FOT 2008, Day 4

Today, I want to comment on a sermon from the Feast of Tabernacles. I remember sermons that were inspiring and, well, cozy. It was cozy to hear why my beliefs were right and the those of the rest of the world were wrong. But there was one sermon in particular that perplexed me.

Garner Ted Armstrong was preaching about II Corinthians 5:1-4: "For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling--if indeed, when we have taken it off we will not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life" (NRSV).

That passage sounded like it was saying we had a soul inside of our bodies, something Armstrongites did not believe. Or GTA called the "soul" a "spirit," making the issue a matter of semantics.