If Christ isn't absent, then somebody tell me where he lives.
Of course he is seated at the right hand of God. When I think about this point taught, I think about RELATIONSHIP. There is no way we were ever taught to have a relationship with Christ. I think we were missing out big time. I'm talking about prayer. I'm not talking about making him God either.
TWI liked to drop Jesus Christ's name here and there to make sure they were still Christian, but they really lost the whole deal with the absent Christ doctrine. How can you have an absent head??
TWI liked to drop Jesus Christ's name here and there to make sure they were still Christian, but they really lost the whole deal with the absent Christ doctrine. How can you have an absent head??
I dont know call me stupid but VP usually thought with the other head anyway so what difference did it matter to him?
It truly was the remainder of the household, us little wayfers that missed out with twi's "absent Christ" doctrine because it left us with VP as the head. It certainly gives a different spin on "pecker head". <_<
Well, if you go with the analogy that I, as a husband and father am the head of the household you might be able to see how that's possible. I leave the family almost every day to go to work -- thus I'm absent. During my absence my principles and/or rules governing the household are not simply discarded for it's reasonable for my family to expect I will return at some point.
Perhaps. But as a husband.. how would you feel if somebody else came in your place, started making rules.. taking YOUR place?
I think most people would have a few issues..
but is not this what twi has done? The followers themselves are not trusted enough to just read the bible on their own.. no new research.. forced to rehash 25 + year old materials.. have to follow inane, "stupid" rules and leadership, to the letter..
yeah, "the word" takes the place of the supposedly absent christ.
Just because you leave every day for work and are absent doesn't mean you cannot be reached and there is no communication with you, right?
Well, I'm not sure how far we can stretch an analogy. It does have its limits. One can consider prayer the equivalent to using a phone. In that analogy it will boil down to whether you believe Jesus hears you when you pray and whether he also answers you in some way.
We had long teachings on how we must always refer to Christ as Jesus Christ not just Jesus because there was a devil spirit named "Jesus" and if we just said Jesus we would be talking to the devil spirit.
No one ever explained how or where the information came from that there was a devil spirit named "Jesus".
They most definitely, never explained, at least that I am aware of, how it could happen that if you were speaking to Jesus Christ when you said "Jesus" He, the Jesus who is my lord and savior, would not know it was Him you were addressing.
At best Christ was portrayed, as someone who had done his job and was now resting from his labors. "The Word" was our blueprint. Specifically the word from Acts on. Because everything before Acts belongs to a different "dispensation", thus TWI relieved us of the pesky problem of when behavior was contradictory to the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
I became totally, disgusted with the apostle Paul, I found him to be an egotistical, woman hating, self serving little tyrant. This attitude was aided by the twisting of scripture to fit this picture.
NO, when all was said and done, TWI fostered in us the desire only to read the approved materials and check to make sure that our understanding of what we saw in black and white on the printed pages of our Bibles coincided with TWI positions. If perchance, what we read happened to not agree with what TWI said it meant then it was a mistranslation, lack of context, or not true to the original aramaic.
TWI did a wonderful job of pushing not only Christ out of the picture, but the apostles as well, bringing them back on stage only when they could bolster a TWI belief. As for Heavenly Father, he was pictured smiling benevolently on this travesty as VPW proclaimed that he was "teaching the Word as it had not been taught since the first century church".
It is a miracle that so many of us came out of TWI and were able to reestablish a relationship with Christ and Heavenly Father. There should be far more of us who threw up our hands in disgust and walked away from Christianity etal after years of these pernicious teachings. Clearly Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost were busy looking out for us, and waiting for us to break free, so that we could return to a relationship with them free of TWI insanity.
I was thinking about this more, and I don't ever remember a scripture being given to show he is absent. I know there are verses saying he sits at the right hand of the Father. That does not mean he cannot communicate with his Church.
Templelady, it is very intersting the points you make about Paul the Apostle. I have often felt that the Bible isn't what TWI made it out to be. I really believe it was written for men. Sure, there are things we can glean from and apply to our lives; but I sure don't think it should be elevated the way TWI did. And I don't care that there is a verse that says God elevated His Word above His name. That could be taken more than one way. TWI just used that verse to promote their Bible Worshipping Cult.
...and what annoys me is that Wierwille knew better! Wierwille taught the sections in Ephesians about every believer having equal access...no high priest was needed any longer...remember that?...but when it came down to practice, he wouldn't let go of his "Moses complex"...everything had to be cleared through his religious hierarchy...why, pray tell, did he bother to teach the advanced class ? (other than to rake in more money), if everything had to be "cleared" through the way tree?...
The way tree was a counterfeit of the body of Christ...Wierwille's religious hierarchy took the place of the spiritual body of Christ and Wierwille himself became the head...is it any wonder that he became a delusional drunken womanizer?
[quote]It is a miracle that so many of us came out of TWI and were able to reestablish a relationship with Christ and Heavenly Father. There should be far more of us who threw up our hands in disgust and walked away from Christianity etal after years of these pernicious teachings. Clearly Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost were busy looking out for us, and waiting for us to break free, so that we could return to a relationship with them free of TWI insanity.
I agree! It is amazing-I know I had a hard time returning to Father because I felt so used and abused. I knew I had to fight through it and try to seek Him again or I may have strayed for good.
Patriot!!! I remember that!!! But we were never told why that guy was kicked off and why all of his stuff was getting burned!!!! EEWW!
I need to clarify my position on the apostle Paul. My feelings that I stated above came about as a direct result of Paul, and his teachings in the epistles, being used by TWI to justify thier positions.
After having been through TWI and what havoc it wrecked in my world, Paul was just part of the problem as far as I was concerned.
It has taken all these years, and in fact is still a work in progress, for me to understand the love Paul had for his readers, to understand that Paul was just trying to convey that if he could follow Christ's footsteps it was possible for all of us to do so.
TWI in using Paul to justify their arrogance, did a great disservice to those who looked to the epistles for love and solace. Just another grievence to lay at their door.
In TWI we didn't try yo communicate with Jesus Christ, only with the Father God. praying to Jesus was a Trinitarian thing, and idolitry.
Well, although I'm not a Trinitarian myself, one would have to explain how Paul (on the road to Damascus) was able to talk with Jesus if talking to him was idolatry. It might interest you to know that even VP referred to Jesus as being God in the PFAL class. I suspect most didn't catch it though.
Jesus CHrist might be the head of the body in TWI, but he communicated with the leadership/ MOG if with anyone--trickle down revelation.
That might be something you were taught but, it wasn't something I remember being taught. In fact I believe there is one section in PFAL where VP states God will speak to you first before He will speak to another concerning your personal life. I think it was in the section dealing with Paul wanting to go to Jerusalem even though God forbade him.
quote: It might interest you to know that even VP referred to Jesus as being God in the PFAL class. I suspect most didn't catch it though.
I caught it, but I dispute it. If I recall, there's one segment that ends with VP loudly saying, "...and Christ is GOD'S, so you belong to God!" He didn't say Christ is God, he said Christ is God's, which matches the very last verse of 1 Cor. 3.
Compare these 2 sentences: Christ is God, so you belong to God. Christ is God's, so you belong to God. You could speak each sentence and they'd sound like the same sentence, but they're not. VP obviously believed Jesus isn't God, so it had to be the 2nd sentence.
For the record, the word 'absent' is a PHYSICAL term. If you miss school you are absent. This means you are not PHYSICALLY present; it doesn't mean that you don't exist. Christ is the head SPIRITUALLY. Not physically.God's people have met millions of times all over the world since the day of Pentecost, but Jesus wasn't there PHYSICALLY. Therefore he is/was absent.
Like VP said, there's no problem here unless readers want to make one.
IIRC (and it's only been a couple of decades since I last took "The Class",
When Mr. Wierwille is talking about Jesus' return he says that "He's coming back as Lord God Almighty".
Yeah, I caught it (many times). And it never made any sense to me, given Wierwillian theology.
I always just assumed the emminent "Teacher" had simply misspoke...
I was told it was a simple mistake dure to VP's many years as a trinitarian.
As far as revelation went--MOG revelation always trumped personal revelation in the TWI I knew. Autonomy wasn't an important quality--meekness and obedience to leadership were.
That might be something you were taught but, it wasn't something I remember being taught. In fact I believe there is one section in PFAL where VP states God will speak to you first before He will speak to another concerning your personal life. I think it was in the section dealing with Paul wanting to go to Jerusalem even though God forbade him.
I remember being taught that God would speak to me first. I also had to tell a lot of folks to back off when they told me what "God was telling them I should do."
You forgot to mention the all important exception to that rule: IF YOU'RE NOT LISTENING OR YOU REFUSE TO OBEY, then God will tell someone else to tell you.
This was the line that gave many a MOG wanna-be license to tell you what to do.
So.....Mr. Rev Mucketymuck comes to you and tells you to give him your car so that you can open the floodgates of heaven once again and receive that healing you've been praying for. God hasn't told you to do this and you tell Rev. Muck this. He says, "Oh course, you can't hear Him. You've been out of fellowship for so long, I'm surprised you're still alive."
There was aconstant battle between what was said and what was practiced.
Oh and as I recall, VPW said when Jesus Christ comes back they won't be calling him a "Jesus Chirst so-and-so" When he comes back he's coming back as King of King and Lord of Lord's and Lord God Almighty. And he's gonna knock some earballs together."
You forgot to mention the all important exception to that rule: IF YOU'RE NOT LISTENING OR YOU REFUSE TO OBEY, then God will tell someone else to tell you.
I didn't forget to mention it because as you have demonstrated it wasn't necessary to do so. The point of it though is that anything someone else would tell you would be pertaining to what God had already said to you first.
This was the line that gave many a MOG wanna-be license to tell you what to do.
That license would only be one that you, yourself gave them and if you gave it to them out of fear then that should have told you something was wrong.
So.....Mr. Rev Mucketymuck comes to you and tells you to give him your car so that you can open the floodgates of heaven once again and receive that healing you've been praying for. God hasn't told you to do this and you tell Rev. Muck this. He says, "Oh course, you can't hear Him. You've been out of fellowship for so long, I'm surprised you're still alive."
My response would have been different but, that's just the way I've always been. Do you remember hearing in PFAL something about VP saying it wasn't his position to tell you what you should do but rather how to do it? I remember when people were being told to sell their homes -- anyone with half a brain should have known that was unbiblical.
There was a constant battle between what was said and what was practiced.
That's probably why TWI eventually lost a lot of followers.
Oh and as I recall, VPW said when Jesus Christ comes back they won't be calling him a "Jesus Chirst so-and-so" When he comes back he's coming back as King of King and Lord of Lord's and Lord God Almighty. And he's gonna knock some earballs together."
I didn't forget to mention it because as you have demonstrated it wasn't necessary to do so. The point of it though is that anything someone else would tell you would be pertaining to what God had already said to you first.
That license would only be one that you, yourself gave them and if you gave it to them out of fear then that should have told you something was wrong.
My response would have been different but, that's just the way I've always been. Do you remember hearing in PFAL something about VP saying it wasn't his position to tell you what you should do but rather how to do it? I remember when people were being told to sell their homes -- anyone with half a brain should have known that was unbiblical.
That's probably why TWI eventually lost a lot of followers.
That's how I recall it also.
Regarding God talking to you first:
There was always that "if you are listening." The logic that God would speak to you first implied you were listening (were in fellowship, had given you're 15%, etc.) Now, if someone came up to you and said that God told them to tell you, and you KNEW that God had not spoken to you and you spoke up - well they had the perfect comeback, "YOU DIDN'T HEAR HIM!"
I wasn't necessarily referring to myself in my last post.
I wasn't around when folks were told to sell their homes - I left when I was told to declare my allegiance to LCM.
Why did you leave? When did you leave? I'm curious.
Oh and as I recall, VPW said when Jesus Christ comes back they won't be calling him a "Jesus Chirst so-and-so" When he comes back he's coming back as King of King and Lord of Lord's and Lord God Almighty. And he's gonna knock some earballs together."
Oh Dooj darlin' did you have to quote him? Now his voice is resounding in my skull...ohhhh I'm getting a headache!
Temple lady-did they really teach you that there was a Debil Sprit named Jesus? I remember being taught not to pray to him cause that was idolatry. And I remember being taught that we had to say Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus because just saying Jesus kept him in his "man" state and he had ascended beyond that.
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Nottawayfer
Of course he is seated at the right hand of God. When I think about this point taught, I think about RELATIONSHIP. There is no way we were ever taught to have a relationship with Christ. I think we were missing out big time. I'm talking about prayer. I'm not talking about making him God either.
TWI liked to drop Jesus Christ's name here and there to make sure they were still Christian, but they really lost the whole deal with the absent Christ doctrine. How can you have an absent head??
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Eyesopen
I dont know call me stupid but VP usually thought with the other head anyway so what difference did it matter to him?
It truly was the remainder of the household, us little wayfers that missed out with twi's "absent Christ" doctrine because it left us with VP as the head. It certainly gives a different spin on "pecker head". <_<
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Ham
Well, the absent Christ makes less sense than the headless horseman..
The body is left here without it's head.. floundering around looking for it..
as a second choice, it picks up a bible and wears it in place of the real head..
gruesome.
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Larry N Moore
Well, if you go with the analogy that I, as a husband and father am the head of the household you might be able to see how that's possible. I leave the family almost every day to go to work -- thus I'm absent. During my absence my principles and/or rules governing the household are not simply discarded for it's reasonable for my family to expect I will return at some point.
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Nottawayfer
Just because you leave every day for work and are absent doesn't mean you cannot be reached and there is no communication with you, right?
I first heard of the absent Christ in 1984 or 1985 at least.
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Ham
Perhaps. But as a husband.. how would you feel if somebody else came in your place, started making rules.. taking YOUR place?
I think most people would have a few issues..
but is not this what twi has done? The followers themselves are not trusted enough to just read the bible on their own.. no new research.. forced to rehash 25 + year old materials.. have to follow inane, "stupid" rules and leadership, to the letter..
yeah, "the word" takes the place of the supposedly absent christ.
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Larry N Moore
Well, I'm not sure how far we can stretch an analogy. It does have its limits. One can consider prayer the equivalent to using a phone. In that analogy it will boil down to whether you believe Jesus hears you when you pray and whether he also answers you in some way.
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Ham
Arrogance.. "we're PREVAILING.."
kinda like when Jezebel was cornered, "I'm the master here, and it'll go a lot better for you, if you do business with ME.."
That's what the words she used implied.
Yep.. prevailing, an annoyance all the way to the end..
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templelady
We had long teachings on how we must always refer to Christ as Jesus Christ not just Jesus because there was a devil spirit named "Jesus" and if we just said Jesus we would be talking to the devil spirit.
No one ever explained how or where the information came from that there was a devil spirit named "Jesus".
They most definitely, never explained, at least that I am aware of, how it could happen that if you were speaking to Jesus Christ when you said "Jesus" He, the Jesus who is my lord and savior, would not know it was Him you were addressing.
At best Christ was portrayed, as someone who had done his job and was now resting from his labors. "The Word" was our blueprint. Specifically the word from Acts on. Because everything before Acts belongs to a different "dispensation", thus TWI relieved us of the pesky problem of when behavior was contradictory to the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
I became totally, disgusted with the apostle Paul, I found him to be an egotistical, woman hating, self serving little tyrant. This attitude was aided by the twisting of scripture to fit this picture.
NO, when all was said and done, TWI fostered in us the desire only to read the approved materials and check to make sure that our understanding of what we saw in black and white on the printed pages of our Bibles coincided with TWI positions. If perchance, what we read happened to not agree with what TWI said it meant then it was a mistranslation, lack of context, or not true to the original aramaic.
TWI did a wonderful job of pushing not only Christ out of the picture, but the apostles as well, bringing them back on stage only when they could bolster a TWI belief. As for Heavenly Father, he was pictured smiling benevolently on this travesty as VPW proclaimed that he was "teaching the Word as it had not been taught since the first century church".
It is a miracle that so many of us came out of TWI and were able to reestablish a relationship with Christ and Heavenly Father. There should be far more of us who threw up our hands in disgust and walked away from Christianity etal after years of these pernicious teachings. Clearly Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost were busy looking out for us, and waiting for us to break free, so that we could return to a relationship with them free of TWI insanity.
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Nottawayfer
I was thinking about this more, and I don't ever remember a scripture being given to show he is absent. I know there are verses saying he sits at the right hand of the Father. That does not mean he cannot communicate with his Church.
Templelady, it is very intersting the points you make about Paul the Apostle. I have often felt that the Bible isn't what TWI made it out to be. I really believe it was written for men. Sure, there are things we can glean from and apply to our lives; but I sure don't think it should be elevated the way TWI did. And I don't care that there is a verse that says God elevated His Word above His name. That could be taken more than one way. TWI just used that verse to promote their Bible Worshipping Cult.
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Bramble
In TWI we didn't try yo communicate with Jesus Christ, only with the Father God. praying to Jesus was a Trinitarian thing, and idolitry.
Jesus CHrist might be the head of the body in TWI, but he communicated with the leadership/ MOG if with anyone--trickle down revelation.
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GrouchoMarxJr
...and what annoys me is that Wierwille knew better! Wierwille taught the sections in Ephesians about every believer having equal access...no high priest was needed any longer...remember that?...but when it came down to practice, he wouldn't let go of his "Moses complex"...everything had to be cleared through his religious hierarchy...why, pray tell, did he bother to teach the advanced class ? (other than to rake in more money), if everything had to be "cleared" through the way tree?...
The way tree was a counterfeit of the body of Christ...Wierwille's religious hierarchy took the place of the spiritual body of Christ and Wierwille himself became the head...is it any wonder that he became a delusional drunken womanizer?
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penguin
[quote]It is a miracle that so many of us came out of TWI and were able to reestablish a relationship with Christ and Heavenly Father. There should be far more of us who threw up our hands in disgust and walked away from Christianity etal after years of these pernicious teachings. Clearly Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost were busy looking out for us, and waiting for us to break free, so that we could return to a relationship with them free of TWI insanity.
I agree! It is amazing-I know I had a hard time returning to Father because I felt so used and abused. I knew I had to fight through it and try to seek Him again or I may have strayed for good.
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templelady
I need to clarify my position on the apostle Paul. My feelings that I stated above came about as a direct result of Paul, and his teachings in the epistles, being used by TWI to justify thier positions.
After having been through TWI and what havoc it wrecked in my world, Paul was just part of the problem as far as I was concerned.
It has taken all these years, and in fact is still a work in progress, for me to understand the love Paul had for his readers, to understand that Paul was just trying to convey that if he could follow Christ's footsteps it was possible for all of us to do so.
TWI in using Paul to justify their arrogance, did a great disservice to those who looked to the epistles for love and solace. Just another grievence to lay at their door.
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Larry N Moore
That might be something you were taught but, it wasn't something I remember being taught. In fact I believe there is one section in PFAL where VP states God will speak to you first before He will speak to another concerning your personal life. I think it was in the section dealing with Paul wanting to go to Jerusalem even though God forbade him.
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johniam
quote: It might interest you to know that even VP referred to Jesus as being God in the PFAL class. I suspect most didn't catch it though.
I caught it, but I dispute it. If I recall, there's one segment that ends with VP loudly saying, "...and Christ is GOD'S, so you belong to God!" He didn't say Christ is God, he said Christ is God's, which matches the very last verse of 1 Cor. 3.
Compare these 2 sentences: Christ is God, so you belong to God. Christ is God's, so you belong to God. You could speak each sentence and they'd sound like the same sentence, but they're not. VP obviously believed Jesus isn't God, so it had to be the 2nd sentence.
For the record, the word 'absent' is a PHYSICAL term. If you miss school you are absent. This means you are not PHYSICALLY present; it doesn't mean that you don't exist. Christ is the head SPIRITUALLY. Not physically.God's people have met millions of times all over the world since the day of Pentecost, but Jesus wasn't there PHYSICALLY. Therefore he is/was absent.
Like VP said, there's no problem here unless readers want to make one.
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George Aar
IIRC (and it's only been a couple of decades since I last took "The Class",
When Mr. Wierwille is talking about Jesus' return he says that "He's coming back as Lord God Almighty".
Yeah, I caught it (many times). And it never made any sense to me, given Wierwillian theology.
I always just assumed the emminent "Teacher" had simply misspoke...
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TheInvisibleDan
Well naturally he must have meant that in a figurative sense, doncha know?
When the heat is on, just grab a fistful of a figures out of the Bullinger hat.
One of them will work.
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waysider
That's how I recall it, also.
As class instructors, we were given a canned "spin" and told to gloss over it.
There was also another unusual statement somewhere(don't recall what it was) that we were told to fudge by momentarilly dropping the volume.
AHA!---I just remembered. It's the place where he means to say "sits there like a diamond" but instead says "sits there like a duck".
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Bramble
I was told it was a simple mistake dure to VP's many years as a trinitarian.
As far as revelation went--MOG revelation always trumped personal revelation in the TWI I knew. Autonomy wasn't an important quality--meekness and obedience to leadership were.
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doojable
I remember being taught that God would speak to me first. I also had to tell a lot of folks to back off when they told me what "God was telling them I should do."
You forgot to mention the all important exception to that rule: IF YOU'RE NOT LISTENING OR YOU REFUSE TO OBEY, then God will tell someone else to tell you.
This was the line that gave many a MOG wanna-be license to tell you what to do.
So.....Mr. Rev Mucketymuck comes to you and tells you to give him your car so that you can open the floodgates of heaven once again and receive that healing you've been praying for. God hasn't told you to do this and you tell Rev. Muck this. He says, "Oh course, you can't hear Him. You've been out of fellowship for so long, I'm surprised you're still alive."
There was aconstant battle between what was said and what was practiced.
Oh and as I recall, VPW said when Jesus Christ comes back they won't be calling him a "Jesus Chirst so-and-so" When he comes back he's coming back as King of King and Lord of Lord's and Lord God Almighty. And he's gonna knock some earballs together."
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Larry N Moore
That license would only be one that you, yourself gave them and if you gave it to them out of fear then that should have told you something was wrong.
My response would have been different but, that's just the way I've always been. Do you remember hearing in PFAL something about VP saying it wasn't his position to tell you what you should do but rather how to do it? I remember when people were being told to sell their homes -- anyone with half a brain should have known that was unbiblical.That's probably why TWI eventually lost a lot of followers.
That's how I recall it also.
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doojable
Regarding God talking to you first:
There was always that "if you are listening." The logic that God would speak to you first implied you were listening (were in fellowship, had given you're 15%, etc.) Now, if someone came up to you and said that God told them to tell you, and you KNEW that God had not spoken to you and you spoke up - well they had the perfect comeback, "YOU DIDN'T HEAR HIM!"
I wasn't necessarily referring to myself in my last post.
I wasn't around when folks were told to sell their homes - I left when I was told to declare my allegiance to LCM.
Why did you leave? When did you leave? I'm curious.
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Eyesopen
Oh Dooj darlin' did you have to quote him? Now his voice is resounding in my skull...ohhhh I'm getting a headache!
Temple lady-did they really teach you that there was a Debil Sprit named Jesus? I remember being taught not to pray to him cause that was idolatry. And I remember being taught that we had to say Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus because just saying Jesus kept him in his "man" state and he had ascended beyond that.
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