Basic HTML Version
The PLAIN TRUTH
a magazine of understanding
Pasadena, California 91123
HERBERT W. ARMSTRONG
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Pasadena
May 27, 1983
Dear PLAIN TRUTH subscriber:
GREETINGS to 1,210,000 new subscribers to The PLAIN TRUTH since I last
wrote such a general personal letter to all our millions of subscribers!
Another 895,000 of you were NEW subcribers also at this time a year ago.
As founder and Editor-in-Chief of The PLAIN TRUTH, I want to tell you
about this unique mass-circulation magazine and what's behind it.
This magazine was a dream in my mind in 1927, seven years before it was
first published. Then, at age 34, I had been shaken and astonished to learn the
real truth about the purpose of human life--the CAUSE of the incredible paradox
of awesome human progress amid appalling evils and unsolvable human problems
in this troubled world. I was staggered by the lack of human UNDERSTANDING
of the very things that govern, shape and affect our lives.
I had been in the magazine and publishing field since age 18.
The dream of a magazine to be called The PLAIN TRUTH, a magazine of
understanding, took shape in my mind.
But the dream was not to come true until February 1, 1934. And even then,
a hand-produced mimeographed "magazine"--first edition about 350 copies. But
through the 49 l/2 years, now in its 50th year, The PLAIN TRUTH has grown to a
circulation of over 5 l/2 million copies per month.
From the first I determined it must not be commercialized--no
subscription
price--no advertising revenue--no request of the public for contributions or
financial help.
I had learned, when my mind was opened to an UNDERSTANDING of the
Bible, that God's way of life is GIVING, not getting. It is outflowing love,
cooperation, serving, sharing-not competition, jealousy and envy, strife and
violence. And for 50 years I have tried to live that way of PEACE--and have been
prospered in that way.
In a very intense in-depth study of origins--both the evolutionary theory
that now dominates higher education, and of the biblical revelation of special
creation by the Creator GOD--I came to learn that there is, indeed, as Winston
Churchill said to the United States Congress, a PURPOSE being worked out here
below. And that PURPOSE affects every human life--YOUR life as well as mine. I
had to give up my own self-centered way, and literally GIVE my life over to
Jesus
Christ (instead of just "receiving" Christ). And then God's Spirit opened my
mind