Is the COG Belief in Zechariah 14:16 a "Profound Misunderstanding"?

It's that time of year again - time for COG Members and families to go forth and celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, in obedience to the prophetic writings of Zechariah in chapter 14. For the COG Community, because the Bible Says It, you then must do it, as a commanded convocation, and this is enough reason for them. Let's look at Zechariah 14:16 and it's commentaries:

¹⁶ And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. ¹⁷ And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain. ¹⁸ If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. ¹⁹ This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.
²⁰ In that day “HOLINESS TO THE LORD” shall be engraved on the bells of the horses. The pots in the Lord’s house shall be like the bowls before the altar. ²¹ Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holiness to the Lordof hosts. Everyone who sacrifices shall come and take them and cook in them. In that day there shall no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts. (NKJV)

Zechariah 14:16-21 Matthew Henry's Bible Commentary (Concise) (Bolding mine) 

"As it is impossible for all nations literally to come to Jerusalem once a year, to keep a feast, it is evident that a figurative meaning must here be applied. Gospel worship is represented by the keeping of the feast of tabernacles. Every day of a Christian's life is a day of the feast of tabernacles; every Lord's day especially is the great day of the feast; therefore every day let us worship the Lord of hosts, and keep every Lord's day with peculiar solemnity. It is just for God to withhold the blessings of grace from those who do not attend the means of grace. It is a sin that is its own punishment; those who forsake the duty, forfeit the privilege of communion with God. A time of complete peace and purity of the church will arrive. Men will carry on their common affairs, and their sacred services, upon the same holy principles of faith, love and obedience. Real holiness shall be more diffused, because there shall be a more plentiful pouring forth of the Spirit of holiness than ever before. There shall be holiness even in common things. Every action and every enjoyment of the believer, should be so regulated according to the will of God, that it may be directed to his glory. Our whole lives should be as one constant sacrifice, or act of devotion; no selfish motive should prevail in any of our actions. But how far is the Christian church from this state of purity! Other times, however, are at hand, and the Lord will reform and enlarge his church, as he has promised. Yet in heaven alone will perfect holiness and happiness be found."

Such an interpretation was never considered in the Worldwide Church of God Days. Zechariah 14 - as most of the prophetic writings were in the Old Testament - was taken absolutely literally. Did we ever consider the fact that our literal interpretations of scripture were wildly out of the realm of realism? 

Coffman Commentary:

Any literal acceptance of this verse as a pledge that God will destroy the whole world except a remnant of Jews in every nation, and that the entire physical earth shall journey three times a year to physical Jerusalem to live in tents for a week must be accounted as a preposterous misunderstanding.

There is nothing in the last 2,000 years that resembles a fulfillment of this prophecy, except the repeated triumph of Christ and his gospel in those very lands which once were pagan enemies of the Lord. This verse is a pledge that it will continue to be so.

Yet it is exactly that "preposterous misunderstanding" that the Churches of God hold to - and dearly - when it comes to what they view as biblical support of their steadfast adherence of their unique version of the Feast of Tabernacles. What logistics would be required to literally bring "all nations" to the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem? "You, your son, your daughter, your maidservants, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widows"? Has it ever truly been considered that the city of Jerusalem itself cannot possibly contain all nations within it's gates? 

Have the logistics of food, water, sewage, lodging, sound, meeting (how, when, where) ever been considered? It was our belief way back in the day that a literal (there's that word again) Super-Highway would be built to handle the traffic of all nations. Again. Has anyone considered the logistics? 

Perhaps we were certain a supernatural miracle would have had to happen. In exactly the same way we took other literal prophetic statements - such as the taming of wild animals in the World Tomorrow - to be supernaturally conducted. 

So here's the question. For those who hold on to the "literal interpretation" of the Zechariah 14:16 prophecy concerning the Feast of Tabernacles, I ask you - have you ever considered the logistics - and why is it a figurative allegory to these verses cannot, and does not, to you, apply? If Herbert Armstrong was wrong about over 200 "prophecies" in scripture - then what makes him so right about understanding Old Testament prophecies such as the Zechariah prophecies? 

I will tell you on my end as one born and raised in the Church - it was taken absolutely literally, not figuratively. I was not told how these things would happen, just that they would happen. This led to more of a sci-fi like understanding of how these events would transpire in my young mind. Certainly, it would have to be somewhat different for those who came into belief of these prophecies through Armstrong who may not have seriously read these scriptures before. 

Let's have a conversation on Zechariah 14, how you interpreted it then, how you interpret it now, and what it was that made or makes you believe a particular way about this particular prophecy. Please comment below if you are so inclined.

submitted by SHT

New Book: Grace Communion International - A Giant Step Forward

Grace Communion International (former Worldwide Church of God) has released a new book co-authored by Greg Williams, Rick Schallenberger and Tom Nebel.

It supposedly documents the continuing "miraculous transformation" of the church into a mainstream denomination.  This can be considered Book 3 in a trilogy of books documenting the "transformation" of the church.

Amazon has this to say:

The last significant books written about Grace Communion International were authored by Joseph Tkach and Michael Feazell in 1995. A lot has happened over the past two decades, so this book is an update to anyone who may be looking in and wondering “What has transpired with this group that experienced such an amazing grace awakening? Where are they now?” This book does a pretty fair job of recounting the peaks and valleys of the past twenty years.It is a major transition for me to step into the shoes of President Joseph Tkach. It isn’t just a big step for me personally, it is also a big change for our worldwide fellowship. Who is this new guy? What does he have in mind for the next phase of GCI? This book discloses a lot of my personality, big portions of my journey in GCI, and a glimpse into my leadership style. I am excited to serve in this next chapter because I believe the Lord has good things in store for GCI.

Buy it here for 4.99

If anyone is interested in reading it and doing a review, I will post it, good or bad!

Dave Pack: Challenge My Doctrine...You Challenge Jesus Christ!

Adult Sabbath School: What Do You Do When No One Will Ordain You?

Have you ever wondered why:

The Apostle Paul never met Jesus in real life though he lived in and was a contemporary in Jerusalem

Never is mentioned in the Gospels as the Pharisee of the Pharisees

Never debated Jesus in Jerusalem like the Pharisees are said to have done

Never tells a story of encountering or challenging him 

Never relates talking with any disciple of Jesus in Jerusalem

Never quotes Jesus in his Epistles when it would be to his advantage to do so

Is claimed (by Luke in Acts) to have encountered only the risen Jesus on the Damascus road

...but of himself , in Galatians, claims he was called from the womb

...and like Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry and Bob Thiel, ordained himself to his title of choice.  

???

Or maybe?

"All my Christian life people have told me Paul never met Jesus during his ministry. I have somehow instinctively never quite believed it. Why you ask? The main reason is psychological. Paul was driven by such hatred to persecute christians it seems hard to believe he hadn’t met the object of his fury. I suspect Paul had met Jesus, indeed I wonder whether many of Luke’s Pharisee encounters were actually told to him by Paul.

It seems bizarre to me that Paul who was a bright young pharisee (who also seems to have been a member of the Sanhedrin) would not have sought out Jesus to debate with him. Paul seems likely to have been in Jerusalem at the time as he would presumably have been trained as a pharisee. According to this quote seems to have lived in Jerusalem since being a youth having presumably been born in Tarsus.

Acts 26:4-5,9-10 “My manner of life from my youth, spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem, is known by all the Jews. 5 They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee……

I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10 And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them.”'

Adrian Warnock

However, the facts are:

Paul went from a newby baptised Christian with blood on his hands to Apostle  skipping any and all steps in between

http://lavistachurchofchrist.org/LVSermons/WhatMadePaulAnApostle.html

Galatians 1:11-24

I.         Paul was different from the other apostles (Note:  First Hint of trouble)

            A.        He wasn’t with Jesus when he was on earth (Second Hint)

            B.        He was not among the original twelve apostles - Luke 6:12-16      (Third)

            C.        He started out as a zealous persecutor of the church

            D.        How is it that Paul claimed to be an apostle?

II.        Paul did claim apostleship

            A.        He was called to be an apostle - Romans 1:1

            B.        He was an apostle to the Gentiles - Romans 11:13

            C.        He was an apostle of Jesus by God’s will - I Corinthians 1:1; II Corinthians 1:1; Ephesians 1:1; Colossians 1:1; II Timothy 1:1

            D.        He was an apostle by God the Father and by Jesus Christ - Galatians 1:1

            E.        He was an apostle by God’s command - I Timothy 1:1

            F.        He was appointed an apostle - I Timothy 2:7; II Timothy 1:11

            G.        He was an apostle according to the faith - Titus 1:1

            H.        Notice that Paul didn’t just claim to be an apostle, he claimed that it was by God’s will and God’s command.

                        1.         No man made him an apostle, and that includes      himself

                        2.         And he said it was according to the faith

(Note: How convenient)

Anyway...food for thought and the oft used justification for men like Herbert Armstrong,  Dave Pack, Gerald Flurry and Bob Thiel snatching titles for themselves, passed on to them by no one,  in the quest for credibility in speaking for all things God, which they don't. 

If no one will ordain you, just declare it so, no questions asked.

Musings: Why Did I Want to Be a Pastor and Why in the Worldwide Church of God?

_______________said...

"Poor Dennis!

If he had a freind  (sic) here, he surely urge him to seek professiomal (sic) help for the delusiobs  (sic), extreme narcissism, and illusions of grandeur. However, Dennis' state does cause one to wonder if one couuld  (sic) become a COG minister without such proclivities." 

It has not proven a joy, at times, to be the symbol of all some have come to hate.  And believe it or not, I get that. I'm not real happy with my own youthful choices in vocation either.  I worked around ministers in adjoining church areas that were everything I'd hate about a guy if he was my pastor too. Lots of stories but let's move on. 

For years now, I've read the opinions and rancorous projections of many who are pretty sure they know why I became a pastor and how I went about being one. So even after 20 years since, I thought I'd ask myself why I chose to pastor in WCG  and the answer is the same as when I was 18.

(Note:  Nothing new here I know and I know I have told bits and pieces of my journey into WCG before so I also get the "repetition" part. Tune out if you must. I just wanted it all in one place once and a chance for at least a bit of pushback in response to those who actually have no clue as to my motives, hopes and perspective in wanting to be a pastor in WCG. Had I not chosen, and I did chose it, to go with WCG, I know I would have been a pastor somewhere that suited my then beliefs and hopes. I had been accepted at Methodist Seminary as well but chose WCG. 

This is the article I posted a few days ago but removed as I was in the "it doesn't matter" mode. But it does matter to me and I have always appreciated Gary's years ago invitation, as a former WCG Pastor who moved on rather than jumped to yet another version of WCG to share the experience and fully known by name in the interest of transparency and openness.)

So here I share my "extreme  narcissism and illusions of grandeur" with you for the first time, once again.

A Typical Sunday after church visit to see my brother (right) at the Newark State School Hospital in NY.  I guess I'd be about 10 in this pic.

Looking back, one of the main reasons I came into WCG was because of my brother "Freddy"  Born 6 months premature and weighing in at 1.5 lbs, he survived but barely. The pure oxygen they gave in those days destroyed his retinas, his small ear bones and left him blind, deaf and unable to speak . 

After he lit the curtains on fire at home, took the car out of gear a few times in the drive and stuffed a grape down my throat that mom barely saw him do to me and got it out in time, my parents knew he had to be where he could get more care and where our family could have some kind of normal life. So he spent his first 18 years at the State Hospital, compliments of Eastman Kodak and dad's insurance.

Newark State School-NY

Originally the "New  York Custodial Asylum for Feeble Minded Women"

(True!)

Every Sunday after church we'd drive the 30 miles to picnic with him or take him out for ice cream. Anything to get him out and about. Going inside the State Hospital was somewhere between scary and creepy, but by the time I was 10 I had seen, heard and smelled every human birth defect known to man. It may have been overload but it formed the view in me that somehow I was supposed to help fix him and all his friends.  Going to see him after church, the picnic and such was probably the reason I never thought much of taking my own kids to the YMCA on Friday nights growing up or the zoo on after Sabbath church if I did not have to speak at two locations. I know some think that proof of my lack of WCG conversion etc, but I didn't grow up in WCG so did not have the same mindset to begin with.

I spent years feeling guilty, as a kid, that I had parents, a home, my own room and bed while my brother had to live locked in and sleeping with all the smells, (he could not see or hear them) of the hospital and the other handicapped children. I used to keep a good eye on my parents walking the halls to find him because I was always afraid they'd lose me and leave me there for a day or so until they came back to get me. Just how kids think.

I wondered what the inner world of my brother was not being able to hear, speak or see.  I still do as he is still alive.  We communicated through touch and had our own sign language that only we all understood. He went to Helen Keller Institute because the State paid for it but we knew he'd not understand a think about what they were trying to teach him.

In the Rochester Christian grammar school I attended, I prayed every day, out loud, for his healing. The teacher even wrote how nice that was I did that on my second grade report card.  I had a caretaker and fixer  view of life from a very early age.  It was what lead me into WCG.

I was 14 when I visited my WCG newbies sister and brother in law in Boise, Idaho. They were soon to go to Pasadena as "married students." They too went into the full time ministry with myself to follow a few years later.

Fred Coulter, a bit of an austere and scary guy as I recall at 14 gave the first sermon I heard. But he talked about the Universe for some reason and of course that got my attention. No Presbyterian minister ever did that!  But then he quoted a verse that I had never heard in my entire religious life in church up to that point.

Isaiah 35:4-6 ^{4 S}ay to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you." ⁵Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. ⁶Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. I was hooked. I never heard that scripture in a Presbyterian sermon.  I wanted that for my brother and all his "friends".at the State Hospital.  I knew I had to be a part of a church that understood that and taught it. I probably decided then and there I was supposed to teach it too and in someway free my own brother from the prison of his own, literal blindness, deafness and inability to speak. 

Of course, I was young and naïve. 

I skipped through booklets like the US and BC in Prophecy. The New Testament cared little about who was who. Even I knew that as kid. But "Does God Heal Today?" and "The Wonderful World Tomorrow. What Will It Be Like?", I wanted to read to my brother but alas...well you know. 

When I was ordained a local elder in Mt Pocono, the first human I anointed for healing as James 5:14 now gave me the right to expect and the laying on of hands to do personally as a "minister", was my brother.  I went up to his room. Touched him to let him know I was there and anointed him.  Maybe this was part of why I was "called".  Um...well Freddy and I had a good laugh as he sat quietly wondering what the hell I was doing.  He still can't see, hear or speak 47 years later. LOL, or not LOL depending.

 When I respond with "well you don't know me very well" I mean it a very deep level based in a lifetime of experiences. I can't help that I have moved on in loss of faith in faith and lack of belief in what, to me, are now just myths and stories designed to give a small cultic people a huge pedigree while they languished in captivity. 

I can't help that I don't see why any God has to behave as the Bible God and be so out of touch when promises not to be..

 I can't help my love for science and seeing what I see in the realities of the evolution of all life on this planet including myself. We can argue our prejudices and faith restrictions til proverbial cows come home, but in my world of study and seeing the evidence and at times holding it in my hands, evolution is simply a fact (known in science jargon as a "theory" even though in religion a theory is thought to be a mere opinion).

One final experience and then I'll start to let you go...

When I had come to the end of my rope with WCG and the twin demons of depression and anxiety had taken root, I spent a week in a Charter Hospital in counseling and getting my brains back in my head. I had a short list of people close to me that were allowed to visit and only one day a week. They didn't want anyone from my past or present interfering with my program.  However, one day, in comes ___________, a minster and high up in WCG  (and still in another splinter)  for a visit.  I didn't want to see this person. I thought he had come to fire me but he only threatened that when I got home. Wish he had. But he asked me "What have you learned in here?"  I began with a story about my brother and how it affected me but he interrupted me and said "Yeah, yeah...I know all about your brother. What else did you learn?"  I think I made something up as I seethed and for the first time in my life heard the words "fuck you" pass unimpeded though my mind.  It felt good.  I wish I had said it out loud.

I haven't thrown babies out with bathwater in my view. I am not only reacting to "Armstrongism."  I'm not interested in destroying faith or taking crowns.  My entire life has been soaking in religion and the entire journey and experience has lead me to this place now.

It's my journey and just like yours, I am entitled to the lessons and experiences it provided me with. Being an "a-theist" is simply another kind of result you get when one becomes dis-illusioned with religion but why would one want illusions in religion to begin with?

It started when I was about 10 visiting my brother at the State Hospital every week after Church.  The story is ongoing as I enter year 70

And I'll have to end  with one of my favorite Eckhart Tolle quotes:

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.”

― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

Thanks for listening...

...and that's all I have to say about that