Steve Lortz

sein und zeit Love, Steve

I just finished reading The First Fossil Hunters by Adrienne Mayor (Princeton University Press, 2000). In it, Mayor examines the impact that fossils made as part of culture in antiquity. The first part of the book shows how people in antiquity interpreted the protoceratopsian fossils of the Gobi Desert as griffins. She shows how their observations were more scientific than anything that was done before the nineteenth century, given the cultural paradigms of the time. After that, she goes into the geology and archaeology of the Mediterranean, comparing modern findings with those of antiquity. Due to a number of factors, the fossilized bones that turned up around the Mediterranean were not predominantly dinosaur fossils, but the remains of later mega mammals like mammoths, giant giraffes, rhinocerii, etc. And their skeletons were not likely to be preserved complete, but rather in assemblages of bones like the femurs and skulls, which look remarkably like their human counterparts. So the ancients interpreted the fossils as the remains of heroes (NOT gods) and giants who had perished in the Gigantomachy or as a result of Deucalion's flood. They gave the fossils reverent reburials, or displayed them as relics in the temples. It was common knowledge, all around the Mediterranean, that there had been giants in the past who had become extinct, because their bones were being exposed by erosion or plowing or other excavation on a regular basis. Mayor concerns herself with the references in Graeco-Roman sources to fossils, and how they were regarded. She does not mention Genesis 6:4a, "There were giants in the earth in those days," but it's easy to see why the writer would put it in the Bible... it was common knowledge! EVERYBODY knew it! Genesis would seem pretty doofus if it didn't include the explanation for what the peasants and well diggers were coming up with! Your questions would make a lot of sense, Raf, if the Bible were the kind of Post-Reformation/Enlightenment document that systematic theology, especially Fundamentalist/Evangelistic theology, makes it out to be. And Wierwille's "fits like a hand in a glove" system was blinder than most. But it just ain't! Love, Steve

Psalm 119:99 "I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation." Love, Steve

As far as autism spectrum disorder goes, it IS a spectrum, and difficult to judge the degree of intent in the heart of the person who suffers from it, especially since it can be such a wide range of neurological disorder. I have learned that there are some ways in which my wife cannot relate to me the way some other people can, but it's not a matter of intent in her heart. That's part of the reason that Christ ALONE can judge. As far as the "legalism/license" = "lawful evil/chaotic evil" duality goes, it came to me while I was thinking about Galatians 5, particularly verses 1 and 13: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage" and "For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another." These verses seem to me to set up a dichotomy between legalism and license, but neither one of them is good, and there doesn't seem to be a neutral position. The phrase "occasion to the flesh" in verse 13 reminded me of Romans 8:4, "That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." The duality that seems to arise most frequently in Paul is the duality between flesh and Spirit. It seemed that the true position between legalism/license would be "walking after the Spirit" rather than any kind of "neutral". Arneson and I used to kick around the idea of a "believers'" role playing game set in the two year period when Paul was at Ephesus, and all those who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks (Acts 19:10). The player characters would be people who became Christians under Paul's ministry in Ephesus, and went out as "WOW ambassadors" to other cities in Asia. So we DID discuss these things in a role playing frame of reference. Oh, what good memories this post brings back! Not memories of TWI leadership, but memories of the fun Arneson and I had together with games AND the Word! Love, Steve

I don't know if a person with autism spectrum disorder can be accurately located on the AD&D alignment plane! (not being argumentative, my wife has autism spectrum disorder, and she likes watching "Big Bang Theory" because she can relate to the characters, not always an easy thing for her to do) One time I was thinking about how the biblical duality of legalism/license would fit onto AD&D's alignment chart. The puzzle was that legalism/license seemed like lawful-evil/chaotic-evil, but there was no neutral in between, and no good. Then it struck me that in reality, the good alignment option that stands between evil legalism and evil license is walking by the spirit! I hope this makes sense, at least to those familiar with AD&D! Love, Steve

It's not good common sense to follow such leaders... much less to BE ONE! (and I had the opportunity to be one... but the good sense not to!) Love, Steve

Exercising our senses to discern both good and evil means learning to exercise our "common sense" or judgment to see if things do or do not line up with what the Bible says. Common sense would say that Martindale's swearing was not good. The con was that our common sense was not "spiritual", and therefore could not perceive the spiritual "good" of Martindale's swearing. And the same went for any number of other things where the leadership did what they wanted instead of what the Word said to do! This all came from the place in the foundational class where Wierwille taught that there are two realms, the senses realm and the spirit realm, and that the laws of the spirit realm supercede the laws of the senses realm. Therefore those of us who are spiritually immature cannot trust our senses when it comes to judging what the leaders are doing. Love, Steve

Two senses that nearly everybody uses daily, beyond the usual five listed, are balance and kinesthesia. Balace is sensed by a mechanism in the ear, and tells us which way is "down". Kinesthesia is sensed by a nerve in each muscle which tells the brain if the muscle is tense or relaxed. As an infant, a person learns to use their kinesthesia to tell them where their limbs are, and how they are moving. When a cop is giving a field sobriety test, and has the subject move his outstretched finger to the tip of his nose with his eyes shut, the cop is actually testing the person's kinethesthetic sense. Without either one of these neglected senses... six and seven?... a person would not be able to walk! I no longer believe there are "spiritual senses" because I no longer believe there is a "spirit realm" the way Wierwille taught.I do believe God can give people revelation in the form of sensory perceptions. I believe the reference in Hebrews 5:14, to exercising our senses to recognize both good and evil, is talking about our good old, mundane seven (+?) senses! Love, Steve

True that, TrustAndObey! There is an awful lot of cultural meaning from the Greek that we've lost, too! Here are some things that seem to be dawning on me... I've been studying Paul & Judaism Revisited by Preston M. Sprinkle (2013, IVP Academic). In it, Sprinkle tries to get to the basic idea of salvation shared by all of the writers in the first century, Second Temple Jews in general, the writers of the Essene community (the Dead Sea scrolls) and Paul. He arrived at the simple definition "the restoration God brings to those in the covenant community". Then he can work on how different people wrote variations on that definition. He points out that there were two major views of salvation put forward in the Old Testament, depending on which part of the OT you're reading, distinguished by the source of agency. One view, the deuteronomic, holds that God brings restoration to his people when they turn away from their sin and back to him. The prophetic view holds that God will bring restoration, not for the sakes of his people's works, but for the sake of his own name. The deuteronomic view places reliance on human agency. God moves because the people decide to act. The prophetic view places reliance on divine agency. God moves because HE decides to act, regardless of his peoples' actions. These views may seem to contradict each other, if we look at them as analytic, categorical propositions. But that's not what they are. They are two poetic loci that set up a cognitive tension. Not cognitive dissonance, but a cognitive tension between the role of divine agency and the role of human agency. That made me think of the process of raising a child to become a responsible adult. When a person is born, that infant has no ability whatsoever to take responsibility for anything. The child's upbringing is the result of the adult's agency. But a the process goes on, the adult trains the child to take responsibility by allowing the child to exercise what agency the child is ready to exercise. The goal is to eventually present the child to the world as a fully functional adult, capable of exercising her or his own agency. I'm not thinking sanctification is something distinct from salvation. I'm thinking sanctification is the part of salvation wherein God leads us from our miserable ungodly lifestyles to responsible holy living. I'm thinking sanctification begins with divine agency, but transitions to human agency as the person grows in Christ... What do you guys think? Am I on to something, or just barking up a tree? Love, Steve

I haven't made it a point to throw things out, but I continue to find a lot of the things I have kept have a diminishing value, and I need to make room from time to time. Working on a master's degree at a bona fide theological seminary has focused my attention on broader arguments than those that occupied my concentration while arguing with various people on the former CES website, WayDale and Greasespot. I'm getting ready to take an elective 3-hour course on the doctrine of the Trinity, which I am looking forward to. Jesus cuts a lot more slack on doctrinal "correctness" than most religious leaders do. To think that Jesus has been the head of his body for the last 1600 years, and hasn't smacked down the doctrine of the trinity, as he could have done at any time if he'd wanted to, is just plain silly. I don't think Jesus and God are consubstantial, nor that Jesus was "eternally begotten", but I do think that the gift of the Holy Spirit first poured out on the Day of Pentecost is the life force of God, as evidenced by the power to move, heterodyned with the human personality of Jesus Christ. I know my prof will be willing to consider anything I argue well. That is not the doctrine of the trinity forged by the 4th/5th century councils of the Church, but neither is it the "absent Christ" baloney Wierwille taught. I've still got a few of the hardback TWI books, like JCOP and JCOPS, but I can't use them because they are not scholarly works, lacking reviews of the literature, citations, and bibliographies. There was a time when I regretted throwing some things out, but not so much anymore. Do what seems best to you! Love, Steve

I am thankful for everybody's input on this thread... I'm not making any snappy answers, because I'm thinking about what's been said. In some ways, I think we're all on the same page, here, but it's important for me to learn the different perspectives God has shown people on this topic. In TWI, there was only one way to express any truth... the way Wierwille taught in the classes. In reality, there are as many different expressions of true experience as there are people. I no longer think that words like "salvation" and "sanctification" can be as narrowly defined and as tightly restricted as theology has been apt to do. Thinking about what we all have said! Love, Steve

The promise is of a part in the inheritance of the New Covenant. The death of Jesus on the cross mediated the New Covenant, making something available to us today that was only symbolic in the Old Testament. That's what Hebrews 9 is all about. The boys at CES taught that we aren't under the New Covenant today, because that was something promised to Israel, not the Church. They made the New Covenant Paul wrote about something different from the New Covenant in Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Hebrews. That sounds goofy, but it was the logical extension of what Wierwille taught. The truth is, the mystery first revealed to Paul was that Gentiles could become members of the New Covenant community on the same basis as believing Israel, by grace through faith in the resurrection and Lordship of Jesus Christ, without having to first convert to Judaism. Love, Steve

And we find sanctification mixed in with the promise too! In Ezekiel 36. Love, Steve

First implication: Acts 2:33, "Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." Jesus Christ, whom Paul calls "the firstborn from the dead" in Colossians 1:18, is the first, and so far, the only one who has received the Spirit promised in Ezekiel 37:14. The Spirit we received when we confessed with our mouths the Lord Jesus, and believed with our hearts that God has raised him from the dead, is the "earnest of our inheritance", the part given to guarantee receipt of the whole, that we also will receive the resurrection Spirit when Jesus Christ returns. Merry Christmas! Love, Steve

I've spent most of my life in abysmal ignorance of the Old Testament. As a consequence, I have spent most of my life in unwitting abysmal ignorance of the New Testament as well. The blinders of dispensationalism, that nothing written before the day of Pentecost can be applied to the Church, is egotistical foolishness of the worst sort. When I broke with CES in the late '90s, I started looking to find "the promise" referred to in Acts 2:30, and I am still learning more... every day! There are two routes to restoration presented in the Old Testament. One route is that of the Deuteronomist, that God will provide restoration after Israel cleans up its act. The history of the Deuteronomist is a history of DOOM: doom for all of Israel, doom for all of mankind, and even doom for the Messiah. The other route to restoration is that of the prophets, of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel among others. In the prophetic route, God will provide restoration for Israel and all of mankind for His own name's sake, through the obedient works of Jesus Christ! Since the time of the Reformation, Protestant theologians have tended to focus on the Deuteronomic parts of the Old Testament and characterize the whole thing as "salvation by works" as opposed to Protestant salvation by "faith alone". But that's a caricature. The dispensationalists took an ax to the Bible, and teach that the Church is completely separate and discontinuous from Israel, so NOTHING in the Old Testament or the gospels applies to us today. Everything starts from scratch on the Day of Pentecost. But if that's the case, what is the promise Peter refers to when he said "the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, as many as the Lord our God shall call"? The promise is not just that somebody may or may not speak in tongues... The promise of the Old Testament can be epitomized in a few quotes: Jeremiah 31:31-34 "31 Behold the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: "32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: "33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. "34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." Ezekiel 36:22-28 "22 Therefore say unto the house of Israel, thus saith the Lord GOD: I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went. "23 And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. "24 For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. "25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. "26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. "27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. "28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God." Ezekiel 37:11-14 "11 Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts. "12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. "13 And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, "14 And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD." To be brief, this is "the promise [that] is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, as many as the Lord our God shall call." There are many implications that I will write more about as time permits! Love, Steve

Merry Christmas! ...oh... wait... that's TWO words... Well, as a special gift, you can use these two words to reclaim your identity anyway! ... in the name of Jesus Christ! ... uh... that's five more words... Do it anyway! Love, Steve

I'm thinking about the questions you put forward. It may be a day or two before I can articulate some answers. What you say about staring at a dead tree trunk for so long is a very apt description of my experience also. I am STILL trying to broaden my understanding, and I guess that's why I'm so tickled to have fallen in with a faculty that is itself trying to free its thinking from "systematic" straight jackets, even though theirs were not exactly the same as TWI's. I find you an enjoyable dialogue partner, TrustAndObey! Love, Steve

Yep! Love, Steve

When I first scanned over this,I read "REDUNDANT" instead of "abundant"! Love, Steve

So, are the Calvinists right that there is absolutely no human agency involved in salvation or sanctification? Are the Wesleyan Holiness folk right in thinking that receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit is a second work of grace (after salvation/regeneration) that renders a person free from sin in this life, with no responsibility required on the part of the human being? Are Pentecostals right in thinking receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit is a third work of grace to empower for mission? Was Wierwille right to believe he was sanctified as he drugged and raped his followers? Or is there something more to it? Love, Steve

The way this ties back in to sanctification comes in asking what the rich young ruler walked away from. If we view Jesus' exhortation for the young ruler to sell all he had, give it to the poor, and follow him as "sanctification" then the young ruler's disobedience (repudiation of Jesus' Lordship) seems remarkably similar to the behavior we've seen from people who refuse to sanctify themselves (and I have VP in mind here). What is the degree of human agency and divine agency in salvation? What is the degree of human agency and divine agency in sanctification? The questions are a lot closer than systematic theology would have it! Love, Steve

I've found about 2 dozen references to "being saved" in Luke by looking at the words sozo and soteria. They cover a wide degree of types of salvation. At one end, we have the magnitude of salvation Zacharias prophesied in Luke 1:68-72, "68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel: for he hath visited and redeemed his people, 70 As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began:71 That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; 72 To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant" This fits well with the definition of salvation Sprinkler puts forward in Paul & Judaism Revisited, "the restoration God brings to those in the covenant community." At the other end, we have individual people being healed of various afflictions. In several places, Jesus tells people that their faith has saved them. Theses records may refer back to aspects of salvation prophesied in Isaiah. In other places, Jesus tells people that those who seek to save their own lives will lose them. A number of people heckle Jesus while he's on the cross, saying "You saved other people, now save yourself." The use of sozo in Luke 18:26 becomes interesting when we look at the whole passage from verse 18 through 30, "18 And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? "19 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God. "20 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother. "21 And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up. "22 Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him,Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast and distribute to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. "23 And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich. "24 And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! "25 For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. "26 And they that heard it said, Who then can be saved? "27 And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. "28 Then Peter said, Lo, we have left all, and followed thee. "29 And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, "30 Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting." The first thing to notice is the off-hand way in which Luke uses the phrases "to inherit eternal life" (verse 18), "to be saved" (verse 26) and "to enter into the kingdom of God" (verses 24 & 25) as synonyms. For Luke, they virtually mean the same thing. When Luke wrote "whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved" in Acts 2:21, he could just as readily have written "whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall enter into the kingdom of God" or "whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall inherit eternal life". And there are another couple of interesting features in Luke 18 that don't show up in the King James English. The phrases "eternal life" in verse 18 and "life everlasting" are both zoen aionion in the Greek, literally "life of the age". In verse 30, the word "world" is aion or "age" in the Greek. The tail end of verse 30 can be translated "and in the age to come, life of the age." This verse gives the timing for receiving some parts of the salvation we have in Christ... in the age to come. In Luke 20:34-36, Luke expands on the idea of "life of the age in the age to come". Regarding the Sadducees' inquiry about the woman who was married to seven brothers, "34 And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world [aion = "age"] marry, and are given in marriage: "35 But they which are accounted worthy to obtain that world [aion = "age", "the age to come"], and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage: "36 Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." The way that a human being, including Jesus Christ, becomes a child of the resurrection is by receiving the promise of the Father set out in Ezekiel 37:13&14, "13 And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves. 14 And shall put my spirit in you, and you shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD." The idea that nothing written before the day of Pentecost applies to the church strips the Church of all the underpinnings of its very existence! Hope this explains a few things! Love, Steve

"I'm curious as to why you chose Luke's specific record regarding salvation in ch18? It is an interesting section, although I wouldn't displace it from the previous verses that have just as much to do with it as v18ff." This is a very good question. I can't answer it without drawing up a list of all the occurrences of salvation language (soteria, sozo) in the gospel of Luke. I'm not going to present that list here, but I will need to include it as an appendix in my paper. So, I'm going to be spending the next day or two putting that together, and then I'll be able to show why I think Luke 18:18-30 is a key passage in understanding what Luke means by being "saved". And I think we'll see some indirect light cast on "sanctification" also! Thanks! Love, Steve

I've tried to start answering this several different times, but quit, because I knew I was just gumming up the works, even in my own mind. So, instead of trying to answer EVERYTHING in this one post, I'm going to take one point to chew on for a while. In your last post, TrustAndObey, you wrote, "I think the best place to find out what this "gift" of holy spirit is comes from all the scriptures in the gospels where Christ explained it in pretty good details what, why, how, when, etc.. (John ch14-16)" My first problem with taking that approach is this, "systematic theology" has fallen out of style. Systematic theology is where the student assumes that different writers of the New Testament mean exactly the same thing when they use the same word. The theologian builds a "system" for what the words mean, and every interpretation needs to be conformed to the system, even if the text has to be massaged in order to make it fit. Wierwille's theology was HIGHLY systematic, and he would rather do violence to the text than to his system. The alternative to systematic theology is to come to understand what EACH writer means when he uses a word, and then to compare and contrast the differences/similarities in their meanings. For instance, both Luke and Paul write about "speaking in tongues." Do they both mean the same thing? Not exactly. "Speaking in tongues" performs a different literary function in Luke's Acts than it does in Paul's Corinthians. Before I could draw any conclusions about what "speaking in tongues" means in general, I would need to examine the differences, as well as the similarities between what Luke and Paul had to say. The trend away from systematic theology is a good thing. It respects the differences between the books without butchering them to make them "fit like a hand and glove." And a respect for the texts is what my instructors will require of my thesis. One of the deficiencies I found in all the material I was reading about Acts 2 was that no one ever went to the gospel of Luke to find out what Luke meant by "to be saved". Everybody said that the main theme of Acts is "salvation", but everybody seemed to take it for granted that anyone should automatically know what "to be saved" means. Any writers who did address a larger understanding went to the gospel of John instead of the gospel of Luke. They took a "systematic" approach to salvation. The writers also emphasized that Luke/Acts is a single work, and need to be read as such. There are things Luke left out of his gospel because he wrote about them in the book of Acts. But there are also things that Luke left out of the book of Acts because he had already addressed them in his gospel. One of these things covered in his gospel but not in Acts was his definition of "salvation." However, the definition he gives in the gospel (Luke 18:18-30) is not an exposition, but rather a set of shorthand references to the Old Testament, "inheriting eternal life" and "entering into the kingdom of God." Luke deliberately wrote a book detailing events that happened after Jesus' passion. The main thing that happened was the outpouring of Holy Spirit, and how that influenced the growth of the Church. John deliberately wrote a book that did NOT detail events after Jesus passion. John had to take all the Church's beliefs about Holy Spirit and transpose them back into the period BEFORE Pentecost. If I did as you suggest, and explain the gift of the Holy Spirit in terms of the gospel of John, my instructors would mark my paper down for using systematic theology. Love, Steve

Today, I just finished reading Of Dice and Men:The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It by David M. Ewalt (New York: Scribner 2013). Fantasy role-playing was invented by Dave Arneson, who was a grad of PFAL. He co-authored the game Dungeons & Dragons with E. Gary Gygax, who was not a believer. Gygax tried to screw Arneson out of his royalties. Arneson prayed, sued and won. Five different times! Arneson earned in the 5 or 6 figures annually from D&D, and he faithfully tithed off of it. The Trustees, including VP, sucked up to Arnesion when they were face to face, but they bad-mouthed him behind his back. Arneson went to the Word In Business & Professions conference every year, where he participated in the "inventors" breakouts, and he had a booth in the Arts and Crafts tent at the ROA every year, promoting games he published based on the Word. I know. I was there. I designed some of those games. Arneson was a moderate, self-effacing man, but he has had a tremendously more powerful impact on our culture than Wierwille or TWI EVER did! And more GODLY, to boot! Love, Steve