The Questions
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1 |
Does not
the Bible say that we are to fear God, yet your
material, Becoming What God Intended, says that
everything we do should be out of gratitude?
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2 |
What, if
any, is the relationship between what BWGI Ministries
teaches and the 12-step programs offered by AA and other
groups? Can they be used together? |
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3 |
How
practical is this teaching about the Trinity?
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4 |
Why would
God need to create the human race?
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5 |
Considering the frequency of miscarriages, why should we
be concerned about abortion?
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6 |
Where in the Bible does it say that
God is a Trinity? |
The Answers
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Q: |
Does
not the Bible say that we are to fear God, yet your material
Becoming What God Intended says that everything we do should be out of gratitude? |
| A: |
Most of the
modern versions of the Bible translate the word PHOBOS
as the word “reverence.” This is because they
recognize that two thousand years ago, the word referred to
two possible meanings: one referring to the emotion fear,
and the other to the attitude of respect. You can see
why they often pick the word respect for PHOBOS in
different contexts. For example, husbands are told to
love their wives (Ephesians 5:28
and 5:33), and the wives
are to respect PHOBOS their husbands. It would
seem implausible that the husband who is to nurture his wife
would want the emotion of fear out of her, especially if he
is to love her as his own body. Nobody likes fear so
why should a loving husband want that emotion out of his
wife?
There is a Greek word DEILIA that means cringing
fear, and we can see in the contexts it appears that it
refers to the fearful emotion: “For God has not given
us a spirit of fear DEILIA, but of power and love and
discipline” (2 Tim. 1:7).
So if a person has a strong fear of God, that indicates that
their destiny may be Hell. For the Apostle John tells
us that it is the fearful who end up in the Lake of Fire,
“But for the fearful DEILIA and unbelieving . . .
will have their part in the Lake of Fire” (Revelation 21:8). We have this advice
from Jesus: “Don’t let your heart be troubled or be
afraid DEILIA” (John 14:27).
The phrase "the fear of Yahweh" or Jehovah (Proverbs 1:7) in the Old Testament is taken
also by modern translators to refer to respect. One
way to see this is that the same root from that word is used
to describe us in the Book of Psalms as “fearfully and
wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).
There it obviously means “worthy of profound respect.”
Therefore, the character that the Spirit of God, the
fruit of the Spirit (Galatians
5:22), produces is love, joy and peace,
and not fear, worthlessness and shame. |
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Q: |
What,
if any, is the relationship between what BWGI Ministries
teaches and the 12-step programs offered by AA and other
groups? Can they be used together? |
| A: |
The twelve-step
program of Alcoholics Anonymous is considered to be the most
effective recovery program in the world. Extensively
used in the United States, it is also found pervasively in
alcoholism-riddled countries like the Russia Republic.
It has a well-deserved reputation. In fact, AA
Recovery has become the model for a huge variety of other
programs (recovery from sex to chocolate).
The BWGI approach that emphasizes the Christian Trinity and
the Christian’s Identity in Christ is not a substitute for
the AA Recovery program. BWGI does have something of
great importance for the Christian Recovery movement that
can effectively supplement the AA approach.
The Recovery Movement is powerful because it assaults two of
the great weapons of addiction: relational isolation
(loneliness) and the availability of the great variety of
addictions. By placing the addict in a group and
supplying a sponsor, the movement assaults the social
isolation that addiction creates, and it also does an
effective job of restructuring the life so that the
opportunities to obtain the addictive material is greatly
diminished. Furthermore, it forces the addicted
individual to openly and repeatedly confess the addiction,
“Hi, I’m Joe; I am an alcoholic.” All of this can be
very helpful. The goal of the AA program is the
restructuring of the life and of the heart.
BWGI Ministries is particularly dedicated to the
restructuring or transformation of the heart.
Countless numbers of people have happily shared how the
material has been profoundly affecting to them. They
have experienced transformation in the inner life.
The seminars, books, tapes, video material, and counseling
all are directed to that aim.
BWGI trains the heart to:
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To
become a liberated observer of compulsions instead
of a slave to them |
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Use the
imagination the way God intended |
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Live
from the new identity in Christ, and not from the
addiction identity |
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Relate
to God as a Father instead of remaining isolated |
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Manage
moods and desires instead of being drowned by them |
Addiction and its behaviors create a
powerful compulsive mindset within an atmosphere of
anticipation, moods, and self-absorption. The BWGI
material is designed to attack that compulsivity by helping
the person to create a completely different approach to the
inner life. The Recovery Movement restructures the
life and relationships and several of the steps deal with
the inner life, but BWGI Ministries specializes in helping
people with the life of the heart so that the dreadful
scourge of compulsion can be nullified and replaced by the
Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy,
and peace.
A person named Janie, who has struggled with alcohol and
prescription drug addiction, described the benefits of the
recovery group and the BWGI small group, “I was blessed to
be in a bible study group of women to whom I could be honest
and open and who held me accountable to dealing with my
addiction issues. And I joined a Christian recovery
group that I still attend. The third thing was that we
joined a small group fellowship where we began studying
the
Becoming What God Intended
workbook. After struggling for about a year, I finally was able to see
past my problem with substances and get my focus on being
loved by God.” Note that her sense of being loved
by God came out of the BWGI material.
She went on to answer why the BWGI material was so
important in the recovery process. “Because I felt like
such a miserable failure in life, I thought for sure God had
turned His back on me . . . Once I got my focus off the sin,
I was able to work through a relationship with God.
I realized that my identity wasn’t as a substance abuser –
it was as a child of God. Then freedom just became
a normal progression.”
BWGI Counseling and materials can be a powerful supplement
to the Recovery experience! As the Recovery Movement
works on reconstructing the life, our materials, small
groups, and counselors work on reconstructing the heart. |
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Q: |
How
practical is this teaching about the Trinity?
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| A: |
The doctrine of
the Trinity is the most practical doctrine in the Bible.
It is not for the classroom, but for life. Determining
our destiny, the doctrine of the Trinity also determines our
everyday happiness. In fact, every believer should be
a practical Trinitarian using the relationship with the
three persons of the Godhead as the basis of moment by
moment Christian living. In a
fatherless world, the practical Trinitarian has a Heavenly
Dad. A growing sense of being loved is present, along
with a sense of personal security. He regularly
experiences the comfort of the Father (2 Corinthians 1:3-5). Emotions,
thoughts, problems and difficulties are regularly sorted
with this Father (Matthew 6:9-14).
In a chaotic world, the practical
Trinitarian has a clear and comforting Identity in Christ (Romans 6:5-6). On a planet without
heroes, we have a hero in Jesus Christ. We can
experience life the way Jesus did (Philippians
3:8-12); we can look at life through the eyes of
the Savior, and are sometimes called upon to participate in
the sufferings of the Savior for His Church.
In a world drowning in powerful emotions
and compulsive appetites, the practical Trinitarian
experiences a tranquil, affectionate, and cheerful life (Galatians 5:22). This person's mind is
regularly changed by the Holy Spirit, and regularly
discovers new areas of life to be influenced by the Spirit
of God (Galatians 5:16).
When the Holy Spirit drops a hint, the Trinitarian can pick
it up and run with it (Romans
8:14-15). Walking by the Spirit, being
Spirit led, and Spirit filled are practical realities.
Throughout the day, the practical
Trinitarian is aware of each member of the Trinity.
Praying to the Father, assuming his Identity in Christ and
the benefits of Christ's life, he experiences the ministry
of the Spirit of God. Having learned Trinitarianism
through a daily relationship with each person, he does not
feel like an orphan in an empty world. Nothing is more
practical than this! |
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Q: |
Why
would God need to create the human race? |
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A: |
This is a very important question. It is a question
that is always addressed in what theologians call “Theology
Proper.” Theology proper deals with the nature of God.
The issue the theologians discuss is whether God was under a
divine necessity to create, or did He have a need to create.
Among Christian theologians who respect the Bible, the
answer is uniformly, no.
The Bible always presents God creating and acting out of His
own desires; no force above Him is coercing Him to act.
Revelation 4:11 says,
“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to take the glory and
honor and power, because you yourself created everything,
and they are and were created through your settled desire.”
He has done everything through His own desires.
The real question is why did God create humanity? A
deeper question is why did God create persons, not just
human, but spirit beings, or what we call angels. For
all of life the answer is that God has made all for His
pleasure, or the joy of creation and fellowship.
But the creation of humanity plays a deep and wondrous place
in the work of God’s creation of all intelligent life.
Initially, at the creation of Adam and Eve, a reason is
given, and it is quite clear in Hebrew, that God said, “Let
us make humanity in our image and likeness, in order that
they can rule . . . . (Genesis 1:26).”
The first expressed purpose was that God wanted the earth to
be governed, and he needed a great governor, so He used
Himself and the other members of the Trinity as His model.
As we go further into time and into Scripture a deeper
reason develops. It shows itself in the book of Job,
where Job is used as an illustration to Satan of someone
refusing to disavow God in the midst of confusion and pain (Job 2:1-6). The motif of humanity as an
object lesson is introduced, and then it is deeply
underscored in the Book of Ephesians, where Paul wrote that
he was an apostle who was to make known “ . . . the
dispensation of the Mystery which had been hidden from the
ages by God . . . in order that it should be made known now
to the ruling spirits and authorities through the church,
the multi-faceted wisdom of God, according to the purpose of
the ages which He had made in Christ Jesus our Lord (Ephesians 3:10-11).” A major purpose of
humanity is to be used as an object lesson for spirit beings
concerning the character and grace of God.
You see, in Scripture there is no salvation or grace for
angels; it is only humanity that God has chosen to take hold
of and bring out of its sin, only humanity and not
spirits... “It is obvious that God does not help
angels, but He helps the children of Abraham (Hebrews 2:16).” So it is only the earth
and humanity that has experienced grace, and it is only
humanity that has been made as physical representations of
the divine. That is why Peter says angels are stooping
down and looking upon what God is doing on this earth (1 Peter 1:12).
So humanity is a reflection of the divine and an
illustration of God’s character and grace. Does that
means that we are like the rabbit pulled out of a hat by a
magician to impress the crowd? That might be true
except for one thing: Christmas and the reality that God has
become human so that He might identify with us, suffer with
us, and die in our stead. With that all of this ceases
to be theatrics and object lessons because God has now
entered into suffering and death through Christ. We
cannot question the motives of God because it was God who
did the sufferings on the Cross. Whenever we get
suspicious of God, we need to look at the Cross.
So the answer to the question of why did God need to create
humanity is that He did not need to but He wanted to.
Out of that desire He used humanity as an illustration to
angels and an expression of the most profound kind of love.
“For God demonstrated His love (agape: His passionate
delight) for us, in that while we were continually sinning
Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).”
But this was than more than just the work of creative
genius; this was His choosing to participate in the
suffering of humanity, and initiating the rescue of
humanity. God gave His human life for that which He
had made. God became flesh and dwelt among us to
become one of us and rescue us! |
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Q: |
Considering the frequency of miscarriages, why should we be
concerned about abortion? |
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A: |
The first thing to differentiate
is that miscarriages and abortions are two different things.
An abortion is a human act with the intent to destroy.
A miscarriage is a physiological event overseen by a great
and loving God. You can see that there’s a twofold
difference: first, who it is that’s in charge and
second, what their motive is in relating to the
individual.
To begin with, I would assert that the developing baby is in
fact an individual and not just a science experiment or
tissue available for research. In nursing school, I
was amazed when we studied the development of the fertilized
egg or ovum which develops into an embryo by the third week,
and at 8 weeks becomes a fetus. Every necessary
primordial tissue necessary for the development of a human
is present in the germ layers of the fertilized ovum.
Many women don’t even know they’re pregnant within those
first three weeks, yet God has made a way for the process of
being knit together to proceed in a precise and detailed
manner.
The germ layers can be represented by an inner, middle and
outer layer of cells. The endoderm (or inner layer)
develops into the lining of the respiratory and digestive
tracts, the primary tissue for the liver and pancreas, as
well as the urethra, bladder and vagina. The mesoderm
(or middle layer) develops into the dermis of the skin, the
wall of the digestive tract, the kidneys and ureter,
reproductive organs, connective tissue, the skeleton,
muscles, cardiovascular system, as well as the lymph, spleen
and pleura. The ectoderm (or outer layer) develops
into the epidermis, sweat glands, sebaceous glands, nails,
hair follicles, lens of the eye, the lining of the sinuses
and ear, central and peripheral nervous systems, oral
glands, tooth enamel, pituitary glands, and mammary glands.
(Maternal-Newborn Nursing,
2nd edition, Olds, London, Ladewig)
By the time the baby is called an embryo at 21 days, its
shape has elongated and become pear shape with a broad
cephalic (head) end and a narrow caudal (bottom). It
also has a heart, which begins to beat by day 28. The
baby becomes a fetus at 8 weeks, and even though it’s only
1.2 inches long, it will contain every structure that will
be present at full-term, including arms, legs, contracting
muscles, lips and major organ structures.
What a miracle to see this tiny creation and to know
that God has a special purpose and plan for him or her!
On the other hand, what a crime to allow doctors to destroy
what is innocent and trusting!
When philosophers bring up the argument that it’s ok since
God does it, they put mankind on a false level with God, or
in other words, they bring God down to a false level with
mankind. Is God in fact the “great abortionist” since
there are so many miscarriages? Or is there a
difference between what God allows to happen and what man
chooses to do? The crucial difference between the two
is that God is God and we are not!
God is God because His will and purpose come from a much
greater heart than ours. Isaiah
55:8 says:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways.
This is God’s declaration to the
wayward Israelites when He urged them to seek Him and to
turn from evil so that they might be forgiven and loved.
It’s no wonder that He can say that He’s different from them
(us)! How can we forgive like He does? It’s
easier to get angry and destroy than to work through the day
to day process of nurturing and caring. God gives us
the great example of nurturing care in the first part of
that same chapter where it says:
Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the
waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come,
buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend
money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not
satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and
your soul will delight in the richest of fare. (Isaiah 55:1 & 2, NIV)
This passage is echoed in the
words of Jesus, hundreds of years later:
Come to me, all you who are weary and
burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon
you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is
easy and my burden is light.
(Matthew 11:28-30)
The Bible clearly put mankind in
a place above the rest of creation when God offered us the
opportunity to be a part of His kingdom, even after we had
fallen into sin. Whenever we’re suspicious of God, we
only have to remember that He gave His son, Jesus, to die a
violent death in order to buy us back into the eternal,
family relationship that was meant for us.
For the wages of sin is death, but the
gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)
How valuable we must be to
Him! Even when we were in our sin, He extended His
love to us:
But God demonstrates His own love for us
in this: While we were still sinners Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
So, if God’s character is
love, why are there miscarriages? Why would God
allow His “earthly” creation to be incomplete? I came
across an interesting fact in
Caring for Women Through the Lifecycle by
Elaine Weil. According to Hatcher et al (1994),
approximately 50% of embryos do not survive the complex
fertilization and implantation process that occurs in the
first few weeks of pregnancy. The chances of survival
increase dramatically to 85% if the embryo survives those
first 2 weeks of pregnancy.
There are times when God doesn’t intervene and allows a baby
to die because sin is involved. (An example would be in
2 Samuel 12 when the
baby of David and Bathsheba died.) There are
other times when there is no connection to sin, but a baby
is miscarried. We don’t know why, specifically, but we
do know that God’s heart of love is trustworthy. He
promises to never leave us in our difficulty. He also
assures us that our life on earth is not an end in itself,
but a journey that brings us to an eternity with Him, and to
a hopeful reunion with our loved ones who have accepted His
salvation. As for the babies who are miscarried, they
are with God since they haven’t yet reached the age of
accountability, a principle from
Isaiah 7:16.
The second part of the argument is how do we know that
mankind should not act as God?
We don’t have to look too far to see our lack of godliness.
Every day we witness the inability to forgive, the lack of
care some parents show for their children, and the
‘disposable life’ attitude held by many who feel they have
the right to take the position of God. This attitude
truly shows that we are not capable of acting in the place
of God. When mankind can consciously choose
wrongdoing, or more specifically, choose to murder the
innocent, it shows we have strayed a long way from the heart
of God.
It’s sad when people only attribute bad things to God (i.e.
miscarriages), instead of remembering that His original
intent and ultimate purpose for mankind is to live with Him
in a close, intimate relationship.
In Exodus 34:6 &7, God
gives a description of Himself to Moses in order to renew
him for the task of leading the Israelites, who were very
rebellious. Moses saw it from God’s perspective; it
wasn’t God’s fault that the Israelites continually chose the
wrong way in the face of God’s rescue and care. Moses
was so disheartened; he wanted the Israelites to represent
God to the other nations, and yet they continuously desired
to follow the same course as the Egyptians who rejected God
and were separated from His goodness. God encouraged
him with these words.
“Then the LORD passed by in front of him
and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and
gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and
truth: who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives
iniquity, transgressions and sin; yet He will by no means
leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of
fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the
third and fourth generations.” (NASB)
This is God’s principle, his
lovingkindness overflows to thousands of generations of
those who accept His ways and obey Him, whereas his judgment
falls on those who reject Him and who teach their children
to do the same - but in a much smaller degree, only to the
3rd or 4th generations.
How great our God is; He’s merciful, He gives us so
much more than we deserve. What better way for us to
honor Him than to trust Him through our difficult moments?
When we see that His great intention toward us is love, our
thanks and our trust in His judgment are natural responses.
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Q: |
Where
in the Bible does it say that God is a Trinity? |
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A: |
The word "Trinity" does not appear in the
Bible. It was derived many centuries ago from the
Latin "tri-unos." Let's look at a brief explanation of
how the Trinity is derived from the Bible.
First and foremost, the Bible is quite clear that there is
only one God. Deuteronomy 6:4
reads, "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is
one!" Isaiah 44:6
also reads, "Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel And
his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: 'I am the first and I
am the last, And there is no God besides Me.'"
Both Christian and Jewish writings in Scripture hold
consistent to there only being one God.
With that said, the passage in
Genesis 1:26-27 that describes the creation of
mankind reveals something interesting about God. The passage
reads as follows:
"Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our
image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the
fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the
cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing
that creeps on the earth. And God created man in His own
image, in the image of God He created him; male and female
He created them.'"
Note that the phrase "Let Us make man in
Our image, according to Our likeness" uses first person
plural and the first person plural pronoun. Likewise,
God created a pair in his image, male and female. This
is an important statement in the Bible which shows that God
is not alone. The key aspect of this is that there is
a relational element to God, otherwise, he could not
have made people who relate to each other.
Moving to the New Testament the
Gospel of John is one of many places that links
Jesus with the God. The gospel begins as follows:
"In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being by Him,
and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come
into being."
There are two things note worthy here.
First, is that Jesus is the Word (see verse 14), and as such
his being is linked to that of God. Secondly, he is
also written as the creator of all things. By John's
statement it is evident that Jesus was not created. He
has also existed forever.
Another passage was written by a man called Paul, who is
credited with almost half of the New Testament. He
wrote in Colossians 2:6-7,
"although He existed in the form of God, did not regard
equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied
Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made
in the likeness of men." Again, Jesus pre-existed
his coming as a man.
While there is not as much written about the Holy Spirit, it
can still be shown that he is God. First, the Spirit
is seen in the initial creation. Genesis
1:2 reads, "And the earth was formless and
void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the
Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters."
Before anything else was created the Spirit already existed.
Paul also wrote in Romans 8:26,
"the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know
how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes
for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who
searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is,
because He intercedes for the saints according to the will
of God." The Spirit is able to communicate to God
the Father exactly what is on our heart, even when we have
difficulty relating to God.
Lastly, Jesus taught something new with respect to God.
He taught about the first person of the trinity being the
Father. The Gospel of John makes reference to this
over one hundred times. In particular, Jesus referred
to the unity of him and the Father in
John 10:28-30, "I give eternal life to
them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch
them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to
Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them
out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one."
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On this page we post questions of general interest that have been
asked in various forms in the past. These FAQ's are presented
here to help you with issues and concerns that are common to many
people today in our confusing and crumbling world.
Brian
Fuery, CEO & President of
US Cancer Management Corp: "God has healed [me], and one of the most powerful tools God used in my own emotional healing was the BWGI material." 