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"I started studying with the Chapel in 1994 when I was 19."

Question/Comment: 

----- Original Message -----

From: Name Withheld

To: Paul Stringini

Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2014 11:40 AM

Subject: Thank you!

Hi Paul,

It is with mixed emotions that I am writing to you right now. I started studying with the Chapel in 1994 when I was 19. I was so lost and tormented and thought I had finally found the mysteries of God. I studied with and met so many people at the chapel and over 13 years saw many of them get pulled into spiritual arrogance and demonic thinking. In 2007 I moved away from that group of people and although I still believed what I had been taught by pastor I started to just observe (isn’t Facebook great for revealing truth?) and I could clearly see that these students didn’t have the fruits of the spirits. I was brought up Baptist and have been in traditional churches and have seen what God’s blessings look like. I started attending a local church here and after a couple months got into an argument with the pastor (truly I went to him lost and just looking for some clarification on how he reached the conclusions he had) but it got ugly and I quit attending for a year or so. I was in such a spiritual drought, looking in on all these different beliefs (I live in the middle of a heavily populated Mormon community). But I felt empty, so I started attending that local church again, this time just listening, enjoying the worship and the feel of God’s presence. But still my heart was so troubled, conflicted. But I kept going back to “you will know them by their fruit”. Finally this last week I prayed a prayer I think I had been afraid of praying “God, show me your truth” and although I don’t feel like I have all the answers (rapture?) I found your website and it helped clear up so much, in a way just because it was someone else saying what I knew in my heart. I feel like I can finally let go, and repent of those years and those teachings and start my discovery / journey with a fresh start.

So thank you Paul, for your website and your message.

God bless you!
Name Withheld

My First Response:

----- Original Message -----

From: Paul Stringini

To: Name Withheld

Sent: Monday, January 27, 2014 10:25 PM

Subject: Re: Thank you!

Name Withheld, Thank you for writing.  You started studying with the chapel just a year after I did.  I'm glad that my work was of some comfort to you.  I don't know if you came across my line by line bible studies, but you may find them edifying, I get many positive responses to them.  http://oraclesofgod.org/studies/index.htm  I highly recommend my study in Matthew.  I am currently teaching Revelation.

 

You mentioned the rapture.  I still do not believe in the rapture.  But I do think Pastor Murray was very wrong about people who believe the rapture.  Heresy is a sin.  And like all sin, Christ came to deliver us from it.  So I trust that the same God who delivered me from drugs and alcohol can also deliver people from heresy.  God has to open all of our eyes to his truth.  I believed in the rapture when I was young, and God showed me his Resurrection, he reveals his truth to us, he rewards those that seek him diligently.  I actually did a large work on death and resurrection on my doctrine page.  I do think Murray's talk about the "breath of life body" (in 1 Thess 4) is an example of him making it up as he goes along.  We will meet the Lord in the air.  But the air is not heaven anymore than it is a body.  If Christ is returning to Jerusalem, the most logical place for us all to meet him would be in the air. 

 

But I do not think that belief in the rapture particularly predisposes people to worship antichrist.  I talk about this in my Revelation studies.  If they cannot stand against the devil when it comes to little sins,  they are not likely to be able to withstand the temptation of the end times.  The rapture is just one other contributing factor to the fall of many, but Christ will deliver those who are his. 

 

I've recently started listening to Pastor Murray's cassettes for the first time in over a decade.  It is strange how different he sounds to me now.  But I understand why I studied with him.  I wanted to learn the bible, and it seemed like there was no one who was able to teach me.  There he was,  he had so many secrets to tell, and I lusted after that hidden knowledge.  And because I was able to "see" what he was saying, I had a purpose and a destiny.  I think the flattery had some effect on me, but not as much as on some.  Like you, for me the real eye opener was in actually meeting other students.  When I went to Passover, I had expected "God's Elect." I was very excited about that.  I was not there to see Murray.  I had seen him on TV thousands of times.  They were disappointing, it was hard from me to put a finger on it at the time, and even now, exactly why that was.  I guess it was because it seemed that noone knew eachother and no one talked to me.  I thought that since we were all God's elect we were going to have this tremendous fellowship, but we all just filed into the auditorium and filed out again after. 

 

The truth that is in Christ, is much more simple and yet profound.  It is something that a child truly could understand.  By our faith in the promises of God in Christ, we may be partakers of the divine nature.  It is strange to me how little is made of such profound ideas in the bible. Murray's emphasis on how wise his doctrine is, his common sense, and his pretentions to scholarship, all create in people a sense of superiority.  According to Murray, finding the truth is a matter of intellectual power, I hear it all the time in his teaching.  He flattered us, we were just a little smarter, just a little wiser, a little more mature.  But thanks be to God that none of that entered into your heart.  But it entered into the hearts of many and corrupted them.  That is why you get these really nasty people coming out of his ministry.  He does not teach Christianity, he uses Christianity to teach his own philosophy. 

 

Anyway, I'm glad he was my teacher, because he taught me a lot, even if most of the best lessons I learned were unintentional on his part.  Being able to speak to people who become interested in his ministry is a blessing.  Because many of those people are like us.  They are hungry for the word, they want someone to talk to them plainly about what it says.  I try to be very true to that, I want to be true to the word, and be real with people and myself, and I hope that if you listen to my studies that you will find that  I do that.  Judge for yourself.   

 

Sincerely,

Paul Stringini

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