In Reply to: Re: I really appreciate you too posted by OT2 on February 19, 2010 at 15:09:20:
Dear OT2...others as well...I haven't been well/...sick for many days now ...very bad bronchitis...this time with vertigo (imbalance)...first time in my life with such side-effect and it got me quite worried.It did drive me closer to the Lord and made me repent of some things gone haywire over months and years...it's a bit like being in a habit of blaming God for all the mad-rush and stress going on in every day life, when I just need to learn to have my priorities straight and I figure this time my number was up and looking back I am glad....therefore I respond later than may be I want to normally, but it's important to get back to normal health.This winter was the first time I prayed for better weather ; ) was tired of the frozen land state...well, part of the curse...as we know...
I had a bit of feeding/reading time...pastoral letters and Hebrews...it does talk there also about elders teaching etc & I figure, with the amount of word-knowledge you have, somebody would want to profit of your experiences.Most churches...other than the Darby-type-brethren...seem to have a pretty "strict"/restricted hierarchy.In my church e.g....there is a brother, remarried...sad to say...who actually has gone through a 2 year lasting Bible school-course many years back...offered by some charismatics.I guess he would have "wanted" to also hold once in a while a sermon, as sometimes the preacher is absent due to other requirements or for holidays and then gets usually substituted by some elder brethren.He never had that "fortune" and may be he resented that...if I see that right...anyway to come to the point, he "resorted" to writing his viewpoints down and giving them in print to selected people...(e.g. I have his printed stance against universal reconciliation, for Berg was rather for it - not the only one of course - and that's where I needed also the right viewpoints)
I have anyway a harder time, to make time for some "evening class" or so...due to my work-table/time.Some others start their own website/blog etc....that's where I also found some very valuable information @ 5 years back...though the majority is unfortunately pro remarriage under certain circumstances...never forget, that Pat Robertson belongs also to those, as I also hit his page, while following up the hundreds of hits in the anglosaxon webcommunity...
In the Germanic area it's rather more frustrating to get good, Word-based online counsel...
Recently psychologists were lamenting over the poor state of the western or rather German man, who has hardly any good model/role figures, examplatory men to follow after and this since decades to centuries...I know that my father was almost a bit too mild...my mother more dominant ...my sister is older and my last mate also more dominant ; ) ... I guess that's my view...at least she was ardent about leaving TF and that was the very right beginning...nevertheless she also had no clue about the right attitude towards (re)marriage...TF-influenced etc. I guess that was a big weakness, mistake/sin of mine...of being a man/woman-pleaser in mind and reality to a certain degree, but never happy with that...until the Lord started to give me some "advanced, private lessons", which I had missed all the time....teachers lacking.
We/I could have may be done better right from the start...if the right teachers were available from the beginning...but I sense/believe, that good teachers are really scarce.I try my best to get now at least really good books/counsel via ebay...abebooks etc or websites.
Sometimes people also don't appreciate the good counsel, but that is not really that decisive
After leaving TF the situation was worst, with no internet etc and the first better example/leader...pastor...after throwing Berg
out of my life/mind...was Hudson Taylor the China missionary (and some others)...I devoured his biography in a time I had hit rock bottom...in the separation from my ex.
Not only young boys need role-models, male examples in their life (traditionally since decades the nursery teachers and primary school teachers seem almost to 100% female in Germany)...I am sure children born into Christian families as well.
If they were missing...also as war-casualities/victims...something really got missing too....may be that made me a bit more vulnerable for somebody like Berg...an authority???...just a theory.
Anyway, teaching is a challenge, a calling, even a very big responsibility, to make sure, that it's according to the Word.
That was the big challenge after TF to see what the Word had to say about...tithing...about the gifts of the Spirit/1.Cor. 13:10...what is the perfect etc....the "rapture"...infant baptism..last supper...predestination...universal reconciliation...the list seemed so big...it was exciting and frustrating all in one...for when I sometimes thought of having the best answer, I came later across an argument which had to be "incorperated" into the solution....sometimes with yet an open end.
To my dismay, there didn't seem to be just "one" big teaching book for just one subject covering it all...even paedo/infant baptism is covered by "exegetical" giants of both sides....but in such cases I made a personal decision and can fairly justify that.
The same goes for remarriage...that is "relatively easy"...for other subjects like OSAS...predestination etc. I guess I haven't put my very best efforts yet of reading, studying and prayer into it...My mind tells me, that obviously two opposing theories can't be true at the same time...believing the whole Word of God to be one unit, with emphasis on the new covenant...containing no basic structural contradictions...only apparent/"fleshly" ones...I just give it some more time until "the house is in more order"....but for one I can't believe you can become "unborn" again (totally dead???/He that began a good work in you...)...the question is therefore whether you can be born again, but visibly appearing pretty "fruitless"...or whether it applies to "mass-churches"...where it's unclear, whether the attending church member really repented, asked Jesus to come into his heart, yielding his life to Him (people assuming, that long time members are born again Christians)...it seems the early church was pretty strict about it's membership, but I am not totally sure about it either...judging by churches like Corinth e.g or first chapters of Rev.....some say Hebrews 6 and 10 is not possible for most of us today...because people of today don't witness normally what the early church-people did etc....just an argument to get @ those chapters.
I must say post TF John 15, Hebrews 6 and 10 was just "t h e scare"...especially in the time of separation from my ex...I thought at times, "this is may be it"....so to "digest" that part of the Word..."to actually feeling some benefit" is apparently a long way...that includes also the famous verses about the sin against the Holy Spirit...years ago I read something pretty comforting of Watchman Nee about it...though I am not 100% sure whether that is all the counsel about the subject altogether.
So teaching is may be one of the very big needs of the churches today...counseling from the Word and not just off the head...& not even just with lots of sentiments(heart) like in TF...mingling too many times personal feelings while looking into the Word...very human, but
leads to preferring people by outward appearance, personal preference.....it's easier said than done, since the old man is often not as
dead as professed.
And some exegetical work rubs me sooo wrong, because it pretends to be exhaustive and final and with such claim I almost immediately get "nervous"...because I figure some spiritual pride is most likely involved.Some teachers come so self-assured and haughty across, that I have to force myself extra hard to focus on their good points.
In Hebrews I came also a bit across your "tithing subject"...it seems Abraham did it very willingly for Melchisedek and since he is a foreshadow of Christ, I wondered whether that would tell me anything regarding tithing in the NT...my personal opinion was always contra mandatory tithing...latest at least since the temple got destroyed and even before that regarding Christians, I figure...anyway Paul's collections were on a voluntary basis...that they had expanses then...I'd never doubted.However as history proved, churches then onward spent money on much which is not covered by scripture...including cathedral building etc... Acts 7:48 became one of my "favourite tools" against the "church-systemites"...(When we had a tourist-guide once in Greece years ago, she would explain to us, that the first church-buildings resembled the saving ark...upside down...& was supposed to symbolise that...compared to massive cathedrals etc. they looked "almost cute" )
I think/hope I am not really that haughty/naughty anymore regarding those "church-sytemites"...I know, how many very fine people there are and must be in the various denominations, yet I cannot totally shut out the negative reports/news/informations you get with time about church leaders leading the sheep astray (or sheep "loving the lie"???)...it unfortunately sums up again....but of course it is not as bad as TF, in the very most cases....but at times pretty sad, embarrassing...showing an often poor state of the church after all those massive manhours of pouring over the scriptures in myriads of seminaries around the world in all the centuries.May be I should be rather thankful that it isn't even worse than it is...but frankly I do wonder what the churches accomplished with all the tons of funds they got...sorry, just my "frustration" ...church-buildings in Germany got sold to various organisations...or torn down, because of decline in membership & therefore not having enough funds to maintain the "houses of God" as they are called often still.
If people would have stuck to house-fellowships, local fellowships and a string of very local elders...at least the costs would have been
a tiny fraction of what it has become...the lack of segregation of state and church has been one of the pitfalls IMO...and the easy explanation to me is...rather lust for earthly power and weakness for manworship etc.
I guess you already have something similar to what Ed Priebe said about tithing...I think it's one of the first Exer things I then read
online.
May be it's a bit naughty of me to have laughed (really LOL) about this recent news, but the female head bishop of the German lutheran church, I also lamented already here about, "overlooked" on Saturday evening a red stop-light and got into the focus of a police-patrole:
...the first measured alcohol level was 1,3/mille...later even 1,5/mille sorry, but I cracked up laughing about it....I can't take TF serious anymore, but on the other hand my sympathies for the wrongdoings of the official churches have soon it's limits, simply because a lot of their "foundation" is not on the rock Christ Jesus anymore...not to speak of the role of the churches during WWII or a rather recent survey among lutheran pastors, regarding their faith into the de facto resurrection of Jesus Christ.It's where you rather loose faith or have to tremendously look out for troubles...in those university seminaries here...of course not to speak of all the scandals now (again) of the abuse of children in catholic schools in Germany some decades ago....surfacing now....it's them, who live of a church-tax and the question is justified IMO, if they deserve that to that degree...I'd say no and similarly a lot of fund-raising of free-churches, also charismatic ones...have been very questionable...some was downright fraudulent.It says, we should share with those who teach us...(I do, it doesn't say to which amount)...to help the weak...I do to some degree...could be more....and we can help the poor (there seems no end to that yet)
If anything, I feel "linked"/ one, with the whole body of Christian believers...independant of the local denomination which happens to have my present attention
I do admire the Americans, for their flexibility taking job assignments and making themselves available.I hope and pray, that everything turns out well for you and that all your needs are always met.I do realise, that a lot of things I have and wanted is not actually where it is at...so I have the need to adjust some things (before He adjusts me again ; ) )