Perspective on Hyperbole
Synonyms
caricature, coloring, elaboration, embellishment, embroidering,
embroidery, exaggeration, magnification, overstatement, padding, stretching
"Realize that a host of logistical details must be worked out
for this to occur. God has been planning this event for thousands of years—at least 3,000—and His
Church has been preparing for it for almost a year. Headquarters and our
ministers will be ready
to receive potentially a great many phone calls from splinter ministers and
members even in the days and weeks before
August 31. Mail will also explode, but we are ready for it. We must do our part
to ensure as orderly a process as possible for receiving God’s people on that
Sabbath."
David C. Pack
Announcement # 23
Humans are hilarious.
In the church of God experience, and really in
most fundamentalist circles, hyperbole or exaggeration is widely used to
inspire and motivate. "We will inherit the whole earth when Jesus
comes." "We will rule with rods of iron." (Frankly
we've already had enough of that on the planet IMHO). "Some will
rule over 10 cities, some 5, some 1...) "The Work is growing beyond
our wildest dreams!" "We are reaching
millions!" "Our income is soaring!" "We will be
Kings and Priests!" "Nations will flow to Jerusalem!"
(sure..right). It never ends.
Dave Pack is probably the best example of
theological hyperbole gone nuts. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING , for
Dave, is spectacular, overarching, awesome, huge, the biggest ever, globe
girdling, mind blowing, stupendous, amazing, will cause your to gyrate
(that was an interesting one), "never before understood,"
"now can be revealed," 'Hidden from mankind for
____________thousand years", and so on.
Dave has done an awesome, incredible and
spectacular job of making a minor prophet in the Old Testament mean what it
never meant and from that false premise flow even more spectacular, amazing,
awesome and mind blowing truths (mistakes) ever known to mankind.
The Bible itself is notorious for exaggeration
so I suppose we have to cut some slack to ministers who quote it and take it
even further than it should ever be taken. Some are relatively harmless
and we can discern what the author is meaning yet stating way overmuch.
A few other
examples of the many hundreds of hyperboles in the Bible are:
“If thy right eye
offend thee, pluck it out…” Matt. 5:29
“If any man come
to me and hate not his father and mother…” Luke 14:26
“Behold, the
world is gone after him.” John 12:19 (The whole world at that time did NOT
follow after him, but very large crowds in Israel did so. This is also
true of Caesar taxing "the whole world," and Noah's flood covering
"the entire earth." )
“The rock poured
me out rivers of oil.” Job 19:6
“The cities are
great, and walled up to heaven.” Deut. 1:28 This would also be true
of the Tower of Babel reaching "heaven."
“Everyone could
sling stones at a hair and not miss.” Judges 20:16. Stone don't really
cut hairs but you get the drift.
Other
exaggerations can be a bit more harmful. “Everything is possible for him
who believes.” (Mark 9:23b, NIV). "Whatever you ask in my name I
will give it to you." and of course the ever present
"Prove me now herewith and see if I won't open the windows of heaven for
you..." concerning give the gods a tithe of your physical
stuff.
The Bible wildly
exaggerates most everything that happened to or for the nation of Israel.
Israel was simply the "most." Mount Zion stood most beautiful ,
the joy of all the land....until you actually see Mount Zion and then all one
can come up with is "Really?" It's a dirt lump.
Size mattered in
Israel. Here's one I bet you never heard in church.
"She lusted after their male consorts,
whose sexual organs were like those of donkeys, and whose ejaculation was like
that of horses." Ezekiel
23:20
"William
Sierichs' article on biblical armies should convince any objective reader that
Yahweh's inspired writers had a penchant for hyperbole. If the great armies of
fairly modern times, such as those that fought in the Napoleonic wars, numbered
only in the tens of thousands, what reasonable person can believe that tiny
Israel and its neighboring nations could have fielded armies that numbered in
the hundreds of thousands? Obviously, then, biblical writers were prone to
exaggeration. " Farrel Till , The Skeptics Review
As a child I was
always impressed that God killed the enemy in such whole round numbers.
From the size of
the creatures in the plagues of the Exodus to numbers of enemy slain by the
mighty men of Israel, it is quite a show. For the rest of this excellent
article exposing the awesome exaggerations in the Bible please take the time to
read the rest of his article here.
For a
spectacular, never before understood and overarching view of the Biblical
Exodus, which was actually a small cultic folk giving themselves an awesome
pedigree see enjoy this. It is one of my favorite topics because even as
a child in Sunday School I wondered how could all those people do that, go
there, care for and poop, under those rules. Today most realize it
is just a grossly exaggerated story and did not actually happen as
advertised. Archaeology shows that the Israelites were actually low class
Canaanites that were already in Isra-El and did not storm the place as exiled
Egyptian slaves. Neither did all the horses of Egypt die two or three
times in the Exodus. :)
Church of God
prophets, priests and apostles tend to exaggerate because the book they fill
their heads with does the same and they adopt the approach. I am sure
they believe 6 million fled Egypt "in one night," but then I doubt
they ever went to Woodstock or watch 50,000 marathon runners "start"
a race. Estimates for the Exodus are that those in the back would not
even move for two weeks in such a crowd and that they would be stepping in poo
all the way to the promised land. The poor folk at the front of the line
would be crushed to death against the rocks or mountains before those in the
back got the message to "stop!!!!!" , or one has never been to a
Rock Concert on the front rows or a soccer match where the folk in the back wanted
to get up front.
So what will
happen in the stupendous return of the exiles from ALL the splinters to Dave
Pack on August 31, 2013? Probably not much. Unless Dave just
declares that all splinters are really in RCG and don't know it and that they
are being led by reprobate ministers who need casting out of the now instantly
imagined RCG. Hey that could happen! Dave says he is not about the numbers,
but I know he is. In the past he has redrawn church boundries to pull in
more to his church without actually having new folk show up. The neighboring
minister only found out when he got a "what the hell is this?" phone
call from a member who had been reassigned to the church next door. This
may prove to be such a thing. Who knows? But I know the past can
repeat itself in strange and weird ways and ideas. I know how Dave
thinks!
Dave told us to
be watchful of strange ideas that he would try to talk us out of as not being
strange at all and to know what he was saying. Alas, I don't think anyone
in RCG was listening or knows what he was saying then or is saying now.
Maybe it's just me.
Those who do
flock to RCG in the normal sense of flocking, especially ministers, will expose
themselves to everyone knowing what they had to go through to be repatriated,
and it won't be pretty. Whatever does happen will be stupendous
however and one of the most amazing things God has ever done in over 3000
years. There won't be room to park on either the most awesome grounds in
Wadsworth, Ohio or in the streets surrounding the Ambassador Center, which I
suspect is DCP's home now, as did HWA, turned into a "Center" which,
of course, you could not just go to without permission or invitation.
At any rate, back
to perspectives. Sometimes we simply have to ask ourselves,
"When the Son of Man returns, will he even find the earth, much less Dave
Pack?" I hope Jesus has a map. I'd be concerned he'd get
started on his return and then say, "Doh..where is earth
again?" We live in a time where we actually do know our place
in the universe. Well most do. When I was younger it was thought
that our one galaxy was "the universe." LOL! Now we know
there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in our universe along with billions
and billions of inhabitable planets. There may be 60 billion inhabitable
planets in just our own Milky Way Galaxy. A billion would be
impressive. A hundred million would be something even.
The tearing down
and dismantling of the original Ambassador College campus has been personally
disturbing to me. Not because of the need to do so but because of the
personal memories and the fact that it was a symbol of decisions made and
others not. Walking those sidewalks and sitting for hours in those
buildings of the most spectacular, awesome, overarching, amazing, biggest and
best work of God on the planet had it's effect. While not a part of the
lives of the vast majority of humans on earth and in fact few actually ever
heard of HWA in his lifetime, those are my memories. I suppose it is
the classic symbol of the reality in life that nothing lasts,
everything and everyone goes away and what seemed so important in the past
can now seem so stupid. We end up with, "Oh well, I meant well
and I was young and impressionable.
Well, be
impressed by this and recover your true perspective before August 31, 2013
rolls around and will, of course, roll right on by.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured the color images of Earth and
the moon from its perch in the Saturn system nearly 900 million miles (1.5
billion kilometers) away. MESSENGER, the first probe to orbit Mercury, took a
black-and-white image from a distance of 61 million miles (98 million
kilometers) as part of a campaign to search for natural satellites of the
planet
These two photos looking back at earth were taken last Friday
while Dave Pack was issuing his latest screed number 23 on awesomeness. Do
you see him right there a little to the left and up a bit? Me
either. Do you think you'd see anything from here:
This is how things look 14 billion years ago. The light is only
now getting here to your eyes. All this may no longer exist. This is how
it was. Not how it now is. And it may be only one of many universes.
Dave Pack could use a good dose of humility in
his world of the awesome and stupendous. Those who follow him or think to
follow him could use a good dose of reality and personal self esteem and
have some boundaries where others can't manipulate and dazzle them so
easily. In reality and aside from religion, we are all one and the
same. We weren't plugged into the universe. We sprang from
it. The iron in your blood was blown out of exploding stars and the water
you drink is billions of years old and has passed through every living creature
that ever lived even if you did not know or believe such creatures ever
existed. All the water that ever existed still does on the planet.
Just like HWA before him, Dave Pack is amazed at
how amazing his "work" is and how awesome his small piece of dirt in
a small town in one country in one state on one continent of several on one
planet in a small solar system around an insignificant star in one of
billions in a galaxy which is one of billions in one universe of which we
may only be one of billions like grapes on the vine, is. It is
silly and insulting to an open and clear thinking mind.
Perspective is not something COG leaders are
known for. They think way too highly of themselves and promote themselves
with ridiculous titles that would be hilarious if they weren't so dangerous to
the mental, emotional and spiritual health of those that fall for their exaggerations
and self centered ego. Let's pretend this video starts right on top of
Ambassador College # 3 in Wadsworth, Ohio and then ask yourself whether you
think August 31, 2013 is going to be much of anything except in
the recesses of a very small and cloistered mind , haunted by religion and
making some minor prophet who wrote 2500 years ago to his own times mean what
it never meant....
Here is the best sermon you will ever see in
your lifetime...Let him that has eyes to see ....see this....
