Mike

Thus Saith #2 - TNDC p.116 - not VPW but Holy Spirit Page 116 of TNDC: “Paul in I Thessalonians 2:13, thanked God that ‘when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God.’ You too must follow God’s truth as told in the Word of God. But if you think this is just Victor Paul Wierwille writing or speaking to you, you will never receive. If you know that what I am saying to you are words which the Holy Ghost has spoken and is speaking to you by me, then you too will manifest the greatness of the power of God. If you will literally do what I ask you, then you can manifest the fullness of the abundance of God, the wonderful power of God.” Wordwolf, I just noticed that the following was not included in the preliminary version of my collection of 22 “thus saith” statements. Most grads think that #2 only applies to leading us into tongues, but the context contains two words which dash that hypothesis to pieces. The following is a letter I recently sent to some friends. It deals with this context issue in statement #2. ******* Dear Cheryl and Jim, There is a passage from "The New, Dynamic Church" that is very familiar to all PFAL grads. It is very similar to what Dr spoke in the last session of the class when he led us into tongues. In this written passage Dr lets it be known in no uncertain terms that he was God's spokesman.On page 116 of TNDC he writes: “Paul in I Thessalonians 2:13, thanked God that ‘when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God.’ You too must follow God’s truth as told in the Word of God. But if you think this is just Victor Paul Wierwille writing or speaking to you, you will never receive. If you know that what I am saying to you are words which the Holy Ghost has spoken and is speaking to you by me, then you too will manifest the greatness of the power of God. If you will literally do what I ask you, then you can manifest the fullness of the abundance of God, the wonderful power of God.” As I have discussed this grand "Thus Saith The Lord" statement with grads, almost every one's initial impression is that the passage merely applies to Dr's leading us into tongues, because that's its context. That's what the chapter is about. This initial impression makes it seem that to apply this strong claim of Dr's to ALL of the PFAL writings is to take it out of its context. Let's look deeper into this matter of context. There are two small simple words in the immediate context of this passage in TNDC p.116 that slightly stand out to alert the watchful student. They are in the passage I quoted above. These two words stand out as a just a little bit odd, and by carefully investigating them we can see how they influence the context of this passage. These two odd words occur in this sentence: "But if you think this is just Victor Paul Wierwille writing or speaking to you, you will never receive. The two words are "or speaking." Why are these two words in there? It's a BOOK, and he's writing, not speaking. These two words bring in a broader context. The printed words on TNDC p.116 were originally SPOKEN in Session Twelve of the class, and then edited down to the smaller passage that appears on that page. With my own capitalization added, here is exactly what was SPOKEN in that session just before Dr led us into tongues: "I know that you would like to receive into manifestation the power of the fullness of the holy spirit. I know that you would like to speak the wonderful works of God and magnify God. And so, now, I'm going to help you to manifest the power of the holy spirit, JUST LIKE I'VE HELPED HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF OTHER PEOPLE ACROSS THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD. And there's one thing I want to tell you, and that is that, if you can believe God's Word, and surely you can believe God's Word, FOR OF ALL THE TIMES THAT WE'VE BEEN IN THE DEPTH OF THE GREATNESS OF GOD'S WORD, YOU HAVE SEEN the mathematical exactness, the scientific precision with which it works. And that God's Word is faithful, what He has promised, He is not only willing to perform, but He's able to perform, not only able but willing. "And therefore, I can assure you upon the integrity of God's Word, that you will be speaking in tongues the wonderful works of God and magnifying God. I'd like for you just to take your Bible, and what other materials you have, and just lay them to the side. And you just forget about them for the time being, and you just listen to me. Just let me unfold the keys to you, and within the next few minutes, you too will be speaking the wonderful works of God. "You know, in Acts, chapter 2, in verse 4, it says: 'And they were all filled with the holy spirit ...' They were all filled - nobody got missed, just nobody. And, IN MY CLASSES ON POWER FOR ABUNDANT LIVING, nobody ever gets missed, because, IF YOU'RE IN THIS CLASS, YOU'VE HEARD THE WORD, you've believed God's Word, God is always faithful. And nobody ever misses, if you'll do exactly what I tell you to do, right down to the minute detail. "It's like, in I Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 13. Remember where the Apostle Paul said: 'I thank my God, that, when you received the Word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the Word of God.' Now, if you'll be as honest with God as that Word of God says, you too can walk into the greatness of the manifestation of the power of God. But, if you think this is just V.P. Wierwille talking, you'll never get it. "But if you know that what I am saying -- it's V.P. Wierwille saying it, but these are words which the Holy Ghost has spoken and is utilizing and speaking to you THROUGH MY MINISTRY AND MY LIFE, then you too will manifest forth the greatness of the power of God. If you will, literally, do what I tell you and ask you to do, and show you why, then you can walk into the greatness of this power, LIKE ALL THE REST OF US HAVE, and manifest forth the greatness of this abundance of God, the wonderful power of God." Now I want to repeat the capitalized passages and note their meaning: "JUST LIKE I'VE HELPED HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS" - refers to previous live classes. "FOR ALL THE TIMES" - refers to the entire span of "this" particular film class. "IN MY CLASSES ON POWER FOR ABUNDANT LIVING" - refers to previous PFAL classes. "IF YOU'RE IN THIS CLASS" - refers to "this" entire class. "THROUGH MY MINISTRY AND MY LIFE" - refers to teachings other than the class. "LIKE ALL THE REST OF US HAVE" - refers to previous classes. We can see here that in addition to the leading us into tongues, those two odd words "or speaking" alert us and show us that the entire class as well as many other teachings of Dr's are a big part of the context of page 116. This letter opens with my use of the phrase "God's spokesman" in describing Dr's ministry to us and his teaching. Dr phrased this similarly on page 9 of "Jesus Christ Is Not God" (2nd edition) where he says of Jesus Christ: "It is he who appointed me as a spokesman of God's accurate Word; may I be found faithful in that calling." In the past 7 years I have many, many "Thus Saith The Lord" statements by Dr in writing or on tape. Some are overt, but many are very well hidden. On page 34 of the same book, "The New, Dynamic Church," we see another such claim of Dr's where he says that "every word I have written to you is true." For Dr to claim this authority to write and speak for God does not necessarily make it true. For THAT certainty we need to go to God and have HIM verify Dr's claims. But to be certain that Dr DID claim to be giving us God's pure written Word in his teachings to us is as easy as reading what is written. I have decided to accept Dr's claims. Agape, Mike

Ex10, I’m grateful that you took me off the electronic dodge system , known as the “ignore” feature. I consider it an honor to be able to talk to you. You wrote: “Thanks for answering my questions to you. I don't agree with your assumptions, but I do better understand why you think the way you do.” I find that in this charged atmosphere, and with the charged topics we discuss here, it’s very difficult to hear what someone is really saying. I have SO MANY people here speaking TO YOU for me, putting words into my mouth, twisting what I say, and downright lying as to my position, that I can’t blame you for backing off. It is a tribute to your integrity that you would slog through to at least hear what you have so far, and I think your for it. *** You wrote: “Have you considered the possibility that we don't need a "scholar" to interpret the scriptures for us? That maybe you, me, anybody who has made Jesus Christ Lord and has the Comforter to guide us into all truth can trust Jesus, the only begotten son of God who is the head of the body, of which you and I are a part, to reveal our Father to us, and bring us into fellowship with Him and one another?” Yes, I have done that. I spent many years pondering that possibility. The reason I finally rejected it is because I see the scriptures (even the KJV) saying the opposite. In a nutshell, I believe much more needed detail and many more needed topics can be handled by God's indirect method of reavealing all this to us, AND FASTER. Yes, I’m aware of the promise that Jesus stated, that the holy spirit would guide into all truth. But we must temper that verse with all the others that relate to the same topic. I know that God can and will guide someone to His salvation at times without any other help from people. But that salvation is spiritual, and there is a lot more God would like to give that person, but He has also set up a Body of Christ where each member contributes. God WANTS His people to get His Word from other people because he can get so much more to them, and quicker, that way. God tried to get the mystery through to Peter, but Peter was limited because of his great loyalty to tradition. God eventually gave the whole job of the mystery revelation to Paul, and then it was Paul’s epistles that got it through to Peter. It took years, too. When Phillip asked the Ethiopian eunuch if he understood what he was reading the eunuch responded with “How can I unless some man should guide me?” The epistle of I John talks about us not needing teachers, but that is in the category of the new birth, not learning about how the power works. Ephesians says that Jesus Christ works in a special way with some people to make their service to the Body especially gifted, and it’s for the purpose that we not be blown about by every wind of doctrine. God wants us to have both eternal life, AND an abundant life which would knowing the details of His will and power. I see that God would love to have the chance to directly, spiritually reveal all His truth to each and every one of us, but that’s not the practical reality of it. We’re only capable of receiving so much from God, and He always has more than eye has seen, and ear heard, and imagination has imagined. He can get more to us if it’s in writing and in the 5-senses realm... at first. We were taught in the Advanced Class that we were to “Study the Word much. What you can know by the five senses God expects you to know.” Jesus had to do it this way: first master the written Word, and THEN tap in spiritually. So do we. For the most part, God has a hard time finding someone who can both hear the revelation and then accurately get it into written form for others. Most people are not willing to place them on the front line like that, facing the utmost wrath of the adversary. In “Light Began to Dawn,” a sub-teaching on an old SNS tape, Dr describes the 1942 promise a little differently than he does in Elena’s book. In that old tape he says this: “...God revealed Himself to me and talked to me and told me as plain as day: 'That if I would study the Word, He would teach me the Word like He had not been able to teach it to anybody since the first generation.' Paul says in Ephesians that by READING his message we could understand the mystery. I see many grads who think it comes by spiritual osmosis, but most of us are not able to get it that way. We CAN get it by reading, though, and it’s much faster. In the Our Times article Dr wrote to go along with “Masters of the Word” he says that in just a few short hours we can get what took him many years to put together. Sure it would be sensation to get it all by revelation, but we don’t see it happening that way in the OT, nor in the NT. God finds the one man (or a small number of people) He can trust to get His great revelations into written form, and then we read it. Now I’m all for celebrating the way God verifies to us personally that we are on the right track when we do operate our 5-senses to master what is written and that for specific situations (non-doctrinal establishing) we can receive an abundance of revelation to minister to others. *** You wrote: “But I think, Mike, now this is only my opinion, that you have replaced the Lordship of Jesus Christ, with the Lordship of PFAL. And that fact really isolates you from "fellowship" instead of bringing you closer. If you are wrong in your assumptions, couldn't this be the case?” What I’ve done is I’ve replaced my culturally defined (through religion, movies, TV, etc) notion of what Jesus is all about and what he wants to command us to do with the PFAL definition of the same. If PFAL is the revelation from the Father, then Jesus the Son respects this revelation as God’s commandments to HIM! I could try to conjure up a gushy feeling of the stereotypical Hollywood Jesus, and then trying to act whatever way I myself define to be “like Jesus.” But instead, I collect in mind all that I’ve been taught from God’s written Word about him and match my definitions accordingly. I’m letting God (via His appointed spokesmen like Dr, Matthew, Mark, Luke, etc) define Jesus and his lordship for me, rather than running with my own definition, a sure broken cistern. *** You wrote: “Victor Paul Wierwille is dead. But Jesus Christ is alive and working in His Church still to bring those that belong to him, into relationship or "fellowship" not only with our Heavenly Father, but with him and one another.” Yes, and Paul is dead too, and I don’t mean McCartney! Paul’s ministry lives in the epistles he wrote according to God’s revelation, and the same goes for Dr’s ministry. If VPW’s ministry was a mere man-breathed Bible aid, then what you say has merit. If Dr taught by revelation then that revelation must be in total harmony with Jesus’ lordship.

Ok, CM. You refuse to answer my question, but I don’t think it’s in response to anything I say or don’t say. I think you don’t have a clue why you concentrate on me, a man who does his best to respect God, Bible, and Jesus and to get others to do the same, and then you FAIL to concentrate on others who reject all three and try to get others to do the same. I don’t think you’re even aware of your discrimination here. You are just doing whatever makes you feel spiritual. I’m sorry to see you sink into the same rut as Craig with your negativity and insults and warnings and self-appointed correctness. What do you think would happen to you here if you were an equal opportunity doomsayer and insult artist? Try it and find out.

You didn't answer my question. Why aren't you on the board predicting the doom of many self-professed God, Bible, and Jesus rejecters here? Why concentrate on me with all your crap? What’s your excuse for this discrimination? Don’t you CARE about the doom they are heading for? Where’s your “love” for them?

CM, If I paid any attention to you and your prediction of doom, I'd have to pay attention to hundreds (if not thousands) of other doomsayers, and none of you agree (hardly) as to what I should do AFTER I repent of my ways. I'd be bouncing of all four walls and the ceiling and floor. Sorry, you can stick your doom predictions right where Craig sticks his. Remember his prediction of doom that we'd be greasespots by midnight? What makes your doom prediction any better than his? Why aren't you on the board predicting the doom of many self-professed God, Bible, and Jesus rejecters here? Why concentrate on me with all your crap? I know why. It’s because you’re driven by the god of this world, and the greatest threat to his power is US mastering PFAL. Just like a number of kooks who have singled me out for attention, you ignore the flagrant rejection of the True God by many here. What’s your excuse for this discrimination? Don’t you CARE about the doom they are heading for? Where’s your “love” for them?

CM, If you want my trust and respect you must earn it. One of the most detestable things I saw in the ministry was Corps people who demanded respect without earning it. To the degree that a leaders was an extension of Dr’s ministry in the old days, I’d give that leader great respect, but all that died over 20 years ago. The situation of Corps demanding too much respect was so rampant that it occupies a small portion of Dr's very last teaching, only to have been botched up in the magazine editing. Someone, a transcriber or an editor, accidentally lost a few sentences of this part of the teaching and the article reads quite bizarre at that spot. The tape is clear. Trust and respect must be earned, CM. You can’t talk like a mystic and write poetic lines and expect that to earn the kind of respect you seem to want. It takes a lot of hard work to generate that kind of respect, and if you have done that kind of work with some people, then maybe they can respect you to the point of listening to your doctrine. No one here, JUST NO ONE, has earned the kind of respect from me that Dr has earned. He helped me when I needed it most, and he helped thousands the same way, showing them and me that God is love, and in many ways. Go ahead and insult me, demand respect of me, talk like a mystic, and wear a robe, sandals, and beard. None of that is going to grow one shred of respect from me. It’s SERVICE that inspires respect, not playing a role.

Well CM, why don't you start a thread on what you do know?

CM, You wrote: “you are not doing pfal __ you are doing something very different” You’re right, I’m not doing pfal AS YOU REMEMBER IT. I’m doing PFAL as it is written, and that is something very different than what you have of pfal in memory. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** socks, You wrote: “...from the standpoint of VPW and The Way Inc. the PFAL class, as offered and taught, was a "done deal". In PFAL VPW didn't teach 12 sessions in the first series and leave ot open to further discussion on the doctrinal points. He was teaching a it "as is" - here's what the bible says, here's what it means. If he was able to clarify, confirm or enhance what was in PFAL - yes, perhaps. He might look at that. To change the teaching or the conclusions - no.” Yes, I remember that. It was assumed to be correct. As I’ve reported before, we never attached the “God-breathed” label to it, but for all practical purposes it was “thus saith the lord.” You also wrote: “As far as the atmosphere of the "grads" of that period being accepting of the god-breathed status of what PFAL taught, I wouldn't agree, not by my experience, the people I knew (and I knew quite a few) or the things I participated in.” Me neither. It often occurred to us that Dr could speak by revelation, and often it was the practice to assume that he was speaking by revelation if it was a teaching with a microphone on. But, I never heard anyone attach the label “God-breathed” to his writings. He flat out stated on the a 1972 tape that the Way Tree was a revelation, which would dove-tail well with what you reported about your discussion with Dr about it not being fully documented as happening in Acts. I remember the theme of each Rock was supposed to be done by revelation. I also remember most major strategies and events of the ministry were touted to be by revelation. On some of the very early SNS tapes Dr can be heard saying that “Father says I can share this...” or something like “Father says stop” at a certain point, and other things like that. Dr would OFTEN claim that even though he had no ancient manuscript to back him up (yet) on a certain point, he knew by revelation that the originals had it his way... AND WE ACCEPTED THIS. I remember gagging on this last point at times, and it took me many years to fully understand it, but I never spoke up against it in the face of all others’ acceptance of it. *** It seems to me that Dr tapered off in his overt claims of receiving revelation after several such claims appeared in print in the very early 70’s, including his interview with Elena printed in “The Way – Living In Love.” But Dr’s authority to teach us what God taught him (his “thus saith the lord” attitude) was in the air EVERYWHERE in those earlier 70’s. It’s just that nobody ever flashed on the idea that, in addition to the God-given ability to speak by revelation to us, Dr could also put a revelation into written form. The reason we never flashed on it is Dr kept us too busy moving the Word and he wanted to keep the idea of his writing of revelation RELATIVELY under wraps. I explain this open “secret” in the 22 “thus saith” statements already posted. *** Later you wrote: “The class itself never changed, was never edited for any reasons, regardless of what they might have been.” Yes, this was in keeping with the passage in Elena’s book where Dr was praying in 1942 that he was going to quit the ministry if God didn’t give him some answers he’d “never have to back up on.” As you wrote, PFAL and especially the written portion, was never backed up on. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** ex10, You wrote: “Mike, why is it so important to you that PFAL be ‘God breathed?’ And that VPW himself considered it to be ‘God breathed?’” We very much need something that is God-breathed in order to fully fellowship with our heavenly Father. Everything we read in Bible versions is subject to “further research” and our “favorite doctrines” can conceivable be proved wrong at any time by some scholar. We must rely on such scholars if we want to know God, as they are so necessary to tell us which ancient fragments are to be trusted, and how they are to be translated. These scholars are necessary middlemen if we want to go to the ancient scriptures, like academic priests, who feed us God’s Word in English. Complicating matters greatly is the sad fact that equally brilliant scholars will often disagree with each other as to what a particular passage actually says. So, in our attempts to know and trust God’s Word and will, we must also trust our “favorite” scholars to intercede for us, and we must trusty our own ability to choose such scholars, and then once chosen, we must sometimes pick and choose from within each individual scholar’s writings what is to be fully accepted. We need SOMETHING that is authoritative. Everything in the theological world of versions is riddled with academic opinons. I see PFAL is the only viable candidate to be that which we NEED. God supplied a great need with PFAL. *** Now for the second part of your questions to me. You wrote: “Mike, why is it so important to you that ... VPW himself considered it to be ‘God breathed?’” If I can show that Dr did claim this, then it is the case that many here who debate with me will see that they did not fully absorb all that Dr taught us, especially his written teaching. Most of my opponents here claim that I mis-represent Dr, but if I can show that Dr did claim this, then it is proved that my opponents here missed something in those days. Many here claim that PFAL failed them; that they gave it a good honest try, but it failed them. My claim is that none of us fully received PFAL and that there is much treasure awaiting us when we come back to it... back to the written material, not back to TWI. Many grads here and elsewhere feel that they had mastered PFAL, and that Dr’s final teaching(s) urging us to master PFAL was a mere commercial directed only to new people. I claim that we did NOT master PFAL, that Dr’s urging us to master it was a very needed piece of advice, and that obeying it will help us all. *** As I unearth these “thus saith the lord” statements of Dr’s , each such statement carries two pieces of information for our consideration. First, we didn't pay as good attention to Dr's teaching as we thought we did, especially as he got older. We didn't sufficiently study, and we didn't MASTER the material we were given. If we had studied, we'd have seen and remembered these many times when Dr asserted that he was teaching authoritatively. Our assignment to master the material that Dr gave us with his dying last words was a NEEDED assignment, even for top leadership, ESPECIALLY for top leadership. Second, these statements give us a chance to believe, or not, that Dr was working for the True God. Even more, they force us to decide "yes" or "no" to Dr's teaching authority because they leave no gray area between. Now I know that just because Dr said so, that doesn't make it true. Whether these claims of his are accurate is one subject worthy of much discussion, but besides that, just seeing these many statements is convincing proof that (1) we didn't catch all that taught to us, and (2) Dr went way out on a limb. What I mean by "out on a limb" is that if he claimed authority as God's spokesman many times and wasn't, then that rules out all the gray areas of how we should regard Dr and his teachings. Moderates and middle-of-the-roaders, people who think Dr’s material was in the gray area between good and evil, should be challenged by Dr’s extreme assertions to get off the fence and decide which extreme he is in. His claims prove that he was either extremely right or extremely right. Yes, there's no gray area the way Dr put it there. We can either accept his assertion of being God's appointed spokesman or reject it, but we can't logically and honestly seek out any gray area in between. I was struck by this same stark-option challenge to accept or reject when I first sat through the class in Session One. When Dr got to the section about healing that man's withered arm in India I realized that there were no gray areas about Dr and his message: either he lied or told the truth about that healing. Closely following was: Ditto for the rest of his teaching. I was electrified when HCW recounted hearing Mrs. Wierwille's commentary to him personally as they both looked through old photos of that healed man and the train station. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** WordWolf, You wrote that I: “...ignored the people on staff whenever they disagreed with my premise that the magazine articles were edited with a Divine Hand guiding it.” I paid much attention to all of Dr’s staff editors when I spoke to them. I opened up my discussions with them by recalling how many times we’ve all (or most of us) at some time helped someone far beyond our own sense knowledge capacities without even knowing it. Many of us have taught a fellowship, or brought forth a message from God in manifestation, and then later had someone come up to us praising God that we hit the nail right on the head in helping them. We often would bless people more than we were aware of. In the Old Testament Samuel heard God’s voice calling him and twice mistook it for Eli’s voice. Balaam was once trying to curse Israel when he brought forth a beautiful prophesy of the coming of Christ. We all have deeply pondered the difficulty in telling the difference between God’s voice and our own senses. Sometimes we think something is revelation and it’s just a senses hunch, while at other times we think we’re just doing some normal thinking but God slips in a revelation to bless us. When any of Dr’s editors told me in recent years that they didn’t regard their editing of Dr's writings to be in the revelation category I find this assertion of theirs to be easy to step aside from. I know that the adversary has had over 20, and 30 years to talk them out of thinking that those efforts had any of God’s revelation behind them. I also know that when they were on staff back then, that nearly everything they did was with the heart of being open to God’s revelation. So, it was easy for me to say to them, “I believe you got more revelation than you remember or are willing to believe now.” When I did this they were usually very silent and contemplative. So, WW, I only ignored a tiny bit of what they told me. *** You wrote: “I'm giving you a temporary pass on the supposed 22 items. That's because you claimed the list WTH posted was deficient and non-representative. So, for now, I'll give you time to post one or more WITH the supposed background and rationale before commenting.” I appreciate this courtesy you’ve extended to me here. However, you may was well have at it as is. I can supply the missing points as we go on a better timetable than I can re-vamp the whole thing. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** doojable, You wrote (with my spelling correction) : “are you saying that in these statements Dr says "thus saith the Lord..." or that this is implied?” Yes, the “thus saith” is implied (in varying strengths) in those 22 statements. Here are the first two statements in that 22. On page 34 of TNDC he writes (with my bold fonts): “Change what you put in your mind. To change the food you are sending to your mind is to “renew your mind.” Think those things which are true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report. __ If you by your free will accept Christ as your Savior and renew your mind according to The Word, you will find that every word I have written to you is true. I challenge you to stand upon the Word of God, declare your authority in Christ and claim your rights.” In Dr’s vocabulary, “true” is bigger than “factually accurate.” Truth is spiritual, facts are man-made. Dr often taught this. On page 116 of TNDC he writes: “Paul in I Thessalonians 2:13, thanked God that ‘when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God.’ You too must follow God’s truth as told in the Word of God. But if you think this is just Victor Paul Wierwille writing or speaking to you, you will never receive. If you know that what I am saying to you are words which the Holy Ghost has spoken and is speaking to you by me, then you too will manifest the greatness of the power of God. If you will literally do what I ask you, then you can manifest the fullness of the abundance of God, the wonderful power of God.” With these two statements Dr’s “thus saith the lord” is strongly stated, hardly implied. In most of the other 20 statements it is implied, and only very subtly in some. *** You wrote: “...I never remember Dr saying, ‘thus saith...’ at all, much less that they are in the collaterals.” I don’t think I ever heard him label anything he taught with the exact words “thus saith the lord” either. In talking with Uncle Harry, though, he told me that in BOT meetings, there were times when they’d fight over some crucial matter with no agreement in sight. Harry told me that on those occasions Dr would sometimes say “thus saith the lord” and the argument was settled. *** You wrote: “You make mention of the the whole "not necessarily all..." - but that actually implies what you have yet to admit - that Dr said Some of the words he wrote MIGHT be God-breathed. But the very same statement say the same could be true of other Men of God. I also implies that NOT ALL these written words would be God breathed. Yet you have embarked on the unlike assumption that ALL of VPW's writings were to be treated like scripture. This seems very illogical.” I assume you’re referring to PFAL page 83 here. Yes, I agree with you, and so did Dr agree. There were times when Dr would put something in writing and it was God-breathed, like when he wrote to US, his students. As he claimed in my TNDC p.34 quote above, every word he wrote to US, his PFAL students, was true. Then there were also times when he wrote something and it was NOT God-breathed, but just his flesh understanding, whether correct of incorrect. That passage on PFAL p. 83 troubles a lot of people. He’s just saying there that man’s word is untrustworthy, but God’s IS trustworthy. He says that, compared to God’s Word, man’s is faulty, every man’s, even great religious leaders’ words. He then goes one step farther and says (in effect) that even a man (himself) who is appointed as a spokesman for God, by God, has faulty words when he is not speaking (or writing) exactly what God commissions. So, all of written PFAL, what Dr told us to master, is worthy of mastery because THOSE writings are God-breathed. God inspired them and supervised them being printed and handed to us grads. *** You wrote: “BTW just because something is God-breathed doesn't make it scripture. ‘All scripture is God-breathed’ does NOT equal ‘All God breathed communications are scripture.’ This is a very profound point you are making here, and it’s the second time you made it. In my lengthy response to you after the holidays I marveled at this point. I want to bring that section up here just to pursue this as much as possible. Before the holidays you wrote: “Now God gives lots of revelation to lots of people so even if we will take the "Evil Kneival-sized" leap of faith that God gave VPW revelation regarding PFAL, that doesn't make it scripture.” I’m not nearly as sure as you that lots of revelation gets given. Leaving that aside, though, it is an interesting point that you bring up here. I’ve hardly addressed this myself. So what do you think the essential qualitative difference is between the ancient scriptures and something written today by revelation? Most of us (I think) believe that revelation can be given in modern times, so what if God not only honors a believer’s operation of the revelation manifestations with a cookie, but He also tells the recipient to write it down? Is that any different than what He did to get the ancient scriptures written? Is God forbidden to commission modern written revelation? If He is allowed, is it any different than the ancient scriptures in their original manuscript, language, and understanding? The best I can see they differ is TO WHOM they are addressed. I can see that PFAL is addressed TO GRADS ONLY (and to students before they graduate), while the ancient scriptures were addressed to “...Jew, Gentile, and the Church of God.” This point of PFAL possibly being God-breathed word addressed ONLY to a new group of people (grads) is a point that some of Dr's editor's deeply considered and even partially, temporarily mentally assented to in my many hours of phone and e-mail discussions with them. But, I do recognize that the ancient scriptures are quite special. Without them PFAL would rest on nothing substantial. *** You wrote: “Heck, on some level SIT could be construed as being God-breathed...” I agree. You’re onto something here. *** You wrote: “Again, Paul wrote many many letters - but not all were scripture.” I agree. This area needs some work.

Raf, You asked me a question earlier. You wrote: “There he goes changing the subject again. Mike, for the umpteenth time, if you want to start a thread on whether the BIBLE is God-breathed, have at it. This thread is about PFAL. Stop trying to change the subject. __ Just out of curiosity, why does your exaltation of PFAL require you to attack the integrity of God's Word (The Bible is the Word of God: according to PFAL)?” I think you mistook a rhetorical device for an attack. I often do challenge people here to produce their “proof” for believing the ancient scriptures (the originals) are God-breathed. I’m not attacking the integrity of those originals, though. I believe in them myself. I know why I believe in them, but I think many don’t know why THEY do. There are some very close parallels between the ancient scriptures and PFAL. I’m not changing the subject when I bring up these parallels, nor am I attacking the scriptures that PFAL rests on and refers to constantly. Instead of using my usual rhetorical device, which is interrogative, let me state it explicitly: I say that the methods by which the ancient scriptures become to be believed to be God-breathed by many are VERY SIMILAR to the methods by which I came to believe PFAL to be God-breathed. I say that the methods used to deal with AEs in PFAL should be VERY SIMILAR to the methods you, Raf, use to deal with AEs in the Bible texts available to you.

socks, You wrote (with my bold fonts) : “...the basic doctrinal points taught in the PFAL 3 part series were done deals, and assumed to be correct as is. Some nuancing would be possible in certain records but from a "principle" standpoint the doctrinal messages were considered complete. Further "tweaking" would only clarify the details. That would be how I'd view the "early years", after PFAL was put on film the second time, in the version most of us took.” It’s this that I refer to when I say there was an assumed atmosphere in the early 70’s that Dr spoke for God. All my 22 ‘thus saith” statements take on greater intensity when it’s known how they appeared in this assumed atmosphere as a background or context. ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** WordWolf, In an earlier post you quoted my criticism of Raf’s method. I had said to Raf: “In your method, finding a seemingly solid error is the end of the process, followed only by uncorking the Champagne. You retorted with: “Don't you get tired of repeating this vicious lie? Raf's method BEGINS when an error is found. Then discussion and consideration begins. Research is done. Concepts are considered and exchanged. Knowledge grows. Then an error is either shown to be substantial, or it is shown to not be one. Action is then taken accordingly. Ok, WW, let’s unmask this “vicious lie” of mine for the mere mis-comunication that it is. You missed one phrase in my quote above. The phrase is “seemingly solid.” I used an alliteration to abbreviate the process you describe above. Here’s the expanded form of my quote: “In your method, after you’ve found an item that looks like an error at first sight, after discussion and consideration, research done, concepts are considered and exchanged, knowledge grows, and the error is either shown to be substantial, action is then taken accordingly. That action would be uncorking the Champagne while posting this now seemingly solid error.” That’s what I meant by “seemingly solid.” Now, MY method would differ in that more PFAL page references would be considered, the process would go much slower, and at a lower priority level compared to my reading of PFAL for fellowship with my heavenly Father. I’d employ a lot of differing techniques in my method too numerous to mention here.

Thanks White Dove. I just wanted to sharpen my data.

What the Hey, Well thank you for giving my credibility a boost here, but I think you also gave me some homework tasks to do. I had been working (very slowly) on the same text to refine it in lots of ways. As posted here, and testified to by dmiller, it was meant for the consumption of a largely sympathetic AND a more knowledgeable audience. I took liberties with them, such as abbreviating some back-up and supporting paragraphs, that I wouldn’t take with the GSC audience at large, including silent lurkers. I can beef them back up later. Because I’ve been working that text off and on for weeks, I noticed there’s also some missing material. What is posted above is a highly edited version of entire text of that PT, and unfortunately a little too much was edited out. I can supply that later too. So, it should be kept in mind by everyone that the posted 22 text, so far, is a preliminary draft. *** dmiller, You wrote: “Like I said (somewhere else), those way rag articles were EDITED, yet you treated them like scripture, digging for hidden treasure, as if God Himself approved the orderly fashion in which they appeared on each page.” Yes, God placed hidden treasure in an earthen vessel, as He is known to do. First of all, it makes no difference between book and magazine, both got edited. Yes, the materials were edited. I’ve handled this many times here. God worked not only with Dr on His project, but with Dr’s editors. I’ve often posted that it was a TEAM that produced the written materials, and God worked with the whole team, not just with Dr. Dr coordinated it. *** Ex10, You’re not a “cop out” in my eyes. I’m just not thinking that way. We all ran out of steam, me included. All I know is that SOMETHING went well a long time ago, and I finally identified that something. None of the bs that sprung up and choked us is in written PFAL. *** Oakspear, It’s definitely a great secret that written PFAL is God-breathed. I’d say it even qualifies as the greatest secret in the whole world of OLGs.

It's the battle of the long winded posters! Who will become winded and wind down this marathon? Gasp! Probably me.

doojable, You wrote: “You are in the process of searching over 30 years worth of writings and tapes?????? whew!” Oh, no. I don’t include the tapes. In 1998, when a man first showed me Dr’s Last/Lost teaching, I started putting aside my exhaustive tape research to concentrate on the neglected books. I was a total tape freak in the ministry, saturating my life with tape exposure. In elementary school I was fascinated with the electronics of how tape recorders worked. When first into the Word I was a button pusher and AV-man for many classes, then worked at HQ in Tape Duplicating, then the field again working the tapes. I had a big collection of tapes. It took me a while to de-emphasize the tapes in my life, but the tapes DO serve some good purposes. In the process I did hear many of them and use quotes from many of them here when the topic is ministry history. In my job I am able to listen to a lot of tapes, but even there I listen to Dr’s tapes less and less all the time. *** Oddly enough, in the late 80’s I heard that one of the main reason’s Chris Geer could be trusted as Dr’s replacement was because he had MASTERED all of Dr’s SNS tape collection. But now I see that Dr was always pointing to the written. “It is written” is the ultimate standard, and was the Corps motto. *** Don’t sweat it for me, doojable. It’s a very manageable short stack of books and a much shorter stack of magazine articles, and they are FULL of light. AND these books are very easy to read and comprehend. They aren't stuffy and academic in their language. They aren’t cluttered with tangential distractions, such as footnotes and a huge number of supportive references. *** You wrote: "We arent' even asked by Jesus to do that. He chided the pharisees for getting too much into the fine minute nit picky details of the law while forsaking major matters of life that God wants us to live." I agree with you here. I do get bogged down HERE in minutia, but I’d rather get into the meat. I’d like to get into quoting sections of the collaterals for discussion, not this run-around of attacks on me, focus on ministry history, and focus on personalities. But that’s coming, I hope. I agree that these things need to be applied to life, not just to the GSC Canon. This is one reason I step away sometimes, or don't try to be exhaustive in my responses. I can only imitate WW for so long and I run out of time or said imitation interferes with said living of life. *** There may be some other things in your post I’d like to respond to but I’m out of time just now.

Does anyone know the exact year the Ephesians teachings tapes were taught to the Corps? Or what Corps it was? I don't mean the year the Ephesians tapes were released by the Univ of Life, but their original taping date.

Ex10, No interruption. I remember that tape too. There was more to that tape's explanation of Stephen's death, though, I think. I remember being taught in years prior to that, regarding the beating two leaders (Peter and John?) got shortly after the Pentecost record. (I’m racing to post this adjacently, and not looking it up.), that they hadn’t gotten up to that level of believing yet, that they were growing still. Why couldn’t that be the case for Stephen too? I’ve seen things in life that I am good at dealing with and maintaining my positive attitude and believing, and then there are things I’m terrible at keeping a stiff upper lip for. I can see that possibility for Stephen. Joseph, in prison, was able to correctly prophesy the future twice, yet he was still in his prison for two more years before finally rising up to believe in THAT category. Ditto for Abraham. It took time for him to believe all the way to receiving. Paul was in prison when he wrote Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. Stephen had the believing to read them the riot act and place something in Saul’s ears that had to have had an effect. Stephen planted, I can’t see any record of it being watered, but I do see it being harvested by the road to Damascus. *** Like every man of God Stephen reached the end of SOMETHING and the adversary finished him off. Maybe it was he was tired of the fight, even wining the fight day after day, only to see the fight needs to be fought again the next day, and the next, and he got tired. Maybe his believing that God would give him more energy to face another day ran out. There are lots of types of believing, believing in different categories differs for people, as I wrote above. All of God’s men died eventually. Everybody runs out of believing, eventually, or has, until now. *** Sometimes it’s not the “Fraidy Cat” type of believing deficit that can hurt, but the weariness type I just mentioned, or another is the “not taught enough” type of believing deficit. We can only believe what we are taught. It’s the normal human condition to have believing deficits, it should never be a shameful thing, or worse yet, a fearful thing in itself. We should learn to accept and deal with our believing deficits like we learn to ride a bike. It’s fun! We can help each other, too, not shame each other. I’ve seen the terrible distortions that the TVTs produced as grads discouraged each other in the learning of believing. The way the PFAL incident of the mother who lost her little boy was distorted in our minds, by re-hashing it from the verbal record only, was devastating to many grads, especially grads who came in later and never heard the preTVT explanations that I heard in the early 70’s. I thought Craig’s Stephen teaching was good in 1978, because I had all this explained to me then by sharp leadership in the early 70’s, because I had a nonTVT background in it. I can see how by the later 70’s things were not so comfortable and efficient for grads who heard Craig’s teaching with a TVT background. *** The TVTs started in the mid 70’s and Dr reproved them in the Corps Ephesians teachings with a strong hint to master RHST, later released in Univ of Live Eph #17. This was pretty well ignored by ALL the Corps, and I know this because Dr says so in the 1979 AC quote I quote so often here. He says there that ALL the AC grads (that includes all the Corps that heard the Ephesians tapes) had fallen FAR short of their mastery of RHST. It’s in segment #5 of that ’79 AC, and if anyone can’t remember my posting of it, say so, and I’ll re-post it... for the umpteenth time! *** So I can bet that Craig’s tape was fine for people who had a solid background in hearing about the law of believing. I loved that teaching and concentrated on what Craig revealed to me about Saul being in the audience. That’s the highlight I remember of that tape after all these years. Somebody want to listen to it and prove me wrong? It won’t be the first time my memory degraded if I’m wrong about that tape, and I often like to confront my memory when I do forget. It reminds me of the great need for me to not rely on my memory of what’s in written PFAL, but to open the books (often) and read what’s written.

WordWolf, In post #138 of this thread you quoted me thusly: “...BUT, Dr’s many “thus saith the lord” statements still do NOT prove that PFAL is indeed God-breathed.” You responded with: “Please note he said this. The next time he contradicts this, I'm bringing it back.” I protest! Not only will I not contradict this, but I have OFTEN said this in the past. WHY haven’t you noticed that fact? WHY didn’t you say the same in the past? GADS! How COULD I ever think that anyone saying anything makes it so? I ask again, why do you portray this as the first occurrence of my acknowledgment of such a simple thing? *** I mentioned that Dr made many “thus saith the lord” statements and you responded with: “Most will notice that Mike NEVER produces these "thus saith the lord" statements, but instead expects us to believe he's representing the text fairly.” You’re somewhat right. I have produced a few, three I think, but I have never produced anything close to the huge list of them I have claimed. Want to know why? Because, strangely, no one has ever challenged me to. This is the first. I’ve literally been waiting for this for over three years. As I’ve mentioned before recently, last year in a Private Topic thread (in the old GSC software) I marveled at how long I’ve waited to be asked to produce this long list I’ve claimed existed from day one of my posting. On that PT I wrote up 22 such “thus saith” statements. I have claimed to have found 90, but sometimes include the caveat that a bunch of that 90 are extremely subtle. I may never have the time to write up all such subtle entries on my list, but I had no trouble writing up 22 and I see another 20 easily being within my schedule constraints to produce here. Maybe soon I’ll post the 22 and a few others. I’m now waiting on this thread calming down or maybe getting a fresh thread just for that subtopic. *** I had stated that “the purpose of the PFAL book is not TOTALLY revealed in that book's beginning pages. ... I insist on ALL of the passages of PFAL on a give topic be brought to the table, not just selected ones.” Then you responded with (my bold fonts) : “...If there was an additional meaning, [A] It must be stated as clearly [ B] It must not contradict this as the CONTENTS and DESIGN. [C] It must not contradict what this is NOT-it is not a substitute for Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21.” (please pardon my format tweak to avoid invoking unwanted smiley faces) You changed something here in item [C]. Dr wrote: “The contents herein do not teach the Scriptures from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 WW wrote that the contents therein are: “not a substitute for Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21. That’s different. Item is ok, but I also object to item [A]. Who sez it must be stated clearly? And clearly TO WHOM? And for that matter, who sez it must be done in that same place? The other purposes of the book may be indicated elsewhere, at least in my book they may. *** I wrote: “Dr’s many “thus saith the lord” statements show that these OLGs’ PFAL mastery was insufficient, as per Dr’s final instructions, to catch this “thus saith” nuance in written PFAL.” You responded: “Again, not one instance is given, just this mysterious ‘there's a whole lot of them’.” Yeah, ain’t the mystery delicious? And add to it the fact that this post of yours is the FIRST in three years to finally demand me to produce my list of these statements. I once noticed here that I had posted SIX times (without scare quotes) that we grads were “gathered together” into the PFAL class, and it wasn’t until the seventh time of doing so that anyone said something about it. It was excathedra who spoke up noticing it. I also noticed that in my first year of posting I threw it out on the table that I believe there has been some sort of administration change and no one picked up on it at all. It was weird. I’d post a strong hint or short explicit statement and it would sail right past everyone, and not even commented on, as if it were taboo or something. I got the impression that people were afraid to bring these things up. Actually the “gathered together” part was probably just from people skimming my posts looking for the standard things to freak out on, and they just overlooked the “gathered together” spots. But my “thus saith” claims and my new administration claims were much more out in the open, yet ignored. *** You wrote regarding these “thus saith” claims that: “THERE IS NO "INTERNAL CLAIM WITHIN PFAL THAT IT IS THE WORD OF GOD. There is a bald claim from Mike that there IS one, but any supposed support for this claim melts in the morning sun.” Well we may have a lot of fun when I bring the statements forth. *** At the next point in your post #138 you completely missed something by splitting up a sentence of mine and then claiming a contradiction on my part. I will mend the sentence you violated, with the admission that my grammar was a little awkward to the point of leading you astray, so I’ll mend that too. I had written that the mere existence of the “thus saith” statements was “still no proof of God-breathed PFAL here. Then I switched to discuss the fact that many grads here did not recognize these “thus saith” statements or that they cannot remember them. In my mended sentence I say this: If it’s the case, that we grads missed the CLAIM of God-breathedness within PFAL, then HOW MANY OTHER THINGS WERE MISSED? I had added to “if it’s the case” the phrase “and I think I have shown that it is.” I do. I think I’ve shown that it is the case that most grads missed these “God-breathed” claims of Dr’s. You jumped the gun, not reading my entire sentence; you were thirsting to find a contradiction of mine. You made a false find. You wrote: “Amazing how he can't see his own sentences, back to back, completely contradict each other. Mike's message, attempting to claim what it attempts to claim, of course contains many internal contradictions, but usually not back-to-back in successive sentences.” I see you jumping the gun all the time on my posts. You don’t read the whole thing, I think, before you start making you comments. You don’t get the gist and then comment, you linearly track along looking for contradictions, not seeking complete comprehension first. I’ve noticed that many posters can fall into this trap of plodding through a commentary of someone’s post, and missing what’s said in that post. It’s like they are distracted by their own premature writing, when they should be reading to the end to get the full meaning before initiating the commentary process. This is like not waiting when reading PFAL for ALL the locations of a topic of focus to be found, and jumping off prematurely at only ONE such location. We were taught that ALL the locations of a particular topic must be embraced before a text is understood. Instead of being so driven to exhaustively debunk nearly everything I say, why not patiently read for comprehension what I say and we can have a much deeper conversation that what I am writing about now. Do you think I want to spend a lot of time correcting my awkward grammar or your impatient flying off at the handle when you THINK you’ve nailed me in a contradiction? I don’t. I don’t want to talk about what we talk about, and then go on to talking about or talking about what we talked about. I want to discuss the contents of PFAL. In my pre-reading of this page in the thread, I saw that someone asks that we do just that: discuss the contents of PFAL. Let’s do it, ok? Do you see how your “discovery” of back to back contradictory sentences here is a false find? Do you see how you misunderstood my admittedly awkward grammar and falsely accused me of contradicting myself by jumping the gun? *** Wow! I’m done with post 138 in my attempt to imitate your exhaustive commentary style. It’s going to have to do a lot of raining in Southern California for me to catch up. Oh well, maybe our tone will shift to more discussion of the contents instead of commenting on what and how we’re commenting on each other.

Raf, I don’t gloat over that issue at all. I could have just as easily found that in my interlinear as you did, but I didn’t see a need. I’m not interested in finding errors, because I don’t believe there are any. I'm not PRIMARILY interested in resloving errors, because I know some go slow and there's a lot more than AEs to focus on in a mastery project. You’re right about discounting items on your AE list yourself and the credibility it adds to the remaining items. I’ve seen this willingness in you often enough, to reject the soft items and only hold on to the tough nuts to crack, to make the comment I did about trusting your newspaper articles’ validity over the norm (as I currently perceive it) for that profession. *** The few times I did visit your thread I did show how one or two AE’s could be resolved, but you all rejected my approach. Because it was your thread, instead of insisting you change to my method, I politely left you to work your own thread the way you wanted to. When I was there, though, we would disagree on how to look at things, much like this 3000 volume timing deal. I’d find a way to look that resolves while you all would find a way to confound. I’ve always, since the day I took the class, assumed that the 3000 volume timing was 1942 or shortly thereafter when he switched from trusting academic teachers to trusting God’s direct intervention and revelation as his teacher BECAUSE THAT’S WHERE IT FIT. You look for a timing where it doesn’t fit. Here’s an example of the same thing from that AE thread involving David’s sin. You interpreted Dr’s use of “technically” as referring to the Mosaic law, while I interpreted it as a casual everyday usage with a slightly rural slant, as in an Ohio-ism. In the country “technically” can mean the way it is done even though it’s not quite right. If I say “All the cheerleaders belong to Captain of the football team” everyone knows what I mean. It doesn’t mean absolutely all, and it doesn’t mean legally, and it doesn’t mean it’s right, it just happens that way a lot due to human nature. The word “technical” wouldn’t usually be used in this example because football players don’t have the power to "bend" the law the way a king does. So, with my method of inquiry for PFAL difficulties (which is similar to your method for Biblical difficulties) I looked at “technically” in the way it fit. Well, guess what? I recently found another place where Dr uses “technically” and I'm on the lookout for them ALL. I go slow on these things to be thorough. Thorough is the way we should go, but you’re in a relative hurry to find those tougher to crack nuts. I'm willing to live with AEs for years with no deterrance to my mastery project. If you found ALL the places where Dr used “technically” before you made your Mosaic law pronouncement I’d be much more impressed, but I'd STILL stick to my chosen project.

I've always likened Biblical research to Moses inquiring into the phenomenon if the burning bush, or the digging through the temple debris and finding a scroll, or Jesus finding the place where it was written... Waiting for an exact Biblical precedence for anything we do can have it’s problems. I once met one very religious sourpuss who claimed that smiling and laughter were sin because there was no place recorded where Jesus laughed or smiled. I’m serious, and so was he! Without getting scatological here, I wondered if that guy I met ever thought through how many other common human functions have no Biblical documentation? Is there a Biblical precedence for banging one’s head into a wall? ******* dmiller, I think it was you who asked, I’m unaware of any more authors who’s works were placed in the bookstore. Even Kenyon and Bullinger’s material came with a gentle warning to be careful of some small errors, and they usually treaded lightly on the big errors PFAL rescued us from. The others may have focused heavily on trinity, life immediately after death, SIT dying with the apostles, God promoting suffering, God twisting arms and free will, etc., etc. ******* rhino, if I were to alter the wikipedia definition of a troll would you THEN believe me? But seriously, I do seek attention but not for me. I seek to get attention focused on written PFAL. When the topic is yanked away from that and onto me I object. You may want to check the context of what I said about starting the longest thread here before you label it bragging. ******* I remember in the early 70’s how leadership would answer that question about study, because it came up then too. We are to work diligently, watching the time because it’s short (hint, hint), IN EVERYTHING WE DO, including reading and handling of the scriptures. Maybe I should say ESPECIALLY in our reading and handling the of scriptures. ******* In my fast reading of things here I didn’t see anyone addressing the TIMING of Dr’s throwing away of his books, and what type of books they were. What I have seen is an assumption that the timing and type are such that Dr would have contradicted himself. Of course, I refrain from such. ******* WW, sub-vocalization can be microscopic with no visible movement of the lips, or even an awareness of such. The whole point of the Evelyn Wood speed reading course is to thwart such sub-vocalizations and only involve the eyes, by scanning faster than the sub-vocalization can keep up. I took that course and thought the claimed comprehension rates were bs, but I can’t say for sure. It may have been my failing to practice enough. ******* What the Hey and Raf, this unfit researcher thing is getting out of hand. The context of my comments to that effect are always to the effect of me offering one of the reasons WHY I don’t participate on Raf’s AE thread, and why I feel if’s right and proper for me to ignore (non-electronically) Raf’s results. I dodge them the way I’d dodge a speeding truck coming down the road at me. It’s dangerous to deeply consider things contrary to what I already know to be true, and I’m SATISFIED with my prior efforts with which I arrived at my surety. I see Jesus dodging questions at times, like with Pilate. I see Jesus distracting attention from devilish traps of his adversaries with statements like “who’s image is on this coin” and asking if John the Baptist was a prophet of God. From what I’ve seen of Raf’s fitness to research and reason I’m sure his methods are fine and are well suited to his profession. If I saw a newspaper article bearing his name, it would command more respect from me than most. ******* dmiller, you wrote: “Well, I THOUGHT it worked well at one time. Time proved it different.” The problem with your statement here is that there are two "ITs" for two different times, with a gradual change over between them. “It worked well at one time” because there were lots of leadership-type people (not necessary Corps) on the field with a recent fresh exposure to the books. As time passed these leaders felt they had a good enough handle on the written material, cassette audio tapes and players became cheaply available shifting a lot of attention to tapes, the TVTs started building as no one heard Dr’s hints to get back into the books. Things got less stable. Then the older leaders started dying, so they could no longer cover us drifting younger leaders with their believing and counsel. In the early 80’s Dr stepped up his calls for us to get back to the books and do a complete theological makeover, all the way up to his death, but they were all ignored. THEN time proved that the TVTs did not work well and within one year of Dr’s death all hell broke loose. ******* Normally, this time of year in San Diego is the rainy season, but this year it’s just like summer, so customers have been calling to have their windows washed. Until the expected monsoons hit, I may have to abbreviate some of my responses here. These past two days I’ve hardly been able to do anything but skim read the thread and missing lots (being an Evelyn Wood flunkie) so if anyone has a pressing challenge they’d like to see my response to they’ll have to find some way to draw my attention to it, like large fonts or a PM. Also, I’m waiting for the noise and the random target shooting to wind down here before I get into the 22 “thus saith the Lord” statements. Has anyone thought through if we should ask management about the possibilities of a separate PFAL forum to segregate all the sub-topics that have begun to proliferate?

Raf, Your bias is showing. How about this: he threw away all the books he collected while in academia, prior to 1942, all the books endorsed by traditional scholarship? After that he started collecting books endorsed by God, or that God guided him to for seleted pieces. See, your bias blinds you to this possibility because you WANT to think evil of him. **** And I didn't change the subject above, just brought into the subject a facet you didn't like, again a bias problem. I see you didn't address what I said at all, just threw it away.

Oakspear, This whole sub-topic of Dr throwing out thousands of his books odd to me. Have you tracked down the TIMING of this event? I remember working at HQ in the Bookstore and periodically seeing huge stacks of books piled up on Mrs. Allen’s desk. She told me they were all ordered by Dr. Obviously after he threw out those books that led him around the Word he then started collecting books again, but with a different intent on his part and with a different flavor. How do you incorporate these facts into this sub-topic of yours?

Raf, You wrote: “IF PFAL is God-breathed AND PFAL gives an explanation of the characteristics of God-breathed works THEN PFAL will exhibit those qualities.” Don’t you see that the same applies to the ancient scriptures (KJV’s canon)? IF the ancient scriptures are God-breathed ... THEN they will exhibit those same qualities of God-breathedness. I presume you have detected those qualities in them. Many worldly scholars, however fail to detect those qualities in the same ancient scriptures, because the METHOD they use to examine them is flawed. They are not meek. When they encounter a flaw they fail to seek until they find it’s resolution. If you want to detect these qualities in PFAL you will have to adopt the method prescribed within PFAL, not the method you use to sleuth out a news story as a journalist. PFAL claims to be God-breathed, just like the ancient scriptures, and both require patience and trust as apparent flaws are examined. With the ancient scriptures, one huge problem facing meek researchers is the fact that we don’t HAVE them, only copies with some level of mis-copying, and translations with a higher level of man’s interference. With PFAL the above problem of miscopying and translation is minimal, but there is a problem of memory. Too many grad researchers of PFAL rely on their flawed memory of what is in there. Too many THINK they have a command on what is said in PFAL in memory, but it’s either not accurate (TVT problems) or it’s not complete. There are vast areas of PFAL that many grads have NEVER explored, such as the minute differences between a book chapter and it’s corresponding magazine article. Many grads have never even seen some magazine articles that are independent of the material covered in the books. I’m sure, Raf, that if you were discussing the integrity of the ancient scriptures with someone who insists on only using the KJV for their research to “prove” there is no integrity to said scriptures, you’d rapidly distance yourself from their findings, and label this person as an unfit researcher. Likewise, when I see someone already committed to attacking the integrity of PFAL who hasn’t come even close to cracking all the books and all magazine articles, getting the whole story on the table for close examination, let alone adopting the requires trust and patience to slog through the apparent errors, then I too ignore their research end product as hopelessly off the mark, and the researcher, because of his chosen methods, totally unfit for me to invest any time following their thesis.

Allan, You wrote: “Again..I for one never looked on VPWs works as 'God breathed'.. BUT I will say that they logically and otherwise are 'streets ahead' of most other denominational and non-denominationals interpretations of scripture (imo)” We agree on this. If you’d like to see the 22 “this saith the lord” statements I have I can send them to you in PMs. I have sent you a letter to your once posted e-mail address, but it was returned as blocked or undeliverable, I forget which. I thought it was a spam filter, maybe, so I tried the PM system here, but there was no response. Did you get any of these attempts of mine to communicate on our relatively huge bank of doctrinal agreements? *** Adressed to all: If someone doesn’t want to have any private correspondence with me, a polite note to that effect would be the loving and efficient thing to do.

Mark, I understood your position and how you used the phase "rip it apart" to fit with your perception of danger. I also understood the other day that our agreement on the nature of this thread did not mean any other areas of agreement existed. Outside the obvious threat PFAL poses to RC validity, I see the TVTs as actually posing the secular dangers you perceive.

Raf, You wrote: “I have no intention of "ripping PFAL apart," and never have.” I can believe you didn’t start out with that intention, but I can’t believe it’s not part of you now. Sorry, what you say here is just not credible. *** You wrote: “My intention was explicit: to show that it does not live up to its own definition of ‘God-breathed.’” Well first you have to “find out” that it doesn’t live up to its own definition of “God-breathed” before you can “show” it, and you skipped that part. For instance, you didn’t first do an exhaustive study of all the items that showed up in the Blue Book, searching them all out in all of Dr’s other writings before making your pronouncements in your published BTMS study. What you did was a limited analysis at items you felt comfortable with shooting from the hip at, and praising some sections, giving your work an appearance of objectivity. *** You wrote: “You've turned off your ciritical thinking on this one, and, not surprisingly, you're proud of that fact.” You forget to mention that I spent 27 years with that critical thinking turned ON, and more than most grads around me. It got me into trouble with them at times and with God at times, me not applying what He wanted me to do as taught to me from PFAL. I’m not proud of turning off THAT ONE ELEMENT of my critical thinking, just relieved that I finished that course and now can FINALLY commit the rest of my life to something. I often envied the commitment that I saw others have toward PFAL and Dr, but now in hindsight I can see their commitment some of it was not well rooted and grounded and they got blown away in the frenzy that followed Dr’s death. Mine is rooted and grounded. *** You wrote: “But the truth that there are errors in PFAL is there, it's documented...” No, the product of your investigation, with your methods in place, had said that there are errors in PFAL. You can’t equate your investigation as thorough, though, because you have not utilized the research methods Dr taught us within PFAL. He taught us them so that we could eventually use them on the PFAL texts. *** You wrote: “What's it been, two, three years since we all worked through that thread? And .. you... have... yet...to...resolve...a...single...error.” Not to YOUR satisfaction have I done that, but your methods are not my methods. I tried it BOTH your way and my way, while you have only tried it your way. I have seen the subject with a larger number of eyes than you. ******************************************************************* ******************************************************************* ******************************************************************* ******************************************************************* WordWolf, I had written: “Now that this thread is underway, in order to limit the size of this thread (so as to not offend those with understandable PFAL phobias), and to compartmentalize sub-topics as they emerge, maybe we could discuss having an entire forum for focusing on PFAL matters. Just a suggestion.” You wrote in response: “Mike, you're the only one who wants that. Go ahead and make your OWN messageboard for that. If people REALLY want to discuss it, and you invite them, they'll show up.” Oh, like they DON’T show up here when I make a post or start a thread? *** I had written: “At first I thought an entire forum would be too much, and I was bothered by the idea of rules, but Modaustin’s handling of the intro went farther than I expected, and neatly deals with some aspects I hadn’t thought through very well.” You wrote: “Well, you DO want to control the microphone. You can do that when you control the forum.” No, you DO want to think evil of me and you succeed. The main reason I suggest an entire PFAL forum here is in the quote of mine above this one where I say: “...in order to ... compartmentalize sub-topics as they emerge, maybe we could discuss having an entire forum for focusing on PFAL matters.” You see, your intent to besmirch me blinded you to my stated reason(s) for discussing such a forum, presumably to get the thought refined before approaching Pawtucket with the suggestion. I sincerely think Pawtucket is NOT going to be tricked into giving me any control here, AND I don’t even want such a heavy responsibility, not for a second! One of the sub-topics that can emerge needing compartmental organization, like a thread of their own, is the many “thus saith” statements I’ve been waiting for three solid years for someone to challenge me to produce, like you finally did in this area of this thread. I think you challenge is several items down in my itinerary here, in your next post awaiting my commentary. I discussed this wait of mine last year in a PT thread with several people, and I have written up 22 such statements so far. I refrain from posting them right now in this fray, because in addition to the 22 items getting lost in the shuffle, it seems that many here have a lot on their mind that’s unrelated to my 22 (and growing) items. A separate thread for them would be ideal organizationally, but it would give me absolutely no power, unless I simply wanted, by the existence of such a forum, to irk some here, which I don’t. *** WW, I am in my business lull months now, so that’s why I am now addressing your long winded posts more. A slap on my wrist by Modaustin also got me out of a year long habit pattern of rarely responding to your posts, even to the point of avoiding reading them in their entirety sometimes. If I had the time all year round I’d be taking you on point by point like this with no problem at all. I like using posts from people like you to launch my ideas with greater gusto and greater reception than if I were posting them relatively alone in an unvisited thread. Your attacks arouse greater energy from me, and the fray draws in more readers. Although I don’t fit the definition of a troll (validated by the highest authority) I do see that the principle of “Don’t feed the trolls” has some applicability here, but is lost on you with your ego in place. For years I kept this a secret, but in the last six months I’ve decided it’s no longer necessary to do so. In other words, I thank you for being such a useful antagonist, but I can’t at all guarantee there are any eternal rewards for you in it.