The Revenue Stream

[socks]

Sequestering ourselves out of and away from"the world" isn't what Paul did there, that's for sure. He in fact entered a more open environment than would have been in the synagogue because the synagogue would have had a different purpose as a center for religious life and worship. That's dfferent than the hall of Tyrannus.

Sequestering ourselves out and away from the world isn't a bad thing though simply because that's not what Paul did in Tyrannus. To some degree he had better control over his efforts there, and that allowed him and the group better focus without interference.

Paul himself did in fact step out of the Jewish world of the Sanhedrin after his "conversion", for approximately 13 to 15 years his exact activities aren't fully known. But by the time we see him in Jersualem and heading out he'd had time to get a lot of work done.

Not to argue but I don't see Greasespot as the same thing as the hall of Tyrannus, although there are probably some similarities. Paul's purpose in going there was to escape the negative malignments of the Jewish community he was involved with and eliminate outside interference so they could concentrate on what they wanted to do which was - well, it's safe to assume it dealt with a Christ focused study and discourse on the Mosaic Law, the new birth in Christ, etc. etc. and whatever other material and topics they wanted to work with.

Other things went on too, it wasn't just discussion and debate, there was outreach, inspired learning no doubt, healing and personal pastoring of people's needs, etc.

The purpose of GS is tell the "other side" of the story about a specific group and it's members - the Way. That's not the same thing, IMO. Some of the same things happen, at times and participants here get a lot out of the interaction and sharing. If I want to have an open and diversely populated discussion on a doctrinal issue though I don't want to have it informed by what the Way taught or it's influences in steering the discussion. All roads can't lead back to what the Way did or taught as right or wrong, etc. as validating the dicussion. But that sort of open discussion does happen here to some degree, at times, yes.

[skyrider]

Not to argue but I don't see Greasespot as the same thing as the hall of Tyrannus...

socks......forgive me, it was a poor attempt at humor. I've spent way too much time in twi's system of indoctrination and sounds like you got a good 10-year head start on me in gleaning some concise, logical, unbiased thinking.

Take care, my friend.

[skyrider]

All roads can't lead back to what the Way did or taught as right or wrong, etc. as validating the dicussion. But that sort of open discussion does happen here to some degree, at times, yes.

I wonder if Mike is reading this thread?

[JustThinking]

One night we went to fellowship (like we did every night ) and all the lights were off. We went in and candles were burning, linens draped over the tables, everyone sat around being really quiet.

The fellowship coordinator then told a story about how her son was just in a car accident. The car had hit snow bank or something, flew into the air, twisted on its side, went through a fork in a really big tree (in the air), then landed on its wheels. Everyone was okay.

She then said she had just given her tithe/ABS despite all good sense.

The moral of the story: ABS, you might just have a really cool car accident.

Or the truth might be that they were full time WC and could no longer "waste" TWI money on electricity.

[Bolshevik]

someone once figured out that at HQ, it takes $30 to change a light bulb. Because of the man hours and paperwork. Not including the cost of the light bulb. Now, if paperwork were to be mixed up . . .