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Oh, um, "LEADER OF THE PACK"?

"Yes, it's the Benny Hill Show!" Your turn.

It's pretty obvious that no Bible verses actually SAY any of that. It was what vpw called "private interpretation." If I were to go strictly by what's in the Bible, and refused to guess, I'd have to make the following conclusions. 1) The presence of the spirit would make fruit of the spirit possible. 2) Nothing is said to be required for them otherwise- no practice, doctrine, etc. So, the "you have to" anything thing is all personal opinion. 3) Strictly speaking, walking by the written revelation isn't required either. If you do right but don't know which verse says to do the specific behavior, it doesn't undo what you did. 4) As if it needs rephrasing and repeating, neither manifestations nor gifts of the spirit are required. 5) Nothing said that the ONLY way to demonstrate any of those is by fruit of the spirit. People can acquire those elsewhere, with varying degrees of success. There's non-Christians who are confident they've achieved "peace", and probably have. But having the spirit would sure make it a lot easier, by way of the fruit of the spirit.

Keep in mind that you may hold any opinion you wish, but not all of them can be posted here. Inflammatory posts and personal attacks are not permitted. So, if your opinion is, say, that Christian dentists have no souls, you can keep that but you can't post it here because it's an attack on the Christian dentists. Ignoring simple warnings, BTW, doesn't mean you get to just do whatever, either. It just means you decided to make more work for the Moderation staff, since you decide you won't control yourself, so they have to do it for you.

The definitions of "the manifestations" -the 1.0 versions vpw taught in "his" class on Receiving the Holy Spirit Today,- those came straight from Leonard. The later versions added lots of multisyllabic words, all to obscure the source, none of them of any use. "The manifestation of <name> is your operation of the God-given ability where with, you may receive from God, by His revealing unto you..." That got slapped at the beginning of all of them, and it didn't improve the old definitions. If he was making "improvements," there were things he could have done. According to Leonard, "Word of Knowledge" is "certain truths or facts about which it is impossible for you to know by your 5 senses." vpw kept that part. But it's needlessly exclusive. If you COULD know something but simply DON'T, God Almighty isn't BLOCKED from revealing it. It's such an obvious mistake that cg fixed that in his Advanced class, rendering it "certain truths or facts unknown to you by the 5 senses." Now, THAT works. It makes sense, and it technically accurate. (Sadly, he kept on making changes, and some of them were NOT improvements.) I remember that one because I took CG's Adv class. I had the definitions to study beforehand. I was ready to ask about that particular definition- only to discover cg had already fixed it. I'm not sure about "fruit of the spirit" there. If I were to offer a GUESS, I'd recommend someone check Bullinger, in HtEtB and/or the Companion Bible.

I'm not sure. What I know is that it was neither taken from the Bible, nor does it agree with the Bible, and that's really the important thing to take away from that.

Between the 88 and 89 ROA, lcm drew his line in the sand. vpw used to take people in isolation on grounds, and occasionally threaten to kick them out for incompetence unless they swore an oath of allegiance to him. He pulled this privately and in quiet because vpw knew it was wrong. vpw taught lcm. Among the things he taught him was that lcm was going to have to "loosen up" on the subject of sex and sex acts with women other than his wife if he wanted to lead God's people. He convinced lcm that vpw was the real thing. So, when lcm did things vpw did, lcm believed they were OK with God Almighty, so he didn't cover his tracks so much..which is why he got caught. So, 1985 was "Passing of the Patriarch." For a few years, lcm wandered the grounds in a fog (according to him.) After that (1988), lcm drew his line in the sand. He contacted ALL the twi leaders above twig level. He demanded an oath of allegiance to him PERSONALLY. We know this because one of our posters got this message, and phoned lcm directly. He said it sounded like lcm was saying they all had to follow him BLINDLY (his emphasis, not mine.) lcm claimed that was what he was already doing. "If that's what you really think, you can kiss my @$$$" *hangs up* lcm demanded that everyone choose between himself and Geer. Most leaders said they refused to choose among men, and/or said they chose to stand with God, period. So, lcm fired all of them. In one fell swoop, 80% of all the leaders in twi were fired, and letters were sent to everyone with the names of everyone in their state who was canned, and saying they were canned for following their lusts and so on. When that happened, the people- who knew the locals but didn't know lcm- stuck with their local leaders rather than lcm. Since lcm kicked them all out simultaneously, he made it convenient for them to associate with each other. In different places, at least for a time, the locals all split from twi as a group. At ROA 89, attendance was 20% what it had been at ROA 88. Immediately following ROA 89, some of the people who attended left. (Like me-I was there to buy out the bookstore, to observe things for myself to make informed decisions, and to be on-site if, somehow, lcm got sensible and started fixing things. As for the splits, 20% stayed with lcm, 80% left. I summarized the split around the time by saying that the love left, and the fire stayed. So, the compassionate people were out, and none were to be found in twi after that, when you returned. What was left was people who were willing to be loyal even if it was not sensible to do so. So, people running on lots of conviction- the fire. So, that's why twi seemed so different from ROA 90 onward (until lcm called off the ROAs.)

The GSC is not a "Christians only" or a "Christian=specific" forum. Everyone is welcome to post, regardless of position, beliefs, and where they are in their life. That having been said, not everything is welcome to be posted. It's not acceptable to dump insults on posters just because they're Christians, and it's not acceptable to dump insults on posters just because they're NOT Christians. So, no slams just because people are atheists or agnostics (which doesn't mean everyone else is free game for insults.) You have choices. Either refrain from posts like that, or just admit you can't control yourself and go elsewhere to post. You can always make your own message board and post whatever you'd like on it. The other possibility is to disregard the GSC rules and common manners and lay into people without restriction. Of course, that means that the Moderators are going to have to take action. Those who can't control themselves will require others adding control to them. That's true just about everywhere. Naturally, you can ignore my post or make fun of it, but a word to the wise is sufficient.

Stoic philosophy can and does enable a person to walk in the confidence and calmness, etc. that Paul's epistles as we know them say are "fruit of the spirit."

You know nothing about what I do or do not know. What I said about those groups can easily be documented. I will do so if you're interested but not tonight - it's too late.

I'm just going to tell you my opinion. Of course you can disagree. Respectfully, you're very certain about things you know nothing about. But, I' m not here to convince anyone of anything, either.

As the OP shows, twi is still teaching that the fruit of the spirit comes from the manifestations but also includes by walking by the word. I think other Christian groups will teach the latter but not the former if they believe in cessationism.

The Fruit of the Spirit Quotes from article above: "In contrast to walking by the flesh, we walk by the spirit, which includes walking by the written revelation of God’s Word and operating the nine manifestations of the gift of holy spirit we received when we were born again." "When we walk by the spirit by operating these nine manifestations, we will produce the fruit of the spirit."

I think you know that twi will have none of the preposterous, pretentious and extreme prophetic phoniness that ministries like Morningstar (and IHOPKC, Gateway Church, Bethel Church, and others) prosper in, but they all do share in twi's history of there being sexual abuse. Now, do they all practice lovebombing like twi - that I do not know.

I'm fuzzy on the specifics. We discussed this in detail here 10 or 12 years ago. Most of this sort of thing came from Stiles or Leonard or maybe both. The definitions VPW used in the Advanced Class were lifted almost word-for-word from one of them. I think it may have been Stiles. Anyhow, it's all archived here somewhere. I'm not personally very skilled at locating old discussions. But, yeah, it's all here if you're motivated enough to look for it. At the moment, I'm more motivated to catch another episode of Heavenly Ever After on Netflix.

As I tell my sister, I am my favorite subject. So OK, the Rock in 87 and 88. Highlights of my Christian experience. Went into the Army. Met up with a guy trying to establish The Way in Germany but nothing came of it. Got out in 93 and joined a twig. Went to the Rock and this time it was awful. Grounds weren't immaculate as they used to be. The love, joy and family were gone. I found LCMs preaching to be caustic and controlling. It was later that fall I had that demonic episode I wrote about. Eventually I split with my twig leader and The Way. In my experience, The Way changed between '88 and '93. I know it is different for everybody, many thought it was over before I took PFAL. A little extra, would Christianity ever be the same again? The Way was gone, was that glorious experience of Christianity gone, too? Sometime around 96 or 97 the providential hand of God (just humor me, OK?) brought me to Morningstar Fellowship in Charlotte, NC. Truly, it was a 'God thing' (read: psychotic event). My walk with Christ (in my imagination) opened up new chapters and new vistas and even though the experience of love in Christian family (no thanks to VP, I'm sure) was never the same, interaction with other worlds became even better- like...way better (don't bogart that bong) ... Hard getting away from my favorite subject but you did ask.

Only if one wants to see it in the original... and who knows, maybe there's something there that's different...

Do you know who from and what book?

Yes. But don't remember when I first heard it. I remember a CFS camp on Shelter Island in July of 1973 that I was begging to go to after taking PFAL the prior week for the first time at the same location. 17 years old. THOSE were some of my very good memories. Here's a thread on the CFS camp. Gotta love DWBH posts... always entertaining...

Just be glad you didn't see it in the original.

Well, there you have it. One of the most private of private interpretations.

I have a first hand recollection of him teaching that masturbation was the original sin. That's not an event you casually forget.

Probably. I've heard that. You should know better than I. Wasn't sure if Darth Vader Craig invented that or the Emperor victor did. I turned it off after about 20 minutes when victor uttered such exegetical fallacious bulls hit. Abject stupidity. Plagiarized errors are bad enough, but victor's most egregious errors are in his original "work." I am in awe of those in awe of him.

I no longer have the books that demonstrate what concepts Wierwille lifted word for word. I would suspect Christians would care more about the content than the source when evaluating the doctrines, and that conversation, of course, belongs in Doctrinal (we have a new sub forum dedicated specifically to twi doctrine. Feel free). The question of whether he plagiarized or made it up stays here. I don't care much either way. Should we still?