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socks

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Everything posted by socks

  1. Thanks! Yes, it does. I've tried to kinda fold over a starter into whole wheat. I've got a batch of 1/4 whole wheat and 3/4 white rising now. I've been able to get a 3/4 ww to 1/4 white with results, but I'm still working at it. I had to restart after I had a batch in the fridge for too long without a feeding and it didn't come back - well, there's a very small part of it in the current one so I guess it did sort of. When you get a nice batch of starter, dry some out on a sheet and then freeze it. I do that every few months and use that to refresh the starter after a period of inactivity. I think it works or helps, or something. I don't think it hurts it. It's fun! Interested in what you share here.
  2. So I’ve been dinking with my starter which had gotten pretty blah. For about 3 days I added a 1/4 cup of flour and water and gave it 12 hours or so, so I fed it about 5-6 times before it got lively last night, almost doubled in size and visible bubbles on top. I’m making a loaf today, so we’ll see what happens.... ....I put a photo of how it looks a few times I removed about a 1/4 cup of the ongoing starter before feeding, which I’ve read can help it along. I made a roll out of one instead of tossing and it was surprisingly edible, considering the starter was still in waking up mode. I put some photos of how it looks sliced, not as airy as I’d like but the taste was good and it was soft and squishy. everyone I know who’s made sourdough bread sort of shrugs and says keep feeding it and it’ll bubble up at some point so the newest thing I learned was to be sure to refrigerate it if I’m not baking a load for a couple days. .... and then allow 2-3 days feeding to bring it back.....?
  3. Thanks. I brush lightly with butter or oil, and sprinkle kosher salt, pepper, and a spray of sesame and flax seeds.
  4. Hi - just saw this. I'm into my second year of making sourdough bread at home. I have been humbled more times than I want to say, so take this with a grain of alkalinity seltzer. Still learning and re learning things I've learned, and I'm a complete novice/amateur/beginner, but getting more consistent results as time goes on. I think. Maybe. i've encountered exactly what you're describing, mostly in whole grain but occasionally with white flours. I've tried adding yeast - self defeating and doesn't help much. Baking powder or soda, not great results. I've used carbonated water and it basically adds more air bubbles for the starter to bubble in but it won't contribute to the actual "rise". May add some flavor too though, which isn't bad It starts with the Starter - I have to work with it until it's super active - that means the starter will increase noticeably as I feed it and wait - say within 8 hours a really active starter will increase 50% in size and ideally "double". When it's doing that, make your loaves as soon as possible, using the starter. I use a "1,2,3" rule for mixing dough - 1 part starter, 2 parts water, 3 parts flour. No more than a teaspoon of salt although you don't have to add that. They say to use weight instead of measuring - I've done both, either, whatever. I may add more water as I go, or flour, but having a good amount of starter in to begin with helps it to rise. The resulting dough ball will hold it's shape without immediately sagging or falling. If the starter was lively to begin with the proofing should see rising within 4- 6 hours, I'm ready at about 8, but can take longer. I've gotten good results going right from that first proof to a quick shaping and then second proof of maybe 1-2 hours or so and then onto my pan. I put a small tray of water in the back of my oven, to moisturize the bake - supposedly that gives it the thin crunch crust which is what I want and it seems to work. Then I bake at 390 for about 30 minutes. I don't back at higher temps as my oven seems to run hotter over longer times and I've ended up with bricks at higher temps. Here's a few rolls I got, below. They started as about half that size, and rose. I don't think I did a second proof with them, they ballooned right up. don't have a pic of the slice, but they were airy and "bubbly" inside. Having said that, I too am a batch away from my next set of bricks. Its' an elusive sport, this. BUT MAN THEY TASTE GREAT WHEN I GET IT RIGHT. Let us know how you do!
  5. Agreed, it's a well beaten horse at this point. Dialectical thinking moves many of the discussions on GS forward. It can be assumed that if there's interest it will generate questions, inquiry. In fact I think dialectics is one of the stronger methodologies exhibited in online discussion groups like GS. Because it's inherently arbitrary and can allow for resident skepticism it's not always a satisfying way to come to a conclusion, however it is a very useful way for normal and reasonable discussions to take place.
  6. There's no character analysis underway, mate. My comments weren't about what I think about you, they were about this discussion and how you're handling it. I will say this - so few people seem to really understand what it means to love others, as God loves, irrespective of what others say or do. That way of relating to creation excludes animosity, or in fact anything other than the appreciation for life as our Creator has given. "As He is". My prayer for you and everyone else I don't know is that you enjoy that kind of life, more and more, everyday. Have a nice day.
  7. Res ipsa loquitur sometimes the facts speak for themselves. like a mal practice suit against a surgeon, the classic example of a sponge being left inside a patient. "Negligence", because a sponge wouldn't be left inside a patient after surgery WITHOUT there being some form of negligence. No one in a court case would be debating what leaving the sponge inside the patient is or means - that's already understood by the facts of the case. Thus, the mere existence of that condition indicates negligence, given the established procedures and outcomes of (the) surgery. Still and all, a court case and a jury hearing might be necessary to the carrying out of real justice and in so doing it exposes the realities of the case to all angles and approaches. Thus viewed, debated, countered and considered the outcome will be what everyone knew it would be at the outset........ Barring some form of....procedural inconsistency or anomaly. Tampered evidence, incorrectly instructed witnesses, etc. etc. etc. Thus the voice of the facts and the determinations related to them could end up being set aside for another day or perhaps never to be revisited again. Begging the question, if a fact spoke for itself and no one was there to hear it, could be it still be heard? Producing the answer, of course, that that statement....speaks for itself.
  8. This is weepy hogwash. No one here speaks for me and people need to speak for themselves. "rightly dividing" the Word of God has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing with the Way or with you. You simply have a position that you believe is the correct one and you aren't going to consider that the very scriptures you and many others read and interpret can be interpreted to mean different things. This is something that is easily missed when the emphasis is on specific word parsing. The true understanding of what the Bible teaches about any one thing must be understood through the context of it's history, up to and including the most recent and current records of the N.T. The balance of material will quite literally "Interpret itself" in the text themselves. Yet there will be disagreement. Myself, I just excused myself from the discussion for the very reasons that were noted above - despite the fact that there had been discussion and various forms of disagreement and alternative opinion offered you continued to essentially keep whacking away at the same material, as if writing it again would make it make more sense. It doesn't. I just wanted to take exception to your interpretation of what's been written here to mean that those of us who have contributed to the discussion have no interest in "rightly dividing the Word of God"....thats a cheap exit excuse on your part. Many of us do, which is why I took the time to engage you. Today Im going to speak to and see a lot of people who share my faith and who don't all agree with each other on certain points of their faith in Jesus Christ, but who all love each other and share together because of that one thing - their faith in Jesus Christ. He's bigger than both of us mate - keep your eyes on the Savior and all of this will make better sense and come into perspective. PEACE!
  9. Well, I was free - always free to make my own decisions, and I did. When I got involved with the Way and VPW, I already knew I didn't really "need" to do any of that - the Way Corps, being a member/non-member of the Way, get the cap, the t-shirt, the certificate, all of it, in order to be a fully functional Christian believer. I'd given that all up already once by not continuing formal relations with Roman Catholicism. I still felt and feel that my faith's roots are in that religion, as it's where I learned of Christ to begin with, where I read the bible in school, and began the journey of my life BUT I moved into another stage, phase, of what I was going to do next. Rather I made a deliberate decision to "sign up" to work with the Way, and for the Way, as a means to try and carry out the personal vision I had as a Christian. I'd heard the teaching, done the work the first couple years to learn it, had a question or three about it but realized through other things I'd read and participated in I had some of the same and some different questions about all of it, period. Hooking up with Dr. Weirwille and the Way Corps and making the music ministry my primary focus was deliberate - I decided - okay, I'm going to work with this group and see where it goes and what I can do, because I'm going to do something.....and I'd already seen how frail organizations were and the Christian movement at that time were. (like Lonnie Frisbee and Ted Wise, two names that always come up with the California Jesus Movement. I met Lonnie once - in San Francisco - he seemed like a highly energized guy and as charismatic to his peer group as he's been described but I knew that wasn't for me. Within a couple years I was getting a more solid idea of what I wanted to try - as things went I said fine, I'll give this a shot. Unlike some but along with many others I saw the "power of God" and the active living of pneuma hagion-new birth in ample display at that time, both in and out of the Way. I've been "ordained" three times, the last time was in the formal ceremony of the Way Corps. Each time before that was in relation to doing the work of the ministry of the Church, of reaching and caring for those who heard, believed and lived in their new faith. Each time, "sent forth" in life in service. I met my wife before any of the Way, we dated, we married and have a relationship over the last 5 decades that has nothing to do with the Way Nash, as a formal part of that relationship. When it was time to leave, I did. A few years late, as it turned out, but I wasn't ready to make the break at the time I first saw it but I knew it was going to happen. Finally I did it, after offering to go up to the Farm and do anything I could to assist and help, if they thought it would help. Townsend told me to check back in 6 months - "If I'm still here, let's talk".......I knew, that ain't gonna happen. And I realized from the expression on his face how crazy it was to think of trying. I can only speak for myself. With the time left I have an idea of the direction unfolding before me and that'll hopefully be a blast! "Be the change I want to see"......
  10. Thanks! Yes, seems like I've read that or read it somewhere, most of it reads very familiar and I've heard versions of what would be some of it, from different people. Craig seems to have moved very very quickly from what it seems he said was God's revelation to him to dealing with the blowback and breaks in ranks that was going on and sure to continue. So that covers a lot of that, and I appreciate you doing that, so to bring it to the top - although I guess I'm kind of going sideways and south on the original topic, so sorry for that - but I'll toss in what I get back from this other source as it comes to me. So I can say I understand how "WOW" came down the pike, as I was there for it and had my personal ownership of my participation in that idea, that vision. The most common definition was an active Twig home fellowship in every community in every city, state, country, around the world. So a city like New York might have 5 or 50, a city like Novato might have 2, etc. etc. But it was always a relatively dense sub population in any city, even just "one" wasn't considered a success "back in the day", although I think that was retooled as time went on. And I think Craig's shift to "Prevailing Word" was a puff cloud because he has to measure against the previous goal of "WOW" - so by that time he could probably say whatever he wanted, VPW could do the same thing. Now - getting from Craig's re invention exercise BACK or AWAY from it to whatever it is they're doing now - I guess then they just needed to say "we're doing this now" and that was it. There must have been a strong under current against Craig by that time. And that's something I heard from some that left after that - I heard from one guy that said "At least I got to see Craig get what was coming to him!"...... By that time they must have been pretty beat up mentally and emotionally. Yikes, not a pretty picture.
  11. Thanks! That mirrors what I"ve heard before, the night Craig and Reynolds covered it. There's a bit of speed bump in the narrative but it may be that he moved from the old to the new so quickly - after gestating all the disruption and dissension in the Way Corps for so many years there. So he must have decided to move quickly and decisively, cut losses and keep it going. Thanks, I appreciate that. "Word over the World" was something that was very clear to me, so we probably differ in how we're processing it all. From the earliest fellowships I went to in California in 1968, to the time I first met Donnie Fugit in California when he came out to visit with a few people from Kansas,, to going cross country in 1971 and visiting several locations where there were fellowships, to what I did with fellowship myself in California in Oakland, to "going WOW" in the 1972"B" wave, to then going into the Corps....my previous conversations with Dr. Weirwille were about the Word of God and the message of salvation and what we were doing to extend that kind of work using music, in California. Within those first couple years I had become certain beyond any doubt that the things I was seeing and being a part of were real, unadulterated miraculous grace in action. So I was convinced, and as PFAL became a part of that it broadened out considerably. Going into the 4th Corps was something he and I talked about - my wife and I had applied to the 3rd Corps but it was a tight fit and he suggested that several others musicians were coming into the 4th Corps and that would be where he was hoping something could get going. There was a lot involved in these decisions for my wife and I - and I was very young - but at the center of it all was reaching others with the message of the new birth in Christ and the teaching of the "more than abundant life", manifesting God's spirit and "walking on the Word" as taught in PFAL. This had taken off in California and was doing so across the country. One of the things we - some of us anyway - in that early effort of Way Productions cared deeply about was reaching others through the ministry of "music" and one on one preaching and pastoring. My original experience and relative success with music was by working in the public market, not the gospel or religious market. So I had a fairly young but clear idea of what music was and it's role in WOW, and the idea of reaching every person through the local neighborhood fellowship effort - ie "fellowship" and each one reaching another one - was understood to be doable. That's why I was willing to travel across the country and slowly but surely try to be part of doing that. We used to have a joke that one of us in JN came up with when we talked about "WOW" - we pictured what it would be like if "it" ever happened, that there'd be some great party, beer and Drambuie would flow and VPW would have a "We did it!" t-shirt on and it would be at some ROA 2000 or something - I'm sure I didn't think it would take any longer than 25 years or so....and it was just a joke, but I did have a somewhat youthful vision that while it might not happen the way I thought it would - I wanted to aim big and miss small and I was going for it, as unrealistic as might seem. I have an elderly family relative who knows a very little about what we did and he likes to smile and tell people that my wife and I - "got married and went together....to save the world, they were going to change the world!".....I told him once that I didn't come close - and he grabbed my wrist and shook it and told me NO! You changed yourself and you tried to help others, I know that and you did that for sure..." Every once in s awhile I run across someone from 30 - 40 years ago who tells me how they're lives have gone and I'm thrilled to have been a part of it, big or small. I have to admit that I could never make that journey from where I started to the follow along with where Craig took it - not that I'm smarter or better .... well, smarter maybe sure, maybe - but that may be because I'd always had a personal vision and process I was involved in trying to do and to live. Not always successfully, by any means, but working at. So perhaps it was different for others, they'd have to speak to that themselves.
  12. True. But I'm starting to get the impression that either no one here now knows exactly or if they do there's not a lot of detail around it. I put a feeler out to someone who would, to see if they could explain it in 25 words or less and if they can't, then I'll post back here that indeed, those wipers are about as good as it's going to get.
  13. Yeh, I record Fallon, stay up a lot and catch him too. He's a kick at home.
  14. I restated my question in another post here. I'm just looking for a simple answer as to what they said about what they were doing, but I get what you're saying. PEACE!
  15. Thanks! So - I'm just trying to get the difference and how it would have been communicated. Word Over the World meant go tell new people, start local fellowships, run classes - that I know and was part of. The Prevailing Word under Craig's reign was......an emphasis on those already in the Way's group.......? and less on getting "new peeps"? And then after Craig got fired it went ... back to .... a form of getting new people again? I'm curious because of the "apparent' contradiction that those who were involved throughout all those periods would have had to deal with - one day, we're gettin' the Word Over the World, go tell someone new that hasn't heard.......then the next day, it's done, the Word Got Over The World and Now We Need to See It Prevail......then the next day, no, it still needs to prevail but we need to go back out and tell new people.........was there any additional explanation of how that was working? Or did they just do it and not really explain it? What I heard from a tape many years ago, that someone sent me a sound bite off of was of Craig teaching one night and saying he believed everyone in the world had had a chance to believe if they were going to believe - God had revealed to him that there was no longer a need to keep trying to reach new people, rather, start working on those who had..."believed"....ie, were grads of PFAL and that also meant a reset, with a new "class", etc. I'm not trying to make sense of it or even understand a biblical or philosophical basis for the flow of madness, just trying to clarify what happened and what was said about it. Any insights are appreciated as I realize this will give me a new appreciation for what those who left recently bought into and supported.
  16. This all reminds me of how it was going when we were there..and the over flow of people showing up for SNS - I remember some of the back trailers could dial in and get a SNS feed using...I think it was through the phones....? and say, while the Children's Fellowship was going, they could get the service there....does that ring a bell? {that was after they got electrical and water ran to them finally) I remember some discussion around getting it to the trailers because in that era before the other buildings went up the BRC was getting packed upstairs and down and using the trailers made sense, especially during the winter months. There was push back though and it never got done on a universal scale at that time, but then it seems like I heard they eventually set it up so that the trailers had the capability to get the meetings held up in the BRC. Ring any bells?
  17. Gene Side question - this guy who just got the boot made me think.... The Way had "Word Over the World" at one time. Then I read later that Craig Martindale decided that they'd achieved that and he set a different goal for the Way's efforts. I never ready anywhere how that was dealt with after he was terminated....what are they doing now, or trying to do in regards to that goal? .......did the Way decide the Word wasn't over the world and went back to work on that? Or is it something else? I also caught a shift into "discipleship"....did that factor into this? I'm just curious how they explain away all of this, not so much if it's right or wrong, etc. T'anks!
  18. I think .... and I don't mean to insult any of them - but I really do think that those who chose to embed themselves in Way culture and work on the "business/ministry" side of the Way for all these years aren't real high achievers, they're not the "A" types they portray themselves out to be nor the real helpful servants that ministerial and pastors pursuits in the church tend to produce. I knew several Corps who saw the exodus in the 80's as an opening up of higher level positions in the Way Tree and on staff and jumped at the chance to "go full time" - before LCM's disastrous buy-out of all the Way Corps grads to paid staff status. Those people were more than happy to step in and take over whatever the new program was going forward - and some of them were happy to be the hit-men and ball busters for any program requirements that Craig instituted. They want along as long as they could and I know a couple that are still onboard. And there's probably a lot more like that from what I've heard - perfectly happy to see Corps leave or get fired and then take their jobs over. Guys like Harve - Ex-Mrs Weirwilles escort? ..... I first met him in '74 when he came into the Way farm for the "Word in Music" week conference we held, a Way Productions effort a la Summer School programs. He was a recent PFAL grad, and I can honestly say he went a different route, very deliberately, to get ahead in the Way. Not the sharpest knife, to be kind but he chose where to put his blade, so to speak. All that Way-For stuff, that's not real high level achievement or great, strong character - it's Peter Principle stuff, the Dilbert mentality, but without any real professional, academic or usable talent or skill beyond doing whatever you're told to do and nothing more or less. So yeah - they'll be unemployable to be sure but they'll find a way to make a buck or get along........which is what it was all about for some of them anyway.....there's a few in operations sides of things who know what they're doing, from what I can tell by my sources but on the business side of the Way - there's a lot of under achievers who are warming the bench and collecting a pay check, such as it is.
  19. Oh, the shifting bucket of sludge the Way puts out....bored of directors? How could they not be, reshuffling that deck's got to be getting pretty weird. On this general topic I was chatting with someone about some other stuff, of companies and corporate cultures we'd been part of and I remembered how ungracious the Way Nash could be, as both an organization and a culture. VP would bend over sideways to try and establish some kind of formal "this is how it's done in pro circles" protocol and get everyone hopping and skipping to get everything "right" and just - so......while keeping his good ol' boy outlaw preacher-on-a-Harley personae, pastor with a dog and a yippidee ky yae tip to his JohnDeere cap. And then he'd end up publicly ridiculing someone for the slightest mistake, perceived or real, and embarrassing everyone involved. The man could take the simplest, most elegantly simple thing and make it a shit fest of blame and paranoia. People who want to follow his every utterance today forget that or excuse it, with a "but he just did that because he loved us", or "he just cared about the Word so much he cared enough to" blah blah blah. They don't credit how much patience, love, care and intelligence it takes to maintain an even keel and patiently guide and support people we care about. I've had to separate the Word, the life's lessons and the unadulterated bulls h it from each other. I guess I just get a kick out of the fact that they're still playing musical chairs back there.
  20. It's like that old analogy of the bucket of crabs all trying to get out, "crab mentality ... a metaphor derived from a pattern of behavior noted in crabs when they are trapped in a bucket. While any one crab could easily escape, its efforts will be undermined by others, ensuring the group's collective demise." (wikipedia) Crab's on the barb-bee!
  21. Hi, I'm just poking around and saw this - I first met Geer in 1971, in New York, spent a couple weeks there, during which I spent a few days in and out of his house, or the house where he was staying, I can't quite remember. It was a big house, I remember that and he was living there. Long story short - it caught my eye that you said Geer had Mexican cartel connections??? - mostly because the Mexican cartels weren't built on drug trade and all that Holly-weird stuff we've seen in movies and TV about tons of weed and cocaine and all that didn't really kick in for Mexican crime family/syndicates until the 80's. That doesn't say there wasn't strong border activity then, and being on the east coast it would have been making it's way up the coast. But Geer was a kid, and not exactly a hard ass. Now, I want to be clear - I'm not speaking for or against any others in or out of any drug business that would have been involved and as far as I'm concerned, it's so long ago as to be of no consequence to me - so - just to be clear, I'm just saying I don't think he COULD have been involved in anything like that. Geer was a special kind of thick, and could be a hard case in Way World but he would not have done well in that world. If he was I'd be really really surprised. Wouldn't be the first time today though, hey?
  22. Okay “guys”, have fun! Reality calls! peace!
  23. I missed this first time around - I use a range of tools for study. Versions of the Bible - print = KJV, ASV, Amplified, Bullinger's Companion Bible (mostly for referencing the structure schematas) I have a few others I don't use as much. Digital - several as part of some software I use, including KJV, ASV, Amplified and a few others. I've been getting into the biblical greek and hebrew study since about 1970 and have done some course work in it since the WC 4, where I was introduced to the basics of it through some class work given by Walter Cummins of the Way Nash. I came into that program pretty versed in Bullinger's "how to enjoy the bible" regimen that encouraged reading it, and using basic tools to read and study with - Young's and Strong's concordance, as well as the usual basic historical and geographical over lays, I think Easton was my go to for a long time, not sure what I use now, I found that both online bible and biblegateway have a good range of resources and there's a lot of others of course. I also have an older greek interlinear bible and some other study books, I don't use them all the time or even much of the time, as I have quite a few notes on work I've done over the years. I went through a period of reading when I realized that while I said I "believed the Bible was the Word of God" I hadn't actually read it all cover to cover. I have now. So you know where I'm coming from this might help - I did a brief but tight study on John 1:1 and a series of related verses many years ago, and I used some of the work that VPW had done in his book Jesus Christ is Not God, and I did book end studies positing "He is" and "He isn't" and using the same exact material I was able to make a decent case for both sides of the argument based on the word studies. I did it at the time so I'd understand both sides of it, having been raised on Catholicism trinitarian doctrine which is mostly a theological and philosophical position and not really a doctrinal point drawn from any one part of the earliest scripture. Anyway, the basic research greek studies could go either way - understanding Jesus Christ, the Son of God and what that means is more than an exercise in language. Language is important of course - but ultimately if we're using ancient documents in ancient languages - and we are - then there will needs be translation and indeed, transliteration which will ultimately require an interpretation. Every one doing that kind of work is admonished to not make that interpretation one of their own choosing, but an interpretation will need to be made to get the message to anyone today. VPW stood staunchly against that very idea yet he did it himself in the PFAL series and he knew that of course but he rebranded his work. Once I understood that I became much less concerned about solving anyone else's problems, I focused on my own and my own understanding, to the end that hopefully I would then be better equipped to be of real service to those I speak and help. I don't believe that Jesus Christ is, literally, God, for what that's worth. But I have much better understanding now of how people both blindly accept that as well as get to that conclusion and why it would be important to them because as I'm sure we both know - our fellow man is hurting and in need of help. When people are literally saved from their worst fears and the living death this life can become through Jesus Christ, they don't need or want a dictionary to see who He is, they know exactly who He is. Anyway - file this under TMI. : ))) Short answer - a few.
  24. I think that states my understanding and thoughts on it, from the "bottom line", WW. It would account for the shift of days over history, too. As Christianity moved away from it's "homeland" of the middle east and the roots of Jewish history and religious practice days could certainly shift, Saturday to Sunday, to Wednesday, to any day of the week for that matter. There really doesn't appear to be a clear order for the new church to maintain their past religious practices over time. I don't put a lot of weight on what they DIDN'T tell the Gentiles if the idea is they didn't because it would already be known or an assumed practice, because if they were Gentiles like ME, they wouldn't have known ANYthing about any of it. One of the things that strikes me about the way the revelation of Christ and the understanding of it developed is that it .... seems .... like it ended up requiring the passage of time and events in order for it to be fully hmmm...."realized" by the Church. I mean - while under the direct immersion of the Jewish faith, near or in Jerusalem, surrounded by history of the Jews any move into a "new" body of called out believers would naturally be influenced by the Jewish roots as you're pointing out WW. It only makes sense. Then that changed in ways that perhaps they never envisioned - Constantine converting? Roman prominence in the establishment of the new church? There were some unprecedented events that moved it away from being a persecuted cult to being essentially a state religion of Rome. Some baggage came with that and not all the changes over time were good but it DID under score the essential basics of Christ and in ways that it would have been difficult to embrace in the years or Peter and Paul. I think that adds to the incredible insight they DID get and their ability to change according to what they believed God was showing them. Many of the things that Paul reproved and instructed the Corinthian church on correcting read very much like the kinds of things that could develop in a social and political caste system that moved away from the fundamentals.of Christ, the servant leader, Messiah and emphasized seniority, heritage, position, etc. waxit, I think you make some very good points and we'd probably meet in the middle - if you go with Saturday over Sunday there's a basis for that just as there could be for Sunday over Saturday. Whatever the Jewish history was would certainly have a place of prominence because it's the history up until Christ. The coming of the Messiah formed a new era, one that was not anticipated as it came to be in the form of the "church" of the called out followers of Jesus Christ.
  25. Hi - thanks. 1. Fulfilled, and as it is said, a new covenant required a new priest. Matthew 5:17–18 - Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 2 Corinthians 1:20 - For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. Romans 10:4 - For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. And of course as Hebrews covers - 9:12 - He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.....and....7:23–24, The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. 2. No. In Acts 15 they essentially came up with a compromise of sorts for the Church, a determination that freed Gentiles from needing to observe the Law, going forward. It was their decision as to how to proceed and for them it left the topic of the church as a whole and specifically Jews still under discussion. In the teaching of the epistles however we see that there was - is - neither Jew nor Gentile and all believers in the faith are part of the same body and have the same Lord, Jesus Christ. So today there are not separate rules for each - 's'all one Church. My point in bringing that into the discussion is that it makes it easier to see what was really going on and to see the struggle they had in learning and accepting it, in a very human way that I get because by the Old Covenant I AM A GENTILE, and coming into the Christian faith in Jesus Christ I have none of the Jewish religion that I observe, just as Gentiles then didn't either.....so I wouldn't automatically assume any of it because I'd have to be taught it first. They recognized NOT to do that, and in time learned it applied to them also - one God, one Lord, one Body, and one salvation in Christ. Again, its just an easy way to understand the doctrine of the NT if I put myself into their shoes and nothing does that better than seeing the two groups of Jew and Gentile - one is God's called nation of people and - the other is "everyone else". I am in fact a Gentile from that viewpoint. But not in the "New covenant" of Jesus Christ through which all become one body, one Church, one group of called out people's. And in that new covenant Jesus Christ does not require me to be circumcised (although I am in heart separated and cleansed in this "new man" of Christ), or to tithe to the temple (although I can give and share freely of all that I am and have, in recognition of God's grace towards me) or to observe the Sabbath as a required day of "rest" and devotion (although I can now devote all my time and life, and everything I do, to God through Jesus Christ, "lord of the Sabbath") Sunday? Saturday? Hell, I was raised Catholic, pick one, I can do one day a week with a bunch of convoluted exceptions and work arounds, standing up, that's easy time. In Christ, I'm on the clock 7 days a week, forever. I set aside time everyday for prayer, meditation, devotion. I need it. Charitable giving, on call service ministering - cell's off the hook now. I've gone from death to life, from condemned to celebrated son. I'm in the family business now and it's personal AND it's business. It's a way of life. ----------------------- Based on the revelation of Peter, Paul, the witness of others at the council and the reminding of the O.T. promise of the Gentiles becoming part of God's people, it became very clear to them that Gentiles were receiving salvation through faith in Jesus Christ without any observance of the Law, and certainly circumcision which had brought the issue to a head and led to their meeting to discuss. This clarifies all of the practices of the Law - if I were a Gentile at that time, it would not have meant I would STOP doing some or all of the Law (because I wouldn't have been observing any of it, not being Jewish), it would have meant I wouldn't START doing ANY of it. The few things they did cite in their letter to the Church at that time appears to basically be a call out to the pre-Mosaic law "laws" or standards of Gods', and there's clearly no tie in to the role of such things being a part of the "new" faith, rather the inference that they are a reflection of their new lives, in Christ. I do think that gives a logical foundation for what I read later in Paul's epistles, that the spirit of God was leading them to understand the long arc of history. The decision of Acts 15 reflects a thoughtful Church leadership and growing members who were balancing between the old and the new - some had known Jesus face to face, followed Him, heard Him, knew Him. Others had heard the testimony of those people and then others and believed. Others like Paul had their own direct receipt of the message of Christ. All of the original group and the first generations of converts were Jewish - and now they see the message expanding out by God's direction and revelation. From my perspective today, it would seem reasonable in the narrative of Acts that the experience of Pentecost ushers in the "new covenant" of Christ in dramatic fashion and it grows from there. What it meant appears to have been a rolling out of their own knowledge, awareness and understanding.
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