Quote:
Originally Posted by Nell
Early on, in the 1970's I remember the Lord's blessing on the sharing of the word. It was so powerful that I came to believe that "this is IT". That's when I became the "frog in a pot". The water started to heat so slowly that I didn't notice. That is, more and more questionable teachings and questionable behavior came into play. I turned a blind eye because of the early (what I believed to be) outpouring of the Spirit. Pretty soon, the water was boiling.
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Nell,
I think this is a really good way to put it.
But I think that even when we thought we were fact checking, I am now convinced that there was often a fog over our minds. Even when we were not yet fully "insiders." It goes like this . . . .
I recall that before every meeting in Dallas back when we first started in late 72, eraly 73, there was a chalk board that seemed to be covered with verses. And they were going to at least make quick reference to virtually all of them. And allow some time for a few to read some of them almost in pre-reading-like cadence. And we were still going to leave some time for "prophesying" at the end. So if there are going to be two meetings on Sunday morning (there always were in those days — I have no idea about now), then you are going to be presented with a whole lot of verses. And a some of them were not necessarily really on the topic. They were there to underpin that there are verses for everything that is said.
By the time that they get to the thing that we should have fact-checked, even if we recognized it as the important one, we were somewhat stoked with correct verse-teaching synchronization of all the previous ones such that it was often easy to miss how it was not really in sync on that one. And once you get through that message and out the door, you are at least partly on board.
In effect, every meeting was a small shrimp boil. And every one of those small shrimp boils melted into one big shrimp boil that just cooked us for good. In other words, we may not have been totally cooked for some time, but the nonsense was always coming. And we still missed it.
It has to be that way or there would have to be separate meetings for new ones to keep them form just getting hit with the malarkey on day one. Even in 89 there had to be enough setup for everything said so that it could pass muster for at least
some newcomers. Otherwise there would only be members who started before (pick a date between 63 and the mid to late 70s). Everyone else would face a boiling pot and avoid it.