. . . . . . But if you base your life on the word of God, and you even make major decisions based on prayer and the word of God, and time and time again your prayers get answered and you escape negative situations, and you're blessed and peaceful, then it's not gambling, is it? I don't feel lucky, I feel like God, who created heaven and earth, actually cares about me. That's as safe as it gets. You have direct access to that same God.
Well, then Jesus was a great failure, because He prayed with great drops of blood as sweat....and His cup didn't pass. Paul, who basically carried out the second half of Jesus ministry.....did not have his thorn in the flesh removed....and along with the other apostles was beaten and imprisoned time and again. With the exception of John....who was not sent to Club Med, the Apostles were martyred. Peter died a horrible death, we believe after watching his wife suffer a similar fate. You are going to be hard pressed not to find persecution, violence, or suffering, from creation on in scripture.
The only person who was called upright and perfect before God...Job, went through a horrible trial of human suffering. He didn't do anything wrong....and you know what? He never found out why.
Escaping "negative" situations is not what gives us peace. In fact, we are promised persecution and suffering for His namesake.....that is one of the promises of God. The peace that is promised us....stems from a relationship with Jesus Christ. It is about our safety in Him...not this life. According to scripture....God has a pretty poor track record of keeping people safe in this life. Jesus presents us blameless and spotless before God...not this world.
The devil knows scripture.....and is more orthodox in his understanding than we were in TWI...he has a relationship with Jesus Christ. He even believes.....he believes Jesus is exactly who he says he is.....he knows it. It doesn't mean he welcomes God's plan
The promise of God in scripture is that His plan of redemption will be fulfilled and no opposition will stand against it...not the devil, not any governments or ruling body......that does not mean that everyone is going to welcome it. There will be opposition....there always has been from the very beginning. Nothing can separate his children from His love, but that doesn't mean we will not suffer, tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
"For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." Why is it speaking of being killed all day long? Even though these things may happen, and they do happen to Christians.....they don't separate us from the love of God.
If our peace and our safety is dependent on our believing or our prayer, or our reading of scripture....we are already lost. We are most men miserable if in this life only we have hope in Christ. What do you think that means? They were suffering, but knew, it was not about their best life now.
Not an easy sell right?
But, there is something infinitely greater that we do have to share. Jesus Christ. A person, not a set of principles for victorious living....and a promise worth losing your life to find it.
John 16:33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. Buttake heart; I have overcome the world.
There is a difference between gambling and risk taking. No area of life is without some risk. Tangible safety? Another oxymoron. But if you base your life on the word of God, and you even make major decisions based on prayer and the word of God, and time and time again your prayers get answered and you escape negative situations, and you're blessed and peaceful, then it's not gambling, is it? I don't feel lucky, I feel like God, who created heaven and earth, actually cares about me. That's as safe as it gets. You have direct access to that same God.
And what of all those hitchhiking corps people that got robbed or raped? Are we to assume God didn't care about them?
What about the people on the LEAD thread? Are we to assume God didn't care about them?
What of the WOWs that were ordered to go into dangerous ares in their assigned cities and had negative things happen to them?
What of people that don't get their prayers answered?
AS someone said earlier, you got lucky, you came out ahead, a lot of people didn't. The Way had an expression, natural people, and that's basically their way of looking at the world. For the natural person, "I'm Okay," really means: "Screw you, Jack, I got mine."
For those of you following along from home, a popular question that started on page 1 is
"a safe harbor? For who?" (All right, that's 2 questions, but they're related.)
The answer on page 1 was "yes", but we've been trying to get an answer as to what the heck
was meant by that. After all, some people's lives were ruined, some people died as a result
of twi...
I never said anything about tangible safety. Years ago I worked at a restaurant. They hired a woman. She was in her mid 20s. She had 3 kids, all under 5. She lost custody of them because of her lifestyle. She was always saying, "life is a gamble". Over and over again she would say that. Our restaurant was high volume, so they kept her at the easy stations like drinks, back cash, dining room, etc. She got frustrated and quit. Two weeks later she was shot to death trying to make a drug buy. Life's a gamble, indeed.
So, supposedly, twi was "a safe harbor." But not in the sense the rest of us would consider
"a safe harbor". We'd think of a location of some type where one could rest, secure that one
was free of danger found outside the "safe harbor." For a ship's captain, that would mean outracing
storms to a port where he could land his ship and know the storms could not affect it.
For a traveler, that would mean a place to sleep and recover from traveling, confident he
could do so without risks of harm interrupting his sleep and time there. (Once he left might be
another story, but in a "safe harbor" he was secure.
So, twi was not a "safe harbor" from physical safety. We knew people were hurt or killed in it.
The explanation of what was meant (finally) doesn't shy from that, either.
twi is PHYSICALLY about as secure as anyplace else. Other places, someone may engage in dangerous
and sinful behavior ("trying to make a drug buy"), and be shot and killed instantly.
twi is PHYSICALLY as safe as people engaging in dangerous and sinful behavior.
That should be a warning sign to those who think of twi as a Christian organization and think
those should offer some degree of physical safety, at least when on grounds or during meetings.
There is a difference between gambling and risk taking. No area of life is without some risk. Tangible safety? Another oxymoron.
So, supposedly, there is no such thing as "tangible safety" ANYWHERE.
Personally, I think that's lowering one's standards.
Many people have secure homes where one can live or visit and feel completely safe,
and hotels and inns base their reputations and business on tangible safety
on their grounds, and so on.
But if you base your life on the word of God, and you even make major decisions based on prayer and the word of God, and time and time again your prayers get answered and you escape negative situations, and you're blessed and peaceful, then it's not gambling, is it? I don't feel lucky, I feel like God, who created heaven and earth, actually cares about me. That's as safe as it gets. You have direct access to that same God.
And what of all those hitchhiking corps people that got robbed or raped? Are we to assume God didn't care about them?
What about the people on the LEAD thread? Are we to assume God didn't care about them?
What of the WOWs that were ordered to go into dangerous ares in their assigned cities and had negative things happen to them?
What of people that don't get their prayers answered?
AS someone said earlier, you got lucky, you came out ahead, a lot of people didn't. The Way had an expression, natural people, and that's basically their way of looking at the world. For the natural person, "I'm Okay," really means: "Screw you, Jack, I got mine."
SoCrates
Well, then Jesus was a great failure, because He prayed with great drops of blood as sweat....and His cup didn't pass. Paul, who basically carried out the second half of Jesus ministry.....did not have his thorn in the flesh removed....and along with the other apostles was beaten and imprisoned time and again. With the exception of John....who was not sent to Club Med, the Apostles were martyred. Peter died a horrible death, we believe after watching his wife suffer a similar fate. You are going to be hard pressed not to find persecution, violence, or suffering, from creation on in scripture.
The only person who was called upright and perfect before God...Job, went through a horrible trial of human suffering. He didn't do anything wrong....and you know what? He never found out why.
Escaping "negative" situations is not what gives us peace. In fact, we are promised persecution and suffering for His namesake.....that is one of the promises of God. The peace that is promised us....stems from a relationship with Jesus Christ. It is about our safety in Him...not this life. According to scripture....God has a pretty poor track record of keeping people safe in this life. Jesus presents us blameless and spotless before God...not this world.
The devil knows scripture.....and is more orthodox in his understanding than we were in TWI...he has a relationship with Jesus Christ. He even believes.....he believes Jesus is exactly who he says he is.....he knows it. It doesn't mean he welcomes God's plan
The promise of God in scripture is that His plan of redemption will be fulfilled and no opposition will stand against it...not the devil, not any governments or ruling body......that does not mean that everyone is going to welcome it. There will be opposition....there always has been from the very beginning. Nothing can separate his children from His love, but that doesn't mean we will not suffer, tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
"For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." Why is it speaking of being killed all day long? Even though these things may happen, and they do happen to Christians.....they don't separate us from the love of God.
If our peace and our safety is dependent on our believing or our prayer, or our reading of scripture....we are already lost. We are most men miserable if in this life only we have hope in Christ. What do you think that means? They were suffering, but knew, it was not about their best life now.
Not an easy sell right?
But, there is something infinitely greater that we do have to share. Jesus Christ. A person, not a set of principles for victorious living....and a promise worth losing your life to find it.
John 16:33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. Buttake heart; I have overcome the world.
So, so far, twi's "safe harbor" offers no PHYSICAL safety (took 20 pages to get there),
and the only "safety" twi offers is a promise that prayers will result CONSISTENTLY
in deliverance (which, as the rest of us know, contradicts Scripture, since praying men
like Jesus, Paul, Peter etc prayed earnestly and did not escape physical peril nor
execution.
The only "safety" we've seen that holds up is FEELING SECURE, a "good feeling."
vpw sneered at when ANYONE ELSE made claims of feeling good outside his organization,
saying there was NO DIFFERENCE between a "good feeling" among other Christians
vs lying on a Psychiatrist's couch. I'll agree this time with what he said-
there was NO DIFFERENCE between the "good feeling" and "safe FEELING" in twi
and that gotten from among the unbelievers in therapy.
Which, of course, means twi offers nothing to those who want something from GOD
that the CHRISTIANS are supposed to have,
except for platitudes that claim what others have and twi lacks
DOESN'T REALLY EXIST (like physical safety),
and that twi is still somehow superior to Christians who supposedly HAVE
physical safety because it doesn't teach the Trinity and teaches the dead
are dead.
If those are the only advantages, I'll take all the things twi lacks,
and deal with the doctrinal problems. I can sleep better among REAL Christians
even when I don't agree with them on every single issue.
(Then again, I didn't agree on every single issue even IN twi, and I don't
But like-minded is more 'intention' then agreeing on things.
Like mindedness was another one of those things designed to quell critical thinking.
(Sarcastic smiley here)
We're all members of the same body, doncha know, and we all need to be in alignment and harmony. A body can't want to go in 50 different directions at the same time. What would get accomplished? So, we all have to agree on every jot and tittle in the word, or at least the word taught by Saint Vic and Craigmeister.
(end sarcasm)
You see how that's used against you: One mind, One body, One Word, One Teacher. Scripture is of no private interpretation--let's not consider God's interpretation (he too is a private interpreter). The only resource is the ministry, so in this game the house always wins.
So, so far, twi's "safe harbor" offers no PHYSICAL safety (took 20 pages to get there)
well, finally. *we* know what it is NOT.
The victoid's *ministry* was NOT a place where accompanied or unaccompanied, married or unmarried young women were "safe", physically in herr victoid's presence.
Hitchhiking "believers" seemed to be offered no real level of divinely provided physical safety on the way to lead..
And no amount of physical safety could be accorded to the rank and file follower either. So nobody was physically "safe"?
well, some were "safer".. I'm thinking of the few pistol bearing thugs that happened to have the "reverend" appended to their name. Relatively safe. As long as they didn't start shooting each other at a SNS.. or corps meeting, while herr "doktor" drolled on for hours about the word "of".
So we've gotten over THAT little misunderstanding.
But if you base your life on the word of God, and you even make major decisions based on prayer and the word of God, and time and time again your prayers get answered and you escape negative situations, and you're blessed and peaceful, then it's not gambling,
Let's see: if I understand you clearly, in relationship to a safe harbor, your argument is:
If A and B and C, then D,E,F,G
Or:
If you
A: Base your life on the Word of God
B: Make decisions based on the word of God
C: Make decisions based on prayer
Then
D: Time and again prayers get answered
E: You escape negative situations
F: You feel blessed
G: You feel peaceful
Let's see how this works in a real life situation:
Those women (many were corps members, so they weren't spiritual featherweights) invited to Saint Vic's motorcoach:
Base their life on Word of God--check
Make major decisions based on prayer--check
Make major decisions based on the Word of God--check
Hmm. It doesn't add up, they didn't get their prayers answered (for Saint Vic to stop his abuse? To stop the madness?), they didn't escape negative situations (the motorcoach--and its dirty little secrets--kept rolling along), nor were they blessed and peaceful (how can you be when you've been raped?)
Now, just for craps and grins, lets do the same exercise with Saint Vic and his entourage:
Based their life on the word of God--no, they would never have gotten on the adultry merry-go-round
Made major decisions based on prayer--No, do I have to say it?
Made major decisions based on the word of God--no, adultry
Yet, their prayers were answered (money and sex), they escaped the negative outcome of their actions (no prison) and they constantly talked about how blessed they were and how peaceful they felt.
According to your definition, johniam, who was it a safe harbor for?
If Wierwille did realize Cliffe's alarming beliefs about God, man and Christ, he was knowingly exposing his Ohio congregation to possible great spiritual harm. If Wierwille did not realize Cliffe's non-Christian beliefs, he did not probe Cliffe on doctrinal matters or was theologically naive. In either case, Wierwille did adopt at least one key Cliffe teaching- that positive faith (which Wierwille termed "believing faith" in 1957 and "believing" beginning sometime after 1962) will yield health, happiness, prosperity and success while negative faith (fear) must result in failure, sadness and sickness because this is a law under which every human on earth lives. Wierwille's teaching and terminology closely mimic Cliffe's, as a comparison of their works indicates.(11)
While Cliffe heads each chapter of Let Go and Let God with a brief Bible verse he does not attempt to prove his teachings with Scripture. Wierwille, on the other hand, attempts to illustrate from Scripture his theory of "believing" thereby "Christianizing" this spiritist's ideas.(12) One thing is sure. Wierwille's source for his teaching on believing was neither the Holy Spirit nor the Word of God, but Albert Cliffe, who spiritually stood far outside the bounds of biblical Christianity.
Escaping "negative" situations is not what gives us peace. In fact, we are promised persecution and suffering for His namesake.....that is one of the promises of God.
You speak with forked tongue. Out of one side of your mouth you say that a true Christian should be getting persecuted and killed, but out of the other side of your mouth you say that TWI, who supposedly raped and killed and destroyed souls, is evil even though they did what YOU SAY should be happening in the lives of true Christians.
One of my favorite Hitchcock movies is 'Frenzy'. Good suspense. You know who the killer is maybe 20 minutes into the movie yet the suspense continues throughout. In one scene the killer says to a woman "you're my kind of woman" and then twists logic around and around and in less than 5 minutes he's entitled to kill her. And it all started with "you're my kind of woman".
That's precisely what you do when I post; you remove what I say from its context, thus freeing you up to assign any and all application of what I said that I never intended. That's likely how you worked the word, too.
A learned man brought to this century a fresh teaching-that Jesus came that believers would have a more abundant life. The teacher taught steps to victorious living, which yield happiness, sufficiency, success and health-all of which are God's will for mankind. Positive faith, he said, brings about happiness and victory, while negative faith results in nervousness, failure and sickness. These effects must result, for this is a law of life. A person can achieve any good thing if he believes strong enough in it. If he prays believing he is now receiving, results are assured. A human being must overcome his tendency to limit God by keeping God's power latent within. The teacher summed up his steps to victory-"let go and let God!"
The "Doctor" explains the source of his teachings:
"Many of the subjects I have given in my Bible class have been dictated to me by my loved ones long since passed on... (that is, dictated via "my psychic work." (1)
Although Victor Paul Wierwille would reject mediumship as his source of doctrine, he would unquestionably agree to the teachings listed above. In fact, Wierwille infers that Albert E. Cliffe, the author of these tenets, was once his mentor. Cliffe was one of those who "were guests of Dr. Wierwille's local congregation" during the 16 years as pastor when Wierwille "searched the Word of God for keys to victorious living."(2)
I guess when VPW was hauling all those books to the dump (That's what he said in PFAL.) he must have forgotten to dispose of his works by Albert Cliffe.
--------------------------------------
you say that TWI, who supposedly raped and killed and destroyed souls, is evil
------------------------------------------------
There is no "supposedly", John.
These things happened. Closing your eyes and ears to them does not make them go away.
then in mathematical terms.. if I survive past teen years, I must be doing pretty good..
OK, I think I follow you. 53 is the 17th prime, then 59, 61, and that means 67 would be the 20th...past teen years. Remember, 68 was VPs age at death. I've wondered about the significance of prime numbers off and on myself. One time I figured out every prime number from 0 to 1,000. I was expecting that after the number 100 that the number of prime numbers would drop off...that there would be less likelihood of numbers being only divisible by 1 and themselves...the higher the numbers got, but NO! There are 170 prime numbers between 0 and 1,000. There are 23 between 0 and 100, but 5 of those are in the first 10. After 10 all prime numbers must end in 1,3,7,or9.
As an asst mgr for a fast food chain in the 80s one of my duties was to take a huge sales reading and reconcile the numbers with sales projections for that date and day of the week. To do this I stuck the key in the manager register and hit 601 enter. Then for the next 5-10 minutes this huge tape of sales readings and statistics for the previous day would spit out of the register. Moot now that it's the digital age, but 601 happens to be a prime number. I wondered if that was why or part of why they chose that number. Who knows?
Not only did mr. wierwille not have a "ministry", whatever it was that he did have was not "his". It was cobbled together bits and fragments of works of various people, who were virtually off the radar screen, in a pre-internet time and place. I really don't think that part was coincidental.
Escaping "negative" situations is not what gives us peace. In fact, we are promised persecution and suffering for His namesake.....that is one of the promises of God.
You speak with forked tongue. Out of one side of your mouth you say that a true Christian should be getting persecuted and killed, but out of the other side of your mouth you say that TWI, who supposedly raped and killed and destroyed souls, is evil even though they did what YOU SAY should be happening in the lives of true Christians.
One of my favorite Hitchcock movies is 'Frenzy'. Good suspense. You know who the killer is maybe 20 minutes into the movie yet the suspense continues throughout. In one scene the killer says to a woman "you're my kind of woman" and then twists logic around and around and in less than 5 minutes he's entitled to kill her. And it all started with "you're my kind of woman".
That's precisely what you do when I post; you remove what I say from its context, thus freeing you up to assign any and all application of what I said that I never intended. That's likely how you worked the word, too.
No, that was actually JESUS who said in this world you WILL have tribulation and that was the Apostles who were beaten, imprisoned and died martyrs deaths. Along with countless others throughout history. Do you even read the scripture which is quoted? Do you know why the Apostles died the way they did? It was as a witness. For you.
There is a mammoth difference in being persecuted for ones faith and being abused by a man who uses God as an excuse and justification for sexual molestation and immorality. Johniam....this is some pretty frenzied logic even from you.
God's deliverance is from the kind of sin VP embraced....not avoiding persecution, suffering for His name sake or trials which help us grow in faith. Those trials God promises us as well....and also that he will deliver us in His way. . . . God's wisdom?
And....He not only tells us we will have tribulation...but we are to be happy when we have trials!!!
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
2 Timothy 3 12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evildoers and IMPOSTERS will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
BUT the Lord actually warns us about men like VP. Scripture tells us they are baaad men. Scripture warns us to avoid them. They hurt people. They prey on the weak and untrained.....they satisfy their own lusts. Go read it for yourself. It is all over the epistles.
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Broken Arrow
I
WordWolf
Have I mentioned lately that I'm actually getting quite a bit out of this thread? I don't just mean in a sense of psychology/sociology/criminology, but in a sense of Christian learning. The whole p
T-Bone
morals are man-made? Really?!?! please provide some documentation to back up that philosophical assertion. personally i lean toward the christian idea [that does have a biblical basis] that man is m
cman
evasive tactics with words that sound good but empty of life
what is 'the word of god'
why escape negative situations rather then face them
hiding behind words that do not mean much
you are in the pfal ditch
you don't have to think
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waysider
So, then, why should anyone knowingly put their life in a situation that has proven to be dangerous----like The Way?
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Ham
so how was da way safe, and a harbor, or haven?
If its the presence of God.. I have a better reference from psalms.
Psalms 139:8 b.
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geisha779
Well, then Jesus was a great failure, because He prayed with great drops of blood as sweat....and His cup didn't pass. Paul, who basically carried out the second half of Jesus ministry.....did not have his thorn in the flesh removed....and along with the other apostles was beaten and imprisoned time and again. With the exception of John....who was not sent to Club Med, the Apostles were martyred. Peter died a horrible death, we believe after watching his wife suffer a similar fate. You are going to be hard pressed not to find persecution, violence, or suffering, from creation on in scripture.
The only person who was called upright and perfect before God...Job, went through a horrible trial of human suffering. He didn't do anything wrong....and you know what? He never found out why.
Escaping "negative" situations is not what gives us peace. In fact, we are promised persecution and suffering for His namesake.....that is one of the promises of God. The peace that is promised us....stems from a relationship with Jesus Christ. It is about our safety in Him...not this life. According to scripture....God has a pretty poor track record of keeping people safe in this life. Jesus presents us blameless and spotless before God...not this world.
The devil knows scripture.....and is more orthodox in his understanding than we were in TWI...he has a relationship with Jesus Christ. He even believes.....he believes Jesus is exactly who he says he is.....he knows it. It doesn't mean he welcomes God's plan
The promise of God in scripture is that His plan of redemption will be fulfilled and no opposition will stand against it...not the devil, not any governments or ruling body......that does not mean that everyone is going to welcome it. There will be opposition....there always has been from the very beginning. Nothing can separate his children from His love, but that doesn't mean we will not suffer, tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
"For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." Why is it speaking of being killed all day long? Even though these things may happen, and they do happen to Christians.....they don't separate us from the love of God.
If our peace and our safety is dependent on our believing or our prayer, or our reading of scripture....we are already lost. We are most men miserable if in this life only we have hope in Christ. What do you think that means? They were suffering, but knew, it was not about their best life now.
Not an easy sell right?
But, there is something infinitely greater that we do have to share. Jesus Christ. A person, not a set of principles for victorious living....and a promise worth losing your life to find it.
John 16:33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
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So_crates
And what of all those hitchhiking corps people that got robbed or raped? Are we to assume God didn't care about them?
What about the people on the LEAD thread? Are we to assume God didn't care about them?
What of the WOWs that were ordered to go into dangerous ares in their assigned cities and had negative things happen to them?
What of people that don't get their prayers answered?
AS someone said earlier, you got lucky, you came out ahead, a lot of people didn't. The Way had an expression, natural people, and that's basically their way of looking at the world. For the natural person, "I'm Okay," really means: "Screw you, Jack, I got mine."
SoCrates
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WordWolf
For those of you following along from home, a popular question that started on page 1 is
"a safe harbor? For who?" (All right, that's 2 questions, but they're related.)
The answer on page 1 was "yes", but we've been trying to get an answer as to what the heck
was meant by that. After all, some people's lives were ruined, some people died as a result
of twi...
So, supposedly, twi was "a safe harbor." But not in the sense the rest of us would consider
"a safe harbor". We'd think of a location of some type where one could rest, secure that one
was free of danger found outside the "safe harbor." For a ship's captain, that would mean outracing
storms to a port where he could land his ship and know the storms could not affect it.
For a traveler, that would mean a place to sleep and recover from traveling, confident he
could do so without risks of harm interrupting his sleep and time there. (Once he left might be
another story, but in a "safe harbor" he was secure.
So, twi was not a "safe harbor" from physical safety. We knew people were hurt or killed in it.
The explanation of what was meant (finally) doesn't shy from that, either.
twi is PHYSICALLY about as secure as anyplace else. Other places, someone may engage in dangerous
and sinful behavior ("trying to make a drug buy"), and be shot and killed instantly.
twi is PHYSICALLY as safe as people engaging in dangerous and sinful behavior.
That should be a warning sign to those who think of twi as a Christian organization and think
those should offer some degree of physical safety, at least when on grounds or during meetings.
So, supposedly, there is no such thing as "tangible safety" ANYWHERE.
Personally, I think that's lowering one's standards.
Many people have secure homes where one can live or visit and feel completely safe,
and hotels and inns base their reputations and business on tangible safety
on their grounds, and so on.
So, so far, twi's "safe harbor" offers no PHYSICAL safety (took 20 pages to get there),
and the only "safety" twi offers is a promise that prayers will result CONSISTENTLY
in deliverance (which, as the rest of us know, contradicts Scripture, since praying men
like Jesus, Paul, Peter etc prayed earnestly and did not escape physical peril nor
execution.
The only "safety" we've seen that holds up is FEELING SECURE, a "good feeling."
vpw sneered at when ANYONE ELSE made claims of feeling good outside his organization,
saying there was NO DIFFERENCE between a "good feeling" among other Christians
vs lying on a Psychiatrist's couch. I'll agree this time with what he said-
there was NO DIFFERENCE between the "good feeling" and "safe FEELING" in twi
and that gotten from among the unbelievers in therapy.
Which, of course, means twi offers nothing to those who want something from GOD
that the CHRISTIANS are supposed to have,
except for platitudes that claim what others have and twi lacks
DOESN'T REALLY EXIST (like physical safety),
and that twi is still somehow superior to Christians who supposedly HAVE
physical safety because it doesn't teach the Trinity and teaches the dead
are dead.
If those are the only advantages, I'll take all the things twi lacks,
and deal with the doctrinal problems. I can sleep better among REAL Christians
even when I don't agree with them on every single issue.
(Then again, I didn't agree on every single issue even IN twi, and I don't
see that happening until Jesus returns.)
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cman
On a side note, I don't think we were meant to agree on everything anyway.
There is just so many variables and perspectives to see.
I do think that most cross paths at times.
But like-minded is more 'intention' then agreeing on things.
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So_crates
Like mindedness was another one of those things designed to quell critical thinking.
(Sarcastic smiley here)
We're all members of the same body, doncha know, and we all need to be in alignment and harmony. A body can't want to go in 50 different directions at the same time. What would get accomplished? So, we all have to agree on every jot and tittle in the word, or at least the word taught by Saint Vic and Craigmeister.
(end sarcasm)
You see how that's used against you: One mind, One body, One Word, One Teacher. Scripture is of no private interpretation--let's not consider God's interpretation (he too is a private interpreter). The only resource is the ministry, so in this game the house always wins.
SoCrates
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Ham
well, finally. *we* know what it is NOT.
The victoid's *ministry* was NOT a place where accompanied or unaccompanied, married or unmarried young women were "safe", physically in herr victoid's presence.
Hitchhiking "believers" seemed to be offered no real level of divinely provided physical safety on the way to lead..
And no amount of physical safety could be accorded to the rank and file follower either. So nobody was physically "safe"?
well, some were "safer".. I'm thinking of the few pistol bearing thugs that happened to have the "reverend" appended to their name. Relatively safe. As long as they didn't start shooting each other at a SNS.. or corps meeting, while herr "doktor" drolled on for hours about the word "of".
So we've gotten over THAT little misunderstanding.
So if that's not it.. what is it?
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So_crates
Johniam said in post #401 of this thread:
Let's see: if I understand you clearly, in relationship to a safe harbor, your argument is:
If A and B and C, then D,E,F,G
Or:
If you
A: Base your life on the Word of God
B: Make decisions based on the word of God
C: Make decisions based on prayer
Then
D: Time and again prayers get answered
E: You escape negative situations
F: You feel blessed
G: You feel peaceful
Let's see how this works in a real life situation:
Those women (many were corps members, so they weren't spiritual featherweights) invited to Saint Vic's motorcoach:
Base their life on Word of God--check
Make major decisions based on prayer--check
Make major decisions based on the Word of God--check
Hmm. It doesn't add up, they didn't get their prayers answered (for Saint Vic to stop his abuse? To stop the madness?), they didn't escape negative situations (the motorcoach--and its dirty little secrets--kept rolling along), nor were they blessed and peaceful (how can you be when you've been raped?)
Now, just for craps and grins, lets do the same exercise with Saint Vic and his entourage:
Based their life on the word of God--no, they would never have gotten on the adultry merry-go-round
Made major decisions based on prayer--No, do I have to say it?
Made major decisions based on the word of God--no, adultry
Yet, their prayers were answered (money and sex), they escaped the negative outcome of their actions (no prison) and they constantly talked about how blessed they were and how peaceful they felt.
According to your definition, johniam, who was it a safe harbor for?
SoCrates
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Ham
maybe the real question here..
which camp are you really in?
It's nice to be with the "in" crowd.
with great risk that this will turn "political"..
if one has the remote possibility of being a liability..
well, you're not "in".
and now.. you are what. fifty five, fifty six, or is that fifty seven..
old age and poverty looms on the horizon..
in *way* terms, what are you worth..
where is all the love now..
...
I'm really not trying to break your "faith"..
see.. I have the same "faith".
will there be room for me..
well.. somewhere. It just might not be the place that would be described as my first choice..
I'm in my sixteenth prime. What about you?
five more years, and I I will be in my 17th prime.
some mathematicians count the years of their birth in primes. Otherwise, it might be quite a larger number..
then in mathematical terms.. if I survive past teen years, I must be doing pretty good..
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Ham
to the non(?) mathematicians..
I don't believe that. You are all mathematicians. Maybe you just don't know it yet..
I was 2 years old, then 3, then 5, 7, 11, 13, 19..
the number have no even divisor.
53 is a big deal. the next time a prime comes is.. 59.
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waysider
If Wierwille did realize Cliffe's alarming beliefs about God, man and Christ, he was knowingly exposing his Ohio congregation to possible great spiritual harm. If Wierwille did not realize Cliffe's non-Christian beliefs, he did not probe Cliffe on doctrinal matters or was theologically naive. In either case, Wierwille did adopt at least one key Cliffe teaching- that positive faith (which Wierwille termed "believing faith" in 1957 and "believing" beginning sometime after 1962) will yield health, happiness, prosperity and success while negative faith (fear) must result in failure, sadness and sickness because this is a law under which every human on earth lives. Wierwille's teaching and terminology closely mimic Cliffe's, as a comparison of their works indicates.(11)
While Cliffe heads each chapter of Let Go and Let God with a brief Bible verse he does not attempt to prove his teachings with Scripture. Wierwille, on the other hand, attempts to illustrate from Scripture his theory of "believing" thereby "Christianizing" this spiritist's ideas.(12) One thing is sure. Wierwille's source for his teaching on believing was neither the Holy Spirit nor the Word of God, but Albert Cliffe, who spiritually stood far outside the bounds of biblical Christianity.
SOURCE
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johniam
quote:
Escaping "negative" situations is not what gives us peace. In fact, we are promised persecution and suffering for His namesake.....that is one of the promises of God.
You speak with forked tongue. Out of one side of your mouth you say that a true Christian should be getting persecuted and killed, but out of the other side of your mouth you say that TWI, who supposedly raped and killed and destroyed souls, is evil even though they did what YOU SAY should be happening in the lives of true Christians.
One of my favorite Hitchcock movies is 'Frenzy'. Good suspense. You know who the killer is maybe 20 minutes into the movie yet the suspense continues throughout. In one scene the killer says to a woman "you're my kind of woman" and then twists logic around and around and in less than 5 minutes he's entitled to kill her. And it all started with "you're my kind of woman".
That's precisely what you do when I post; you remove what I say from its context, thus freeing you up to assign any and all application of what I said that I never intended. That's likely how you worked the word, too.
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waysider
A learned man brought to this century a fresh teaching-that Jesus came that believers would have a more abundant life. The teacher taught steps to victorious living, which yield happiness, sufficiency, success and health-all of which are God's will for mankind. Positive faith, he said, brings about happiness and victory, while negative faith results in nervousness, failure and sickness. These effects must result, for this is a law of life. A person can achieve any good thing if he believes strong enough in it. If he prays believing he is now receiving, results are assured. A human being must overcome his tendency to limit God by keeping God's power latent within. The teacher summed up his steps to victory-"let go and let God!"
The "Doctor" explains the source of his teachings:
"Many of the subjects I have given in my Bible class have been dictated to me by my loved ones long since passed on... (that is, dictated via "my psychic work." (1)
Although Victor Paul Wierwille would reject mediumship as his source of doctrine, he would unquestionably agree to the teachings listed above. In fact, Wierwille infers that Albert E. Cliffe, the author of these tenets, was once his mentor. Cliffe was one of those who "were guests of Dr. Wierwille's local congregation" during the 16 years as pastor when Wierwille "searched the Word of God for keys to victorious living."(2)
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Ham
who is speaking with forked tongue? You offer a shelter from the storm, on one hand. A "safe' PLACE. a safe harbor.. a safe haven.
then what is it?
the safeness seems to evaporate, the moment it is challenged..
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waysider
I guess when VPW was hauling all those books to the dump (That's what he said in PFAL.) he must have forgotten to dispose of his works by Albert Cliffe.
--------------------------------------
you say that TWI, who supposedly raped and killed and destroyed souls, is evil
------------------------------------------------
There is no "supposedly", John.
These things happened. Closing your eyes and ears to them does not make them go away.
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Ham
I would love safeness here..
honestly.. if we are going to have it (safeness and all) let's HAVE it.
if not.. fine. You go your way, I'll go mine.
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johniam
quote:
then in mathematical terms.. if I survive past teen years, I must be doing pretty good..
OK, I think I follow you. 53 is the 17th prime, then 59, 61, and that means 67 would be the 20th...past teen years. Remember, 68 was VPs age at death. I've wondered about the significance of prime numbers off and on myself. One time I figured out every prime number from 0 to 1,000. I was expecting that after the number 100 that the number of prime numbers would drop off...that there would be less likelihood of numbers being only divisible by 1 and themselves...the higher the numbers got, but NO! There are 170 prime numbers between 0 and 1,000. There are 23 between 0 and 100, but 5 of those are in the first 10. After 10 all prime numbers must end in 1,3,7,or9.
As an asst mgr for a fast food chain in the 80s one of my duties was to take a huge sales reading and reconcile the numbers with sales projections for that date and day of the week. To do this I stuck the key in the manager register and hit 601 enter. Then for the next 5-10 minutes this huge tape of sales readings and statistics for the previous day would spit out of the register. Moot now that it's the digital age, but 601 happens to be a prime number. I wondered if that was why or part of why they chose that number. Who knows?
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waysider
Not only did mr. wierwille not have a "ministry", whatever it was that he did have was not "his". It was cobbled together bits and fragments of works of various people, who were virtually off the radar screen, in a pre-internet time and place. I really don't think that part was coincidental.
Was it a "safe haven"?
Yes------if you happened to be VP Wierwille.
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Ham
so where is the safeness here? what is it? I'd really like to know..
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waysider
Perhaps a brief musical interlude will shed some light on the matter.
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geisha779
No, that was actually JESUS who said in this world you WILL have tribulation and that was the Apostles who were beaten, imprisoned and died martyrs deaths. Along with countless others throughout history. Do you even read the scripture which is quoted? Do you know why the Apostles died the way they did? It was as a witness. For you.
There is a mammoth difference in being persecuted for ones faith and being abused by a man who uses God as an excuse and justification for sexual molestation and immorality. Johniam....this is some pretty frenzied logic even from you.
God's deliverance is from the kind of sin VP embraced....not avoiding persecution, suffering for His name sake or trials which help us grow in faith. Those trials God promises us as well....and also that he will deliver us in His way. . . . God's wisdom?
And....He not only tells us we will have tribulation...but we are to be happy when we have trials!!!
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
2 Timothy 3 12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evildoers and IMPOSTERS will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
BUT the Lord actually warns us about men like VP. Scripture tells us they are baaad men. Scripture warns us to avoid them. They hurt people. They prey on the weak and untrained.....they satisfy their own lusts. Go read it for yourself. It is all over the epistles.
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waysider
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