Mike

I think it's a good approximation for the tone here and the energy, time per day, and years. Is there good fruit coming out of all these efforts? Fifteen years ago there was godly fruit coming from some efforts: grad re-connections, PFAL review, and super-PFAL supporters magnet, that helped me intensely. I made all sorts of connections and new friends, many I work the Word and move it to this day. I also think a lot happened to assist people in sorting out the good from the bad they we absorbed. But my friends and I here chose to focus on the good things, and my blanket judgement of MOST of what happens here is a strong, repetitive re-kindling of past grievances and focus on negatives that happened. Notice that is NOT a judgement of the people here, just what goes on here. Maybe other forums here are better and lighter. Maybe.

It is not my circle of friends I was referring to. The vast majority of my friends now are Deadheads, musicians of all sorts, and a spectrum of brain scientists, ranging from well informed amateur such as me, to serious students of the brain, psychology, and philosophy; then grad students and professors in neuroscience. What I was referring to is the growing number of Facebook groups that are PFAL friendly. A number of current members of TWI have joined it. From them I saw posted pictures of the PFAL Camp this thread started with. Then they had an AC Camp. Why does everyone WANT to think I'm BSing? I saw these many groups spring up in the past 5 or so years. Some have a lot of members? How many? Go look yourselves. I think that all of you have finished exposing the worst of TWI. Many out there only want to think of the great benefits they received. Whenever I mention GreasSpot to them they are SO disinterested in getting all negative, so I learned to not mention this place. I think you all need some closure, after this many decades. You did the job you felt urged to do. Now you just seem to be helping each other maintain a great state of negativity. Why not turn to those things that are right in your lives and that generate GREAT JOY in your lives? I refuse to believe your lives are over or incapable of finally putting to rest the negatives of the past. Take what you have right in you heads about the gentle, true, loving God and MAGNIFY it for some other people. How many young people are you teaching the goodness of God to? Are THEY interested in all the negativity that you have saturated your lives with? I doubt that more than the numbers you doubt from me. +

I was specifically avoiding mentioning him to avoid debate, but I see him in the phrase I used "ministry leaders" First John Epistle told me long ago that VPW was no goodie goodie. He said it too, many times, many ways. I'm sure glad you folks aren't anybody's final judge. You all need a chill pill sometimes I think. But I;m not a doctor, I just look like one on the radio.

Actually, in verifying my earlier answer to you, I;m not sure if it was you who asked. I was unable to find my original post that that came from. I;m losing my second wind and missing things.

Yes, and it's the same thing at most University Lectures on technical and highly detailed topics with the expert in front and the students not engaging.... until the end of the lecture. The more students, the more this thing.

No. It;s a media estimate from the numbers of members and posters that are visible, and from the number of PFAL grads. It's an Enthusiastic Estimate. In various media, it is well known that for every letter or caller, there are x100 to x1000 silent non-writers out there. What kind of and Unenthusiastic Estimate would you give? We can take the average as fact.

Sorry. I may have missed something. There;s a lot to respond to here and I was tired and racing. I came back to catch up, getting a second wind.

LoL Golly Gomer, why did you ask the question? Was that a Columbo Question?

Hey guys and gals, I'm exhausted. I'll try to get back to you soon and catch up on what I haven't answered.

Glad you asked. If you search Acts of the Apostles in a red letter edition, highlighting Jesus words an interesting pattern emerges. Jesus actually is the Star of the Show in Acts, just like in the 4 Gospels, only better. Acts is "Jesus - Part 2" Acts answers the question some might have at the end of the 4 Gospels "...and THEN what happened?" Jesus said in the Gospels that he was going to split and send the comforter, etc. etc etc., and Acts is Luke's continuing account of these things. We could say Acts is "Luke Part 2" but Luke is not at all the Star of the Show, although he is a player. He has a minor role in the Gospel he wrote. Can you pull up from memory where all the red letter fonts of Jesus speaking in Acts are? Think on as a self Bible Quiz. Certainly he is in there at the beginning, and then gone by the second chapter. But where else? <Jeopardy Thinking Music Playing> ding dong ding ding dong ding ding ding ding da-ding ding ding aling BUZZZZZZZZ! OK. This is like self scoring bowling. See how you did. Jesus appears on the road to Damascus !!!! applause,applause,applause,applause,applause,applause,applause,applause, But WAIT! There;s more. The road to Damascus scene with Jesus in this movie happens ONCE.... in the narrative. But then he appears TWO MORE TIMES ... as flashbacks. Now here's fun part that you can do an home for extra credit. If you take ALL the red letters in Acts and put them on one sheet of paper WHAT do you see? It reads interestingly close to the first chapter in Colosians, the "Christ in you" chapter !!!!! Waysider, if you want the short answer, Jesus commissioned Paul to be his top apostle with the top message. Paul was documenting in writing and in his life how far God can go with sinners to inspire them to walk away from their old man nature (at least for a little while) and get some of God's most important work done. The Jesus Christ factor is behind all of Paul's writings. ******************** LATE ADD ON: The Jesus Christ factor also appears in US when we walk this way. Natural men, blind to spiritual realities, can see Jesus Christ in our actions that line up with Paul's (really Jesus' words) just like blind natural men could see Jesus in the Gospels, except the potential is greater in the Gospel of Paul.

It means to walk in the new man nature, reckoning the old man dead. Here is the best I understand on the walk in the new man nature. HOWEVER, it has some debatable PFAL references. I wrote this 2 days ago to a friend, since we are researching it. I dont have time to edit it and purge the debatable material. If the debatable PFAL material sparks a debate challenge on it against my wishes, I may chose to righteously dodge that challenge. You see, I'm trying to not get lost in endless, repetitive debates, yet still discuss God, life, the Bible, and applications, and favorite dance music, but no politics of course, because that too is debate prone. Hey, hit me with your most troublesome Bible verses. They will probably be troublesome to me too. I'll try to not include PFAL, liked I did include it below in the text to my friend. Ok, now for that letter */*/*/* We are not expected to be always walking by revelation. We are enabled to walk in the new man nature all the time. Here is the difference: We are given all the enablements to walk ALL THE TIME in the new man nature. We often fail, and walk by old man nature. That’s what I John 1:9 is for, to quickly and effortlessly switch back to walking in the new man nature. Then we can start this perfectly renewed mind walk again. As we get more and more skilled at this, we can figuratively look at the hours before the fellowship meeting to be like practice and warm up, while fellowship is the big game. There are 3 aspects of this walking by (or in?) this new man nature, by the spirit. (1) We walk by the accurate Word we have. Sometimes we simply remember the Word and do it. In some situations that Word speaks to us, by INSPIRATION (not revelation) where God energizes our memory of just the right portion of His Word to exactly fit the situation. There is a passage in Vol.5 “Order My Steps in Thy Word” where Dr teaches this. This inspiration in our walk is exactly the same as inspiration in operating the 3 worship manifestations. It is not revelation. (2) We operate the 3 worship manifestation, which again, are done by inspiration (like it’s described above) in a fellowship setting. (3) We operate the 3 revelation manifestations, along with the 3 power manifestations, and we do as God says to us directly. Unlike inspiration, revelation can have new information in it, or info not available but needed. Inspiration for action and/or the other manifestations may be specified by God. It is possible to always walk in the new man nature. If we blow it, it is still possible to give it a try next time around. God loves this just like a parent loves to see early fledgling steps of a baby. */*/*/* I'm still learning the fine points on this, so please let me know if you have anything to add, subtract, or change. …but not like Eve… LoL :) This essay is not finished. I still want to incorporate more items items: I’m thinking that the phrase or idea of “Inspiration for action and/or the other manifestations may be specified by God” should be in all 3 items above I’m thinking that SIT should be in all three items above.

TRANSLATION. It means I care not at all if modern psychology says that Paul's strong suggestion that operating split personality (like you talked about) where the natural old man is reckoned dead, and much effort is made to focus on acting out the new man personality. I thought you were saying that this Pauline Personality Split was equivalent to some Narcissistic bla-bla mental illness. I'm saying I don't care. My trust is in what Paul said about me living this way.

BTW, I have not mentioned this. For practical reasons I no longer preach "God-breathed PFAL" and "Bible = PFAL" and things like that. In my attempted sabbatical from that debate, I have seen that that idea is either not properly and accurately expressed by me... OR ...that idea is too strong for most grads out there to handle, and throws most them off the track in hearing me fully. So, as a practical measure, starting several years ago, I have simply looked for grads who know enough PFAL to like it and find it extremely helpful in their walk with God. There are so many thousands of these kinds of grads out there that I meet them all the time on the net. A couple of them know a very large amount of PFAL. These types of grads have helped me greatly, even as I have worked to help them. They teach me often of what I missed that slipped by me, or things that I forgot. That was my mission here 15 years ago: to provide for grads things that slipped by them unawares, or things that they forgot. I must have typed that phrase here dozens of times, or something nearly identical to the idea of "things that slipped by us unawares, or things that we forgot."

I was talking about the forgiveness in the verse in 1 John epistle, not pfal. AND it was talking about GOD'S forgiveness. You seem to be talking about humans forgiving humans?

Bolshivik, I just spent 4 trys at fixing a botched post to you. It is ONLY now complete. I kept missing sections of it.

2 hours ago, Bolshevik said: You're implying someone was trying to trick you. I wasn't. Not in this thread. I was describing something, as I understand it, happens at an unconscious level. Doesn't absolve the individual of responsibility but it's not quite a conscious process taking place. It certainly manifests in horrible ways. This trickster mentality . . . it didn't allow you to see what I was saying. Any person can be conditioned, groomed or love-bombed into that mode . . . (I believe) with VPW the issue was much deeper, much more pronounced. This seems like "trick of the Adversary" type of logic. I referenced the "possesion thread" a few posts back. Would be good to get your reflection on that. ******************** I didn't think you were trying to trick me. I thought you were implying things about ministry leaders who fell for the trick of thinking their "new man nature" defense was valid for their bad behavior. This did happen. I saw some use that spurious defense. Ok, if you were referring to me and my subconscious then that is another matter. My plan, and it is working pretty well, is to take what I said from Paul and DRIVE IT down into my subconsciousness. Whatever PFAL drove down there, it was never enough. It always evaporated by my living too long and comfortably in my OLD man nature. So we may be on the same idea, except it's me doing the subconscious planting, and according to Dr. Paul's Rx prescription. But you say that you know a better doctor, Dr. Antinarcissi, and he says that Paul's Mental Meds for me are dangerous and bad. I say this is similar to the situation with L-Tryptophan ban long time ago. The test batch was contaminated, or something like that, so L-Tryptophan was deemed poisonous by the medical establishment and laws. Turned out the establishment was premature and completely wrong. I think your establishment Dr. Antinarcissi was premature with his careful prosthesis and completely wrong. He was fooled by the contaminants. Paul got it by revelation from the Manufacturer.

mistaken post

That was not a diversionary tactic, because I am not in debate mode. Just here for conversation. Please note that, at least for these last two posts (on forgiveness and new-man) are pretty devoid of PFAL debate. I'm just trying to hang out and talk Bible. Not just you, but many folks here seem to be "locked in" into that debate mode. Didn't we do that ENOUGH 15 years ago here? My vague memory is you came in late, T-Bone, to the those debates. Maybe you feel there are angles that no one took against me in debate. Trust me, we went thru it all! I had my chance to debate all the angles of PFAL that were important. I said my peace. I feel that I laid it ALL out here, and feel no more need to debate. I just want to live it and love the right way in my last years. I didn't come here and visit to stir up all those past negatives. It's all pretty much done now. In another few decades this will be something our grand-children look at as "just another soap opera." There will be other battles that capture their attention. All this debate and casting a spotlight on the TWI Bad Guys will be gone. And in Christ's Return, all the crap and every memory of it will be burned away, and the only things left will be the memory of when and where we walked in love.

WoW! More than fascinating, Bolshevik! You just helped magnify my understanding of Romans 7. Not the second half of your post, just the first half. The second half I never fell for. That would be bad, to make excuses for bad behavior. Yes, plenty of people have done that kind of ridiculous defense, insulting all normal human sensibilities. I am with you in condemning that kind of defense. I have blown it in many different ways, but that pit I never fell into. Sad to see others fall into that trap. But your post's first half is amazing. Not the narcissist part. Narcissism, IMO, is just the modern, hip, secular way to say that someone has a devil spirit acting in their life, usually the oppressive kind. I hope, for your sake that is not "projection" on your part, another pop psychology term. (BTW, what is PD mean?) ***************** But this part of your post is electrifying: "A narcissistic PD person [a believer in Paul's Gospel] has their "selves" - authentic self and the false self - so split they dissociate -- It is like they are watching a movie. Of themselves . . . but to them it is not themselves. It's someone else!" THAT is a nearly perfect depiction, in secular terms, of Romans 7, and reckoning the old man dead, and living in the new man.. BRILLIANT! You may have "pulled a Balaam" there, where you accidentally picked up a whisper of that still small voice of the True God, while you were trying to pitch in and help the cause that downplays the Gospel of Paul. I always wondered how that Balaam prophesy (speaking for God) happened! Have you read his prophecy of the coming of the Christ in victory? It is so cool! *************** Now, the second half of your post is a totally valid description and condemnation of a "Paul Quoting Person" wrongly dividing Paul's words and thinking the wrong way. Paul would never approve of saying to an unbeliever, or to an unbeliever court, "I am no longer the person who did that dastardly deed, that was my old man nature, and I stopped living in that nature. That guy is dead. You have nothing on ME!" That kind of a defense is INVALID. No normal person would accept it. Neither should a right-on believer accept it. I know this did happen in the ministry, and it doesn't matter who it was. That is a pit of broken fellowship. To climb out of it is EASY, as my previous post here celebrates. But to continue thinking that way means falling right back in. I happened to be lucky enough to have never fallen into that particular pit, but I've spent plenty of time stuck in others. There were times when this lasted for weeks and months! Not a good way to live an efficient spiritual life. But it happens. Paul fell into some kind of pit in going to Jerusalem that last time. It ruined the efficiency of his ministry in some ways, but even then he did bounce back into fellowship while suffering the consequences of his error, writing some great epistles for us. Had he not fallen into that pit, we'd probably have more.

13 hours ago, T-Bone said: I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church and never even heard of the unforgiveable sin until I joined The Way International... In the Catholic Church there were mortal and venial sins...there was purgatory...there was Limbo (which I think they did away with the concept years later)...we even used to pray for the souls in hell... +++++++++++++ Hi T-Bone. I too was Roman Catholic, but the churches I referred to above were all Protestant. In a sense, we RCs had something nearly equivalent to the unforgivable sin, tied up in the mortal sin you mentioned. Forgiveness in the RC was difficult, even for venial sins. But mortal sins were terrifying and much harder to merit forgiveness. First, you had to have a priest present, and also had to wait for Saturday, so it was temporarily unforgivable if it happened on a Tuesday. A mortal sin had the same consequences of the Biblical unforgivable sin: "Go directly to Hell; Do not pass Mary; do not collect for your good works." If a mortal sin was habitual, all kinds of unforgivableness was attached to it. In the confessional box you had to pray "I firmly resolve, with the help of thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin." THAT is a mouthful for a teenage boy to say, sincerely. Oh, it HAD to be sincere or it didn't work. And if I didn't resolve FIRMLY enough, then forgiveness was withheld. THEN, there was the caveat that if any sins were forgotten or not mentioned clearly enough to the priest, then the forgiveness fails. THEN, there was the penance. What if I spaced out for half of the 20 Hail Marys? Better say extra, just in case. Did I say ALL of them with enough sincerity? Another failure so possible here. There were MANY strings attached to forgiveness, and no one ever knew if the conditions were met good enough for it to work. With a mortal sin we were hell bound and all heaven couldn't stop us, if we died before Saturday. There WAS something called a “Perfect Act of Contrition” where forgiveness was available before Saturday, and it could even work without a priest IF IF IF your heart was perfectly sorry or something like that. The nuns were very unclear about how this worked, and gave us the impression that we should never rely on it. They even told us to forget about it if we were asking questions. I figured that it was just for established saints who accidentally committed a mortal sin. ******* So, imagine my shock at age 21, on finding 1John 1:9, and how easy and immediate it made forgiveness. God is faithful, never enigmatic, and totally eager on His willingness to forgive. And the word "confess" was totally easier also. In the Greek it is homologeo, which means "to say the same thing" or to simply ADMIT that an act was outside the will of God. No beating of the chest! And all the sorrow for sin, and firmly resolving to sin no more, and contrition, and all those things were DISCONNECTED from the forgiveness part. They were for building the renewed mind, and could be dealt with later with a clean conscience. I was ecstatic upon hearing all this in fellowships, well before the class. I still am.

Well, in a sense I understand you. I, after all, AM a walking talking "PFAL DEBATE" of very many deliberate and conscious decisions to be so, spanning 49 years. Thanks for the reminder, although it doesn't come in much in handy to remember this. It's nice nostalgia for me, though. Actually I find that self-awareness is a trap, when that self is my old-man nature. Forgetting it is the name of the game. I find that Romans chapter 4-8 are great at pointing us to the new man nature. Also, First John.

That was not an attempted argument, Rocky. Just a set of observations. I pretty well exhausted all the arguments that were worth having here over 10 years ago. I said when I was leaving (a gradual process) around 2008 that I wanted to shift from preaching PFAL here to living it. I come back for visits to stay connected. One of the most terrible things I ever saw in the ministry (and still see today in many grads) is this shallow, breakable family-love bond. It looks on the surface like a lot of love in a small group for a while, and then it goes stale or there's some kind of disagreement. Then, suddenly no one wants to be together any more. I've always regarded these kind of break-ups a tragedy, and in the months and years the follow I'd always be looking for some kind of reconciliation as tempers calm down. In a family with deeper established love, after a breakup members should always be looking for, and ready for a reconciliation. Because it saddens me to see this all around, in my affairs I want to seen the opposite. I have seen a few surprising cases of this, but it is sadly rare. No, Rocky, I'm not into a debate. I see many out there, not just here, where all of life seems to be formal debate. One of the reasons I did up the debate thing here is because I saw the damage (some of it) as it was happening, and I can well relate to many of the feelings here. Some I had myself, and intensely, for years. In my later years I am so happy to be able to just shmooze with old grads. We saw a lot. I think we were involved in much more than we can be aware of. Someday we'll see, and every tear will be wiped away.

I used to visit trinitarian churches in the 1970s to witness to them. I was focused on preaching SIT, but also got myself informed on the details of the three-in-one oil anointing. Then JCNG came out and I had more amo. It got pretty intense, because the minister would usually drag me into his office to avoid having churchgoers overhearing us. It got pretty intense, and challenging. Very often (I have found), when a grad talks about possession, they are pretty ignorant of the far more common phenomenon of OPPRESSION. Most of what I saw in churches that believed in the trinity was oppression. The people were afraid to even approach the trinity ideas for fear of accidentally committing the unforgivable sin. We were ABUNDANTLY blessed far more than we know by PFAL. The first session starts to clear up the fears like this that oppress so many Christians. The churches that have the most fears about the trinity usually have one person who could be seed or possessed that constantly harps on the consequences of not believing Jesus is God. We've all seen these kinds of people. They were a few in the Corps, but not too many. Dana Carvey's SNL Church Lady character perfectly captures what I saw, minus the laughs.

EXACTLY! Another thing to consider that we were taught is that "Fear ruins more men's ministry than anything else." I have no doubt that fear is what has made these people monsters. When the fear is removed, miracles can happen. Still another thing we were taught was "Each one win one." I'm only thinking of one person at a time, not the whole organization... yet.