Chapter Sixteen – A Personal Story – Rewriting Mr. Armstrong’s Literature
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This is an inset chapter, and it is personal—yet it directly involves you!
It involves my PERSONAL STORY of rewriting Mr. Armstrong’s literature—and why I considered this enormous task to be an amazing blessing, opportunity and duty, rather than a burden or just an obligation.
I have often thought that I have lived a most privileged life. Of course, just living in a modern Western nation and enjoying the birthright blessings is enough to make this true. Certainly, having been called into the truth over 45 years ago, and having been able to attend Ambassador College (and when it was on track) makes this infinitely more true. The wide range of experiences that I have enjoyed has enriched my life beyond all bounds.
I have been blessed to travel the world, have a wonderful family—three children—and now many grandchildren. Meeting many remarkable people has also been a big part of this experience. My list of extraordinary blessings is endless. Probably most readers could create their own list of privileges and blessings, with the rich experiences that shaped and defined their lives.
Contents
A Common Experience
This chapter will describe a different and unusual privilege from any I have known, or ever could have dreamed. Let me explain.
First, look at a part of the past that is probably familiar to most readers. The Worldwide Church of God once produced a 58-lesson Bible Correspondence Course. This course was eventually replaced by a 32-lesson version, (which was in turn later replaced with one of 12 lessons.)
The 58-lesson course was different. It required students to look up and write answers to basic questions. This was because every fourth lesson was followed by a simple test to be returned for grading before the student could continue with four more lessons sent. Mr. Armstrong knew the value of physically writing out God’s doctrinal truths in a logical, sequential way. The Correspondence Course required this!
Most could never forget this exercise, and many probably still have their original handwritten answers to those early lessons. I certainly will never forget the experience of all that writing! (I was age 17 when I began and high school had been presenting enough opportunities to write.) Simply reading my description of this is probably enough to bring back a flood of memories, and this is what I am trying to do now—bring back memories!
This requires further explanation.
A Difficult Period
There have been three other times that I have been involved in an extensive exercise similar to writing out the old Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course.
Now for a brief description of the second time I did something similar. The reasons were not so pleasant. In late 1985, just before Mr. Armstrong died, I was demoted by Joseph Tkach, Sr., after he had already systematically stripped away most of my pastorate. This man had deeply resented my relationship with Mr. Armstrong and openly told me so. With Mr. Armstrong dying, he pounced.
I was sent to New York City and placed under two successive men who were told to give me little to do—;teach me a lesson and ;break me. This intensely difficult trial lasted for 4 1/3 years. I went from pastoring almost 1,100 people (some time before my transfer) in a beautiful part of western New York state to a level of responsibility equivalent in some ways to little more than a deacon. (This is not intended to denigrate the important service of faithful deacons, but merely to explain my severe reduction in responsibility after having had such special and extensive previous training for pastoral service.) All of this occurred while having to serve in some of the most dangerous neighborhoods on Earth!
I suddenly found that I had much time on my hands—and not by choice. Like a prisoner in a cell, I had to fill that time, and I decided there was one activity that was the most profitable way to do this! I determined to start organizing and printing, by hand, ALL of the key scriptures on every major subject in God’s Word pertaining to Christian growth and overcoming. I knew this would be a daunting task, but decided that the benefits would be well worth the time spent—time I had in abundance. I saw value in a refresher about basics.
Extensive Research
After selecting a topic (such as peace, happiness, wisdom, patience, faith, love, etc.), I would then look up every single scripture throughout the entire Bible that was in any way related to the subject. This often involved many hundreds of passages. Next, I would selectively print out, laboriously by hand, a large number—50 to 100, and sometimes up to 200—of the clearest scriptures on each subject until I had exhausted it. For instance, there are 121 passages recorded under ;Faith and Confidence and 90 under the heading ;Persecution, Trials and Tribulation.
The project slowly took on a life of its own. I got to where I looked forward to each new topic. Ultimately, I wrote out thousands of passages. This task took years and I was transferred back to pastoring just before completing it.
I now look back treasuring the many hours and years spent doing this. I still have the original notebook, and periodically review its contents, as did my late wife. Among other benefits, this project helps me remember an extremely humbling period in my ministry—and life!—when circumstances forced me to bury myself in the project, in part to defeat discouragement and boredom.
I have often reflected on this long and most difficult trial—and on the many benefits gained from this exercise that are still serving me today. For instance, it permanently changed my view of how God assembled His Word for our benefit. Space does not permit me to tell of all the other wonderful lessons that flowed from this scriptural research. (You could probably cite similar lessons from writing out the old Correspondence Course.) Looking back, I have never doubted that God inspired this project. An assignment that was born of an injustice and seemed at first to be a curse turned into a great blessing partly because of God’s role, later seen so clearly!
The thought did not then occur to me how this exercise would serve me for many years to come. This is because I still periodically read these scriptures aloud, sometimes in prayer, from the old, battered notebook. Pages are tattered and tabs are falling apart from age and use, and I have repaired them often, much like rebinding an old favorite Bible.
For personal reasons, I will never stop reviewing these verses—or recalling the period they represent!
My First Book
The third time I undertook a similar project differed only slightly from the first two—the seven-year period spanning the collating of at least 13 versions of my first book There Came a Falling Away—422 pages. While I did not actually physically write out this book, its preparation required exhaustive research into previously taught doctrine unlike anything ever attempted. (Of course, I received help from one who now claims all credit.) The research and lessons from this project are also of immeasurable value to me today—and I hope to you!
Combing through countless books, booklets, articles, magazines and letters to cull thousands of statements was an extraordinary journey, including the process of contrasting them to the false doctrines that the apostates presented. Other books to the splinters also required gathering many, many more for a similar purpose. Try to imagine the time necessary to prepare these books. It was an incredible experience and process.
Old Testament Kings
Before describing the fourth time I undertook a similar project, first read Deuteronomy 17:14-20:
- When you are come unto the land which the LORD your God gives you, and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein, and shall say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me; you shall in any wise set him king over you, whom the LORD your God shall choose…but he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt…neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away
- neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.
- And it shall be, when he sits upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites
- and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.
This is a fascinating Old Testament passage. (You can see why I might especially relate to it.) Consider what it must have been like for the kings of Israel and Judah to perform this task. All of the tribes of Israel would have known of this commanded obligation—and that all kings were to do it. One can imagine that there must have been regularly scheduled times set aside when the five Books of the Law (Genesis through Deuteronomy) were to be copied by each king in his own handwriting. Millions would have been aware of the king’s obligation, with personal aides’ schedules probably set accordingly.
Just making a single copy of the Pentateuch would have been a tremendous task, considering ballpoint pens had not been invented! The quality of paper was also inferior to what is available today. We can only guess how long it must have taken for each king to perform this command. Then try to imagine how his ;secretary must have arranged his appointments around this obligation. Like waiting for any appointment today, his subjects, no doubt, had to occasionally wait for the king to finish his daily writing before he could see them.
Then, after copying the law, instead of filing it, the king was to regularly read from it! My late 1980s exercise helps me better understand how this handwritten copy would have served the king throughout his life.
In addition to teaching the king to fear God deeply (Deuteronomy 17:19 ), this process was intended to humble him (Deuteronomy 17:20 )! There is no command that anyone but the king was to do this. Surely all Gentile kings around Israel must have known of this task, and that none of their ;gods required the same. Also, Israelite kings would have been aware that neighboring kings were familiar with this strange and tedious exercise.
While this task must have felt burdensome, God knew it served several purposes for those faithfully adhering to His instruction. (No doubt some or even most kings would have rebelled and ignored it.)
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