The first mistake a lot of ex-Wayers make is to hold so much animosity and resentment that they go out of their way to try and find poke holes in all of the Way's doctrines and practices.
Just because TWI taught something does not in any way make it completely right or completely wrong. It is obvious by the term "way theology" that you still harbor a lot of hatred, bitterness, resentment, and animosity toward TWI. :snip, snip:
Excuse me, but does Dave-o's "obvious" conclusion in his 2nd paragraph quoted above seem a bit far fetched, as in perhaps an orbit out beyond Pluto and planet X, maybe.... --> --> :(-->
So, each "adminsitration" is a period of time, right?
The "Law administration" was for Israel, right?
What "administration" were non-Jews under while Israel was under the law? Not just non-Jews living just outside Israel's borders, but, say, Vikings or Siberians or Apaches?
“From a Christian point of view, not from a Way point of view, an anti-Way point of view, or solely from a denominational point of view, forgiveness is a big key to Christian living.”
I would agree.
“Yes, VPW did things I did not like. I did not like the plagarism. I did not like the sexual coercion. He neglected a lot of scriptures regarding the so-called "law of believing". In teaching about getting "to whom correct", there were distinct differences between tithing under the law in Malachi, dictating one-tenth and the verses in Corinthians to the church simply encouraging people to give of their abudance. Yet, VPW applied tithing to the church, contradicting this very own teaching. I wish he had paid more attention to the scriptures in that area. Yet, I hold no bad thoughts whatsoever about VPW.”
In the case, of the law of believing, VPW did place it within a very specific context; by reminding us that rain falls on saint and sinner alike. But that was soon forgotten and people were individually blamed for their perceived failures to believe. Which as we know was not what he taught, but rather how it was twisted.
IN regard to his handling of ‘tithing’, anytime you run a business, you must focus on the ‘bottom-line’. I have certainly seen this in churches I have attended, the same happened within TWI.
“LCM did a lot of bad things to people. Adultery, unscriptural authoritarian rules and regulations, lacking pastoral skills, lacking research skills, poor financial management, being quick to judge, and on and on. But, you know what, LCM is still a brother in Christ. LCM will be a part of the gathering together, like it or not. Why not just forgive and bury this hatred and animosity?”
True.
“What's the difference between law and grace. Law is a set of rules which have a punishment if not following. Admittance to paradise was conditional under the law to the adherence to the law. Under the "administration of grace" (notice the actual words used in the Bible), salvation is given immediately upon the acceptance of Jesus Christ as our lord and savior. Under grace, the acceptance of Christ as our lord is the only condition that one must meet. Rewards in paradise, under the grace administration, are determined by obedience to God's Word, not admittance.”
Agreed.
“You see, if you unclutter your mind from this resentment and get rid of that "anti-way theology", you can simply ascertain what the Bible says. It's not that difficult.”
Tsk tsk tsk. Remember love, tolerance, patience and forbearance.
George-
“Re:"I never saw any 'classic wayfarers' when I was in TWI."
”Well you must not have been looking. That's the only possible explanation I can come up with. I saw thousands of them during my tenure. Huge crowds of glassy-eyed, fawning, servile lackies waiting upon the MOG with bated breath, hoping - beyond hope - that maybe, possibly, they could be called upon to offer him a dinner-mint or an ashtray to buttout his cigarette.”
I never called those people “wayfarers” we always called them Corpse
Well, I don't have any biggies (or smallies) on the administration topic. But BiblefanDave, your example of the law and the stop sign made me stop and think. Conditions, that stuff.
You know, the stop sign goes up after the fact, after a traffic condition has been identified. People driving through, say, an intersection should slow down and look, and perhaps stop. Why? To allow for everyone to navigate through the intersection safely.
So the observation of the traffic conditions and the appropriate actions would be normal if everyone was looking and recognizing what was going on. So what's the stop sign do? It makes everyone take the appropriate action to observe the conditions. (or at least those who choose to do what the sign says) We're now required to function in a way that considers everyone else, not just ourselves. We stop, look, proceed safely. The law just recognizes what's already happening and makes observance a requirement, not a choice.
The overall condition of man in the bible starts with Genesis, right? There's God, a man and a woman, a planet, stuff. And then there's a parting of the ways. Everything after that is focused on a rejoining of mankind and God. Mediation is required, a way that will account of what seems to be an inability on the part of mankind to stay truly joined to God. In that sense, the entire topic of the bible is that mediator, that way.
So to me, in a very real way, there's really only one condition that's being written about and that's the correct relationship of a life in some kind of acceptable harmony with God. Pre-"The Fall", man makes some kind of errors that causes that to be lost. Post-Christ man has a means of regaining it. And in both of these periods man's actions remain inconsistent. What's changed? One thing really - that regardless of the rights or wrongs we do we have a point of reconciliation that remains consistent and that isn't lost - the mediation of Jesus Christ.
Man has had Laws. Man has a mediator. Both address the same condition - a need to have direction and help to remain consistent in our life towards God. As with time itself we can divide life into days, hours, minutes but in doing so we're really just keeping track of where we're at in life. Without a clock does time stop?
John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. 16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. 18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
I'd say the grace "administration" (if you want to call it that) started when Jesus the Christ was here in the flesh!
I also believe that the old testament people have reaped the benefits of this grace as well as those during Jesus' time on earth.
The day of pentecost has no bearing on a time period end or begining as far as I can tell. They were filled with the holy spirit. The new testament is in the blood of Jesus. You can be saved and not be filled (overflowing with or speaking by the holy spirit) with the holy spirit, it comes and goes as the wind. A persons body would be hard pressed to maintain this state of constantly being filled with holy spirit. But that doesn't mean that they are not saved and still have that spirit.
The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
Numerous examples of Jesus' followers doing great works by the spirit and knowing things by the spirit revealing it, while Jesus was with them.
John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and my Father are one.
Deut. 6:25 "And it shall be our (Israel's) righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the LORD our God, as He hath commanded us."
Rom. 10:9,10 "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
Clearly, two different conditions for righteousness. Of course, no one could do all the commandments. (Rom. 3:23 "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.") So Israel had to offer sacrifices, according to the law, which demonstrated their reliance on God's grace to forgive their sins. As stated in Hebrews, their sacrifices were a foreshadowing of Christ's sacrifice. That's not the same as saying that Israel was saved by faith in Jesus Christ, as alfakat suggests with his parenthetical insertion, "Hebrews 11 makes it quite plain that faith(in and upon Christ) unites *all* "believers" from Abel all the way through Jesus' first appearance and ministry and all the way up to today." It IS fair to say that faith in God's promises unites believers from the beginning, but the application of that belief was different for Adam, the patriarchs, Israel, and the Christian church.
If you think of the word stewardship on a more personal level it makes a lot more sense.
Wierwille took the word dispensation (which is really stewardship) and changed it to administration and used it to divide the bible into time periods. The only time periods I see are the old and new testament.
Even Jesus talked about being a good steward over what God has given us personaly.
GeorgeStGeorge, I don't understand what you mean by "the application of that belief was different for Adam, the patriarchs, Israel, and the Christian church."
Christ united both the old and new testament people. Eliminating everything that stood in the way of that oneness.
Ephesians 1:9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: 10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times (for each one of us-(added by me)) he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
And if you think about the bride and body. A marriage unites the two into one. And we as the body are to be one with Christ.
Just a drive by posting here, until I've had an opportunity to digest the thread so far.
Vertical Limit - (not to pick on you, it's just that your post was the most recent) You wrote, "Wierwille took the word dispensation (which is really stewardship) and changed it to administration and used it to divide the bible into time periods. The only time periods I see are the old and new testament."
You've got it pretty right, as far as you go. As I've written before, dispensationalism works by stripping the meanings from "oikonomia" ("stewardship"), "aion" ("age") and "diatheke" ("covenant" or "testament"), and playing a deceptive mix-and-match shell-game with the words and their meanings.
You wrote, "The only two time periods I see are the old and new testament." The testaments are examples of "diatheke", covenant.
There are only TWO time periods described in any detail by the Bible; what Paul calls "this present evil age" (Galatians 1:4), and "that which is to come" (Ephesians 1:21). It's hard to see in the KJV because it translates "aion" as "world" instead of "age". The age to come will begin when Christ appears and the dead in Christ will rise and be gathered together.
Weirwille said the gospels were part of the Old Testament. He was dead wrong. The crucifixion, an event that happened in the gospels, was the mediation of the New Testament God had promised to Israel in Jeremiah 31:31-34. The grace God gave to Paul to steward toward believing Gentiles was that they, as believing Gentiles, could also get in on the New Testament on the same basis as the believing remnant of Israel, by grace through faith.
There is no such thing as an "administration of the law", just as there is no such thing as an "age of grace".
A note on another point raised by Vertical Limit - "And if you think about the bride and the body. A marriage unites the two into one. And we as the body are to be one with Christ."
Right again!
Wierwille taught that the Church is separate and distinct from Israel because they were the Bride and we are the Body. However, if you look at Ephesians 5:30-32, it's actually saying that the Bride of Christ, the believing remnant of Israel, has become the Body of Christ through the one-flesh relation of Genesis 2:24. Part of the mystery first revealed to Paul was that believing Gentiles, as Gentiles, could become members of the same Body (Ephesians 3:6).
The Gospels did precede the administration of grace. But, Jesus would sometimes address things specifically dealing with the Jews and the law. Other times, Jesus was telling people about things to happen in the future. Jesus told Nicodemus about being "born again" but I don't see that occurring until the Day of Pentecost.
As far as Old Testament and New Testament, that was basically how the Roman Catholics divided the canon of scripture. Thus, it was a man-made division of the books of the Bible.
When God made the covenant with Abraham, wouldn't that have been a new "testament"? Then when God gave the tablets of stone to Moses bearing God's laws, God oversaw a change in the way people were supposed to obey God. The Gospels were basically books of either transition and/or preparation for the administration of grace, the "newer testament".
Accept for the book of Revelation, most of the prophecies to Isreal regarding the future Isreal were in the "Old Testament". Therefore, the Old Testament set forth the Appearing Administration. So, the new was actually contained in the old.
So, it is not just getting "to whom correct" but also getting "time period correct".
GeorgeStGeorge, I don't understand what you mean by "the application of that belief was different for Adam, the patriarchs, Israel, and the Christian church."
Let me elaborate. By "Adam," I mean before the fall. Adam WAS righteous by creation; all he (and Eve) had to do was not screw it up. They enjoyed God's promises by believing to stay in fellowship with Him. They did not look forward to a redeemer, because they didn't need one. After the fall, Adam and the patriarchs received revelation on an individual basis. They enjoyed God's promises by acting on the revelation. They were aware of the promised redeemer; but if that knowledge was essential to their righteousness, it's not stated in the Bible. Israel (I mean, after Sinai) had a specific, codified revelation from God detailing what He required of them. They enjoyed God's promises when they DID the law. God's grace covered for them, by allowing them to perform sacrifices to gain His forgiveness. They had a fuller understanding of the redeemer than most, if not all, of the people had during the patriarchal period; but, again, their righteousness was not dependent on it. After Pentecost, God's promises are enjoyed by believing in the lordship and resurrection of that redeemer. The old law was supplanted with one: love one another (thereby showing one's love for God, as well). The epistles tell us how to do this; and, of course, Jesus's life, as recorded in the gospels, is the perfect example of living in love.
Indeed, Christ died for all; but the rules have changed from time to time, even within "this present, evil age."
Biblefan Dave - I didn't start questioning the truth about "administrations" because I didn't like Wierwille. I left the Way in '87, as you say you did, and for nearly a decade I tried to preserve most of the things I had been taught in PFAL. One day I began re-examining the pre-tribulation "rapture" of the Church, and when I looked at what the Bible actually says about "ages" and "testaments", Wierwille's dispensationalism washed away like a sand castle in the surf. It really doesn't have any more biblical substance than that.
I would say I have more animosity to Wierwille now than I ever did before, because of the way he lied through his teeth in PFAL when he taught that Romans 9 is addressed to the Jews and Romans 11 is addressed to the Gentiles. He lied.
You wrote, "Other times, Jesus was telling people about things to happen in the future. Jesus told Nicodemas about being 'born again' but I don't see that occuring until the Day of Pentecost."
When Jesus told Nicodemas about being born of the spirit, he was talking about the spirit of resurrection life in the age to come, that God had promised to Israel in Ezekiel 37:1-14. No mystery there.
The gift of holy spirit first poured out on the Day of Pentecost was not that resurrection spirit, but the EARNEST of it (II Corinthians 1:22; 5:5; Ephesians 1:14). We have the earnest of our inheritance, but we won't actually be "born again" until we are actually born again in the resurrection/gathering together.
By the way, when Wierwille taught about Peter on the Day of Pentecost, he misquoted Acts 2:16. Peter didn't say "This is LIKE that which was spoken by the prophet Joel." Peter said "This IS that which was spoken by the prophet Joel [emphasis added]."
The spirit poured out on Pentecost was NOT part of any "mystery". It was promised to the believing remnant of Israel in Joel 2:28-32. Jesus implied as much when he called it "the promise of my Father" in Luke 24:49 and "the promise of the Father" in Acts 1:4.
Joel 2:32a, "And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered [saved]...", is the fundamental promise of Christian salvation, not Romans 10:9&10. When we examine the whole of Romans chapter 10, we see that Paul is EXPOUNDING on the promise of Joel 2:32. He even quotes it in Romans 10:13.
Apparently, the fundamental promise of Christian salvation comes straight out of the OLD TESTAMENT!?!
Wierwille had reasons for twisting the Word of God the way he did. I can no longer believe those reasons were benign.
The Gospels did precede the administration of grace. But, Jesus would sometimes address things specifically dealing with the Jews and the law. Other times, Jesus was telling people about things to happen in the future. Jesus told Nicodemus about being "born again" but I don't see that occurring until the Day of Pentecost.
As far as Old Testament and New Testament, that was basically how the Roman Catholics divided the canon of scripture. Thus, it was a man-made division of the books of the Bible.
When God made the covenant with Abraham, wouldn't that have been a new "testament"? Then when God gave the tablets of stone to Moses bearing God's laws, God oversaw a change in the way people were supposed to obey God. The Gospels were basically books of either transition and/or preparation for the administration of grace, the "newer testament".
Accept for the book of Revelation, most of the prophecies to Isreal regarding the future Isreal were in the "Old Testament". Therefore, the Old Testament set forth the Appearing Administration. So, the new was actually contained in the old.
So, it is not just getting "to whom correct" but also getting "time period correct".
Hi Biblefan Dave,
Love your name.
When were the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (or the earlier forms thereof, as well as other gospels -and there were a few others) actually "written"?
Scholars generally estimate somewhere during the latter half of the first century, into the opening decades of the second.
Long after the legendary "Day of Pentecost"
(which event lauded to the heavens by us today as the "birth of the Church" - Paul esteems so highly as to not bother mentioning it even once in his own writings - never mind Matthew or John).
In any event, the dispensational approach, of getting "to whom written", when applied to the canonical gospels, raises more questions than answers. It's as if Matthew, Mark, or John are assumed to have set out to "retro-write" their gospels for an "administration" or period of time long past?
To "whom" were the gospels "addressed"?
To members of a population long dead or scattered? The only thing missing here is a time tunnel.
As I have brought up in past posts, the earliest form of the "Gospel" in circulation prior to our canonical versions comprised of the logia of Jesus only, minus the historical narratives, - similar to the Coptic "Gospel of Thomas". The sayings of Jesus were regarded as the new "commandments" among many early Christians, regardless of which "apostle" they esteemed in their particular movement or community.
And lest we all forget - especially given the downtrodden cross-section of folks attracted to the Christian movements - the majority couldn't read and were dependant on the oral transmission of sayings, as well as upon scribes or other learned folks to recite material to them.
I would hesitate to consider or imagine Christianity in its most primitive forms (whatever these may have been, though they were no doubt quite varied) to have been "Bible-based" in the manner rehashed today.
And I can imagine - if one could hop in the aforementioned time-tunnel- seeing a gaze of blank bewilderment come over the countenance of a many folks of that era, having recited and translated to them any number of ideas brought up in this thread thus far. They most likely would scratched their beards or nether-regions and have returned to fishing or tending their sheep.
I think if I had to pick a start time for the new testament (which I don't have to) I'd pick the place where Jesus said this cup is the new testament that is in my blood, or even Jesus' birth or maybe his death where his blood was shed.
I never heard VPW say that the OT was to be completely ignored. Some of the very first verses used in PFAL were from the OT.
There are many parts of the OT that don't apply specifically to us in the administration of grace. Jesus fulfilled the law, so we don't have to obey the law. Yet, there are still other sections of scripture that convey the same level of obedience as the OT laws. We are still not supposed to murder. We are still not supposed to steal. We are still not supposed to take advantage of a neighbor's spouse. But we don't refrain from killing, stealing, and covet's another's spouse because we are under the law. We do it because it is specified in NT scriptures as well.
We in the grace administration are not ordered to avoid eating any fruit from any trees in the garden of Eden. Eden is no longer available. So, where one calls it an administration, dispensation, era, eon, epoch, or anything else, that does not apply to us.
God dealt differently with Adam and Eve after they were expelled from Eden than before. So, administration, or dispensation, or whatever you want to call it. The rules or conditions or circumstances did drastically and dramatically change.
In our modern English refer to the length of time that a particular president is in office as an administration. We don't refer to the Lincoln Dispensation or the Coolidge Dispensation. It was the Truman or Eisenhower Administration.
Now, the Gospels. Tricky territory there. Some things apply to the church, some things don't. Some things we can learn from the Gospels, other things applied strictly to that particular time period and those particular people. There is no Christ Administration because they were still under the law. Yet, Jesus fulfilled the law while he was present on earth.
So when exactly did the church administration begin and the law administration end? Was it on the Day of Pentecost? Was it after Jesus arose? Was it the moment he died?
If the new birth is tantamount to the grace administration, then it would have begun at Pentecost.
I never heard VPW say that the OT was to be completely ignored.
Is there someone here who said that? No, what Wierwille did was use the parts of the OT that he liked and dismiss the rest. If he liked it, then "we should do more than they did under the law" like he did with tithing, if he didn't like it, it was merely "for our learning". Heck, an argument could be made that Wierwille's distinction between "for our learning" and "written to us" was not as sharp as he made it
quote:There are many parts of the OT that don't apply specifically to us in the administration of grace. Jesus fulfilled the law, so we don't have to obey the law.
Or, maybe they don't apply to us because we aren't Israel. They didn't apply to the Vikings or the Apaches back then either.
quote:If the new birth is tantamount to the grace administration, then it would have begun at Pentecost.
I guess one question is: "Is the new birth tantamount to the grace administration. There's a good thread about whether the new birth = holy spirit here in Doctrinal.
Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,
But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith:
Romans 16:25,26
Christians had a hard time dealing with what Paul said then as they do now. Remember what he said about all of Asia. As I see it, most of Christianity we have now is nothing like the 1st century. Even the so called Church Fathers seem like Joseph Smiths to me. Fairy Tale makers. Ignatius and his letters to John make me puke.
Christ Jesus is alive and quite well, and actively directing His Church. This takes all the guesswork from us in trying to understand what to do and believe as Christians. What I believe He gave Paul was the revelation regarding what He accomplished. Nobody knew the fullness of the promise, and if that's not something new, I don't know what is. I know, I know, some believe He was God and kind of erased it from His mind then, but after He raised Himself up, it all came back to Him so He called Paul out to speak what He really wanted to say to the New Israel. Huh?
Grace is not law, nor patriotical, nor paradisical. And if it's not for an allotment of time, or what I call a dispensation, what the heck is it? It has a beginning and an end.
And when I get to heaven, I don't think this will be the most important thing I did or didn't understand, but I'm sure that it was by God's grace that I got there.
I just couldn't resist posting here again. It's been a long time.
Call them "eggnog graphites", call them "dispensations", call them "administrations". Call them what you will. The division of God's Word into "periods of time" distinguished by changes in "the rules of life" is every bit as man-made, every bit as artificial, as its division into chapters and verses.
Wierwille's scheme of "administrations" is every bit as devoid of authority for interpretation as the Bible's chapter and verse breaks.
Wierwille's scheme of "administrations" is not the fruit of exegesis, reading valid meanings OUT FROM what is actually written, but rather a product of deceptive or naive eisegesis, reading foreign meanings INTO the text by distorting the meanings of the words.
The word "oikonomia" NEVER, in ANY of its Biblical uses, indicates a "period of time". Not in I Corinthians 9:17. Not in Ephesians 3:2. Not in Ephesians 3:9. Not in Colossians 1:25. A RESPONSIBILITY TO MANAGE was committed to Paul, NOT a period of time. Not in Ephesians 1:10. God headed up all things in Christ TOWARD STEWARDSHIP of that which fills the opportune moments. And that was the REAL mystery of the first century church. The god of THIS AGE, the princes of THIS AGE, didn't know that God was going to raise this pitiful Jesus up to the position of Lord of Glory because of his obedience unto death, even the death of the cross. So they killed him anyway, to their own detriment.
The only mystery first revealed to Paul was that believing Gentiles, as Gentiles, could also get in on the blessings of the New Testament God had promised to Israel in Jeremiah 31, on the same basis as the believing remnant, by grace through faith.
The "Age of Grace", the "Age of the Law", the "Church Age" and the "Age of the Mystery" are ALL foreign concepts. Paul himself would have rejected them as gross distortions of what he actually wrote.
The Bible only gives us enough information to distinguish two ages, this present evil age and the age to come. Everything that happens between the fall of Adam and the appearing of Christ is part of this present evil age. The age to come will begin with the appearing of Christ to resurrect and gather the elect.
To concern ourselves with perceived changes in time periods due to perceived changes in the rules of life is essentially pointless. Since they aren't based on anything scriptural, we can make them mean anything, or we can make them mean nothing. We can make them mean whatever we like, and no one can show us a verse to prove us wrong.
Wierwille's scheme of "administrations" also distracts and alienates us from a biblical understanding of salvation as resurrection life in the age to come.
Even if the concept of "administrations/dispensations" as a time period is valid, who said that there had to be seven? Why not more?
Adamic Administration - Adam only
Adam & Eve Administration - Adam & Eve in Eden
Outta Eden Administration - Adam & Eve alive and keeping the faith after expulsion from Eden
Antediluvian Administration - pre-flood
Post-diluvian Adminsitration - After the flood
Abrahamic Administration
Egyptian Captivity Administration
The Wilderness Administration
Taking Over the Promised Land Administration
Gettin' Their Butts Kicked by the Gentiles Administration
The Kingdom Administration
Babylonian Captivity Administration
Post Captivity Administration
Christ on Earth Administration
Petrine Administration - Peter top dog - Christ ascended, but still following law
Pauline Administration - out with the law
Gathering Administration - after gathering together - Beast reigns
Judgement
Millenium Administration - Christ reigns for 1000 years
No More Sorrow or Crying Administration - end of Book of Revelation onward
:P--> - There are differences, although some are slight, from one of these time periods to the next. Why not break up time into twenty or more "administrations"?
quote: If he liked it, then "we should do more than they did under the law" like he did with tithing, if he didn't like it, it was merely "for our learning". Heck, an argument could be made that Wierwille's distinction between "for our learning" and "written to us" was not as sharp as he made it
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Excuse me, but does Dave-o's "obvious" conclusion in his 2nd paragraph quoted above seem a bit far fetched, as in perhaps an orbit out beyond Pluto and planet X, maybe....
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Oakspear
So, each "adminsitration" is a period of time, right?
The "Law administration" was for Israel, right?
What "administration" were non-Jews under while Israel was under the law? Not just non-Jews living just outside Israel's borders, but, say, Vikings or Siberians or Apaches?
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Galen
Dave-
“From a Christian point of view, not from a Way point of view, an anti-Way point of view, or solely from a denominational point of view, forgiveness is a big key to Christian living.”
I would agree.
“Yes, VPW did things I did not like. I did not like the plagarism. I did not like the sexual coercion. He neglected a lot of scriptures regarding the so-called "law of believing". In teaching about getting "to whom correct", there were distinct differences between tithing under the law in Malachi, dictating one-tenth and the verses in Corinthians to the church simply encouraging people to give of their abudance. Yet, VPW applied tithing to the church, contradicting this very own teaching. I wish he had paid more attention to the scriptures in that area. Yet, I hold no bad thoughts whatsoever about VPW.”
In the case, of the law of believing, VPW did place it within a very specific context; by reminding us that rain falls on saint and sinner alike. But that was soon forgotten and people were individually blamed for their perceived failures to believe. Which as we know was not what he taught, but rather how it was twisted.
IN regard to his handling of ‘tithing’, anytime you run a business, you must focus on the ‘bottom-line’. I have certainly seen this in churches I have attended, the same happened within TWI.
“LCM did a lot of bad things to people. Adultery, unscriptural authoritarian rules and regulations, lacking pastoral skills, lacking research skills, poor financial management, being quick to judge, and on and on. But, you know what, LCM is still a brother in Christ. LCM will be a part of the gathering together, like it or not. Why not just forgive and bury this hatred and animosity?”
True.
“What's the difference between law and grace. Law is a set of rules which have a punishment if not following. Admittance to paradise was conditional under the law to the adherence to the law. Under the "administration of grace" (notice the actual words used in the Bible), salvation is given immediately upon the acceptance of Jesus Christ as our lord and savior. Under grace, the acceptance of Christ as our lord is the only condition that one must meet. Rewards in paradise, under the grace administration, are determined by obedience to God's Word, not admittance.”
Agreed.
“You see, if you unclutter your mind from this resentment and get rid of that "anti-way theology", you can simply ascertain what the Bible says. It's not that difficult.”
Tsk tsk tsk. Remember love, tolerance, patience and forbearance.
George-
“Re:"I never saw any 'classic wayfarers' when I was in TWI."
”Well you must not have been looking. That's the only possible explanation I can come up with. I saw thousands of them during my tenure. Huge crowds of glassy-eyed, fawning, servile lackies waiting upon the MOG with bated breath, hoping - beyond hope - that maybe, possibly, they could be called upon to offer him a dinner-mint or an ashtray to buttout his cigarette.”
I never called those people “wayfarers” we always called them Corpse
.
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socks
Well, I don't have any biggies (or smallies) on the administration topic. But BiblefanDave, your example of the law and the stop sign made me stop and think. Conditions, that stuff.
You know, the stop sign goes up after the fact, after a traffic condition has been identified. People driving through, say, an intersection should slow down and look, and perhaps stop. Why? To allow for everyone to navigate through the intersection safely.
So the observation of the traffic conditions and the appropriate actions would be normal if everyone was looking and recognizing what was going on. So what's the stop sign do? It makes everyone take the appropriate action to observe the conditions. (or at least those who choose to do what the sign says) We're now required to function in a way that considers everyone else, not just ourselves. We stop, look, proceed safely. The law just recognizes what's already happening and makes observance a requirement, not a choice.
The overall condition of man in the bible starts with Genesis, right? There's God, a man and a woman, a planet, stuff. And then there's a parting of the ways. Everything after that is focused on a rejoining of mankind and God. Mediation is required, a way that will account of what seems to be an inability on the part of mankind to stay truly joined to God. In that sense, the entire topic of the bible is that mediator, that way.
So to me, in a very real way, there's really only one condition that's being written about and that's the correct relationship of a life in some kind of acceptable harmony with God. Pre-"The Fall", man makes some kind of errors that causes that to be lost. Post-Christ man has a means of regaining it. And in both of these periods man's actions remain inconsistent. What's changed? One thing really - that regardless of the rights or wrongs we do we have a point of reconciliation that remains consistent and that isn't lost - the mediation of Jesus Christ.
Man has had Laws. Man has a mediator. Both address the same condition - a need to have direction and help to remain consistent in our life towards God. As with time itself we can divide life into days, hours, minutes but in doing so we're really just keeping track of where we're at in life. Without a clock does time stop?
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Vertical Limit
John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. 16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. 18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
I'd say the grace "administration" (if you want to call it that) started when Jesus the Christ was here in the flesh!
I also believe that the old testament people have reaped the benefits of this grace as well as those during Jesus' time on earth.
The day of pentecost has no bearing on a time period end or begining as far as I can tell. They were filled with the holy spirit. The new testament is in the blood of Jesus. You can be saved and not be filled (overflowing with or speaking by the holy spirit) with the holy spirit, it comes and goes as the wind. A persons body would be hard pressed to maintain this state of constantly being filled with holy spirit. But that doesn't mean that they are not saved and still have that spirit.
The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
Numerous examples of Jesus' followers doing great works by the spirit and knowing things by the spirit revealing it, while Jesus was with them.
John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and my Father are one.
I'd say the new testament was happening here.
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GeorgeStGeorge
Let me jump into the fray here.
Deut. 6:25 "And it shall be our (Israel's) righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the LORD our God, as He hath commanded us."
Rom. 10:9,10 "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
Clearly, two different conditions for righteousness. Of course, no one could do all the commandments. (Rom. 3:23 "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.") So Israel had to offer sacrifices, according to the law, which demonstrated their reliance on God's grace to forgive their sins. As stated in Hebrews, their sacrifices were a foreshadowing of Christ's sacrifice. That's not the same as saying that Israel was saved by faith in Jesus Christ, as alfakat suggests with his parenthetical insertion, "Hebrews 11 makes it quite plain that faith(in and upon Christ) unites *all* "believers" from Abel all the way through Jesus' first appearance and ministry and all the way up to today." It IS fair to say that faith in God's promises unites believers from the beginning, but the application of that belief was different for Adam, the patriarchs, Israel, and the Christian church.
George
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lindyhopper
Finally the gap between Mike and most Gspoters has been filled....and that plug is Biblefandave.
I feel a song coming on....
"Standing in the gap between Mike and the fodder. Standing in the gap...."
ah, the good ol' days....
Well, I don't know about good.
I feel a new administration coming on, excuse me, I need to go relieve myself. Sorry
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Vertical Limit
If you think of the word stewardship on a more personal level it makes a lot more sense.
Wierwille took the word dispensation (which is really stewardship) and changed it to administration and used it to divide the bible into time periods. The only time periods I see are the old and new testament.
Even Jesus talked about being a good steward over what God has given us personaly.
GeorgeStGeorge, I don't understand what you mean by "the application of that belief was different for Adam, the patriarchs, Israel, and the Christian church."
Christ united both the old and new testament people. Eliminating everything that stood in the way of that oneness.
Ephesians 1:9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: 10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times (for each one of us-(added by me)) he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
And if you think about the bride and body. A marriage unites the two into one. And we as the body are to be one with Christ.
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Steve Lortz
Just a drive by posting here, until I've had an opportunity to digest the thread so far.
Vertical Limit - (not to pick on you, it's just that your post was the most recent) You wrote, "Wierwille took the word dispensation (which is really stewardship) and changed it to administration and used it to divide the bible into time periods. The only time periods I see are the old and new testament."
You've got it pretty right, as far as you go. As I've written before, dispensationalism works by stripping the meanings from "oikonomia" ("stewardship"), "aion" ("age") and "diatheke" ("covenant" or "testament"), and playing a deceptive mix-and-match shell-game with the words and their meanings.
You wrote, "The only two time periods I see are the old and new testament." The testaments are examples of "diatheke", covenant.
There are only TWO time periods described in any detail by the Bible; what Paul calls "this present evil age" (Galatians 1:4), and "that which is to come" (Ephesians 1:21). It's hard to see in the KJV because it translates "aion" as "world" instead of "age". The age to come will begin when Christ appears and the dead in Christ will rise and be gathered together.
Weirwille said the gospels were part of the Old Testament. He was dead wrong. The crucifixion, an event that happened in the gospels, was the mediation of the New Testament God had promised to Israel in Jeremiah 31:31-34. The grace God gave to Paul to steward toward believing Gentiles was that they, as believing Gentiles, could also get in on the New Testament on the same basis as the believing remnant of Israel, by grace through faith.
There is no such thing as an "administration of the law", just as there is no such thing as an "age of grace".
Love,
Steve
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Steve Lortz
A note on another point raised by Vertical Limit - "And if you think about the bride and the body. A marriage unites the two into one. And we as the body are to be one with Christ."
Right again!
Wierwille taught that the Church is separate and distinct from Israel because they were the Bride and we are the Body. However, if you look at Ephesians 5:30-32, it's actually saying that the Bride of Christ, the believing remnant of Israel, has become the Body of Christ through the one-flesh relation of Genesis 2:24. Part of the mystery first revealed to Paul was that believing Gentiles, as Gentiles, could become members of the same Body (Ephesians 3:6).
Love,
Steve
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Steve!
Steve - check your PTs please!
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Biblefan Dave
The Gospels did precede the administration of grace. But, Jesus would sometimes address things specifically dealing with the Jews and the law. Other times, Jesus was telling people about things to happen in the future. Jesus told Nicodemus about being "born again" but I don't see that occurring until the Day of Pentecost.
As far as Old Testament and New Testament, that was basically how the Roman Catholics divided the canon of scripture. Thus, it was a man-made division of the books of the Bible.
When God made the covenant with Abraham, wouldn't that have been a new "testament"? Then when God gave the tablets of stone to Moses bearing God's laws, God oversaw a change in the way people were supposed to obey God. The Gospels were basically books of either transition and/or preparation for the administration of grace, the "newer testament".
Accept for the book of Revelation, most of the prophecies to Isreal regarding the future Isreal were in the "Old Testament". Therefore, the Old Testament set forth the Appearing Administration. So, the new was actually contained in the old.
So, it is not just getting "to whom correct" but also getting "time period correct".
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GeorgeStGeorge
Let me elaborate. By "Adam," I mean before the fall. Adam WAS righteous by creation; all he (and Eve) had to do was not screw it up. They enjoyed God's promises by believing to stay in fellowship with Him. They did not look forward to a redeemer, because they didn't need one. After the fall, Adam and the patriarchs received revelation on an individual basis. They enjoyed God's promises by acting on the revelation. They were aware of the promised redeemer; but if that knowledge was essential to their righteousness, it's not stated in the Bible. Israel (I mean, after Sinai) had a specific, codified revelation from God detailing what He required of them. They enjoyed God's promises when they DID the law. God's grace covered for them, by allowing them to perform sacrifices to gain His forgiveness. They had a fuller understanding of the redeemer than most, if not all, of the people had during the patriarchal period; but, again, their righteousness was not dependent on it. After Pentecost, God's promises are enjoyed by believing in the lordship and resurrection of that redeemer. The old law was supplanted with one: love one another (thereby showing one's love for God, as well). The epistles tell us how to do this; and, of course, Jesus's life, as recorded in the gospels, is the perfect example of living in love.
Indeed, Christ died for all; but the rules have changed from time to time, even within "this present, evil age."
George
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Steve Lortz
Biblefan Dave - I didn't start questioning the truth about "administrations" because I didn't like Wierwille. I left the Way in '87, as you say you did, and for nearly a decade I tried to preserve most of the things I had been taught in PFAL. One day I began re-examining the pre-tribulation "rapture" of the Church, and when I looked at what the Bible actually says about "ages" and "testaments", Wierwille's dispensationalism washed away like a sand castle in the surf. It really doesn't have any more biblical substance than that.
I would say I have more animosity to Wierwille now than I ever did before, because of the way he lied through his teeth in PFAL when he taught that Romans 9 is addressed to the Jews and Romans 11 is addressed to the Gentiles. He lied.
You wrote, "Other times, Jesus was telling people about things to happen in the future. Jesus told Nicodemas about being 'born again' but I don't see that occuring until the Day of Pentecost."
When Jesus told Nicodemas about being born of the spirit, he was talking about the spirit of resurrection life in the age to come, that God had promised to Israel in Ezekiel 37:1-14. No mystery there.
The gift of holy spirit first poured out on the Day of Pentecost was not that resurrection spirit, but the EARNEST of it (II Corinthians 1:22; 5:5; Ephesians 1:14). We have the earnest of our inheritance, but we won't actually be "born again" until we are actually born again in the resurrection/gathering together.
By the way, when Wierwille taught about Peter on the Day of Pentecost, he misquoted Acts 2:16. Peter didn't say "This is LIKE that which was spoken by the prophet Joel." Peter said "This IS that which was spoken by the prophet Joel [emphasis added]."
The spirit poured out on Pentecost was NOT part of any "mystery". It was promised to the believing remnant of Israel in Joel 2:28-32. Jesus implied as much when he called it "the promise of my Father" in Luke 24:49 and "the promise of the Father" in Acts 1:4.
Joel 2:32a, "And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered [saved]...", is the fundamental promise of Christian salvation, not Romans 10:9&10. When we examine the whole of Romans chapter 10, we see that Paul is EXPOUNDING on the promise of Joel 2:32. He even quotes it in Romans 10:13.
Apparently, the fundamental promise of Christian salvation comes straight out of the OLD TESTAMENT!?!
Wierwille had reasons for twisting the Word of God the way he did. I can no longer believe those reasons were benign.
Love,
Steve
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TheInvisibleDan
Hi Biblefan Dave,
Love your name.
When were the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (or the earlier forms thereof, as well as other gospels -and there were a few others) actually "written"?
Scholars generally estimate somewhere during the latter half of the first century, into the opening decades of the second.
Long after the legendary "Day of Pentecost"
(which event lauded to the heavens by us today as the "birth of the Church" - Paul esteems so highly as to not bother mentioning it even once in his own writings - never mind Matthew or John).
In any event, the dispensational approach, of getting "to whom written", when applied to the canonical gospels, raises more questions than answers. It's as if Matthew, Mark, or John are assumed to have set out to "retro-write" their gospels for an "administration" or period of time long past?
To "whom" were the gospels "addressed"?
To members of a population long dead or scattered? The only thing missing here is a time tunnel.
As I have brought up in past posts, the earliest form of the "Gospel" in circulation prior to our canonical versions comprised of the logia of Jesus only, minus the historical narratives, - similar to the Coptic "Gospel of Thomas". The sayings of Jesus were regarded as the new "commandments" among many early Christians, regardless of which "apostle" they esteemed in their particular movement or community.
And lest we all forget - especially given the downtrodden cross-section of folks attracted to the Christian movements - the majority couldn't read and were dependant on the oral transmission of sayings, as well as upon scribes or other learned folks to recite material to them.
I would hesitate to consider or imagine Christianity in its most primitive forms (whatever these may have been, though they were no doubt quite varied) to have been "Bible-based" in the manner rehashed today.
And I can imagine - if one could hop in the aforementioned time-tunnel- seeing a gaze of blank bewilderment come over the countenance of a many folks of that era, having recited and translated to them any number of ideas brought up in this thread thus far. They most likely would scratched their beards or nether-regions and have returned to fishing or tending their sheep.
Danny
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Vertical Limit
I think if I had to pick a start time for the new testament (which I don't have to) I'd pick the place where Jesus said this cup is the new testament that is in my blood, or even Jesus' birth or maybe his death where his blood was shed.
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Biblefan Dave
I never heard VPW say that the OT was to be completely ignored. Some of the very first verses used in PFAL were from the OT.
There are many parts of the OT that don't apply specifically to us in the administration of grace. Jesus fulfilled the law, so we don't have to obey the law. Yet, there are still other sections of scripture that convey the same level of obedience as the OT laws. We are still not supposed to murder. We are still not supposed to steal. We are still not supposed to take advantage of a neighbor's spouse. But we don't refrain from killing, stealing, and covet's another's spouse because we are under the law. We do it because it is specified in NT scriptures as well.
We in the grace administration are not ordered to avoid eating any fruit from any trees in the garden of Eden. Eden is no longer available. So, where one calls it an administration, dispensation, era, eon, epoch, or anything else, that does not apply to us.
God dealt differently with Adam and Eve after they were expelled from Eden than before. So, administration, or dispensation, or whatever you want to call it. The rules or conditions or circumstances did drastically and dramatically change.
In our modern English refer to the length of time that a particular president is in office as an administration. We don't refer to the Lincoln Dispensation or the Coolidge Dispensation. It was the Truman or Eisenhower Administration.
Now, the Gospels. Tricky territory there. Some things apply to the church, some things don't. Some things we can learn from the Gospels, other things applied strictly to that particular time period and those particular people. There is no Christ Administration because they were still under the law. Yet, Jesus fulfilled the law while he was present on earth.
So when exactly did the church administration begin and the law administration end? Was it on the Day of Pentecost? Was it after Jesus arose? Was it the moment he died?
If the new birth is tantamount to the grace administration, then it would have begun at Pentecost.
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Oakspear
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CWF
Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,
But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith:
Romans 16:25,26
Christians had a hard time dealing with what Paul said then as they do now. Remember what he said about all of Asia. As I see it, most of Christianity we have now is nothing like the 1st century. Even the so called Church Fathers seem like Joseph Smiths to me. Fairy Tale makers. Ignatius and his letters to John make me puke.
Christ Jesus is alive and quite well, and actively directing His Church. This takes all the guesswork from us in trying to understand what to do and believe as Christians. What I believe He gave Paul was the revelation regarding what He accomplished. Nobody knew the fullness of the promise, and if that's not something new, I don't know what is. I know, I know, some believe He was God and kind of erased it from His mind then, but after He raised Himself up, it all came back to Him so He called Paul out to speak what He really wanted to say to the New Israel. Huh?
Grace is not law, nor patriotical, nor paradisical. And if it's not for an allotment of time, or what I call a dispensation, what the heck is it? It has a beginning and an end.
And when I get to heaven, I don't think this will be the most important thing I did or didn't understand, but I'm sure that it was by God's grace that I got there.
I just couldn't resist posting here again. It's been a long time.
Be nice,
CWF `
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Steve Lortz
Call them "eggnog graphites", call them "dispensations", call them "administrations". Call them what you will. The division of God's Word into "periods of time" distinguished by changes in "the rules of life" is every bit as man-made, every bit as artificial, as its division into chapters and verses.
Wierwille's scheme of "administrations" is every bit as devoid of authority for interpretation as the Bible's chapter and verse breaks.
Wierwille's scheme of "administrations" is not the fruit of exegesis, reading valid meanings OUT FROM what is actually written, but rather a product of deceptive or naive eisegesis, reading foreign meanings INTO the text by distorting the meanings of the words.
The word "oikonomia" NEVER, in ANY of its Biblical uses, indicates a "period of time". Not in I Corinthians 9:17. Not in Ephesians 3:2. Not in Ephesians 3:9. Not in Colossians 1:25. A RESPONSIBILITY TO MANAGE was committed to Paul, NOT a period of time. Not in Ephesians 1:10. God headed up all things in Christ TOWARD STEWARDSHIP of that which fills the opportune moments. And that was the REAL mystery of the first century church. The god of THIS AGE, the princes of THIS AGE, didn't know that God was going to raise this pitiful Jesus up to the position of Lord of Glory because of his obedience unto death, even the death of the cross. So they killed him anyway, to their own detriment.
The only mystery first revealed to Paul was that believing Gentiles, as Gentiles, could also get in on the blessings of the New Testament God had promised to Israel in Jeremiah 31, on the same basis as the believing remnant, by grace through faith.
The "Age of Grace", the "Age of the Law", the "Church Age" and the "Age of the Mystery" are ALL foreign concepts. Paul himself would have rejected them as gross distortions of what he actually wrote.
The Bible only gives us enough information to distinguish two ages, this present evil age and the age to come. Everything that happens between the fall of Adam and the appearing of Christ is part of this present evil age. The age to come will begin with the appearing of Christ to resurrect and gather the elect.
To concern ourselves with perceived changes in time periods due to perceived changes in the rules of life is essentially pointless. Since they aren't based on anything scriptural, we can make them mean anything, or we can make them mean nothing. We can make them mean whatever we like, and no one can show us a verse to prove us wrong.
Wierwille's scheme of "administrations" also distracts and alienates us from a biblical understanding of salvation as resurrection life in the age to come.
Love,
Steve
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Oakspear
Even if the concept of "administrations/dispensations" as a time period is valid, who said that there had to be seven? Why not more?
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Oakspear
okay, my tongue is out of my cheek now
:D-->
Steve L:
In your "non-administrative" view of the bible, do you believe that there are some parts of the bible that aren't "written to us"?
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dmiller
I'll agree with that statement, 100%.
;)-->
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dmiller
Oak -- you just listed 20 "Administrations".
2 X 5 (twice) = established grace (times 2) meanining it is really established!
or -- 4 (time of probation) X 5 (grace), means that Grace wins in the end.
or 20 (2 X 10) equals ordinal perfection, established.
or 1 (unity and commencement) X 20 = who-the-heck-knows!!
You could start your own denomination, (with proper promotional material), and figures like this!
:P-->
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