LCG: Can the Bible Be Understood By Anyone Outside Living Church of God?

 

Living Armstrongism continues to do a great job in picking apart articles in various COG publications. He recently reviewed an article by Mark Mendiola in Living Church of God's Tomorrow's World, "The Bible: A Book for All Time."

Today in LCGland Mediola's writings are no longer used since he left the true faith and he went with Dave Pack for a while before jumping ship to the wackadoodle Church Of God Faithful Flock. 

In September 2006 Mendiola left LCG and joined Dave Pack's Restored Church of God. Around 2008 he left RCG and joined Don Billingsley's Church of God-Faithful Flock. He was credited as helping to produce COG-FF's magazine, The Philadelphia Remnant, as late as 2012.

Anyway, on to some points from his article that Living Armstrongism delved into:

The fourteenth issue of LCG's recruitment magazine, Tomorrow's World (September-October 2001), featured an article by Mark Mendiola of Pocatello, Idaho entitled "The Bible: A Book for All Time." (pp. 16-19.) This was the twelfth of several articles Mendiola would write for this recruitment magazine. Here Mendiola praises the Holy Bible and cites Christians who disagreed with many of Armstrongism's dogmas to praise the Bible but then he says the Bible cannot be understood until one chooses to obey (LCG's interpretation of) God.

COG propagandists in various publications love to trot out Christians who support the Bible and go out of their way to find comments and antidotes to publish on the veracity of the Scriptures. But then, as usual, will immediately turn around and call them so-called Christians because they do not understand the Bible as the enlightened COG leaders believe they do.

Christians throughout the centuries have understood the concepts of the Bible, especially grace and justification, even though COG leaders do not. Yet those followers of Christ are ridiculed and mocked because they are not law-keepers and members of the true church. They are pagan Sunday worshippers.

Mendiola also cites some other persons like Jeffery Sheler and Grant Jeffrey but, again, they belonged to Christian churches which worship on Sunday thus, according to Herbert Armstrong and his imitators, they bear the mark of the beast. Why does Mendiola cite people who worship on Sunday when he belonged to an organization that teaches that worshipping on Sunday is a terrible thing? 

 

He also cites Charles Sellier and Brian Russell but those men did not appear to have been affiliated with any Armstrongite organization. Mendiola cites all these people to praise the Bible but he does so selectively. He chooses to cite certain words of theirs to say the Bible is of religious importance and reliable but, at the time this article was written, he disregarded anything they say contrary to Armstrongism by choosing to be a follower of LCG.

COG leaders and most ministers have no foundation in real biblical hermeneutics and instead rely upon booklets and articles by previous church leaders and ministers, with the assumption that those people were actually trained in real hermeneutics.

COG leaders and ministers all assume that they and they alone have the "true" understanding of the Bible and because of that claim, NO ONE can understand the Bible outside of a specific COG, in this case, the Living Church of God:

Then after praising the Christian Bible he insists that the Bible cannot be understood unless one chooses to obey (LCG's interpretation of) God.

Amazingly, the Bible even predicts many would not understand it and would consider it cryptic. Most people in the world are drunken with false doctrine and ideas that blur the precious truths contained within its pages. Many consider it sealed. Others think they are not educated enough or must be fluent in Hebrew or Greek to understand it. Even ministers are confused about its teachings....

Jesus Christ said that His disciples would be given the spiritual discernment to understand the hidden truths of the Bible. He told His disciples that He spoke in parables so only they would understand the mysteries of God, and the world at large would not .... 

 

The Living God who inspired the Bible must open our minds to understand it as we show Him a willingness and humility to obey His instructions. ... Obedience to God is the key that will unlock for you the truths of the Bible: a book for all time!

The Christians who have died defending the Bible down through the centuries and understood it beg to differ with LCG's narrow vision. The Christians who have died at the hands of terrorists over the last 50 years also beg to differ.

Also, when has the Living Church of God or even the broader Church of God EVER been obedient to the Bible? The Churches of God as a whole cannot agree upon anything and continue to split into irrelevant useless little groups because none of them will be obedient to the word they claim to follow.

Ultimately, this belief is an excuse to cover up the reason people are not joining COGs these days.

Among the Armstrongite organizations it is taught that one cannot join unless (Armstrongism's interpretation of) God open that person's perception to begin to believe Armstrongism. This explanation is quite useful in explaining away why most people do not convert to Armstrongism after learning about it.

Living Armstrongism: Reading Mark Mendiola's Article, The Bible: A Book for All Time (2001)

UCG: Will You Be Allowed Into The Top Quadrant On UCG's New "Love Map"

 

And people wonder why so many look at today's Church of God being so confused:

John Miller began the presentation by explaining that a lot of energizing work went into the Strategic and Operation Plans that the committee will present and a lot of people contributed to them. The plans build on what has been done before and add to it. 

 

The essence of what is before the Council came from a spontaneous moment in the August 2021 Council workshop during a discussion about Truth in Love. Truth in Love provides a roadmap to achieve the Church’s vision. The concept is simple enough that a child should understand it. 

 

Turning the Page From Old to New: Aaron Dean said that adding scriptures to the plan would be beneficial to the entire Church. In the plan that is being presented, you will see the same plan in two different forms. The second layout is the recasting of the existing plan in a new light to help the Church to move ahead spiritually. It adds a spiritual scale alongside the existing physical elements. 

 

The new plan format will allow pastors to give sermons based on the strategic plan. We expect significant enhancements and modifications to the proposed format in the coming years. 

 

In the presentation, he demonstrated that markers in the old format Operation Plan show where the same elements show up in the restructured plan. 

 

Mapping the Path Toward Living the Vision: John Miller reminded the Council of the Church’s vision statement and the importance of mapping a path to fulfill that vision. This plan will provide more opportunities for more engagement at a local level so that every member can do their part. There is a lot of pent-up opportunity for people to get more involved. 

 

Truth in Love Map: Aaron Dean said that everyone in the world lives somewhere on the Truth in Love map. God the Father and Jesus Christ live in the upper corner of the top quadrant. Others live throughout the other quadrants. We seek to move on the grid toward a goal to “Be Like Him.” If you are in the top quadrant, no matter where you are in that quadrant, you are okay. 

 

We hope that all elders and members will be in a culture of truth in love. We want to practice servant leadership and make meaningful relationships, practicing truth in love to become more like our Father in heaven. We all want to live in that top quadrant, but there has to be a change in each of us to change the culture of the Church.

UPDATED: United Church of God Draws Up Short List Of Potential Leadership Candidates And Their Requirements

 

Apparently, the United Church of God has named the following men as the potential figurehead of the church.

Aaron Dean

Peter Eddington 

John Elliot

Joe Greene

Darris McNeely

David Morker

Rick Shabi

Steve Myers

Mark Welch

These are the qualifications that UCG wants them to have:

Dan Dowd, chairman of the Roles and Rules Committee, led the Council through a discussion on the information the Council would like to see on resumes submitted by potential candidates for Church president, as indicated in the Process and Timeline for Selection of President document.

Every member was able to weigh in on various items they would like to see.

Mr. Seiglie says he would add something based on 1 Timothy 3, where it describes requirements for a pastor. It is important that a man not be a novice and has an amount of spiritual maturity.

Randy Stiver agrees and says having a pastor’s heart is critical to being a good president. Other technical skills can be hired. Pastoral skills are more important than technical skills.

John Elliot asks if an item could focus on the individual’s ability to teach. The leader of the Church must be very God-centric, focusing the home office staff and ministry on what Jesus Christ is doing.

Jorge de Campos says he appreciates the comments made regarding a pastoral heart. He says the resume should say how a man handles things in a loving way, and the experience he has in that. We should be asking how a person applies concepts on truth in love. He says a person can be knowledgeable on things in the Bible, but have pet ideas that are divisive.

John Miller says the qualifications from 1 Timothy need to be in the forefront, and the president needs to be somebody that can clearly articulate the Bible. If he also has business experience, that will be helpful too.

Dan Dowd says he not sure how 1 Timothy 3 can be quantified in a resume. It can show job history. He says a business background is important for a resume, and that can include projects worked on within the Church. He says we will have questions for candidates that cannot be quantified in a resume.

Paul Wasilkoff says that knowing these candidates are coming from the General Conference of Elders will be an advantage to us. We will generally know these individuals. He says that we do not want to exclude elders, and only consider pastors. He also encourages asking the candidates for background on their international experience. It will be important to learn if a candidate will be able to adapt to serving international areas.

Scott Ashley and John Elliott introduced documents from 2013 and earlier, that were used during previous selection processes. Len Martin suggest we don’t spend too much more time this evening and instead use the existing documents as the basis to proceed. He then asks if the Council is comfortable sending the documents that exist to the Roles and Rules Committee and then discussing any edits by e-mail. There is a general consensus to proceed in this manner. Scott Ashley forwarded the documents to the Council chairman and chairman of the Roles and Rules Committee.

PCG Makes Passover Story About Themselves Than That Creature They Call Christ

 

Leave it to the Edmond Oklahoma cult to make the Armstrong version of Passover into a story about their church, Mystery of the Ages, and the intense persecution it faces daily. I honestly do not think Flurry has an original thought in his alcobol-riddled mind.

Baptized members of the Philadelphia Church of God observed the Passover, a memorial of the beating and death of Jesus Christ, on the night of April 14. Let’s consider the persecution that God’s one true Church has endured to preserve the Passover.

After the PCG beats and kills Christ at their annual ceremony he is left to be swept up with the crumbs and tossed outside for another year.

Flurry leaves his Christ in the dust and proceeds to tell the story of his imagined cult history and warns everyone that there are not many true Christians out there and thus it is easy to prove they are true Christians

Just a few decades after Christ’s death, a dark curtain fell on the history of God’s Church. Concerning this time period, Herbert W. Armstrong wrote in Mystery of the Ages, "Already the curtain was rung down on the history of the true Church. You read of it in the book of Acts, but it doesn’t go much beyond that. But the curtain seems to lift, and we begin to get a little bit of the history in about A.D. 150. There we see a church calling itself Christian, but it’s a totally different church, as different as night is from day, down from up, or black from white. But it called itself Christian." 

 

Notice what Edward Gibbon recorded in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: "The scanty and suspicious materials on ecclesiastical history seldom enable us to dispel the dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the Church." Mr. Armstrong often referred to this time period as "the lost century" because in secular history, as he wrote, "the history of that Church was lost." 

 

The book of Acts ends abruptly, several years before Paul’s death. John wrote his epistles and the book of Revelation around A.D. 85 to 90. 

 

Continuing from Mystery of the Ages: "Scholars and church historians recognize that events in the early Christian Church between A.D. 50 and 150 can only be seen in vague outline—as if obscured by a thick mist." (This is the same "lost century" he referred to in The Incredible Human Potential as occurring from A.D. 70 to 170.) Some Bible authors who wrote after A.D. 50, such as Peter, Jude and John, provided some details of the A.D. 50 to 90 period of Church history. But the primary purpose of their writings was not to chronicle events of the day, so the history of that period remains obscure. And the obscurity grows far thicker after A.D. 90. 

 

Mr. Armstrong quoted from a book titled A Handbook of Church History, by Samuel G. Green: "The 30 years which followed the close of the New Testament canon and the destruction of Jerusalem are in truth the most obscure in the history of the Church. When we emerge in the second century we are, to a great extent, in a changed world"(emphasis mine throughout). 

 

We do have some insight into this obscure time from secular sources. However, an element of caution must be used when studying secular history regarding the first- and early second-century Church. It is extremely difficult to tell who was a true Christian and who was false. As historian Edward Burton wrote, "The fugitives from Jerusalem … while some became true disciples of Jesus, others, as in the case in spreading of new opinions, may have imperfectly learnt, or ignorantly perverted, the real doctrines of Christianity" (Lectures Upon the Ecclesiastical History of the First Three Centuries). From secular history, the one measure we can safely use to determine which people were part of God’s true Church and which were not is the doctrines they taught.

Dave Pack Has To Move His Goal Posts After Jesus Fails To Return On Passover and Night To Be Much Observed

 

By now none of us should be surprised at the mental diarrhea that leaks out of Dave Pack's brain anymore. Week after week, month after month, year after year, he has been feeding his members some of the most absurd bullshit imaginable that they think is coming from God. Every time he opens his mouth the goalposts are changed, timeliness redefine, and dates clarified with "new understanding". Each and every time it has been an outright lie.

Just when you think he can't bet any crazier, he now says that the Feast of Tabernacles is a reenactment of Passover. So in effect, you are celebrating Passover every six months!

The RCG source for this states:

 

Gotta give it 5 🌟 at this highlight for HOW BAD it is: "IN FACT, the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles in the fall is actually a RE-ENACTEMENT OF THE PASSOVER so that God in effect has THIS Feast kept every six months, not just every year."

Here is Dave's latest: 

The full update:

"Greetings from Headquarters during the most important time of year!

We trust you had as profitable a Passover as we did here. By now all God’s people worldwide in RCG (and all other groups) have had opportunity to take the symbols, and it has BECOME clear this was ALWAYS God’s intent! So much turns on the willingness to remember Christ’s death and a Christian’s attitude while doing so (I Cor. 11:26-31). For MANY REASONS that have also NOW COME INTO FOCUS, this was ALWAYS to precede the days we are awaiting—the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread. There is STILL GREAT reason to be expectant!

CONSIDER FIRST that we are entering the Night to be “MUCH OBSERVED” (Ex. 12:42)! THIS IS the ultimate day to “guard” in Abib, kept through all Israel’s generations. NEXT REMEMBER that the exodus from Egypt began on the First Day of Unleavened Bread.

Ask: WHAT DAY then MIGHT God start the Kingdom of Israel?

Also recall Christ’s command to “Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning…like unto men that wait for their lord…” (Luke 12:35-36). This instruction TO US has unmistakable roots in the Old Testament Passover/Night to be Much Observed! God commanded, “And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded…for I will pass through the land of Egypt this night” (Ex. 12:11-12). Much more could be said here! Now a little more big picture…

The Bible in MANY ways, and in many, many places, is the story of the seven Days of Unleavened Bread! It is these seven days that are referred to variously IN PROPHECY AS: one week—the last days—the evil days—those days—these days—the days come—the days of the Son of Man—and His days. The date of the New Testament Passover simply does not begin these seven days and is in NO way part of them. We were a day early in our watch! Unleavened Bread BECOMES our guidepost, SPECIFICALLY the Night to be Much Observed (Ex. 12:42).

As important as the New Testament Passover is, the Night to be Much Observed was celebrated 1,500 years before Christ’s sacrifice was memorialized, and it will continue through ETERNITY while the Kingdom’s arrival means the New Testament Passover will never be kept again. Of course, both are central—and that is an understatement. But one was ALWAYS intended to be transitory, and the other one eternal in purpose. IN FACT, the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles in the fall is actually a RE-ENACTEMENT OF THE PASSOVER so that God in effect has THIS Feast kept every six months, not just every year. PONDER THIS FURTHER and all of the relevant verses that you can think of while you await tonight, and maybe over the dinner table tonight...

It is easy to imagine that God is waiting for all saints worldwide in all groups to demonstrate that they kept both nights before a decision is made as to WHO STILL REMAINS within God’s Plan.

Brethren, we KNOW our Bibles and God’s Plan. Stay encouraged and focused on the parallels God would expect us to note going into this all-important Feast. Enjoy this special evening unlike ANY other through the year—while looking forward to what God APPEARS poised to do! We cannot think or know the hour—but we are all certainly praying that Christ arrives this year.

In Christ’s service,

David C. Pack"