Leaderboard

In a galaxy far, far away...............I got involved in The Way International, because they were offering a foundational class on the Bible. At the time, I was in my second year of college and out cruising on my 900 Kawasaki this one Sunday morning when I stopped at a state park to stretch my legs and two WOW ambassadors approached me. I attended some twig fellowships and signed up for pfal........and took the class. There were 12 students in this class......everyone was under 25 years old. Add two WOW years, Way Corps training.......and its potent mixture of manipulation and indoctrination.......and my transformation into a cult was complete. Corps coordinators had us jumping thru hoops to avoid public embarrassment, guilt and fear in nearly every closed-door meeting. Wierwille taught many corps nights and would rail on those corps leaders [4th, 5th and 6th corps -- mainly].......calling some "cop-outs" for leaving him. When Barr1e Hill went thru her deprogramming experience and came back to twi, and later Monty Pelt0......wierwille had them on main stage telling their stories of escape. See......"twi was your true family." The "Us verses Them" teachings were a daily occurrence. My involvement in twi lasted until 1998.......after six agonizing years as Oklahoma's Limb Coordinator. And when martindale was ousted in 2000 by twi's lawyers, no less.......that should have been a big fricken clue as to how rotten twi had become. But STILL......lots and lots of corps remained committed to twi-servitude. And now, FINALLY.......after 16 years of Rivenbark leadership, more corps have had enough and splinter cults are cropping up. Ric0 Magnelli is heading up Oikeos and Bob Moynihan, Michael Fort and Ed Horney are spearheading efforts for Revival and Restoration. Splinter cults run by Corps Coordinators.........surprise, surprise. The guys who were the most steeped in complicity AND hypocrisy want to get behind the microphone and lead others?!?!? NO THANKS. In my opinion........splinter cults are WORSE, not better. Maybe it's just me, but I think Matthew 23 speaks volumes of seasoned Pharisees who make it their business to run roughshod over other peoples' lives. I think that the Lord does NOT look kindly upon them. How many times did they bind heavy burdens upon us, grievous to be shouldered.....while they themselves regurgitated "the law of believing" in their teachings to us. All those crappy teachings on *the wooden spoon* at the Indiana Campus. All the Group Confrontations and Yell-fests over one corps person who no longer wanted to jump thru some damn hoop. All that disgusting MOG-doctrine crap......where wierwille was "the man of God of the universe." And, demanding that way corps stay loyal to the board of trustees......even when it was blatantly obvious that the "twi-debt policy" or the"no-pregnancy policy" was God-awful tripe. Or, the "mark and avoid" policy. Hypocrites!! Woe unto you........hypocrites [shut up the kingdom of heaven against men] (verse 13) Woe unto you........hypocrites [ye devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayer] (verse 14) Woe unto you........hypocrites [make disciples twofold more the child of hell than yourselves] (verse 15) Woe unto you........hypocrites [omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith] (verse 23) Woe unto you........hypocrites [make clean the outside of the cup...within is full of extortion and excess] (verse 25) Woe unto you........hypocrites [whited sepulchers.....full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness] (verse 27) Woe unto you........hypocrites [you build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchers] (verse 29) The Lord Jesus taught it plainly for all to see..........scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites. Got it? Corps coordinators..........ppffffftttt. You guys should have YOUR BUTTS in the seats learning from others.

Corps coordinators are the LEAST qualified to start a splinter group. Their hypocrisy and complicity to all that went before.......makes it wrong. (imo) Exhibit A: John Lynn Exhibit B: Momentus

Fun to speculate on the conversation in the prison cell between VB and Carmen T0rnamb3. D'ya think they'd spend time wondering why they were there, what they had done wrong? Perhaps VB would make Carmen a procurer again for him, this time of fresh young inmates so that they could be his bitches.

It is done. We are now in "Questioning Faith." Please check the original post on this thread; I am sure reasonable people will agree that this is where the thread belongs. Until this point, I have answered questions as though the Bible contains the definitive answers to the questions being asked. However, the original post contains a question the Bible cannot answer. I suppose it would be presumed that the atheist position is, of course he was a conman. But that's not really fair. Maybe he was and maybe he wasn't. But let's see what the Bible actually says about Paul. Paul wants us to believe (as we noted on another thread, or was it here?) that he did not learn the gospel from the apostles. He met them, according to Acts, but didn't discuss anything of significance with them. Or he didn't meet them until three years into his ministry, according to Galatians. That is not credible. Paul MUST HAVE talked to the apostles if he had information about the Last Supper. Where else would he have gotten that information? Yeah, God. Um, no. Remember that Paul is writing before the gospels were written, and he is adamant that he did not learn the gospels from the apostles. This is significant because the apostles are alive when Paul is writing. If he is lying, they could easily have called him out. They didn't. In case I am not being clear, I am insinuating that Paul invented the Last Supper and the gospel writers retconned that into the life of Jesus. It doesn't take much work to learn that Christians were not first to the table with a Eucharistic type of meal. Now, let's look back at everyone's behavior. Again, according to Paul: The apostles are very much concerned with preaching to Israel. Only Paul goes to the Gentiles. And this is a BIG DEAL. They have long discussions about the implications. Finally, they make it clear: Paul goes to the gentiles: the rest stick with Israel. WHY ON EARTH WOULD THEY DO THAT IF JESUS TOLD THEM SPECIFICALLY TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO EVERY CREATURE AND DISCIPLE ALL NATIONS IN HIS NAME? The easiest biblical explanation is they were stubborn. The easiest explanation is, Jesus never gave any such instruction. If he had, they would have done it. Paul went to the Gentiles first because the original apostles never dreamed of taking it outside of Israel. They had no reason whatsoever to believe otherwise until Paul forced them to contend with the issue. THEN, afterwards, the church needed to have the mission to the Gentiles come from the lips of Jesus instead of "just" Paul. Suddenly, the post-resurrection appearances (all of which were written decades after Paul's ministry) contain Jesus giving clear and unambiguous instructions to preach the gospel to every f-ing thing that moves. No explanation is given for why the apostles don't follow that exceedingly clear instruction save the vague "zealous for the law" implications in Acts. But what about being told before that they were ministers to the circumcision? Doesn't matter. If the risen Christ tells you to do something that seems to conflict with the living Christ, you either ask him for clarification or you just up-front follow the new, clear instruction. Preach the gospel to every creature is pretty danged clear. They didn't seem to ask for clarification. And they didn't follow the instruction. Either they're stupid, or the new instruction is a fantasy ret-con designed to show the faith community that what Paul was doing was specifically what Jesus instructed. Except he didn't. Jews, who know their own scriptures and prophecies, were rejecting the Christian message, so Paul sold it to people more likely to buy it: Superstitious pagans who erected shrines to unknown gods just in case they missed anyone. It's easy to say Jesus fulfilled prophecies to people who did not know the context of those prophecies and could not determine for themselves it was a load of bunk. Jews know the Book of Daniel is a work of fiction. That's why Daniel is not counted among the prophets in Jewish Bibles. Law, Psalms and Prophets, remember? Daniel is counted among the Psalms. It's a work of literature, not history. It's not because Jews don't know their holy book as well as Christians do (the arrogance!). It's easy for Gentiles to be swayed by the prophecy that a virgin shall be with child, because they do not know the context of that prophecy, which was (a) fulfilled in its own time, (b) not referring to a "virgin" as we know the term and (c) not Messianic. Prophecy after prophecy in the New Testament applied to Jesus fails on any level of inspection. "Out of Egypt have I called my son" is not a Messianic prophecy -- it's not a prophecy at all! "He shall be called a Nazarene" is not a prophecy, Messianic or otherwise. Rachel weeping for children was not a Messianic prophecy. Isaiah 53 is not a Messianic prophecy! Jews know this. That is why they are not impressed by Jesus "fulfilling" non-prophecies. The easiest people to impress were people least familiar with Hebrew scriptures. That's why Christianity leaped so easily from being a Jewish sect to being a Gentile one. Fooling Jews about their own religion was a LOT more difficult than fooling superstitious pagans about the identity of their unknown God. Why Pul converted, we'll never know. He admits persecuting the church. Acts embellishes on that admission, but the author of Acts is a liar. He lied about Jesus' birth and he flat out contradicts Paul about Paul's own life. Who are you going to believe? Was Paul a con man? Hard to tell. The "road to Damascus" story comes to us second hand. His letters don't recount it. He clearly believes he's on a mission from God. But he can't possibly know the things he claims to know about Jesus and the gospel WITHOUT having obtained that information from the apostles -- unless... unless... unless he made it up. And THAT is why the epistles precede the gospels, historically. Jesus, insofar as he existed, was an itinerant preacher who made the wrong enemies and got himself killed. Paul is the one who elevated him. Why? Why did Joseph Smith find golden tablets? Why did VPW see snow on the gas pumps? Why did Charles T. Russell's math lead him to believe Christ would return at the end of the 19th century? Different people believed different Messianic claims in the First Century. It would appear Paul not only seized on the Messiah Y'Shua movement but entirely co-opted and seized control of it, to the chagrin of those who tried and failed to make it a significant movement within Judaism. The history was rewritten using Paul as a framework, not the other way around. The Jesus of history became the Jesus of Paul's legend. History's Jesus was executed by the Romans for sedition. Paul took the crucifixion and declared it to be the work of spiritual forces on high -- no mention of Romans, Jews or Pilate. He didn't need it. No empty tomb. Who cares? People saw him. It's only when trying to relate it as a history that writers are compelled to fill in the blanks Paul did not consider necessary. Whose tomb? Joseph of the Place No One Heard of Before or Since. Who saw him first? She did. I mean they did. I mean he did. I mean... Why didn't he stay in one place? MAGIC! Did the 12 see him? Yes! All 12? Yes! Wait, no. I mean, Matthias was retroactively added to the 12 and... Mmm hmm.