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Kinda. But not really. It says nothing whatsoever about getting taught by the right mortal teacher. It says nothing about getting a "teaching from a true follower of Christ." The point, purpose and meaning of these verses show who or what is the only reliable teacher where matters Truth are concerned. It's right there in the verses. It's the whole point of the passage. You even highlighted the forms of teach. Can you see it? It's not coded. It's not a trick. Hint: it's not any man born of a woman with a dogmatic doctrinal class or a book or a tax exempt 501C3. The New Testament is a collection of varied perspectives teaching against each other, and ALL of them were the TRUE followers of Christ - so each one says about himself. Everyone is claiming to have the real truth but the other doesn't: Paul vs. James; John vs. Thomas; Mathew vs Mark; and so on.... There is something to be learned from each of these perspectives. Who is the truthful one? Which teacher will you follow? Who will light your path? How will you see the path when that teacher, born of a woman, is gone? So, when it come to matters of Truth, Love, that which is eternal, who will be your teacher? Whoever wrote the epistle of 1John offers an answer. Obviously, we can learn from one another. We can even learn from the liars. (Hopefully, we learn something about BELIEVING them - that's all they require.) But how will you know if your teacher is truthful? This is why there can be no authority in these matters. Contrived, systematic, dogmatic doctrines of belief can only illuminate the path they have carved for themselves. Their prophesy must be self-fulfilling and self-sustaining. Self-referential. Circular. Finite. Belief has no place where Truth is concerned. And that includes belief in a teacher so anxious to teach. Why are the religious teachers so anxious to teach? Why do they hold forth, write books, form corporations? One must find out for one's self.

I’m inclined to think the context stresses the importance of the Holy Spirit’s teaching…I also think wierwille-ideology gave intuition a bad name… and in this day and age we also have the convenience of printed Bibles. So how does the Holy Spirit’s teaching work? Perhaps one of the avenues is through intuition. Maybe our intuition should be integral with our more analytical study of the Scriptures...in TWI we were taught to trust wierwille’s intuition over our own. That eroded our self-confidence. But it’s important to realize that intuition is not perfect, and it can be misinterpreted or even compromised by a seared conscience – certain passages like Proverbs 16:25 and Judges 21:25 will attest to that – we find that one’s feelings can be wrong, and not all inner leanings should be heeded. Because of our sin nature, we are occasionally prone to error and poor judgment. If relying only upon our own powers of discernment, we can be led astray. I believe people are created in God’s image and as such we reflect some unique characteristics of our Creator – like a moral compass, the ability to judge what is right from wrong and act accordingly. At times we may acquire knowledge without obvious deliberation. Perhaps that is what Ephesians 1:17 is talking about - “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you…” We have freedom of will and some passages seem to suggest the more we align ourselves with the sentiment and moral demands of the Bible – the more reliable our instincts become – Psalm 37:23 and the Bible does seem to suggest that when we seek wisdom as our highest priority, our intuition can very well be a safeguard against tragic mistakes Proverbs 2:3-5 , Ecclesiastes 7:12 , Psalm 37:23 Psalm 111:10 , and James 1:5 . I agree we can learn from the work of genuine, honest, altruistic Christian leaders, teachers and scholars. I appreciate their work for the way they have broadened my horizons and provided clarity and depth to my faith. But we should also remember the words of Jesus Christ in John 7:17 “Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” I believe there’s something to this verse that might have to do with how our intuition and God may work together – in that metaphysical truth is self-authenticating through the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit – perhaps that is also implied in passages like John 16:13 and I John 2:27 . The Baker Illustrated Commentary also explains I John 2:27 along a similar idea: “Here the emphasis is placed on the spiritual anointing that believers have received from the one who abides in him and in whom they abide. Reminding them of the words of Jesus about God’s direct instruction through the Spirit (John 6: 45; 14: 26; 15: 26; 16: 1–15), the elder affirms the importance of abiding in Christ as the present teacher (2: 27; cf. John 15: 1–15).” From: The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary by Gary M. Burge, Andrew E. Hill

We were taught not to go beyond thinking critically . . . About others. The Way existed for vpw's needs. Through use of . . . everything The Way taught, the only way to exalt vpw was to suppress everyone else.

Thanks, Raf – great post! The essence of your post should be part of a preface for Grease Spotters to read before posting in doctrinal. For want of a better way to put it – for me atheists and agnostics are a secret weapon in my battle against fundamentalism. The reason I believe that is because of the way I understand critical thinking skills, the Socratic method and such. Not that I’m really good at any of that – but I imagine the goal is to breakdown an idea or an issue into its nuts and bolts…and then keep going until every element is seen for what it is…I’ll take someone who is honest and sensible and can read the Bible like any other book. Leave the business of faith to each individual…but a discussion over WHAT the text says or means is up for grabs. what’s really the harm in putting scripture under intense scrutiny? John 1 says the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. If you cut the Word, he bled. If you crucified the Word, he died. It’s odd, Jesus Christ never wrote a gospel. That God…a higher power would try communicating with mere mortals through the agency of mere mortals seems problematic. For some reason my mind jumps to “the medium is the message - it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action. "The medium is the message" is a phrase coined by the Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan and the name of the first chapter in his Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964. McLuhan proposes that a communication medium itself, not the messages it carries, should be the primary focus of study. He showed that artifacts as media affect any society by their characteristics, or content…my mind is trying to find some correlation between that idea and the Word became flesh. The medium literally was the message. I don’t need someone with a TWI-mindset - cuz they don’t realize they’ve got wierwille-blinders on. I think an unnamed sublime philosophy that was promoted in TWI – was the idea that the Bible…”The Word” was akin to a magic lamp. Your believing…your faith was needed to rub the lamp and release the genie…I mean make God do your bidding. Back in my TWI-daze, I would have taken offense if some “rank unbeliever” was being critical about anything in the Bible. But since I joined Grease Spot, I’ve come to appreciate the perspective of others. If memory serves – wierwille had a term “faith-blasters” – I don’t remember the context in which he said it, but I think I had a latent fear of “faith-blasters” when I first came to Grease Spot. Fortunately since I left TWI in ’86 I knew I was venturing way off the reservation and quickly came to terms with the status of my faith…For 12 years in TWI I thought my faith was in God and His Word…after my escape - one of the mind-blowing-confidence-shattering realizations was that my faith was really in wierwille and the belief that he was faithful to always “rightly divide the word” or in less clunky King James terms – I believed wierwille was always correct in his interpretation and explanation of anything in the Bible. It's funny how things change. I will always think of PFAL as getting me interested in systematic theology, hermeneutics, and philosophy of religion. For 12 years of involvement – PFAL was like the gold standard of all that for me. Upon exiting – the more I got into checking out non-TWI authors who were honest and had a lot higher intellectual standards – the more I found out how screwy wierwille was! As a hobby I’m still interested in those subjects – and now it’s more often a remedial process to my faith…and not a misplaced faith in a human being – and a really flawed human being at that - but a reaffirming faith in a higher power that I know so little about. In reading up on systematic theologies from scholars of various theological “pedigrees” I’ve come to realize what chaotic and stupefying nonsense wierwille pushed. Reading commentaries and books written for the layman on how to understand the Bible I’ve come to realize what shoddy, manipulative and obfuscating methods wierwille used to interpret the Bible. Reading up on philosophy of religion I’ve come to realize how biased, ill-informed, narrowminded, and delusional wierwille was in PFAL and any situation where he could bloviate off-script in tirades against Roman Catholics, the Jews, other Christian groups...and really anyone else that challenged wierwille's ideology.