I do not think there is a law of "giving and receiving", Of course I know that not everyone in this forum is Christian or Bible purist, but if we take the Bible as a reference, it does not mention giving as a law (unlike the Mosaic law or other civil, agricultural, etc. regulations) - the closest thing is "He who soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he who soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully." Is that a Law? Does it always happen the same way? If a person gives abundantly, will that person always receive abundantly?
I believe God and the Bible, and I choose to give BUT freely, Not by coercion, obligation or pressure.
There are two books that contain a lot of information on this subject and that obviously do not coincide with TWI's vision:
"The Tithing Dilemma" by Ernest Martin
" L’identification des dîmes: Quelle dîme est donc payée par les chrétiens" by Hughes N.
I'm sure the name "Ernest Martin" won't ring a bell to a lot of people who only listen to twi's side of stories. His name is known at the GSC.
Ernest Martin was the man who wrote the article and book upon which twi based "Jesus Christ- Our Promised Seed." His book was called "The Star That Astonished the World." The article preceded the book by several years, and was used by the research department-at vpw's direction- on which to base the book. Ever remember hearing his name in twi? Me, neither.
A different thing which may be a surprise to some people-but not others- is that JCOPS says "by vpw" on it and inside it. It was written by people in the research department, and based largely on Martin's work- with some interpolation of Bullinger's work from "the Witness of the Stars". Once again, very little of that book was original, and even less was written by vpw- largely the introduction.
This wouldn't surprise some people because, apparently, it's customary in certain circles for the person in charge of the group to write "edited by" and slap his name on the work of his team- no matter how much of it was his work- and mention the team briefly, and that's all right. I know it surprised me, at least. I expect the words "written by" to mean that this is the person who wrote a book.
I acknowledge books that say something like "my life as told to" as different, and scholarly books like "Black Elk Speaks", which was compiled by a Professor, and was largely the words of Black Elk, an Indian chieftain (with notes where a different Indian was quoted, like "Iron Wasichu speaks" and so on.)
A few years before I was kicked out of TWI there was a big push for us to increase our proportion of giving. My wife at the time, who was usually much more waybrained than I was, vetoed that, pointing out reasonably that we had a lot of bills and just couldn't afford it, so we kept it at 10% (which in reality, was also too much for us). We were also saving up to replace our car.
When we were able to scrape together enough to pay cash for a used vehicle (no debt ya know) our twig coordinator, who assumed that we had fallen in line and increased our "abundant sharing" percentage, praised us for "putting the principles of giving and receiving practice" by coughing up more money. I kept my mouth shut.
A few weeks later he somehow found out (I forget how) that we were only giving 10% and chastised us for "merely budgeting and saving" in order to achieve our financial goals
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WordWolf
I'm sure the name "Ernest Martin" won't ring a bell to a lot of people who only listen to twi's side of stories. His name is known at the GSC.
Ernest Martin was the man who wrote the article and book upon which twi based "Jesus Christ- Our Promised Seed." His book was called "The Star That Astonished the World." The article preceded the book by several years, and was used by the research department-at vpw's direction- on which to base the book. Ever remember hearing his name in twi? Me, neither.
A different thing which may be a surprise to some people-but not others- is that JCOPS says "by vpw" on it and inside it. It was written by people in the research department, and based largely on Martin's work- with some interpolation of Bullinger's work from "the Witness of the Stars". Once again, very little of that book was original, and even less was written by vpw- largely the introduction.
This wouldn't surprise some people because, apparently, it's customary in certain circles for the person in charge of the group to write "edited by" and slap his name on the work of his team- no matter how much of it was his work- and mention the team briefly, and that's all right. I know it surprised me, at least. I expect the words "written by" to mean that this is the person who wrote a book.
I acknowledge books that say something like "my life as told to" as different, and scholarly books like "Black Elk Speaks", which was compiled by a Professor, and was largely the words of Black Elk, an Indian chieftain (with notes where a different Indian was quoted, like "Iron Wasichu speaks" and so on.)
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Oakspear
A few years before I was kicked out of TWI there was a big push for us to increase our proportion of giving. My wife at the time, who was usually much more waybrained than I was, vetoed that, pointing out reasonably that we had a lot of bills and just couldn't afford it, so we kept it at 10% (which in reality, was also too much for us). We were also saving up to replace our car.
When we were able to scrape together enough to pay cash for a used vehicle (no debt ya know) our twig coordinator, who assumed that we had fallen in line and increased our "abundant sharing" percentage, praised us for "putting the principles of giving and receiving practice" by coughing up more money. I kept my mouth shut.
A few weeks later he somehow found out (I forget how) that we were only giving 10% and chastised us for "merely budgeting and saving" in order to achieve our financial goals
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