19 minutes ago, skyrider said:

 

Years ago, we delved into this thread, Ash Heap of TWI-story, that documented aspects of wierwille's *India trip experiences.*  

One of the most notable finds......was that their host in India was Dr. I.S. Williams.  He was a prominent church statesman, the president of the All-India Federation of National Churches.  Thus, with his position and notoriety....this man was able to open lots of doors, and the Jain Convention, for another American preacher in their country.

Irony of ironies......Joan Williams, the daughter of these dear parents who hosted Vic and Dotsie and their family was among one of the first international PFAL students in the Van Wert class in June 16-30, 1957.  Then immediately following, July 1-12, wierwille taught the Advanced Class to twenty-three new students, including the three from England, two from India and one from Australia.  (p. 214 Mrs. W's book, Born Again to Serve)

P. 216 -- "While we were preparing for this major transition in our lives from our lifelong involvement in the denomination to going independent into The Way International, Joan Williams, the daughter of our dear Indian friends, was developing a serious romantic relationship with a young man in her second year at Defiance College.  Just before he left to go home for the December holidays, the young man broke off the relationship.  Because of her great disappointment and her cultural background, she became very despondent and ended her life.  This came as very shocking, very sad news to us on Christmas Eve, 1957.  The Williams family were most understanding of the situation but also very grieved.  We buried her body in the cemetery in Defiance according to their wishes."

The above paragraph is quoted word-for-word from Mrs. Wierwille's book.

SO......HERE an advanced class student commits suicide December 24, 1957.  And, not just any run-of-the-mill advanced class student, but the daughter of prominent leaders and elders in India.  

Wierwille's Independent Ministry and Undertaking began December 19, 1957 (p. 219).  So, five days after starting their independent work..... an advanced class student commits suicide.  As I've said many times.......Mrs. Wierwille's book gives us insight to many things that few have ever heard about twi's background and history.  Joan Williams RIP.  Sad.  Clearly, it does raise some questions about "how significant was this advanced class if it didn't enable a student to overcome fear and/or have power over darkness* etc, etc.

 

.

 

 

 

 

Thanks, Sky. I remember reading that thread and all your postings on BATS. Your voice here has been critically important to me over the years. Thank you.

I should have been more precise (mathematically). I was referring to victor's story in PFAL about wading through throngs of adoring Indians and finally healing a random man's withered hand. That man didn't accept Jesus Christ, BUT he believed and ol' Vic just healed him. (At least, this is how I remember that segment.)

The CORPS "teacher" I endured a few years ago told a story that about this same withered-hand-Hindi's daughter being present in New Knoxville at an advanced class or some event between 1976 and 1986. 

This is the "India experience" I have no reason to believe. After all, vic didn't have a healing ministry, he had a research ministry.

7 minutes ago, Bolshevik said:

Yep.

When we say scripture we mean a written communication.  In this thread we're refering to a book.

Remember when everyone wore masks?  You couldn't see smiles or scowls.  It was harder to read people. Some folks are better than others at reading eyes for emotional cues.  Those face to face interactions were missed, I felt.

When stories are written, that's not a face to face interaction.  But ongoing experience might change how you interpret a written story.  I have  changed my views on some stories over long periods of time, because I had changed. 

VPW's idea that scripture interprets itself highlights the static nature of his being.  Scripture was supposed to be understood immediately and never change.  That's ridiculous.  I doubt he as a person changed much at all over his entire life.

Yes. It's also a form of gaslighting. It's a control tactic designed to cause self doubt, because everyone is slightly wrong all the time, requiring reproof and correction. One must be "taught" how (H-O-W) scripture interprets itself rightly, otherwise it's man-made private opinion. Don't do it.... Dooon't do it!

"This is a doctrine that was invented in the 19th century in Ireland by James Darby.

I wonder if the author meant John Nelson Darby, the inventor of dispensationalism.

"...to indoctrinate through his Bible studies..." 

Gross

18 minutes ago, Rocky said:

If he WOULD? Would he if he still could... btw, he demeaned a LOT of people... anyone who disagreed with him or disobeyed or disappointed him in anyway, as I recall.

Yes. I know this is true.

17 minutes ago, Rocky said:

Ask Mike. (j/k)

Haha! No. The cognitive dissonance must be so painful for him.

3 hours ago, skyrider said:

Simply put...... wierwille lied to us.  He bloviated.  How many other times did wierwille lie?  How are we to believe his India trip experiences?  Everything was about self-promotion.  What a narcissist!  Stealing, lying, boastful, arrogance......I see a pattern here.  LOL

It seems there's no reason at all to believe the India trip experiences. It's too conveniently inconvenient to verify. After that segment in PFAL, one of the sycophants at my "class" told a story about the "healed" Hindi's daughter being present at an advanced class or something at headquarters. That same flying monkey rushed to show me a photo of the 18th century French cemetery after the 4 crucified segment, as if that was evidence of anything at all.

You can't believe your way to Truth. Belief is not required to find out what is true. Only a lie requires belief. 

5 minutes ago, Twinky said:

Now that is a very good point.  And it puts the face-meltings and slanderous remarks that were so commonplace in TWI in perspective. 

If VPW can "face-melt" and pour scorn upon Jesus in this way - hey! those of us that suffered face-meltings for from him (or in my case from his protege Craig) are in very good company!  I heard many such slanderous remarks about "cop outs" and other perceived transgressors, usually well after they'd been ejected.  I used to wonder how such evil people could possibly have hidden in our midst - I knew some of the slandered people well and found the allegations hard to even begin to fathom.  And over a decade after M&A-ing me, I was told about slanderous comments that had been made about me at the time.  Absolutely no basis in reality.  They were so slanderous they were hysterically funny, as anyone who actually knew me would know.  (At least, I hope so!  Unless they were wearing PFAL-coloured glasses.)  Perhaps we should see such face-meltings as a badge of honour?!

Jesus, now.  Had plenty of unprovoked and vile attacks, both slanderously and physically, in the time he walked on the earth.  His ministry disparaged at every turn.  Others apparently using his name in vain.  No doubt Vic's insults would just have elicited a shrug from him: not important enough to bother about.  Jesus would have swatted away the fly that was VPW and just gone along on his way.

 

Thanks, Twinky. Your voice here at GSC has always been so encouraging. I can't say it enough: Thank God for GSC, and all the brave voices of Truth here. And for all the voices of bull$hit so we can know what it looks like.

Scripture is sacred text written by humans derived from (preposition) oral tradition. Given. But (conjunction) when is it decided that these words are sacred? And who decides? And must it be ancient?

The scripture of 2 Peter is the Torah, right? Or is "Peter" talking about Paul's letters and the Gospels? 2 Peter was certainly written late enough that anything written in the 1st century might have seemed ancient to his audience...

Or was Peter talking about scripture from the Far East? Or from Sumer? Or Egypt?

PFAL became scripture to some soon after it was published.
 

Who decides?

3 hours ago, Bolshevik said:

Deep down VPW, as an NPD, hated himself the most.

 

Yeah, I keep trying to remind myself of this. But (conjunction!) liars make me so angry and nauseous. I crave righteous justice to be visited upon them - and I want to watch! BUT (conjunction) my work is to let go and forgive.

My ex-wife is an C-NPD. One of my last, desperate concessions to appease her, to save our marriage, to give her another chance, to trauma bond one more time before I snapped out of it was to take the "class." One of her family members was Corps, "taught" fellowship, and administered the class.

So, her flying monkeys are the entire fellowship, comprised mostly of her family, and her stick is the narcissistic Vic Paul.

6 hours ago, Twinky said:

Except that he wasn't a "bastard" since his parents were legally married at the time.  It was after she was betrothed but before she was married that she became pregnant.  It's highly likely that the time between betrothal and marriage was only a very short time - though long enough for Mary to realise.  And for the angel to have words with Joseph.

If you read your OT, if a man had sexual relations with a woman before marriage, they were compelled to be married, because he'd sullied her honour.  It was considered rape.  But there is absolutely no inference that the child so conceived would be subject to any abuse, penalties, exclusion, etc.  In fact, it was all about protecting that child and its mother.

Lots about this (and other sexual relationships) in Numbers and Leviticus, but right now I don't have time to look it up.  You can have a rummage around in BibleHub to find the references if you want.

That's right, Twinky. I didn't call Jesus a bastard, vic did. It's an intentionally demeaning epithet. That was his point. That's why he lied about the whole thing.

 If he will go to such lengths to lie about and demean the name of Jesus, what else will he lie about? Who else will he demean?

9 hours ago, T-Bone said:

Speaking of dead men’s bones - I was reading about the founder on TWI’s website and got to questioning just how much or if at all wierwille “consulted and worked with many outstanding individuals in Christian studies”.

I spent only a few minutes Googling a few of the names I never heard of besides Barth and Tillich (see links below). I breezed through the Wikipedia articles and started wondering how much wierwille actually “consulted and worked with” them.

Was some of that just name-dropping to impress others?

Maybe someone can verify he worked with ALL those named  – especially the big names like Barth and Tillich.

Anyway, here’s the article about the founder:
"Victor Paul Wierwille spent several decades vigorously and prayerfully searching out the truths of God’s Word. As part of his search he consulted and worked with many outstanding individuals in Christian studies for keys to power-filled, victorious living. Such men as Karl Barth, Joseph Bauer, Glenn Clark, Karl J. Ernst, Josiah Friedli, Louis C. Hessert, Elmer G. Homrighausen, E. Stanley Jones, George M. Lamsa, Richard and Reinhold Niebuhr, K. C. Pillai, Paul Tillich, Ernst Traeger, and many others were a part of Dr. Wierwille’s quest to find the truths of the Word of God.

Dr. Wierwille’s academic career included Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Theology degrees from Mission House (Lakeland) College and Seminary, and graduate studies at the University of Chicago and at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he earned the Master of Theology degree in Practical Theology. Later he completed his work for the Doctor of Theology degree at Pikes Peak Bible Seminary and Burton College in Manitou Springs, Colorado.

For over forty years, Dr. Wierwille devoted his major energies to intensive research and teaching of the accuracy of God’s Word. In 1953 he began teaching his Biblical research in classes on Power for Abundant Living. He was the founder and first president of The Way International, a nonsectarian, nondenominational Biblical research, teaching, and fellowship ministry. He held the presidency of The Way College of Emporia, and he was the founder and first president of several other centers of learning: The Way College of Biblical Research, Indiana Campus; Camp Gunnison; and LEAD Outdoor Academy International.

As Dr. Wierwille persevered in his research of the Bible, he continued to write more research works and to develop further classes in Biblical studies, including The University of Life outreach courses, an international Biblical studies correspondence school. As a dynamic lecturer, he traveled and taught worldwide, holding forth the greatness and the accuracy of God’s Word with great intensity until his death in May of 1985."

From: The Way org About the founder

~ ~ ~ ~ 

Wikipedia – Karl Barth

Wikipedia – Elmer G Homrighausen

Wikipedia – Helmut Richard Niebuhr

Wikipedia - Richard Niebuhr

Wikipedia – Paul Tillich
 

B. G. Leonard is conspicuously missing from this list.

The ThD. in Homiletics is conspicuously missing.

But (conjunction) I've got to give 'em credit for mentioning Pike Peak. Ballzy move. 

33 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

Right. So who manufactured the error of Jesus' bastard bar mitzvah? Whose faulty, dishonest methodology manufactured this error? Did Raf manufacture this error or did victor?

After following the evidence, I am convinced Victor contrived this error to make his opinion of dating Jesus' birth fit like a hand in a glove - a glove that knows how to interpret itself.

If victor is wrong about this, what else is he wrong about? Observe with a mind free of indoctrination and conclusions to find out.

 

I must correct myself, as I think I'm conflating this error with one of the many, many others, including the birth dating. The birth date was not the point here. I am not convinced he lied about the bar mitzvah to prove any dating. But (a conjunction) I am convinced he lied to manufacture error.

I now remember my initial astonishment upon hearing this erroneous  "teaching." It was that his evidence of the lost document was no evidence at all! And what was his point? That Jesus was a bastard? His point was to disparage Jesus as a bastard Jew - an epithet taken very seriously by Jews of any era.

37 minutes ago, T-Bone said:

According to one answer I found on the Internet:
“Jesus didn’t “get” a bar mitzvah. He became one. Every Jewish boy becomes a bar mitzvah automatically at age 13. I think you’re really asking when Jesus celebrated the occasion of becoming a bar mitzvah. The answer is that he didn’t. That didn’t become a thing until the Middle Ages.”
From    Quora – Did Jesus have a bar mitzvah?

 
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

I think most problems with what’s taught in PFAL have to do with wierwille's  bastardizing of plagiarized material. Which proves the old proverb that I just made up: clueless thievery is the badder part of proficiency.

Bastardize: change (something) in such a way as to lower its quality or value, typically by adding new elements; synonyms: adulterate · corrupt · contaminate · weaken · dilute · spoil · taint · pollute · foul · defile · debase · degrade · devalue · depreciate · distort · vitiate.
 

Right. So who manufactured the error of Jesus' bastard bar mitzvah? Whose faulty, dishonest methodology manufactured this error? Did Raf manufacture this error or did victor?

After following the evidence, I am convinced Victor contrived this error to make his opinion of dating Jesus' birth fit like a hand in a glove - a glove that knows how to interpret itself.

If victor is wrong about this, what else is he wrong about? Observe with a mind free of indoctrination and conclusions to find out.

4 hours ago, Stayed Too Long said:

Who can square II Peter with Acts 8:26-31?

26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 

27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 

28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. 

29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” 

30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. 

31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

According to Acts, someone must explain the scriptures, so the scriptures do not intrepret themselves. 

 

I forgot about this. So sinister. It was one of many used against me as a proof text for why I couldn't possibly understand unless I was "taught."  The phrase "How can you learn unless you've been taught" was used constantly. And who will be the teacher? The leader who was taught by vic paul who revealed St. Paul who revealed Christ who revealed God.

Maybe, once you are taught how (spelled: H-O-W), then the scriptures interpret themselves.

All (without exception or distinction) cults absolutely love to "teach."

When does a writing become scripture?

Getting back to the original PFAL: Can anyone explain the bastard bar mitzvah?

Didn't Vic "teach" that in "Bible times" bastard boys were given their bar mitzvah at a different age than legitimate boys?  This is why Jesus and fam go to Juruselem when he's twelve. In Luke, I think.  He couldn't remember who told him this, but that didn't stop him from anointing it factual and worthy of "teaching" - this methodology always bothered me.

I've consulted several Od/New Testament scholars, Rabbis, Ancient Near East historians, theologians. (I admit I didn't consult the Greek people.) None could confirm the veracity of this notion of bastard bar mitzvah. 

When it doesn't fit you've got to MAKE it fit. Force that hand into that self-interpreting glove. You've got to WORK that word into that glove!

(Insert OJ courtroom glove meme)

Well, just bless your little hearts. If only you could read it in the original where scripture always interprets itself if you make it fit.

36 minutes ago, Bolshevik said:

"Scripture interprets itself" could act as an anchoring phrase.

Something to kept in mind if a person , . .  I mean a scripture . . . Gets difficult 

An anchor phrase.... genius....

Like when you can't remember the fictional character who told you about a first century "bastard bar mitzvah".... scripture interprets itself.

Or when you read a metaphor from Paul's letters back into Genesis - the trees are people!!.....scripture interprets itself.

Or when, as a doctor, you have to spell instead of pronounce the Greek after "researching" 18 hours a day for forty years.....scripture interprets itself.

Or when you'd rather move verses and chapters around in Genesis to form fit your opinion instead of doing honest spirit-led exegesis......scripture interprets itself.

Or whenever you encounter a preposition or conjunction, and your opinion is on the line.....scripture interprets itself.

Or when you need 2 to actually mean 4 because of an 18th century cemetery and a flat earth...... scripture interprets itself.

Textual redactions redact themselves, interpolations interpolate themselves, engravings on silver bracelets engrave themselves, prepositions pre position themselves...

BULL$HIT

Obviously, scripture does NOT and can NOT interpret itself - because it's SCRIPTURE!

Not only does scripture interpret itself, it writes itself and reads itself.

Similarly, poetry interprets itself, writes itself and reads itself. Or, art interprets itself, paints itself, views itself. See?

Isn't that just wonderful!! Bless your little hearts. I wish you could read it in the original. 

I didn't have a problem focusing on the good until I "took the class." So much pretense. So many presumptions. So much negativity and evil was preached. I had never heard such effort to divide the Body of Christ, to separate friendships and families. I had never heard of a so-called MOG spend so much energy religiously arguing against other shades of diverse religious doctrine - the truth needs no defense, but, boy, was vic always on the defensive. Yet, he was the one on the attack!  I remember wondering: With whom are you arguing?!?!

Someone, maybe Babe Ruth, said: Don't throw out the baby with the bath water. Well, if the baby is a deceased corpse, it's going out with the bath water, and the entire tub will be filled with bleach to disinfect.

I'm eternally grateful for excellent teachers throughout my life. So grateful. I know what it looks like. Vic ain't it.  He's one of the worst teachers and PFAL is one of the worst "classes" I've ever encountered. I know not all are as blessed as I, and for some victor seems impressive. This astonishes and saddens me. But I'm not on any mission to convert followers to sycophants.

I work every day to forgive him, even though he doesn't deserve it. That's grace. I hope one day he can thank me for enduring the dozens of hours I spent in "the class." And I hope one day he can read it in the original. Bless his little heart.

Thanks. There are so many published and private Bible translations. I wouldn't ever say one is better than another. They are different. We have preferences. We study. There are methods for study, methods for translation, hermeneutics. All rooted in ancient and contemporary schools of thought and theory on textual translation and interpretation.

Horace and Cicero may have been the first to codify a binary translation theory: Word for Word and Sense for Sense. Today the field is more nuanced, complex. So, is it literal OR is it according to usage?

I remember reading and hearing vp's literal according to usage and they sounded like paraphrase, freer and more expansive and carnally opinionated than any amplified Bible - neither word for word nor sense for sense, according to the original. (I do wish vic could have read it in the original... bless his heart.)

I'm fine with anyone's private interpretation (private inspiration is essential), but the phrase literal according to usage sounds contrived, manipulative. Is it designed to impress? To obscure? As a dilettante would? The phrase sounds so technical, but the actual translation is free form paraphrase full of the very religion vp disparaged. And it was "taught" to me as the most accurate translation ever written.

Maybe I've been reading too much Harry Frankfurt lately. Im calling bull$hit.

What does the phase "literal according to usage" mean? VP's text reads like a free translation - nothing literal or according to usage about it.

I was usually condemned as spiritually immature for asking such questions or else provided a bull$hit word salad for an answer.

It seems to me literal and according to usage are mutually exclusive terms in the work of a translator.

6 hours ago, Twinky said:

Joke: 

“A panda walks into a cafe.  He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife annual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

Book: Eats, Shoots & Leaves eBook by Lynne Truss - 9781101218297 | Rakuten Kobo

Available from various sources.  

Book description:  We all know the basics of punctuation. Or do we? A look at most neighborhood signage tells a different story. Through sloppy usage and low standards on the internet, in email, and now text messages, we have made proper punctuation an endangered species. In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, former editor Lynne Truss dares to say, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are. This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset when it is mishandled. From the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to George Orwell shunning the semicolon, this lively history makes a powerful case for the preservation of a system of printing conventions that is much too subtle to be mucked about with.

Twinky, this is book is EXCELLENT!!  It's occupied space on my desk for years - right next to Strunk and White.

3 hours ago, WordWolf said:

When I was in college, I took "Nature of Religion".  (It satisfied the distribution requirement, I was able to get in the class.) There, the class was largely about how all religions were the same and all religions were fake.   Considering how we began with Eliade, it was possible to teach the class with some leeway for believing SOMETHING was out there, that different experiences of the divine counted for something or at least MIGHT - but that's not the direction this teacher took. (Frankly, he conformed to the worst stereotypes mentioned in twi.)   

During the class, I noticed something which said a lot about the teacher's worldview.  When he covered things that might have multiple explanations, he did at least 2 things I found unusual.   One, he taught ALL the answers, and gave them all equal weight and said them as if each was THE answer and they weren't contradictory.  Two, he never seemed too concerned about actually finding out what was factually correct.   As in, "Why did these people say this? They meant..." with contradictory explanations different times and no concern that he contradicted the previous class.   His history was also sloppy but matched what he wanted to say.

Ever wonder about why gladiators waited for thumbs up or thumbs down before killing?  The historical truth is that they looked for a single signal-  the thumbs up or the thumb HIDDEN.  The thumb UP meant to stab the knife, to kill.  The thumb HIDDEN meant to refrain from stabbing, let him live.   My teacher taught that it was thumbs up or thumbs down, and that thumbs up originally meant to kill, and that it was an easier way to signal a nod from a distance, and that the nod was what was being conveyed.   (He was on a kick about the head and religious practices, and apparently everything was about the head and sky for about 5 minutes-  they everything was about the earth for another 5 minutes.)  

We got much the same thing in pfal.  vpw's explanations were sometimes all over the map and contradicted each other. This should have been  a sign he wasn't paying attention, that he was spitting back rote answers without understanding them- otherwise he would have noticed what contradicted.  So long as he got the money, he didn't really care when his explanations didn't make sense or contradicted.  As has been pointed out.... "God is Spirit, and GOD CAN ONLY GIVE WHAT HE IS" was right in pfal, and doesn't make one lick of sense.   "God gave manna. God is not manna."  His explanation sometimes said God could only give what He is, and sometimes said He could only communicate with spirit- which was STILL wrong because God communicates with flesh all the time, via the 5 senses or some other way. Ask Adam and Eve if they were still communicating with God after "they lost spirit."   The insistence that ALL of His communications with man had to have spirit slapped onto a man conditionally to receive a message from God, then it was taken away IMMEDIATELY was an odd rationalization that neither made sense on paper nor was backed up with verses.   (Prophets yes, Joe down the street for 4 minutes, no.)  

This was glaringly obvious in the Advanced class, with the writing on the wall.  The inability to understand the writing was "explained" by saying Nebuchadnezzar had spirit put on him and that's how he read writing that was only visible to spirit, and that's why the wise men didn't understand it.   FF Bruce had already explained what the problem was decades before, in a book sometimes carried in the twi bookstore!   vpw was a lazy student.    Bruce said that the words were perfectly visible, but, without the vowels, they either meant "weighed, numbered, divided" in one language, or "a dollar, a fiver and some change" in a different language. 

Anyway, wierwille's explanations contradicted each other or common sense because he didn't understand what he was passing along, and didn't really care as long as people went along with it.  For a conman, this is not a surprise. For an alleged minister, it's a disgrace.

So much Frankfurtian bull$hit, so much word salad. The advanced class was truly advanced bull$hit and gourmet word salad. 

PFAL and vp's teachings were designed to persuade without regard for truth (BS) by systematically grinding down and exhausting to delirium the natural and spiritual sensibilities (word salad).

The PFALT trailer made me vomit.

12 hours ago, WordWolf said:

There's always a minority opinion. Of course you can accept that he agreed with you on anything- now he's going to be cited as an "expert" that "agreed" with you on what that meant.   Actually, the literal was correctly explained before- that the Scriptures (which are God-breathed) were contrasted with the work of several men including vpw. 

One thing I didn't mention now- but have before- is vpw's tendency to vaguely imply things without saying them outright.  That way, he could technically say he didn't say something, but had people believe he did because he IMPLIED it, he deceived by implication.   He did this when he got people to believe he played for the Sheboygan Redskins basketball team.  One document claimed he did- but their source for that was the sentence where he IMPLIED it, and the writer mistook the meaning, not realizing it was deception.   He said he was CONNECTED WITH THEM.  He never even said he handled the ball or practiced with them- but he got people to believe he HAD said that.   So, similar weasel-wording could leave well-intentioned people to believe that he'd actually said some of what he wrote or taught would be God-breathed-  when he left it unstated but with enough IMPLICATION that people would THINK he said that and go along with it.   The grammar of the passage says otherwise, but if one fixates on the implication, that is easily ignored.

Then we start to get several rounds of "of course he implied it, he hid it as secret information so that we could find it decades later and God wants us to think this" and so on.    For someone determined to go down with the ship- and insist it's not only not sinking, but is handling exceptionally well on the ocean,  this sort of thing is EXPECTED.

This!! This deceptive tactic is used ALL THE TIME for "correction" and "reproof" while "teaching." It's a cunningly subtle and sinister form of gaslighting. 

Just because victor states explicitly or implicitly that any or everything he says is necessarily god-breathed doesn't make it true. What vic says is demonstrably not true, even if he himself claims it to be true. It's not true even if someone believes it. 

WW, for the record I don't think I said I agreed with Mike. And I never claimed to be an expert. Your insightful posts have been so helpful over the years. Thank you. GSC is immeasurably important, including the foil of Mike's voice. Finding truth sometimes requires contrasting BS.