I’d be happy to discuss any parts of my lengthy post with you in the weeks to come. I’d be honored if you even just read the whole thing, but if you don’t have that much time I won’t be angry.
A lot of what I write is really for lurker consumption, even WayGB.
(snip)
Anyway, regardless of your particular situation,
since it’s a new administration,
that means that new things are available to be administered. It’s a new Age as my lengthy post discusses. In this new administration one of the first things made newly available is a MUCH deeper understanding in reading the PFAL revelations.
(snip)
Instead of threads for all these major topics I’ve been ticking off lately,
I may instead or in combination do the topics as issues of a monthly or weekly newsletter
for those grads who want to study these things out.
Anyway, doojable, it was fun writing the response to your post in my head
for 6 weeks and then finally typing it out in the past few days.
Please take your time reading it. I hope it will be a fun time for you too, an exercise in new thought.
Or an exercise contrary to thought. One or the other.
Here's a freebie.
This is one example where the clear and plain text of pfal
says one thing,
and the Mikean pfal claims that it's not true.
vpw claimed that ALL of time (from "in the beginning" to
"forever") falls into one of seven administrations.
As claimed in pfal, they are, in chronological order:
1) Paradise.
In the Garden of Eden.
(Insert Iron Butterfly music here.)
This ended in Genesis 3 with the fall of Man, the promise of the Messiah,
and the casting out of Man from paradise, in that order.
2) Patriarch.
This is the period where The Word still exists in the stars,
and as the spoken Word from prophets.
This continued until the Law was given.
3) Law.
This is the period of the Written Word.
This continued until the coming Christ arrived.
4) Christ.
This is the period of one year, where God's Christ,
the Living Word, completed God's plan of redemption.
5) Grace.
This began in the Day of Pentecost,
and continues to this day, with Holy Spirit in each Christian.
6) Revelation, or Appearing.
This is the period that begins with The Gathering Together
(aka "the Rapture") and carries thru all the End-Time events
of the Book of Revelation and other places,
until the end of Revelation 20.
7) Final Paradise, or Glory.
This is events as of Revelation 21,
where God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
That continues to the ages of the ages.
Exactly 7 administrations, taking advantage of "number in
Scripture".
So, vpw claimed all this.
Until Mike, it's clear that we've been-as vpw has it-in the Grace
administration. Mike, however, is claiming that vpw spoke
of a new administration. Since we're not seeing the miracles
and global catastrophes of the 7-year tribulation, it's evident
we didn't miss the end of the Grace administration,
with Christ collecting the brethren
(I Corinthians 15 and I Thessalonians 4).
So, apparently, Mike has it that the pfal administrations are
in some way defective, since we have-not only at least EIGHT
where vpw gave SEVEN administrations,
but this one pops up out of nowhere, ruining the charts
from pfal.
Mike's previously been somewhat tight-lipped on this subject
when asked. Perhaps now we'll get some details.
When did this administration begin?
Is it supposedly one of the 7 in pfal?
If not, why was pfal's list deficient and in ERROR?
When does this administration end? (Events ending it are fine.)
I addressed you because I was curious about what administration you think we’re in. You seem to be saying we’re not in the grace administration anymore.
My “shtick” is summed up in my name. I spent many years in TWI. All classes, WOW 2x, Corps, I left before finishing the Corps and was never really in any leadership position, praise God. I’ve continued to study the materials from my time with TWI. However I believe the scriptures are what the PFAL materials were directing us toward. If the materials had any validity it was in showing how the scriptures interpret themselves. And yes I’m aware of VPW’s last public teaching, which wasn’t the first time that material had been presented, as I’m sure you know. I left in the late 80’s when LCM started having his melt down.
I’ve simplified life since then and started enjoying a relation with my Lord Jesus Christ. That I fall short is a given, in fact since leaving TWI I’ve become aware of things we never thought much about in TWI. That we were sinners, that we couldn’t earn our salvation, that Romans 1-3 is as applicable to the spiritual walk as Romans 10:9-10, and that the real point of the Word of God is to reveal Jesus Christ. While all of this was taught in various contexts and materials, the sense of relegating our own identity to the grave and accepting the identity of Christ was rarely believed among those I saw in TWI. LCM was the epitome of this in my opinion. I’ve also learned things about VPW that I find… troubling.
Even today the arrogance I see among those people who have determined they know the truth, in and of themselves through their own effort and study, is disturbing to me. It seems a bit like the Pharisees, they think they have salvation through their study but they miss the subject of what they study, works versus grace thing. I am nothing of myself and everything in Christ. As a living lord and head of his body I trust him to reveal God’s Word to me. Where he is not the subject I do not believe we have the Word. I believe a man is known by his fruit and if the subject of God’s Word is Jesus Christ than the subject of what a man says with regard to God’s Word must be Jesus Christ, if it isn’t than that man isn’t speaking God’s Word. If A=B and B=C then C must =A.
Once again, I’m flawed, there are many wrong things I’ve done or haven’t done but fortunately I know the grace of God and I know the price that was paid to impart that grace to my life and the lives of my family. I no longer see my life in terms of spiritual levels to attain to, I couldn’t have attained to anything without Christ. I know there is a maturing process but that isn’t what determines our communion with God, or how “spiritual” a man is. I took off my nametags and I couldn’t be more thankful.
That’s my “schtick”, if the content and quality of a mans life can be summed up in a few paragraphs.
I'll stop by the divine design link. I'm not much of an artist, mostly doobling, but I do enjoy drawing and once in a while I turn out something pretty good, even if I do say so myself.
The topic of administrations is not one I am totally comfortable with posting on because I’m still studying it out.
I am not yet sure about the difference between Dr’s uses of the word “age” and the word “administration.” I’m also not sure about the clean delineation of all the administrations' beginning and ending points. Some seem to have fuzzy borders, like the beginning of the Christ Administration.
It’s also not yet clear to me if the beginning of some administrations occurs at the same time for everyone. For instance, I see many people going to churches where the people, for all practical purposes, are clearly living in the Christ or Law Administrations.
When I post that the administrations have changed what I MOSTLY mean is that new things were placed by God on the available list, new things can be claimed by believing that previously were only a hope. Dr brought up this idea at Living Victoriously in Hope. That passage is electrifying. I’ve posted on it here, and can resurrect that post sometime if it was pruned.
As I get more clear on the administrations I will clarify any mistakes I may have made in using the word administration to indicate what I so excited about here. The best I can see it we ARE in a new administration and I post this much to stimulate discussion.
There’s an interesting page in GMWD’s last chapter, “The Final Victory,” where Dr explains something that relates to all this. The first two paragraphs of that chapter read (with my bold fonts):
“The great hope of the Christian Church is the return of Christ and our gathering together unto him. There are aspects of Christ’s return which we find most clearly explained by God’s rightly-divided Word. In order to understand the coming of Christ, we must also understand “the mechanics” of his coming. Jesus’ first coming began with his conception and birth and ended with his ascension, over thirty years later. There were many significant phases and events during this time. In this, the second coming is similar: it will also cover a period of time and encompass several significant phases and events. __ There are four basic events included in the times of the end, when Christ returns...”
Your rejection of the idea that we could be in one of these early phases or events in the Appearing Administration is based on your pre-formulated theology which includes a pretty detailed timeline.
In my lengthy post I argue that we need to completely revamp our time lines and mind pictures of the Return. I’ve started from scratch and am building an understanding from within PFAL exclusively. I don’t try to fit it into preexisting theologies.
The expectations people had of how Christ’s first coming was to play out were inaccurate, and as a result many events and phases of that administration took place for years without those theologians even knowing it. I say the same is happening now. All the common mind pictures and time lines of the Appearing phases and events need to be thought through from what is freshly revealed in PFAL.
Another reason I am not satisfying you with how few details about administrations I bring forth is seen in how Dr originally taught us in the PFAL book. There he writes:
“As far as I have been able to study the integrity of the Word of God, there are these major administrations in The Word: (1) the Original Paradise, (2) the Patriarchal, (3) the Law, (4) the Christ Administration, (5) the Church, (6) the Appearing, and (7) the Final Paradise or Glory Administration.”
That phrase “As far as I have been able to study...” gives me reason to pause a little, although I recently saw something else he wrote (forget where) where the number 7 comes up more strongly.
But then again, here he uses the word “major” in the PFAL book quote above, too. If there are 7 major administrations, can there be some “minor” administrations too?
This idea of a “minor” administration is related to the idea I reported in my lengthy post about PFAL being ADDRESSED ONLY TO GRADS. I’ve toyed with the idea of a minor administration set up just for us grads in order for us to accomplish a goal, a job, related to the Return.
I’m being honest with you about the weak areas of my research to show you I’m still learning.
Did my response to WW answer your question to me opening your recent post?
You wrote: “I addressed you because I was curious about what administration you think we’re in. You seem to be saying we’re not in the grace administration anymore.”
Actually it looks to me like it’s even MORE grace that’s now available. But I can understand you wanting to ask me that. This new administration stuff totally blew my mind when I first came back to PFAL. It was the LAST thing I ever expected to find there. In my wildest dreams I never could have seen me saying things like “It’s TIME!” but here I am doing it.
***
That was a nice summary of your life you posted. I’d like to discuss a little of it.
You wrote: “...I spent many years in TWI. All classes, WOW 2x, Corps, I left before finishing the Corps and was never really in any leadership position, praise God.”
It sounds to me like you were in an “unofficial” leadership capacity.
***
You wrote: “I’ve continued to study the materials from my time with TWI. However I believe the scriptures are what the PFAL materials were directing us toward. If the materials had any validity it was in showing how the scriptures interpret themselves.”
Well, if you want things simple, what we have left of the ancient scriptures and how they are to be reconstructed from the fragments, and translated is FAR from simple! The PFAL materials Dr produced ARE simple.
As I argued in my lengthy post, I see PFAL as not only containing keys to unlock the ancient scriptures but also much more. The first time through was mostly that: keys to help us fix up the most glaring problems with the ancient scriptures, but I see much more in there now in my second time through.
If PFAL is only a man-breathed Bible aid, then I can see you point about it merely directing us to (and somewhat simplifying) the complicated situation of the ancient scriptures. But if this Bible aid were actually God-breathed Bible aid then I can easily see God packing much more in there for us.
***
You wrote: “And yes I’m aware of VPW’s last public teaching, which wasn’t the first time that material had been presented, as I’m sure you know. I left in the late 80’s when LCM started having his melt down.”
Ditto for my exit timing. Yes, I’ve seen that Dr started slowly urging top leadership to master PFAL materials in the mid 70's and he kept on doing it to the end, with greater and greater intensity. It just makes great sense to me that since no one really took him up on this advice and things went sour, then why not try it and see what happens. I did, and I was very surprised at what I found.
***
You wrote: “...That we were sinners, that we couldn’t earn our salvation, that Romans 1-3 is as applicable to the spiritual walk as Romans 10:9-10, and that the real point of the Word of God is to reveal Jesus Christ. While all of this was taught in various contexts and materials, the sense of relegating our own identity to the grave and accepting the identity of Christ was rarely believed among those I saw in TWI. LCM was the epitome of this in my opinion. I’ve also learned things about VPW that I find… troubling.”
VPW was troubled too about his failing to be the man he knew to be. I agree with you that we all are sinners. This is one reason I can’t get excited and focused on VPW’s sins like so many here do. It was troubling to me that so many of us fell short, but the ballgame isn’t over yet.
I see that Moses and Paul fell short at times, yet they were still able to help us in our walk. Ditto for VPW. He is still helping me via the writings he produced at God’s direction.
***
I agree that it’s grace. It’s even grace that we are ABLE to do some good works, that we are ABLE to study to show ourselves approved, that we can work to gain a more thorough and more accurate knowledge of His Word and will. I know that knowledge puffs up if it’s not knowledge to help the knower serve others, and that this was a terrible failure in TWI. When I seek more knowledge I keep this in mind.
***
You wrote: “As a living lord and head of his body I trust him to reveal God’s Word to me.”
This is admirable. I want to add to it. The HOW that God selects to reveal His Word to us is FIRST written and then direct. As we do our best to work (remember it’s grace that we CAN work) the written Word He has supplied us.
We were taught that revelation begins where the five senses leave off. From the "16 Keys To Walking In The Spirit" in the Advanced Class we were taught that "What you can know by the fives senses, God expects you to know." After we know what we can naturally, then God can teach us the spiritual point of view, and the arena for accomplishing all this is in that set of materials Dr identified in his most important final words addressed to us all. It is with the collaterals books that we need to spend a lot of time if we want the fullness of what God has made available.
***
You wrote: “Where he is not the subject I do not believe we have the Word.”
Sometimes he IS the subject and it’s not immediately obvious. Remember, God has warned us that his second coming would be “like a thief in the night.” He can be present yet hidden if there’s a veil over our eyes. I see PFAL as God’s way of removing that veil. The contents of PFAL is the mind of Christ we are to put on.
***
You wrote: “I no longer see my life in terms of spiritual levels to attain to, I couldn’t have attained to anything without Christ. I know there is a maturing process but that isn’t what determines our communion with God, or how “spiritual” a man is. I took off my nametags and I couldn’t be more thankful.”
Yes, it seems one of the big things leadership forgot was that gift ministries are a gift TO THE CHURCH not to the leader who operates it. It was terribly forgotten that the only reason someone is placed in a leadership position is to serve others not themselves.
I think it’s a noble goal to grow to a greater spiritual understanding level from which greater service can be given. I can relate to your backing off from the counterfeits of this noble process because they were terribly discouraging to me too. We can revive our drive to work hard (remembering that it’s grace that we CAN work hard) to grow and serve more by coming back to the simplicity in PFAL.
Simple guy's posts had more to do about Jesus Christ as Lord in our life, and you barely touched on that............ why are you skipping over that? Do you believe Jesus is "absent"?
And you said we have MORE grace now? That is like saying "a little pregnant".
The whole idea of Christ being taught in PFAL to be absent is a HUGE distortion of what is actually taught in the books. In the TVTs (Twi Verbal Traditions) Christ became more and more absent, but he is taught to be totally present accessible to us.
I was planning a separate thread on this sometime, or posting my documentation on one of the other threads that focus on this.
I see Christ’s presence being taught all the time in PFAL.
Want to see some page references and quotes sometime?
Those who promote here the idea the Christ was taught to be absent do not present those passages of PFAL that teach otherwise.
I found one of the references that I happened upon just a few weeks ago in the first chapter of the Green Book.
Here is TNDC p. 14, 15:
“The mystery, so important that it was kept secret since the foundation of the world, is that all born- again believers, Jews and Gentiles, would be fellow- heirs of Christ and that Christ would be in every one of them. Imagine that! When Jesus Christ was here upon earth, He could only be at one place at one time. But after He ascended into heaven, and God had given the power of the holy spirit on the day of Pentecost, then Christ could be in every born-again believer. Wherever a believer is, there Christ is present. Had the devil known this mystery he would never have crucified Jesus. Through Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, power hitherto unknown in history was made available. The devil was totally unaware of God’s plan, as told in I Corinthians.”
Why has this passage not been discussed by the “absent Christ” accusers here? Because it cuts across their thesis.
I remember when JAL was spreading this idea all around in the late 80’s that we were robbed of the presence of Christ. At first I thought he was right until I started finding things like the above passage in the books. This was one of the first alerts I had that the TVTs differed greatly from the written teachings.
When I showed JAL some of the “non-absent Christ” references he just blew them off. So do promulgators of the same theory here. You have been hoodwinked by them to think that Christ is absent in Dr’s books and that he taught Christ as absent in our lives. Nothing could be farther from the truth!
***
Look what else is in that same passage above! Dr uses the word “Jesus” all alone TWICE in that paragraph. Another TVT that arose, due to our sloppiness and not Dr’s teaching, was this taboo on saying “Jesus” without the word “Christ” in there.
What a bunch of garbage has been spread about the PFAL writings! The only ones who can see the lies being told about PFAL are those who actually open the books and do their own thinking. The rumor mill directs most people’s thinking.
You won’t find me apologizing for VPW or throwing stones at him either. I don’t really intend to even discuss him. He’s experiencing the worst sentence that any society could inflict for any sin, thanks to Adam. Sin always seems to catch up with all of us. God will sort out all of this in his own good time. VPW wasn’t Jesus Christ and as such I’ll limit the content of what I say about him, preferring rather to discuss Christ.
Without responding to your dissection of my post, and your determination of my “unofficial” leadership position in The Way International (whatever that has to do with anything). I’ll continue to try to address what I initially asked you about. I saw your responses to Wordwolves and it answers some things, I have a couple other questions. I know you said this new to you so I’ll view your responses in that light.
In this new administration is the ministry of reconciliation still in operation? What event happened that marked the point of this change? The trump hasn’t sounded yet and the dead are still in the grave so what event ushered in this new (minor?) administration?
I can work with you on some of them, but I'm off to work right now.
SUPER briefly I can outline some things.
(by SUPER I mean I retain the right to drastically edit and add to the this folowing):
1. There is a new intriguing phrase that rises up in GMWD: "the ministry of reconcilliation of Jesus Christ"
2. We need to work and re-work the phrase “dead in Christ” and this takes time.
3. There are lots of trumpets, even for different groups.
We need to re-think what the “air” means in I Thess 4.
Is there a connection between the trumpet and the air?
If trumpet means teaching by revelation, then the 1942 promise could be the opening event, God intervening with His Word.
4. We need to remember that sometimes our initial impression of an instantaneous process reported in the Bible can be an abbreviation and then we find that there are lots of events compressed in there.
We are fixated on the mid picture of the whole Gathering taking place in an atom of time, and I think we need to drop that from our thinking. I’ve cited passages above to this effect. There’s precedence too, the prophets and angels who wanted to see if the sufferings and the glory of Christ were a compression or not. I can see the 1942 promise as the sound of a trumpet that’s STILL sounding today for those grads who open the books. It’s not a momentary compressed event but it’s has many phases and events contained within.
5. An event that also is a possible administration change marker is the Living Victoriously class. The entire year of 1982 has stunning things documented in Dr's tape and written record regarding SOMETHING that changed, and it wasn't Craig's coronation. I can provide more on this later.
When I return (no pun intended) I’ll try to re-post many of the details, to fill in the gaps of the above, that I have posted before here.
Why has this passage not been discussed by the “absent Christ” accusers here? Because it cuts across their thesis.
First off, I wasn't talking about Christ-In. Or the power WE have with Christ-In. Lets get the focus OFF of ourselves for a moment.
You have been hoodwinked by them to think that Christ is absent in Dr’s books and that he taught Christ as absent in our lives. Nothing could be farther from the truth!
Second, I HAVE NOT BEEN HOODWINKED by anyone. I had this conclusion LONG before I ever heard about it from GS or JAL or whoever.
I read the bible and the gospels on my own, and wondered for years......
I know what was taught to me, and it certainly wasn't about having a vital relationship with the HEAD of the Church, Jesus. Whether it was due to Craig or VP, I don't care. Point is, for us in the 90's, Jesus was non-existent.
You are right, Dr. taught wherever WE are, there HE IS, but that is NOT TEACHING us HOW to have a RELATIONSHIP with him, it is saying we DON'T need one because HE is already IN US!
The dead in Christ rise first, before we are gathered together in the air. According to 1 Thessalonians 4.
Even if things here are figures of speech, which it appears you're relegating them to, the order of events still dictates those who are dead in Christ will need to rise first. It should be a simple thing to say whether or not this has happened.
VPW didn't handle it this way in the university of life tapes which I recently listened to.
You also wrote:
"This idea of a “minor” administration is related to the idea I reported in my lengthy post about PFAL being ADDRESSED ONLY TO GRADS. I’ve toyed with the idea of a minor administration set up just for us grads in order for us to accomplish a goal, a job, related to the Return."
This would seem to read that anyone who is exposed to the material of the class in this day and time, who wasn't around or alive when it was initially made available would not benefit from the contents of the class.
What's more, where does Jesus Christ fit in all of this? Is he now not able to save to the uttermost? I know from experience that speaking in tongues is still part of the equation, I've seen someone start speaking in tongues, someone who'd been witnessed to off the street very recently. Where does this leave him?
How does that fit with the principle that God would have ALL (without exception) men be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth? There's still plenty of them around who haven't heard about Jesus Christ, who, once again I might add, is the real point to all of this.
Leonard's work just as well, and have no immoral acts tainting
them. They are a labour of love from a real Christian, who didn't
cheat, lie, forge, plagiarize, rape, molest or cheat on his wife.
He was of SPOTLESS character-"having a good report of them
who are without."
The closest thing to an invented scandal connected with him,
actually, have appeared on Mike posts.
As to a man [We are to take this as refering to VPW] who lied without compunction, why should I believe him in the first place?
I can't speak for you or anyone else, but frankly I am more suspicious of the man (or the woman) claiming to be "of SPOTLESS character". Under that SPOTLESS surface there is always something rotten at the core. Man is inclined and will always judge another man by their actions or behavior - but this is not true of God. The true God judges a man by his words, never by their actions.
Matthew 12:37
"For by thy words (it doesn't say acts) thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned."
Then a few verses earlier Jesus says (in v.34) "O generation of vipers, how can ye being evil speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
(v.35)
"A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things; and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil."
These scriptures are completely forgotten by the "fruit pickers" - those who mis-lead others into believing righteousness is obtained by a man's holy works or by some "holy" acts - thus producing some SPOTLESS character? They completely miss and forget the "fruit" that Jesus was refering to - and Jeus was not refering to a mans actions or their behavior, but rather a man's word. That is why v.36 says:
"But I say unto you, That every idle word [ it doesn't say act] that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement."
The "fruit pickers" want you to believe "whoever they don't like" will be condemned in the day of judgement for their acts. God's word says different- that one will give account for every word - moreover, every "idle" word. If such is the case, it would be a good idea if some people probably kept their big mouth shut.
I've gotta say that all this back and forth wears me out. I know, I know, I started this mess....
Mike, when I say things like, 'The most i would say...." or " if a certain point is conceded..." or some ilk - that does not mean that I have conceded to that point.
I have taken a clue form CS Lewis's point of view and started form any point and moved from there. That is the tone of most of my posts on this thread.
As far and any further discussion regarding the works of vpw being revelation - it just doesn't fit for me.
Neither do I believe that God has "special" administrations for certain groups. ( My emphasis added)
I have not had time to review the whole post - as I have been very busy with the classes I teach and the nearly 100 students I have. Long posts are very hard for me to focus on - since I usually have to read them late at night.
I did give them the old "college try" and I just can't get to where you are. I know you are whole heartedly convinced that you are right - but I simply cannot agree.
I have lots of thoughts that I do not post here at GSC. Mostly because I don't really have them thought through enough to put into words, and then because I dont' have time. I am much more an "in person" kind of gal - but that would be even more time consuming given the multitude of beings here at the cafe.
Somewhere in there I feel like the cart is pulling your horse - but I cannot quite pin it down well enough for you.
In any case, I thought this thread was dead - and it is now alive! Proof of resurrection!!??? ( Tongue firmly placed in my right cheek!)
"There’s an interesting page in GMWD’s last chapter, “The Final Victory,” where Dr explains something that relates to all this. The first two paragraphs of that chapter read (with my bold fonts):
“The great hope of the Christian Church is the return of Christ and our gathering together unto him. There are aspects of Christ’s return which we find most clearly explained by God’s rightly-divided Word. In order to understand the coming of Christ, we must also understand “the mechanics” of his coming. Jesus’ first coming began with his conception and birth and ended with his ascension, over thirty years later. There were many significant phases and events during this time. In this, the second coming is similar: it will also cover a period of time and encompass several significant phases and events. __ There are four basic events included in the times of the end, when Christ returns...
"Your rejection of the idea that we could be in one of these early phases or events in the Appearing Administration is based on your pre-formulated theology which includes a pretty detailed timeline."
I think you're confusing the "parousia" with the "sunteleia".
From Are the dead alive now?
"The four basic events (of the sunteleia) are 1) Christ's coming for His saints, 2) the events of the book of Revelation with Christ's coming with His saints, 3) the first and second resurrections, and finally 4) the end (telos) when death is destroyed and all things are subdued to God."
The first basic event is Christ's Coming for his saints (the parousia).
The parousia has two basic phases.
"1) Christ’s Return for His Church, The Body The Gathering Together (2 Thessalonians 2:1 “our gathering together unto him.” The gathering together affects only those who are born again of God during the age of the church of the Body, which age is the period between the day of Pentecost and the first part of the parousia."
This phase doesn’t happen on the earth but in the air and Jesus Christ must personally be present at this event – according to Dr Wierwille’s explanation of what the parousia is here.
The second basic phase is:
"2) Christ’s Return with His Church. "
Based on what’s written here, we cannot be in one of these early phases. The earliest phase of any of this is the gathering together, with Christ personally. People can still get born again so we must still be in the “age of the Church of the Body” which began on the day of Pentecost and ends with the gathering together (parousia).
Contrary to Raf’s expectations, I am hungry, but not for quick off the cuff answers. I’m hungry to master ALL the clues Dr left us and that takes time.
Earlier you wrote: “We speak the Word, what other "job" do we have to accomplish that wasn't already accomplished by Christ?”
The Body of Christ has to function. It has a job to do. It has to deal with the Bride sooner or later, so there may be work involved there. Christ’s accomplishments for us, it seems to me, are accomplished, but there’s more to do after that.
***
Later on you posted some on some passages in ADAN. I just read them the other day. I see them every so often, but I’m searching out all the other places where the topic comes up as well.
This new administration topic is huge. I don’t expect to charge into it in a linear fashion as it seems you want to do. Citing one passage is only the first step, and after that the path bifurcates wildly.
There are two key chapters in I Corinthians and the two key chapters in Thessalonians plus an assortment of other verses we need to put on the table. Then add to that all the scattered KJV verses with identical words. Then add all the scattered KJV verses with non-identical but topically related words.
Then there are all the PFAL passages that deal with those verses to add to the stack, plus all the scattered PFAL references that are topically related or identical word usage related.
The few items I threw on the table need not a quick dealing with citing one PFAL passage, they need a thorough going over like the above listings suggest, and THEN these issues can be dealt with better. We need to be at least somewhat deeply into the mastery of PFAL to even begin to address these things with any sense of surety and finality.
Do you get it?
Dr told us that our understanding of what he taught us was insufficient in 1985. Unless a grad has been into those books a lot over the past two decades a lot has leaked out since then, so our understanding is even more insufficient.
I think that means we who have not yet mastered PFAL should not be cranking out answers to issues brought up for discussion but seeking out ALL the page references where these scriptures, words, and even general ideas come up in PFAL.
I just don’t think any of us are qualified to crank out answers to these questions, we should be HUNGRY for the answers and seeking them out, but not resting on our laurels and arm chairing an answer in a few hours.
I’ve been collecting page references and tape references in Dr’s record for 8 years now and I have over a hundred items on this topic. I’m still finding more. I’m all for a discussion of all so far found, as well as a continued search for more.
I’ve laid a few cards on the table, but there are like 90 more, AT LEAST. We’ve got to go slow and start at the beginning. The fact that every one of us OLGs dropped the ball 20 years ago, letting Dr’s final instructions slip through our fingers. We let the ministry slip through our fingers. We should be so humbled that we don’t trust ourselves to shoot from the hip and crank out theories and answers on these items I bring up.
We should be proposing research strategies, collecting and categorizing lists of page references, even compiling a concordance of Dr’s books. Cranking out answers, or judgments on proposals even, should be on our schedules way down the road.
Just the phrase “dead in Christ” need a huge amount of work. What kind of dead is it referring to? Is it only referring to one kind of death? What about the “in Christ” sub-phrase in there? Who has ever looked at I Thess 4 with this “in Christ” phrase in focus. Who has chased down all the places where Dr used the phrase “in Christ” in his text, let alone TAUGHT ON the phrase?
I’m not laying my cards out (the ones I have so far) so that you guys can spin them the way your non-mastered understanding of PFAL would spin them.
I’m not offering out some of the things I’ve seen so that you folks can pass judgments on them or try to fit them together. I’m not even showing you the whole puzzle, so trying to solve it is premature at this point.
I’m offering these things to show you that there’s exciting work to do in coming back to PFAL and mastering it deeper than ever before.
You wrote: “Mike, when I say things like, 'The most i would say...." or " if a certain point is conceded..." or some ilk - that does not mean that I have conceded to that point.”
I understand.
What I was referring to was only a “bone” of concession you threw me. I did use that word “bone” deliberately. You didn’t concede, but you did acknowledge the logical POSSIBILITY. It’s that acknowledgement that I was celebrating.
It was ONLY a bone of concession, not a concession with any meat on it.
***
You wrote: “As far and any further discussion regarding the works of vpw being revelation - it just doesn't fit for me.”
I accept that, and thank you for the polite and rich discussion you DID provide. Would you like me to take over the thread for you so you can be dismissed? :)
***
I also accept the fact that my lengthy post was more than you are ready to digest right now. May I suggest you bookmark that page and for future reference?
***
You wrote: “Somewhere in there I feel like the cart is pulling your horse - but I cannot quite pin it down well enough for you.”
I think you are correctly sensing the angst that drives me to write with the intensity I do. I recognize it too, and seek to refine with agape daily. I have had the strong sense since 1987 that we grads are in a great spiritual emergency. The more I work this Word we were given the more I can relax in the expectation of God’s Final Victory coming.
You wrote: “I can't speak for you or anyone else, but frankly I am more suspicious of the man (or the woman) claiming to be "of SPOTLESS character". Under that SPOTLESS surface there is always something rotten at the core.”
I feel the same way.
I was referring to this earlier, citing Dr’s 1972 Rock of Ages final teaching. It’s in the movie too.
Dr said (paraphrasing) he was glad that God didn’t call a bunch of goodie-goodies to this ministry, but a bunch of downers and outers like you and me!
Downers and Outers know that they have some serious work to do on their walk.
Goodie Goodies don’t. Oftentimes they have such a good surface that they never look at the pride festering inside.
I've never read a more convoluded, demeaning and condescending bunch of hogwash in my life, well...at least since I left TWI.
Sorry for wasting your time, obviously you couldn't respond to the content of what I wrote so you chose to make me out to be some sort of a straw dog. I thought we might actually be able to discuss the reasons why you made the statements you did. I guess not. I was genuinely interested in this.
Not anymore.
That you chose to respond with personal attacks and insults is telling of your own lack of security in who you are and what you know.
I'm operating with the full awareness that ALL we OLGs disobeyed Dr's urgings to master written PFAL for ten full years, from 1975 to 1985.
I intend to obey Dr's urging to master PFAL as per his last/lost teaching.
I'm always on the lookout for grads who didn’t yet hear of Dr’s last/lost teaching to let them in on this crucial information they missed.
I’m also, sadly, experienced at spotting grads who have no intention of getting serious about obeying Dr’s final instructions, even though they often may have an outward appearance of loving Dr and respecting what he taught.
What he told us to do is simple, yet no one seems to be able to muster the honesty to do it. Many think that they did it enough, and that Dr wasted his final instructions on a triviality as far as they are concerned.
If you want to wing it on what you think you know you will have no problem finding company. I know PFAL is God’s Word even if NOBODY believes it!
It's true that you can make a religion out of anything. Your standard is yet another standard I fail to measure up to. Fortunately Jesus Christ handled that one for me as well.
You seem more intent on finding someone who will swallow all that you have to say without question than you are in helping people come unto a knowledge of the truth. I don't equate throwing out speculative "cards" with leading someone to God's Word.
When you're ready to trust in his accomplished works and stop relying on your own you might find the satisfaction your looking for.
We have a responsibility to do the best we can as workmen, rightly dividing his Word.
***
Let me try it another way.
In Dr’s LAST writings to us, his last magazine articles, both appearing in the July/Aug 1985 issue of the Way Magazine Dr issued a challenge to all us grads, twice.
The first one is in "Our Only Rule for Faith and Practice" on page 17, right column, in the upper half. There he says (with my highlighted fonts):
"You have to honestly come to the place that you're willing to keep asking yourself, 'Where did I learn what I believe? How did I get to the place where I believe what I believe today?' For the most part, men believe what they have received from tradition and not from directly reading it in the Word of God."
In other words, a self examination should be on-going. I see an implication here that we were NOT doing this at that time. I see that those who are quick to answer theological questions without first getting the whole story in view for a long series of examinations are STILL not experienced in self examinations of the kind Dr called for, which are complete doctrinal makeovers.
When Dr says "men" above I see him primarily referring to leadership of the ministry. I don't see him teaching here about denominational churchgoers outside the ministry. Dr is addressing us grads and he’s saying we were believing was the verbal traditions that grew up within the ministry, what I have called TVTs.
We were not (by that time) forming and maintaining beliefs from directly reading God's pure Word, the written material we were supplied in PFAL. We were forming beliefs not from written PFAL but from our own KJV or Greek research, the traditional approach, and drifting farther and farther from the written revelations God gave Dr and Dr gave us.
This is why in his last teaching (and on many previous occasions) Dr stresses the written forms of PFAL for mastery.
***
The second location of this challenge from Dr is in the Our Times Insight article on page 12, left column, lower half. There he writes:
"We must honestly come to the place of asking ourselves: Where did I learn this? How did I get to the place of believing this? Who taught me this? The counterfeit is so much like the genuine, you have to know the accuracy of the Word to separate truth from error."
The accuracy of the Word cannot be read from the KJV. The accuracy of the Word cannot be conjured up from stale memories, or learned from verbal traditions like sitting through the film class a lot of times. It is written in PFAL for us. PFAL is the genuine from which we can detect the counterfeit.
***
In addition to the twice occurrence of this challenge in one magazine, he also twice (once in each article) decries the "dark clouds that hover over us" due to the traditions of men.
I am convinced that the "us" Dr is referring to here is not rhetoric for "us human beings" nor for "us Christians throughout the world" but is referring to "us PFAL grads."
I believe the traditions Dr refers to here are not things like the trinity or salvation by works. He's nailing our whole scale reverting back to tradition of searching for truth in the writings of men like the KJV, other versions, or the critical Greek texts. That job had been essentially finished by October 1982, as Dr reported at Craig's installation and on that week's SNS tape. In both of those articles he was urging us to take the REAL Bible as our only rule for faith and practice, not some version.
***
In Session One Dr says that the greatest secret in the world today is that the Bible is the revealed Word and will of God. Millions and millions of the world's population believe that their KJV or NIV or Greek texts are the Word of God.
So how come Dr said in Session One that the greatest secret in the world today is that the Bible is the Word of God?
It’s because the millions are WRONG and don’t know that those items are only mere tools to START finding God's will at best, and counterfeits at worst, if leaned on too heavily?
How many people know that God commissioned Dr to commit to writing His Word like it has not been known since the first century?
Hardly any.
THAT is the greatest secret in the world today!
The greatest literal secret in the world is that the written forms of PFAL comprise God's book, the Bible, the written Word of God.
***
THAT these items were printed twice in the same magazine should have arrested our attention!
THAT they also appeared in Dr's very last prepared articles should have arrested our attention.
They should have been the theme at the Rock that year at the very least,
but instead no one (hardly) even saw them.
I plead guilty to this.
Thank GOD! He's given us all a second chance here twenty years later!
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WordWolf
Or an exercise contrary to thought. One or the other.
Here's a freebie.
This is one example where the clear and plain text of pfal
says one thing,
and the Mikean pfal claims that it's not true.
vpw claimed that ALL of time (from "in the beginning" to
"forever") falls into one of seven administrations.
As claimed in pfal, they are, in chronological order:
1) Paradise.
In the Garden of Eden.
(Insert Iron Butterfly music here.)
This ended in Genesis 3 with the fall of Man, the promise of the Messiah,
and the casting out of Man from paradise, in that order.
2) Patriarch.
This is the period where The Word still exists in the stars,
and as the spoken Word from prophets.
This continued until the Law was given.
3) Law.
This is the period of the Written Word.
This continued until the coming Christ arrived.
4) Christ.
This is the period of one year, where God's Christ,
the Living Word, completed God's plan of redemption.
5) Grace.
This began in the Day of Pentecost,
and continues to this day, with Holy Spirit in each Christian.
6) Revelation, or Appearing.
This is the period that begins with The Gathering Together
(aka "the Rapture") and carries thru all the End-Time events
of the Book of Revelation and other places,
until the end of Revelation 20.
7) Final Paradise, or Glory.
This is events as of Revelation 21,
where God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
That continues to the ages of the ages.
Exactly 7 administrations, taking advantage of "number in
Scripture".
So, vpw claimed all this.
Until Mike, it's clear that we've been-as vpw has it-in the Grace
administration. Mike, however, is claiming that vpw spoke
of a new administration. Since we're not seeing the miracles
and global catastrophes of the 7-year tribulation, it's evident
we didn't miss the end of the Grace administration,
with Christ collecting the brethren
(I Corinthians 15 and I Thessalonians 4).
So, apparently, Mike has it that the pfal administrations are
in some way defective, since we have-not only at least EIGHT
where vpw gave SEVEN administrations,
but this one pops up out of nowhere, ruining the charts
from pfal.
Mike's previously been somewhat tight-lipped on this subject
when asked. Perhaps now we'll get some details.
When did this administration begin?
Is it supposedly one of the 7 in pfal?
If not, why was pfal's list deficient and in ERROR?
When does this administration end? (Events ending it are fine.)
What characterizes the difference between THIS
administration and the Grace administration?
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A simple guy
Hi Mike,
I addressed you because I was curious about what administration you think we’re in. You seem to be saying we’re not in the grace administration anymore.
My “shtick” is summed up in my name. I spent many years in TWI. All classes, WOW 2x, Corps, I left before finishing the Corps and was never really in any leadership position, praise God. I’ve continued to study the materials from my time with TWI. However I believe the scriptures are what the PFAL materials were directing us toward. If the materials had any validity it was in showing how the scriptures interpret themselves. And yes I’m aware of VPW’s last public teaching, which wasn’t the first time that material had been presented, as I’m sure you know. I left in the late 80’s when LCM started having his melt down.
I’ve simplified life since then and started enjoying a relation with my Lord Jesus Christ. That I fall short is a given, in fact since leaving TWI I’ve become aware of things we never thought much about in TWI. That we were sinners, that we couldn’t earn our salvation, that Romans 1-3 is as applicable to the spiritual walk as Romans 10:9-10, and that the real point of the Word of God is to reveal Jesus Christ. While all of this was taught in various contexts and materials, the sense of relegating our own identity to the grave and accepting the identity of Christ was rarely believed among those I saw in TWI. LCM was the epitome of this in my opinion. I’ve also learned things about VPW that I find… troubling.
Even today the arrogance I see among those people who have determined they know the truth, in and of themselves through their own effort and study, is disturbing to me. It seems a bit like the Pharisees, they think they have salvation through their study but they miss the subject of what they study, works versus grace thing. I am nothing of myself and everything in Christ. As a living lord and head of his body I trust him to reveal God’s Word to me. Where he is not the subject I do not believe we have the Word. I believe a man is known by his fruit and if the subject of God’s Word is Jesus Christ than the subject of what a man says with regard to God’s Word must be Jesus Christ, if it isn’t than that man isn’t speaking God’s Word. If A=B and B=C then C must =A.
Once again, I’m flawed, there are many wrong things I’ve done or haven’t done but fortunately I know the grace of God and I know the price that was paid to impart that grace to my life and the lives of my family. I no longer see my life in terms of spiritual levels to attain to, I couldn’t have attained to anything without Christ. I know there is a maturing process but that isn’t what determines our communion with God, or how “spiritual” a man is. I took off my nametags and I couldn’t be more thankful.
That’s my “schtick”, if the content and quality of a mans life can be summed up in a few paragraphs.
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A simple guy
Hi Doojable,
Nice to meet you.
I'll stop by the divine design link. I'm not much of an artist, mostly doobling, but I do enjoy drawing and once in a while I turn out something pretty good, even if I do say so myself.
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Mike
WordWolf,
The topic of administrations is not one I am totally comfortable with posting on because I’m still studying it out.
I am not yet sure about the difference between Dr’s uses of the word “age” and the word “administration.” I’m also not sure about the clean delineation of all the administrations' beginning and ending points. Some seem to have fuzzy borders, like the beginning of the Christ Administration.
It’s also not yet clear to me if the beginning of some administrations occurs at the same time for everyone. For instance, I see many people going to churches where the people, for all practical purposes, are clearly living in the Christ or Law Administrations.
When I post that the administrations have changed what I MOSTLY mean is that new things were placed by God on the available list, new things can be claimed by believing that previously were only a hope. Dr brought up this idea at Living Victoriously in Hope. That passage is electrifying. I’ve posted on it here, and can resurrect that post sometime if it was pruned.
As I get more clear on the administrations I will clarify any mistakes I may have made in using the word administration to indicate what I so excited about here. The best I can see it we ARE in a new administration and I post this much to stimulate discussion.
There’s an interesting page in GMWD’s last chapter, “The Final Victory,” where Dr explains something that relates to all this. The first two paragraphs of that chapter read (with my bold fonts):
“The great hope of the Christian Church is the return of Christ and our gathering together unto him. There are aspects of Christ’s return which we find most clearly explained by God’s rightly-divided Word. In order to understand the coming of Christ, we must also understand “the mechanics” of his coming. Jesus’ first coming began with his conception and birth and ended with his ascension, over thirty years later. There were many significant phases and events during this time. In this, the second coming is similar: it will also cover a period of time and encompass several significant phases and events. __ There are four basic events included in the times of the end, when Christ returns...”
Your rejection of the idea that we could be in one of these early phases or events in the Appearing Administration is based on your pre-formulated theology which includes a pretty detailed timeline.
In my lengthy post I argue that we need to completely revamp our time lines and mind pictures of the Return. I’ve started from scratch and am building an understanding from within PFAL exclusively. I don’t try to fit it into preexisting theologies.
The expectations people had of how Christ’s first coming was to play out were inaccurate, and as a result many events and phases of that administration took place for years without those theologians even knowing it. I say the same is happening now. All the common mind pictures and time lines of the Appearing phases and events need to be thought through from what is freshly revealed in PFAL.
Another reason I am not satisfying you with how few details about administrations I bring forth is seen in how Dr originally taught us in the PFAL book. There he writes:
“As far as I have been able to study the integrity of the Word of God, there are these major administrations in The Word: (1) the Original Paradise, (2) the Patriarchal, (3) the Law, (4) the Christ Administration, (5) the Church, (6) the Appearing, and (7) the Final Paradise or Glory Administration.”
That phrase “As far as I have been able to study...” gives me reason to pause a little, although I recently saw something else he wrote (forget where) where the number 7 comes up more strongly.
But then again, here he uses the word “major” in the PFAL book quote above, too. If there are 7 major administrations, can there be some “minor” administrations too?
This idea of a “minor” administration is related to the idea I reported in my lengthy post about PFAL being ADDRESSED ONLY TO GRADS. I’ve toyed with the idea of a minor administration set up just for us grads in order for us to accomplish a goal, a job, related to the Return.
I’m being honest with you about the weak areas of my research to show you I’m still learning.
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Mike
Hi A simple guy,
Did my response to WW answer your question to me opening your recent post?
You wrote: “I addressed you because I was curious about what administration you think we’re in. You seem to be saying we’re not in the grace administration anymore.”
Actually it looks to me like it’s even MORE grace that’s now available. But I can understand you wanting to ask me that. This new administration stuff totally blew my mind when I first came back to PFAL. It was the LAST thing I ever expected to find there. In my wildest dreams I never could have seen me saying things like “It’s TIME!” but here I am doing it.
***
That was a nice summary of your life you posted. I’d like to discuss a little of it.
You wrote: “...I spent many years in TWI. All classes, WOW 2x, Corps, I left before finishing the Corps and was never really in any leadership position, praise God.”
It sounds to me like you were in an “unofficial” leadership capacity.
***
You wrote: “I’ve continued to study the materials from my time with TWI. However I believe the scriptures are what the PFAL materials were directing us toward. If the materials had any validity it was in showing how the scriptures interpret themselves.”
Well, if you want things simple, what we have left of the ancient scriptures and how they are to be reconstructed from the fragments, and translated is FAR from simple! The PFAL materials Dr produced ARE simple.
As I argued in my lengthy post, I see PFAL as not only containing keys to unlock the ancient scriptures but also much more. The first time through was mostly that: keys to help us fix up the most glaring problems with the ancient scriptures, but I see much more in there now in my second time through.
If PFAL is only a man-breathed Bible aid, then I can see you point about it merely directing us to (and somewhat simplifying) the complicated situation of the ancient scriptures. But if this Bible aid were actually God-breathed Bible aid then I can easily see God packing much more in there for us.
***
You wrote: “And yes I’m aware of VPW’s last public teaching, which wasn’t the first time that material had been presented, as I’m sure you know. I left in the late 80’s when LCM started having his melt down.”
Ditto for my exit timing. Yes, I’ve seen that Dr started slowly urging top leadership to master PFAL materials in the mid 70's and he kept on doing it to the end, with greater and greater intensity. It just makes great sense to me that since no one really took him up on this advice and things went sour, then why not try it and see what happens. I did, and I was very surprised at what I found.
***
You wrote: “...That we were sinners, that we couldn’t earn our salvation, that Romans 1-3 is as applicable to the spiritual walk as Romans 10:9-10, and that the real point of the Word of God is to reveal Jesus Christ. While all of this was taught in various contexts and materials, the sense of relegating our own identity to the grave and accepting the identity of Christ was rarely believed among those I saw in TWI. LCM was the epitome of this in my opinion. I’ve also learned things about VPW that I find… troubling.”
VPW was troubled too about his failing to be the man he knew to be. I agree with you that we all are sinners. This is one reason I can’t get excited and focused on VPW’s sins like so many here do. It was troubling to me that so many of us fell short, but the ballgame isn’t over yet.
I see that Moses and Paul fell short at times, yet they were still able to help us in our walk. Ditto for VPW. He is still helping me via the writings he produced at God’s direction.
***
I agree that it’s grace. It’s even grace that we are ABLE to do some good works, that we are ABLE to study to show ourselves approved, that we can work to gain a more thorough and more accurate knowledge of His Word and will. I know that knowledge puffs up if it’s not knowledge to help the knower serve others, and that this was a terrible failure in TWI. When I seek more knowledge I keep this in mind.
***
You wrote: “As a living lord and head of his body I trust him to reveal God’s Word to me.”
This is admirable. I want to add to it. The HOW that God selects to reveal His Word to us is FIRST written and then direct. As we do our best to work (remember it’s grace that we CAN work) the written Word He has supplied us.
We were taught that revelation begins where the five senses leave off. From the "16 Keys To Walking In The Spirit" in the Advanced Class we were taught that "What you can know by the fives senses, God expects you to know." After we know what we can naturally, then God can teach us the spiritual point of view, and the arena for accomplishing all this is in that set of materials Dr identified in his most important final words addressed to us all. It is with the collaterals books that we need to spend a lot of time if we want the fullness of what God has made available.
***
You wrote: “Where he is not the subject I do not believe we have the Word.”
Sometimes he IS the subject and it’s not immediately obvious. Remember, God has warned us that his second coming would be “like a thief in the night.” He can be present yet hidden if there’s a veil over our eyes. I see PFAL as God’s way of removing that veil. The contents of PFAL is the mind of Christ we are to put on.
***
You wrote: “I no longer see my life in terms of spiritual levels to attain to, I couldn’t have attained to anything without Christ. I know there is a maturing process but that isn’t what determines our communion with God, or how “spiritual” a man is. I took off my nametags and I couldn’t be more thankful.”
Yes, it seems one of the big things leadership forgot was that gift ministries are a gift TO THE CHURCH not to the leader who operates it. It was terribly forgotten that the only reason someone is placed in a leadership position is to serve others not themselves.
I think it’s a noble goal to grow to a greater spiritual understanding level from which greater service can be given. I can relate to your backing off from the counterfeits of this noble process because they were terribly discouraging to me too. We can revive our drive to work hard (remembering that it’s grace that we CAN work hard) to grow and serve more by coming back to the simplicity in PFAL.
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bliss
Dearest MIKE
Simple guy's posts had more to do about Jesus Christ as Lord in our life, and you barely touched on that............ why are you skipping over that? Do you believe Jesus is "absent"?
And you said we have MORE grace now? That is like saying "a little pregnant".
To me, grace is grace is grace.
IMO
peace
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Mike
bliss,
I do not believe Christ is absent.
I do not believe PFAL teaches Christ is absent.
The whole idea of Christ being taught in PFAL to be absent is a HUGE distortion of what is actually taught in the books. In the TVTs (Twi Verbal Traditions) Christ became more and more absent, but he is taught to be totally present accessible to us.
I was planning a separate thread on this sometime, or posting my documentation on one of the other threads that focus on this.
I see Christ’s presence being taught all the time in PFAL.
Want to see some page references and quotes sometime?
Those who promote here the idea the Christ was taught to be absent do not present those passages of PFAL that teach otherwise.
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Mike
bliss,
I found one of the references that I happened upon just a few weeks ago in the first chapter of the Green Book.
Here is TNDC p. 14, 15:
“The mystery, so important that it was kept secret since the foundation of the world, is that all born- again believers, Jews and Gentiles, would be fellow- heirs of Christ and that Christ would be in every one of them. Imagine that! When Jesus Christ was here upon earth, He could only be at one place at one time. But after He ascended into heaven, and God had given the power of the holy spirit on the day of Pentecost, then Christ could be in every born-again believer. Wherever a believer is, there Christ is present. Had the devil known this mystery he would never have crucified Jesus. Through Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, power hitherto unknown in history was made available. The devil was totally unaware of God’s plan, as told in I Corinthians.”
Why has this passage not been discussed by the “absent Christ” accusers here? Because it cuts across their thesis.
I remember when JAL was spreading this idea all around in the late 80’s that we were robbed of the presence of Christ. At first I thought he was right until I started finding things like the above passage in the books. This was one of the first alerts I had that the TVTs differed greatly from the written teachings.
When I showed JAL some of the “non-absent Christ” references he just blew them off. So do promulgators of the same theory here. You have been hoodwinked by them to think that Christ is absent in Dr’s books and that he taught Christ as absent in our lives. Nothing could be farther from the truth!
***
Look what else is in that same passage above! Dr uses the word “Jesus” all alone TWICE in that paragraph. Another TVT that arose, due to our sloppiness and not Dr’s teaching, was this taboo on saying “Jesus” without the word “Christ” in there.
What a bunch of garbage has been spread about the PFAL writings! The only ones who can see the lies being told about PFAL are those who actually open the books and do their own thinking. The rumor mill directs most people’s thinking.
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A simple guy
Okay…
You won’t find me apologizing for VPW or throwing stones at him either. I don’t really intend to even discuss him. He’s experiencing the worst sentence that any society could inflict for any sin, thanks to Adam. Sin always seems to catch up with all of us. God will sort out all of this in his own good time. VPW wasn’t Jesus Christ and as such I’ll limit the content of what I say about him, preferring rather to discuss Christ.
Without responding to your dissection of my post, and your determination of my “unofficial” leadership position in The Way International (whatever that has to do with anything). I’ll continue to try to address what I initially asked you about. I saw your responses to Wordwolves and it answers some things, I have a couple other questions. I know you said this new to you so I’ll view your responses in that light.
In this new administration is the ministry of reconciliation still in operation? What event happened that marked the point of this change? The trump hasn’t sounded yet and the dead are still in the grave so what event ushered in this new (minor?) administration?
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Mike
Good questions.
I can work with you on some of them, but I'm off to work right now.
SUPER briefly I can outline some things.
(by SUPER I mean I retain the right to drastically edit and add to the this folowing):
1. There is a new intriguing phrase that rises up in GMWD: "the ministry of reconcilliation of Jesus Christ"
2. We need to work and re-work the phrase “dead in Christ” and this takes time.
3. There are lots of trumpets, even for different groups.
We need to re-think what the “air” means in I Thess 4.
Is there a connection between the trumpet and the air?
If trumpet means teaching by revelation, then the 1942 promise could be the opening event, God intervening with His Word.
4. We need to remember that sometimes our initial impression of an instantaneous process reported in the Bible can be an abbreviation and then we find that there are lots of events compressed in there.
We are fixated on the mid picture of the whole Gathering taking place in an atom of time, and I think we need to drop that from our thinking. I’ve cited passages above to this effect. There’s precedence too, the prophets and angels who wanted to see if the sufferings and the glory of Christ were a compression or not. I can see the 1942 promise as the sound of a trumpet that’s STILL sounding today for those grads who open the books. It’s not a momentary compressed event but it’s has many phases and events contained within.
5. An event that also is a possible administration change marker is the Living Victoriously class. The entire year of 1982 has stunning things documented in Dr's tape and written record regarding SOMETHING that changed, and it wasn't Craig's coronation. I can provide more on this later.
When I return (no pun intended) I’ll try to re-post many of the details, to fill in the gaps of the above, that I have posted before here.
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bliss
Still IMO
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A simple guy
The dead in Christ rise first, before we are gathered together in the air. According to 1 Thessalonians 4.
Even if things here are figures of speech, which it appears you're relegating them to, the order of events still dictates those who are dead in Christ will need to rise first. It should be a simple thing to say whether or not this has happened.
VPW didn't handle it this way in the university of life tapes which I recently listened to.
You also wrote:
"This idea of a “minor” administration is related to the idea I reported in my lengthy post about PFAL being ADDRESSED ONLY TO GRADS. I’ve toyed with the idea of a minor administration set up just for us grads in order for us to accomplish a goal, a job, related to the Return."
This would seem to read that anyone who is exposed to the material of the class in this day and time, who wasn't around or alive when it was initially made available would not benefit from the contents of the class.
What's more, where does Jesus Christ fit in all of this? Is he now not able to save to the uttermost? I know from experience that speaking in tongues is still part of the equation, I've seen someone start speaking in tongues, someone who'd been witnessed to off the street very recently. Where does this leave him?
How does that fit with the principle that God would have ALL (without exception) men be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth? There's still plenty of them around who haven't heard about Jesus Christ, who, once again I might add, is the real point to all of this.
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A simple guy
Mike wrote:
"I’ve toyed with the idea of a minor administration set up just for us grads in order for us to accomplish a goal, a job, related to the Return"
We speak the Word, what other "job" do we have to accomplish that wasn't already accomplished by Christ?
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What The Hey
I can't speak for you or anyone else, but frankly I am more suspicious of the man (or the woman) claiming to be "of SPOTLESS character". Under that SPOTLESS surface there is always something rotten at the core. Man is inclined and will always judge another man by their actions or behavior - but this is not true of God. The true God judges a man by his words, never by their actions.
Matthew 12:37
"For by thy words (it doesn't say acts) thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned."
Then a few verses earlier Jesus says (in v.34) "O generation of vipers, how can ye being evil speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
(v.35)
"A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things; and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil."
These scriptures are completely forgotten by the "fruit pickers" - those who mis-lead others into believing righteousness is obtained by a man's holy works or by some "holy" acts - thus producing some SPOTLESS character? They completely miss and forget the "fruit" that Jesus was refering to - and Jeus was not refering to a mans actions or their behavior, but rather a man's word. That is why v.36 says:
"But I say unto you, That every idle word [ it doesn't say act] that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement."
The "fruit pickers" want you to believe "whoever they don't like" will be condemned in the day of judgement for their acts. God's word says different- that one will give account for every word - moreover, every "idle" word. If such is the case, it would be a good idea if some people probably kept their big mouth shut.
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doojable
I've gotta say that all this back and forth wears me out. I know, I know, I started this mess....
Mike, when I say things like, 'The most i would say...." or " if a certain point is conceded..." or some ilk - that does not mean that I have conceded to that point.
I have taken a clue form CS Lewis's point of view and started form any point and moved from there. That is the tone of most of my posts on this thread.
As far and any further discussion regarding the works of vpw being revelation - it just doesn't fit for me.
Neither do I believe that God has "special" administrations for certain groups. ( My emphasis added)
I have not had time to review the whole post - as I have been very busy with the classes I teach and the nearly 100 students I have. Long posts are very hard for me to focus on - since I usually have to read them late at night.
I did give them the old "college try" and I just can't get to where you are. I know you are whole heartedly convinced that you are right - but I simply cannot agree.
I have lots of thoughts that I do not post here at GSC. Mostly because I don't really have them thought through enough to put into words, and then because I dont' have time. I am much more an "in person" kind of gal - but that would be even more time consuming given the multitude of beings here at the cafe.
Somewhere in there I feel like the cart is pulling your horse - but I cannot quite pin it down well enough for you.
In any case, I thought this thread was dead - and it is now alive! Proof of resurrection!!??? ( Tongue firmly placed in my right cheek!)
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A simple guy
Mike wrote:
"There’s an interesting page in GMWD’s last chapter, “The Final Victory,” where Dr explains something that relates to all this. The first two paragraphs of that chapter read (with my bold fonts):
“The great hope of the Christian Church is the return of Christ and our gathering together unto him. There are aspects of Christ’s return which we find most clearly explained by God’s rightly-divided Word. In order to understand the coming of Christ, we must also understand “the mechanics” of his coming. Jesus’ first coming began with his conception and birth and ended with his ascension, over thirty years later. There were many significant phases and events during this time. In this, the second coming is similar: it will also cover a period of time and encompass several significant phases and events. __ There are four basic events included in the times of the end, when Christ returns...
"Your rejection of the idea that we could be in one of these early phases or events in the Appearing Administration is based on your pre-formulated theology which includes a pretty detailed timeline."
I think you're confusing the "parousia" with the "sunteleia".
From Are the dead alive now?
"The four basic events (of the sunteleia) are 1) Christ's coming for His saints, 2) the events of the book of Revelation with Christ's coming with His saints, 3) the first and second resurrections, and finally 4) the end (telos) when death is destroyed and all things are subdued to God."
The first basic event is Christ's Coming for his saints (the parousia).
The parousia has two basic phases.
"1) Christ’s Return for His Church, The Body The Gathering Together (2 Thessalonians 2:1 “our gathering together unto him.” The gathering together affects only those who are born again of God during the age of the church of the Body, which age is the period between the day of Pentecost and the first part of the parousia."
This phase doesn’t happen on the earth but in the air and Jesus Christ must personally be present at this event – according to Dr Wierwille’s explanation of what the parousia is here.
The second basic phase is:
"2) Christ’s Return with His Church. "
Based on what’s written here, we cannot be in one of these early phases. The earliest phase of any of this is the gathering together, with Christ personally. People can still get born again so we must still be in the “age of the Church of the Body” which began on the day of Pentecost and ends with the gathering together (parousia).
Food for thought.
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Raf
He's not hungry.
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Mike
A simple guy,
Contrary to Raf’s expectations, I am hungry, but not for quick off the cuff answers. I’m hungry to master ALL the clues Dr left us and that takes time.
Earlier you wrote: “We speak the Word, what other "job" do we have to accomplish that wasn't already accomplished by Christ?”
The Body of Christ has to function. It has a job to do. It has to deal with the Bride sooner or later, so there may be work involved there. Christ’s accomplishments for us, it seems to me, are accomplished, but there’s more to do after that.
***
Later on you posted some on some passages in ADAN. I just read them the other day. I see them every so often, but I’m searching out all the other places where the topic comes up as well.
This new administration topic is huge. I don’t expect to charge into it in a linear fashion as it seems you want to do. Citing one passage is only the first step, and after that the path bifurcates wildly.
There are two key chapters in I Corinthians and the two key chapters in Thessalonians plus an assortment of other verses we need to put on the table. Then add to that all the scattered KJV verses with identical words. Then add all the scattered KJV verses with non-identical but topically related words.
Then there are all the PFAL passages that deal with those verses to add to the stack, plus all the scattered PFAL references that are topically related or identical word usage related.
The few items I threw on the table need not a quick dealing with citing one PFAL passage, they need a thorough going over like the above listings suggest, and THEN these issues can be dealt with better. We need to be at least somewhat deeply into the mastery of PFAL to even begin to address these things with any sense of surety and finality.
Do you get it?
Dr told us that our understanding of what he taught us was insufficient in 1985. Unless a grad has been into those books a lot over the past two decades a lot has leaked out since then, so our understanding is even more insufficient.
I think that means we who have not yet mastered PFAL should not be cranking out answers to issues brought up for discussion but seeking out ALL the page references where these scriptures, words, and even general ideas come up in PFAL.
I just don’t think any of us are qualified to crank out answers to these questions, we should be HUNGRY for the answers and seeking them out, but not resting on our laurels and arm chairing an answer in a few hours.
I’ve been collecting page references and tape references in Dr’s record for 8 years now and I have over a hundred items on this topic. I’m still finding more. I’m all for a discussion of all so far found, as well as a continued search for more.
I’ve laid a few cards on the table, but there are like 90 more, AT LEAST. We’ve got to go slow and start at the beginning. The fact that every one of us OLGs dropped the ball 20 years ago, letting Dr’s final instructions slip through our fingers. We let the ministry slip through our fingers. We should be so humbled that we don’t trust ourselves to shoot from the hip and crank out theories and answers on these items I bring up.
We should be proposing research strategies, collecting and categorizing lists of page references, even compiling a concordance of Dr’s books. Cranking out answers, or judgments on proposals even, should be on our schedules way down the road.
Just the phrase “dead in Christ” need a huge amount of work. What kind of dead is it referring to? Is it only referring to one kind of death? What about the “in Christ” sub-phrase in there? Who has ever looked at I Thess 4 with this “in Christ” phrase in focus. Who has chased down all the places where Dr used the phrase “in Christ” in his text, let alone TAUGHT ON the phrase?
I’m not laying my cards out (the ones I have so far) so that you guys can spin them the way your non-mastered understanding of PFAL would spin them.
I’m not offering out some of the things I’ve seen so that you folks can pass judgments on them or try to fit them together. I’m not even showing you the whole puzzle, so trying to solve it is premature at this point.
I’m offering these things to show you that there’s exciting work to do in coming back to PFAL and mastering it deeper than ever before.
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Mike
doojable,
You wrote: “Mike, when I say things like, 'The most i would say...." or " if a certain point is conceded..." or some ilk - that does not mean that I have conceded to that point.”
I understand.
What I was referring to was only a “bone” of concession you threw me. I did use that word “bone” deliberately. You didn’t concede, but you did acknowledge the logical POSSIBILITY. It’s that acknowledgement that I was celebrating.
It was ONLY a bone of concession, not a concession with any meat on it.
***
You wrote: “As far and any further discussion regarding the works of vpw being revelation - it just doesn't fit for me.”
I accept that, and thank you for the polite and rich discussion you DID provide. Would you like me to take over the thread for you so you can be dismissed? :)
***
I also accept the fact that my lengthy post was more than you are ready to digest right now. May I suggest you bookmark that page and for future reference?
***
You wrote: “Somewhere in there I feel like the cart is pulling your horse - but I cannot quite pin it down well enough for you.”
I think you are correctly sensing the angst that drives me to write with the intensity I do. I recognize it too, and seek to refine with agape daily. I have had the strong sense since 1987 that we grads are in a great spiritual emergency. The more I work this Word we were given the more I can relax in the expectation of God’s Final Victory coming.
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Mike
What the Hey,
You wrote: “I can't speak for you or anyone else, but frankly I am more suspicious of the man (or the woman) claiming to be "of SPOTLESS character". Under that SPOTLESS surface there is always something rotten at the core.”
I feel the same way.
I was referring to this earlier, citing Dr’s 1972 Rock of Ages final teaching. It’s in the movie too.
Dr said (paraphrasing) he was glad that God didn’t call a bunch of goodie-goodies to this ministry, but a bunch of downers and outers like you and me!
Downers and Outers know that they have some serious work to do on their walk.
Goodie Goodies don’t. Oftentimes they have such a good surface that they never look at the pride festering inside.
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A simple guy
Mike,
I've never read a more convoluded, demeaning and condescending bunch of hogwash in my life, well...at least since I left TWI.
Sorry for wasting your time, obviously you couldn't respond to the content of what I wrote so you chose to make me out to be some sort of a straw dog. I thought we might actually be able to discuss the reasons why you made the statements you did. I guess not. I was genuinely interested in this.
Not anymore.
That you chose to respond with personal attacks and insults is telling of your own lack of security in who you are and what you know.
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Mike
A simple guy,
I'm operating with the full awareness that ALL we OLGs disobeyed Dr's urgings to master written PFAL for ten full years, from 1975 to 1985.
I intend to obey Dr's urging to master PFAL as per his last/lost teaching.
I'm always on the lookout for grads who didn’t yet hear of Dr’s last/lost teaching to let them in on this crucial information they missed.
I’m also, sadly, experienced at spotting grads who have no intention of getting serious about obeying Dr’s final instructions, even though they often may have an outward appearance of loving Dr and respecting what he taught.
What he told us to do is simple, yet no one seems to be able to muster the honesty to do it. Many think that they did it enough, and that Dr wasted his final instructions on a triviality as far as they are concerned.
If you want to wing it on what you think you know you will have no problem finding company. I know PFAL is God’s Word even if NOBODY believes it!
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A simple guy
It's true that you can make a religion out of anything. Your standard is yet another standard I fail to measure up to. Fortunately Jesus Christ handled that one for me as well.
You seem more intent on finding someone who will swallow all that you have to say without question than you are in helping people come unto a knowledge of the truth. I don't equate throwing out speculative "cards" with leading someone to God's Word.
When you're ready to trust in his accomplished works and stop relying on your own you might find the satisfaction your looking for.
Straw dog signing out.
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Mike
A simple guy,
It’s grace that we can work.
We have a responsibility to do the best we can as workmen, rightly dividing his Word.
***
Let me try it another way.
In Dr’s LAST writings to us, his last magazine articles, both appearing in the July/Aug 1985 issue of the Way Magazine Dr issued a challenge to all us grads, twice.
The first one is in "Our Only Rule for Faith and Practice" on page 17, right column, in the upper half. There he says (with my highlighted fonts):
"You have to honestly come to the place that you're willing to keep asking yourself, 'Where did I learn what I believe? How did I get to the place where I believe what I believe today?' For the most part, men believe what they have received from tradition and not from directly reading it in the Word of God."
In other words, a self examination should be on-going. I see an implication here that we were NOT doing this at that time. I see that those who are quick to answer theological questions without first getting the whole story in view for a long series of examinations are STILL not experienced in self examinations of the kind Dr called for, which are complete doctrinal makeovers.
When Dr says "men" above I see him primarily referring to leadership of the ministry. I don't see him teaching here about denominational churchgoers outside the ministry. Dr is addressing us grads and he’s saying we were believing was the verbal traditions that grew up within the ministry, what I have called TVTs.
We were not (by that time) forming and maintaining beliefs from directly reading God's pure Word, the written material we were supplied in PFAL. We were forming beliefs not from written PFAL but from our own KJV or Greek research, the traditional approach, and drifting farther and farther from the written revelations God gave Dr and Dr gave us.
This is why in his last teaching (and on many previous occasions) Dr stresses the written forms of PFAL for mastery.
***
The second location of this challenge from Dr is in the Our Times Insight article on page 12, left column, lower half. There he writes:
"We must honestly come to the place of asking ourselves: Where did I learn this? How did I get to the place of believing this? Who taught me this? The counterfeit is so much like the genuine, you have to know the accuracy of the Word to separate truth from error."
The accuracy of the Word cannot be read from the KJV. The accuracy of the Word cannot be conjured up from stale memories, or learned from verbal traditions like sitting through the film class a lot of times. It is written in PFAL for us. PFAL is the genuine from which we can detect the counterfeit.
***
In addition to the twice occurrence of this challenge in one magazine, he also twice (once in each article) decries the "dark clouds that hover over us" due to the traditions of men.
I am convinced that the "us" Dr is referring to here is not rhetoric for "us human beings" nor for "us Christians throughout the world" but is referring to "us PFAL grads."
I believe the traditions Dr refers to here are not things like the trinity or salvation by works. He's nailing our whole scale reverting back to tradition of searching for truth in the writings of men like the KJV, other versions, or the critical Greek texts. That job had been essentially finished by October 1982, as Dr reported at Craig's installation and on that week's SNS tape. In both of those articles he was urging us to take the REAL Bible as our only rule for faith and practice, not some version.
***
In Session One Dr says that the greatest secret in the world today is that the Bible is the revealed Word and will of God. Millions and millions of the world's population believe that their KJV or NIV or Greek texts are the Word of God.
So how come Dr said in Session One that the greatest secret in the world today is that the Bible is the Word of God?
It’s because the millions are WRONG and don’t know that those items are only mere tools to START finding God's will at best, and counterfeits at worst, if leaned on too heavily?
How many people know that God commissioned Dr to commit to writing His Word like it has not been known since the first century?
Hardly any.
THAT is the greatest secret in the world today!
The greatest literal secret in the world is that the written forms of PFAL comprise God's book, the Bible, the written Word of God.
***
THAT these items were printed twice in the same magazine should have arrested our attention!
THAT they also appeared in Dr's very last prepared articles should have arrested our attention.
They should have been the theme at the Rock that year at the very least,
but instead no one (hardly) even saw them.
I plead guilty to this.
Thank GOD! He's given us all a second chance here twenty years later!
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