Charity

OldSkool, you're a great champion for newbies like me on GSC. My first couple of thoughts were heavier ones like witnessing and going to a church. I feel Christ wants me to begin with the ordinary, typical person so I can learn not to be a respecter of persons and to just be myself around people. I'm sure he'll lead me into more as we go along. It'll be interesting to do so without all the way baggage you mentioned above. Do have the 4 seasons where you live? Are there places you like to go for a walk?

On my walk today, I was talking to Christ about what he wants me to do as a member of his body. After a few ideas went through my mind, I felt I knew what his answer was. It was to simply begin to love my fellow human beings. I have always been shy and preferred to be as invisible around people as possible. I often tell certain people that I would be happy living as a hermit. Other than my children, I have had little to no contact with my brothers and their families. I have had no desire to make or be with friends. So this is how I believe Christ wants to work with me. Just to begin acknowledging people when I'm out and about, to smile, and at times even talk with them. I know I can do this by being in fellowship with Christ and I want to do this because he's put it on my heart.

With regard to the seed of the woman in Genesis, what about vp's teaching that the Holy Spirit coming upon Mary, and the power of the Most High overshadowing her meant God had literally created a sperm (a perfect seed) in Mary which together with her egg, was the conception of Jesus? According to this teaching, it was this perfect seed that made Jesus the son of God? If, however, the seed of the woman was a symbol for the word of God, then God simply spoke the word and Mary became pregnant (like when God said "Let there by light" and there was light). I never took the seed in 1 Peter 1:23 to be a literal seed but as the receiving of holy spirit which gave us everlasting life and made God our Father and us his children. So while the use of the word "seed" in "corruptible seed" does refer to the literal seed involved in our first birth and is not everlasting, being born of incorruptible (seed), meaning the new birth of receiving of holy spirit, is everlasting. This incorruptible (seed), being the symbol for the word of God, is expanded upon in Romans 10:13,14 where the declaring of, hearing of, and believing in the message of Christ (the Word) leads to the calling on the name of the Lord which results in our salvation (receiving holy spirit) and finally ends with receiving an incorruptible body (1 Cor 15:53 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.) Please let me know if there are any problems with the above.

No thanks, I've wondered before what some of these combined letters meant, the latest being POV. I figured it out by noticing how it was used in another post. Last night, I had to ask Rocky what FB meant! Nathan replied with the answer. There are other times when I had to look up words - such was the case with "pitiable." The difference in meaning compared to "pitiful" was illuminating! Here's to increasing brain power . I agree on your assessment of twi being contemptibly poor or small. After reading the above posts about the serpent's seed and reading up to the POP chapter in Undertow, declaring twi as a Biblical research ministry is extremely pitiable. It's to the nth degree.

Hi Twinky, I used this emoji, not because of the rolling eyes, but because of the smile which is the only stand-alone smiley face I can see. I did not mean I was annoyed or bored by your picture.

Got it - Facebook. No mention of twi so that's a good sign. They look happy and his pictures are beautiful.

Thanks.

Thank you very much Rocky. What does FB stand for?

Yeah, I was being an extremely, over-the-top and out-in-left-field optimist when I began the post. By the end of my second last sentence, I saw the writing on wall, "Why bother?". I was being facetious when I wrote, "Having said that, maybe they should let a qualified non-member who specializes in cults do the teaching and facilitate the discussion." Good news - T-Bone brought the tread back on topic

Is this your way of saying "when pigs fly?"

Here's a posible idea: Why doesn't twi add a full and accurate teaching about cults on their website. This would be required viewing followed by an honest discussion involving the twig leader and all twig members, especially for new people before they take the pfal class. If the newer version of twi, a) truly is new and has nothing to hide, b) wants to show it has learned from the past so as not to repeat it, c) and believes cults are dangerous then, it would be a caring and helpful thing to do, in my opinion. The key here would be the words "full, accurate and honest." Having said that, maybe they should let a qualified non-member who specializes in cults do the teaching and facilitate the discussion. .

Here are 3 quotes concerning the past. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." "Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it." and "Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." It may be that the new leaders are aware of a least one of these quotes and say they do not wish to repeat twi's history. However, I'd like to amend the middle quote to say, "Those who don't know history are destined to be duped." This is for all the new people who are getting involved in the "new" twi who have no knowledge of what happened in the old twi. God forbid they should ever be "swept up" by all the "promises" laid out on a green card or by the "love bombing" like so many people were during the 70's and 80's. This should never happen again and if the new twi isn't going to reveal it, then it's just another reason why GSC is so important. "huge pileup of issues" - imo, "going slow and working on the easy topics first" is the last thing they should do. To prevent history from repeating itself, they need to move quickly to reveal past "sexual sins" first before they publicly declare what the word says about adultery and sex before marriage. They can use John Schoenheit's paper on adultery if they are still "unsure" about these matters. "Going slow" implies that they want to rake in as much money as soon as possible before any . "important issues" - who decides what issues are important? Will what caused the traumas, suicides and "messed-up brains experienced by past "members" be at the top of their list of important issues? What would Luke from Acts have done today if he had to deal with what went on in twi? I hardly think he would continue to proudly show a picture of vp along with a glowing review of his life as the "founding father" on his website like twi does. https://www.theway.org/about-us/about-the-founder/ "We are thinking that non-official, non-payrolled TWI "members" will have to do it." Would that happen to include you Mike?

Thanks, I loved my job and the age group I was teaching (6-8 year olds).

Simple sounds good - an unburdened way of life - but this time around having a personal spiritual relationship with God and Christ while doing it. I do feel close to them when I'm reading the Bible, but I have to be careful not to quickly detour off into some in-depth word study. I think it's a habit left over from twi days.

Does anyone have information about Tim and his wife Cathy, please let me know. Thanks!

I was a WOW sister of Mary Alexander the year before she went into the corps. I would love to contact her. Are you able to help me with this or let me know how she's doing?

That's even better for this time of year. Cheers!

"How I personally feel about this is that the still small voice mentioned to teach Samuel about revelation is described that way for a reason." Inspiring point you shared. When I recently read 1 Samuel, it was like an action film where God's leaders such as David and Johnathon were making all these life-or-death decisions immediately after hearing from God. Now I can see how OT people who heard God tell them to do some "wild and crazy" thing (like how Joshua was to break down the walls of Jericho) must have first experienced some kind of still small voice from God. They probably also talked with God about their doubts like Ananias did with Jesus as OldSkool's wrote about in his post. As a teacher, it was the regular tidal bore in my brain caused by the overwhelming high expectations I placed on myself that triggered episodes of acute anxiety followed by depression. I really needed to hear that still small voice of God at those times.

Reading your last paragraph brought tears to my eyes and warmth to my heart. It so fits in with how God and Jesus Christ work in us. Thank you (I don't drink but I love chocolate so here's to you and I having a chocolate shake together.

Excuse me for getting off topic, but I have one observation and one question. Observation: I'm realizing just today how many more people read this site other than the Grease Spotters I've come to know (some with good intentions - others with not so good). Question: With all the horrible things that have happened in the corps over the years, I'm wondering how a few people who were close to my heart and went into the corps are doing. Is there a way I can ask on GSC if anyone knows what's happened to them? It would be inappropriate to ask on publicly-viewed threads like these. Thanks

Thanks for the chuckle at the end. Reading about your outside-the-box life compared to what you had inside the box (twi), is like night and day. It's the cult's "give me all your resources" dogma that made them so much money during their heyday.

Thanks, I was finding that putting a word in the search box brought up different places where the word was used but I was hoping to find a whole thread specifically on that topic. Weird thing was, after I asked for an Undertow thread, I did try the search box again and this time it worked. Still figuring things out it seems.

Was there a discussion about the book on GSC?

I can’t remember vp’s keys to walking by the spirit but that’s probably a good thing. When it comes to your twig coordinator, it seems that the need/desire to criticize and reprove others (i.e., lord over you) would put many people in a damned-if-I-do and damned-if-I-don’t situation. You are wrong either way. Whether a thought is coming from God or our own mind, that can definitely be tricky. On the one hand, if a thought comes from scripture such as “do not lie" or "be kind to one another,” we know the thought is God’s will whether He placed it in our minds or if we recall it on our own. Like you say, no big whoop. It's different when an idea comes to mind that is outside of what we find in Scripture. Deciding then if it came from God or from us personally can often come down to guesswork which is the opposite of having a definitive answer. In the OT, people were being told by God to do incredibly insane or frightening things, and what amazes me is that the Word doesn't even say if they had doubts about what they heard, they just went straight ahead and did it. Here I am questioning whether the idea to call a friend who I had a falling out with is from God or not. What's up with that ? I have to go, but I'll be back later to discus this some more.

Thanks for sharing this. Now that you mention it, twi did really focus on hs as being something we operated in order to pull off the 9 manifestations which to them were the benchmark for how spiritually mature you were. It really doesn't blend in with or encourage the need for a spiritual walk with God. I guess having "the flesh vs the spirit" thing or "the old man vs the new man" thing going on in us is kind of like having a "split personality" but not in the "medical disorder" kind of way. It's this battle (or competition) between the old and the new that can get absurd at times . The key is "walking in or by the spirit," but after being in twi for so long (which was NOT spiritual a lot of the time), I wonder how God working in us connects with walking by the spirit.