krys

You can always go first and tell them about it later, if at all. If you tell them to leave you alone....not to contact you further...they probably won't.

Please accept my condolences too.

no worries. (shoot, I've read things that I wrote years ago and... well, I won't bother to tell you how bad it was! I'm still working on it...)

Okay, let's stop right there and consider that.

If the "it" is from Christ, then I take it that you don't exactly see or think of "it" as being Christ in you. Or do you? What does that phrase of "Christ in you" mean, exactly? Is Christ present within you? ...Or only something (i.e., whatever "it" is) that comes from or is sent by him? How did or do you think about it?

(I'll back up to think about and consider the rest of your analogy afterwards...)

Oh no....it's the same "Christ in me". He is present within me.

I've tried to consider this several different times or ways, but I still can't seem to make much sense out of it. When you say "it's like a body of water"... does "it" refer to a gift ministry, or to spirit? And if to spirit, which spirit? The Christ? (which is what I would presume.)

Perhaps you wouldn't mind explaining... and possibly adding some other way to express what you mean.

(And thanks for your effort to "flesh it out.")

Oh dear. My writing skills have gone to hell in a hand basket for lack of use.[sorry />]I wasn't sure about any of this until after I followed your line of questions and DWBH's essay. It was necessary for me to read them and think about what both of you wrote several times, and I don't know if I was beginning to see things the way they seemed to be laid out, or if I became convinced, but now I think I have a better handle on it.

The "It" is the spirit from Christ. I envision it as having energy. That is why I think of it as moving water. We all have the same sized reservoir and the input is the same because God is not a respecter of persons. The "pipe" carrying it in is the same size and the flow rate is the same.We as individuals can decide where we would like to use this spirit and how much we'd like to put into each of these areas. We are all different people so we have different strengths and desires.

Maybe someone is adept at organization. Perhaps he decides to use his spirit to help people in this way. Maybe he wants to assist the church in this area. Maybe God lays it on his heart to do so. Either way, he becomes adept enough that people notice his skill (it is his fruit) and follow him around asking for his assistance. I don't know for a fact that this is how it works, but I'm suggesting it as a possibility.

I do believe that if the spirit isn't being used, it becomes stagnant and then is of no use at all. (I remember the parable of the talents and the man who hid his away and had nothing to give back to his master and how angry the master was that his talent (the gift) wasn't used.) Someone may have a desire to heal. He may pray for guidance in how to do it, maybe he studies other examples or asks others he knows for help. Sooner or later he becomes quite skilled and he becomes known for his fruit.

I hope this makes better sense. However.....

God has given the gifts and it appears the way I've written this, that the individual may make himself into a gift the way I've described it. That is kind of presumtive....don't you think? Maybe both ways work.

I'm thinking.......

I'm so sorry this is so late. I've had internet and connectivity issues.

The best way for me to answer this will not follow your lead exactly in order. I don't think of it as static but rather energetic. Let me give an example:

It's like a body of water with one pipe leading in and at least 1,probably more than that leads out. All the in-flowing pipes carry the same volume of water. The owner of the reservoir can decide where the water goes and how much to put there. There could be several outflowing pipes but the circulation depends on the owner of the reservoir. He could add pipes for a time, or slow or stop the flow in some others I'm not particularly concerned whether God or JesusChrist does the filling because for the purpose of this discussion itdoesn't matter.

I think the individual believer is recognized by the trail he leaves...well taught individuals, healed individuals, and so on recognized by the greener grass (by their fruits...)

I'm thinking.......

That's Awesome! Thanks Raf.

Now this is going to be difficult to write:

I absolutely believe these are gifts to the church. However...the individual uses or operates them for the benefit of the church.

So, the predominate thought and focus is whether a particular individual does or doesn't receive a certain gift?

When do you suppose it is (or would be) received?

God is never late...but he doesn't have to be early either. Maybe it's given the split second it's needed...just as the individual wants to use it. (I have no advanced training or particular books anymore. But I have been thinking about this These are only my thoughts)

I like what you've written, Twinky. It seems that it is an all encompassing definition.

I wonder if an apostle aso has other gifts as well. If he starts and establishes a new church, wouldn't he also need to be a gifted teacher? Pastor, and healer?

Seeing there's no takers on my previous question, can't be there's much interest there. (But not much surprises me at this point.)

Nothing ventured nothing gained, I suppose.

Speaking of which, I may as well toss another casual thought or two into the ring.

[snip]

I don't believe that's a fair statement (that there's not much interest). I myself can add nothing since I have no definition other than what we have from twi and/or a dictionary. That doesn't mean I'm not interested in what other posters may have to say OR the subject itself in general.

ChaChing!! I've dropped in a few coins!

Allow me to welcome you to the Cafe along with my fellow GreaseSpotters. I'm glad you're here and I'm expecting more healing as you and your family continue to adjust to being "out".

That goes for me too…So sad - I will miss Garth at Grease Spot; he was one of the first people I "met" back when I first joined GS; I always admired his confidence to think out loud and how he could keep you on your toes in a discussion.

Yes he was a treasure. I'm also sorry he's gone.

It's still a blame game, nothing changes after thousands of years. There may be a lesson to be learned: take responsibility.

That knife cuts both ways.

There you opened the door to a whole 'nuther tangent.

Santa Claus is a myth of western civilization. The myth, or story is real.

I believe too.

Victims or Opressors... maybe a little bit of both.

Businessmen, or more properly crooks, running a church like a business.. conning and being conned.

Some of them came out of the corps as pretty darned ruthless.. coniving.. contract and promise breakers.. generally, try to pay you half (or even less) of what something was worth.

Trade their spirituality for a pot of beans..

Many were cheap sonsabitches. Always arguing about the price..

Probably because of what was done to them. Many sold businesses, abandoned careers for this supposed higher calling, only to find the rules and objectives constantly change.

..

Not only did the rules and objectives constantly change, but also the standard was so much lower than they could have imagined. I believe that most of them decided to go into the corps because they wanted a higher calling at least on some level. I can't imagine how it must have felt to realize the level of baseness that was actually pervading, for those who saw it.

I prowled around his site a while. He states he studied under Wierwille, Geer and Martindale, that he took their classes. I invested about 30 minutes in his "How to Speak in Tongues video and it was quite familiar. I believe that much of what he taught on that video was misguided if not incorrect. I'm not the person to judge whether an individual is teaching correctly from the bible as I have not studied the verses he used in detail...and even if I had, since I'm not a biblical scholar, I'll not give an opinion about the accuracy except as I already have.

There is what appears to be a whole class on "Walking by the Spirit". That class is free for the reading. You can email him...and he'll give you a password if you'd like. Presumably this could get you to more goodies. He struck me as an unassuming, rather likeable fellow who wanted to teach people how to live better by walking in the spirit. Too bad he followed the wrong men.

MRAP stated above :

Maybe that's why I have such a mis-trust of so many folks on GSC knowing they were corp folk and still drag along some of that persona on steroids. Yes, I got off thread, maybe.

Those at GSC are not all corp. Also - - those who are corp are mainly here for the same reason....get the word out about what twi was really all about. If some used to be hard harted, they've long since changed their hearts and their ways.

edit: clean up some formatting problem

I was in about a year longer than George! I left in '98 I think...so it was not quite 20 years. There weren't many times that I succumbed to pressures, but there were a few over the years. Once was a ROA (or 2 where I wanted to go as a family - otherwise me and the kids went) and the other was for the 40th Anniversary weekend. I wanted to go to that anyway...but hubby didn't. We compromised and twi got their way [smirk]

Several years later, I was taking a night class. It was summer nights so it was Mon-Thurs.and that meant that I didn't go to twigs during the week. Since I was fairhful with other things (in the main) they didn't yell too much about that because they knew it was important for my job. However....the twig coo'd husband's birthday fell on a tiwg nite and that same night was the final exam. I got pounded about that one. Everything from take a makeup...get the prof to reschedule the exam (right!) I held my ground and some folks gave me a cool reception but you have to do what you have to do.

Most of the time, as a wife, mother, housewife and full time teacher, when there were conflicts, I didn't run into too many difficulties as many of the women my age had similar activities. I even let our daughter do brownies and from time to time I was a "brownie mother" too...or Band mother....or baseball mother.

At that time, in our area, we had really good leadership IMHO and we covered for one another if necessary and we cooperated a lot. But there were times when I was molded by individuals, and maybe even pressures to be a "good do-be". It was nothing like how things became in later years. I felt enough pressures as a mature 50+ year old woman who had been around a while, to leave because it was so uncomfortable. I can't imagine how those who came after me stood it.

Thanks, moderators all, for everything you do here. This is a well run site and the spirit of the rules prevail here, as you said to facilitate discussion.

Because of this, I, and I'm sure many others have learned much. I'm glad to be here. My hand has been slapped a time or two but you mods go out of your way to be fair.

You guys just made my day!

I stand corrected. Thank you WordWolf.

Plaigerism has time constraints. Let me explain: After a period of time most written material passes into what's called "public domain" where it "belongs to no one in particcular and everyone in general. I'm not sure of the time period, but I believe it's 75 years, The honest thing to do is always give credit to the author, but the rules are a lot looser as to how much material you can use. The items discussed above as having been plaigerised were all used within that period of time.

There are some things that can never be anything but in the public domain. The Bible (most religious writings), and dictionaries are a couple of items that I can think of right now.

I'm not contradicting Steve's post from the previous page. The writing he's doing is for the specific purpose of preparing a thesis and nothing may be brought into that work that is NOT his own unless it is properly notated. The same is true in sceintific Research. In the case of Science, however, since it is knowledge built upon pre-existing knowledge....there is a point where it's not necessary to cite every individual item as some of them will be so well known to the readers, that it is not necessary.

edited for clarity and spelling.

It looks to me like the Way Ministry got their teachings on adminstration from EW Bullinger's book "How to Enjoy the Bible". This book may have been misread. I have only read parts of this book as instead for bible study I use my bible software and look up information myself. However, as an analysis of Oikonomia from this book at least Bullinger as read on page 79, figured out that oikonomia "was used of the management or administration of a household". Did Victor Wierwille and other people involved see that???

FFIW: Wierwille wasn't really interested in accuracy as long as he could make his doctrine fit the Scriptures. Remember the "hand in the glove"?