More words of wisdom from Samuel Kitchen who claims to be the TRUE Worldwide Church of God.
He starts off by criticizing ministers who split off and started new Church of God's under their own self-appointed authority.
Where did these men receive their ordination into the ministry? They received it by Herbert W Armstrong, or by ministers ordained by him. The men ordained, believed that it was TRUTH being taught by Herbert W Armstrong, and that the true Church was the Worldwide Church of God.
Now if they didn't believe that, why were they there, and why would they be part of the ministry there?
They made a covenant at baptism and at ordination with God and Jesus Christ, to teach to the congregations what they had received from the apostle!
So they told God "I believe this is YOUR CHURCH"!
Otherwise they wouldn't be a minister of that church would they! Unless they was in it for some other reason.
No, they all believed it was God's true Church!
Now, when it has been established where the true church is, there is no need to go and start another one.
Christ already started one. He sanctioned it.
Simon Magus started a second Church of God!
Was that sanctioned by Christ? Just because he called it a Church of God?
No.
It was heresy.
Kitchen is right that these men were ordained into the Worldwide Church of God by either HWA or someone ordained vicariously through him. That ordination was only valid within the Worldwide Church of God. Once they left that organization that ordination was technically invalid, though the history of the church for decades prior to the great upheaval prove otherwise. The church used to revoke the ordinations to prevent apostate renegades from starting new churches using their ordination status. That quickly fell by the wayside in the 1970s when so many were being kicked out and were starting new groups, including Garner Ted's various groups.
We need to get back to being the Worldwide Church of God. These organizations are establishing a heresy, which is different churches apart from the apostle.The Worldwide Church of God is orientated towards Herbert W Armstrong. If anyone tells you it's orientation is towards heresy, their witness is false. Why would they not keep the orientation towards Christ's apostle? Ask yourself that!
This is where the start of the downfall of the WCG began. The church was oriented towards HWA instead of Jesus. Any COG that focuses on HWA instead of Jesus is false, plain and simple.
Aren't they just wanting to direct it away from Christ's apostle, and leave it there, while they go off and do something else?
Anything a real Christian church teaches is directly ONLY at Jesus, not some leader, apostle, bishop, or bumbling chief overseer. The focus should never be on the leader's teachings, his booklets, his articles, or his video programs. Church members should be able to dump all that literature in the trash and know exactly where they stand with Jesus and never have to reach back into the putrid pit of trash to search for an answer in a booklet. The entire focus of the church should be on Christ and the New Covenant.
Wasn't it their job to orient the people towards Jesus Christ and His apostle, to finish the job given the Church?
The only job the church has been commissioned to do is to direct people toward Christ and the rest that is found in him, not towards some apostle, pastor general, or god forbid, a chief overseer sitting in California bouncing in his chair.
Instead, they orient the Worldwide Church of God towards heresy, and use that STORY to justify why they started a new church!
Splinter group leaders have always resorted to heresy to justify their new churches.
Isn't they just completing the work of apostates, by providing another choice?Heretics oppose the apostle of Christ. True ministers orient the Church towards Christ and His apostles!
The church never was oriented towards the apostles. There was nothing sacred or important about them. It was their message that the people understood to be important. They were nothing more than human vessels delivering a message.
When humans look toward an apostle or pastor general they put that person on a pedestal above Christ, the New Covenant, or anything it teaches. They end up being the all-knowing ones, which soon goes to their heads and they turn into narcissistic assholes.
So heretics started new churches or at least put out that idea and made it more convenient for others to do that very thing.These new churches, are founded on heresy.
Agreed!
Those who support the apostle, have to accept the reorientation of the Church.
Those who accept Christ understand that THEY need to reorient the church towards him and not some human leader.
They teach the congregations to orient themselves to these new churches and their leaders. Then they use the history these leaders have with WCG, and that's what keeps them in the ministry!!!! They won't be ministers if that wasn't there for them to use!!!So if they gotta use Mr Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God to stay ministers, to show they are ordained ministers, then it's gotta be important.
This is the only reason any of them have for justifying their present ordination status, except for Bob Thiel who was NEVER ordained by a Church of God minister. Worldwide Church of God, Global Church of God, and Living Church of God all refused to ordain him. All three found him unfit to be a leader in the church. So,
Go back to what was taught! Reorient yourself with that! These are new churches, using association with the Worldwide Church of God and with Herbert W Armstrong.No, there is no new church sanctioned by Jesus Christ!!!God says to purge ourselves from this heresy that is DIVIDING THE PEOPLE UP!
Amen to that!
New churches is heresy!Now is that truth or is that a lie?
The only name the Church of God can really use today is the Old Covenant Church of God as they do not recognize the New Covenant at all. Instead, the law reigns supreme while Christ is shoved into the back room and held hostage which he is dragged out occasionally to make them sound super religious and Christ-oriented. Then back into the dark recesses he goes, so that the slobber fest over law-keeping can rear its ugly head again.
Respectfully, two points for the Kitchen clan's consideration.
ReplyDelete1. There are NO APOSTLES NOW, nor have there been for 2000 years. The Bible clearly states that an Apostle had to be trained and sent by Christ Himself. Calling HWA an "Apostle" is outrageous. Unbiblical and flat out heresy.
2. If WCG was "the" one true church as claimed (although, again, that is unbiblical), it would not have been destroyed. It would still be running as in the "good old days" of the pedophile who ran it like an eastern block nation. Surely they know the oft repeated "Gates of Hell will not prevail against it" verse. Well, the gates of Hell DID prevail against WCG and that should tell them all they need to know.
There is One Body. The Body of Christ. Born again, orthodox believers of all denominations, all over the world. HWA did not even remotely understand the new birth in Christ and was shamefully embarrassed by Him. Do they genuinely believe this was a New Testament, Holy Spirit led, Christ believing church teaching Christian doctrines, as practiced for the past 2000 years? Their dear apostle was an incestuous rapist, egocentric, insecure little man that loved money and power more than he ever loved Jesus. The Kitchens near worship of him is idolatry and God is not a fan. The two sins He tells us over and over again throughout Scripture that He hates the most are unbelief and idolatry. They should really have a good long look at what they write. It is dripping with idolatry. A non Christian, heterodox cult that was classified as such by all the Christian Apologetic organizations of the day and is still in Walter Martin's Kingdom of the Cults for a darn good reason.
As the chart shows, rightly or wrongly, HWA himself WAS the leadership of the church. He set the doctrines and everything else, like it or not. All the talk about how the STP was supported by the leadership is nonsense unless HWA approved of it, which, as far as I know, he did not. Unless, perhaps, he was not told what was really in it, or they changed it on him.
ReplyDeleteChanges, what changes?
The DW interpretation is only one interpretation.
ReplyDeleteGood thing that Paul and the Early Apostles were members of the Worldwide Church of God, and knew of HWA!
ReplyDeleteAnd if the KJV was good enough for the early apostles it's good enough for me!
ReplyDeleteAnd if the WCG was good enough for the early apostles then it's good enough for me.
DeleteYes, Anon @ 12:14 my "interpretation" is just one interpretation. Here are some of the verses that speak of the things I mentioned:
ReplyDeleteIDOLATRY. Romans 1:18-25 which describes the wrath of God being delivered on those who worship the creature rather than the Creator and 1 Cor. 3:5-9 in particular. "After all. Who is Apollos and who is Paul? Simply ministers through whom you became believers, each of them doing only what the Lord assigned him. I planted the seed, and Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. This means that neither he who plants nor he who waters IS OF ANY SPECIAL ACCOUNT, only God who gives it growth".
INCEST. 1 Cor. 5:1-5.
BODY OF CHRIST (BELIEVERS OF ALL NATIONS AND NATIONALITIES). Ephesians 2:11-22. No mention of any specific group or denomination, just whosoever believes in Jesus Christ, Jew or Gentile. Praise God for that!
Or do you disagree with my assertion that HWA was an incestuous man? The wealth of information about this is abundant and the greatest reason I believe it was true is that HWA never, ever once denied it. Any father worthy of the title would scream bloody murder if accused of such an abominable act. They would take any and all false accusers to court before they would let something that outrageous, if untrue, stay out there for debate and gossip. Especially if they ran a church!!
These are just a very few of the verses that I could cite to backup my assertions. So what "interpretation" do you disagree with? Give me your best counter argument(s) so we can debate respectfully and honestly.
I've said it in the past, and I'll say it again, study early post 70 AD church history to see what the church was really like. It was nothing like Armstrong's Judiac fantasy , or Protestantism, You will discover it's doctrines and it's organization was Catholic. And Peter and his successors in the Roman bishopric were considered the human head of the Church. Nothing remotely resembling asabbatarianism or Protestantism churches existed until the 16th century. The only religions that existed in the Wesrern world were the Catholc Church, after the schism of 1054, the Orthodox Church, various heretical sects, like the Cathars, and Judaism. So, go to your nearest big library, or the internet, and start researching early post 70 AD church history for the true history of the Christian Church.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the major problem of the Kitchen's is that they cling to HWAs fundamental teachings and never build on that. It's like a grown up man still clinging to his mother's skirts as if he's a small kid. The Kitchens are always in elementary school.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened between 30 AD and 70 AD? Yep, I thought so. Not Catholic at all.
ReplyDeleteJesus spoke in Aramaic. Did Jews speak Aramaic? Why didn't he speak Hebrew? Some people think he was a Gentile.
ReplyDeleteJim Caviezel spoke Aramaic
Deleteso did Mel Gibson's castmembers
I went to the library/internet and researched the "true christian church", i.e. the Catholic Church...
ReplyDelete1. Pope Pius XII denying eyewitness reports of the Holocaust.
2. Covering up thousands of cases involving sexual misconduct.
3. Terrorizing Jews and Muslims for hundreds of years.
4. Everything done by Pope Boniface VIII
5. Burning Joan of Arc
6. Burning William Tyndale
7. Slaying countless number of woman as witches
8. Absolving sins for cash payments
9. Imprisoning Galileo in his home for years.
10.The Inquisition
Nice library they are curating, but they have about as much potential for growth as Bob Thiel. Maybe even less.
ReplyDelete