Believing to see you there

[doojable]

Yes - YID - VPW may have taught it - but not until after he had his pet, Chr!s do the work.

[YID]

Yes - YID - VPW may have taught it - but not until after he had his pet, Chr!s do the work.

I remember on two occassions in the '80's, before VPW retired, he expressed a desire for someone to put a paper together on this. I don't think Chris did the work till after VP had died.

Ask any successful businesess man. Success is in the details. I'm particularly thankful I've had doctors with a detailed, swat at the nats, mentality.

If details aren't important, then why study Greek or Aramaic? Jesus Christ was a nat swatter. I seem to recall him saying something about a 'jot and tittle". Talk about nit-picky.

Lots of the work in TWI was nit-picky. That was one of the selling points that got so many of us to start going. It was amazing that people actually new the Bible in detail.

The misuse of doctrine was wide-spread. I remember the Advanced Class of '78, VP offered to open the floor up to any question. It was the first time anyone had seen him do it at such an event. Somewhere around the third guy asked the question about Needs and Wants being parallel. VP went nuts! ! ! VP & Me refered to this incident.

He started rantin' and ravin' about how the students in the AC should know this stuff. It was foundational! ! ! About eight years later, as I graduated the Corps, I asked some of my Corps buddies if they understood it. Not one understood it.

Point: Things were taught and some never got it. The natural thing to do was to accept it as gospel truth and go out and run a class. That was disappointing.

[WhiteDove]

I thought that it was Walter Cummins who worked on the original 5 kinds of Faith.

[WordWolf]

The misuse of doctrine was wide-spread. I remember the Advanced Class of '78, VP offered to open the floor up to any question. It was the first time anyone had seen him do it at such an event. Somewhere around the third guy asked the question about Needs and Wants being parallel. VP went nuts! ! ! VP & Me refered to this incident.

He started rantin' and ravin' about how the students in the AC should know this stuff. It was foundational! ! ! About eight years later, as I graduated the Corps, I asked some of my Corps buddies if they understood it. Not one understood it.

Point: Things were taught and some never got it. The natural thing to do was to accept it as gospel truth and go out and run a class. That was disappointing.

It WAS disappointing.

It was also EXPECTED and MANDATED by vpw, who-as can be seen in your OWN story-

demanded his positions be embraced whether or not they were understood.

Someone had the guts to ask a question that SHOULD have been asked all the time-

and vpw punished him for it. Then again, vpw's position-as came up on another thread-

was that, in his OWN WORDS,

"...So, when I teach, I expect people to understand what I teach, ‘cause I try to make it so simple that

nobody is stupid enough to miss it. You just can’t miss it when I teach. ‘Cause nobody would be that stupid."

[WordWolf]

[This doctrine was in need of an overhaul-

so much so that when cg-who virtually worshipped vpw at the time

he wrote this- worked on this subject, he completely overhauled

the categories,

reducing them from 5 categories to 2 easy-to-follow categories:

1) believing-trusting information received-from whatever source- and acting on it. A verb.

2) "The right way of believing",

which makes it the canon of doctrine we are to follow.

In short, a noun.

THIS makes sense. The pfal one added categories where none were needed.

I shall clarify.]

OK. More false doctrine here brought to you by Lucky Strikes and me.

The five catagories of the word 'Pistis'.

Senses Faith (believing) : The believing used by senses man. We all use it. We believe if we sit in the chair, it will hold us up. It's typically conditional on circumstance (we won't believe the chair will hold us up if it's broken...but we will believe a new chair will)

[This is category 1.

This category is whenever anyone trusts information they receive,

whether they received that information via their 5 senses or via Divine Revelation.

It's a verb-meaning it's an action.]

Faith of Jesus Christ: This was taught as being innate within the believer and synonymous with being born-again, filled with the spirit.

[Jesus accomplished his tasks using the first category's believing (verb),

and in doing so, he gave us the right path to walk, right doctrine (noun).]

Manifestation of Faith: This is the one with the Advanced Class definition. The manifestation of faith is your God-given ability to bring to pass the impossible at your command once you have ascertained the neccessary information by Word of Knowledge, Word of Wisdom or Discerning of Spirits. It also inspires believing in others. examples: Moses parting the Red Sea, Jesus walking on the water, turning water into wine, and healing people.

[Category 1: trusting information received-in this case, received from God-

and acting on it. The SPECIFICS of how to act on it are irrelevant.]

Fruit Faith: Listed amoung the 9 fruits of the spirit in Galatians. As close as I remember it, it was a result of walking by the spirit of God.

[ Galatians 5:22-23 (KJV)

22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

23Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

This is not a new type of love. This is not a new type of joy. This is not a new type of peace.

This is not a new type of longsuffering...

However, we're supposed to buy that this is a new type of "faith" other than the types

mentioned in the other verses not in this passage.

Ever consider that the "fruit" of the Spirit- not being literal, as the Spirit (nor the spirit) is not

a tree or plant- is a FIGURE OF SPEECH? (One of 217 in the Bible.)

This verse addresses trusting God-which is the first category. You do what God wants, and

you'll grow in trusting God. This is not complicated until men ADD complications.]

Family Faith: This is the believing within a group of people as seen in Acts when the earthquake opened the jail doors for Peter. Acts has a lot of examples of this. Example:People getting healed at the passing of Peter's shadow.

[When one Christian believes, it's the first category. When 2000 Christians believe, it's the first category.

It doesn't change in type just because more people are doing it.

If you're addressing the people as a category- like "the family of faith"-

then this is the SECOND type- you're referring to the adherents to the correct doctrines.

As you can see, this is not complicated-unless one is determined to maintain artificial

demarcations and distinctions where Scripture places none.]

In the Bible, the only times when it was possible to believe for someone else or in their stead was if the person was mentally incapacitated or if they were dead.

I never knew Chxxs Gxxr published a work on this. To my knowledge, these are the only catagories taught by VPW. I never thought of it as 'doctrine'.

[but, apparently, vpw did-and flipped out if someone dared question it, even if it was in a small

way like asking how "needs and wants parallel" worked. We were EXPECTED to swallow it whole,

and teach it exactly like vpw did. That's doctrine- to be specific, that's dogma.]

I just thought of it as a huge deal to know the boundries we have to work in. IMHO these boundries assist us to walk in the unlimited grace of God.

[Well, some of those boundaries we had to work in because they were IMPOSED ON US.

We had difficulty working with God unless God agreed to conform to the vpw/pfal/twi paradigm.

When God wanted us to do something different, our man-made boundaries shackled our thinking,

effectively hobbling our believing (first category) and hampering our ability to walk according

to the right path of believing (second category.)

But if, after reading this, you still want to insist that the pfal model is THE correct doctrine

(or dogma or teaching), then that is your privilege.]

[WhiteDove]

The categories that Chris published were

1. Active Believing

A. The Manifestation of Believing

For both catagory 1 believing and Catagory 1A believing(the manifestation of believing) the same mechanics of believing are involved. The distinction is due to the way in which the information is received. With catagory 1 the information comes by way of the five senses. With catagory 1A the information comes by way of revelation - the word of knowledge,word of wisdom,or discerning of spirits. However the mechanics of believing are the same for both catagory 1 and catagory 1A.

B. THE (right way of) Believing (as opposed to all other ways)

All men believe something, but not all men have THE(right way of) believing

2. Accomplished Believing

Many men and women through the years have believed God,but it is only the Lord Jesus Christ who accomplished the entire matter of believing, and who is the finisher,the completer, or perfecter of pistis/pisteuo.

There also were catagories 3 & 4 reserved for future publication.

Later updated work on the faith of Jesus Christ see GWT 360 genetive of relation and the figure of speech Metonymy rendered before that upon which is given to belieive, or upon that which believing is founded.

Edited September 22, 2007 by WhiteDove

[waysider]

Ya know

It's really a shame old man Ripley wasn't introduced to these multiple types of believing.

Instead of just "Ripley's Believe It Or Not", he could have had volumes 1 through 5.

[WordWolf]

My apologies.

I was under the impression that cg had boiled the subject down to its essence,

rather than leave all the artificial titles and unnecessary categories in place.

I gave him more credit than he earned.

My mistake.

[YID]

Ya know

It's really a shame old man Ripley wasn't introduced to these multiple types of believing.

Instead of just "Ripley's Believe It Or Not", he could have had volumes 1 through 5.

ROTFL::: Just think of the mess we'd be in if Ripley took the class! ! ! ! ! ! !

[WhiteDove]

[quote'WordWolf'

My apologies.

I was under the impression that cg had boiled the subject down to its essence,

rather than leave all the artificial titles and unnecessary categories in place.

I gave him more credit than he earned.

My mistake.

More or less I think you were right he did. Your definition "Believing-trusting information received-from whatever source- and acting on it. " was basically the substance although noted that since we were dealing with or interested with biblical understanding the source in this case was the scriptures, or the revelation manifestations, either way it came from God. Everything had that as the basis, the same mechanics in other words. I think the other notations was just to highlight the difference in how the end result came about. For example accomplished believing - Jesus had the same mechanics in believing as we do, nothing different, but it was noted that he was at least to this point the only one who accomplished it completely. It is a bit like a category "Cars that won the Race" all won the race, the same way, but one might note Red cars that won the race, American cars that won the race, sports cars that won the race and so on.... It all falls under receiving information by way of written or direct revelation and then believing that information to be true and acting accordingly on it (if action is required) I would not term these as multiple types of believing, as they all use the same mechanics, it is just additional information on how that happened.

This eliminated many previous problems such as degrees of believing - you either do or you do not. terms like Believe God, Believing for, and so on.... that do not appear in scripture. It also opened the door to take all the terms we were adept at understanding in some cases to be believing that were not the same thing, like prayer, prayer is sometimes in scripture used with believing but not the same thing as believing others like positive mental attitude, trust, confidence in and others. Often you would hear someone say I am believing for the situation or for you in the situation. It was ambiguous. What did that mean? Were you praying for me? If so then why not say ,I am praying for you instead, as that is what you were doing. Not believing. Are you meaning that you are wanting to contribute financially to the situation? Then say that Do you wish to offer physical help? We became adept at using ambiguous terms and in some cases understanding what others meant and in some not. One could sit with a Bible and concordance and see what prayer meant the same could not be said for believing for/ or with you. In that sense it did boil down to the basics of here is what believing is, all these other things that (we called or thought were believing ) we can set aside and determine what they are, but they are not believing.

The one thing that was not addressed was believing as "a law". He based that on When something works with reliability and consistency it is called a law. Scientists count on gravity functioning exactly, precisely, time and time again. They count on its being measurable and calculable. Similarly, we refer to this reality of believing as the "law of believing" because it is reliable like so many of the other laws that we rely on in other fields. God is not a man that He should lie and the words in God's Word are pure words and He stands behind every statement in His Word. The problem in that is it requires that one believe in Christian faith in order for that to be a law, which by definition does not appear to pass the test. Thinking from a Christian perspective only which he would have, the rational makes sense but when adding the non Christian perspective it does not pan out as a law At this point, this is far from a finished work but rather an ongoing project.

Edited September 23, 2007 by WhiteDove

[waysider]

Not to be too contrary, but it was Wierwille, himself, who said, "---works for saint and sinner alike."

I suppose you could get wrapped up in what was meant by "saint" and what was meant by "sinner" but I think it's pretty obvious he meant it would work for "anybody" who used it.

As White Dove pointed out, from a non-Christian point of view, it("believing") does not fit the criteria necessary to qualify as a bona fide "law".

And then, too, there is that blasted word "alike" which means that not only does it work for both saint and sinner but it works the same way!

I have to conclude, at least for myself, that the statement, although it sounds quite noble, is not accurate.

[WhiteDove]

quote waysider

Not to be too contrary, but it was Wierwille, himself, who said, "---works for saint and sinner alike."

I suppose you could get wrapped up in what was meant by "saint" and what was meant by "sinner" but I think it's pretty obvious he meant it would work for "anybody" who used it.

As White Dove pointed out, from a non-Christian point of view, it("believing") does not fit the criteria necessary to qualify as a bona fide "law".

And then, too, there is that blasted word "alike" which means that not only does it work for both saint and sinner but it works the same way!

I have to conclude, at least for myself, that the statement, although it sounds quite noble, is not accurate.

I'd agree - in terms of believing especially in the Christian or biblical sense I suppose it could work alike if the sinner in this case was also a Christian as the mechanics in doing so would be the same. But to expect someone that is not of the mind to believe biblical scripture to accept such information as truth worth accepting and believing would be a stretch for sure. Assuming that saint and sinner is used as a figure of speech for good or bad behavior it would work the same . In the terms of believing to receive the new birth however I do think the process works the same for either. In the end that phrase works for saint and sinner alike went the same way as believe for, which is fine by me.

[WordWolf]

The problem with that is,

this "when he said 'sinner and saint alike' he meant Christians both times"

thing completely ignores what he said other times-

in the Orange Book, this phrase is written, at least part of the time-

as "Christian and nonChristian alike".

Therefore, he CLEARLY meant sinner as non-Christian,

and saint as Christian,

and claiming he meant otherwise is demonstrably incorrect.

[WhiteDove]

The problem with that is,

this "when he said 'sinner and saint alike' he meant Christians both times"

thing completely ignores what he said other times-

in the Orange Book, this phrase is written, at least part of the time-

as "Christian and nonChristian alike".

Therefore, he CLEARLY meant sinner as non-Christian,

and saint as Christian,

and claiming he meant otherwise is demonstrably incorrect.

You are correct WW. Just for the record I was not making any claims as to what he meant , just offering some theory for thought and discussion on possibilities. . In considering your information I checked the 1971 PFAL book , (I assume that was what you meant by orange book ,as the other one The Words Way did not appear to have any references in it.) I offered the theory based on the one article that I was familiar with , but in looking at both articles Chapter 3 & 4 (side by side it appears that he did as you mentioned mean Christian and non - Christian as it is written in the second article. I'd agree we can now eliminate that as a possibility from the table. Also we can eliminate the new birth theory as it clearly was speaking of positive and negative believing. One last thought

From VP's perspective, and the scriptures also I believe) is the understanding that God is faithful to His Word and to honor the promises in the scripture. If a saint (Christian) believes those promises he would get the result as per scripture) If a sinner ( non - Christian ) believed those promises he would as well get the results as per scripture. Given that God is faithful to His Word one could reap the benefits of believing what He said without being Christian in profession. This still falls short of a law and would not work in every situation as in the case of an atheist or agnostic.

[WordWolf]

From VP's perspective, and the scriptures also I believe) is the understanding that God is faithful to His Word and to honor the promises in the scripture. If a saint (Christian) believes those promises he would get the result as per scripture) If a sinner ( non - Christian ) believed those promises he would as well get the results as per scripture. Given that God is faithful to His Word one could reap the benefits of believing what He said without being Christian in profession. This still falls short of a law and would not work in every situation as in the case of an atheist or agnostic.

I think I can agree with this,

pending any possible permutations taking a hard left into the wilderness.

(I'm just being cautious. On the face of it, this sounds like I can agree.)

[Oakspear]

WordWold & WhiteDove:

Good work gentlemen. The word translated faith/believe isn't nearly so complicated or convoluted as Mr. Wierwille made it. But that was part of the attraction was it not? The "secret", "special" knowldge that "the world" didn't know. :ph34r:

Wierwille's teachings on believing resembled very closely books like "The Secret" and the early 20th century writer Florence Scovell Schinn, where stating intention in a positive fashion equalled receipt of whatever it was you wanted.

[WhiteDove]

I'm still puzzled by why VP would associate sinner as non-Christian,

and saint as Christian it makes no sense to me and I know he knew better as he taught it many times. I can see the saint as Christian part as there is scriptural support for that but none for sinner being exclusive to non - Christian Any thoughts?

[doojable]

It was catchy... and most likely he repeated what someone else said. It was a soundbite ...

[waysider]

The expression saints and sinners alike is simply a catch phrase that has been used for centuries to signify "all inclusive". It means the same thing as anyone and everyone. Surely if Wierwille was anywhere near as well read as he claimed to be, he must have encountered this phrase many times, especially since it is used in religious oriented writings more than secular writings.

[skyrider]

I'm still puzzled by why VP would associate sinner as non-Christian,

and saint as Christian it makes no sense to me and I know he knew better as he taught it many times. I can see the saint as Christian part as there is scriptural support for that but none for sinner being exclusive to non - Christian Any thoughts?

Perhaps, its as simple as Wierwille viewing that anyone who didn't accept Jesus Christ remained in their sins..... and therefore, the "sinner" is non-Christian.

[Oakspear]

The expression saints and sinners alike is simply a catch phrase that has been used for centuries to signify "all inclusive". It means the same thing as anyone and everyone. Surely if Wierwille was anywhere near as well read as he claimed to be, he must have encountered this phrase many times, especially since it is used in religious oriented writings more than secular writings.

Yup...I think we have a winner!

[WordWolf]

Catchphrases ARE among Figures of Speech, so long as they're addressed to the community that

uses them. At least, Bullinger listed them as so,

and twi did as well-there were even 3 different books on it from Pillai-

"Light Through an Eastern Window"

"Orientalisms of the Bible" volumes 1 and 2.

As a figure, one wanted to analyze it, this specific phrase is "synecdoche",

where the parts are placed for the whole.

That is, to name all of humanity, you name 2 extremes and imply everything between them is included.

So long as it's not overthought and considered for what it is, it's not a problem.

Remember when vpw was explaining about the potential for life? He went into a short digression on

Humpty Dumpty. During that explanation, he explained that Humpty Dumpty was an egg,

an egg that a chicken laid "WITHOUT ANY STRESS OR STRAIN".

It was an expression, meant to sound clever, not a literal post-analysis of the laying of the egg.

I imagine a number of eggs are laid WITH stress, or at least STRAIN.

So, when considering what vpw said about "sinner and saint alike", one should consider that the

Orange Book, at least some of the time, rendered it as "Christian and non-Christian", and consider

THAT the technically-accurate phrase.

Of course, there WILL be people out there who will probably come up with a doctrine for why it

says ONE thing in ONE place, and the deep, spiritual significance of saying the OTHER thing in ANOTHER

place. I can't do anything about those people, but they're not taking part in this discussion, so it's not]

exactly any stress or strain on me.