Are you ready to reconsider my post? I believe there are things in this post that you should consider. Perhaps it will help you.
The original follows:
You have contended on many occasions that the Bible we have in the current forms is no longer reliable. I think you called them unreliable fragments and tattered remnants.
I have contended all along that this is not the case and not the declaration of VPW. Furthermore I have contended that your relationship with Jesus Christ is affected by your attitude toward the Scriptures.
In Revelation 19:13 we read, "And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called the Word of God." In this passage of scripture "...his name is called The Word of God."
The Word of God is always the same and it is always the Word of God no matter whether it is written in Genesis or in the Book of Revelation. The Name and the Word are identical. Wherever the name of Jesus Christ is used, there you have the person of Christ and the Word of Christ as one and the same. The Bible Word, that which is written in the Book called the Bible, is God?s Word. The Written Word and the Living Word are identical. The Church has not majored this. Our hearts are not believing it. The Bible Word is God?s Word because the Bible is the Word of God.
In Luke 8:11, "..The seed is the Word of God."
In Isaiah 55:11, "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."
In 1 Peter 1:23, "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever."
In Ephesians 6:17, "...the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God."
Christ, the seed, the sword, are all referred to as the Word of God. The Word always produces reactions. Acts 7:54, "When they heard these things they were cut to the heart,..." Acts 2:41, "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls."
In 2 Timothy 2:15 is that wonderful record, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth." It does not say that I am to study to show myself approved unto my congregation. I am not commissioned as a man of God to study to show myself approved unto my community. I am to study to show myself approved unto God and God alone. Paul said, "Far be it from me to be judged by you people, because my judge is God." We must live by what the Word of God says, to be approved of God.
In Hebrews 4:12 we read "For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." The word "discerner" in the Greek is the word "critic". This is the only time in the entire Bible that this word is used. It says that the Bible Word is a "critic." The Word of God is a critic of the thoughts and intents of the heart - the inner man.
We have come to a terrible day in history because so many people have set themselves up as critics of the Bible, of the Word of God; when the Bible is given to be our critic. What right does any man have to criticize the Word of God. The Word of God is our critic.
The Bible is a lamp as well as a light. In Psalms 119:105, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."
The Word is the Father God?s presence with us in his absence, manifested in the senses through the gift from the Holy Spirit in us. So the Word is my contact point with the Master. This makes the Word vital and alive.
The Bible is not just another book. Your attitude toward the Word is indicative of the place God holds in your life. All revivals are dependent upon the written Word becoming real in the lives of men.
It is impossible to separate a man from his words, likewise, it is impossible to separate God from His Word. So the living Word of God on the lips of a man of believing faith takes the place of the absent Christ. If a man?s word is of no value he will soon reason that God?s Word is valueless. Man?s unbelief in the Word of God is largely due to the lack of believing in his own words.
When you live in the Word and the Word lives in you, the Word once more becomes flesh among men. Let the Word of God then dwell in you richly for it will be life and health and joy unspeakable.
Do you think God handed Job over to the adversary?
I don't.
Mike M.O. in operation: "Distract"
This is not about what I think, Mike. It's about what the Bible says and, in this case, what it does not say. It does not say Job's fear was the reason for what happened. Job asks God why, and God doesn't blame Job's fear. You do, and you're wrong. Wierwille did, and he was wrong. "When and where the word of God is silent, he who speaks is a fool." Wierwille said that, despite the fact that he fell into that very trap and led you into it with him.
What do I think? Not the issue. What does the Bible say? What does it not say? It does NOT say Job's fear caused his calamity, no matter how many times you try to rationalize it with your Blame The Believer Horse Manure Masquerading As Disciplined Devotion.
Stop blaming Job, soft or hard. It wasn't his fault. It was an unjust, unprovoked, unwarranted attack.
quote:While you are still welcome to your opinion, and I would never suggest that you should be prevented from posting it, your opinion, supposedly based on the writings of "Doctor", is not borne out by those very writings.
Your conclusions are not supported by Wierwille's writings, let alone the bible. Your logic is labarynthine and your application of the rules of grammar defies even the most liberal interpretation.
Oakspear, you put it wonderfully. I agree. Mike, your thesis doesn't even agree with Wierwille, much less the Bible. Turn from your idolatry. God is waiting.
One of the things we have to understand with the book of Job is the reason the story is being told. How does an honest, upright man deal with an unprovoked attack? What does it do to his faith, and to his relationship with God? The book was never meant as a treatise on why or how bad things happen to good people (as evidenced by the truth that the answer to that question is never given).
The point of Job is not "how can I prevent this from happening to me." The point is, "how would I respond to losing everything? Is my faith strong enough to withstand things not going my way?"
I would have cursed God and died. Job didn't. He had terrible questions and expressed his hurt very powerfully. But through it all he never stopped looking to or trusting God.
I think it's repugnant that Wierwille built doctrine out of Job's expression of pain. "That which I greatly feared has come upon me." As someone who has attended and covered numerous funerals of young children, I have heard expressions like this before. To blame the parents is not only insensitive, it's appalling. The defense of this absurd doctrine runs counter to the compassion and love exemplified by Christ.
I think of the man born blind, and how the apostles ask, "who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" And Jesus answered, "It was the fear in the heart and life of that..."
I know that you're all anxious for this update as to how MrZixar's theories are playing out... I'm happy to report that so far Zixar's method (though only through a limited number of tests) is winning about 4 percentage points more than my old way (aka "mom's theory")... I do think that in order to be fair to mom, I've gotta do some more testing...
And then I'll get to Goey's theory. Although, I gotta tell ya Goey, that's an awful lot for someone like me to remember... but I told you I'd try it... and I will...
MIKE: the voices are still waiting to hear your theories on 'Winning Solitaire' as well as UFO's and the dinosaurs! (they keep insisting that you do have some strong ones!)
In your response to Oakspear you brought up your old chestnut about Wierwille's paragraph on page 83 of PFAL. Ginger Tea also brought up some questions about how you use your 5-senses to scrutinize PFAL. So let's review.
You wrote, "As we master and learn the 5-senses messages in these books, with repeated and thorough readings, we can turn our attention to hear God whisper to us the hidden messages HE, GOD, put in there that our 5-senses would never pick up. Also the 5-senses readings help us build protection against devilish doctrines that are all around out there. Our adversary can and will attempt to whisper wrong meanings to us as we work the Word."
On page 83 of PFAL, this is exactly what Wierwille wrote,"The Bible was written so that you as a believer need not be blown about by every wind of doctrine or theory or theology. This Word of God does not change. Men change, ideologies change, opinions change; but this Word of God lives and abides forever. It endures, it stands. Let's see this from John 5:39. "Search the scriptures..." It does not say search Shakespeare or Kant or Plato or Aristotle or V.P. Wierwille's writings or the writings of a denomination. No, it says, "Search the scriptures..." because all Scripture is God-breathed. Not all that Wierwille writes will necessarily be God-breathed; not what Calvin said, nor Luther, nor Wesley, nor Graham, nor Roberts; but the Scriptures - they are God-breathed."
The 5-senses meaning of this paragraph, according to all the laws of grammar, is as follows: Wierwille's words fall into the same category as the words of Shakespeare, Kant, Plato, Aristotle, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, Graham, Roberts and denominational writings; the words in this category are different from the words in the category called "Scripture" because ALL the words of Scripture are God-breathed, while NOT ALL the words of the other category will necessarily be God-breathed.
The context of the whole chapter clearly indicates that the "not all" of Wierwille's last sentence is a contrasting allusion to the "all" of II Timothy 3:16.
For all your specious appeals to fictional "local contra-contexts" and "tiny islands of contracontextual meanings", you can't negate the truth of the grammar. You can only ignore it.
So... say I am working this paragraph from page 83 of PFAL, when two spiritual voices begin whispering different things to me.
Spiritual voice "A" whispers, "Wierwille meant exactly what Wierwille wrote."
Spiritual voice "B" whispers, "We just don't KNOW exactly what Wierwille wrote. The spiritual meaning of this passage is that SOME of what Wierwille writes will NECESSARILY be God-breathed."
According to your own written criteria, Mike, is whispering spiritual voice "B" God or the adversary?
Remember, you also wrote, "To rob us of the power the adversary has employed VERY SUBTLE changes and corruptions in the texts and in our understand [sic]. One word twisted here in the text... all adding up to a text that can't help the reader... We were taught that just ONE word added, subtracted or changed and the results be [sic] catastrophic. Change just ONE word and you no longer have God's Word."
No matter how many times you pretend you've already answered this question, no matter how many times you quibble about "fine" points of your idiosyncratic "grammar", this question isn't going to go away before you give and defend a categorical answer.
According to your own written criteria, Mike, is whispering spiritual voice "B" God or the adversary?
Don't want to derail this wonderful thread, so I posted some Blind Faith for you over on the nostalgia thread. Come on over there and we'll discuss the ubiquitosly hidden teaching of Jim Beam (or, Jack Daniels, if you please) :D-->
There he goes again, ripping Wierwille's words from their context.
"Every word he wrote to us is true."
This is taken from the following:
"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."
TNDC, p. 34
Now, reading this statement, one may conclude one of two things:
1. Wierwille was claiming that everything he wrote in the chapter regarding the unqualified commitment is true (not "God-breathed," but true, which is different. "My car is white" is true. That don't make it God-breathed).
2. Wierwille was claiming that EVERYTHING HE HAD WRITTEN TO PFAL GRADS is true, not just this chapter, but everything.
I use the term PFAL grads loosely, to fit in with whatever Mike wants it to mean.
I submit that proposition 2 is a distorted removal of Wierwille's words from their context. He's not talking about EVERYTHING he wrote, and he's certainly not claiming "God-breathed status" for his written work. He is speaking strictly of the "Unqualified Commitment," and nothing more. Mike distorts the plain meaning of Wierwille's statement to force Wierwille to claim something he never claimed: namely, that his written works are God-breathed.
Likewise, p. 116 says "But if you think this is just Victor Paul Wierwille writing or speaking to you, you will never receive."
AHA! Wierwille is claiming God-breathed status, right?
Wrong. Wierwille is speaking very specifically about the instructions he gives for how to speak in tongues. He never intended those words to be ripped from their context and applied to every single thing he wrote "to us."
We should also note that Wierwille was wrong about the second statement. Plenty of people have spoken in tongues without believing that Wierwille's words even in this chapter are God-breathed.
Both of these studies were published independently prior to their collection in TNDC (The Green Book, for the acronym-challenged). That alone proves Wierwille was not making claims that extended beyond the chapters in which they appear.
Mike builds his entire theological foundation on little phrases like this, ripped from their contexts and presented so that they prop up a man he so idolizes that he can't even acknowledge an infraction so well-documented as plagiarism.
Thanks for waiting. The other day it was fun at first to try conducting 3 and then 4 conversations simultaneously, but it overloaded me quickly.
You wrote (and then patiently pasted):
?You have contended on many occasions that the Bible we have in the current forms is no longer reliable. I think you called them unreliable fragments and tattered remnants.?
I only call them that in a particular context and to a particular audience. To new people, non-grads, I?d only say it in a much milder way. The problems with the approximate nature of the received texts, and non-authoritative translations thereof, are not pertinent to the new student. There are a slight few areas where they need to be informed of the problems with the texts, but not so much in the first three sessions of the class. Later in the class, after the new student has a footing, then he can be told about variations in the text copies, additions, forgeries, etc.
As the student gets into learning of the power, then the approximate nature of the existent texts gets more apparent, and useful translations get more scarce. It?s in the area of power that the received texts are the most tampered with.
By the time the new student reaches the Holy Spirit field he?s aware of italicized words being non-authoritative, as well as a few other places. Well after the class he may hear something that contradicts what you wrote next:
?I have contended all along that this is not the case and not the declaration of VPW.?
As more advanced students Dr showed us that there are times and places and situations where a decision must be made as to which texts we will rely on, and which ones we will reject. This may start to look subjective to the student. Here is where the 1942 revelations come to play. God tells Dr which ones to rely on.
Another time it may be a little more intense, as there is NO text in existence, but Dr would tell us that there HAS to be one that will line up with what his spiritual awareness insists on. This is where I would lose it with Dr in the good old days. Because I had then the same model you are working with now, I felt Dr committed a foul when he would say ?Someday we?ll find a text.?
I was bothered by these kind of statements, because as your model insists on, we were supposed to be doing 5-senses, intellectual, biblical research, not mystical tea leave readings. This was a mild equivalent of Dr saying ?Thus saith the Lord? and it bothered me, because it didn?t seem to fit with the research model I thought Dr had taught us.
He taught us both. First was the 5-senses approach. Key #4 of the AC?s Keys To Walking In The Spirit: ?...What you can know by the 5-senses God expects you to know.? So, first Dr did his homework 5-senses wise, and THEN God would tell him anything else he needed to know. It took me 27 years to believe this second half.
********
Next you wrote:
?Furthermore I have contended that your relationship with Jesus Christ is affected by your attitude toward the Scriptures.
?In Revelation 19:13 we read, "And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called the Word of God." In this passage of scripture "...his name is called The Word of God."
?The Word of God is always the same and it is always the Word of God no matter whether it is written in Genesis or in the Book of Revelation. The Name and the Word are identical. Wherever the name of Jesus Christ is used, there you have the person of Christ and the Word of Christ as one and the same. The Bible Word, that which is written in the Book called the Bible, is God?s Word. The Written Word and the Living Word are identical. The Church has not majored this. Our hearts are not believing it. The Bible Word is God?s Word because the Bible is the Word of God.?
Everything up to the last phrase I?d agree with. The last sentence is in need of a subtle change. ?...because the Bible is the Word of God.? should read ?because the Bible is the REVEALED Word of God.?
The thing to remember here, though, is that we live under a handicap of no longer having the original scriptures. What we have is close, but not perfect. We must work the scriptures to find as many of these problem areas as possible, and determine what the originals said. It is impossible for us to be totally like minded, because we all work slightly different ways on different scriptures. On the fine points we all have a slightly different ?Bible? we?re working from, most of the differences being in the wide margins, except for those exceptionally skilled with White-Out and fine point pens. There is no authoritative ONE text. There are millions of different texts (worked by students) and as a result there is no needed likemindedness in the Body...yet.
******
The next big section of scriptures looks quite agreeable to me.
*****
You then wrote: ?We have come to a terrible day in history because so many people have set themselves up as critics of the Bible, of the Word of God...?
You may think I?m one of these people, but I?ll tell you my criticism is pointed (like I said above in opening) and it is NOT a criticism of the Bible. I see definite problems with miscopies OF the Bible. I see problems with forgeries OF the Bible. I see problems with critical compilations of miscopies OF the Bible. I see problems with translations OF the Bible. The Bible (what existed 2000 years ago) is fine, we just need to get it. There are only 2 ways to go about getting it: 5-senses and revelation. BOTH were required, both were possible, and as Dr writes in PFAL on page 128:
?When we get back to that original, God-breathed
Word -- which I am confident we can -- then once
again we will be able to say with all the authority of
the prophets of old, ?Thus saith the Lord.?
The revelation has been given, the work has been done. We have reached this point Dr was confident we would reach, where we HAVE the Word. It?s not a format preserved reproduction of the ancient scriptures, because God didn?t want it that way. When He switched over from the stars to the written Word, the format of the stars was discarded. The same happened to the older scriptures. We still have the approximations, but God has focused attention on the new format of the PFAL writings. Outside of PFAL we only have approximations of God?s Word.
*****
You then wrote: ?...when the Bible is given to be our critic. What right does any man have to criticize the Word of God. The Word of God is our critic.?
The Bible was lost, just like the scroll was burned in Jer.36, but God?s Word is NEVER lost. He has it in His head.
******
You then wrote: ?The Word is the Father God?s presence with us in his absence, manifested in the senses through the gift from the Holy Spirit in us. So the Word is my contact point with the Master. This makes the Word vital and alive.?
Yes, God?s Word is this. But translations and miscopies are not.
******
?The Bible is not just another book.?
The Bible is NOT a book at all. It?s an abstraction of what used to be. We can buy in bookstores only approximate reconstructions of it, or translations of approximate reconstructions of it.
******
?Your attitude toward the Word is indicative of the place God holds in your life. All revivals are dependent upon the written Word becoming real in the lives of men.?
Yes. And it?s also the case that an improper attitude toward the approximate reconstructions of men that have ?Holy Bible? printed on the outside cover is also indicative of how much accuracy is incorporated into that relationship with God. An attitude of too much trust in these works of man will prevent ?all nine all the time.?
******
Lastly you wrote:
?It is impossible to separate a man from his words, likewise, it is impossible to separate God from His Word. So the living Word of God on the lips of a man of believing faith takes the place of the absent Christ. If a man?s word is of no value he will soon reason that God?s Word is valueless. Man?s unbelief in the Word of God is largely due to the lack of believing in his own words.
?When you live in the Word and the Word lives in you, the Word once more becomes flesh among men. Let the Word of God then dwell in you richly for it will be life and health and joy unspeakable.?
Very agreeable words.
[This message was edited by Mike on July 14, 2003 at 16:38.]
Your whole response here seems to be a shift from what you have contended on many occasions.
This post does not call the Bible an abstraction but rather a "book called the Bible". While I agree with you that no one translation is the Word of God. I have never argued that point.
What I take exception to is your calling our current "versions, translations et'al" unreliable. This has been my one great issue with you all along. I know too much of what VPW said not only about the scriptures as a whole but also about many of the specific books of the Bible. And yes I mean the scriptures in their imperfect form.
Perhaps I will post some of what he said for your feedback. I think you are splitting hairs. Frankly PFAL never covered everything that is covered in our existing translations. If it did why did we need to reference the scriptures so frequently while taking the classes? Perhaps what the class really accomplished was to provide us with the keys to unlocking and allowing the scriptures to interpret themselves. I know of only one place to find those scriptures, in a book called the Bible. I cannot study an abstraction.
So you think there is a difference between my saying the Bible is the Word of God and your saying that it is the "REVEALED Word of God?"
When you write "Every word he (VPW) wrote TO US is true. TNDC p.34" Do you really believe that?
Read the article below and read my comments at the end.
From this point below will be VPW. I have added nothing and have not knowingly changed even a punctuation. The article is complete.
______________
The Total Education For Every Believer
In the seven Church epistles we have the perfection and the presentation of the ?all truth? into which the Spirit was to guide according to John 16:13. These seven Church epistles have the perfect embodiment of the ?all truth? in every facet of life and living. 2 Peter 1:3 says, ?According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.?
Not only is the number seven of the epistles perfect, but the order in which they appear in the Scriptures is perfect. The Epistles to the Thessalonians were written first; yet they stand last in every manuscript because the hope of the return of Christ must be known in the mind of the believer. He must know and believe that Christ is coming back. And yet, in practice, it?s position is last of all the Church epistles for it is the final occurrence in this life here upon earth.
The seven churches to which God addressed His Seven epistles by the Apostle Paul are Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Thessalonians. The remaining epistles in the New Testament are either general epistles or epistles addressed to individuals. The seven Church epistles present a complete course for every Christian believer in the Grace Administration in which we live. These seven epistles begin and finish the total education for every believer. They are the spiritual curriculum containing everything necessary for the believer?s standing and state, his walk, his total life. Ignorance of the seven Church epistles has caused no small amount of error and, therefore, born-again believers have been susceptible to and have been blown about with every wind of doctrine. They have no foundation upon which they securely rested and no anchorage of the integrity of God?s Word upon which they could depend. Consequently, they have had no basic principle of truth upon which to judge every standard of teaching and living.
Three of the seven Church epistles stand out specifically and distinctly from all the others as being treatises, rather than epistles. These three are Romans, Ephesians and Thessalonians. They contain so much more doctrinal (right believing) teaching as compared with the other four epistles. By treatises, I mean that these three are more elaborate, more exhaustive than the other four epistles that are epistolary. The word ?epistle? basically means a letter, a written message, a communication. The four epistles that are placed between the three treatises are in two pairs with each pair containing, respectively, reproof and correction, in contrast to the other three. Romans, Ephesians and Thessalonians contain doctrine which is instruction-right believing.
After Romans comes Corinthians and then Galatians. Corinthians is the reproof and Galatians is the correction. Ephesians again is doctrine. Then comes Philippians which again is reproof; then Colossians which is again correction.
Finally comes Thessalonians. Thessalonians is the return of Christ, the gathering together, where there will be no more reproof and no more correction. That?s why there is nothing after it.
The order of the epistles is not only perfect, but the reason for the order is divine. And, as such, Thessalonians stands last. It is a waste of time to teach believers the great truths connected with the Lord?s return, from Thessalonians, until they have learned the basic truths in the previous treatises and epistles. They must first and foremost understand what God has made Christ to be unto them and made them to be in Christ, before they will believe and understand the truths concerning Christ?s return from heaven. Until they learn these former truths from the Church epistles addressed to the believers, they will simply continue to be occupied with themselves and will erroneously divide the truths connected with the Lord?s coming.
The Book of Romans basically gives us the knowledge of God and his purposes in Christ Jesus.
In the Book of Romans we have the gospel of grace, while in Ephesians we have the mystery of this grace totally revealed. In the Book of Romans we see the people of Israel as transgressors and the Gentiles as sinners individually; while in the Book of Ephesians, we see the ?one new man? called out from both Jew and Gentile. In the Book of Romans the saved sinner is declared dead and risen with Christ. In Ephesians the believer is shown as seated in the heavenlies in Christ, while in Thessalonians, this same believer is seen forever in glory with Christ. The Book of Romans takes up the sinner in his lowest depth of degradation. Thessalonians deposits him on the throne of glory to be forever with the Lord. But midway between Romans and Thessalonians, stands Ephesians which gives us God?s view of the saved sinner who by believing has already been seated with Christ-in the heavenlies.
In the Book of Romans we are taken out of the miry clay of total defeat; in Ephesians set upon the rock; and then upon the throne according to Thessalonians. Nothing in the entire Word of God is so dynamically real nor, in all Biblical revelation, so unique as Romans, Ephesians, and Thessalonians-standing so distinctly-nothing else like it found anywhere. These epistles are all about us and they are all to us. Thus the entire course or curriculum for the saved sinner, the Christian believer, is completely complete and perfectly perfected in the seven Church epistles.
The Book of Romans starts at the lowest point; Thessalonians takes us to the highest. No one can proceed any further in any direction. It is the ?all truth.? The Book of Romans begins with every man dead in trespasses and sins, and ends with him on the throne of glory. The Book of Romans begins with beggars and ends with heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Having been brought low, we are lifted up; having been poor, we are made rich; having been dead, we are made alive to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and so forever to be with the Lord. Yes, in Romans we are justified in Christ; in Thessalonians glorified with Christ where there is no reproof or correction-only praise and thanksgiving.
There are no Church epistles addressed to the born-again believers (the saints) beyond this, because there is no higher truth to be taught or learned. This is the ?all truth? into which the Spirit was to guide. The consummation has been reached. This is the highest grade in the school of grace where the Holy Spirit is the great and true divine teacher. It is our education in the school of grace that will make known unto us our proper standing and state in Christ Jesus. And it is certainly something to have such great truth in matters of such great importance.
VPW
_________
Me again.
Do you think the man who wrote this would agree with you if he heard you saying that the best we have now is unreliable and fragmented?
I think he would be quite offended.
Do you see him propping up PFAL as the epitome of the believers education here? No it's the Scriptures which you have slandered repeatedly in this forum. Perhaps that is not your intention but that is what you are doing.
You ask so frequently why I don't believe God can reissue his Word to our generation. I believe he has in the Scriptures.
Why don't YOU believe that God is capable of keeping his Word and instructing us where there are errors in translation? Why have you decided the only option now is for him to completely reinvent the wheel?
VPW's attitude in this article is certainly one of a higher regard for what is written in the Scriptures than you have shown.
I thank God that I have had teachers who have shown me how to rightly-divide the Word, specifically for VPW. And I say that knowing the response a statement like that will garner in this arena. I don't care, I know who I am in Christ and I know these things because of what I have seen in God's Word, the Bible, because of what I learned in PFAL.
You take it too far though Mike. If anyone here has thrown the baby out with the bath water it's you. You have relegated the scriptures to a place beneath the writings of PFAL.
I say these things with as much of the Love of God as I am capable. I am not trying to provide a stumblingblock for you and I am not going on the attack here. I am simply trying to show you what God has shown me.
Peace
[This message was edited by dizzydog on July 14, 2003 at 22:06.]
Thank you for the follow-up. Together they comprise a well thought out essay. I have my work cut out for me. I?m really glad you did come back and pasted back in the original post from a few days ago.
I just got home from work, and I was pondering further response to your post, beyond the response I gave at 1:25 pm PDT, my lunch time. So I was still pondering your first post all afternoon, and now I have two more.
Let me throw out two items, first. Then I need to re-group and see what I have to do tonight away from the computer. That?ll determine how fast I can get to your recent three posts. I?m genuinely impressed with the richness of your recent posts.
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(1) When Dr says ?The Word of God? he means the spiritual stuff, that?s in God?s head, and can hopefully get into our heads too.
When that king cut up with a knife and burned up the scroll from Jeremiah, God?s Word didn?t get burned up at all. It may have been wrongly divided by the knife (yuk) and other things, but it survived the burning, while the scroll didn?t.
The scroll was physical.
Word of God is spiritual.
(Ahhhhhhh topic return....) Sorry! Just savoring the return to topic.
Similarly, in PFAL passages "The Word of God" is spiritual, while "Bible" is 5-senses. The way I see it, the Bible is PART of the Word of God (Deut292:29) revealed in written form. God?s secrets belong to Him.
This dichotomy must be looked for diligently (which I?m still learning) in all PFAL passages.
So here?s an important God designed dichotomy, Bible/Word of God which I was previously very negligent to inform myself of. That?s what this WHOLE thread is named for.
*********
(2) There is another dichotomy, not so God-designed. This is the Version/Bible mix-up. When Dr says ?Bible? he does NOT mean a version, nor a translation, nor a critical text, nor an ancient text fragment. He means the originals in the original understanding of the holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The ?scriptures? that we can buy in bookstores and put into our hands are approximations of the originals, and sometimes close to the originals, but they are CERTAINLY not the originals in the original understanding of the holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
So this dichotomy is one where Dr says ?Bible? and someone might think their favorite version or their version with wide margin notes, plus some head knowledge. Then there?s a miscommunication. I think this happens a lot. I know I used to think this way. I see others now thinking this way. I think we need to discipline our vocabulary to match Dr?s and then we can see more of what he wrote.
It may be that you?ve gone farther with your studies, and when Dr says "Bible" or you see your own translation, or your private assemblage of various criticals, or your private assemblage of various ancient text fragments. If I thought that the 1942 promise extended to you too, then I might be swayed to come to your way of thinking that a better supply of the scriptures (than Dr?s in PFAL) can be found from you or by your suggestions. However, the performance that I am aware of all PFAL grads in leadership positions at the time of the ministry meltdown was so abysmal, and to this day some 15 years later continues to be so abysmal, that I cannot believe the 1942 promise extends to anyone but Dr.
I certainly wouldn?t look for spiritual help in the finer points of the ongoing scripture reassembly by modern scholars. I?d only trust a grad to teach me farther than PFAL. But all the grad leaders are now in such a state of failure to speak up and speak God?s solutions to this crisis that I can now only trust a grad who has obeyed Dr and mastered PFAL as Dr told us.
Net result: I trust Dr?s presentation of the scriptures in the PFAL books over Zondervan presentations, or any wide margin variation thereof, or any grad scholar. I don?t trust my own ability to GET the Word, to obtain the Word from the fragments that survive. I don?t trust yours, and I don?t trust academia?s.
I trust them for approximations, but for the accurate Word and the power I trust God?s 1942 intervention ONLY.
I?m training myself to change my vocabulary so that when I see Dr say ?Bible? I see the set of PFAL books and a stack of magazines.
********
You see, if your take on how to absorb the Word of God in it?s finest power distributing secrets from the existing received scriptures, then where were you at the meltdown with the answers from this powerful handle on God?s Word? If it?s in later years that you tapped into the power from your continued exposure to the received scriptures, why didn?t you come here set the record straight about Dr?s Last/Lost Teaching?
You see, I observed the unfortunate fact that NONE of Dr?s top leadership had ANY power when the chips were down. They STILL don?t. They were at one time the prime candidates for the first big wave of Christ Formed In People, Jesus Christ men and women with all nine all the time, but they all failed to come back to the PFAL writings. I don?t expect any of them to point in the right direction in the thicket of biblical research with no 1942 promise to guide them. Nor do I expect to see any other grad do it.
*******
You said that Dr would be upset at me for my posting. We can leave that for later. I?m telling you that Dr WAS upset with ALL his top leaders for not mastering PFAL.
How do you think Dr would feel if he found out that his final instructions were lost? How do you think he?d feel to learn that in the year 1998, tens of thousands (I?ve polled hundreds) of grads, Corps, and clergy would not be even aware of the existence of these final instructions, let alone ever inclined to obey them?
When Dr?s up, I?ll be there with a clean conscience to greet him.
[This message was edited by Mike on July 14, 2003 at 22:59.]
[This message was edited by Mike on July 14, 2003 at 23:07.]
quote:Everything up to the last phrase I?d agree with. The last sentence is in need of a subtle change. ?...because the Bible is the Word of God.? should read ?because the Bible is the REVEALED Word of God.?
Mike, Maybe you should look at page 63 of PFAL, It reads:
Part II
The Bible
is the
Word of God
Also look at the top of each even numbered page from p 66 to page 142. It says. "The Bible is the Word of God" ( no revealed)
Wierwille interchangeably uses the words and terms; Bible, Word, Word of God, and scripture in numerous places. However he does qualify what he means by Word of God early in Part III. Neither before nor after that qualification does Wierwille find it necessarry to put "revealed" in front of Word of God each time he uses the term in regards to the Bible.
Mike, everytime you read; "Word of God", "Word", or "Scripture" on a page of PFAL, from page 66 through page 142, open your PFAL book flat and look at the top of the even numbered page and see the context. This is VPW's primary purpose for the entire Part II. - to show that the Bible is the Word of God. Aren't you being a bit anal when you require the word "revealed". Wierwille/PFAL did not think it was necessary.
Are you sure that it is mastery of PFAL that you are after? Doesn't seem like it to me.
Goey
"Most of my fondest memories in TWI never really happened"
I changed my mind. I was getting into too much editing of my post above, after some had already read it.
Here's what I wanted to add: the KJV scriptures I see in the PFAL books that are consistently printed by Dr without modification, I trust as authoritative.
It used to be years ago that I trusted the same scriptures because they were in an official publisher's edition of the KJV. It had gold edges so it looked authoritative. The same scriptures I could also find in an interlinear and in other versions. I could see that they were in almost every hotel room. I could see that they came from distant antiquity, and lots of other people thought they were authoritative. All of these reasons for trusting were stepping out on a limb to a degree for me, until I got used to it and then committed to it. After a while I seemed to forgot some of the reasons I committed to it.
Now, after been through a few things, I have come to trust the SAME exact English scriptures BECAUSE Dr got the OK from God to print them that way. I see this as a much more solid base that the former.
On a practical basis, NEARLY all the KJV verses you believe, I believe, and the way you believe them, but for different reasons.
How many people can you say that of? That they have NEARLY all of the same Bible verse beliefs as you?
Where did you get that passage of VPW text you posted? I can't find it, and it doesn't look familiar. Many of the ideas do, but I can't place the exact text.
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Yanagisawa
Did you say "get the ball rolling" or get the kaballa rolling...for it sounds like that's your current freak - some sort of hidden, mystical kaballa-esque gnostic esotericism. I'm fascinated with you
Tom
Socks, that was poetic & inspired. Thanks. No, I mean REALLY, thanks.
Stomach unknotting,
Tom
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dizzydog
Mike,
Are you ready to reconsider my post? I believe there are things in this post that you should consider. Perhaps it will help you.
The original follows:
You have contended on many occasions that the Bible we have in the current forms is no longer reliable. I think you called them unreliable fragments and tattered remnants.
I have contended all along that this is not the case and not the declaration of VPW. Furthermore I have contended that your relationship with Jesus Christ is affected by your attitude toward the Scriptures.
In Revelation 19:13 we read, "And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called the Word of God." In this passage of scripture "...his name is called The Word of God."
The Word of God is always the same and it is always the Word of God no matter whether it is written in Genesis or in the Book of Revelation. The Name and the Word are identical. Wherever the name of Jesus Christ is used, there you have the person of Christ and the Word of Christ as one and the same. The Bible Word, that which is written in the Book called the Bible, is God?s Word. The Written Word and the Living Word are identical. The Church has not majored this. Our hearts are not believing it. The Bible Word is God?s Word because the Bible is the Word of God.
In Luke 8:11, "..The seed is the Word of God."
In Isaiah 55:11, "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."
In 1 Peter 1:23, "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever."
In Ephesians 6:17, "...the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God."
Christ, the seed, the sword, are all referred to as the Word of God. The Word always produces reactions. Acts 7:54, "When they heard these things they were cut to the heart,..." Acts 2:41, "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls."
In 2 Timothy 2:15 is that wonderful record, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth." It does not say that I am to study to show myself approved unto my congregation. I am not commissioned as a man of God to study to show myself approved unto my community. I am to study to show myself approved unto God and God alone. Paul said, "Far be it from me to be judged by you people, because my judge is God." We must live by what the Word of God says, to be approved of God.
In Hebrews 4:12 we read "For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." The word "discerner" in the Greek is the word "critic". This is the only time in the entire Bible that this word is used. It says that the Bible Word is a "critic." The Word of God is a critic of the thoughts and intents of the heart - the inner man.
We have come to a terrible day in history because so many people have set themselves up as critics of the Bible, of the Word of God; when the Bible is given to be our critic. What right does any man have to criticize the Word of God. The Word of God is our critic.
The Bible is a lamp as well as a light. In Psalms 119:105, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."
The Word is the Father God?s presence with us in his absence, manifested in the senses through the gift from the Holy Spirit in us. So the Word is my contact point with the Master. This makes the Word vital and alive.
The Bible is not just another book. Your attitude toward the Word is indicative of the place God holds in your life. All revivals are dependent upon the written Word becoming real in the lives of men.
It is impossible to separate a man from his words, likewise, it is impossible to separate God from His Word. So the living Word of God on the lips of a man of believing faith takes the place of the absent Christ. If a man?s word is of no value he will soon reason that God?s Word is valueless. Man?s unbelief in the Word of God is largely due to the lack of believing in his own words.
When you live in the Word and the Word lives in you, the Word once more becomes flesh among men. Let the Word of God then dwell in you richly for it will be life and health and joy unspeakable.
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Raf
Mike M.O. in operation: "Distract"
This is not about what I think, Mike. It's about what the Bible says and, in this case, what it does not say. It does not say Job's fear was the reason for what happened. Job asks God why, and God doesn't blame Job's fear. You do, and you're wrong. Wierwille did, and he was wrong. "When and where the word of God is silent, he who speaks is a fool." Wierwille said that, despite the fact that he fell into that very trap and led you into it with him.
What do I think? Not the issue. What does the Bible say? What does it not say? It does NOT say Job's fear caused his calamity, no matter how many times you try to rationalize it with your Blame The Believer Horse Manure Masquerading As Disciplined Devotion.
Stop blaming Job, soft or hard. It wasn't his fault. It was an unjust, unprovoked, unwarranted attack.
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Raf
Oakspear, you put it wonderfully. I agree. Mike, your thesis doesn't even agree with Wierwille, much less the Bible. Turn from your idolatry. God is waiting.
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dizzydog
"Stop blaming Job, soft or hard. It wasn't his fault. It was an unjust, unprovoked, unwarranted attack."
Rafael,
I could not agree more. It sort of reminds me of one other individual in the scriptures, Jesus Christ.
We have yet to think about what the story of Job must have meant to Jesus Christ when he read the account.
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Raf
One of the things we have to understand with the book of Job is the reason the story is being told. How does an honest, upright man deal with an unprovoked attack? What does it do to his faith, and to his relationship with God? The book was never meant as a treatise on why or how bad things happen to good people (as evidenced by the truth that the answer to that question is never given).
The point of Job is not "how can I prevent this from happening to me." The point is, "how would I respond to losing everything? Is my faith strong enough to withstand things not going my way?"
I would have cursed God and died. Job didn't. He had terrible questions and expressed his hurt very powerfully. But through it all he never stopped looking to or trusting God.
I think it's repugnant that Wierwille built doctrine out of Job's expression of pain. "That which I greatly feared has come upon me." As someone who has attended and covered numerous funerals of young children, I have heard expressions like this before. To blame the parents is not only insensitive, it's appalling. The defense of this absurd doctrine runs counter to the compassion and love exemplified by Christ.
I think of the man born blind, and how the apostles ask, "who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" And Jesus answered, "It was the fear in the heart and life of that..."
Yeah, right.
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wyteduv58
GOOD MORNING ALL!!!!!!
Dovey....proud owner of two low riders...Dovey's Doxies...... Dovey
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Tom
Wow, what a great bunch of posts here lately people, a sweet savour to the heart of God and peace to His people!
As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peacethe gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
Beautiful,
Tom
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Mike
Yeeeeeooow! It looks like people stayed up all night and early this morning posting here!
I'm looking forward to this evening's responses. Right now I'm off to work.
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Tom Strange
Hi everybody!
I know that you're all anxious for this update as to how MrZixar's theories are playing out... I'm happy to report that so far Zixar's method (though only through a limited number of tests) is winning about 4 percentage points more than my old way (aka "mom's theory")... I do think that in order to be fair to mom, I've gotta do some more testing...
And then I'll get to Goey's theory. Although, I gotta tell ya Goey, that's an awful lot for someone like me to remember... but I told you I'd try it... and I will...
MIKE: the voices are still waiting to hear your theories on 'Winning Solitaire' as well as UFO's and the dinosaurs! (they keep insisting that you do have some strong ones!)
Happy Monday to all!
... big hitter, the lama...
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Steve Lortz
Mike, how soon you seem to forget things.
In your response to Oakspear you brought up your old chestnut about Wierwille's paragraph on page 83 of PFAL. Ginger Tea also brought up some questions about how you use your 5-senses to scrutinize PFAL. So let's review.
You wrote, "As we master and learn the 5-senses messages in these books, with repeated and thorough readings, we can turn our attention to hear God whisper to us the hidden messages HE, GOD, put in there that our 5-senses would never pick up. Also the 5-senses readings help us build protection against devilish doctrines that are all around out there. Our adversary can and will attempt to whisper wrong meanings to us as we work the Word."
On page 83 of PFAL, this is exactly what Wierwille wrote,"The Bible was written so that you as a believer need not be blown about by every wind of doctrine or theory or theology. This Word of God does not change. Men change, ideologies change, opinions change; but this Word of God lives and abides forever. It endures, it stands. Let's see this from John 5:39. "Search the scriptures..." It does not say search Shakespeare or Kant or Plato or Aristotle or V.P. Wierwille's writings or the writings of a denomination. No, it says, "Search the scriptures..." because all Scripture is God-breathed. Not all that Wierwille writes will necessarily be God-breathed; not what Calvin said, nor Luther, nor Wesley, nor Graham, nor Roberts; but the Scriptures - they are God-breathed."
The 5-senses meaning of this paragraph, according to all the laws of grammar, is as follows: Wierwille's words fall into the same category as the words of Shakespeare, Kant, Plato, Aristotle, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, Graham, Roberts and denominational writings; the words in this category are different from the words in the category called "Scripture" because ALL the words of Scripture are God-breathed, while NOT ALL the words of the other category will necessarily be God-breathed.
The context of the whole chapter clearly indicates that the "not all" of Wierwille's last sentence is a contrasting allusion to the "all" of II Timothy 3:16.
For all your specious appeals to fictional "local contra-contexts" and "tiny islands of contracontextual meanings", you can't negate the truth of the grammar. You can only ignore it.
So... say I am working this paragraph from page 83 of PFAL, when two spiritual voices begin whispering different things to me.
Spiritual voice "A" whispers, "Wierwille meant exactly what Wierwille wrote."
Spiritual voice "B" whispers, "We just don't KNOW exactly what Wierwille wrote. The spiritual meaning of this passage is that SOME of what Wierwille writes will NECESSARILY be God-breathed."
According to your own written criteria, Mike, is whispering spiritual voice "B" God or the adversary?
Remember, you also wrote, "To rob us of the power the adversary has employed VERY SUBTLE changes and corruptions in the texts and in our understand [sic]. One word twisted here in the text... all adding up to a text that can't help the reader... We were taught that just ONE word added, subtracted or changed and the results be [sic] catastrophic. Change just ONE word and you no longer have God's Word."
No matter how many times you pretend you've already answered this question, no matter how many times you quibble about "fine" points of your idiosyncratic "grammar", this question isn't going to go away before you give and defend a categorical answer.
According to your own written criteria, Mike, is whispering spiritual voice "B" God or the adversary?
Love,
Steve
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Mike
Steve,
My analysis of page 83 is 100% 5-senses.
Some of what Dr wrote was God-breathed.
Not all of what he wrote was God-breathed.
Some of what he wrote was non-God-breathed.
Not all of what he wrote was non-God-breathed.
Every word he wrote TO US is true. TNDC p.34
It was NOT just VP writing to us. TNDC p.116
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Bluzeman
Ginger:
Don't want to derail this wonderful thread, so I posted some Blind Faith for you over on the nostalgia thread. Come on over there and we'll discuss the ubiquitosly hidden teaching of Jim Beam (or, Jack Daniels, if you please)
:D-->
Rick
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Tom Strange
Blind Faith!... cool... can't find my way home...
... big hitter, the lama...
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Raf
There he goes again, ripping Wierwille's words from their context.
"Every word he wrote to us is true."
This is taken from the following:
"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."
TNDC, p. 34
Now, reading this statement, one may conclude one of two things:
1. Wierwille was claiming that everything he wrote in the chapter regarding the unqualified commitment is true (not "God-breathed," but true, which is different. "My car is white" is true. That don't make it God-breathed).
2. Wierwille was claiming that EVERYTHING HE HAD WRITTEN TO PFAL GRADS is true, not just this chapter, but everything.
I use the term PFAL grads loosely, to fit in with whatever Mike wants it to mean.
I submit that proposition 2 is a distorted removal of Wierwille's words from their context. He's not talking about EVERYTHING he wrote, and he's certainly not claiming "God-breathed status" for his written work. He is speaking strictly of the "Unqualified Commitment," and nothing more. Mike distorts the plain meaning of Wierwille's statement to force Wierwille to claim something he never claimed: namely, that his written works are God-breathed.
Likewise, p. 116 says "But if you think this is just Victor Paul Wierwille writing or speaking to you, you will never receive."
AHA! Wierwille is claiming God-breathed status, right?
Wrong. Wierwille is speaking very specifically about the instructions he gives for how to speak in tongues. He never intended those words to be ripped from their context and applied to every single thing he wrote "to us."
We should also note that Wierwille was wrong about the second statement. Plenty of people have spoken in tongues without believing that Wierwille's words even in this chapter are God-breathed.
Both of these studies were published independently prior to their collection in TNDC (The Green Book, for the acronym-challenged). That alone proves Wierwille was not making claims that extended beyond the chapters in which they appear.
Mike builds his entire theological foundation on little phrases like this, ripped from their contexts and presented so that they prop up a man he so idolizes that he can't even acknowledge an infraction so well-documented as plagiarism.
It's sad, really.
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Mike
dizzydog,
Thanks for waiting. The other day it was fun at first to try conducting 3 and then 4 conversations simultaneously, but it overloaded me quickly.
You wrote (and then patiently pasted):
?You have contended on many occasions that the Bible we have in the current forms is no longer reliable. I think you called them unreliable fragments and tattered remnants.?
I only call them that in a particular context and to a particular audience. To new people, non-grads, I?d only say it in a much milder way. The problems with the approximate nature of the received texts, and non-authoritative translations thereof, are not pertinent to the new student. There are a slight few areas where they need to be informed of the problems with the texts, but not so much in the first three sessions of the class. Later in the class, after the new student has a footing, then he can be told about variations in the text copies, additions, forgeries, etc.
As the student gets into learning of the power, then the approximate nature of the existent texts gets more apparent, and useful translations get more scarce. It?s in the area of power that the received texts are the most tampered with.
By the time the new student reaches the Holy Spirit field he?s aware of italicized words being non-authoritative, as well as a few other places. Well after the class he may hear something that contradicts what you wrote next:
?I have contended all along that this is not the case and not the declaration of VPW.?
As more advanced students Dr showed us that there are times and places and situations where a decision must be made as to which texts we will rely on, and which ones we will reject. This may start to look subjective to the student. Here is where the 1942 revelations come to play. God tells Dr which ones to rely on.
Another time it may be a little more intense, as there is NO text in existence, but Dr would tell us that there HAS to be one that will line up with what his spiritual awareness insists on. This is where I would lose it with Dr in the good old days. Because I had then the same model you are working with now, I felt Dr committed a foul when he would say ?Someday we?ll find a text.?
I was bothered by these kind of statements, because as your model insists on, we were supposed to be doing 5-senses, intellectual, biblical research, not mystical tea leave readings. This was a mild equivalent of Dr saying ?Thus saith the Lord? and it bothered me, because it didn?t seem to fit with the research model I thought Dr had taught us.
He taught us both. First was the 5-senses approach. Key #4 of the AC?s Keys To Walking In The Spirit: ?...What you can know by the 5-senses God expects you to know.? So, first Dr did his homework 5-senses wise, and THEN God would tell him anything else he needed to know. It took me 27 years to believe this second half.
********
Next you wrote:
?Furthermore I have contended that your relationship with Jesus Christ is affected by your attitude toward the Scriptures.
?In Revelation 19:13 we read, "And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called the Word of God." In this passage of scripture "...his name is called The Word of God."
?The Word of God is always the same and it is always the Word of God no matter whether it is written in Genesis or in the Book of Revelation. The Name and the Word are identical. Wherever the name of Jesus Christ is used, there you have the person of Christ and the Word of Christ as one and the same. The Bible Word, that which is written in the Book called the Bible, is God?s Word. The Written Word and the Living Word are identical. The Church has not majored this. Our hearts are not believing it. The Bible Word is God?s Word because the Bible is the Word of God.?
Everything up to the last phrase I?d agree with. The last sentence is in need of a subtle change. ?...because the Bible is the Word of God.? should read ?because the Bible is the REVEALED Word of God.?
The thing to remember here, though, is that we live under a handicap of no longer having the original scriptures. What we have is close, but not perfect. We must work the scriptures to find as many of these problem areas as possible, and determine what the originals said. It is impossible for us to be totally like minded, because we all work slightly different ways on different scriptures. On the fine points we all have a slightly different ?Bible? we?re working from, most of the differences being in the wide margins, except for those exceptionally skilled with White-Out and fine point pens. There is no authoritative ONE text. There are millions of different texts (worked by students) and as a result there is no needed likemindedness in the Body...yet.
******
The next big section of scriptures looks quite agreeable to me.
*****
You then wrote: ?We have come to a terrible day in history because so many people have set themselves up as critics of the Bible, of the Word of God...?
You may think I?m one of these people, but I?ll tell you my criticism is pointed (like I said above in opening) and it is NOT a criticism of the Bible. I see definite problems with miscopies OF the Bible. I see problems with forgeries OF the Bible. I see problems with critical compilations of miscopies OF the Bible. I see problems with translations OF the Bible. The Bible (what existed 2000 years ago) is fine, we just need to get it. There are only 2 ways to go about getting it: 5-senses and revelation. BOTH were required, both were possible, and as Dr writes in PFAL on page 128:
?When we get back to that original, God-breathed
Word -- which I am confident we can -- then once
again we will be able to say with all the authority of
the prophets of old, ?Thus saith the Lord.?
The revelation has been given, the work has been done. We have reached this point Dr was confident we would reach, where we HAVE the Word. It?s not a format preserved reproduction of the ancient scriptures, because God didn?t want it that way. When He switched over from the stars to the written Word, the format of the stars was discarded. The same happened to the older scriptures. We still have the approximations, but God has focused attention on the new format of the PFAL writings. Outside of PFAL we only have approximations of God?s Word.
*****
You then wrote: ?...when the Bible is given to be our critic. What right does any man have to criticize the Word of God. The Word of God is our critic.?
The Bible was lost, just like the scroll was burned in Jer.36, but God?s Word is NEVER lost. He has it in His head.
******
You then wrote: ?The Word is the Father God?s presence with us in his absence, manifested in the senses through the gift from the Holy Spirit in us. So the Word is my contact point with the Master. This makes the Word vital and alive.?
Yes, God?s Word is this. But translations and miscopies are not.
******
?The Bible is not just another book.?
The Bible is NOT a book at all. It?s an abstraction of what used to be. We can buy in bookstores only approximate reconstructions of it, or translations of approximate reconstructions of it.
******
?Your attitude toward the Word is indicative of the place God holds in your life. All revivals are dependent upon the written Word becoming real in the lives of men.?
Yes. And it?s also the case that an improper attitude toward the approximate reconstructions of men that have ?Holy Bible? printed on the outside cover is also indicative of how much accuracy is incorporated into that relationship with God. An attitude of too much trust in these works of man will prevent ?all nine all the time.?
******
Lastly you wrote:
?It is impossible to separate a man from his words, likewise, it is impossible to separate God from His Word. So the living Word of God on the lips of a man of believing faith takes the place of the absent Christ. If a man?s word is of no value he will soon reason that God?s Word is valueless. Man?s unbelief in the Word of God is largely due to the lack of believing in his own words.
?When you live in the Word and the Word lives in you, the Word once more becomes flesh among men. Let the Word of God then dwell in you richly for it will be life and health and joy unspeakable.?
Very agreeable words.
[This message was edited by Mike on July 14, 2003 at 16:38.]
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dizzydog
Mike,
Your whole response here seems to be a shift from what you have contended on many occasions.
This post does not call the Bible an abstraction but rather a "book called the Bible". While I agree with you that no one translation is the Word of God. I have never argued that point.
What I take exception to is your calling our current "versions, translations et'al" unreliable. This has been my one great issue with you all along. I know too much of what VPW said not only about the scriptures as a whole but also about many of the specific books of the Bible. And yes I mean the scriptures in their imperfect form.
Perhaps I will post some of what he said for your feedback. I think you are splitting hairs. Frankly PFAL never covered everything that is covered in our existing translations. If it did why did we need to reference the scriptures so frequently while taking the classes? Perhaps what the class really accomplished was to provide us with the keys to unlocking and allowing the scriptures to interpret themselves. I know of only one place to find those scriptures, in a book called the Bible. I cannot study an abstraction.
So you think there is a difference between my saying the Bible is the Word of God and your saying that it is the "REVEALED Word of God?"
When you write "Every word he (VPW) wrote TO US is true. TNDC p.34" Do you really believe that?
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dizzydog
Mike,
I am going to try this one more way.
Read the article below and read my comments at the end.
From this point below will be VPW. I have added nothing and have not knowingly changed even a punctuation. The article is complete.
______________
The Total Education For Every Believer
In the seven Church epistles we have the perfection and the presentation of the ?all truth? into which the Spirit was to guide according to John 16:13. These seven Church epistles have the perfect embodiment of the ?all truth? in every facet of life and living. 2 Peter 1:3 says, ?According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.?
Not only is the number seven of the epistles perfect, but the order in which they appear in the Scriptures is perfect. The Epistles to the Thessalonians were written first; yet they stand last in every manuscript because the hope of the return of Christ must be known in the mind of the believer. He must know and believe that Christ is coming back. And yet, in practice, it?s position is last of all the Church epistles for it is the final occurrence in this life here upon earth.
The seven churches to which God addressed His Seven epistles by the Apostle Paul are Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Thessalonians. The remaining epistles in the New Testament are either general epistles or epistles addressed to individuals. The seven Church epistles present a complete course for every Christian believer in the Grace Administration in which we live. These seven epistles begin and finish the total education for every believer. They are the spiritual curriculum containing everything necessary for the believer?s standing and state, his walk, his total life. Ignorance of the seven Church epistles has caused no small amount of error and, therefore, born-again believers have been susceptible to and have been blown about with every wind of doctrine. They have no foundation upon which they securely rested and no anchorage of the integrity of God?s Word upon which they could depend. Consequently, they have had no basic principle of truth upon which to judge every standard of teaching and living.
Three of the seven Church epistles stand out specifically and distinctly from all the others as being treatises, rather than epistles. These three are Romans, Ephesians and Thessalonians. They contain so much more doctrinal (right believing) teaching as compared with the other four epistles. By treatises, I mean that these three are more elaborate, more exhaustive than the other four epistles that are epistolary. The word ?epistle? basically means a letter, a written message, a communication. The four epistles that are placed between the three treatises are in two pairs with each pair containing, respectively, reproof and correction, in contrast to the other three. Romans, Ephesians and Thessalonians contain doctrine which is instruction-right believing.
After Romans comes Corinthians and then Galatians. Corinthians is the reproof and Galatians is the correction. Ephesians again is doctrine. Then comes Philippians which again is reproof; then Colossians which is again correction.
Finally comes Thessalonians. Thessalonians is the return of Christ, the gathering together, where there will be no more reproof and no more correction. That?s why there is nothing after it.
The order of the epistles is not only perfect, but the reason for the order is divine. And, as such, Thessalonians stands last. It is a waste of time to teach believers the great truths connected with the Lord?s return, from Thessalonians, until they have learned the basic truths in the previous treatises and epistles. They must first and foremost understand what God has made Christ to be unto them and made them to be in Christ, before they will believe and understand the truths concerning Christ?s return from heaven. Until they learn these former truths from the Church epistles addressed to the believers, they will simply continue to be occupied with themselves and will erroneously divide the truths connected with the Lord?s coming.
The Book of Romans basically gives us the knowledge of God and his purposes in Christ Jesus.
In the Book of Romans we have the gospel of grace, while in Ephesians we have the mystery of this grace totally revealed. In the Book of Romans we see the people of Israel as transgressors and the Gentiles as sinners individually; while in the Book of Ephesians, we see the ?one new man? called out from both Jew and Gentile. In the Book of Romans the saved sinner is declared dead and risen with Christ. In Ephesians the believer is shown as seated in the heavenlies in Christ, while in Thessalonians, this same believer is seen forever in glory with Christ. The Book of Romans takes up the sinner in his lowest depth of degradation. Thessalonians deposits him on the throne of glory to be forever with the Lord. But midway between Romans and Thessalonians, stands Ephesians which gives us God?s view of the saved sinner who by believing has already been seated with Christ-in the heavenlies.
In the Book of Romans we are taken out of the miry clay of total defeat; in Ephesians set upon the rock; and then upon the throne according to Thessalonians. Nothing in the entire Word of God is so dynamically real nor, in all Biblical revelation, so unique as Romans, Ephesians, and Thessalonians-standing so distinctly-nothing else like it found anywhere. These epistles are all about us and they are all to us. Thus the entire course or curriculum for the saved sinner, the Christian believer, is completely complete and perfectly perfected in the seven Church epistles.
The Book of Romans starts at the lowest point; Thessalonians takes us to the highest. No one can proceed any further in any direction. It is the ?all truth.? The Book of Romans begins with every man dead in trespasses and sins, and ends with him on the throne of glory. The Book of Romans begins with beggars and ends with heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Having been brought low, we are lifted up; having been poor, we are made rich; having been dead, we are made alive to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and so forever to be with the Lord. Yes, in Romans we are justified in Christ; in Thessalonians glorified with Christ where there is no reproof or correction-only praise and thanksgiving.
There are no Church epistles addressed to the born-again believers (the saints) beyond this, because there is no higher truth to be taught or learned. This is the ?all truth? into which the Spirit was to guide. The consummation has been reached. This is the highest grade in the school of grace where the Holy Spirit is the great and true divine teacher. It is our education in the school of grace that will make known unto us our proper standing and state in Christ Jesus. And it is certainly something to have such great truth in matters of such great importance.
VPW
_________
Me again.
Do you think the man who wrote this would agree with you if he heard you saying that the best we have now is unreliable and fragmented?
I think he would be quite offended.
Do you see him propping up PFAL as the epitome of the believers education here? No it's the Scriptures which you have slandered repeatedly in this forum. Perhaps that is not your intention but that is what you are doing.
You ask so frequently why I don't believe God can reissue his Word to our generation. I believe he has in the Scriptures.
Why don't YOU believe that God is capable of keeping his Word and instructing us where there are errors in translation? Why have you decided the only option now is for him to completely reinvent the wheel?
VPW's attitude in this article is certainly one of a higher regard for what is written in the Scriptures than you have shown.
I thank God that I have had teachers who have shown me how to rightly-divide the Word, specifically for VPW. And I say that knowing the response a statement like that will garner in this arena. I don't care, I know who I am in Christ and I know these things because of what I have seen in God's Word, the Bible, because of what I learned in PFAL.
You take it too far though Mike. If anyone here has thrown the baby out with the bath water it's you. You have relegated the scriptures to a place beneath the writings of PFAL.
I say these things with as much of the Love of God as I am capable. I am not trying to provide a stumblingblock for you and I am not going on the attack here. I am simply trying to show you what God has shown me.
Peace
[This message was edited by dizzydog on July 14, 2003 at 22:06.]
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Mike
dizzydog,
Thank you for the follow-up. Together they comprise a well thought out essay. I have my work cut out for me. I?m really glad you did come back and pasted back in the original post from a few days ago.
I just got home from work, and I was pondering further response to your post, beyond the response I gave at 1:25 pm PDT, my lunch time. So I was still pondering your first post all afternoon, and now I have two more.
Let me throw out two items, first. Then I need to re-group and see what I have to do tonight away from the computer. That?ll determine how fast I can get to your recent three posts. I?m genuinely impressed with the richness of your recent posts.
********
(1) When Dr says ?The Word of God? he means the spiritual stuff, that?s in God?s head, and can hopefully get into our heads too.
When that king cut up with a knife and burned up the scroll from Jeremiah, God?s Word didn?t get burned up at all. It may have been wrongly divided by the knife (yuk) and other things, but it survived the burning, while the scroll didn?t.
The scroll was physical.
Word of God is spiritual.
(Ahhhhhhh topic return....) Sorry! Just savoring the return to topic.
Similarly, in PFAL passages "The Word of God" is spiritual, while "Bible" is 5-senses. The way I see it, the Bible is PART of the Word of God (Deut292:29) revealed in written form. God?s secrets belong to Him.
This dichotomy must be looked for diligently (which I?m still learning) in all PFAL passages.
So here?s an important God designed dichotomy, Bible/Word of God which I was previously very negligent to inform myself of. That?s what this WHOLE thread is named for.
*********
(2) There is another dichotomy, not so God-designed. This is the Version/Bible mix-up. When Dr says ?Bible? he does NOT mean a version, nor a translation, nor a critical text, nor an ancient text fragment. He means the originals in the original understanding of the holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The ?scriptures? that we can buy in bookstores and put into our hands are approximations of the originals, and sometimes close to the originals, but they are CERTAINLY not the originals in the original understanding of the holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
So this dichotomy is one where Dr says ?Bible? and someone might think their favorite version or their version with wide margin notes, plus some head knowledge. Then there?s a miscommunication. I think this happens a lot. I know I used to think this way. I see others now thinking this way. I think we need to discipline our vocabulary to match Dr?s and then we can see more of what he wrote.
It may be that you?ve gone farther with your studies, and when Dr says "Bible" or you see your own translation, or your private assemblage of various criticals, or your private assemblage of various ancient text fragments. If I thought that the 1942 promise extended to you too, then I might be swayed to come to your way of thinking that a better supply of the scriptures (than Dr?s in PFAL) can be found from you or by your suggestions. However, the performance that I am aware of all PFAL grads in leadership positions at the time of the ministry meltdown was so abysmal, and to this day some 15 years later continues to be so abysmal, that I cannot believe the 1942 promise extends to anyone but Dr.
I certainly wouldn?t look for spiritual help in the finer points of the ongoing scripture reassembly by modern scholars. I?d only trust a grad to teach me farther than PFAL. But all the grad leaders are now in such a state of failure to speak up and speak God?s solutions to this crisis that I can now only trust a grad who has obeyed Dr and mastered PFAL as Dr told us.
Net result: I trust Dr?s presentation of the scriptures in the PFAL books over Zondervan presentations, or any wide margin variation thereof, or any grad scholar. I don?t trust my own ability to GET the Word, to obtain the Word from the fragments that survive. I don?t trust yours, and I don?t trust academia?s.
I trust them for approximations, but for the accurate Word and the power I trust God?s 1942 intervention ONLY.
I?m training myself to change my vocabulary so that when I see Dr say ?Bible? I see the set of PFAL books and a stack of magazines.
********
You see, if your take on how to absorb the Word of God in it?s finest power distributing secrets from the existing received scriptures, then where were you at the meltdown with the answers from this powerful handle on God?s Word? If it?s in later years that you tapped into the power from your continued exposure to the received scriptures, why didn?t you come here set the record straight about Dr?s Last/Lost Teaching?
You see, I observed the unfortunate fact that NONE of Dr?s top leadership had ANY power when the chips were down. They STILL don?t. They were at one time the prime candidates for the first big wave of Christ Formed In People, Jesus Christ men and women with all nine all the time, but they all failed to come back to the PFAL writings. I don?t expect any of them to point in the right direction in the thicket of biblical research with no 1942 promise to guide them. Nor do I expect to see any other grad do it.
*******
You said that Dr would be upset at me for my posting. We can leave that for later. I?m telling you that Dr WAS upset with ALL his top leaders for not mastering PFAL.
How do you think Dr would feel if he found out that his final instructions were lost? How do you think he?d feel to learn that in the year 1998, tens of thousands (I?ve polled hundreds) of grads, Corps, and clergy would not be even aware of the existence of these final instructions, let alone ever inclined to obey them?
When Dr?s up, I?ll be there with a clean conscience to greet him.
[This message was edited by Mike on July 14, 2003 at 22:59.]
[This message was edited by Mike on July 14, 2003 at 23:07.]
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Goey
Mike replied to Dizzydog:
Mike, Maybe you should look at page 63 of PFAL, It reads:
Part II
The Bible
is the
Word of God
Also look at the top of each even numbered page from p 66 to page 142. It says. "The Bible is the Word of God" ( no revealed)
Wierwille interchangeably uses the words and terms; Bible, Word, Word of God, and scripture in numerous places. However he does qualify what he means by Word of God early in Part III. Neither before nor after that qualification does Wierwille find it necessarry to put "revealed" in front of Word of God each time he uses the term in regards to the Bible.
Mike, everytime you read; "Word of God", "Word", or "Scripture" on a page of PFAL, from page 66 through page 142, open your PFAL book flat and look at the top of the even numbered page and see the context. This is VPW's primary purpose for the entire Part II. - to show that the Bible is the Word of God. Aren't you being a bit anal when you require the word "revealed". Wierwille/PFAL did not think it was necessary.
Are you sure that it is mastery of PFAL that you are after? Doesn't seem like it to me.
Goey
"Most of my fondest memories in TWI never really happened"
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Mike
Goey,
We've discussed that title to that part of the book before here. When there's time I'll get to it again.
I'm still editing my post to dizzydog. Unfortunately I neeed to add a little near the end.
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Mike
dizzydog,
I changed my mind. I was getting into too much editing of my post above, after some had already read it.
Here's what I wanted to add: the KJV scriptures I see in the PFAL books that are consistently printed by Dr without modification, I trust as authoritative.
It used to be years ago that I trusted the same scriptures because they were in an official publisher's edition of the KJV. It had gold edges so it looked authoritative. The same scriptures I could also find in an interlinear and in other versions. I could see that they were in almost every hotel room. I could see that they came from distant antiquity, and lots of other people thought they were authoritative. All of these reasons for trusting were stepping out on a limb to a degree for me, until I got used to it and then committed to it. After a while I seemed to forgot some of the reasons I committed to it.
Now, after been through a few things, I have come to trust the SAME exact English scriptures BECAUSE Dr got the OK from God to print them that way. I see this as a much more solid base that the former.
On a practical basis, NEARLY all the KJV verses you believe, I believe, and the way you believe them, but for different reasons.
How many people can you say that of? That they have NEARLY all of the same Bible verse beliefs as you?
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Mike
dizzydog,
Where did you get that passage of VPW text you posted? I can't find it, and it doesn't look familiar. Many of the ideas do, but I can't place the exact text.
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Mike
I'm not doing a very good job of leaving my computer to re-group.
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