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I still can't find a verse with practicing one letter of the alphabet at a time.

If God Almighty provides the utterance, and it produces coherent sentences, then it's senseless to try to do one letter at a time.   Are we really getting coherent sentences of prayer and praise to God while doing our best to focus on producing different words that start with the same letter?     If not, where's the verse that gives an exception to what it produces when you practice?

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57 minutes ago, WordWolf said:

I still can't find a verse with practicing one letter of the alphabet at a time.

If God Almighty provides the utterance, and it produces coherent sentences, then it's senseless to try to do one letter at a time.   Are we really getting coherent sentences of prayer and praise to God while doing our best to focus on producing different words that start with the same letter?     If not, where's the verse that gives an exception to what it produces when you practice?

Its in the book of Hezekiah...lmao...and yeah...the SSV is the preferred version...lol

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44 minutes ago, OldSkool said:

Its in the book of Hezekiah...lmao...and yeah...the SSV is the preferred version...lol

I find it intriguing that we can joke or try to understand what's going on by use of current popular culture... but have you considered that we may not really have adequate understanding of the popular culture of Biblical time(s) to grasp what the prophets really meant back then?

And it's probably fair to consider that the culture in Moses' time wasn't identical to the culture in Paul's era.

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Like The Law of Believing, Excellor sessions now sound like another way to control God.  Since he is there on command to do your will.

Come on' Gawd, gimme a "W" just for fun.

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48 minutes ago, Bolshevik said:

Like The Law of Believing, Excellor sessions now sound like another way to control God.  Since he is there on command to do your will.

Come on' Gawd, gimme a "W" just for fun.

:confused: :smilie_kool_aid:

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3 hours ago, Rocky said:

I find it intriguing that we can joke or try to understand what's going on by use of current popular culture... but have you considered that we may not really have adequate understanding of the popular culture of Biblical time(s) to grasp what the prophets really meant back then?

And it's probably fair to consider that the culture in Moses' time wasn't identical to the culture in Paul's era.

Yes, actually I have spent quite a bit of time working through Old T. history and cultures. Oriental people think different than folks from the west. Where westerners tend to be very precise in their words and descriptions Oriental folks tend to think and communicate pictorially. An example is when Jesus stooped to draw on the ground with the woman taken in adultery. Very cool study though and I am the first to admit that I really do not understand the depth (or true meaning) of what is communicated throughout scripture due to historical and cultural differences.

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3 hours ago, Bolshevik said:

Like The Law of Believing, Excellor sessions now sound like another way to control God.  Since he is there on command to do your will.

Come on' Gawd, gimme a "W" just for fun.

This is a REALLY good point!

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16 hours ago, Bolshevik said:

Like The Law of Believing, Excellor sessions now sound like another way to control God.  Since he is there on command to do your will.

Come on' Gawd, gimme a "W" just for fun.

It's too bad you were not in my excellors sessions.

I would have explained that God loves to play with His children, and He set the Acrostic Psalms as an example of how he likes to play with alliteration.   SIT is our toy, and God loves playing the alphabet game with us as we SIT.

It's not controlling God; it's playing with Daddy.

Remember, the Father seeketh such to worship Him.

 

Edited by Mike
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12 hours ago, OldSkool said:

Yes, actually I have spent quite a bit of time working through Old T. history and cultures. Oriental people think different than folks from the west. Where westerners tend to be very precise in their words and descriptions Oriental folks tend to think and communicate pictorially. An example is when Jesus stooped to draw on the ground with the woman taken in adultery. Very cool study though and I am the first to admit that I really do not understand the depth (or true meaning) of what is communicated throughout scripture due to historical and cultural differences.

I love what you said here, OldSkool: "I am the first to admit that I really do not understand the depth (or true meaning) of what is communicated throughout scripture due to historical and cultural differences."

Oh, if only everyone who opened a Bible admitted that! 

 

Edited by penworks
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16 hours ago, Bolshevik said:

Like The Law of Believing, Excellor sessions now sound like another way to control God.  Since he is there on command to do your will.

Come on' Gawd, gimme a "W" just for fun.


You got it wrong again.

The only way that the law of believing can work for us is if God FIRST gives us a promise to believe and claim.

In 1988 John Lynn was promoting a book called "The Seduction of Christianity" and how people can make up their own "promises from God" to believe and claim.  This is akin to witchcraft, that book contends, and I agree.

But John Lynn made the huge mistake of saying that the PFAL class promoted this. 

He was right in saying that some ministry leaders were teaching a bastardized version of the law of believing, but he was dead wrong about Dr teaching that in the class.

Lynn visited San Diego with in 1988 with this lie about the class. I had received my first complete transcript of the class at that time and I spent the next year documenting the exact locations of NINETEEN places in the class where Dr plainly taught that we must line up our believing with the written promises of God.

I showed those 19 places to Lynn when he returned to SD in 1989, and confronted him in his lie. He did not care.

In the class we were taught to find the promise of God and claim it with believing.

God controls what promises are written for us; we have no control there.

 

 

 

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15 minutes ago, Mike said:

Dr plainly taught that we must line up our believing with the written promises of God.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Did he not also say, in the PFAL class, that the law of believing "works for saint and sinner alike."?

"Why, if I were a bettin' man, I'd wager"... you'll find a way to reconcile these contradictions.

Edited by waysider
missed a comma
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3 minutes ago, waysider said:

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Did he not also say, in the PFAL class, that the law of believing "works for saint and sinner alike."?

"Why, if I were a bettin' man, I'd wager"... you'll find a way to reconcile these contradictions.

 

Do you know any saints who are not sinners?

My take on John's First Epistle is that we all are sinners, even when we have the "saint" status.

My take on VPW's First Session is that we all commit the greatest sin, and often.

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4 hours ago, Mike said:


You got it wrong again.

The only way that the law of believing can work for us is if God FIRST gives us a promise to believe and claim.

In 1988 John Lynn was promoting a book called "The Seduction of Christianity" and how people can make up their own "promises from God" to believe and claim.  This is akin to witchcraft, that book contends, and I agree.

But John Lynn made the huge mistake of saying that the PFAL class promoted this. 

He was right in saying that some ministry leaders were teaching a bastardized version of the law of believing, but he was dead wrong about Dr teaching that in the class.

Lynn visited San Diego with in 1988 with this lie about the class. I had received my first complete transcript of the class at that time and I spent the next year documenting the exact locations of NINETEEN places in the class where Dr plainly taught that we must line up our believing with the written promises of God.

I showed those 19 places to Lynn when he returned to SD in 1989, and confronted him in his lie. He did not care.
In the class we were taught to find the promise of God and claim it with believing.
God controls what promises are written for us; we have no control there.

you make it sound like wierwille’s promotion of the law of believing was subservient to the Word of God especially in identifying and correctly interpreting what promises he found in the Bible. Nothing could be further from the truth! ...wierwille had a knack for twisting Scripture to fit his agenda. period. end of story.

 

In the opening session of PFAL, wierwille uses   John 10:10
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.   as the proof-text  to establish his materialistic theory of why Jesus Christ came. If you don’t think wierwille was excessively concerned with material possessions or was money-oriented than you must have fallen asleep  (zzzzZZZZZ :sleep1: ZZzzzz)   during that part of the class where he talks about seeing unbelievers in the community manifesting a more abundant life than many Christians. It seems pretty evident to me that wierwille had the prosperity and material possessions of unbelievers in mind to make this observation. In that regard, it makes Jesus Christ superfluous – since it appears one can have prosperity and lots of material possessions without Jesus Christ…seems like this has more to do with envy.

lampooning the avarice-infused nature of PFAL was the whole idea of my post about  Power For Materialistic Living Today ....

Suffice it to say wierwille’s rather broad, all-encompassing, convenient interpretation of what is promised in the Bible is equivalent to writing a hot check... pseudo-Christian cult-leaders dole those out in exchange for the loyalty of those who buy into pipe dreams…this exploitation  and deception using Scripture is parroted and regurgitated from the top down…years ago I was in a business conference in Florida – a conference run by TWI-believers. One leader was getting everyone psyched-up to make a lot of money by quoting    Matthew 6:33   
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

TWI even had the gimmicky mountain top checkbook – just fill in the blank for what you want.


…OldSkool and Penworks mentioned historical and cultural differences of westerners and oriental folks… and just in general I tend to think western civilizations might be more prone to focus on the external and physical things rather than the internal or spiritual aspects…was that a factor in how wierwille interpreted John 10:10? I don’t know…and I’m not one to guess at another person’s motives or the basis for their viewpoint. wierwille may have had the best of intentions, BUT  a misinterpretation / misapplication of Scripture could have unintended consequences…

…whatever wierwille’s intentions were his actions created a  bait-and-switch     form of fraud. Candidates of the PFAL class are "baited" by wierwille and grads advertising how to tap into power for the more abundant life…increasing prosperity…more harmony in the home…able to separate truth from error…learn how to pray effectively…blah, blah, blah. But after completing the class it is critical to “customer retention” that leadership and standing grads string along the new grad who may still wonder about all those fantastic beneficial claims of PFAL…here’s where the “switch” comes in handy. Substituted for the “advertised goods” is the encouragement to settle for the next best thing – growing/developing your knowledge and believing of the Bible. Oh and get yourself in the next PFAL class as soon as possible…and review, review, review all the PFAL material…absorb…absorb…absorb…receive…retain…regurgitate. 

If John Lynn was promoting    the book  The Seduction of Christianity by Dave Hunt & T.A. McMahon that was actually a good thing!  My opinion of John Lynn grows even better,  God rest his soul…After I left TWI, I read that book first – but Dave Hunt came out with another book Beyond Seduction: A Return to Biblical Christianity     that is extremely laser focused on exposing the errors of the health and wealth gospel, confession of belief = receipt of confession, and the law of believing. I highly recommend that book to any disenchanted PFAL grad.  
 

Edited by T-Bone
I am come that I might edit more abundantly
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3 hours ago, Mike said:

The only way that the law of believing can work for us is if God FIRST gives us a promise to believe and claim.

 

The law of believing is trash. It's a lie. Not true. Damnable heresy...John Lynn called it Christian witchcraft...his ears to my lips back in 2009. I would love to debate this one with you but not here...Im more than happy to head over to doctrinal.

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4 hours ago, penworks said:

I love what you said here, OldSkool: "I am the first to admit that I really do not understand the depth (or true meaning) of what is communicated throughout scripture due to historical and cultural differences."

Oh, if only everyone who opened a Bible admitted that! 

 

Thanks for the kind words. I used to be a good example of an arrogant, way corps, fundementalist back about 25 years ago when I was young. Ive come to realize that humility is the best attitude to have in life. Life is so much more rich with a humble attitude that welcomes learning all across the board. Thats been my experience anyway. Cheers!

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41 minutes ago, T-Bone said:

…OldSkool and Penworks mentioned historical and cultural differences of westerners and oriental folks…

Yeah, it's a huge difference. People from the east tend to communicate with great emotional emphasis, pictorially as well as symbols. An example from scripture is if your eye offends you then pluck it out! Obviously, Jesus was not counselling us to pop eyeballs loose from sockets. But the emphasis is clear.

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1 hour ago, OldSkool said:

 

The law of believing is trash. It's a lie. Not true. Damnable heresy...John Lynn called it Christian witchcraft...his ears to my lips back in 2009. I would love to debate this one with you but not here...Im more than happy to head over to doctrinal.

It seems like most of the time in the About the Way forum, arguments with certain PFAL fans over what wierwille taught become a greatly extended chase around rabbit holes with the PFAL fan dodging and distracting from the topic and with plenty of references to long lost posts and threads – darn this modern technology. Usually, this one particular PFAL fan assumes that he is the only authorized interpreter of what wierwille actually said or meant…That’s hilarious…why not let wierwille interpret himself?  :confused:  Just kidding.

Any law-of-believing-fans who are antsy to prove there’s a law of believing by using logic and Scripture should check out your thread in doctrinal - Law of Believing 

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1 hour ago, OldSkool said:

Yeah, it's a huge difference. People from the east tend to communicate with great emotional emphasis, pictorially as well as symbols. An example from scripture is if your eye offends you then pluck it out! Obviously, Jesus was not counselling us to pop eyeballs loose from sockets. But the emphasis is clear.

Yeah and that could get into a whole other topic about the inconsistency in fundamentalism…If they were truly unwavering in their conviction – we could easily spot a true believer – just look for someone with one eye, one hand and one foot. 


If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.  And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.   Matthew 18: 8, 9 
 

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8 hours ago, Mike said:

Do you know any saints who are not sinners?

To echo Waysider: Do you know any sinners who are not saints?

Seems to me that your question was a condescending way to dismiss the point to which you had responded.

Have you EVER read Matthew 5:45?  

Edited by Rocky
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On 5/24/2022 at 4:16 PM, Bolshevik said:

Like The Law of Believing, Excellor sessions now sound like another way to control God.  Since he is there on command to do your will.

Come on' Gawd, gimme a "W" just for fun.

Or They are another way to control followers.

Compellor sessions where you will speak into being upon command messages that make everyone feel better commanded by the leader.

Joe - SIT and interpret - says the Corpse leader

Joe - under intense pressure - lo shanta ke malakasita lo shanta - you are Gods awesome people.   Sits down whew 

Language and process of control.  
 

Many Christian groups do those gifts or manifestation types of things in an open prayer format in a prayer group for example.

As opposed to a mandated part of each fellowship and micromanaged in Way fashion.

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On 5/24/2022 at 2:24 PM, WordWolf said:

I still can't find a verse with practicing one letter of the alphabet at a time.

If God Almighty provides the utterance, and it produces coherent sentences, then it's senseless to try to do one letter at a time.   Are we really getting coherent sentences of prayer and praise to God while doing our best to focus on producing different words that start with the same letter?     If not, where's the verse that gives an exception to what it produces when you practice?

Can’t find it in the Bible.  Might find it in the DSM manual under obsessive compulsive disorder categories.

This is different than saying the rosary how exactly?

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12 hours ago, Mike said:

in the class we were taught to find the promise of God and claim it with believing.

God controls what promises are written for us; we have no control there.

Yeah, I fell for that too…I think wierwille was a good huckster by getting me to “see” the promise of wealth and control in Scripture …and he and TWI were instrumental in maintaining my interest – i.e., stringing me along indefinitelywith the busy-work of    mastering PFAL  and    building my believing   to the point I could finally tap into that power.

…that appealed to our baser instincts…subconscious urges, behaviors, or intuition directed by primeval, animalistic, self-serving, or ignoble motivations. Greed and selfishness are unfortunately two of the base instincts. I still have an old PFAL promo flier from New York circa 1974 and there’s one phrase in big bold letters that stands out from the rest of the text: “You can have whatever you want.”

wierwille used his “signature intuition” to squeeze a promise out of any verse. Didn’t matter if it was in the Old or New Testament – he’d always figure out some way – even if it contradicted some other part of his “theology” – with sneaky trump cards that could out rank anything in his way…”that was under the law – but we’re under grace”…  ...”technically all the women in the kingdom belonged to the king”… “I’ve so renewed my mind that it’s not sin to me”.

Like promoting “the principle of giving and receiving”. Here is a notion held by followers of TWI, like in so many other money-oriented “ministries” that the sign of God's favor is physical health and material prosperity which is available to all who really and truly believe AND of course operate “the principle of giving and receiving” - which as I remember it from wierwille's teachings was some sort of a disproportionate reciprocal operation – we were to think of it as giving to God (via God's ministry of course) and in return God would bless us many times over since no one can out-give God.

 

We were expected to “abundantly share” of whatever we have to TWI....   wierwille defined “abundantly share” as going beyond the tithe of ten percent .   (The tithing system described in the Bible was designed specifically to meet the needs of the religious, economic, and political system of ancient Israel.)   In his small booklet “Christians Should Be Prosperous” wierwille taught that as Christians, no longer under the law of the Old Testament, we should go above the tithe and thereby reap even greater blessings than Old Testament believers – his text to support that claim was     Malachi 3:10     Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

 

...If wierwille's claims were true – then we, the faithful, giving more than 10 percent of all we had, should have been the healthiest and wealthiest people around bar none...but alas such was not the case...   ...Usually an abundant sharing offering was received at every fellowship meeting...and there were those friendly reminders in The Way Magazine,  “Remember The Way in your will”...

...it’s all about the money.

 

Contrary to what you may like to think, wierwille used the Bible like an unscrupulous huckster sells snake oil…   

"The Word  (  meaning PFAL of course) and the magic of believing will solve all your problems."

Do we find any passages in the New Testament that show the disciples went around promoting Jesus Christ as a remedy for all diseases, poverty, and misfortunes? And while you’re looking for those verses, also look for the fair market value of their “foundational class” in the 1st century economy...I mean, what did they charge for "the class"?...and what translation did they use in the class?  did they have to make their own syllabus out of papyrus? was the Orange Scroll like the PFAL book?…on second thought, don’t waste your time looking for something that isn’t there…if someone was looking for fame, fortune, power, or pleasure I’d tell them to look elsewhere. What if all that real Christianity has to offer is Jesus Christ…I guess for some that’s not enough.  

I find it hard to understand how someone can ignore the red flags and warning signs of a harmful and controlling cult-leader like wierwille…I mean it’s mentioned in the Bible…but then again, I was once blinded too…taking off those PFAL-colored glasses is a big first step toward freedom.

You see, we are not like the many hucksters who preach for personal profit. We preach the word of God with sincerity and with Christ’s authority, knowing that God is watching us.  II Corinthians 2:17 NLT

 

But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.  In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories… Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood! They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Bezer, who loved the wages of wickedness.   II Peter 2: 1 – 3, 13 – 15 NIV
 

 

Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect.  (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)  He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap.   I Timothy 3: 1- 7 NIV
 

Edited by T-Bone
a revision of sorts
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