In The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren describes surrender as the heart of worship. It seems to be akin to submission.
In TWI we were taught never to surrender anything, especially our free will, to God or anything else, lest we become possessed with evil spirits. Yet, everything I've read and studied post-TWI seems to be indicating that surrender simply indicates that God is the boss, not me. I'm surrendering my own willful self to serve God and not my own desires.
Was this just semantics? My memory is fuzzy regarding the TWI teaching, and for a while all I knew was that alarm bells went off in my mind every time I read anything or heard anything taught regarding "surrender."
WG
Me too,i also had a problem with the word integrity...we were just taught wrong or half wrong which is basically half foot lies,a cult running on empty.
Remember in the wizard of Oz ,the witch writes in the sky SURRENDER DORTHY i even had a problem with that after i surfaced and got some therapy.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
One of the things I "cannot change" is that God is God, and I am not. Accepting that is certainly, in my view, central to authentic worship, and is "the beginning of wisdom". After that, though, we would be well to consider what God means in His word that those who "receive" Him in the person of Christ become "the sons of God" with the power of the Holy Spirit.
Freedom of will is a sticky theological issue. (Read any Calvinism threads, or Google "Calvin" and "TULIP.") My view is that obedience is that form of surrender to God which most accurately describes the Christian life -- not only in regard to Scripture / doctrinal matters, but "in all our ways." When Jesus said, "My meat is to do the will of the Father, and to finish His work," he set an example for us.
What I'm saying is that in submission to God, we are in union with Him, and act as His representatives, His children.
By the way, the very word Islam means "submission."
Islam (Arabic: الإسلام; al-'islām (help·info)) is a monotheistic Abrahamic religion originating with the teachings of Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure. The word Islam means "submission", or the total surrender of oneself to God (Arabic: الله, Allāh).[1] An adherent of Islam is known as a Muslim, meaning "one who submits (to God)".[2][3] There are approximately 1.61 billion Muslims,[4] making Islam the second-largest religion in the world, after Christianity.[5]
(bold mine)
Which, in my view, shows they have something right.
In The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren describes surrender as the heart of worship. It seems to be akin to submission.
In TWI we were taught never to surrender anything, especially our free will, to God or anything else, lest we become possessed with evil spirits. Yet, everything I've read and studied post-TWI seems to be indicating that surrender simply indicates that God is the boss, not me. I'm surrendering my own willful self to serve God and not my own desires.
Was this just semantics? My memory is fuzzy regarding the TWI teaching, and for a while all I knew was that alarm bells went off in my mind every time I read anything or heard anything taught regarding "surrender."
WG
I am not a Rick Warren fan.
However, in regard to your particular comment, if TWI teaches something, it's likely that it is wrong (they seemed to have that habit one way or the other).
The subject of submission is integral to a relationship with God in any fashion. Worship or otherwise. IF you make Jesus your Lord, that means that you are submitting to Him. If you don't submit your will to His will, then how can you say that you have made Him your Lord?
True worship, on the other hand, is moreso adoration than simply submission.
"Surrender", "open your mind", "let God take over", etc. Yeah, that terminology didn't set well in TWI.
Relinquishing control of ones freedom of will - giving up control and letting someone or something else have it.
There's some semantics involved - like VPW would refer to "guidance" - "this is the best guidance we have right now", etc. God is "leading" His people.
Those terms didn't imply a takeover or surrender, though.
I find it hard to know what people are talking about too, a lot of the times when they use those words. More or less it usually seems to mean a little hands-on action from God, if not actual control over every little thing where my thoughts and actions are controlled - "puppet" style.
Submitting is a decision, deliberate. There has to be a connection between two points for one to submit to the other. From that point on - what does it mean? Good question.
Frankly, I find it's pretty hard to actually literally surrender. In a way it's wishful thinking. I hear it at times but darned if I see it in application. Do people end up waiting for the call that never comes? Hard to say. If I don't have some standard to measure the response back, how do I know what's going on? Questions....
To me, surrender would be like - I'm not a good swimmer. Pretty less than average, although I love to snorkel and I love the water from the shore, too. I'm trying to get better so I can snorkel better. I definitely don't want to surrender to the force of the water when I'm in it. I dig it, but I need to know I'm able to control my direction.
My wife's a good swimmer, but would never surrender to the current. My kids - son's like a fish. Makes fish look clumsy. A natural. Took swimming in school, his friends challenged the teacher to race him in the pool - son beat him. I tried to get him to take it up but he didn't like the schedule. Some people do better in the water than others. Some don't like it at all.
I see the ocean as an incredibly powerful force. A true "surrender" to it would be to just let it take me where it wants to and for me to go with the flow. Even fish don't do that. But they do have to work the system to survive. When the tide comes in, all boats rise as they say. Bottom's up, if you're in the water then. Tide goes out, same thing.
I respect it's power, appreciate it's beauty, play by it's rules and recognize my own limits. In that way I do "surrender" to it, in that I don't even think about fighting it or challenging it. I need to understand more what it's doing and when. Tide charts. Weather. Lots of things going on with the water that don't have anythng to do with me.
If I identified God as clearly as that, I'd define my own understanding in a similar way.
"Surrender", "open your mind", "let God take over", etc. Yeah, that terminology didn't set well in TWI.
Relinquishing control of ones freedom of will - giving up control and letting someone or something else have it.
There's some semantics involved - like VPW would refer to "guidance" - "this is the best guidance we have right now", etc. God is "leading" His people.
Those terms didn't imply a takeover or surrender, though.
I find it hard to know what people are talking about too, a lot of the times when they use those words. More or less it usually seems to mean a little hands-on action from God, if not actual control over every little thing where my thoughts and actions are controlled - "puppet" style.
Submitting is a decision, deliberate. There has to be a connection between two points for one to submit to the other. From that point on - what does it mean? Good question.
Frankly, I find it's pretty hard to actually literally surrender. In a way it's wishful thinking. I hear it at times but darned if I see it in application. Do people end up waiting for the call that never comes? Hard to say. If I don't have some standard to measure the response back, how do I know what's going on? Questions....
And yet, Socks, surrender is just that...relinquishing your control...to know that God is in charge and He will have His way. I have found
in my own life....that when I refused to go God's way....got pretty hot and heavy spiritually. However, I have usually always lost the battle...LOL....not
that there was ever really a question about who would be the winner. But I find it intriguing that though we have "free will", somehow God always
gets us to choose HIS WAY! But when you love HIM, you know deep down that His ways are higher and better as it were than ours, so there has to be
a factor of trust involved, in that if you do let the water just "take you wherever it wants to" you'll be all right. God is the creator of water, after all. I know
that I wouldn't do that literally....but the point being that if we put our trust in the Lord God Almighty....we'll come in as the winners of the race.
"Surrender", "open your mind", "let God take over", etc. Yeah, that terminology didn't set well in TWI.
Relinquishing control of ones freedom of will - giving up control and letting someone or something else have it.
There's some semantics involved - like VPW would refer to "guidance" - "this is the best guidance we have right now", etc. God is "leading" His people.
Those terms didn't imply a takeover or surrender, though.
I find it hard to know what people are talking about too, a lot of the times when they use those words. More or less it usually seems to mean a little hands-on action from God, if not actual control over every little thing where my thoughts and actions are controlled - "puppet" style.
Submitting is a decision, deliberate. There has to be a connection between two points for one to submit to the other. From that point on - what does it mean? Good question.
Frankly, I find it's pretty hard to actually literally surrender. In a way it's wishful thinking. I hear it at times but darned if I see it in application. Do people end up waiting for the call that never comes? Hard to say. If I don't have some standard to measure the response back, how do I know what's going on? Questions....
To me, surrender would be like - I'm not a good swimmer. Pretty less than average, although I love to snorkel and I love the water from the shore, too. I'm trying to get better so I can snorkel better. I definitely don't want to surrender to the force of the water when I'm in it. I dig it, but I need to know I'm able to control my direction.
My wife's a good swimmer, but would never surrender to the current. My kids - son's like a fish. Makes fish look clumsy. A natural. Took swimming in school, his friends challenged the teacher to race him in the pool - son beat him. I tried to get him to take it up but he didn't like the schedule. Some people do better in the water than others. Some don't like it at all.
I see the ocean as an incredibly powerful force. A true "surrender" to it would be to just let it take me where it wants to and for me to go with the flow. Even fish don't do that. But they do have to work the system to survive. When the tide comes in, all boats rise as they say. Bottom's up, if you're in the water then. Tide goes out, same thing.
I respect it's power, appreciate it's beauty, play by it's rules and recognize my own limits. In that way I do "surrender" to it, in that I don't even think about fighting it or challenging it. I need to understand more what it's doing and when. Tide charts. Weather. Lots of things going on with the water that don't have anythng to do with me.
If I identified God as clearly as that, I'd define my own understanding in a similar way.
"Surrender", "open your mind", "let God take over", etc. Yeah, that terminology didn't set well in TWI.
Relinquishing control of ones freedom of will - giving up control and letting someone or something else have it.
There's some semantics involved - like VPW would refer to "guidance" - "this is the best guidance we have right now", etc. God is "leading" His people.
Those terms didn't imply a takeover or surrender, though.
I find it hard to know what people are talking about too, a lot of the times when they use those words. More or less it usually seems to mean a little hands-on action from God, if not actual control over every little thing where my thoughts and actions are controlled - "puppet" style.
Submitting is a decision, deliberate. There has to be a connection between two points for one to submit to the other. From that point on - what does it mean? Good question.
Frankly, I find it's pretty hard to actually literally surrender. In a way it's wishful thinking. I hear it at times but darned if I see it in application. Do people end up waiting for the call that never comes? Hard to say. If I don't have some standard to measure the response back, how do I know what's going on? Questions....
To me, surrender would be like - I'm not a good swimmer. Pretty less than average, although I love to snorkel and I love the water from the shore, too. I'm trying to get better so I can snorkel better. I definitely don't want to surrender to the force of the water when I'm in it. I dig it, but I need to know I'm able to control my direction.
My wife's a good swimmer, but would never surrender to the current. My kids - son's like a fish. Makes fish look clumsy. A natural. Took swimming in school, his friends challenged the teacher to race him in the pool - son beat him. I tried to get him to take it up but he didn't like the schedule. Some people do better in the water than others. Some don't like it at all.
I see the ocean as an incredibly powerful force. A true "surrender" to it would be to just let it take me where it wants to and for me to go with the flow. Even fish don't do that. But they do have to work the system to survive. When the tide comes in, all boats rise as they say. Bottom's up, if you're in the water then. Tide goes out, same thing.
I respect it's power, appreciate it's beauty, play by it's rules and recognize my own limits. In that way I do "surrender" to it, in that I don't even think about fighting it or challenging it. I need to understand more what it's doing and when. Tide charts. Weather. Lots of things going on with the water that don't have anythng to do with me.
If I identified God as clearly as that, I'd define my own understanding in a similar way.
If my memory of TWI teaching is correct, they taught submission primarily to the written "Word", i.e. the bible. Everything was to be measured against that, even direct revelation. As I recall, the teaching was to master what was written, rather than waiting around for revelation on everything. Of course, leadership's mastery and interpreetation of said scripture trumped your own, so submitting to God was equal to submitting to leadership, a perversion at the very least.
My opinion, based on limited contact with people who subscribe to the "surrender" doctrine is that some of these people need to grow a brain and think a little. Some of them couldn't decide which hand to use to wipe their butt without praying about it. I'm sure that there's more to it than that, but that's the inmpression that I was left with.
Dallas Willard has lots to say about this surrender/obedience/service aspect of people's lives.
One of his most recent books is "The Great Omission".
The title is of course a play on words between the "slogan" 'The Great Commission' and people using the concept of sins of commission vs sins of omission.
The difference between believing in Jesus and actually being apprenticed to him is a central point that he works on.
"Go ye and make disciple of all nations" vs go ye and make "believers". The necessity of actually "following" Jesus and learning from him is sometimes "omitted" from Western versions of churchianity.
I heartily recomend doing some internet searches on his stuff, although at times he gets so deep in comparisons to modern and postmodern thinking that it starts to get confusing and boring.
In TWI our meekness to God was shown by our submission and obedience to his leaders--if we couldn't listen to and obey them, we certainly couldn't follow God...
Isn't surrender a military term? What does that have to do with a loving parent-child relationship?
Doesn't the Christian God want His children to grow up into wise individuals, capable of doing the right thing, making decisions and plans for their lives? Surrender seems to imply that they can not make those decisions etc...God does it for them.
Bramble: In TWI our meekness to God was shown by our submission and obedience to his leaders--if we couldn't listen to and obey them, we certainly couldn't follow God...
You said it there. Right on target.
I distinctly remember sitting in the Emporia 6th corps meeting where special guest B* Re**ard voiced for the 1st time (at least 1st time I heard it): Blind Obedience
Blind Obedience.
I was rather shocked.
The only avenue we seemed to have to apply this Blind Obedience was to fulfill every jot and tittle of whatever leader was over us.
So this way corpse environment was an artificial system of measuring our faith and obedience was just a new version of phariseeism.
All the abstract things all day long that someone in the corps would use to measure our "renewed mind".
Artificial environmental application with a view to pleasing men (and women) who were thinking they represented God.
That meeting was the beginning of the end of my desire to stay in the "corps".
I had survived the all day activites, late night teachings, and then struggling to get everything done, and still sleep a few hours, and still feeling unrighteous.
I had endured the occasional extra early morning exercise/breaking-down-punishment because somebody plssed off Craig.
But hearing blind obedience somehow cut through the brainwashing.
Shortly after, I borrowed three bucks for gas (goes pretty far in a VW beetle) from Father Forehead and was out of there.
Since then I have changed almost every major doctrinal belief I held while in the way.
-------
Today I believe that there are different semantic ways that God has documented in various metaphors that we are familiar with, the nature of our past, present and future.
Obedience is part of the new paradigm as I now perceive it.
But the Obedience is not to any other member in the body, but to the Head, Christ.
My apprenticeship as a child of a loving Father is with his son, my master, the Lord Jesus.
My area of service is everything in my life, family, friend, work, etc.
Everything in my life, family, friend, work doesn't really belong to me, since I belong to the Lord Jesus.
(A slave owned nothing since he was owned, it all belonged to the Lord.)
AS a slave of Jesus my possessions are really his, therefore, as I take care of those things, I am taking care of God's stuff and Jesus's stuff.
A slave was considered an extension of the Master's Will. So I extend the Lord's will to everything I touch as I attempt to represent my Master.
My obedience doesn't have to be manifested by kissing the a** of some would be leader, but as I lovingly do what Jesus would do to all those around me.
There are times in the New Test. docs where the viewpoint is looking at the old master vs the new master.
There are times when a "father and his children" expresses the particular relationship, such as the chastening spoken of in the book of Hebrews
There are other analogies that hilite other aspects of our new lives.
Everything in my life, family, friend, work doesn't really belong to me, since I belong to the Lord Jesus.
(A slave owned nothing since he was owned, it all belonged to the Lord.)
As a slave of Jesus my possessions are really his, therefore, as I take care of those things, I am taking care of God's stuff and Jesus's stuff.
...
Does not your Heavenly Father consider you more than a slave? Do you consider you own kids your slaves? How much more shall your Father in Heaven love and care for you and treat you not as a slave but as His own son.
1 Cor 3:21 "Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are your's; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are your's; And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's."
While we may "serve" God, and follow Him, He has given us all things that we might glorify Him in all that we do since we are ultimately His.
I do not believe God controls anyone, else we are nothing but robots made to amuse some creator. That is different than surrendering to God. God points us in the direction he would have us to go, but it is up to us to follow and in that, we surrender our own direction for His.
"Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not the things which I say?"
So the question is have we made Him our Lord, or just our Friend?
There is a passage in the OT that I really don't have time to look up. A person could only be a slave for 7 years, then he had to be freed. If he loved his master and didn't want to go, but preferred to serve him all the days of his life, he was branded and his ear was pierced, wherein he wore an earring with the insignia of his master. In the Greek the word for this is "doulos." It is a slave because of love, not of bondage.
There is a passage in the OT that I really don't have time to look up. A person could only be a slave for 7 years, then he had to be freed. If he loved his master and didn't want to go, but preferred to serve him all the days of his life, he was branded and his ear was pierced, wherein he wore an earring with the insignia of his master. In the Greek the word for this is "doulos." It is a slave because of love, not of bondage.
WG
Hi Watered Garden, and all others who are part of this thread whether posters or viewers.
I do not want to give the impression that I am promoting bondage or legalism when I speak of being a slave to our Lord Jesus.
When I speak of everything I have belonging to my Lord not me, I say it with Love and Joy.
My family, my work, are no less dear to me when I actively consider myself as a servant of the Lord.
In fact, this re-visioning of "ministry" to my family and work and friends allows me to fulfill the desire that guided me the seven years I spent in twi, serving God.
I now believe that as I learn more about serving and taking care of those in my immediate world, I am learning to serve God and the Lord Jesus, and "doing his will".
I think that many times in twi we were sidetracked into abstract areas of service, often in the form of "obeying" every whim of the "leadership".
--
I know that there are sections of New Testament scripture that use sonship imagery that seems to contradict servant/lord thinking.
In my experience, I felt more bondage while in the way, even as we talked about Sonship Rights.
I believe that twi (as well as many other organizations) fell into phariseeism & or legalism.
I felt constant pressure to do everything right.
And instead of learning better ways of serving, I just got handed more and more detail in what was supposed to happen.
(Maybe it was my failure to get "it", but I did not get much insight into how to serve better)
I think that the branded slave teaching (that was the name of the tape vpw taught in the 70's) got informally or in practice placed into the realm of "spiritual" believers (such as the Way Corps was alleged to produce).
Super-believers who loved the Lord Jesus (as we were supposed to be n the process of becoming, partly by emulating elders in the word) could call themselves "doulos". It practically came with your name tag.
But I think that twi was wrong.
In new testament times, doulos and kurios refer to slaves and lords, and not necessarily doulos who serve by love.
The new thing I discovered a few years ago was that Jesus purchased all those who had been in bondage. He is Lord over all the believers, regardless of how much they have learned about loving him.
And the very fact of his Lordship helps to reverse the results of the previous lordship of sin.
Jesus did not purchase "free" people. He redeemed his people (peculiar people= purchased people) who had been enslaved already.
As my new Lord and Master, Jesus is retraining me in how to treat all those that I meet. Teaching me how to bless those who curse me, how love those who don't love me.
So in this balance between the reference to me as a son, and as a slave, God my Father is using my apprenticeship to the Master Jesus to grow me up.
The teaching I heard in the way identified my old man nature as the source for sin (living through my unrenewed mind), even after I was born again.
My new understanding is that I only have one nature, my new one, but the training I received as a slave to sin in the past can sometimes guide my life.
Habits, skills, addictions of the old man were conformed to the old Lord.
Replacing the old habits with new actions inspired by my New Master will result in the retraining I need.
TWI doctrine as I understood it, stated that we as believers had two natures and struggle between two natures was inevitable.
I believe that a fresh, comprehensive apprehension of the Lordship of Jesus would allow all of us to learn how to live for God, right where we are, with Jesus himself teaching us, (we don't have to atttain to be super-believers as the result of some man-made artificial apprenticeship)
As Lord, Jesus wants to take us from carnal to spiritual.
Flesh does fight against spirit, but no greek words in the NT support the dual-NATURE theology.
I don't have my copy of the septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew old Test) handy, or my concordance of it, but I do think doulos may be used in the septuagint for the branded slave.
But the usage in the New Testament world to Jews and Gentiles would not have carried the same terms of the service.
Doulos, diakonos, leiturgos, therapou, all these are diferent words for service in greek. But in the ancient greek cultures slavery most of the time is doulos and it is not a voluntary after 7 years legislation.
Gentile people reading the gospels or the epistles in 100 ad would not necessarily have the Hebrew background (Deut 15:17) to draw from in thinking doulos.
The Hebrews had these safeguards about slavery (7 years or year of jubilee) because they were respecting the Lord who had delivered them from bondage (Passover and all that Cecil B. Demille spectacular stuff).
So I think there are some differences between the branded slave of early Israel and the service we are in to our Lord Jesus.
(The groaning of the children of Israel closely typifies the bondage of the human race, as well as all creation (see Romans "8") and our Deliverance by Christ who is our passover)
BUT, it is thrilling to think that maybe the 7 years (7 = sabbath, perfection, Lord of the Sabbath, etc) is symbolic of the service we fulfill in this life, and after our Lord returns, being totally freed, we now serve him out of pure love, carrying his mark and brand!
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brideofjc
You're not that fuzzy and far off. That's because it was drilled into us that to OPEN your mind or let down your free will
would expose you to every demon from the pip squeaks to the really big bad boys.
Submission is good!
The one thing that I came to understand finally about VP was that he was in full out and out rebellion to the Lord. He masked it well and
sugar coated it for us, but that is why he taught never to surrender your free will. How devilish indeed. He was always warning everyone
about demons, but he should have looked under his own doormat and got rid of the squatters there first.
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cheranne
Me too,i also had a problem with the word integrity...we were just taught wrong or half wrong which is basically half foot lies,a cult running on empty.
Remember in the wizard of Oz ,the witch writes in the sky SURRENDER DORTHY i even had a problem with that after i surfaced and got some therapy.
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anotherDan
Freedom of will is a sticky theological issue. (Read any Calvinism threads, or Google "Calvin" and "TULIP.") My view is that obedience is that form of surrender to God which most accurately describes the Christian life -- not only in regard to Scripture / doctrinal matters, but "in all our ways." When Jesus said, "My meat is to do the will of the Father, and to finish His work," he set an example for us.
What I'm saying is that in submission to God, we are in union with Him, and act as His representatives, His children.
By the way, the very word Islam means "submission."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam
(bold mine)
Which, in my view, shows they have something right.
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markomalley
I am not a Rick Warren fan.
However, in regard to your particular comment, if TWI teaches something, it's likely that it is wrong (they seemed to have that habit one way or the other).
The subject of submission is integral to a relationship with God in any fashion. Worship or otherwise. IF you make Jesus your Lord, that means that you are submitting to Him. If you don't submit your will to His will, then how can you say that you have made Him your Lord?
True worship, on the other hand, is moreso adoration than simply submission.
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socks
"Surrender", "open your mind", "let God take over", etc. Yeah, that terminology didn't set well in TWI.
Relinquishing control of ones freedom of will - giving up control and letting someone or something else have it.
There's some semantics involved - like VPW would refer to "guidance" - "this is the best guidance we have right now", etc. God is "leading" His people.
Those terms didn't imply a takeover or surrender, though.
I find it hard to know what people are talking about too, a lot of the times when they use those words. More or less it usually seems to mean a little hands-on action from God, if not actual control over every little thing where my thoughts and actions are controlled - "puppet" style.
Submitting is a decision, deliberate. There has to be a connection between two points for one to submit to the other. From that point on - what does it mean? Good question.
Frankly, I find it's pretty hard to actually literally surrender. In a way it's wishful thinking. I hear it at times but darned if I see it in application. Do people end up waiting for the call that never comes? Hard to say. If I don't have some standard to measure the response back, how do I know what's going on? Questions....
To me, surrender would be like - I'm not a good swimmer. Pretty less than average, although I love to snorkel and I love the water from the shore, too. I'm trying to get better so I can snorkel better. I definitely don't want to surrender to the force of the water when I'm in it. I dig it, but I need to know I'm able to control my direction.
My wife's a good swimmer, but would never surrender to the current. My kids - son's like a fish. Makes fish look clumsy. A natural. Took swimming in school, his friends challenged the teacher to race him in the pool - son beat him. I tried to get him to take it up but he didn't like the schedule. Some people do better in the water than others. Some don't like it at all.
I see the ocean as an incredibly powerful force. A true "surrender" to it would be to just let it take me where it wants to and for me to go with the flow. Even fish don't do that. But they do have to work the system to survive. When the tide comes in, all boats rise as they say. Bottom's up, if you're in the water then. Tide goes out, same thing.
I respect it's power, appreciate it's beauty, play by it's rules and recognize my own limits. In that way I do "surrender" to it, in that I don't even think about fighting it or challenging it. I need to understand more what it's doing and when. Tide charts. Weather. Lots of things going on with the water that don't have anythng to do with me.
If I identified God as clearly as that, I'd define my own understanding in a similar way.
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brideofjc
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cheranne
i like this too. Good writing!
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cheranne
i like this too. Good writing!
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Oakspear
If my memory of TWI teaching is correct, they taught submission primarily to the written "Word", i.e. the bible. Everything was to be measured against that, even direct revelation. As I recall, the teaching was to master what was written, rather than waiting around for revelation on everything. Of course, leadership's mastery and interpreetation of said scripture trumped your own, so submitting to God was equal to submitting to leadership, a perversion at the very least.
My opinion, based on limited contact with people who subscribe to the "surrender" doctrine is that some of these people need to grow a brain and think a little. Some of them couldn't decide which hand to use to wipe their butt without praying about it. I'm sure that there's more to it than that, but that's the inmpression that I was left with.
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Darrell Bailey
Dallas Willard has lots to say about this surrender/obedience/service aspect of people's lives.
One of his most recent books is "The Great Omission".
The title is of course a play on words between the "slogan" 'The Great Commission' and people using the concept of sins of commission vs sins of omission.
The difference between believing in Jesus and actually being apprenticed to him is a central point that he works on.
"Go ye and make disciple of all nations" vs go ye and make "believers". The necessity of actually "following" Jesus and learning from him is sometimes "omitted" from Western versions of churchianity.
I heartily recomend doing some internet searches on his stuff, although at times he gets so deep in comparisons to modern and postmodern thinking that it starts to get confusing and boring.
God Bless us every one,
DB
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Bramble
In TWI our meekness to God was shown by our submission and obedience to his leaders--if we couldn't listen to and obey them, we certainly couldn't follow God...
Isn't surrender a military term? What does that have to do with a loving parent-child relationship?
Doesn't the Christian God want His children to grow up into wise individuals, capable of doing the right thing, making decisions and plans for their lives? Surrender seems to imply that they can not make those decisions etc...God does it for them.
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Darrell Bailey
Bramble: In TWI our meekness to God was shown by our submission and obedience to his leaders--if we couldn't listen to and obey them, we certainly couldn't follow God...
You said it there. Right on target.
I distinctly remember sitting in the Emporia 6th corps meeting where special guest B* Re**ard voiced for the 1st time (at least 1st time I heard it): Blind Obedience
Blind Obedience.
I was rather shocked.
The only avenue we seemed to have to apply this Blind Obedience was to fulfill every jot and tittle of whatever leader was over us.
So this way corpse environment was an artificial system of measuring our faith and obedience was just a new version of phariseeism.
All the abstract things all day long that someone in the corps would use to measure our "renewed mind".
Artificial environmental application with a view to pleasing men (and women) who were thinking they represented God.
That meeting was the beginning of the end of my desire to stay in the "corps".
I had survived the all day activites, late night teachings, and then struggling to get everything done, and still sleep a few hours, and still feeling unrighteous.
I had endured the occasional extra early morning exercise/breaking-down-punishment because somebody plssed off Craig.
But hearing blind obedience somehow cut through the brainwashing.
Shortly after, I borrowed three bucks for gas (goes pretty far in a VW beetle) from Father Forehead and was out of there.
Since then I have changed almost every major doctrinal belief I held while in the way.
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Today I believe that there are different semantic ways that God has documented in various metaphors that we are familiar with, the nature of our past, present and future.
Obedience is part of the new paradigm as I now perceive it.
But the Obedience is not to any other member in the body, but to the Head, Christ.
My apprenticeship as a child of a loving Father is with his son, my master, the Lord Jesus.
My area of service is everything in my life, family, friend, work, etc.
Everything in my life, family, friend, work doesn't really belong to me, since I belong to the Lord Jesus.
(A slave owned nothing since he was owned, it all belonged to the Lord.)
AS a slave of Jesus my possessions are really his, therefore, as I take care of those things, I am taking care of God's stuff and Jesus's stuff.
A slave was considered an extension of the Master's Will. So I extend the Lord's will to everything I touch as I attempt to represent my Master.
My obedience doesn't have to be manifested by kissing the a** of some would be leader, but as I lovingly do what Jesus would do to all those around me.
There are times in the New Test. docs where the viewpoint is looking at the old master vs the new master.
There are times when a "father and his children" expresses the particular relationship, such as the chastening spoken of in the book of Hebrews
There are other analogies that hilite other aspects of our new lives.
For what it's worth,
DB
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TrustAndObey
Does not your Heavenly Father consider you more than a slave? Do you consider you own kids your slaves? How much more shall your Father in Heaven love and care for you and treat you not as a slave but as His own son.
1 Cor 3:21 "Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are your's; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are your's; And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's."
While we may "serve" God, and follow Him, He has given us all things that we might glorify Him in all that we do since we are ultimately His.
I do not believe God controls anyone, else we are nothing but robots made to amuse some creator. That is different than surrendering to God. God points us in the direction he would have us to go, but it is up to us to follow and in that, we surrender our own direction for His.
"Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not the things which I say?"
So the question is have we made Him our Lord, or just our Friend?
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Watered Garden
There is a passage in the OT that I really don't have time to look up. A person could only be a slave for 7 years, then he had to be freed. If he loved his master and didn't want to go, but preferred to serve him all the days of his life, he was branded and his ear was pierced, wherein he wore an earring with the insignia of his master. In the Greek the word for this is "doulos." It is a slave because of love, not of bondage.
WG
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Darrell Bailey
Hi Watered Garden, and all others who are part of this thread whether posters or viewers.
I do not want to give the impression that I am promoting bondage or legalism when I speak of being a slave to our Lord Jesus.
When I speak of everything I have belonging to my Lord not me, I say it with Love and Joy.
My family, my work, are no less dear to me when I actively consider myself as a servant of the Lord.
In fact, this re-visioning of "ministry" to my family and work and friends allows me to fulfill the desire that guided me the seven years I spent in twi, serving God.
I now believe that as I learn more about serving and taking care of those in my immediate world, I am learning to serve God and the Lord Jesus, and "doing his will".
I think that many times in twi we were sidetracked into abstract areas of service, often in the form of "obeying" every whim of the "leadership".
--
I know that there are sections of New Testament scripture that use sonship imagery that seems to contradict servant/lord thinking.
In my experience, I felt more bondage while in the way, even as we talked about Sonship Rights.
I believe that twi (as well as many other organizations) fell into phariseeism & or legalism.
I felt constant pressure to do everything right.
And instead of learning better ways of serving, I just got handed more and more detail in what was supposed to happen.
(Maybe it was my failure to get "it", but I did not get much insight into how to serve better)
I think that the branded slave teaching (that was the name of the tape vpw taught in the 70's) got informally or in practice placed into the realm of "spiritual" believers (such as the Way Corps was alleged to produce).
Super-believers who loved the Lord Jesus (as we were supposed to be n the process of becoming, partly by emulating elders in the word) could call themselves "doulos". It practically came with your name tag.
But I think that twi was wrong.
In new testament times, doulos and kurios refer to slaves and lords, and not necessarily doulos who serve by love.
The new thing I discovered a few years ago was that Jesus purchased all those who had been in bondage. He is Lord over all the believers, regardless of how much they have learned about loving him.
And the very fact of his Lordship helps to reverse the results of the previous lordship of sin.
Jesus did not purchase "free" people. He redeemed his people (peculiar people= purchased people) who had been enslaved already.
As my new Lord and Master, Jesus is retraining me in how to treat all those that I meet. Teaching me how to bless those who curse me, how love those who don't love me.
So in this balance between the reference to me as a son, and as a slave, God my Father is using my apprenticeship to the Master Jesus to grow me up.
The teaching I heard in the way identified my old man nature as the source for sin (living through my unrenewed mind), even after I was born again.
My new understanding is that I only have one nature, my new one, but the training I received as a slave to sin in the past can sometimes guide my life.
Habits, skills, addictions of the old man were conformed to the old Lord.
Replacing the old habits with new actions inspired by my New Master will result in the retraining I need.
TWI doctrine as I understood it, stated that we as believers had two natures and struggle between two natures was inevitable.
I believe that a fresh, comprehensive apprehension of the Lordship of Jesus would allow all of us to learn how to live for God, right where we are, with Jesus himself teaching us, (we don't have to atttain to be super-believers as the result of some man-made artificial apprenticeship)
As Lord, Jesus wants to take us from carnal to spiritual.
Flesh does fight against spirit, but no greek words in the NT support the dual-NATURE theology.
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God Bless us every one :)
DB
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waysider
I, too, remember hearing that explanation of doulos.
(ie; the 7 years, earring, etc.)
Doing a very quick check here, I see that duolos does not seem to appear at all in the OT.
It is used predominantly in the Gospels.
I find myself wondering if, perhaps, that teaching about "free slaves" didn't originate in some of the Orientalisms material.
It might be interesting to see if that description is indeed accurate or has any application to the body of Christ in this day and time.
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Darrell Bailey
I don't have my copy of the septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew old Test) handy, or my concordance of it, but I do think doulos may be used in the septuagint for the branded slave.
But the usage in the New Testament world to Jews and Gentiles would not have carried the same terms of the service.
Doulos, diakonos, leiturgos, therapou, all these are diferent words for service in greek. But in the ancient greek cultures slavery most of the time is doulos and it is not a voluntary after 7 years legislation.
Gentile people reading the gospels or the epistles in 100 ad would not necessarily have the Hebrew background (Deut 15:17) to draw from in thinking doulos.
The Hebrews had these safeguards about slavery (7 years or year of jubilee) because they were respecting the Lord who had delivered them from bondage (Passover and all that Cecil B. Demille spectacular stuff).
So I think there are some differences between the branded slave of early Israel and the service we are in to our Lord Jesus.
(The groaning of the children of Israel closely typifies the bondage of the human race, as well as all creation (see Romans "8") and our Deliverance by Christ who is our passover)
BUT, it is thrilling to think that maybe the 7 years (7 = sabbath, perfection, Lord of the Sabbath, etc) is symbolic of the service we fulfill in this life, and after our Lord returns, being totally freed, we now serve him out of pure love, carrying his mark and brand!
God Bless us every one :)
DB
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brideofjc
You won't find "doulos" in the OT because it is a Greek word. You will have to look in the LXX if you want to find
that particular Greek word. Blessings.
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