Of the many aspects, you read about prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures, no a single one of them spent half of his waking hours each day tryi9ng to prove to others that he was legitimate. Deep down they knew they had a calling and went forth to the world, no holds barred. Their God spoke directly through them. Not so much today in 2018 though.
Today the Church of God is filled with a myriad of mentally disturbed men who think they are conduits of God's word. They have no qualms about lying to church members with one absurd false prophecy after another. Many of these believe they are God's prophet and don't have a second thought about it. Well, that is except for one.
That leads us to our favorite eternally-bitter, self-appointed prophet, Almost-arrested but not-arrested Bawana Bob Thiel. Bawana Bob is once again dragging Norm Edwards into this legitimization process.
The Great Bawana to Africa writes:
The article is quite long after this.Norman Edwards, a former board member of the old Global Church of God, wrote an article Need Prophets More than Prophecy. Norman Edwards granted me permission to post the article in its entirety (because of potential copyright issues, I rarely post articles in their entirety unless permission has been given/suggested). The following is from a file Norman Edwards emailed me:Need Prophets more than Prophecy
by Norman Scott Edwards, Shepherd’s Voice MagazineThis writer can still remember the excitement he felt when he first heard a preacher explain that the Bible was a prophetic book, and we could understand the events of our time in advance by reading it. The preacher explained that the prophecies of the Bible were complicated and often symbolic. He also said a firm grasp of world history was necessary to properly distinguish the fulfilled prophecies from the ones in the future. This task obviously exceeded the capability of fledgling Christians, so I needed to get his booklet on the subject. And so many others have had a similar experience, and were excited to take in the book, video or seminar where the future events of prophecy were all explained for them.
Bawana Bob, Prophet to Africa then continues:
Seriously? Yes, you did just read that unadulterated nonsense!Norman Edwards runs the Church Bible Teaching Ministry and has been the editor for Shepherd’s Voice magazine. He is not part of the Continuing Church of God, where, I function as its human leader (and am an ordained prophet; the only known such prophet in any legitimate Church of God group).
While Norman Edwards and I have long disagreed about aspects of church governance and various matters of doctrine (and I would have suggested a different title, etc. for his article), we both agree that many who are in or claim to be in the Church of God (COG) wrongly do not accept that God has any prophets today. We also agree that most have severe difficulty to identify one who really is a prophet because of various unscriptural biases and improper criteria that they have.
As if Norm Edwards seriously believes that Bawana Bob is a real prophet. I am certain though that Norm does believe there are false prophets presently leading several COG's. That is an easy deduction for about 80% of the people in the COG today.Because of false prophets in a couple of COG-related groups and a disbelief in prophets by most of the COG groups, the non-Philadelphian COGs have a lot of severe prophetic misunderstandings.
As the people of old ignored John the Baptist, the Church of God today ignores Bawana Bob.
The Church of God today ignores Bawana Bob because everyone knows he is a liar. When he made such big deal about a false double blessing to legitimize his apostacy from the Living Church of God, the red flags went up for most church members. Bawana Bob knew he needed to make the first step before Rod Meredith kicked him out. Gaylyn Bonjour's innocent prayer has turned into a doctrine for the 2,900 members he has in Africa.As Norman Edward’s article points out, it is scriptural to now have prophets according to the New Testament. But many who truly believe that they live by the word of God have discounted or overlooked what the Bible actually teaches and/or have been influenced by others who have done the same or worse. The COG has at least one demonstrably true prophet today, yet most in the greater COG world seem to be able to ignore the truth about that, like most ignored John the Baptist and others in their day.
Has there ever been a prophet in the church that spent 99% of his time talking about himself? Other than Dave Pack, is there any other COG leader who is so self-absorbed?
Discerning false prophets
We should learn from this and ensure that the prophets among us are authentic. The Bible teaches that we will know the true from the false by their fruit (Matthew 7:15). We are able to test through the discerning of spirits (one of the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12) and through perceiving their inner motives. We need to be able to recognise those who are false by discerning that they “inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15
If we look carefully, we will say that their gift is being used to serve their own hunger or need (“ravenous wolves”). Their own need for recognition, honour and praise will be their motivation. They will not come primarily to freely serve, but will want seats of honour and power. They will lord it over people and love the fame that their gift gives, rather than being willing to serve without praise or recognition. They may, like the woman in Acts 16:15
Another giveaway that we learn was that this woman was continually “shouting” (Acts 16:16-17 NIVJesus! Who the hell is he? Bawana Bob certainly has no idea because, like false prophet James Malm, prostitutes himself to the law, Catholicism, Mayans, and hundreds and hundreds of irrelevant topics, instead of ever focusing upon what Jesus did and accomplished.
Bob Thiel is not a prophet. Norm Edwards has not certified him as a prophet, and even if he did, Edwards theories on prophets are of little importance to Christians today.
15 comments:
Time is on our side, and Gamaliel is against Bob Thiel. He will come to naught as a prophet, and would be much better off finding a career or hobby that better suits his skill set. Armstrongism is not a ticket to success. Prophesying with Armstrongism as your basis is a guaranteed fail. If you did that, you would have to justify the Armstrongism with its flaky track record first, and then yourself as an authentic messenger. It’s like restoring an old car. If you start with something cherry, the results are always going to be better.
Poor Bob. He continually tries to prove to his audience that he's a prophet. He never misses a chance in his sermons to talk about his dreams or his anointing, while dismissing claims from other COGs. A real prophet doesn't do that.
And he's always making comparisons to show the other COGs have wrong doctrines, are Laodicean, have deluded leaders, etc, yet cries foul when criticized, especially when it's by posts at this "anti-COG" website.
No prophet spends time talking about himself being a prophet.
He was never ordained a prophet by anybody.
He is exactly one of the people types that GTA/HWA/Meredith spent MUCH time writing about exactly who to avoid and who to watch. I guess he feels if he repeats it enough, people will start to believe it, and will stop questioning it and just start following him. He thinks people, apparently, will just tire of the deceptions and just stop calling it out.
One word for Bob.
Nope.
Plenty of documentation to come out from those you esteem that throws cold water on every heretical statement you have made, Bob. Straight from your mentors themselves.
Your pride and ego is overpowering the very edicts of the ones who you regard as your former ministers. Or maybe I should say - regarded.
In all biblical, ethical, and correct standards, you are a Lay-Member who was anointed. Living out your fantasy will never change that, and deceiving people to believe otherwise only proves your illegitimate "ordination".
-SHT
N'dio, Bwana, or should say Sahib? look out for Simba!
A bit of a challenge here for ya, Bob-O. You said, "The COG has at least one demonstrably true prophet today" and that "demonstrably true prophet" is you. DEMONSTRABLY: capable of being demonstrated. So the challenge is what have you correctly prophesied that would demonstrate you are a prophet. Remember, any cheesy, half whited answer that you typically give will be ridiculed by the people here so put some thought into it or just be the stand up guy people know you can be and say, 'I'm not a prophet."
If Bob wants to be a big and important man, he should listen to that still, small voice that he is trying to ignore. The still, small voice that says, "Armstrong duped me." Bob is too proud to admit that he was the victim of a con, so instead he imagines a scenario in which he was not conned and was in fact the central figure of the whole drama.
Bob likes to go on radio stations to tell people how the Mayans and the medieval Catholics foretold of his prophethood. What if, instead, Bob would go on those same radio stations and tell the plain truth:
"My name is Bob Thiel. Even though I was smart enough and hard-working enough to become wealthy in the field of naturopathy, I was still human enough to be the victim of a cult. Because I believed what my leaders told me, I even did my best to perpetuate the cult after I was thrown out. But now I see that I was mind-controlled all along, and I hope to undo some of the damage that i did while in the cult."
Deep down, Bob surely knows that this is true. Listen to the testimony of so many former members, even ministers. Most knew they were conned long before they left the con behind. Even those who have sat on Councils of Elders led by Dave Pack and Rod Meredith and Gerald Flurry have admitted that they knew they were in on a con while they were second-tier leaders in the con.
This knowledge must be tearing Bob up inside. If only he would act on that knowledge and use his gifts to expose the con, he might find the inner peace that the hyperkinetic man with the crooked bookcases is obviously not now feeling.
Boaster Bob wrote: "...I function as its human leader (and am an ordained prophet; the only known such prophet in any legitimate Church of God group)..."
I know of nobody who believes Boaster Bob is a prophet, but I suppose we could all just ask Boaster Bob, who would probably say: "Yes, I da man! I duh man! I duh man! Duh!"
A suggestion for Boaster Bob: go re-read Ephesians 4:11
"And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;"
I say re-read b/c "duh man" still hasn't gotten the point.
Within that verse the word "some" does not exist and should be replaced by the word "the" and read as follows:
"And he gave THE, apostles; and THE, prophets; and THE, evangelists; and THE, pastors and teachers;"
Boaster Bob is not included, nor does he need to be any sort of a "prophet in his own mind."
I am still learning from THE Apostles, and THE Prophets, oh, and Jesus Christ that Chief Cornerstone!
Boaster Bob, I suggest you continue doing the same if/when you can get your mind off of SELF, but will you?
Time will tell...
John
Other COG leaders don't call themselves prophets, but act as if they are. Hence the endless end-of-world dates, this is the last pope, this is the name of the beast leader, this is the last US president etc. Bob is only open about it. He very much craves the title.
I'm not aware of James Malm ever calling himself a prophet.
the challenge
Bob would definitely respond with examples from his books, peppered with cautionary words like "appear", "align", "developing", ... And he may include some fulfilled dreams, disease diagnoses (from his LCG days) and other attempts at answers as you anticipated.
"Armstrong duped me."
"And CCOG is my revenge!"
Q: just what is Wanna B Biggie Bob "smokin"? Like that old song "Smoke gets in your eyes" but
here it seems like brain, instead. "Deee-loozhuns of Grandeur" for sure.
Bob claims to be the ONLY known prophet of the ONLY legitimate COG ,etc. Seeing as how this
has been shown to be untrue then does this make him out to be a "Spiritual Bastard?" Kinda
wonder about that....Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......................
Armstrongism was always supported using good debate technique, but not the scientific method. In a debate, which is basically an exercise in argumentation, the participants either choose or are assigned one of two opposing positions. They then research the materials to support their particular position, and also familiarize themselves with the materials which could demonstrate the weakness of the opposite position, and they then practice articulating. Although in a debate, one side may actually be right, and one wrong, these conclusions are not reached scientifically through the following of an evidentiary trail. Oratory prowess, skills in logic, and persuasive power are judged in determining the winner.
The Armstrongs were not scientists, although they often masqueraded as such. They were skilled in the art of debate, and with no first-person opponents, or moderator, they set the rules or criteria for the debate with their audience, and then proceded to back hapless, unskilled prospective members into a corner, trapping many into a lifetime of tithe slavery, formidable debate skills also enhanced by a healthy dose of prophecy-based fear.
The ministers who have amassed larger followings from amongst the original WCG members, or the new people who might hear their messages, all have one thing in common. They are relentless debaters, as well as skilled orators. And, the size of the group they amass, plus the ability to maintain the size and to grow that group are these orators’ report cards!
Bob Thiel has to spend so much time defending his self-identification as a prophet because he is earning an “F”. James Malm also earns an “F”. Ron Weinland gets a “D-“. David Pack, and Gerald Flurry, ”D”. Amongst all if the splinter groups there are no “A” grades. To earn an “A”, you need to show 30% growth, have identifiable street buzz, and be known to and meeting with international dignitaries. Our old friend Ian Boyne might have merited a “B”.
They all say they have truth. The essence of it all is what are you doing with your truth? Certainly, the parable of the talent comes to mind. What does the term “bury” mean? It means that the talent is concealed and inactive. Dead. (Sardis?)
30% Growth is relative.
3 people gaining 1 person is actually 33% growth.
Now all he needs is street buzz. A 40 and a good long walk, there you go.
Oh yes, and known to and meeting with international dignitaries. It'd be pretty easy to score a meeting with Grumpy Cat. ;)
"How to get an A Grade as a Splinter Group 101". ;)
Bob Thiel is kind of like the cow that thought she was a comedian - - - udderly ridiculous!
The COG has at least one demonstrably true prophet today, yet most in the greater COG world seem to be able to ignore the truth about that, like most ignored John the Baptist and others in their day.
Matt. 3:4-6; And the same John (Baptist) had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathren girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. THEN WENT OUT TO HIM Jerusalem, and ALL Judea, and ALL the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.
Luke 7:29; And all the people that heard him (John the Baptist), and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John.
Matt. 11:7; ..... Jesus began to say unto the MULTITUDES concerning John, What went you out to see?
Distance from Jerusalem to the Jordan, 20+ miles by foot.
I guess the one demonstrably true prophet doesn't read the bible!
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