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| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 904 Registered: 10-2002  |
Note to Colleen & Richard Tinker: Please forgive me for posting this here on the FAF forum. I know that the WoW chapter was closed here some time ago, yet I've heard he has recently written an open letter to us. I don't wish to get into things again with him, and I am sure most others here don't, either. However, I felt the need to post this here because I was the one who begged for patience from everyone when he first arrived. I was the one who defended him and gave him a chance to speak, and as a result of this he felt appreciative towards me. Because of this, I feel that it is best if I write an open letter in response. I think that he may possibly get the message a little better if I say this than if someone else says it. I beg your pardon, Richard & Colleen, for doing this here. I feel like it is not what this forum is for. ***** Dear John, It has been a long time since I wrote back to you, and I apologize for not responding to your final few emails. Truly I wish to give you respect, but I confess that I got tired and no longer had the energy to write. On top of it, my family was waiting for me as I typed. I want to say why I became tired. Please forgive me for however straightfoward this may sound. When you came onto the FAF forum, I stuck up for you because I saw some of my brothers & sisters going for the jugular, so to speak. After some time of reading the Bible straight, we do tend to cut very quickly to the chase. But I thought they were going too hard, so I begged for patience and I entered into a study with you about the subject of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. However, the study progressed slowly and often not at all. While waiting for your answers, I observed many of your comments on other threads. Although you had said you were on the forum for research, instead it seemed you had come to try and "fix" or persuade us. Meanwhile I waited for your replies to my simple Bible study. When once one of your replies came, it was foggy, and attempted to write different rules for Bible study, essentially that what is written may not mean what it says. Many forum members sparred with you about that, but I tried to just get past it and get back to the Bible study. In a nutshell, it was very hard for you to stay on track, to stay on one subject. It was because of your devotion to posting arguments elsewhere on the forum that you were removed by the administrators. Had you stayed with the simple Bible study, things would likely have been different. Yet even there it was difficult to keep you focusing on the Scripture. I found this in our emails as well. I could ask one simple question, but I would get a paragraph in response -- and usually not in response at all, but rather talking about other things you were feeling or other ideas you had. It came across as a dodge each time; or it came across as suggesting that perhaps you were not able to understand the question. I once heard someone ask the question to another person: "Do you listen, or do you wait to speak?" The other honestly replied, "I wait to speak, but I'm trying to listen." I always had the feeling that on the forum and in the emails we exchanged, you were not listening but waiting to preach. This is why I grew tired, John. I don't have the energy to talk to people who cannot listen. And in studying the Bible, there is a third party -- the Holy Spirit. We must also be willing to let the Spirit speak, to let the Scripture speak for itself. If Scripture cannot be the final authority -- if it needs our continued explanations and twists -- then we are not listening to God, but merely waiting for Scripture to shut up so we can preach. I have written this short letter because of your "open letter". Please listen to me carefully now: I am not going to write to you again. I simply do not have the time, friend. I am a father now, and my family needs me. And I am spiritually unable to hold a conversation with anyone who will not submit to the Scripture alone. I grow tired in my whole being if we cannot rest in what Scripture says. I cite this as my own weakness -- I am simply unable to continue. Others may want to continue, but I am not being called to it at this time. Blessings to you and your family as you rest in Christ's righteousness alone. In Christ, Ramone Romero June 23, 2007 Osaka, Japan | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 3844 Registered: 3-2004  |
Ramone, This is a beautiful, Christ filled letter. You are truly a Christ follower. I had written here prior, but I must have hit the delete button. I do pray for John, his son and daughter. Diana | ||
| Reb Registered user Username: Reb Post Number: 171 Registered: 5-2007 |
Beautiful, Christ filled letter, Ramone. I am praying for John as well. I am sad for him that he is so trapped in Adventism. |
