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Even really bad times--the death of a loved one, or health/financial issues--are made better simply bcause your are not in TWI and don't have to listen to their hard hearted blame-the-victim junk. False leaders who don't care about you, false friends who would throw you to the wolves....what kind of life is that? While proclaiming how ugly and dark the non TWI world is, they became even darker than that world they so despise.

My favorite one-liner used to get someone to sign the green card (class registration card): "Look, you're the one who's f*ed up, not me." Spoken not by me but by a WC person I knew very well. I don't think her line worked. RE: Date and Switch, and horizontal witnessing: One guy in a branch I was in would date women all the time and witness to them. If they ended up not taking the class, he'd $cr3w them. Um, if I were a gambler, I'd bet that he got more sex than he got class registrations.

another buncha crap. my "earthly" (as opposed to celestial) family has been there for me through everything even when i gave them up for twi, etc., etc.

It still amazes me that after being involved for more than a decade, going WD, and witnessing to tons of people, I never got anyone to come to fellowship or even take a class. Yes, our WD household was "unsuccessful." However, through all of these years, I found that I make a bigger difference in people's lives by just being me. I'm a practical person. If you like what you see then great. My actions seem to always speak louder than my words. I don't regret I never "won anyone to the Word." I'm thankful for the many people I've met, learned from, and taught. We all make our own choices. I'm never been good as a "salesman" because I believe in free will. If I can't afford it, why should I expect you to. If I don't agree, then why should I expect you to. But we can be friends and learn from each and our own beliefs. P.S. I have fallen asleep during many classes because they are long and late at night and sometimes just boring. I have found some college classes to be more interesting, IMO. Balanced

I do not post much so I can stay under the radar of the way gb.I will come out and say this much, in the area I am in they are pushing for a class and WILL DO OR SAY ANYTHING TO GET YOU IN IT. They use lots of love-bombing to be your friend only to get you in the class. You do not need friends like these. If you have a gut feeling and feel pressure to run, listen to your self. Run,don't walk out the door and do not return their calls just disapear. They are not your answer from GOD. If you are on the fence and a spouse or friend say they just don't seem for real or they are to nice. Listen to the people who love you and have your best intrests at heart not some people you just met wanting money and time from you. If you find your self talking to these new church people and telling them your life secrets and they bring it back up and say the class will heal you from this run. If they can not open the bible and help you then and there and tell you you need a class for deliverence, ask if the class is so great why can't you help me? If you have all the answers from this class share them with me. Jesus did not charge people for a class, he feed them and went to the peoples home. He did not require you to sign a commitment and pay money. If none of this works they will get other people (people you barley know) to call, stop by your home or work place. How ackward is that? This is like buying a car and you say no, so they bring the closer in.RUN fast. If your spouse or family or friends are talking you out of taking the class, they will want a meeting. They wont come alone they will bring a closer. Do not go to the meeting. Run. If you are single and you have a romantic intrest in a person but they wont date till you take the class. RUN.. I am in the way international only because I have a spouse who loves it. If I leave they will try and break up my wife and I. I have seen it done before. All this is so hard to believe. But is true, many people will swear to it. The way has no value on marriage just alligence to them.. If you have been talking to a member of the way and they want you to take a class RUN.. copenhagen

Yes, they did. Remember, Isreal rejected its Messiah, and the "last call" so to speak of the Apostles, that if Israel repented, Christ was ready to come back in his glory and they would enter the book of Revelation, so to speak. Also remember in Acts, Romans, I&II Corinthians, I and II Thessalonians, Hebrews and Galations - Paul had not yet received his revelation of the "one new man" the "new creation" the "one body." During that time, it was Israel's hope that was taught and preached, and at that point, any Gentile who believed, was basically lucky to be "grafted in" and able to partake of Israel's hope - the new earth and heavenly jerusalem come to earth. Now, along comes Ephesians and the rest of the prison epistles. Remember, Israel had done the unthinkable - they had rejected their Messiah. Uh oh - now what? Well, now, God says, I will go to the Alien and Stranger, the one who had NO HOPE, absolutely no inheritance in Israel's hope, the one who was "without me" and could never know me. They had no Hope. They were adrift on the earth. Israel was my chosen fleshly people on earth. Through Israel, it was my intention that they spread my knowledge to the Gentiles. But now, because of Israel's hardness, blindness, hearing they will not hear, seeing they will not see... I will go to the Gentile. I will give the revelation to Paul of a mystery I have kept hidden and not prophesised about in the OT. A plan I purposed in eternity, before Gen. 1:1. I will call out a body to live with me above the heavens, in Glory with me. Whoa! Hold on there!! To a Jew, or a Gentile who had become a Christian during the Acts period, this was unthinkable. They said, this was never, ever, written in the OT. You can't prove this Paul - it is not written! The priest could enter into the holy of holies in the temple once a year - signifying entrance into the Glory where God dwelt - but now you are saying Paul that the Gentiles who believe will live there with him - in God's glory????!!!!! You're nuts! They walked away. All asia turned away. Paul received the fullness of the revelation, the mystery, a new thing. He rarely used OT quotes to back it up - because its not there. They basically had to take it on faith that what he said was true. I see it more as, there is a new heaven and earth coming that will dwell in God's light holy, pure, and without sin, and God, over time is calling people to believe and is going about populating all segments of the new earth and heaven. That's why new bodies will be needed. The laws of phyics as we know them will be folded up. He is populating the new earth, the heavenly Jerusalem, I believe angels will stay in the heavens, and the one body - those who believe the prison epistles, will dwell in glory - the place (it is a literal place) above the heavenlies. All segments will be full of life - bodies terrestial and bodies celestial. So, because of Paul's teaching, of putting aside Israel's hope, which was now in abeyance (Acts 28:28), and being given a commission by God to preach what happened and what comes next during this period of grace while Israel is "lo-ammi" - not my people - for now, Christ now functions as the head and builder of a new creation, a one body that will live in union with him as part of his body in glory in eternity, yes - people walked. Whoever heard of such a thing????

I think it was Raf who I first saw carry the logic out on paper so that it was obvious what nagged one about that doctrine. By "that doctrine", I meant the one where "God can only speak to that which He is". The idea is that God, who is Spirit (and even vpw said, at other times "but He is other things too"), is unable to communicate directly with our minds, because He is Spirit, and Spirit can't communicate directly with flesh (and therefore, mind). So then God implanted spirit within us to overcome that impossibility. So God's Spirit interfaces directly with our spirit. Ok, no problems there. We have easier analogies now that we have the internet and related technologies, so I can follow all that easily. The NEXT step, however, is the problem. OUR spirit then communicates with our mind. HEY! You just said spirit and mind CAN'T COMMUNICATE! That's the whole idea behind the doctrine! So God's Great Big Spirit can't communicate with my mind (it's impossible), but my tiny-by-comparison spirit can do it easily anytime I want? Doesn't wash. ============= As to who and what God Almighty can communicate with, I think most of us monotheists here agree that God Almighty (being Almighty and all) can communicate with who or whatever He wants, whenever He wants. He's effectively got infinite variety in doing so. Download information directly into one's cerebral cortex? Why not? No verse says He cannot, no verse says He WOULD not. Burning bush? Disembodied voice? He's been there, done that, and got the t-shirts. I might say God MORE EFFICIENTLY communicates by interfacing Spirit-to-spirit. I could see logic in that and get behind it. ========= I think my problems with The Great Principle are not insurmountable, but would need to be addressed. First of all, this name. "The Great Principle"? If there is any one "Great Principle", I would say JESUS CHRIST gave it. "You shall love the Lord your God with everything you've got." The Second Greatest Principle, then, I would say JESUS CHRIST gave as well. "You shall love your neighbor like your own self." (From the context, this can be rephrased as the Golden Rule- "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"- and the Silver Rule- "What you don't want others to do to you, don't do to them.") Compared to mLaSJC, any principle given by any man is a distant runner-up. So, I don't think this so-called "Great Principle" is that great. I think it's pretty good. So, let's see. How would I fix the Pretty Good Principle? "God is Spirit." I'm with you there. The idea behind it says God can only communicate with that which He is. No, with a little fine-tuning, we see God can communicate MORE EFFICIENTLY with spirit. "God, who is Spirit" I'm with you there. "Teaches His creation in you" Now I've got a problem again. This phrasing makes it sound as if the spirit in me is SENTIENT, as in "I can think, and my spirit can think, independently of each other." I can't get behind that one. I can accept God communicating with His creation in me, and that operating as a sort of "translator" (like a modem) to the rest of me. I can accept that "my" spirit has priorities hard-wired into it. Programming, so to speak. It can do anything it was programmed to do. (It has its own drivers, to use computer techspeak a bit more.) I don't think He TEACHES so much as COMMUNICATES, and the process is what teaches. The teaching is not confined to the step it's named in, but rather at the step where it reaches my thinking. And the teaching is not "my spirit to my mind", but "God who is Spirit" teaching my mind. Is there a step in-between where "my" spirit is involved? Yes, but that's besides the point, and is incidental to the teaching. Look, when I post here, I don't grab a pen and write on your screen. I type into my computer. My computer, which is technology, communicates my message to my ISP, and my ISP communicates to the GSC server, and that server communicates to your ISP, and thence to your computer. Neither your ISP nor mine is said to "write a post" or "read a post" here. They are part of the process, but incidental to the goals of posting and reading. So, Pretty-Good Principle. Nonsense? I would not say so. (Others may disagree.) Needs improvement? Definitely. (A few will swear it does not.) "God, who is Spirit, communicates with His creation in you, which is now your spirit, and then proceeds to instruct your mind." That's how I'd rephrase that. I find the rest of it a little idiosyncratic, but serviceable. "Then it becomes manifested in the senses realm as you act." Maybe something like "As you take action, then His Will is done. Or not, depending on your chosen action." I prefer to use terminology closer to what Jesus used ("Thy Will be done, as in Heaven, so on Earth") instead of more esoteric twi-speak ("manifested in the senses realm"). I also allowed for the possibility that God can tell you His will, and you can just blow it off and not carry it out. It seems self-evident to me that this need not be documented. Let me know if you need it broken down, though. There's examples in the Bible, and in the modern world.