"A prophet is a difficult man to live with"

[Grace Valerie Claire]

On 2/10/2011 at 9:20 AM, So_crates said:

Not necessarily smart and deliberate, just an opportunist.

SoCrates

SOC, a major opportunist, IMO. He didn't care who he hurt, as long as he got what he wanted.

[chockfull]

Um yeah.  So is an alcoholic, a serial adulterer, and a narcissist.

All seperately.

Little less all rolled together into one dysfunctional personality.

Somehow the "prophet" part of it looking back probably wasn't the problem.  Other than to logically say the delusional vision probably was tied in to the other dysfunction.

[Twinky]

Interesting old thread this.  Pity it deteriorated.  I really did want some answers, about whether we'd recognize any "gift ministries."

 

But thinking about it: Is a prophet a difficult person to live with, really?  Sure, on occasions they might speak out with boldness and p1$$ off a lot of "authorities."

But let's think.  Jesus... one who always spoke out for God.  A prophet, therefore.  Had loads of buddies who hung around with him.  Males as well as females.  They wouldn't have done that if he were difficult to be around.

Paul, the apostle Paul: one who after his dramatic meeting with Jesus on the road to Damascus, again always spoke out for God.  A prophet, therefore.  Travelled all the Med area with a faithful band of followers (only males mentioned, doesn't exclude there being women followers).  Was welcomed into the houses of those to whom he spoke.  They wouldn't have done that if he were difficult to be around.  Visited some people, or groups of people, many times.

I'm sure that in both OT and NT times, there were those who might have been deemed prophets and, just like anyone else, some were easy to get on with, and some were less so.  If you attend a decent church, you might find that some clergy are easier to be around than others.

 

I think that this saying by the (in)famous wannabe prophet VPW was just his excuse for his failure to address his genuine lack of people-skills.  He didn't want to put the effort into "pastoring" them, but did want to terrify people by "confronting" them.  Thus, he says that prophets are hard people to live with - and supplies his own excuse for being obnoxious and manipulative.

[Twinky]

Original post.  Your starter for 10:

On 07/02/2011 at 0:47 AM, Twinky said:

Don't I remember VP saying this - must have been in PFAL? He was referring then to OT prophets.

Because the OT prophets spoke out boldly, upset the local hierarchies, and weren't afraid to be obnoxious and persecuted. In fact, that added to their integrity. Those guys really stood up for what they believed in!

Yep. VP fancied himself as a prophet (as well presumably, as The Teacher).

He sure had all them thar gift ministries - in abundance.

Apostle - brought us new light - showed us how to live the way the church hadn't lived since the first century.

Prophet - always speaking forth so boldly and taking a stand. All that persecution he suffered, just because of his bold stand.

Evangelist - and not just an evangelist, either, but the leader of a whole mass of evangelists (WOWs).

Pastor - he certainly showed some women how much he cared (gag).

Teacher - his self-chosen moniker.

Did he ever call himself a "prophet"?

Or just one who "speaks for and on behalf of God"?

And while we're about it - which of these might be applied to Lovely Loy? I guess he must have fancied himself as Teacher Mk II but I'm not sure if I ever heard him refer to his own "gift ministry".

And he certainly wasn't a gifted dancer. (Oh no no no, that's not a gift ministry anyway).

And Rosie? Has she the gift ministry of Teacher Mk III?

She was supposed to be "healing" wasn't she? So would that mean she had the GM of a Pastor?

Haven preserve us from this talentless lot.

I do mean this as a serious topic...but I can imagine it might very quickly turn into something else.

 

[Grace Valerie Claire]

On 2/12/2011 at 0:17 PM, WordWolf said:

We can all find at least ONE PERSON who espouses the most ridiculous bs.

Finding ONE PERSON who will bad-mouth Jim and actually met him is not a great accomplishment.

Trick question. IN HINDSIGHT, vpw obviously was self-serving.

AT THE TIME, vpw was a successful conman.

See, there's 2 types of conmen- the successful and the UNsuccessful.

The UNsuccessful are more "obviously self-serving."

They offer a product that does not convince people is legitimate.

Those conmen, in true Darwinian fashion, are caught, exposed, arrested,

imprisoned, and then things really go downhill for them.

SUCCESSFUL conmen like vpw are not "OBVIOUSLY self-serving."

They cover their greed with a disguise of altruism and good-will.

They offer a product that convinces people it's legitimate.

That's how they're able to con people in the first place.

vpw was this type of conman-otherwise, he would just have vanished into

history like dozens of "snake-oil salesmen" throughout history.

As a good-hearted man, Jim actually TRUSTED that people told him the

truth, especially when they claimed to care about God.

That's not what vpw said.

"The Way:Living in Love, pg-174.

"I always knew I wanted to help people. First, I thought I wanted to be a doctor, then a lawyer; but by my junior year in college, I had my heart set on the ministry."

Even vpw didn't say that about himself.

Mind you, even there, his story isn't consistent.

He had "Uncle Harry" claiming when vpw ditched doing his farm-chores that, just like Billy

Graham, he was practicing preaching by "preaching to the trees" despite admitting he never

actually SAW him do that.

When he was growing up, vpw had built a reputation locally as a bully and a show-off.

The Way:Living in Love, pg-177.

"After I met Rosalind Rinker in Indiana, I invited her to visit us in Payne, and

she came for a week that summer of 1942. Maybe it was August. I remember it was near

the end of summer, and she used to dog me on the Bible being the Word of God.

She talked to me about getting my own life in alignment and harmony with the Bible.

She was the one who had me make out lists of the good things I'd done, that was about

half a page, and all the bad things, that amounted to 10 or 12 pages. She was off on

that part, but the Bible as the Word of God, she really pushed that one. And I'd

never heard that in all my years of school-not believing it anyway."

vpw went to seminary school, and spent over a year as a minister, doing weekly sermons,

and THEN believed the Bible was the Word of God.

He didn't just act as an honest minister, then get up one morning and find a hot secretary

in his living room, buck nekkid, with a rose in her teeth.

He planned things, arranged things, and eventually succeeded in his plans to molest and rape

young women.

He worked it out pretty early. He went to San Francisco to meet the hippies and recruit them.

While there, he bought pornographic materials- you saw those in CFS.

While there, he tried to convince Jim D that ORGIES WERE FINE WITH GOD and tried to use the Bible

to say that. The bigger the public audience, the more moral he talked, but the more private the

conditions, the more he said his REAL thoughts- that God was ok with casual sex.

He told all the wows it wasn't fine. He told the more exclusive corps, sometimes, that it WAS.

And to a few people one-on-one, he actually said things like God was ok with ORGIES.

Jim, on the other hand, was clear God disapproved, and was glad to be delivered from things like

that, before vpw ever HEARD of him.

Explanations follow the most direct explanation. Jim D saw the materials from Leonard,

Stiles and Bullinger that vpw plagiarized (Kenyon as well), and that all looked legitimate-

because THEIR WORK was legitimate.

Truth at the pen of a plagiarist is still truth.

In the case of vpw, vpw used THEIR TRUTH to hide HIS sex obsessions.

No. Their one talk on the subject, vpw was pushing for Jim to tell him what ORGIES were like.

vpw said that God was cool with it and it was "AVAILABLE."

Jim DISAGREED, thanked God he was free of such things, and ended the conversation.

(vpw had made him uncomfortable by even ASKING about orgies.)]

"That's why moral superiority is a myth. We're all human. We all get tempted. We all screw things up. Moral superiority is merely a spiritual football."

You're able to imagine that a man vpw failed to corrupt might have been corrupted

by vpw, so you get to skip over all of morality? Sad, sad, sad.

Shameless how much of the Bible gets discarded, all to excuse an evil hypocrite's evil deeds

and moral deficiencies.

"So you say it's just not possible that a Christian ministry can have skeletons in its closet like that?"

NO.

We say it is a mockery of God for a supposed minister to do so evilly, and that such a man or woman

should be removed from office, exposed to his congregation, and subjected to the fullest prosecution

of criminal law. People sin, but for someone claiming to represent God to orchestrate things to

perform evil acts upon God's people is a whole different thing, and the Bible condemns such people

roundly. Some of them LOST THEIR LIVES for such.

"Look at all the denominations. They are part of the body of Christ, yet they believe Jesus is God, which is idolatry, and which is REQUIRED for membership in the National Council of Churches! This is not good, yet they are part of the body of Christ. People go to those churches and get saved, delivered from bondage, feel like they belong in the body of Christ, all that good stuff. It happens there, too."

[so, according to you, it's excusable for a minister to set up a love shack,

arrange for young parishioners to be sent there, drug them, then rape or molest

them,

but teaching the Trinity is to be thoroughly condemned.

Fascinating.]

"None of us is qualified to be a moral policeman or judge. We can say this is wrong, that is wrong, and slice it up as finely as we can, but to build this gigantic, bigger than life, superstructure, where VP is the epitome of evil? That's God's job. I'm not building a statue to VP. YOU'RE building a statue to moral superiority."

[if I ever see someone

"build this gigantic, bigger than life superstructure where vpw is the epitome of evil",

I'll probably warn them it's disproportionate to the degree of his evil deeds, and wrong.

The idea that anyone's doing this now is a convenient FICTION for you, but, hey,

it's not like your posts here have been concerned with things like "truth" and "reality"

so far, so this hardly comes as a surprise.

And one need not "build a statue" to someone to idolize them- one only need move them

from their proper place and make them a higher authority than Scripture.

Not like you're going to see the difference.]

WW,

[Grace Valerie Claire]

59 minutes ago, Twinky said:

Original post.  Your starter for 10:

 

Nuts!!  Excuse me!

[Grace Valerie Claire]

1 hour ago, Twinky said:

Original post.  Your starter for 10:

 

Twinky; your posts are always so polite; perhaps due to good breeding, or because you are English??  I think VPW was so full of Bunk; he could score a perfect 10 on the Bullsheet Meter.  Perhaps because I am an American, I am not nearly as polite as you. I think VPW BSed his way through life, his marriage, and TWI. I know this is some what off topic, please forgive me.  But it angers me that he hurt so many people, who still bear the scars, until they die.

[Bolshevik]

On 2/12/2011 at 9:43 AM, johniam said:

. . .

None of us is qualified to be a moral policeman or judge. We can say this is wrong, that is wrong, and slice it up as finely as we can, but to build this gigantic, bigger than life, superstructure, where VP is the epitome of evil? That's God's job. I'm not building a statue to VP. YOU'RE building a statue to moral superiority.

This is the big Xs and little xs from PFAL?