About
The Author

I
grew up in eastern Massachusetts in a suburb town near Boston called
Belmont. As a nine-year-old I was attending the Episcopal Church and
basically taking the Bible at face value even though I wasn’t
that familiar with what it had to say. (But I was in the habit of
believing what I read, whether a narrative or command, which set my
spiritual course early on and made for an interesting spiritual
journey which is still in progress. I remember I once read (in those
early days) a Bible command in the Old Testament not to eat the
blood, so not realizing the meat juice from a cooked steak or roast
wasn’t blood at all, I ceased consuming those juices with a
meal. This was the nature of my faith in the Word of God, which
hasn’t diminished.) Once, when the U.S. Army moved its
anti-aircraft battery out of a field on Belmont Hill right near where
I lived, a couple of us kids scoured the grounds for what we could
find. I found an olive-green can about the size and shape of a Hunts
tomato paste can. It turned out to be a detonator-canister of
fulminate of mercury, used to set off the large sacks of powder that
propelled the anti-aircraft shells miles into the sky. I threw it at
a large rock about 20 feet away (I was a good pitcher). It flew
right toward the rock, and then at the last moment it veered away
from the rock at an angle, which left us two boys scratching our
heads. We then took the canister to our parents, who immediately
called the police. A little while later a bomb-squad van pulled up
and two guys got out with a bucket of water and tiptoed over to where
we had placed the canister. They picked it up and gently placed it
in the bucket, took bucket with detonator and tiptoed back to the van
and slowly drove away. That was the first of a couple very real
miracles I have witnessed that saved my life. My angel was working
overtime that day.
In
the fall of 1968 when I was 22 years old, I went to sea on an old
WWII submarine, the U.S.S. Blenny (SS 324), headed for Lisbon,
Portugal, then Rota, Spain, and then the Mediterranean Sea for a
wonderful three month patrol.
I
had grown up sailing small sailboats, so I loved it out at sea on a
submarine, which spent most of its time on the surface crashing
through immense waves (serving on that boat was like being on a
peace-time version of that German movie, "The Boat").
After I had gotten off active duty, sometime in the spring of 1970 I
became a baptized member of the Worldwide Church of God. Although
this small denomination was at that time an old covenant biased
Sabbatarian Christian church, we were imbued with the Holy Spirit as
a group and individually, even though many outside our fellowship
didn’t think so and labeled us a cult. We were cult-like, but
decidedly not a cult. In the most simplistic way possible the
apostle Paul defined a Christian as someone who has the indwelling
Holy Spirit and is actively being led by this Holy Spirit (Romans
8:9,14). So, as some denominations like to call it, I was
born-again, or received the Holy Spirit at my baptism, or even
before, looking back in time. I had a saving knowledge of God’s
Word then, and even more so now. Worldwide Church of God
members knew their Bible from one end to the other, and we were a
praying church as well (Mr. Armstrong was always saying a church
walks forward on its knees). Herbert Armstrong laid a very good,
and very thorough foundation for Sabbath-keeping Churches of God.
But that is as far as he went. Foundations need buildings built
upon them. Be sure to check out the Worldwide Church of God
section and article to see what I mean by that.
From
Sabbath to Sunday to Sabbath again
In
1986 Mr. Armstrong died, and Mr. Tkach Sr. took over the church,
having been appointed by Mr. Armstrong a year or two before his death
to succeed him. Then in the year 1995 this Sabbath-keeping
Church of God went through a very painful and interesting
experience. As purported to be “a
better understanding of the Scriptures” this
Sabbath-keeping Church of God with historic roots going back to the
300s AD said that “days
of worship were an optional choice for believers.”
(To see the doctrinal/historic and somewhat literal connection
between the Worldwide Church of God, the early Church, and the
Sabbath-keeping Churches of God in the 1600s, see http://www.unityinchrist.com/history2/earlychurch1.htm and https://unityinchrist.com/history/historycog1.htm.)
Mr. Tkach Sr. did not live past 1995 and the monumental doctrinal
changes he brought the Worldwide Church of God into. As he was
dying of cancer he appointed his son, Joe Tkach Jr. as the next
hierarchal leader over the Worldwide Church of God. Under Joe
Tkach Jr.’s leadership Worldwide essentially ceased to be a
Sabbath/Holy Day observing denomination by the year 2001. The
whole painful experience that 89,000 Worldwide Church of God members
went through is explained in the lead article in the Worldwide Church
of God section of this website
(see https://unityinchrist.com/wwcofg/wwcofgod.html).
Be sure to read that article to better understand the extremely
painful spiritual journey I made. Initially, I came through the
doctrinal changes Joe Tkach Sr. made, so I now believed that Sunday
observing Christians could also possess and be indwelt by the Holy
Spirit. (I was soon to learn by direct experience and
observation just how true that is, but I’m getting ahead of
myself.) Under Joe Tkach Jr., at least from a member-level
perspective, and maybe pastor-level perspective too, Worldwide had
become so unstable in its beliefs that I sought spiritual nourishment
elsewhere. I had been a member of this fellowship for about 30
years now, but very sadly their headquarters and many of their
pastors had lost the ability to give a nourishing sermon, probably
due to the fact that doctrinal beliefs within the Worldwide Church of
God were changing at times, week by week during this timespan from
1995 to 2001. I also learned at a mini-conference for New
England pastors of Worldwide (I helped run the sound system for that
event) that Headquarters and thus the denomination was quietly, but
very forcefully from the top down, drifting into Amillennialism and
“replacement theology,” which doctrinal eschatological
interpretations I viewed and still view as being extremely inaccurate
and having strong anti-Semitic bias that has contributed to
anti-Semitism in Europe for 1700 years of ‘Church history.’
Quite naturally, as a hungry sheep, looking for a group that taught
accurately from the Word of God, when a tiny Bible study that met on
Sundays started up in the town I lived in, I started to attend.
They taught a pre-millennial prophetic interpretation on prophecy
which I was used to, and they also taught very effectively from an
expositional format, teaching verse by verse, chapter by chapter,
book by book, through the whole Word of God. I attended their
small Sunday Bible study for two and a half years, initially, and
witnessed their astounding growth from 12 members to about 125
members. Then within the next four years they mushroomed to
around 400 + members. I watched people coming in from the local
area, casting off addictions and sins, and then over the years, I
watched them grow in God’s agape-love for others, becoming
selfless Christians caring for the community in love and service for
others. This church was a Calvary Chapel, affiliated with
Pastor Chuck Smith’s Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California.
(see http://www.unityinchrist.com/history/smith.htm to see how this recent Christian revival started in the early 1970s,
started by God through Pastor Chuck Smith. Pastor Chuck just
died in 2014.) What I came to realize by direct contact,
observation and experience, was that the Holy Spirit could exist and
actually indwell some Sunday-observing Christians and groups. All
Sabbath-keeping Church of God believers, from their doctrinal stance
and understanding don’t believe Sunday-keepers can have the
indwelling Holy Spirit. That is something the Sabbath-keeping
Churches of God down through history didn’t always believe was
possible. It’s a sincerely held doctrinal view, and for
the most part no animosity is held toward Sunday-keepers, they just
believe they’re sincerely deceived, they don’t believe
they’re “real Christians.” But by direct
observation within a loving Calvary Chapel congregation in my
hometown, I could see people I knew keeping 9 out of the 10
Commandments, not just in the letter, but in the spirit, as commanded
by Jesus in Matthew 5:17-48 (something not really possible without
God’s Holy Spirit). I spent 7.5 years in this local
Calvary Chapel.
From
Calvary Chapel to the Messianic Jews
But
having been spiritually “brought up” in a Sabbath-keeping
Church of God, I didn’t feel totally comfortable with some of
Calvary Chapel’s secondary doctrines, and especially not
keeping the Sabbath and Holy Days of Leviticus 23 (which
interestingly enough, Calvary Chapels understand the
prophetic/symbolic meaning of, just as we had been taught in
Worldwide---they
even understand that Jesus will return the Church in the Millennial
Kingdom of God on earth back to Sabbath and Holy Day observance.
That was a real pleasant surprise to me). I had been quietly
keeping the Sabbath and Holy Days on my own, not working on those
days throughout my stay in Calvary Chapel. But I sought a
church that would actively keep those days. An old exWCG friend
who attended the same Calvary Chapel with me told me about a
wonderful tiny Messianic Jewish congregation that met about 8 miles
west of my town. I was soon to learn that God had been very
busy restoring the Jewish branch of the Body of Christ, via the
Messianic Jewish movement, which had really started to pick up steam
around 1970, the same time-period when the Calvary Chapels got
started under Pastor Chuck Smith. Coincidence? The rabbis
have a saying “With
the things of God there is no such thing as coincidence.”
So I started attending there for a couple years. They were a
very wonderful, friendly and warm congregation. I learned
enough from them and independent research to help me write the
Messianic Jewish section of this website
(see http://www.unityinchrist.com/messianicmovement/messianicmovement.htm).
Their doctrinal understanding of the prophetic meaning of God’s
Holy Days was quite similar to what Worldwide’s had been, but
wasn’t a perfect match. I still wasn’t totally
comfortable there.
Back
To The Sabbath-keeping Churches of God
If
you read that article about the Worldwide Church of God, you will see
that after 1995 about 375 different, often squabbling, bickering
Sabbath-keeping Churches of God denominations had formed, having
split off of the old Worldwide Church of God. A close exWCG
friend of mine I’d known for about 40 years ran a
Sabbath-keeping Church of God house-church which was loosely
affiliated with Fred Coulter’s Christian Biblical Church of
God. I started attending to lend support to her family for
reasons other than just wanting a place to attend on the Sabbath.
I attended there for two years. I was sort of comfortable
attending their tiny house-church, except that many in the group (as
well as in Fred’s denomination) held to the old Worldwide
Church of God belief that “Sunday-keeping ‘so-called’ Christians couldn’t possibly have the Holy Spirit indwelling
them.” At the same time I was challenged to go into some
pretty heavy research as to whether the Sabbath command had actually
been abrogated in the Bible (what Constantine did in 325AD doesn’t
count, only the Word of God counts to me). The article is in
the WCG section of this site, more on that later. Because of my
belief about Sunday-keepers having the ability (for whatever reason,
I’m not totally sure) to have the indwelling Holy Spirit, I
wasn’t too comfortable within this house-church and they
weren’t that comfortable with me. After a couple years,
though, their tiny house-church divided into two smaller
house-churches, over some doctrinal differences. I went with
the more independently-minded group, which was more accepting of the
few members composing it, who all held somewhat differing beliefs (so
we had to be accepting of minor doctrinal differences within the
group). I discovered within this tiny group two others, a
husband and wife, who essentially believed just as I do about
Sunday-keepers having the ability to have the Holy Spirit, for
whatever reason. After a couple more years spent there, I
followed this family into a local congregation of the United Church
of God. Questions about unity in the Body of Christ, and
especially within the terribly fractured Sabbath-keeping Church of
God side of the Body of Christ have greatly concerned me of late, as
I look for spiritual reasons why such disunity exists amongst people
that essentially all believe the same things doctrinally.
Articles on this theme will be coming up in the WCG section of the
site from time to time, as unity is an issue close to my heart (it
has been since the website started). As how to explain the
major dichotomy between Sabbath and Sunday-keepers having the Holy
Spirit, I have repeatedly sought God for answers, and sought to find
them in his Word. I think I have come close to some of the
answers, discussed in two articles I wrote. You can read them
at these
links: http://www.unityinchrist.com/wwcofg/Has%20the%20Sabbath%20Been%20Abrogated.htm and http://www.unityinchrist.com/hebrews/Hebrews4-1-16.htm.
Part of the answer must revolve around God’s sovereignty.
These two articles don’t totally solve the dichotomy, and it
may never be solved this side of the 2nd Coming of Jesus
Christ. I do know what I saw, observed, and experienced
within those wonderfully warm, loving, spiritually obedient
Christians in the Calvary Chapels, who have an understanding of God’s
Word par excellence. They believe, as we believe, that the
Church Jesus Christ sets up in the Millennial Kingdom of God on earth
will be both Sabbath and Holy Day observing
(see http://www.unityinchrist.com/prophets/Zechariah/Zechariah4.htm and scroll to Zechariah 14).
“Back
to the dichotomy about Sabbath/Holyday observance verses Sunday
observance. Both I and most Messianic Jewish believers believe the
bottom line of the issue is this: If a Sunday-observing Christian
should prove through their own Biblical studies about this issue that
the Sabbath and Holy Days (of Leviticus 23) have
not been abrogated,
then that person is obligated to start observing them, simply due to
their Christian conscience, actions must follow beliefs principle
expounded on by the apostle Paul in Romans 14:5-6, 22-23. But all
Sunday-observing Christians who have not sufficiently looked into
this issue have no such obligation to observe God’s Sabbath and
Holy Days (as can be seen by God blessing them with his Holy Spirit).
So I am a Christian that believes in keeping the Ten Commandments,
including the 7th day Sabbath, Holy Days of Leviticus 23 and dietary laws of Leviticus
11, as enabled by the indwelling Holy Spirit of God.”
Apart
from a few other doctrinal differences, we in the Sabbath-keeping
Churches of God have a lot in common with the Calvary Chapels. I
do believe they have a far better method of preaching sermons, going
expositorily through the Word of God, verse by verse, chapter by
chapter, book by book. There is a lot we can learn from each
other, that’s for sure, if we’d only humble ourselves
enough to do so. So that is the explanation of my personal
journey From Sabbath to Sunday to Sabbath again. I’m
currently attending a wonderful Messianic Jewish congregation in my
hometown (in North Central MA). This
website is totally non-denominational, and I am as well.
How
This Site Came To Be And What It’s For
The
Lord has been inspiring me since 1995 to use some of my skills and
talents in the area of editing, transcribing and writing on this
website, which has been created for the express purpose of promoting
spiritual growth and unity of purpose throughout the Body of Christ,
and also to help promote personal, local church, national and
international evangelism (getting the Gospel to the world). The
idea for this website came from a deep desire to help nourish those
members within the Worldwide Church of God while it was going through
all those ‘doctrinal changes,’ which ended up destroying
it as a Sabbath-keeping Church of God. I was attempting to
nourish them with transcripts of excellent Calvary Chapel sermons
which several Calvary Chapel pastors had graciously given me
permission to transcribe. (So the transcripts of the Calvary Chapel
sermons that appear on this website all have been transcribed by
permission of the pastors who gave those sermons.) I was
attempting to nourish these Worldwide Church of God members with the
same high quality nourishment I had received (and still receive) from
God’s Word through these Calvary Chapels. Sadly, it
didn’t do any good, as far as I can see. I have a lot of
talents, such as being able to absorb spiritual knowledge like a
sponge for 25 years in WCG, and then 10 more years spent in Calvary
Chapels, being able to take a lot of tiny facts and put them into a
big picture and things like that, but all with the inspirational aid
of the Holy Spirit, I can’t take credit for any of it. I
could never have created this website without God’s help and
inspiration.
The
Purpose Of This Website
This
website I believe has been designed by God, not me, to help foster
and promote a degree of unity within the greater Body of Christ (see http://www.unityinchrist.com/prophets/Zephaniah/Zephaniah1.htm and
scroll to the section on Zephaniah 2:1-3 and read). The crazy thing,
and very painful too, is that in order for me to be somewhat
qualified for the task, the Lord had to shift me in my spiritual
journey through some of the major spiritually alive parts of the Body
of Christ. This meandering spiritual journey, to meet those designs
of the Lord, has been an extremely painful journey, which, often as
not, guaranteed I’d be sort of a spiritual loner, not on
purpose, but by the Lord’s design. What has made this
spiritual journey extremely painful, even now, is the fact that I
don’t really fit anywhere, doctrinally, within any
denomination, because I’ve absorbed the true Biblical
understandings each has had to offer, whilst rejecting what I have
Biblically proven to myself as error. So, doctrinally I’m a
misfit, and left with the constant feeling that wherever I reside in
the Body of Christ, I’m not totally comfortable or compatible.
I have certain qualifications which have made me (by the Lord’s
design again, cf. Psalm 139) up for the task, this includes having an
analytical mind, an acute interest in history, science, and the
ability to take in a bunch of facts and boil them down to their most
common denominators. But if I had to choose this path again, or that
of being an ordinary member of say a Cavalry Chapel, happily married,
fat, dumb and happy, I’d have gladly chosen the latter, instead
of suffering through a broken family because they didn’t
understand my calling. The Body of Christ, in the spiritual opinion
of quite a few qualified pastors, Messianic Jewish and Christian
alike, is due for one last great Restoration and Revival (see https://unityinchrist.com/prophets/Zephaniah/RestorationAndRevival.htm ).
This website and ministries like it have been designed by God to
help nourish believers, new and old alike within the Body of Christ,
as it goes through the soon-coming Restoration and Revival. Why? So
that they can finish the job Jesus gave all of us to do before the
Tribulation, World War III, comes upon the world (read Matthew
24:14-15). Pete Benson
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You may have noticed the B-17 image in the upper left-hand section of each page on this website. I used the analogy of flying a B-17 on missions for this website. Click on the image to learn why. Flying a B-17 in not usually attempted by one person, this heavy aircraft requires a pilot and co-pilot. I am looking for a qualified spiritual wife/co-pilot, with similar spiritual background, to assist in this ministry. As far as compatibility, I absolutely love history and “connecting the dots,” but I’m not that online computer savvy so I’m looking for someone who is, and my passion is, if you haven’t guessed it, working on this website. If you’re interested and think we might be compatible after reading about my “spiritual journey” here, and if you think we might be spiritually compatible enough to work as a team, send me a message on the Guestbook, or contact me through my facebook wall at “pete benson.” |
related
links:
Should
any of you sincerely start to question where you should attend, what
church or part of the Body of Christ you should be a part, see
http://www.unityinchrist.com/history2/choosingachurch.htm
What
is the Lord’s Work which he wants accomplished before he
returns? Matthew
24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all
the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end
come.” What
is that Gospel of the Kingdom? see: http://www.unityinchrist.com/misc/WhatIsTheGospel%20.htm
For
the coming Revival within the Body of Christ, see https://unityinchrist.com/prophets/Zephaniah/REVIVAL.html and https://unityinchrist.com/prophets/Zephaniah/RestorationAndRevival.htm
To
read about how the recent Messianic Jewish Revival got started, see http://www.unityinchrist.com/messianicmovement/messianicmovement.htm
To
read about how the recent Calvary Chapel (JESUS MOVEMENT) started,
see http://www.unityinchrist.com/history/smith.htm
To
read about the Worldwide Church of God (which grew explosively during
the late 1960s and early 1970s, along with the explosive growth of
the Calvary Chapels and Messianic Jews) see https://unityinchrist.com/wwcofg/wwcofgod.html And
to see where the Worldwide Church of God came from, see https://unityinchrist.com/history/historycog1.htm
God,
Yahweh, wants the entire Body of Christ to be united before the
end-times hit us. see https://unityinchrist.com/prophets/Zephaniah/Zephaniah1.htm
Has
the 7th day Sabbath really been abrogated? This is a hotly debated issue
within the Body of Christ. For some articles discussing this
subject, see http://www.unityinchrist.com/wwcofg/Has%20the%20Sabbath%20Been%20Abrogated.htm and http://www.unityinchrist.com/hebrews/Hebrews4-1-16.htm What
was the early Church like? see https://unityinchrist.com/history2/earlychurch1.htm
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