Have you ever seen, heard of, read about anyone actually casting a mountain into the sea? I should think that should be your first clue that the verse is not meant to be interpreted literally.
cute pictures...but can you please just explain WHAT Jesus meant in Matthew 21:22 ????!!! Anyone ???!!! Before re-directing it to 'doctrinal' section ( which is where I can see it being swept to )...please give your 'interpretation' of it? was it a 'gospel' thing only, did he lie, delude, grand stand, seduce, with his statement. Is it an interpretational error...what ??!!
It's not as simple as it seems. Wierwille taught that "believing is a verb, and a verb connotes action." However, the verb translated "believing" in Matthew 21:22 is not exactly a verb in the same way Wierwille taught. It is a participle, a verb used as an adjective. It has to modify some other word in the sentence, probably the "you" (plural). There are a whole slew of ways participles can be translated from the Greek. In this case, I think it's a conditional participle, that is to say, it could best be translated as "if believing"
The "whatsoever" is an intensifier of the word "all" and could also be translated "as much as."
I think an accurate sense translation of Matthew 21:23 might be "and all, as much as you [plural] might have begged for by the instrument of prayer, if believing, you [plural] will receive."
The verb translated "shall ask" in the KJV is subjunctive in the Greek, but that's a whole nuther can of worms.
Lack of believing can prevent a prayer from being answered, but "believing" by itself cannot force God to answer a prayer.
Wierwille taught that there is a spirit realm and a senses realm, and that the laws of the spirit realm supersede the laws of the senses realm. By manipulating the laws of the spirit realm through "believing," we can produce results in the senses realm. That was hogwash. The Bible teaches a unitary, not a dual cosmos. We can, through the use of our minds, influence the physical processes occurring within our own bodies, but there is nothing, NOTHING, in our minds that can reach out beyond our bodies and alter physical reality. Only the verbal and practical expressions of our minds can do that. Signs, miracles and wonders are apparent violations of the laws of nature, but they aren't in the view of quantum mechanics. They are merely events that are highly improbable, but not impossible as Newtonian mechanics would have it.
All of the POWER... ALL of it... is in God's WILL to bring his Word to pass. There is no POWER in believing.
In the BBC television series Dr. Who, the main character is known to default to use of a devise called a Sonic Screwdriver. It can be called upon to do all sorts of amazing feats. Need to pick a lock?--- Sonic Screwdriver. Need to disarm a robotic devise?--- Sonic screwdriver. Need to conduct a medical scan?--- Sonic Screwdriver. Oh, and you can use it to loosen and tighten screws, too. Who knew?
The *law of believing* was The Way's version of the Sonic Screwdriver. It's not surprising that, in the original PFAL materials, it was first called "the magic of believing". The name was later changed to "the law of believing", I would suppose, to avoid the spiritual stigma associated with magic.
how did we get to sonic screwdrivers ?! wtf ?? and Steve, your explanation reminded me of that verse "much studying makes one mad" ? Isn't it much simpler to believe it...or not ? signs, miracles and wonders are certainly a violation of natural law ( that God created anyways ) but be that may...Jesus must have 'believed' to see them brought to pass and I believe he was showing us the way to at least try to do it too. Jesus did not cast a mountain into the sea, but he sure did raise people from the dead, instantaneously heal sick people, blind people, leprous people, multiply fishes and bread, walk on water etc...of course, he could have been a fraud....or... God ??!!
For what it's worth, this verse was covered in the Advanced Class. The explanation (rationalization) that was given was that this exemplifies the manifestation of believing, not renewed mind believing. In other words, very specific revelation would have to precede and energize such an event. So, unless you have specific revelation to cast a mountain into the sea, any effort to do so would be futile. Now, isn't that special?
edit: the "whatsoever" was explained using the *with distinction/without distinction* thing from PFAL.
The title of the class says it all... POWER For Abundant Living!
Wierwille was selling POWER. The reason we signed up for the class was to gain POWER, whether that was POWER to accomplish great spiritual feats or, POWER to get into the pants of the girl was waving a green card under our noses, or POWER to get rid of that person who kept bugging us to take the class.
The POWER that Wierwille sold was the counterfeit "law of believing"
The fundamental thing Wierwille taught was that there is POWER in believing. All the rest of the stuff... all the classes and all the programs... were promoted as means to gain and manage MORE of that POWER.
This thread poses the question "So what is believing?" I submit that "believing" was the particular form of snake-oil Wierwille sold to us, and that we in turn sold to others, good little multi-level marketers that we were.
As part of his subterfuge, Wierwille PREACHED many things about the Bible and Jesus that were true, but he TAUGHT things that were in direct opposition to the things he was preaching, often at the very same time, as was true in the section of the foundational class where he preached that we need to observe "to whom addressed" at the same time he was lying about to whom Romans 9-11 are addressed.
The meaning of "believing" in Matthew 21:22 has been brought into question, and an issue was raised, "was it a gospel thing only"?
Romans 15:4 says "For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope." Wierwille twisted this to mean we don't have to pay attention to anything in the Old Testament or the Gospels, because those things took place before the day of Pentecost. The irony of it all was that Wierwille took a huge proportion of his proof texts from the OT and the Gospels. Such was the case of Matthew 21:22. It occurs in the gospel of Matthew... but the truth is that the gospel of Matthew was written from, to and for a Christian community of faith well after the day of Pentecost, probably by the community at Antioch, the same community that sent Paul and Barnabas out as missionaries. Those Christians felt that the things Jesus said about "believing" at the incident of the fig tree were important for the members of their community to know. Those same Christians felt that is was just as important to know what Jesus said about POWER when his followers asked him how they should pray: "For thine is the kingdom and the POWER, and the glory, forever" (Matthew 6:13b).
The POWER belongs to God... ALWAYS! The glory belongs to God... ALWAYS!
When Wierwille taught that there is POWER in believing, he was stealing for himself the glory that rightly belongs to God only. He was teaching US to steal the glory that rightly belongs to God only, and we in turn taught the same thing to others. It's not something to be proud of...
There is NO POWER in believing. The POWER and the glory always belong to God and God alone.
cute pictures...but can you please just explain WHAT Jesus meant in Matthew 21:22 ????!!! Anyone ???!!! Before re-directing it to 'doctrinal' section ( which is where I can see it being swept to )...please give your 'interpretation' of it? was it a 'gospel' thing only, did he lie, delude, grand stand, seduce, with his statement. Is it an interpretational error...what ??!!
Yes, Wierwille DID lie, delude, grand stand, seduce, with his statement.
No, Jesus DID NOT lie, delude, grand stand, seduce, with his statement.
Yes, Wierwille's teaching on Matthew 21:22 was an interpretational error. It was not an error in interpretation from the Greek. It was an error of systematic theology. Systematic theology is where a person develops a system for understanding the Bible. Systematic theology becomes erroneous when violence is done to the meaning of what the text actually says in a passage in order to make the passage fit the system.
Wierwille developed a systematic theology, a major feature of which was "there is power in believing." Wierwille had to twist the interpretation of every passage that dealt with believing, because there is NO passage stating that there is power in believing. That's why Wierwille had to come up with so many different kinds of believing, none of whose definitions make sense. That's why this thread exists. None of us can understand what Wierwille meant by "believing" because the things Wierwille taught about believing were all different from what the Bible actually says, and all different from each other as well. The only common thread in the things Wierwille taught about believing was that "there is power in believing," and we can't go to the Bible to clarify our understanding of what Wierwille taught because the idea that "there is power in believing" is nowhere stated in the Bible.
Wierwille didn't develop his system. Its foundational idea was plagiarized. When a question arose, he made up a rationalization on the spot, usually in the form of one of his little pamphlets. It was only later, when the pamphlets were being collected to be published as books, (the original four color-cover books whose general title I don't now remember), it was only then that Wuierwille had to make his ideas cohere, and he did a pi$$-poor job of that.
There is no power in believing. There is nothing within us that can reach outside of our bodies and alter physical reality. Signs, miracles and wonders DO happen, but they are ALL results of God exerting HIS power... never the result of us exerting any power of our own.
Steve...could you please give me an ANSWER to my question regarding what Jesus meant when he said what he did in Matthew 21:22 ? I cannot believe Jesus was merely teaching a 'theological system' otherwise NOTHING would have happened in his ministry !!! If you were to explain that what Jesus was saying was your prayer with believing get's God's attention and then maybe God moves then great...
I have no idea what it really means but I think my post #31 pretty much describes how it was handled in the Advanced Class. Wierwille said it's talking about the "manifestation of believing", a variety of believing that requires specific revelation to work.That sounds like a pretty handy cop out to me. Eh, what do I know?
Steve...could you please give me an ANSWER to my question regarding what Jesus meant when he said what he did in Matthew 21:22 ? I cannot believe Jesus was merely teaching a 'theological system' otherwise NOTHING would have happened in his ministry !!! If you were to explain that what Jesus was saying was your prayer with believing get's God's attention and then maybe God moves then great...
Allan, if you are having trouble understanding what Jesus was saying about the relation between believing and prayer in Matthew 21:22, then maybe we need to re-examine the things Wierwille taught us about prayer.
Wierwille taught that prayer is like a vending machine. You feed the required amount of believing into the slot, you make your selection, and the machine delivers exactly what you "asked" for. Wierwille's view of prayer turned God into nothing more than a vending machine. Wierwille taught that prayers would fail to come to pass for either or both of two reasons: 1. your believing was insufficient and/or 2. you were not clear enough in making your prayer.
I once was friends with Isaac Bonewits, who earned a degree in magic from some university in California. It wasn't stage magic, it was the theory behind using your mental powers to alter objective reality. One of the key elements for producing "real" magic is focus. The purpose of all the paraphernalia, the hand waving and the mystical words is to FOCUS the magician's BELIEVING! I had read this gentleman's books and became personally acquainted with him several years before even hearing about TWI. When I took PFAL, I recognized the magical thinking Wierwille was teaching about prayer, but I had not yet become convinced that magical thinking is bogus. I thought Wierwille had discovered and was teaching a Biblical basis for the things my friend was teaching about "real" magic. And the reason I was studying "real" magic in the first place was because I wanted to know why some of the prayers I prayed in the name of Jesus Christ were answered while others were not.
But... was Wierwille's take on prayer really Biblical?
Jesus explained all about what prayer is and how it should be done in Matthew 6:5-15, and gave an example for his followers' guidance in verses 9-13. In Power For Abundant Living Wierwille said that we, as followers of the way living in this wonderful grace administration of the Church, could not... did he use the words "dare not", I don't now remember for sure... pray the Lord's prayer, because it says "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." Obviously, this COULD NOT HAVE BEEN ADDRESSED to Christians, who have already been forgiven for everything they might do, past, present and future, even for drugging and raping young girls on a serial basis!
Yet Matthew was written by, to and for Christians well after the day of Pentecost. The example of prayer that Jesus presented was preserved and held up as an example for Christians AFTER THE DAY OF PENTECOST. The Word of God has not failed. It is Wierwille's administrational system of theology that has failed!
Read Matthew 6:9-13, Allen...
Now go read it again...
Where does it say anything about "believing"?
Where does it say anything about becoming "clear and concerned"?
Where does it say anything about what I want? (red drapes, fig tree dying, etc.)
It doesn't! It says "Thy will be done..." Prayer is NOT about getting what I want, it is about doing what God wants done!
Wierwille taught that our prayers might not be answered if we couldn't muster enough believing, or if we weren't properly focused on what we wanted. Wierwille never even suggested that a prayer might not be answered because it was at cross purposes to GOD'S WILL!
The reason Jesus got results in his ministry was NOT because he had some extraordinary mastery of believing. Jesus got results because he was always busy doing his Father's will
You want to know what killed that fig tree? I'll tell you what killed that fig tree! God WANTED IT DEAD, to remind people of Habakkuk chapter 3.
Yes, Wierwille DID lie, delude, grand stand, seduce, with his statement.
No, Jesus DID NOT lie, delude, grand stand, seduce, with his statement.
Yes, Wierwille's teaching on Matthew 21:22 was an interpretational error. It was not an error in interpretation from the Greek. It was an error of systematic theology. Systematic theology is where a person develops a system for understanding the Bible. Systematic theology becomes erroneous when violence is done to the meaning of what the text actually says in a passage in order to make the passage fit the system.
Wierwille developed a systematic theology, a major feature of which was "there is power in believing." Wierwille had to twist the interpretation of every passage that dealt with believing, because there is NO passage stating that there is power in believing. That's why Wierwille had to come up with so many different kinds of believing, none of whose definitions make sense. That's why this thread exists. None of us can understand what Wierwille meant by "believing" because the things Wierwille taught about believing were all different from what the Bible actually says, and all different from each other as well. The only common thread in the things Wierwille taught about believing was that "there is power in believing," and we can't go to the Bible to clarify our understanding of what Wierwille taught because the idea that "there is power in believing" is nowhere stated in the Bible.
Wierwille didn't develop his system. Its foundational idea was plagiarized. When a question arose, he made up a rationalization on the spot, usually in the form of one of his little pamphlets. It was only later, when the pamphlets were being collected to be published as books, (the original four color-cover books whose general title I don't now remember), it was only then that Wuierwille had to make his ideas cohere, and he did a pi$-poor job of that.
There is no power in believing. There is nothing within us that can reach outside of our bodies and alter physical reality. Signs, miracles and wonders DO happen, but they are ALL results of God exerting HIS power... never the result of us exerting any power of our own.
Thanks, Rocky! For the past few months I've been suffering from anemia that was caused by kidney damage I took a couple of years ago. When my brain isn't getting enough oxygen, I can't remember things as well as I used to.
Yeah look Steve, something's still not right...number 1/ you have not answered my question about what Jesus meant in Matthew 21:22...to the point this is getting almost ridiculous just tell me what you think Jesus was meaning....btw, didn't Jesus say to someone "If YOU can BELIEVE, all things are possible to THEM THAT BELIEVETH "?????? 2/ I'm not trying to be dogmatic here, it's just that as someone who has seen 'believing' in action ( and I'm talking a 'believer' 'believing' ) your point ( to me at least ) is rather, shall we say...lacking
As an aside, I had kidney problems years ago and one particular time I was bent over in pain. My 4 year old ( at the time ) came over, put her hand on the spot and prayed over me...never had a problem since, been 20 years....also, it just occurred to me...why are there 'manifestations' of holy spirit given as part of the gift ? Waste of time wouldn't you think ? God coulda just said "no manifestations...just pray" !!...let us reason together here brother !! Agape`
Yeah look Steve, something's still not right...number 1/ you have not answered my question about what Jesus meant in Matthew 21:22...to the point this is getting almost ridiculous :rolleyes:/>/>/>/>/> just tell me what you think Jesus was meaning....btw, didn't Jesus say to someone "If YOU can BELIEVE, all things are possible to THEM THAT BELIEVETH "?????? 2/ I'm not trying to be dogmatic here, it's just that as someone who has seen 'believing' in action ( and I'm talking a 'believer' 'believing' ) your point ( to me at least ) is rather, shall we say...lacking
You raise very, VERY good questions, Allan! Questions that take us straight to the heart of the topic of this thread. I wish I could give a simple, rapid fire answer, but I can't because Wierwille's error was so ubiquitous, so many-faceted and so subtle. We have to pay very close attention to the words Wierwille used, how they differ from the words God had used in his Word, and the things Wierwille left out, as well as the things he included.
You are right to point out Mark 9:23, "Jesus said unto him [the man who had a son who had a dumb spirit that the disciples couldn't cast out], If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth."
What does that mean? Was it as simple as Wierwille made it out to be?
According to the United Bible Society's Greek New Testament, the best reading of the verse might be "And Jesus said to him (singular), If you [singular] are able. All things are possible for him [singular] who is believing." The "if you can believe" is in some texts, and was in the text used by the King James translators, but it is not in the texts that most modern scholars consider to be the best texts.
Now read on from verse 23 to verse 29. First the man replied with, "Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief!" Then Jesus cast the demon out. Afterward the disciples came to Jesus and asked him why they had not been able to cast the demon out. Jesus answered them, "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting."
Who was the person [singular] who exercised believing in this instance? It was Jesus. And when the man asked Jesus to help his unbelief, what did Jesus do? Did he teach the man about the 16 Keys to Walking in the Spirit? Did he chide the man for failing to renew his mind? No, Jesus didn't. He simply cast the demon out. And when the disciples specifically asked Jesus why they couldn't cast the demon out, Jesus didn't say anything at all about believing. Jesus said the only things that could get this kind of demon out were much PRAYER and fasting. What kind of prayer is Jesus talking about? Wierwille's Vend-O-God style of prayer? NO! That's why Jesus said prayer AND FASTING. Fasting implies self-denial. Wierwille's type of prayer focused on self-gratification only. That's what Wierwille taught. That's what I, at least, believed! It has taken a lot of thinking things through and a lot of humility to flush that crap out of my mind. I had to admit "I was wrong about that..." more times than I care to dwell on.
Notice that in Mark 9:14 through 29, the Word of God doesn't say anything at all about believing making the impossible possible. To find out about that, we have to go to Mark 10:27, "And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible." Here, Jesus does NOT say that believing makes the impossible possible. He says "with God all things are possible." And I don't think Jesus was talking about Wierwille's Vend-O-God. God has a will of his own, and it's not yours or mine. It wasn't even Jesus' will! Remember the garden of Gethsemane! If God wants the impossible to come to pass, it will come to pass, but if God does NOT want something to happen, no amount of "believing" on our part can make it happen. Believing is NOT forcing God to do what we want. Believing is trusting that God's will for me is good, and that he is going to take care of me no matter what, even if I am dying.
Wierwille divided "believing" into many types, chief of which were renewed mind believing and the "manifestation of believing". I do trust that there are several different nuances to the meanings of pistis and pisteuo in the Word of God, but I think Weirwille's divisions were artificial, confused and confusing. I am confident that more accurate understandings can be obtained in many instances by substituting the English words "trust" or "confidence" for pistis and the English words "trusting" and "being confident" for the Greek word pisteuo.
For the past nine months or so, I have been inclined to translate 1 Corinthians 14:22 as “Therefore, tongues serve as a sign not to the speakers who are confident, but to the speakers who lack confidence.” Confident of what? Up to now, I've been thinking SIT builds a person's confidence that she or he has received the gift of the Holy Spirit and that Jesus has been raised from the dead. After considering Matthew 21:22 in greater depth, I am beginning to come around to the idea that SIT builds the speaker's confidence that she or he is speaking by the Spirit of God, that if the Spirit tells us to speak something that is impossible, we are more confident that it really is God telling us to speak it.
Thank you, Allen, for your concerns about my health. The whole thing puzzles me. Three times in the past eight years, I have been in the hospital with lethal quantities of something or other in my body, yet I am not dead. In 2007, my blood sugar level was 1010 when I bippy-bopped into the clinic to get my blood pressure meds prescription re-written. That's 10 points off the scale. To put it into gaming turns, I would have had to roll a 101 on a d100 to save. During the time I was in the ICU, my whole digestive system shut down in preparation to die. But I didn't die, and my digestive system turned back on. In 2013, the muscles in my legs turned into rubber bands and I could not stand up. The people in the ER sent me immediately by ambulance to the ICU at Ball Memorial in Muncie, because the level of potassium in my body was lethal. They dialyzed my blood for seven hours before it came back down to a livable level. I didn't realize it at the time, but the muscles of my heart were just as much rubber bands as the muscles of my legs. My kidney damage came from that potassium overdose. Two weeks ago, I started coughing up phlegm. Within minutes, the phlegm was coming so thick and fast that my coughing turned into a continuous spasm, and I could not breath. I woke up my wife and sister-in-law who called 911, then I passed out. When I came to, I was in the ER, and they were getting me ready to send to the ICU. I was in the hospital for five-and-a-half days being treated for pneumonia/broonchitis. The EMTs and the ER people said that I would have had to hold my breath for ten minutes to get my CO2 level that high, and I should have suffocated. But I did not.
I know that there is nothing in me that could have kept me alive in any of those situations. Psalm 22:29b says "and none can keep alive his own soul." A lot of people were raising prayers for me in general, but no one ministered any kind of "spiritual" healing to me. The EMT, the doctors and the nurses were my ministers. Nobody that I know of exercised any special "believing", and yet the impossible came to pass AT NO ONE'S COMMAND.
I do trust and have confidence in signs, miracles and wonders, but I don't think any of them are "produced" by anybody's "believing." They are produced because God wants them to happen and somebody has enough trust in God, and enough confidence to speak by his Spirit, and God brings the impossible to pass.
I do believe in the manifestation of believing, So if I had the revelation to move a literal mountain, then I think I could do it, and I also believe in "Moving of your personal mountains" meaning.....what ever mountain (problem) is in your way. Maybe that is too simplistic, but it's as specific as I can get with it.
As an aside, I had kidney problems years ago and one particular time I was bent over in pain. My 4 year old ( at the time ) came over, put her hand on the spot and prayed over me...never had a problem since, been 20 years....also, it just occurred to me...why are there 'manifestations' of holy spirit given as part of the gift ? Waste of time wouldn't you think ? God coulda just said "no manifestations...just pray" !!...let us reason together here brother !! Agape`
Did your four-year old exercise power, or did God?
I suspect that in most instances, we really don't think about that question.
It's certainly not a phenomenon that's easy to figure out.
VPW cobbled together a few bits and pieces that he found. He found some stuff on apeitheia and apisteia; he found some stuff about pistis, he found bits here and there, and mixed in a good dash of private interpretation. That's why all this stuff is so hard to get one's head around. It was hard in the first (PFAL) place to try and take on board his explanations and expositions. Now, having worked hard to try and get them to make sense - one has to work hard to get rid of the crazy explanations.
The man didn't understand English, never mind Greek, or his version of Greek. He didn't understand mediaeval English (well that of the late 1500s and, let's be kind, half a century out of date) - how much less would he understand of NT Greek, of (let's be honest) nearly two millennia out of date - that's four times as old.
He dissed the work of countless educated theologians from many generations, unless they were too long dead, or he could plagiarise their work to fit his own ideas.
He was also a cultural moron and didn't give a hoot about any kind of background other than what he was familiar with. He mocked the background of other people - even in PFAL - mocked "an English theologian" [unidentified] to whom he, VPW, could teach some new stuff [yeah, right]. The ethos of TWI was to mock and disregard the background of any believers who weren't Americans and who weren't seeking "prosperity gospel."
So...he didn't understand modern English.
He didn't understand 1500s English yet deliberately chose a Bible version from this period because he counted others even less able to understand this English than himself.
He didn't know any Greek (from any period)
He wasn't interested in anyone's background except his own mid 20th C background
He had a history of "sleight of hand" (or rather, of tongue) and twisting the ordinary meaning of words to bolster his own ideas
Does this man sound like someone to be trusted in his explanations of what words mean?
Or does he sound like someone whose words have been weighed in the balance and found wanting? (= inadequate, insufficient)?
And even from his grave, VPW has got us distracted from ***GOD*** and got us wasting time on arguing about words. Just words - though there is some effort on this thread, to address the concept behind the words.
Read other versions; try using synonyms; don't split hairs or even split the atom - keep it simple
If understanding is getting more complicated - the "explanation" is probably not of God.
The problem is, as twinky suggests, WHO do we believe? Do we believe what Jesus meant when he said "whatsoever things you ask in prayer believing, you will receive" or do we believe what Wierwille said it meant? They aren't the same thing.
"I believe in believing" is not a sufficient answer because it is recursive, that is to say, the major terms are defined by each other, therefore it is a circular statement and logically invalid. Since "believing" is defined in terms of "believing", it can be made to mean ANYTHING. Since "I believe in believing" can be made to mean ANYTHING, it consequently means NOTHING.
Wierwille took advantage of this feature to promote his confusion...
sure glad Jesus came to 'uncomplicate' life !! I think I'll stick with what works though Steve ( in a practical sense ) the way I see it if I need a fire to get warm and someone tells me to use matches, someone else tells me to use a cigarette lighter, someone else says no those don't work, use sticks instead, someone else wants to know how hot a fire I want or tells me I can't start a fire without the right kind of kindling...it doesn't matter if the fire ignites does it ?
sure glad Jesus came to 'uncomplicate' life !! I think I'll stick with what works though Steve ( in a practical sense ) the way I see it if I need a fire to get warm and someone tells me to use matches, someone else tells me to use a cigarette lighter, someone else says no those don't work, use sticks instead, someone else wants to know how hot a fire I want or tells me I can't start a fire without the right kind of kindling...it doesn't matter if the fire ignites does it ?
You posit the situation, "if I need a fire to get warm and someone tells me to use matches, someone else tells me to use a cigarette lighter, someone else says no those don't work, use sticks instead, someone else wants to know how hot a fire I want or tells me I can't start a fire without the right kind of kindling..." The actual situation is this, Wierwille tries to sell you an empty Zippo he stole from somebody else while Jesus just goes ahead and lights your fire for you.
The difference is this, Allan, who gets the credit when "believing" works, and who gets the blame when it fails? When Wierwille's form of prayer with "believing" works, who gets the glory? The person who is doing the praying gets the glory because that's who the power belongs to. When Jesus' form of prayer with "believing" works, God gets the glory because God is the one that the power belongs to.
If we focus on the word "believing" alone, and if we look at Matthew 21:22 alone, as Wierwille did, then Wierwille's definition of "believing", that "there is power in believing" is plausible. However, if we focus on the word "prayer", and we respect the integrity of God's Word by including Matthew 6:9-13, then all of Wierwille's teachings on "believing" are shown up for what they are, insidious forms of self-worship.
You ask, "...it doesn't matter if the fire ignites does it ?" I ask, "...what happens when the fire does NOT ignite?", and there will CERTAINLY be times when it does not. Do we rag on ourselves (and others) because we didn't "renew our minds" enough? Do we rag on ourselves (and others) because we didn't have enough "believing"? Or do we trust God's will and seek a greater understanding of it?
It's also stated in PFAL that "it works for saint and sinner alike". Wierwille also said he saw unbelievers "manifesting the abundant life more than the believers". Clearly, part of the message VPW was peddling wasn't about God, it was about finding a way to make this thing he called "believing" a functional part of daily life. That's the same approach that has been taken by countless volumes of self-help books, not all of which involve Christianity or religion in general.
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waysider
Have you ever seen, heard of, read about anyone actually casting a mountain into the sea? I should think that should be your first clue that the verse is not meant to be interpreted literally.
Steve Lortz
There is NO POWER WHATSOEVER in believing... The only power in a belief transaction is the power of the person who made the promise to keep it. If God makes a promise to do something, and that thing
krys
One of the points of GreaseSpot is to act as a place where we (all or individually) hang out a big sign warning everyone away from the corn field. That must continue until the cornfield doesn't exist
waysider
Have you ever seen, heard of, read about anyone actually casting a mountain into the sea? I should think that should be your first clue that the verse is not meant to be interpreted literally.
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Steve Lortz
It's not as simple as it seems. Wierwille taught that "believing is a verb, and a verb connotes action." However, the verb translated "believing" in Matthew 21:22 is not exactly a verb in the same way Wierwille taught. It is a participle, a verb used as an adjective. It has to modify some other word in the sentence, probably the "you" (plural). There are a whole slew of ways participles can be translated from the Greek. In this case, I think it's a conditional participle, that is to say, it could best be translated as "if believing"
The "whatsoever" is an intensifier of the word "all" and could also be translated "as much as."
I think an accurate sense translation of Matthew 21:23 might be "and all, as much as you [plural] might have begged for by the instrument of prayer, if believing, you [plural] will receive."
The verb translated "shall ask" in the KJV is subjunctive in the Greek, but that's a whole nuther can of worms.
Lack of believing can prevent a prayer from being answered, but "believing" by itself cannot force God to answer a prayer.
Wierwille taught that there is a spirit realm and a senses realm, and that the laws of the spirit realm supersede the laws of the senses realm. By manipulating the laws of the spirit realm through "believing," we can produce results in the senses realm. That was hogwash. The Bible teaches a unitary, not a dual cosmos. We can, through the use of our minds, influence the physical processes occurring within our own bodies, but there is nothing, NOTHING, in our minds that can reach out beyond our bodies and alter physical reality. Only the verbal and practical expressions of our minds can do that. Signs, miracles and wonders are apparent violations of the laws of nature, but they aren't in the view of quantum mechanics. They are merely events that are highly improbable, but not impossible as Newtonian mechanics would have it.
All of the POWER... ALL of it... is in God's WILL to bring his Word to pass. There is no POWER in believing.
Love,
Steve
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waysider
In the BBC television series Dr. Who, the main character is known to default to use of a devise called a Sonic Screwdriver. It can be called upon to do all sorts of amazing feats. Need to pick a lock?--- Sonic Screwdriver. Need to disarm a robotic devise?--- Sonic screwdriver. Need to conduct a medical scan?--- Sonic Screwdriver. Oh, and you can use it to loosen and tighten screws, too. Who knew?
The *law of believing* was The Way's version of the Sonic Screwdriver. It's not surprising that, in the original PFAL materials, it was first called "the magic of believing". The name was later changed to "the law of believing", I would suppose, to avoid the spiritual stigma associated with magic.
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Allan
how did we get to sonic screwdrivers ?! wtf ?? and Steve, your explanation reminded me of that verse "much studying makes one mad" ? Isn't it much simpler to believe it...or not ? signs, miracles and wonders are certainly a violation of natural law ( that God created anyways ) but be that may...Jesus must have 'believed' to see them brought to pass and I believe he was showing us the way to at least try to do it too. Jesus did not cast a mountain into the sea, but he sure did raise people from the dead, instantaneously heal sick people, blind people, leprous people, multiply fishes and bread, walk on water etc...of course, he could have been a fraud....or... God ??!!
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waysider
For what it's worth, this verse was covered in the Advanced Class. The explanation (rationalization) that was given was that this exemplifies the manifestation of believing, not renewed mind believing. In other words, very specific revelation would have to precede and energize such an event. So, unless you have specific revelation to cast a mountain into the sea, any effort to do so would be futile. Now, isn't that special?
edit: the "whatsoever" was explained using the *with distinction/without distinction* thing from PFAL.
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Steve Lortz
What was it that Wierwille was selling?
The title of the class says it all... POWER For Abundant Living!
Wierwille was selling POWER. The reason we signed up for the class was to gain POWER, whether that was POWER to accomplish great spiritual feats or, POWER to get into the pants of the girl was waving a green card under our noses, or POWER to get rid of that person who kept bugging us to take the class.
The POWER that Wierwille sold was the counterfeit "law of believing"
The fundamental thing Wierwille taught was that there is POWER in believing. All the rest of the stuff... all the classes and all the programs... were promoted as means to gain and manage MORE of that POWER.
This thread poses the question "So what is believing?" I submit that "believing" was the particular form of snake-oil Wierwille sold to us, and that we in turn sold to others, good little multi-level marketers that we were.
As part of his subterfuge, Wierwille PREACHED many things about the Bible and Jesus that were true, but he TAUGHT things that were in direct opposition to the things he was preaching, often at the very same time, as was true in the section of the foundational class where he preached that we need to observe "to whom addressed" at the same time he was lying about to whom Romans 9-11 are addressed.
The meaning of "believing" in Matthew 21:22 has been brought into question, and an issue was raised, "was it a gospel thing only"?
Romans 15:4 says "For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope." Wierwille twisted this to mean we don't have to pay attention to anything in the Old Testament or the Gospels, because those things took place before the day of Pentecost. The irony of it all was that Wierwille took a huge proportion of his proof texts from the OT and the Gospels. Such was the case of Matthew 21:22. It occurs in the gospel of Matthew... but the truth is that the gospel of Matthew was written from, to and for a Christian community of faith well after the day of Pentecost, probably by the community at Antioch, the same community that sent Paul and Barnabas out as missionaries. Those Christians felt that the things Jesus said about "believing" at the incident of the fig tree were important for the members of their community to know. Those same Christians felt that is was just as important to know what Jesus said about POWER when his followers asked him how they should pray: "For thine is the kingdom and the POWER, and the glory, forever" (Matthew 6:13b).
The POWER belongs to God... ALWAYS! The glory belongs to God... ALWAYS!
When Wierwille taught that there is POWER in believing, he was stealing for himself the glory that rightly belongs to God only. He was teaching US to steal the glory that rightly belongs to God only, and we in turn taught the same thing to others. It's not something to be proud of...
There is NO POWER in believing. The POWER and the glory always belong to God and God alone.
Love,
Steve
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Steve Lortz
Yes, Wierwille DID lie, delude, grand stand, seduce, with his statement.
No, Jesus DID NOT lie, delude, grand stand, seduce, with his statement.
Yes, Wierwille's teaching on Matthew 21:22 was an interpretational error. It was not an error in interpretation from the Greek. It was an error of systematic theology. Systematic theology is where a person develops a system for understanding the Bible. Systematic theology becomes erroneous when violence is done to the meaning of what the text actually says in a passage in order to make the passage fit the system.
Wierwille developed a systematic theology, a major feature of which was "there is power in believing." Wierwille had to twist the interpretation of every passage that dealt with believing, because there is NO passage stating that there is power in believing. That's why Wierwille had to come up with so many different kinds of believing, none of whose definitions make sense. That's why this thread exists. None of us can understand what Wierwille meant by "believing" because the things Wierwille taught about believing were all different from what the Bible actually says, and all different from each other as well. The only common thread in the things Wierwille taught about believing was that "there is power in believing," and we can't go to the Bible to clarify our understanding of what Wierwille taught because the idea that "there is power in believing" is nowhere stated in the Bible.
Wierwille didn't develop his system. Its foundational idea was plagiarized. When a question arose, he made up a rationalization on the spot, usually in the form of one of his little pamphlets. It was only later, when the pamphlets were being collected to be published as books, (the original four color-cover books whose general title I don't now remember), it was only then that Wuierwille had to make his ideas cohere, and he did a pi$$-poor job of that.
There is no power in believing. There is nothing within us that can reach outside of our bodies and alter physical reality. Signs, miracles and wonders DO happen, but they are ALL results of God exerting HIS power... never the result of us exerting any power of our own.
Love,
Steve
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Allan
Steve...could you please give me an ANSWER to my question regarding what Jesus meant when he said what he did in Matthew 21:22 ? I cannot believe Jesus was merely teaching a 'theological system' otherwise NOTHING would have happened in his ministry !!! If you were to explain that what Jesus was saying was your prayer with believing get's God's attention and then maybe God moves then great...
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waysider
I have no idea what it really means but I think my post #31 pretty much describes how it was handled in the Advanced Class. Wierwille said it's talking about the "manifestation of believing", a variety of believing that requires specific revelation to work.That sounds like a pretty handy cop out to me. Eh, what do I know?
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Steve Lortz
Allan, if you are having trouble understanding what Jesus was saying about the relation between believing and prayer in Matthew 21:22, then maybe we need to re-examine the things Wierwille taught us about prayer.
Wierwille taught that prayer is like a vending machine. You feed the required amount of believing into the slot, you make your selection, and the machine delivers exactly what you "asked" for. Wierwille's view of prayer turned God into nothing more than a vending machine. Wierwille taught that prayers would fail to come to pass for either or both of two reasons: 1. your believing was insufficient and/or 2. you were not clear enough in making your prayer.
I once was friends with Isaac Bonewits, who earned a degree in magic from some university in California. It wasn't stage magic, it was the theory behind using your mental powers to alter objective reality. One of the key elements for producing "real" magic is focus. The purpose of all the paraphernalia, the hand waving and the mystical words is to FOCUS the magician's BELIEVING! I had read this gentleman's books and became personally acquainted with him several years before even hearing about TWI. When I took PFAL, I recognized the magical thinking Wierwille was teaching about prayer, but I had not yet become convinced that magical thinking is bogus. I thought Wierwille had discovered and was teaching a Biblical basis for the things my friend was teaching about "real" magic. And the reason I was studying "real" magic in the first place was because I wanted to know why some of the prayers I prayed in the name of Jesus Christ were answered while others were not.
But... was Wierwille's take on prayer really Biblical?
Jesus explained all about what prayer is and how it should be done in Matthew 6:5-15, and gave an example for his followers' guidance in verses 9-13. In Power For Abundant Living Wierwille said that we, as followers of the way living in this wonderful grace administration of the Church, could not... did he use the words "dare not", I don't now remember for sure... pray the Lord's prayer, because it says "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." Obviously, this COULD NOT HAVE BEEN ADDRESSED to Christians, who have already been forgiven for everything they might do, past, present and future, even for drugging and raping young girls on a serial basis!
Yet Matthew was written by, to and for Christians well after the day of Pentecost. The example of prayer that Jesus presented was preserved and held up as an example for Christians AFTER THE DAY OF PENTECOST. The Word of God has not failed. It is Wierwille's administrational system of theology that has failed!
Read Matthew 6:9-13, Allen...
Now go read it again...
Where does it say anything about "believing"?
Where does it say anything about becoming "clear and concerned"?
Where does it say anything about what I want? (red drapes, fig tree dying, etc.)
It doesn't! It says "Thy will be done..." Prayer is NOT about getting what I want, it is about doing what God wants done!
Wierwille taught that our prayers might not be answered if we couldn't muster enough believing, or if we weren't properly focused on what we wanted. Wierwille never even suggested that a prayer might not be answered because it was at cross purposes to GOD'S WILL!
The reason Jesus got results in his ministry was NOT because he had some extraordinary mastery of believing. Jesus got results because he was always busy doing his Father's will
You want to know what killed that fig tree? I'll tell you what killed that fig tree! God WANTED IT DEAD, to remind people of Habakkuk chapter 3.
Love,
Steve
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Rocky
IIRC, they were referred to as "collaterals."
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Steve Lortz
Thanks, Rocky! For the past few months I've been suffering from anemia that was caused by kidney damage I took a couple of years ago. When my brain isn't getting enough oxygen, I can't remember things as well as I used to.
Love,
Steve
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Allan
Yeah look Steve, something's still not right...number 1/ you have not answered my question about what Jesus meant in Matthew 21:22...to the point this is getting almost ridiculous
just tell me what you think Jesus was meaning....btw, didn't Jesus say to someone "If YOU can BELIEVE, all things are possible to THEM THAT BELIEVETH "?????? 2/ I'm not trying to be dogmatic here, it's just that as someone who has seen 'believing' in action ( and I'm talking a 'believer' 'believing' ) your point ( to me at least ) is rather, shall we say...lacking
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Allan
As an aside, I had kidney problems years ago and one particular time I was bent over in pain. My 4 year old ( at the time ) came over, put her hand on the spot and prayed over me...never had a problem since, been 20 years....also, it just occurred to me...why are there 'manifestations' of holy spirit given as part of the gift ? Waste of time wouldn't you think ? God coulda just said "no manifestations...just pray" !!...let us reason together here brother !! Agape`
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Steve Lortz
You raise very, VERY good questions, Allan! Questions that take us straight to the heart of the topic of this thread. I wish I could give a simple, rapid fire answer, but I can't because Wierwille's error was so ubiquitous, so many-faceted and so subtle. We have to pay very close attention to the words Wierwille used, how they differ from the words God had used in his Word, and the things Wierwille left out, as well as the things he included.
You are right to point out Mark 9:23, "Jesus said unto him [the man who had a son who had a dumb spirit that the disciples couldn't cast out], If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth."
What does that mean? Was it as simple as Wierwille made it out to be?
According to the United Bible Society's Greek New Testament, the best reading of the verse might be "And Jesus said to him (singular), If you [singular] are able. All things are possible for him [singular] who is believing." The "if you can believe" is in some texts, and was in the text used by the King James translators, but it is not in the texts that most modern scholars consider to be the best texts.
Now read on from verse 23 to verse 29. First the man replied with, "Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief!" Then Jesus cast the demon out. Afterward the disciples came to Jesus and asked him why they had not been able to cast the demon out. Jesus answered them, "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting."
Who was the person [singular] who exercised believing in this instance? It was Jesus. And when the man asked Jesus to help his unbelief, what did Jesus do? Did he teach the man about the 16 Keys to Walking in the Spirit? Did he chide the man for failing to renew his mind? No, Jesus didn't. He simply cast the demon out. And when the disciples specifically asked Jesus why they couldn't cast the demon out, Jesus didn't say anything at all about believing. Jesus said the only things that could get this kind of demon out were much PRAYER and fasting. What kind of prayer is Jesus talking about? Wierwille's Vend-O-God style of prayer? NO! That's why Jesus said prayer AND FASTING. Fasting implies self-denial. Wierwille's type of prayer focused on self-gratification only. That's what Wierwille taught. That's what I, at least, believed! It has taken a lot of thinking things through and a lot of humility to flush that crap out of my mind. I had to admit "I was wrong about that..." more times than I care to dwell on.
Notice that in Mark 9:14 through 29, the Word of God doesn't say anything at all about believing making the impossible possible. To find out about that, we have to go to Mark 10:27, "And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible." Here, Jesus does NOT say that believing makes the impossible possible. He says "with God all things are possible." And I don't think Jesus was talking about Wierwille's Vend-O-God. God has a will of his own, and it's not yours or mine. It wasn't even Jesus' will! Remember the garden of Gethsemane! If God wants the impossible to come to pass, it will come to pass, but if God does NOT want something to happen, no amount of "believing" on our part can make it happen. Believing is NOT forcing God to do what we want. Believing is trusting that God's will for me is good, and that he is going to take care of me no matter what, even if I am dying.
Wierwille divided "believing" into many types, chief of which were renewed mind believing and the "manifestation of believing". I do trust that there are several different nuances to the meanings of pistis and pisteuo in the Word of God, but I think Weirwille's divisions were artificial, confused and confusing. I am confident that more accurate understandings can be obtained in many instances by substituting the English words "trust" or "confidence" for pistis and the English words "trusting" and "being confident" for the Greek word pisteuo.
For the past nine months or so, I have been inclined to translate 1 Corinthians 14:22 as “Therefore, tongues serve as a sign not to the speakers who are confident, but to the speakers who lack confidence.” Confident of what? Up to now, I've been thinking SIT builds a person's confidence that she or he has received the gift of the Holy Spirit and that Jesus has been raised from the dead. After considering Matthew 21:22 in greater depth, I am beginning to come around to the idea that SIT builds the speaker's confidence that she or he is speaking by the Spirit of God, that if the Spirit tells us to speak something that is impossible, we are more confident that it really is God telling us to speak it.
Thank you, Allen, for your concerns about my health. The whole thing puzzles me. Three times in the past eight years, I have been in the hospital with lethal quantities of something or other in my body, yet I am not dead. In 2007, my blood sugar level was 1010 when I bippy-bopped into the clinic to get my blood pressure meds prescription re-written. That's 10 points off the scale. To put it into gaming turns, I would have had to roll a 101 on a d100 to save. During the time I was in the ICU, my whole digestive system shut down in preparation to die. But I didn't die, and my digestive system turned back on. In 2013, the muscles in my legs turned into rubber bands and I could not stand up. The people in the ER sent me immediately by ambulance to the ICU at Ball Memorial in Muncie, because the level of potassium in my body was lethal. They dialyzed my blood for seven hours before it came back down to a livable level. I didn't realize it at the time, but the muscles of my heart were just as much rubber bands as the muscles of my legs. My kidney damage came from that potassium overdose. Two weeks ago, I started coughing up phlegm. Within minutes, the phlegm was coming so thick and fast that my coughing turned into a continuous spasm, and I could not breath. I woke up my wife and sister-in-law who called 911, then I passed out. When I came to, I was in the ER, and they were getting me ready to send to the ICU. I was in the hospital for five-and-a-half days being treated for pneumonia/broonchitis. The EMTs and the ER people said that I would have had to hold my breath for ten minutes to get my CO2 level that high, and I should have suffocated. But I did not.
I know that there is nothing in me that could have kept me alive in any of those situations. Psalm 22:29b says "and none can keep alive his own soul." A lot of people were raising prayers for me in general, but no one ministered any kind of "spiritual" healing to me. The EMT, the doctors and the nurses were my ministers. Nobody that I know of exercised any special "believing", and yet the impossible came to pass AT NO ONE'S COMMAND.
I do trust and have confidence in signs, miracles and wonders, but I don't think any of them are "produced" by anybody's "believing." They are produced because God wants them to happen and somebody has enough trust in God, and enough confidence to speak by his Spirit, and God brings the impossible to pass.
All for now...
Love,
Steve
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newlife
I do believe in the manifestation of believing, So if I had the revelation to move a literal mountain, then I think I could do it, and I also believe in "Moving of your personal mountains" meaning.....what ever mountain (problem) is in your way. Maybe that is too simplistic, but it's as specific as I can get with it.
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Rocky
Did your four-year old exercise power, or did God?
I suspect that in most instances, we really don't think about that question.
It's certainly not a phenomenon that's easy to figure out.
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Twinky
VPW cobbled together a few bits and pieces that he found. He found some stuff on apeitheia and apisteia; he found some stuff about pistis, he found bits here and there, and mixed in a good dash of private interpretation. That's why all this stuff is so hard to get one's head around. It was hard in the first (PFAL) place to try and take on board his explanations and expositions. Now, having worked hard to try and get them to make sense - one has to work hard to get rid of the crazy explanations.
The man didn't understand English, never mind Greek, or his version of Greek. He didn't understand mediaeval English (well that of the late 1500s and, let's be kind, half a century out of date) - how much less would he understand of NT Greek, of (let's be honest) nearly two millennia out of date - that's four times as old.
He dissed the work of countless educated theologians from many generations, unless they were too long dead, or he could plagiarise their work to fit his own ideas.
He was also a cultural moron and didn't give a hoot about any kind of background other than what he was familiar with. He mocked the background of other people - even in PFAL - mocked "an English theologian" [unidentified] to whom he, VPW, could teach some new stuff [yeah, right]. The ethos of TWI was to mock and disregard the background of any believers who weren't Americans and who weren't seeking "prosperity gospel."
So...he didn't understand modern English.
He didn't understand 1500s English yet deliberately chose a Bible version from this period because he counted others even less able to understand this English than himself.
He didn't know any Greek (from any period)
He wasn't interested in anyone's background except his own mid 20th C background
He had a history of "sleight of hand" (or rather, of tongue) and twisting the ordinary meaning of words to bolster his own ideas
Does this man sound like someone to be trusted in his explanations of what words mean?
Or does he sound like someone whose words have been weighed in the balance and found wanting? (= inadequate, insufficient)?
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Twinky
I stand fully behind my post #7 on this thread.
And even from his grave, VPW has got us distracted from ***GOD*** and got us wasting time on arguing about words. Just words - though there is some effort on this thread, to address the concept behind the words.
Read other versions; try using synonyms; don't split hairs or even split the atom - keep it simple
If understanding is getting more complicated - the "explanation" is probably not of God.
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Allan
I agree Twinko...that's why I'll stick to simply 'believing'...it works ( for me anyways )
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Steve Lortz
The problem is, as twinky suggests, WHO do we believe? Do we believe what Jesus meant when he said "whatsoever things you ask in prayer believing, you will receive" or do we believe what Wierwille said it meant? They aren't the same thing.
"I believe in believing" is not a sufficient answer because it is recursive, that is to say, the major terms are defined by each other, therefore it is a circular statement and logically invalid. Since "believing" is defined in terms of "believing", it can be made to mean ANYTHING. Since "I believe in believing" can be made to mean ANYTHING, it consequently means NOTHING.
Wierwille took advantage of this feature to promote his confusion...
Love,
Steve
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Allan
sure glad Jesus came to 'uncomplicate' life !! I think I'll stick with what works though Steve ( in a practical sense ) the way I see it if I need a fire to get warm and someone tells me to use matches, someone else tells me to use a cigarette lighter, someone else says no those don't work, use sticks instead, someone else wants to know how hot a fire I want or tells me I can't start a fire without the right kind of kindling...it doesn't matter if the fire ignites does it ?
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Steve Lortz
You posit the situation, "if I need a fire to get warm and someone tells me to use matches, someone else tells me to use a cigarette lighter, someone else says no those don't work, use sticks instead, someone else wants to know how hot a fire I want or tells me I can't start a fire without the right kind of kindling..." The actual situation is this, Wierwille tries to sell you an empty Zippo he stole from somebody else while Jesus just goes ahead and lights your fire for you.
The difference is this, Allan, who gets the credit when "believing" works, and who gets the blame when it fails? When Wierwille's form of prayer with "believing" works, who gets the glory? The person who is doing the praying gets the glory because that's who the power belongs to. When Jesus' form of prayer with "believing" works, God gets the glory because God is the one that the power belongs to.
If we focus on the word "believing" alone, and if we look at Matthew 21:22 alone, as Wierwille did, then Wierwille's definition of "believing", that "there is power in believing" is plausible. However, if we focus on the word "prayer", and we respect the integrity of God's Word by including Matthew 6:9-13, then all of Wierwille's teachings on "believing" are shown up for what they are, insidious forms of self-worship.
You ask, "...it doesn't matter if the fire ignites does it ?" I ask, "...what happens when the fire does NOT ignite?", and there will CERTAINLY be times when it does not. Do we rag on ourselves (and others) because we didn't "renew our minds" enough? Do we rag on ourselves (and others) because we didn't have enough "believing"? Or do we trust God's will and seek a greater understanding of it?
Love,
Steve
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waysider
Playing the Devil's Advocate:
It's also stated in PFAL that "it works for saint and sinner alike". Wierwille also said he saw unbelievers "manifesting the abundant life more than the believers". Clearly, part of the message VPW was peddling wasn't about God, it was about finding a way to make this thing he called "believing" a functional part of daily life. That's the same approach that has been taken by countless volumes of self-help books, not all of which involve Christianity or religion in general.
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