left here on Earth with the power of Christ is in you, and you, and you... It’s up to yous guys now…. Til he returns. Meanwhile God is not absent at all, ever. */*/*/* And what is the word that takes the place of this absent Christ? The Bible? The KJV Bible? The Llamsa Bible? The Word taught to a believer who walks in love, like Jesus did is what takes the place of the man Jesus. It must be enough of the accurate Word in order for this believer to have power, and it must be mixed with believing. You can have only a little of the accurate Word, and believe big like Jesus believed, and for that time you are believing, you can take the place of the absent Christ. When you do that, then Christ is present where ever you are. When you have a LOT of the accurate Word, and believe big like Jesus believed, then for that time you are believing, you can can do all the things Jesus did and greater.

I went into great detail on that 18 years ago or so here. I got enough on my plate now, though. Most people forget the details of that story. There are a lot of them. I'm sorry that yu were little and got the wrong impression. I went through the transcript word by word here to soothe people who had similar feelings. If you know the exact phrases of the class, and you know how to work the advanced search engine here, you could find how I spent days answering that. If you can't, maybe I can help you on a slow posting day find it in the archives

Thanks for the reminder. I forgot that I looked it up right after you "called me" on it in canon. What? Didn't you? Bullinger's stretched out structure in my paper Companion Bible looks NO WAY similar to my super simple one. It is on-line, also. Should we fetch it and see? */*/*/* Oh, I DID get the idea of STRUCTURE from Bullinger. But, if you look, it is obvious, now that I tipped you off.

It took Paul many years to understand what he wrote for us. He was in no way going to understand much, but he DID talk and ask questions. He called him Boss, or Lord. I talk to people all the time on the phone, video phone. They are absent but not absent in a sense. I'm not done brainstorming on this. What about the phone analogy? My problem is that I do not know what VPW taught on this to the Corps. That is a vast library that I have only heard 0.001 per cent of the volume. But I have heard people talk about this a lot, but not in an adversarial way. This was WAY back in the past. I have old paper notes with this topic. I've always wanted to WORK it. */*/* Well I'm finished bringing up other places where God intervened in a big way, to compare with Paul's. Using our imagination, and skipping way out to the end of this thread.... suppose for a few minutes, that you prove to me that I was wrong, and VPW wrong, and that Christ is NOT absent now in the present. So, I change my position. THEN what? Just imagine, imagine, imagine…… ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Don't you think we now have to coin a good word to describe the hope of his Return? That would be better than his non-absence, right? And ALSO it would be good if we could describe his “current presence” quickly! …just to tell it apart at the farther future, when he returns. I’m just adopting your Postulate… I mean what USED to be yours, but it’s mine now. LoL You made me tinker with it, remember? Don't we have to come up with a new word to describe his “super-presence” at the Return, …compared to his …er …ah …less glor… no… Come ON! HELP me here, we’re a team now. Remember? It’s the future now, and I’m on your side now. For his current presence we could call it, for comparison to the Return presence, his mundane… no. Yikes! This is harder than I thought it would be. Is there any way in this <cough> presence, non-absence, to meet him at Starbucks and just ask him?

I'm trying to put ALL the scriptures on the table to sort this out. Did you see the post about how Stephen described Moses and the burning bush?

No doubt it was a multi-media event, much like the Transfiguation scene. But that doesn't mean it was a personal presence of JC, like the Return will be.

LoL That's not what I had in mind. Sadly, that kind of thing did happen.

Yes, but it is righteous and loving condescending. God condescends to us this way, and I am trying to imitate Him, and just help with love and finding a way for them to see that original class, if they want to. I am not belittling the PEOPLE who took those inferior classes, but just noting that they did not get anything like what we older grads received, where God worked to make the 1968 film class to happen. I am sure that God was able to work with individuals at times in TWI during the crap years, but the corporation as a whole was out to lunch and GENERALLY did a terrible job at educating new grads. God's grace, mercy, and power were mitigating this where and when possible, I am sure. The people who had and inferior class, and in a terrible atmosphere should be thought of as having missed what good we saw in the 1970s. I'm not thinking I am superior; just that my exposure to the class was superior. This does not grant me extra privilege to lord it over them, but it does give me a greater responsibility to try and help them. I try to remember they have not had the advantage I had, and I want to help fix that handicap. I think it is fixable.

Why say that? I think you just don't understand it. I think I saw you post that you were a teenager under Craig's ruinous rule. Do I remember this accurately? If so, It is likely you never got a good explanation of SIT. Have you ever sat through the entire original PFAL film class? Craig's Clone Class was terrible, from what I heard of it. The De-Craiged Clone Class that followed was not good enough in the eyes of its producers and they now are trying a better approach. I regard all TWI "members" who have not had a chance to sit through the entire original film class as handicapped, and I want to fix this.

In other words, nothing has really changed they're still discussing it. I do see changes in attitude on the field, like a willingness to talk openly about the past, as long as I keep it quiet around new people who need not to hear about the wrongs of many years ago. They are not doing a pressure cooker approach at all. I hear that HQ has “admitted” to kicking a lot of Corps out unjustly, and are now welcoming them back. Two weeks ago they officially said that the new goal of TWI is Word Over the World. That is a good change, and following through on that I am urging that there be an ECN that specifically negates Craig’s proclamation that WoW was already accomplished, along with the new policy of going back to WoW. I didn't mean what you'd like to see or what could change, I meant what changes have you specifically worked on. So far your telling me there are no real changes, just a lot of future faking, i.e, maybe perhaps we'll change at some future date, if we feel like it. These are tiny changes so far. I am totally on the lookout for more, and methodically advocating for this with leaders. That's not closing your mind, that's suspension of disbelief. And even that's a very gossamer quality, very easy to break. All it takes is little things like too many shots fired out of a revolver or a continually error. A closed mind however is very hard to open. Even when confronted with reason it will insist on staying closed. This is a long topic. I have posted reams on it already, and we can come back to it sometime. Really, you're not pushing nostalgia. Then what's all this remember the joy you felt when you first took the class business? No, a better way to express that is to say I am re-generating the SAME joy I had when I first took the class and was working my KJV and fellowshipping with like-minded believers. It is not a looking back on the joy, and wishing it could happen again. Nostalgia is a yearning for the past that cannot be repeated. I am seen re-joy happening, generating the same joy again. */*/*/*/*/* Fun? That's an odd word for praying. I first stated SITting at a Rock, I was up all night SITting. … Occasionally, although I don't know if it does any good. I find SIT a lot of fun. Paul likens it to a child’s thing, like a toy, until we grow up at the Return. I find it is like playing with Daddy, the way young children will wrestle and tickle Daddy and get tickled. It is a joyous thankful thing. And we usually do it unsupervised.

So what have you found went wrong and what are you personally devoted to fixing? Lots is documented here at GSC as to what went wrong. I have a folder and am collecting items to bring to TWI leaders’ attention. They already know about most of them. Some things they seem to not be aware of, and I am slowly bringing them up. The survivors of Craig and Rosalee have learned a lot of things in the past 37 years, and I can learn from them also. I am slowly pressing for written notices or memos as to what old policies are out and what new policies are in. In tech industry these are called ECNs for Engineering Change Notices. One important ECN that I am looking into writing myself regards that “old wineskins” stuff from Craig in the 1990s. I hear that some nooks and crannies in TWI have not gotten the memo to dump that policy, so it needs to be put in writing and sent to all leaders, like they do in industry. I’d also like to see an ECN that endorses the John Scheonheit paper on adultery, or at least a full working of that paper’s contents, and a few appropriate ECNs could be issued. Things like these ECNs have to respect the new people who are just starting out in the Word. How they are distributed needs to be decent and in order. It may be also necessary that these ECNs will have to be written and distributed into the ministry from private sources and not from the official ministry leaders to avoid lawsuits. The leaders would have to cooperate, but remain officially disconnected from them. Maybe we can start a thread for suggestions on ECNs. */*/*/*/*/* Doesn't that closed mind you praised a few pages back get in the way? LoL Did you get the impression that I think a closed mind is good at all times and with all topics? I don’t. It is good for some things, some of the time. I can turn it on and off like a switch. We all do this when we watch a fiction movie, especially with comedy and science fiction. When we switch on the movie, we switch off our critical thinking skills and enjoy the film. We open our mind to it. Then, when it is over we switch that open mind off. */*/*/*/* For the BOD the ministry was a money machine, all your pretty much telling me is that they're running out of cash and are scrambling to mind a way to keep the cash cow providing milk, hence the push, from even you, for nostalgia. I’m not pushing any nostalgia. I want to see them move closer to the collaterals and mastering them. The longtime leaders have a good working knowledge of them now. I somewhat get that impression, that they are short of cash, but I can plainly see more that they are a little overwhelmed with work in other countries, especially Africa. One of my suggestions, if cash really is a problem, is to sell the campus properties they don’t need. Selling all of them should even be considered. I am not nostalgic for the properties. It is the teaching that God did that is most valuable. */*/*/*/*/* Unfortunately, you don't realize for many of us attending the class was an ordeal. Many of us got off work and had just enough time to eat before we were due at class. So the end of the class for many of us wasn't joy, it was relief that the ordeal was over. .Yes, I went thru that in the 1970s, and it could be arduous at times. The infliction of lots of rules from HQ was not good. Some of them were good for new people, but the Corps way of doing things got way out of hand, and mass production overtook quality by the mid 1980s. The local leaders I get to hang lately with are very casual, reasonable, and not at all in the Corps Nazi mold that ruined things. */*/* I’m wondering how you did with SIT. Was it fun? Do you still do it?

I would generally agree with that. But I never heard of TWI concerns about the number of OT books. Because of (1) the invariant order of the Church Epistles, and (2) Peter referring to ALL of Paul's Epistles, and (3) from the scripture party that Paul set up at the end of 2 Timothy, it is obvious that those Epistles were gathered together under Paul's supervision at a very early date.... like AD 67 ? I am confident that the general pattern for the Biblical writers was each writer who received revelation to write for God, also had the revelation as to whom the writing should be delivered. Decent and in order, in other words. This is the main part of my canon theory. I saw this pattern elsewhere in my KJV search long ago.

sorry, this was an error in my posting

This is referring to the Road to Damascus scene, which is depicted in Acts THREE times. I gave the scripture refs and texts earlier. At the end of the last depiction Paul summarizes his experience of seeing Jesus thusly: "Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision" (Acts 26:19) So, I am NOT "basically saying it had to be a vision because it doesn't fit with the what vic taught" as you say above. I solidly say it because the Word depicts Paul as saying it was a vision. Another thing we can see there is that Paul could hear as well as see, because he was obedient to the words he plainly heard. */*/*/*/*/* I mentioned earlier that the Road to Damascus scene was similar to Moses and the burning bush vision. Here is where I got that from (not from vic), it is from Stephen, in Acts 7: 30 And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sina an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush. 31 When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him, 32 Saying, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled, and durst not behold. 33 Then said the Lord to him, Put off thy shoes from thy feet: for the place where thou standest is holy ground. 34 I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and am come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt. 35 This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush. */*/*/*/ I get the impression that the angel was not lying in saying "I am the God of thy fathers..." The impression I get is the angel was PROPHESYING, or speaking for God. Likewise, the vision of Jesus that Paul saw and heard was a "speaking for Jesus (and God). It is important to see ALL of what the Word says about a topic, and delete any favorite theories if the written Word says otherwise. If only one or two of the three depictions of the Road to Damascus scene are considered, then that is not the whole depiction. */*/*/*/* OldSkool, again it is not VPW who taught me this vision stuff. I don't think I ever heard him teach this. I heard clues from friends I discussed things with, but not from VPW. I found things as I read my KJV. Maybe he taught it to the Corps? It is interesting to see what VPW did NOT teach. I have seen this in other places also.

This is a little embarrassing. LoL I just looked at Llamsa’s handling of 2 Timothy 4:13 Where the word “cloak” usually is, Llamsa renders the word “book carrier.” I had never looked there before. :)

I haven't changed my message. But I have heeded my own message and have had a MUCH better time with just the reading materials, unsupervised. The over-supervision of the ministry started, to the best of my observation ability at the time, right after Craig started in 1982, and then went into overdrive as VPW was fading. What I saw was an enormous competition among volunteer Corps people for salaried positions. This led to more rules and supervision. This all melted down in 1986 with Geer, and within months the ministry divided into 3 main groups of Corps, still looking for that salary. I was pulling back from all this, and felt free to experiment, which I did unsupervised for 10 years. That was 1998 and I returned to read the collaterals for 20 years. Now I am applying what I learned to Bible versions, and local fellowshipping with other casual proPFAL people. It is starting to resemble what I saw in the unsupervised fellowships of the Groovey Rye Christians, which I was a part of. Now I see another wave of people coming back to PFAL to work with it without all the baggage of 37 years ago. It's a different world than the one you probably had a right to resent. A LOT of things went wrong. Some of us are devoted to fixing the problems, and not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I only have time right now for one or two items. Maybe more later. If you identify your favorite item, I'll try that next. What Godel showed, much to the consternation of the math world was that there were mathematical statements that are TRUE, but that CANNOT be proved or derived. They can be found, and noticed to always seem true, but they can't IN PRINCIPLE be proved. If this is true for the clean world of math truths, it is even more true for the messy world's "life's truths." We can get told certain truths, as in revelation, but we can't prove them. This means logic can only take you so far, and then your are stranded. Accepting the possibility of true revelations from God is necessary to see the world of truths, most fully. But I mentioned this Godel stuff is only ONE aspect of the pitfalls of logic. The other pitfall I mentioned are hidden Postulates. It is scary to tinker with one's Postulates. It's the unknown, and maybe even blasphemous. But a good searcher, researcher, seeker of truth will be brave and want to know what hidden assumptions (or Postulates) underlay their thinking.

So_Crates wrote: Did you or did you not answer Nate's question by stating you didn't know if it was written in Aramaic? I stated (hopefully with clear writing) that I do not know if 2 Timothy was ORIGINALLY written in Aramaic. I know there is an old Aramaic text that has 2 Timothy, because it appears in Llamsa’s translation. His ancient text is just old, as far as I know, like from the olden days. */*/*/*/*/*/* So_Crates wrote: Did I not comment on how is it possible to reference an Aramaic word if you don't know whether or not the passage was written in Aramaic? Did you then not suddenly produce a reference where the passage was written in Aramaic? You may be thinking here of my quoting the Llamsa Bible for Matt 27. I quoted his English text here. Do you see what happened? Are you satisfied on this point? I don’t get where you were going with that, but it seems you missed the idea that I don’t know ANYTHING about the originals of 2 Timothy. All I know about the Aramaic that I mentioned on this thread is that Walter and Bernita told me about one word in their Aramaic texts, and then I posted a verse from Llamsa’s NT. */*/*/*/* So_Crates wrote: How does the above game relate to being up front and open about the uncertainty of what you reporting. LoL The above game was you trying to catch me in a contradiction, I think, but you were basing it on your misunderstanding of what I said. */*/*/*/* So_Crates wrote: 2 hours ago, Mike said: My credibility here is challenged because I adopt a different Postulate set than yours and others here. Aren't you the lucky one? Now you have a ready made excuse for any feedback you receive. Go off the deep end. They don't like my postulates. Give us the wrong information. They don't like my postulates. State something that sounds totally off the wall. They don't like my postulates. I guess I could say that, but why? I need not excuse myself from you folks for anything. I am trying to teach something here, not defend myself in a court. If I pled the 5th that would be equally stupid and not good teaching technique. I know you don’t like my Postulates from your distant remote viewing. But if you try them out again, you might like them better, AND then you can see how logical I am being as I logically build on them. Try coming back to PFAL and see what happens. */*/*/*/** So_Crates wrote: I know your postulates…. I can sense that you do, at least some of them. The big reason I mention Postulates is so that YOU can become better aware of yours. What is your base? What do you assume at the start of everything? What is your god? Do you know? */*/*/*/*/* So_Crates wrote: So what's this tell all of us trying to follow God's principles? Like I told you before why should we even bother with the bible and PLAF if your postulates are true? Why not get born again and follow Saint Vic's example and live grace? No rewards in that. I follow the Lord not VPW. The Lord taught VPW, he taught me. I filtered out his sin. Did you at one time think he was sinless, or like a saint? I saw LOTS of grads idolize him that way and other ways. They had a GREAT disappointment when the idol crashed to the ground. Is that what happened to you? Did you have unrealistically inflated expectations of VPW goodness, later saw your expectations crumble and you were crushed, and now you have unrealistically inflated expectations of VPW’s sin. */*/*/*/* So_Crates wrote: 2 hours ago, Mike said: Of course I consider the possibility that I got whispered to, as well as others. That's the reason for continued review and better retaining of the standard for truth, what God gave us via the 1942 promise. You certainly don't get life-betting truth from academic theology and textual criticism. */*/*/*/*/*/ So_Crates wrote: I didn't get life betting truth from PLAF either. As I told before, I wasted 40 years of my life following those principles. So spare me the hype. If there was NEVER a time that you did get life betting truth from PFAL, then why did you stay for 40 years? I saw lots of weak believers who stayed for social reasons. I did that some of the times, when I was drifting into weakness and doubt. But I kept trying again, and eventually I saw enough to bet my life on it, solidly, and not just socially. */*/*/*/* So_Crates wrote: 2 hours ago, Mike said: Yes, my canon theory remains to be seen if it is true; meanwhile it is the best I have to work with…. */*/*/*/*/* So_Crates wrote: 2 hours ago, Mike said: Yes, this is raw research. Not to be taken as doctrine, but almost. It is good enough for me because I went over it's details oodles of times back then, and now one acid test of it is to hold it up to maximum criticism, here. */*/*/*/*/* So_Crates wrote: I figure that's what your purpose was for being here. You come up with these theories and beta test them here. No, I think this is the very first one of my beta tests, here. I did 2 threads on the mirror reversal riddle (one is deleted), but that wasn’t beta testing my solution. I had tested the solution for years prior. You might say I beta tested different ways to explain the solution. After that I wrote and finished a little booklet on it. But as I remember, I think I did the mirror riddle to calm people down when the Mike Wars got bad.

I was up front and open several times about the uncertainty of what I am reporting. This is unfinished research. Go back and read my admissions, and save your self the accusations. My credibility here is challenged because I adopt a different Postulate set than yours and others here. Of course I consider the possibility that I got whispered to, as well as others. That's the reason for continued review and better retaining of the standard for truth, what God gave us via the 1942 promise. You certainly don't get life-betting truth from academic theology and textual criticism. Yes, my canon theory remains to be seen if it is true; meanwhile it is the best I have to work with. WHICH REMINDS ME, Nathan_Jr was a tiny bit sloppy in the way he started this thread, and he merely linked it to my theory, which was scattered through the endings of the "Absent Christ?" thread. I need to retrieve my theory pieces and re-write them here in one place. BTW, my theory does NOT rest on "bookhouse." It is marvelously confirmed by it, if bookhouse is true. Yes, this is raw research. Not to be taken as doctrine, but almost. It is good enough for me because I went over it's details oodles of times back then, and now one acid test of it is to hold it up to maximum criticism, here.