I am a lot more aware of these kinds of things than I let on. I wish you were more accurate in your characterizations of my position(s).
I remember well the tattered remnants arguments, and they still have their place. What I choose to emphasize in my arguments can depend on the topic. I'd say there is more of an evolution in how I say things, more than actual positions changing.
I wish you had picked up on my explanation 2 years ago of the Tom Strange saga of the orange book in Jesus' hand. Did you not see it? You repeat that over and over, and most posters have no idea where that came from or what my position really was. I notice they pick up on it as if they had seen me say the original times many years ago. I doubt if you have picked up on it had it not been for Tom Strange and his doggedly hounding me on that. He never got it right, and repeated his orange book story over and over.
Maybe I can dig up that explanation I did about 2 years ago, if memory serves me right.
I think you finally got it right about the 1942 promise being documented much earlier than the 1972 WLIL book. On that 1965 tape "Light Began to Dawn" there is an account of the 1942 promise. There is also a tiny mention of it in the film class, but almost no detail. I think it was Mrs Wierwille's book that threw you off there. If you listen to the 1965 tape it sounds like it was NOT a first-time revelation to the audience, but more a filling in of detail for newer folks in the audience.
Why not stop all the word salad and start being transparent in your communications and positions on various subjects?
"We can talk about all this in Private Messaging or on voice phone if you would like."
JAL always wanted to take things off GSC and to the phone as well. Once he did, it was non-stop commercials for JAL's books, classes, etc, and all actual DISCUSSION had ended.
So, by now, this looks like an invitation to enter the nice van to get a lift to where the REALLY good candy is kept.
You should take this valuable tip from JAL and from me and from the Apostle Paul.
I saw in Facebook debate years ago that people I know personally for years, face-to-face, would behave like different people when they posted text and debated in politics and science.
I see public posting very much like a stage.
I started posting here and started doing Open Mic performances about the same time. Getting up on a stage will alter a personality in a number of ways, some more easily controllable than others.
For years, in coffee shops and bars, I'd sit and talk one-on-one with another performer. Then he or she would get up on the mic and it's a different person.
People present themselves differently in a one-on-one conversation people, and when there is no audience listening in. When you are on a stage, there are often bright lights shining in your face, and you can't see the audience. That makes live performances a lot like radio performances. Posting here is much the same.
It is complicated to keep track of an audience. I always had friends in the audience, and I could hear their responses. But there were always strangers in the audience also. Stand-up comedians know this with with every punch line: "Know your audience." They either laugh or they don't.
Everyone knows this to some extent. But people are different when in private, especially in person face-to-face. Voice phone is a close second, compared to text.
I have gotten to know a bunch of GreaseSpotters in person, phone, and private e-mails. I encourage you all to do it, if you don't already do it.
If you really have something good to offer people who are hurt and confused, doing it more in person cazn be more efficient.
The voice phone and video phone that Facebook has perfected is perfect for world wide communications. There is a delay when it is all the way around the world. There is one former GreaseSpot lurker from 2005 in India that I have talked to this way. I regularly voice chat with someone in Korea about free will with Facebook.
If you listen to the 1965 tape it sounds like it was NOT a first-time revelation to the audience, but more a filling in of detail for newer folks in the audience
I have neither the resources nor the desire to listen to a tape from almost 60 years ago. Please expound on what it said that led you to this conclusion.
You should take this valuable tip from JAL and from me and from the Apostle Paul
Hold the phone....you just put you and JAL in the same category as the Apostle Paul?
First off, JAL was the one who qued me in to Christ not being absent, though I had deep disagreements with many of his positions and his methods for running ministries..and such. You sure you wanna put yourself in his company?
The Apostle Paul had Jesus Christ himself appear to him and he got direct revelation from Jesus Christ with the letters he authored.
This is straight comedy...you looking for some type of accolades? But to put yourself in the same category as the apostle Paul would require you to ditch the absent Christ...you ready to do that?
Can I put myself in your shoes? I could, but I don't know you, other than you present yourself as someone with vast knowledge the works of VPW.
I forgot to correct this, earlier. My "vast knowledge" is more the kind an engineer has, in that I know where to "look it up." I have searchable digital formats of the collaterals and more. Plus, I have processed all sorts of index files, for example a topic index. Maybe I can get ChatGBT to augment my aging brain on this?
Getting up on a stage will alter a personality in a number of ways, some more easily controllable than others.
It really doesnt if you are seasoned. Ive been performing in front of various size crowds since I was 15. I always excelled in public speaking and have taught the STS at HQ, emceed largish events, etc. If you are insinuating that people here are paper tigers and would lose the wind out of their sails if the conversation was more personal then I would say you don't know me very well...or really at all. Ive never been one to mince words and if anything have become way more compassionate and understanding instead of brute force blunt. Which is appropriate at times...
So what was this thing that you and the Apostle Paul have in common? Cause you never really said and instead babbled on about online communications, which werent AVAILABLE back in the first century....
It really doesnt if you are seasoned. Ive been performing in front of various size crowds since I was 15. I always excelled in public speaking and have taught the STS at HQ, emceed largish events, etc. If you are insinuating that people here are paper tigers and would lose the wind out of their sails if the conversation was more personal then I would say you don't know me very well...or really at all. Ive never been one to mince words and if anything have become way more compassionate and understanding instead of brute force blunt. Which is appropriate at times...
So what was this thing that you and the Apostle Paul have in common? Cause you never really said and instead babbled on about online communications, which werent AVAILABLE back in the first century....
It took me 4 years to get seasoned, and the 5th I enjoyed a lot. I did miss the adrenaline rushes that colored my earlier years.
No, I was not in any way insinuating that people here might be paper tigers or anything negative at all. What I was simply stating is that the audience can change the performance, even for the seasoned.
Private, one-on-one interactions was what I was promoting, and I had no hidden agenda.
You got a lot of brain cells devoted to being suspicious of me and my motives, and it seems like such a waste. You are building a pure idiot anti-idol to be me in your world, and it is just a waste of your calories. I am constantly correcting mis-impressions like this that you folks constantly generate. Relax, a little. Animosity is not the most healthy state of mind. The attitude of gratitude, as Pressed Down put it, is your best state of mind.
Hold the phone....you just put you and JAL in the same category as the Apostle Paul?
First off, JAL was the one who qued me in to Christ not being absent, though I had deep disagreements with many of his positions and his methods for running ministries..and such. You sure you wanna put yourself in his company?
The Apostle Paul had Jesus Christ himself appear to him and he got direct revelation from Jesus Christ with the letters he authored.
This is straight comedy...you looking for some type of accolades? But to put yourself in the same category as the apostle Paul would require you to ditch the absent Christ...you ready to do that?
I was making a strong association with what JAL would do, which is to simplify and deepen the conversation by eliminating the audience.
I was only making a weak association with one of Paul's moves, which was to separate out a small subset of willing students, from the larger body which included negatives and hostility. School of Tyranus ? spelling?
On the other hand, aren't we supposed to make strong associations with Paul and with Jesus in that we want to imitate them?
I was making a strong association with what JAL would do, which is to simplify and deepen the conversation by eliminating the audience.
Again, JAL almost always had an agenda to what he was doing. When I reached out to him after leaving the way international his main concern was me helping him lead his (then) newest ministry..The Living Truth Fellowship and when I declined his offer he put of on the team of elders anyway. To be clear, I had nothing against JAL...kinda felt bad for him in someways...in categories he was brilliant and in other categories he was blind. So he didnt simplify and deepen much of anything with me. He expected an ex-way corps ex-cabinet guy to jump in full bore and help him build his new ministry.
Mike -- You too come off like you have an agenda and you have stated as much...you want people here to take PFLAP. That agenda aligns with the way international. Now if on the other hand, you would work through content when presented links and such that would be a different story...that would be a position that would make me less gaurded. Your agenda should be to lead people to Jesus Christ and if that agenda runs cross purposes to wierwilles's doctrines then ditch the doctrines that hold you back in favor of a better relationship with Jesus Christ. Its God almighty that elevated him as second in command and put all things into his hands. To say the Word of God takes the place of the absent Christ is damnable. It dishonors God and most definately Jesus Christ.
Yep, "thesaurus.com" gives 47 synonyms for hidden - not one is "absent."
When we played "hide and seek" growing up, we were hidden but still present. If we were absent (left the playing area), the poor seeker was plain out of luck
On 1/16/2023 at 8:54 AM, Charity said:
Your quick reply above concerns only my first 8 words - the rest (called the context and the main point), you never even touched on.
God has always been HIDDEN or NOT VISIBLE to the 5-senses yet Jesus never called him "the absent God" or even "the absent Father." He never declared to the Jews that the scrolls took the place of the absent God. How close was Jesus with God, his Father? John says that's just how we are to be with Godandwith him.
On 1/16/2023 at 9:23 AM, OldSkool said:
Now your redefining the English language and not just Koine Greek. Hidden and Absent are not synanomous. Absent carries a rather negative connotation in relatio to the Lord Jesus Christ as he has never been absent, not present where he was supposed to be, not existing, lacking. Your wrong. Instead of bending words admit the error and move on.
ABSTRACTEDimplies absorption of the mind in something other than one's surroundings, and often suggests reflection on weighty matters.
walking about with anabstractedair
PREOCCUPIEDoften implies having one's attention so taken up by thoughts as to neglect others.
toopreoccupiedwith her debts to enjoy the meal
ABSENTstresses inability to fix the mind on present concerns due more to mental wandering than to concentration on other matters.
anabsentstare
ABSENT-MINDEDimplies that the mind is fixed elsewhere and often refers to a habit of abstractedness.
soabsent-minded, he's been known to wear mismatched shoes
DISTRACTEDmay suggest an inability to concentrate caused by worry, sorrow, or anxiety.
was toodistractedby grief to continue working
Hidden versus Absent…variations on a theme
There’s an observational difference between hydropower (waterpower) and electric power: I learned about electronic circuits from my mentor who used the analogy of water in a garden hose to describe the various activities of electricity and conditions of a conductor: current, flow, resistance, a short, an open and a ground. If the hose was clear plastic, you could see the presence and activity of water within the hose.
An extension cord plugged into a wall outlet will have approximately 120 volts of Alternating Current electricity present. I can plug my circular saw into that extension cord and cut a 2x4 piece of lumber.
Now if the outer jacket of the extension cord was clear plastic so that you could see the copper wires – you still would not see the electricity in the cord - it is invisible. Unplug it from the wall outlet and the extension cord is dead – electricity is absent.
Absent is not the same thing as hidden. The hidden energy supply of my home comes from the power company’s electrical substation a few miles from my home. In February 2021 there was a statewide power outage – power was absent from my home for 3 days.
~ ~ ~ ~
New Living Translation You won’t be able to say, ‘Here it is!’ or ‘It’s over there!’ For the Kingdom of God is already among you.” Luke 17:21
There are three popular interpretations of Jesus’ words in Luke 17:21 that the kingdom of God is within you (or among you): 1) the kingdom of God is essentially inward, within man’s heart; 2) the kingdom is within your reach if you make the right choices; and 3) the kingdom of God is in your midst in the person and presence of Jesus. The best of these interpretations, it seems, is the third: Jesus was inaugurating the kingdom as He changed the hearts of men, one at a time. From: What did Jesus mean when He said, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21, KJV)? | GotQuestions.org
~ ~ ~ ~
And in other news…uhm…well it’s actually old news…but sorta relates - something I said in an earlier post( here ) is still relevant – a revised version follows:
Something I’ve noticed with fundamentalism is their myopic assumption that the transcendence and immanence of Christ are two distinct experiences/attributes which are separated by time. They are not! We really can’t put limits on divine attributes – even though wierwille did that frequently…
We read in Acts Christ ascended into heaven…we read that He’s seated at the right hand of God. We read he will return someday…Yet Christ also said I am with you always and in Mark it says the Lord worked with them confirming their message…we read He is head of the Church…Immanence is NOT absent.
Awesome post. Helped me understand a few things better, such as hidden in relation to Christ and how it takes our effort to seek him, even though he is drawing us towards him. I think thats awesome how God worked all this out in order to bring salvation from this dying world.
I have neither the resources nor the desire to listen to a tape from almost 60 years ago. Please expound on what it said that led you to this conclusion.
To say the Word of God takes the place of the absent Christ is damnable. It dishonors God and most definately Jesus Christ.
Not so. Jesus said God's words are spirit and are life. He aspired up to the Word to the extent that he became the Word made flesh.
I concur on JAL.
In 1988 he was righteously on top of a deadly TVT doctrine that was circulating thru the ministry, which was one of gaining abundance by planting images in our brains, a distortion of the believing images of victory. These were believing images of red sports cars taped to refrigerator doors! He was selling the book "The Seduction of Christianity" that tells of similar abuses to the law of believing.
We at TWI-1 had drifted into this kind of "appropriation witchcraft" in our TVTs and practices. JAL was right in pointing out this problem. But then he want one step too far and said that we were taught it in PFAL.
This was Sept 1988, and the same month I got a hold of a bootleg set of PFAL videos. I worked those videos for a whole year, and presented my findings to JAL when he returned in the Fall of 1989.
I documented this for him, with segment numbers and how many minutes into the segment he needed to listen. Then I quoted that passage of the film class.
I found about 19 places in the class where VPW clearly says that first we got to get a promise of God in mind, and THAT is what we believe; not just any old thoughts. In the film class we were taught to NOT do what the "The Seduction of Christianity" warns about. We were taught very clearly in PFAL that there must be a promise of God in our believing or it is wrong.
I showed all this to JAL and he was totally uninterested. He was happy the prior year to lay out the accusation that PFAL blew it on this, but not at all interested when I showed him that HE had blown it, and just forgot what he had heard in the class.
He told me point blank that he did not have time for me, and had to move fast to collect up all the disciples of VPW before someone else did. All he wanted was people, and accuracy and truth be damned.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. John 1
What an insult to Jesus Christ the only begotten son of God - for someone to say He aspired up to the Word to the extent that he became the Word made flesh - that totally contradicts what John 1 says!
What a blatant attempt to push people’s buttons - saying stupid $hit like that…but what the hell do you expect from someone who acts like a troll.
You're looking at the definitions of the raw words.
But these words have a very unusual player involved: God.
When God made Jesus hidden or invisible to us, and then He tells us by an angel when we can see him again, that invisibility is full and total TO US. Jesus can't be found by any of our efforts, and from OUR PERSPECTIVE he is absent. We look, and he's not in sight. He's gone. That is our perspective. This is the context that these words fit in with.
Now from God's perspective and from Jesus' perspective, we are in the center of their focus. They are not absent from us from their perspective; they are tuned into us.
This is the perspective I picked up from PFAL. I did not pick up a perspective that Jesus abandoned us; just the obvious, that we can't see him or hear him. We were not taught that Jesus was twiddling his thumbs up there. That was a stupid TVT.
Anyone who actually has something worthwhile to say, and an opportunity to address an audience- and you had that for a few years while people asked you to speak clearly and make your points- can address the audience and communicate CLEARLY.
I've done that, and had people line up afterwards and wait to shake my hand. (Surprised the heck out of me- they'd just spend 90 minutes listening to me, and some wanted to continue for hours where I'd stopped. I finally had to beg off out of physical hunger.)
So, you supposedly have something important to say. You've had decades to find how to phrase it. And you still have no end of excuses as to why you're not going to just get to the point. But that's anything BUT news now. You'll go on for paragraphs on some self-congratulatory diversion, but actually get to the point? No, you don't have time.
You're looking at the definitions of the raw words.
But these words have a very unusual player involved: God.
When God made Jesus hidden or invisible to us, and then He tells us by an angel when we can see him again, that invisibility is full and total TO US. Jesus can't be found by any of our efforts, and from OUR PERSPECTIVE he is absent. We look, and he's not in sight. He's gone. That is our perspective. This is the context that these words fit in with.
Now from God's perspective and from Jesus' perspective, we are in the center of their focus. They are not absent from us from their perspective; they are tuned into us.
This is the perspective I picked up from PFAL. I did not pick up a perspective that Jesus abandoned us; just the obvious, that we can't see him or hear him. We were not taught that Jesus was twiddling his thumbs up there. That was a stupid TVT.
None of this aligns with the Bible. What in the actual eff is a "raw word"? I guess this means you are using scrambled words instead of raw?...lol...Words have meanings and God used languages, words, word definitions, rules of grammer, etc to reveal himself to manking using written scripture. Yes it takes study and effort but twisting words isnt a godly attribute...satan twists words not God.
You telling anyone what their perspective is will always be flat wrong. You arent qualified to define or explain anothers experience when it comes to their relationship with God/Jesus Christ. Of course I expect you to retort with something along the lines of "experiences arent the word"..or whatever...I would agree with you in some circumstances but not all in this case (or most other cases with you) because you cherish the word of wierwille, not the actual Word of God.
Your word salad on what God and Jesus perspective is laughable. You reject plain scripture that state what part of that perspective really looks like and instead twist words and sripture to match wierwilles laughable theology on Christ being absent.
I really should have just quoted you on "This is the perspective I picked up from PFLAP" because that pretty much makes the entire post null and void. PFLAP is remedial, stolen goods. God/Jesus Christ do not employ thieves in their service and that according to scripture.
Hold the truck up...I thought God could only talk to spirit which teaches our mind. Angels are spirit beings...just how in the heck did the angel communicate to those flesh and blood men gazing into the sky?
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OldSkool
First off, Biblically speaking, Christ has never been absent...that doctrine does not come close to occuring anywhere in the Bible. Yet the way international teaches the word of God takes the place of
Bolshevik
Mike's apparent anger toward Christ and emphasis on obedience . . . that's Wayworld . . . that's the annihilation of the individual
waysider
Soooo...He used ONE verse from the Amplified Bible, HALF a chapter from the New English Bible and required PFAL '77 students to get some version from the 1800's that has a name so unremarkable you can
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OldSkool
Why not stop all the word salad and start being transparent in your communications and positions on various subjects?
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Nathan_Jr
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Nathan_Jr
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Mike
You should take this valuable tip from JAL and from me and from the Apostle Paul.
I saw in Facebook debate years ago that people I know personally for years, face-to-face, would behave like different people when they posted text and debated in politics and science.
I see public posting very much like a stage.
I started posting here and started doing Open Mic performances about the same time. Getting up on a stage will alter a personality in a number of ways, some more easily controllable than others.
For years, in coffee shops and bars, I'd sit and talk one-on-one with another performer. Then he or she would get up on the mic and it's a different person.
People present themselves differently in a one-on-one conversation people, and when there is no audience listening in. When you are on a stage, there are often bright lights shining in your face, and you can't see the audience. That makes live performances a lot like radio performances. Posting here is much the same.
It is complicated to keep track of an audience. I always had friends in the audience, and I could hear their responses. But there were always strangers in the audience also. Stand-up comedians know this with with every punch line: "Know your audience." They either laugh or they don't.
Everyone knows this to some extent. But people are different when in private, especially in person face-to-face. Voice phone is a close second, compared to text.
I have gotten to know a bunch of GreaseSpotters in person, phone, and private e-mails. I encourage you all to do it, if you don't already do it.
If you really have something good to offer people who are hurt and confused, doing it more in person cazn be more efficient.
The voice phone and video phone that Facebook has perfected is perfect for world wide communications. There is a delay when it is all the way around the world. There is one former GreaseSpot lurker from 2005 in India that I have talked to this way. I regularly voice chat with someone in Korea about free will with Facebook.
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waysider
I have neither the resources nor the desire to listen to a tape from almost 60 years ago. Please expound on what it said that led you to this conclusion.
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OldSkool
Hold the phone....you just put you and JAL in the same category as the Apostle Paul?
First off, JAL was the one who qued me in to Christ not being absent, though I had deep disagreements with many of his positions and his methods for running ministries..and such. You sure you wanna put yourself in his company?
The Apostle Paul had Jesus Christ himself appear to him and he got direct revelation from Jesus Christ with the letters he authored.
This is straight comedy...you looking for some type of accolades? But to put yourself in the same category as the apostle Paul would require you to ditch the absent Christ...you ready to do that?
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Mike
I forgot to correct this, earlier. My "vast knowledge" is more the kind an engineer has, in that I know where to "look it up." I have searchable digital formats of the collaterals and more. Plus, I have processed all sorts of index files, for example a topic index. Maybe I can get ChatGBT to augment my aging brain on this?
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OldSkool
It really doesnt if you are seasoned. Ive been performing in front of various size crowds since I was 15. I always excelled in public speaking and have taught the STS at HQ, emceed largish events, etc. If you are insinuating that people here are paper tigers and would lose the wind out of their sails if the conversation was more personal then I would say you don't know me very well...or really at all. Ive never been one to mince words and if anything have become way more compassionate and understanding instead of brute force blunt. Which is appropriate at times...
So what was this thing that you and the Apostle Paul have in common? Cause you never really said and instead babbled on about online communications, which werent AVAILABLE back in the first century....
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Mike
It took me 4 years to get seasoned, and the 5th I enjoyed a lot. I did miss the adrenaline rushes that colored my earlier years.
No, I was not in any way insinuating that people here might be paper tigers or anything negative at all. What I was simply stating is that the audience can change the performance, even for the seasoned.
Private, one-on-one interactions was what I was promoting, and I had no hidden agenda.
You got a lot of brain cells devoted to being suspicious of me and my motives, and it seems like such a waste. You are building a pure idiot anti-idol to be me in your world, and it is just a waste of your calories. I am constantly correcting mis-impressions like this that you folks constantly generate. Relax, a little. Animosity is not the most healthy state of mind. The attitude of gratitude, as Pressed Down put it, is your best state of mind.
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Mike
I was making a strong association with what JAL would do, which is to simplify and deepen the conversation by eliminating the audience.
I was only making a weak association with one of Paul's moves, which was to separate out a small subset of willing students, from the larger body which included negatives and hostility. School of Tyranus ? spelling?
On the other hand, aren't we supposed to make strong associations with Paul and with Jesus in that we want to imitate them?
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OldSkool
I devote those braincells to the content you post and then the slippery behavior that follows.
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OldSkool
Again, JAL almost always had an agenda to what he was doing. When I reached out to him after leaving the way international his main concern was me helping him lead his (then) newest ministry..The Living Truth Fellowship and when I declined his offer he put of on the team of elders anyway. To be clear, I had nothing against JAL...kinda felt bad for him in someways...in categories he was brilliant and in other categories he was blind. So he didnt simplify and deepen much of anything with me. He expected an ex-way corps ex-cabinet guy to jump in full bore and help him build his new ministry.
Mike -- You too come off like you have an agenda and you have stated as much...you want people here to take PFLAP. That agenda aligns with the way international. Now if on the other hand, you would work through content when presented links and such that would be a different story...that would be a position that would make me less gaurded. Your agenda should be to lead people to Jesus Christ and if that agenda runs cross purposes to wierwilles's doctrines then ditch the doctrines that hold you back in favor of a better relationship with Jesus Christ. Its God almighty that elevated him as second in command and put all things into his hands. To say the Word of God takes the place of the absent Christ is damnable. It dishonors God and most definately Jesus Christ.
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T-Bone
Hidden versus Absent…variations on a theme
There’s an observational difference between hydropower (waterpower) and electric power: I learned about electronic circuits from my mentor who used the analogy of water in a garden hose to describe the various activities of electricity and conditions of a conductor: current, flow, resistance, a short, an open and a ground. If the hose was clear plastic, you could see the presence and activity of water within the hose.
An extension cord plugged into a wall outlet will have approximately 120 volts of Alternating Current electricity present. I can plug my circular saw into that extension cord and cut a 2x4 piece of lumber.
Now if the outer jacket of the extension cord was clear plastic so that you could see the copper wires – you still would not see the electricity in the cord - it is invisible. Unplug it from the wall outlet and the extension cord is dead – electricity is absent.
Absent is not the same thing as hidden. The hidden energy supply of my home comes from the power company’s electrical substation a few miles from my home. In February 2021 there was a statewide power outage – power was absent from my home for 3 days.
~ ~ ~ ~
New Living Translation
You won’t be able to say, ‘Here it is!’ or ‘It’s over there!’ For the Kingdom of God is already among you.” Luke 17:21
There are three popular interpretations of Jesus’ words in Luke 17:21 that the kingdom of God is within you (or among you): 1) the kingdom of God is essentially inward, within man’s heart; 2) the kingdom is within your reach if you make the right choices; and 3) the kingdom of God is in your midst in the person and presence of Jesus. The best of these interpretations, it seems, is the third: Jesus was inaugurating the kingdom as He changed the hearts of men, one at a time. From: What did Jesus mean when He said, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21, KJV)? | GotQuestions.org
~ ~ ~ ~
And in other news…uhm…well it’s actually old news…but sorta relates - something I said in an earlier post ( here ) is still relevant – a revised version follows:
Something I’ve noticed with fundamentalism is their myopic assumption that the transcendence and immanence of Christ are two distinct experiences/attributes which are separated by time. They are not! We really can’t put limits on divine attributes – even though wierwille did that frequently…
We read in Acts Christ ascended into heaven…we read that He’s seated at the right hand of God. We read he will return someday…Yet Christ also said I am with you always and in Mark it says the Lord worked with them confirming their message…we read He is head of the Church…Immanence is NOT absent.
Hidden or invisible is NOT absent !
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OldSkool
Awesome post. Helped me understand a few things better, such as hidden in relation to Christ and how it takes our effort to seek him, even though he is drawing us towards him. I think thats awesome how God worked all this out in order to bring salvation from this dying world.
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Mike
Here's the transcript:
https://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/25318-changed-positions-on-doctrine-twi-vpw-and-so-on/#comment-618198
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Mike
Not so. Jesus said God's words are spirit and are life. He aspired up to the Word to the extent that he became the Word made flesh.
I concur on JAL.
In 1988 he was righteously on top of a deadly TVT doctrine that was circulating thru the ministry, which was one of gaining abundance by planting images in our brains, a distortion of the believing images of victory. These were believing images of red sports cars taped to refrigerator doors! He was selling the book "The Seduction of Christianity" that tells of similar abuses to the law of believing.
We at TWI-1 had drifted into this kind of "appropriation witchcraft" in our TVTs and practices. JAL was right in pointing out this problem. But then he want one step too far and said that we were taught it in PFAL.
This was Sept 1988, and the same month I got a hold of a bootleg set of PFAL videos. I worked those videos for a whole year, and presented my findings to JAL when he returned in the Fall of 1989.
I documented this for him, with segment numbers and how many minutes into the segment he needed to listen. Then I quoted that passage of the film class.
I found about 19 places in the class where VPW clearly says that first we got to get a promise of God in mind, and THAT is what we believe; not just any old thoughts. In the film class we were taught to NOT do what the "The Seduction of Christianity" warns about. We were taught very clearly in PFAL that there must be a promise of God in our believing or it is wrong.
I showed all this to JAL and he was totally uninterested. He was happy the prior year to lay out the accusation that PFAL blew it on this, but not at all interested when I showed him that HE had blown it, and just forgot what he had heard in the class.
He told me point blank that he did not have time for me, and had to move fast to collect up all the disciples of VPW before someone else did. All he wanted was people, and accuracy and truth be damned.
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T-Bone
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
John 1
What an insult to Jesus Christ the only begotten son of God - for someone to say He aspired up to the Word to the extent that he became the Word made flesh - that totally contradicts what John 1 says!
What a blatant attempt to push people’s buttons - saying stupid $hit like that…but what the hell do you expect from someone who acts like a troll.
Edited by T-BoneSir Font A Lot
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waysider
You didn't answer my question.
Why am I not surprised?
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Mike
You're looking at the definitions of the raw words.
But these words have a very unusual player involved: God.
When God made Jesus hidden or invisible to us, and then He tells us by an angel when we can see him again, that invisibility is full and total TO US. Jesus can't be found by any of our efforts, and from OUR PERSPECTIVE he is absent. We look, and he's not in sight. He's gone. That is our perspective. This is the context that these words fit in with.
Now from God's perspective and from Jesus' perspective, we are in the center of their focus. They are not absent from us from their perspective; they are tuned into us.
This is the perspective I picked up from PFAL. I did not pick up a perspective that Jesus abandoned us; just the obvious, that we can't see him or hear him. We were not taught that Jesus was twiddling his thumbs up there. That was a stupid TVT.
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T-Bone
Shingles doesn’t care
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WordWolf
I don't think he can. He just proved my points better than I would have expected.
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WordWolf
Anyone who actually has something worthwhile to say, and an opportunity to address an audience- and you had that for a few years while people asked you to speak clearly and make your points- can address the audience and communicate CLEARLY.
I've done that, and had people line up afterwards and wait to shake my hand. (Surprised the heck out of me- they'd just spend 90 minutes listening to me, and some wanted to continue for hours where I'd stopped. I finally had to beg off out of physical hunger.)
So, you supposedly have something important to say. You've had decades to find how to phrase it. And you still have no end of excuses as to why you're not going to just get to the point. But that's anything BUT news now. You'll go on for paragraphs on some self-congratulatory diversion, but actually get to the point? No, you don't have time.
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OldSkool
None of this aligns with the Bible. What in the actual eff is a "raw word"? I guess this means you are using scrambled words instead of raw?...lol...Words have meanings and God used languages, words, word definitions, rules of grammer, etc to reveal himself to manking using written scripture. Yes it takes study and effort but twisting words isnt a godly attribute...satan twists words not God.
You telling anyone what their perspective is will always be flat wrong. You arent qualified to define or explain anothers experience when it comes to their relationship with God/Jesus Christ. Of course I expect you to retort with something along the lines of "experiences arent the word"..or whatever...I would agree with you in some circumstances but not all in this case (or most other cases with you) because you cherish the word of wierwille, not the actual Word of God.
Your word salad on what God and Jesus perspective is laughable. You reject plain scripture that state what part of that perspective really looks like and instead twist words and sripture to match wierwilles laughable theology on Christ being absent.
I really should have just quoted you on "This is the perspective I picked up from PFLAP" because that pretty much makes the entire post null and void. PFLAP is remedial, stolen goods. God/Jesus Christ do not employ thieves in their service and that according to scripture.
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OldSkool
Hold the truck up...I thought God could only talk to spirit which teaches our mind. Angels are spirit beings...just how in the heck did the angel communicate to those flesh and blood men gazing into the sky?
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