In Reply to: Re: in addition to that posted by A Philosophy Doctor on December 31, 2009 at 12:20:59:
At the maximum you could perceive IMUO Peter..St.Peter... as primus inter pares...you have much of a church hierarchy nowadays and as you pointed out, who checks those in charge?...on the other hand I have been told, that some congregations are much more governed by the elders and they throw out any pastor which doesn't suit them...or as I also heard, they dissolve about all their bickering..sad.
The thing is...who says how much prophesying is there still necessary?...if you have the solid/written Word???Karen and Stephen are superflues IMO...only the immature TFers don't realise that...they want to be breastfed forever...all that sillyness about the paps of their father or mother...whatever...so sad...but then funny for the outsider and/or for us once you have overcome that weirdness.
History repeats itself...just look at how Tertullian was attracted in older age by the "charismatic"...Montanus-movement..with their "prophetesses"...you have then the exact opposit...the Aloger, I think their name was, who didn't trust any "new wine" and had problems with the book of revelations, to accept it, if I am not mistaken.
I accept of course revelations, but I stay for my own safety, so to speak, pretty far away from any
"wild fire"/charismatic movement...meetings... since @ 10 years & even then just listening to some teachings.
I think/thought, that TF happens to be a syncresis of much of the once existing ideas & movements..wifesharing/matesharing you are supposed to have encountered according to believable sources in the early days among the gnostic Carpocracions...the "saint-worship" & the hierarchy the catholics provide TF with, universal reconciliation Origenes and others taught/thought...nothing too new by TF...rather a late "symbiosis"...
With lots of these sectarian outcrops one thing seems to be common to me: they kind of worshipped their new idea/interpretation of the Word and magnified it out of proportion, with hardly any body/forum to check the veracity of their "prophecy"/teachings...You will see/agree, that the letters/Paul teaches, that someone should check the prophecy/interpret the tongues...even in the founding days/years/decades (greetings again from Eph. 2:20...they/the prophets were rather - to me- the foundation, but we're way beyond the founding times)...the better way according to 1.Cor. 12 is found in 1.Cor.13 and that happens to be real love...that is higher than anything else...but not the eros type of TF...it's agapae...too bad, the English/German has it rendered mostly just with love, where the Greeks had 3 different words (at least)...
that's where Berg's ignorance (I personally doubt it was all too planned on his side...he was spiritually blind/misguided...the blind leads the blind) caused a lot of harm among very ignorant hippies (of biblical matters)...too bad that the Jesus People also got sucked in, who had better knowledge.
So who checks Stephen and Karen?...people full of the truth (besides God Himself, but apparently they still get more rope??!!!)...His word and also some logic, where they become illogic by their own terms...e.g. prophecies of people, supposedly departed, though still alive LOL
But I wouldn't worry about false shepherds/prophets ā la Karen and Stephen or whatever their names...they either repent and show, that they were once in their very early days genuine...in that moment of prayer, where they must have had simple childlike faith in Christ...I like to assume...but then fell for some very strong/strange deception.
I don't know, whether you remember that, but when I was fresh in India in the beginning of the eighties 82/83 or so...it was promised by WS to put out a book with all the fulfilled prophecies of Berg...I was looking forward to it...and out came the 2 MOPs...I was a bit surprised/disappointed then...because I got something else then what I expected...nonetheless I used a lot the verse-collection
But TFers know more about Berg's and Zerby's Bible-versions/interpretations...then any alternative understanding...they don't compare...because they pretend to know directly from God and sheepy/stupid TFers believe that...very sick...but I think God wants to ultimately heal those errant people or some??
If you read the letters to the churches in Asia in the first chapters of Revelation, well, from that & other I would expect some more "clubbing" of TFers for all the defiance, twisting and wickedness they /we indulged in...I am expecting there more/enough chastening to knock some sense into them...
and in some regards, churches ain't/weren't always better in their behaviour than TF/the super shining examples...that is my sad lesson outside, but still muuuuuuuuuuch better out then in....& if I think of it...how "good" am I really?...if anything at all, it's His mercy & goodness and none of mine...if anything, I might hinder His goodness in/through me...though I am not wishing that...of course.
But one thing I like to stress: the simple gospel is sweet & dear to us/me...however there is also a very "meaty"/mighty truth as well....themes, where generations of theologians didn't seem to make too much progress, like the origin of evil or predestination vs. free will etc., that isn't so simple & sweet anymore...to me those themes show though, we are dealing with infinity here and not unlike Gödel in Math...some things seem so impossible to decide (even properly to talk about)
just my 1 1/2 cents....