"Rod must know that he has failed to qualify for the kingdom. His mental state can't be pretty."
And when it all didn't work out as advertised, Paul said,
"For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing."
2 Timothy 4:6-7
As long as one obeys, prays, pays and stays in their particular split, splinter or sliver, this will be the near last words of every Church of God minister when the time comes for them personally.
This is what qualifies them right?
22 comments:
Nonsense of course -- these narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths and borderlines are losers looking for power, profit and narcissistic source.
Now if we could just find someone somewhere who sets a viable good example, we'd be set.
Dennis,
We both know that the couple in Acts was killed by God for LYING to God about holding back the full price of their house. A straw man argument on your part, naughty, naughty. Which reminds me, Satan and his demons have also failed (Rod will have company) to qualify for eternal life. Ezekiel from memory mentions Satan being reduced to ashes.
No more Satans in Gods kingdom. This is a iron clad rule of God. Your mockery, and 'it's true cause I'm a (ex)-minister' doesn't change the reality.
"Qualify" is just a euphemism for "earn."
Don't pretend to define my "true cause" anon 9:24
PS. The story of Annanias and Saphira is a PARODY and a "Don't follow Peter from Luke on Paul's behalf for Peter, just as this story, saying one thing..he'd never leave Jesus and doing another...denying him
How do you qualify for a job? Education and experience. Pattern. Type and antitype. As it is below, so it will be above. Want to rule cities as your reward? Better run for mayor.
The problem is that "qualifying" is an Armstrongite code word for stuff you can supposedly do only do as part of "God's True Church". The big thing that makes that so cultic is the authoritarian form of church governance, so qualifying involves learning to live submissively under it without using the Ancient Chinese expression "Yuck Fou!" on your minister, deacons, and apostle or prophet. Also, you must learn to savor all of the very precious knowledge imparted to you at church, and to accept it unquestioningly. You learn to delight in being weird and less prosperous. These are but a few things. The list includes whatever your minister says it does. Ask him. He's got all the answers.
Or you can accept Jesus as your personal savior, live a victorious life, and develop Kingdom skills that have nothing to do with Armstrongism. But, that isn't qualifying so much as it is gaining useful experience, as you live under grace.
If you think you are "qualifying" living physical life as a mechanic, why would God pour a can of mayoral experience into your soul and let you rule cities? They tried to pour experience into people at Ambassador College and send them out to rule congregations in cities, and look at how that worked out for everybody!
BB
I think I meant. "don't presume" lol. Yeah..that.
There's no sense pretending anything about qualifying with Armstrongists: Herbert Armstrong wasn't qualified to be a minister, wasn't qualified to teach college classes, wasn't qualified to advise people on anything, and as sure as death, taxes, revenge and the fury of a woman scorned as well as a few men, he wasn't qualified to ordain anyone either.
It sort of runs downhill from there: Roderick Meredith isn't qualified to do, say or teach anything religious, as being a rather clueless false prophet and neither are his competitors, like David Pack, Gerald Flurry, Ronald Weinland and absolutely anyone trained at Ambassador College.
Armstrongists:
Unqualified and incompetent.
"Yuck Fou!" lol, which reminded me of Mr. T's "I'm no fool" but I found sumpthin better...
"WWE asked me to be in the Hall of Fame, and I turned it down. You know why? They put Pete Rose in the wrestling Hall of Fame. This guy can't even get into his own Hall of Fame." Mr. T
DBP
BB
Run for mayor?
Let's see. President Carter was a peanut farmer, Ronald Reagan was a actor, as was Arnie. Obama was a 'community organizer' (ie a thug), Margaret Thatcher was a chemist, Jesse Ventura was a wrestler, Christ was a carpenter etc.
Studying the bible daily should make the mechanics of the world, competent in human relations and ethics. Hardly your common mechanic.
Dennis,
It's hard to imagine greater mental gymnastics with your "Annanias and Saphira is a PARODY..." Your 'interpretation' of it makes David Pack look like a honest man. It makes it hard not to define your "true cause."
Hmmm, you still expect us to regard your comments in 'minister mode,' i.e., blindly accepting your opinions as the gospel truth. You have come to the wrong site if you expect that.
"It's hard to imagine greater mental gymnastics with your "Annanias and Saphira is a PARODY.."
I understand not seeing the story behind the story. It is easier just to think it's a story about Peter/God killing two church members for not giving all the money they said they would.
But there is a politic to the NT and a battle for supremacy of followers and belief. Paul (and by extention Luke, author of Acts which is really all about Paul being made to appear more compliant and cooperative than he really was with the Jerusalem Apostles, was no friend or believer in Peter. He withstood him face to face in Galatians and bragged that he learned nothing from Peter, James and John in giving his Gospel which he got from no man etc.
John, did not wish his followers to follow Peter because , he was a Judas to the cause even though "all fled" including John I would think when Jesus was arrested. Judas betrayed, Peter denied. No difference, don't follow Peter. He sends this message in his Gospel with the process called "Intercalation" or better, "sandwiching" when each time he mentions Peter, he first mentions Judas, then Peter, then Judas again. It was a way to send a message in the story that Peter was like Judas.
1. John 6:63-71 2. John 13:1-11 3. John 13:21-27= Judas/Peter/Judas
Judas betrayed/Peter denied/No difference/Don't follow Peter.
The Annanias and Sapphira story is a strange one and has been hotly debated by theologians as to how Peter, a man , known for bragging about never leaving Jesus and denying him...who said one thing and did another could be so literally murderous to a young couple who did the same over what they said they'd give and what they did give.
PS The "all things in common" thing was because Jesus was coming soon. Never meant to be a church way of being for all time. When more wealthy Romans came into the church, it ceased.
But I have to keep reminding myself, this is the wrong place and audience for such discussions. My bad.
My original point was on the concept, you just don't hear in many churches, on "Qualifying for the Kingdom of God" or heaven for that matter . Seems to fly in the face of the NT message of grace and forgiveness.
I am sure back then, just as now, there were competing camps as to just how one "made it."
Dennis
Your 11.56 PM explanation is interesting. But, as many have mentioned here recently, Occam's razor might be the better explanation. That is, God (not Peter) killed the couple for lying to Him.
"Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor) is a principle from philosophy. Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. In this case, the simpler one is usually better. Another way of saying it is that the more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely an explanation is. Occam's razor applies especially in the philosophy of science, but also more generally."
People here are evasive about Satan and his demons. How does the grace thingy and Christs forgiveness apply to them?
Dennis...It took me not even one line into your shallow reasoning of your comment that is was written by you. I've heard it said over and over again how Paul this or how Paul that, you obviously don't have any real understanding about Paul at all, only your own atheist way of reasoning and thinking. You never give up trying to justify what you believe by trying to push it on to others, but it's okay, we can see through it.
It's not the "atheist" in me that finds the actual content and reasons for it in scripture fascinating. These are the views of many better at it than myself. I grew up soaking in the Bible long before I got soak in it again by WCG and can't help but notice the discrepancies, cultural and errancy issues.
Paul as founder of Christianity and at odds with all other apostles is a common understanding among theologians. Sunday School teachers not so much.
But again, wrong audience and wrong context and will endeavor not to stray
Anonymous February 17, 2017 at 1:38 AM, your claim of using Occam's Razor by including an undetectable agent (your god) in your explanation is the very antithesis of the simplicity Occam recommended.
Let me give an analogy. Now that our son no longer lives in our house, it is harder to explain how my tools get misplaced or permanently lost. The reason? Gremlins. Mischievous invisible gremlins take them away.
Which is more credible--that I made up a story multiplying the number of beings inhabiting our house, or that I have a natural tendency to forget where I laid things down?
It was the principle of Occam's Razor (although I had not heard of the rule at that age--nobody at Ambassador College ever mentioned it) that turned me toward skepticism as a freshman. Everybody said the mysteries of the Universe are easy to understand. God did the whole shebang with miracles. Simple.
I thought, "Wait a minute. The Universe is hard enough to explain, all by itself. But at least I can see it. Not all of it, but enough to know it really is there. How can we clear up the mystery by resorting to something even more mysterious, and undetectable besides? That just makes the problem worse. Infinitely worse. Literally."
Dennis is talking about uncorroborated stories written down by human beings. Which is simpler--that one of them had an ax to grind and made up details to suit his own purposes, or that some great heavenly gremlin assassinated a couple?
Retired Prof
Answered prayers are not "undetectable besides." Which is why yours and Dennis's atheistic intellectualising is water off a ducks back to people like myself.
Occams Razor was being applied to the interpretation of a few verses in Acts.
But applying it to the existence of the universe is questionable. The atheistic big bang theory is very similar to God creating the universe. Kapoof, one second it's not there, the next second it is. Mysterious in both cases.
"atheistic big bang theory "
The theory, is a scientific one, not an atheistic one. It is not concerned with inserting a God, magic or a miracle into the theory. While, of course, it is amazing and hard to comprehend with the current human limitations of thought, it is a fairly sound theory and the evidence, so far backs this phenomenon. Add to it the possibilities we are merely one grape on the vine in a row on one farm of many grapes and universes and it's all quite wonderful. If it proves to be in error, unlike religion, science will regroup and keep looking. Religion has often had to yield to science. Science done well has yet to yield to religion as it goes from hypothesis to experimentation to theory , peer review and to acceptance...for now
God will never get into a test tube and turn litmus paper blue.
I find it amazing at how religious fundementalists take advantage of all the results of "scientific naturalism" and try to spin it as if God did it, while claiming that non-religious people are denying God and are going to go to hell. And they are the ones who are the least educated in what the Universe has to offer.
Madness.
DBP
Dennis declares, "God will never get into a test tube and turn litmus paper blue."
If God actually did come into contact with litmus paper and failed to turn it blue, that would suggest that, in spite of widely held opinion, the concept of God is not basic.
I know some Orthodox Jews who expect their G-d would turn litmus paper red. They assume he is Hasidic.
Dennis
The big bang theory is not the only theory out there. Your claim that it is separate from God is debatable as well. From
http://www.big-bang-theory.com/
"Is the standard Big Bang theory the only model consistent with these evidences? No, it's just the most popular one. Internationally renown Astrophysicist George F. R. Ellis explains: "People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations…
Any discussion of the Big Bang theory would be incomplete without asking the question, what about God? This is because cosmogony (the study of the origin of the universe) is an area where science and theology meet. Creation was a supernatural event. That is, it took place outside of the natural realm. This fact begs the question: is there anything else which exists outside of the natural realm? Specifically, is there a master Architect out there?"
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