Friday, May 12, 2017

The One Word Never Before Understood




hy·per·bo·le

nounRhetoric.


Obvious and intentional exaggeration.

An extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally, as “to wait an eternity.”.


Revelation 6

12And when I saw the Lamb open the sixth seal, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black like sackcloth of goat hair, and the whole moon turned blood red, 13and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, like unripe figs dropping from a tree shaken by a great wind.14The sky receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place.


One would be quite enough





Revelation 9

15So the four angels who had been prepared for this hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. 16And the number of mounted troops was two hundred million; I heard their number. 17Now the horses and riders in my vision looked like this: The riders had breastplates the colors of fire, sapphire, and brimstone. The heads of the horses were like heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone.…


I'm assuming you  heard their number wrong and made up the fire and smoke part.


Daniel 7:27 + Matthew 24:31 + Mark 13:27


[27] And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom UNDER THE WHOLE HEAVEN, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him. [31] And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, FROM ONE END OF HEAVEN TO THE OTHER. [27] And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the UTTER-MOST PART OF THE EARTH TO THE UTTER-MOST PART OF HEAVEN.


That's quite a streeeeeeetch!

The untrained ministry of the Splits, Splinters and Slivers needs to grasp the word Hyperbole if they are ever to teach the Bible as it was written and meant as a Book for it's time but not for these times.   Dave Pack's sermons would be ever so much shorter if he'd not struggle with trying to make his views both Old and New Testaments literally true. He'd not try to illogically connect a long thin Mt. Zion with his long and thin compound spewing out footage by length and width as if it mattered.  It doesn't.  He'd not bend and twist his mind and thus his sermons around every imagined detail that somehow has to be literally true and "figured out."

If they ever understood the word, Hyperbole they'd all stop weaving tall tales on how it all will be. No one would end up worrying about Petra and what to do with the dog or unconverted children and they'd cease making absolute fools out of themselves boring or scaring their members half to death.  










SaveSave

COG False Prophets Eating Crow, Once Again. Yummers!



For decades, the Church of God, through Herbert Armstrong, Garner Ted, Rod Meredith, Gerald Waterhouse, Almost-arrested Thiel, James Malm, and others, have been hyperventilating that the United States was suffering from its worst drought ever and would never recover.  Food supplies would soon run out and parents would start eating their children and people fought over food.  Famine would lead to pestilence and death as bible prophecy came alive. Their eyes would almost glaze over in orgasmic delight at such scenarios happening.

As usual, every single one of them has been proven liars once again.  None of us ever need to fear the lairs in charge of various COG's.  Their prophecies lies are constantly failing.
Deuteronomy 18:21-22 ESV / 35 helpful votes
And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.
 Almost-arrested Bob Thiel has been claiming that the California drought would destroy the state and it would never recover.  It was a sign of the end times, proving once again that the time is near to flee.  Rod Meredith has done the exact same thing.

Notice this story:
 US drought levels fall to lowest point in years

Just 5 percent of the United States is experiencing drought conditions, the lowest level of drought here since government scientific agencies began updating the U.S. Drought Monitor on a weekly basis in 2000.
Record rain and snowfall over the winter on the West Coast and heavy spring rains in the Midwest have alleviated some of the worst and longest-lasting drought conditions ever recorded.
The word on the street in Arroyo Grande is that all of the butt-hurt salve has been sold out in all of the stores.

The Journal: News of the Churches of God: Issue 194


Issue 194 of The Journal is out and includes a recap of the Ambassador Report gathering that was held after the Ambassador Reunion in Las Vegas.  Various individuals connected with the Ambassador Report told their stories about their magazine and the issues they went through in getting it out to the public for people to read.

There is also an article about the New Church Lady Conference that was sponsored by Church of God International, Christian Educational Ministers and Dynamic Christian Ministries.  This conference sounds much more refreshing than the tired old Proverbs 31 woman routine that the church used to foster off on women in the glory days of the church gone by, as they tried to keep women tied down to the 1950/60's kitchen/saran-wrap culture of the church.  Since it is 2017, it is refreshing to see them stepping outside the box.

There is a great letter by Reg Killingsley about Victor Kubik's recent tirade on The Shack (book and movie).  Kubik wants people to burn the book.  How dare they find "truth's" in a book of fiction, when they have so many fantastical stories from the Bible that he knows to be 100% actual events. Since Kubik has never had a real theological education outside a COG environment, he is unable to discern how Bible stories using allegory and myths can convey eternal truths, even though the events were not actual events, but this idea fries the brains of too many COG leaders.

A time to refrain from burning 
[The Shack, by William Young, has been a best-selling book since its publication in 2007, and in 2017 a movie was made based on its story. 
[Recently United Church of God president Victor Kubik reviewed The Shack (see tinyurl.com/kubik999) and found it wanting. 
[In this letter a reader of THE JOURNAL reviews Mr. Kubik’s review.] 
Can you be a bibliophile and burn books? In his review of The Shack, Vic Kubik appeared to be preaching to the choir; he probably won’t persuade many Trinitarians. 
And therein lies the problem: Is The Shack a novel and film based on a novel or is it a theological exposition? 
If it’s a novel, shouldn’t we just take it on the author’s terms? 
In a review we might choose to say that any relationship between biblical teaching and the novel is, in our view, purely coincidental. 
But to burn it down? Say you didn’t mean that, Vic! 
Book-burning has a long and ignoble history. Book-banning has like- wise been the bane of churches and cultures. 
So it comes as a surprise that seekers after truth should seek to suppress a work just because they believe it reflects heretical views. 
After all, don’t Bible students realize that one man’s heresy is another man’s orthodoxy? 
Pan all you want, but don’t ban. Or burn. 
It’s like junk food. Just let people know there are other, healthier options. Encourage them to make good choices. But then let them choose. 
Douse the flames. Don’t fan them. 
Reginald Killingley Big Sandy, Texas 
I imagined the real issue that Kubik has over the movie and the book is that it portrays God as a black woman.  In the church of God this is the ultimate blasphemy, God being black AND a woman! Even worse, the Holy Spirit is Asian!  Lord, have mercy! Ghastly Days!  What's a poor COG minister gonna do?????

Like any book of fiction, no one takes the story literally, but as a journey with the divine to find comfort with eternal Christian truths.










James Malm will be sure to be incensed at an article claiming that Jesus will NOT be marrying the church.  Ouch!

There is even a short update by our own Ian Boyne on the Church of God International in Jamaica, which seems to be growing while other COG loose members.  Maybe he is on to something... :-)


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