Speaker 1Now, if we're in Jesus' ministry, already we have a problem. And these people that say we're not in Paul's ministry but other Jesus' ministry are the biggest liars that ever lived.
Speaker 2They're hypocrites! Without Paul, we'd have no hope. If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that which you have received by Paul, they're going to be accursed, damned, condemned, wasted.
Speaker 3If there's one thing that is guaranteed to trigger modern Christians today, it's poking the sacred cow of Paul. You are usually met with instant hostility, and I've come to call it Paul derangement syndrome. When I became a pastor at 23, all I ever heard from Christians was, Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul. And I began to feel like I was sort of losing my mind. Like, hey guys, when are we going to talk about Jesus and his teachings? Some Pauline Christians who responded to our video on Paul, and it's always just, you're evil, you're heretic, your haircut's demonic. Engaging your internal reaction to the gospel, is really helpful, because it shows you any degree of insecurity you still have in your beliefs. What is real cannot be threatened, and so only illusions need to be defended angrily.
Speaker 4And you know, that's why it's such an amazing practice to pray for your enemies. People telling me I'm a gay, loser, bound for hell, demon, heretic, false prophet. I love you. Your vibration is so important in these discussions. Stay anchored in love and seek to help them. That will end up being the water to help that seed.
Speaker 3Grow. Grow. Shalom Aleichem. Peace be with you. And welcome back, my friends, to the Jesus Way podcast. Today we're going to be doing a bit of a follow-up episode on our previous podcast on Paul, because we received a lot of really interesting feedback, both from our audience and from Paulians, Christians, that there is this kind of great sickness at the heart of Christianity. Which is a form of cognitive dissonance that billions of well-meaning Christians who rightly love Jesus and are attracted by the energy of the Christ and compelled by Christ are drawn to institutional Christianity because it sort of presents itself to be the sole arbiter and authority on Jesus and his teachings. So people naively go to institutional religion looking for Jesus. And as we say, when they get you in the doors, they give you nothing but Paul. It's a complete. It's a complete bait and switch. And so this builds a kind of cognitive dissonance that I began to experience in my 20s, especially after taking my first-time pastoral role. And it grows and grows and grows to this point where anyone or anything that challenges your Christian ideologies or beliefs about blood atonement or Paul versus Jesus, if there's any crack in the dam, a lot of Christians will lose their mind and jump into the most un-Christ-like possible responses and ad hominems and personal insults and attacks. And my comments, section is Exhibit A for everything I'm describing. So we want to talk about this today and get to the heart of this issue. And most importantly, how we as followers of the Jesus way can respond to such mental imbalances we encounter in the religious world. So before we get into it, James, how you doing today, brother? I love your shirt, man.
Speaker 4Thank you. Yeah, this is a Eastern Orthodox icon. And as we've discussed on the podcast before, you know, we do take some inspiration from the beautiful art in Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. You got to give credit where credit's due. There's some profoundly inspiring art and there's been saints and monks. Like we don't throw away the whole Pauline tradition. There's been so many incredible people throughout history who we believe that despite the Pauline theology, we're really authentic followers of the way.
Speaker 3Yeah, we often get asked, like, what denomination of Christianity do you guys feel is the closest one? To the truth. And we always respond Eastern Orthodox without question, because they're probably the least Paulinized version of Christianity today. But more than anything, they have some seriously sick art and iconography. So maybe we'll get a shirt like that for the Jesus way podcast soon.
Speaker 4Yeah, and Eastern Orthodoxy does stress works more. And the concept of theosis is very close to the original Nazarene way in terms of atonement to God. And this. Becoming becoming united with the energies of God through repentance and acts of service and humility. So it's really cool. I get a lot of inspiration from you.
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. And what's not to love about that? We're in full agreement. So we'll jump into it, James. Our Paul video from a few weeks ago blew up the algorithm as we expected that it would. Right. And so this week we want to talk about why we think this video blew up, because if there's one thing that is guaranteed to trigger modern Christians today, it's poking the sacred cow of Paul. And there is this very classic sort of hallmark reaction that you get from most Christians. Anytime you question Paul or his teachings, even if you try to show a contradiction between something that Jesus taught and Paul taught, you are usually met with instant hostility, defensiveness, and often plenty of ad hominem attacks, which is not Christlike. And so this reaction is something that I've come to be very familiar with, and I've come to sort of call it tongue in cheek, Paul derangement syndrome. And although it's kind of a funny name, this is a very real mental imbalance that plagues millions, perhaps even billions of people on earth today. And that's why it does matter to us. This is the sickness at the heart of Christianity that I mentioned, and it's important for us who follow the Jesus way to understand why people have this mental imbalance. How they've come to have it, and how to respond to it. Because if you follow the Jesus way, then it is inevitable that you're going to be attacked by people with Paul derangement syndrome at some point. And in order to stay true to the Jesus way message, it is important to know how to respond to these attacks with wisdom and with love. So in today's episode, we're going to review some of the many PDS comments we received on last week's episode on Paul and react to them one by one. As well as some video evidence of famous Christian pastors and preachers who exhibit Paul derangement syndrome, in our opinion. Probably 90% or more of the sermons that are preached on Sundays have virtually nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus. The actual words and teachings and example of Yeshua the Nazarene. But Paul is loved and revered and worshipped as the true sort of Lord and Savior of the gospel. Christians realize it or not, they are following Paul rather than Jesus. And almost none of them realize this, right? But when you start to point it out for them, there's a big defensive reaction because you don't attack what you're not threatened by. Because Christians believe that Paul brought the final revelation of Christ, as we'll see today. Christians must therefore defend Paul with the same fervish intensity that a cult member defends their cult leader. Unable to even entertain. Because otherwise they would be forced to admit, right? That they are in this kind of absurd position of following a completely different man than the one their religion professes to follow. And so this is what psychologists call cognitive dissonance, right? When logic and evidence cannot break through your emotional attachment to something. When you need to protect something that you already believe more than you want to. When you need to know what is actually true. And so nowhere in history, in my opinion, has cognitive dissonance taken quite as strong a hold as it has with Paulianity. And this matters because it explains exactly how Christianity became something that Yeshua never even intended or taught anyone. We know that the Church of Rome had to wrestle Paul's writings away from the Gnostics. So that they could become the sole representation of them and make their new Greco-Roman religion. And this new Greco-Roman religion came complete with a new demigod called Christ. Who the Greeks could now just worship from afar as they'd always done with their gods before. And once the Church canonized Paul's letters, everything changed again to the next level of derangement. Because now Paul is not seen as just a man writing out his own thoughts and stories. But Paul is now seen as the very mouthpiece of God himself. And this is why you'll commonly hear, When you read Paul, you're reading the words of Jesus. Because Jesus wrote the whole Bible. So to reject Paul is to reject Jesus himself. And they will genuinely say this with no sense of irony. Because they've been taught and programmed to believe these things. Paul wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In other words, Paul became a channeler and channeled Jesus in his writings. Which is quite hilarious when you actually read Paul. And you try to impose this framework on him. Because it's like, am I supposed to believe that God is bragging about himself? And mocking the disciples? And complaining about his sufferings? And cursing his enemies? Like, which part exactly is supposed to be God speaking here? But this is nonetheless what happened, right? Paul was sort of deified right alongside Jesus. He became Jesus 2.0. The final revelation of the true gospel. And Paul called it, of course, my gospel. Which we have big problems with. And Paul even says, very black and white, blasphemous things like, I have filled up in my body what was lacking in the suffering of Christ. Things that if any other person said this, if a Christian heard some other person say this, James, they would want to burn them at the stake for it immediately for heresy. But when Paul says it in Colossians, Christians go, yes, Paul filled up those sufferings that were lacking in Jesus. It's like, wait, when did we start believing Jesus' sufferings were lacking? I thought he died for our sins and stuff. It's all very crazy when you break it down. But that's why whenever Paul contradicts Jesus, which is most of the time, Christians either can't see it or won't admit it. Because to admit it would be to shatter the illusion, right? It means realizing that they are following Paul, not Jesus. Christians love to say, I follow Jesus, but none of them believe that keeping the commandments or loving your neighbor is how you earn salvation. None of them believe that the only way you have your sins forgiven is to forgive others, even though that's exactly what Jesus taught. And I learned all these things firsthand when I became a pastor at 23 at a much more Paulian fundamentalist church. Suddenly everywhere I went, all I ever heard from Christians was Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul. Hey guys, when are we going to talk about Jesus and his teachings? I know we love Paul. Paul's great. But isn't this the religion of Jesus? And when I started to bring this up to people, James, I was rebuked and scorned. Even by my own pastor, much to my surprise, because it's like, hey, I mean well here. I'm not trying to be a heretic. Like I love Jesus. And I think we should do more Jesus. And I'm being rebuked for saying we should teach Jesus more in church. Apparently, even to imply these things, that there's even a difference or, you know, a contrast between them is like some instantaneous sin. You're literally not allowed to question Paul in the cult of Paul. And that's when it hit me that I wasn't actually following Paul. I wasn't actually following Paul. I wasn't actually following the religion of Christ. I was in the cult of Paul. And this realization was very painful. Like waking up and realizing everything you've been taught was a lie. And so this is why I call it Paul derangement syndrome. It is not meant to be an insult or a judgment on anybody. It's simply a diagnosis of a very real mental imbalance that plagues countless millions of people on our planet today. And the word derangement, by the way, the dictionary means a disturbance of normal mental functioning. Or behaving in a way that's irrational or unhinged. And nobody would say that it's normal behavior to launch into ad hominem attacks on somebody who brings up something they disagree with, right? So that's what derangement means. It's an unreasonable level of irrational thinking or cognitive dissonance. For example, like calling people demonic and heretics, right? These are not normal words that people use in the real world. So I want to stress that I don't believe in things like mental illnesses. The idea is that I don't believe in things like mental illnesses. The idea is that someone's brain is just irreparably broken. I don't believe people's minds are irreparably broken. I believe they become imbalanced. So I don't believe in illness any more than I believe in lack. These things don't exist in God's universe. So for us, Paul derangement syndrome is simply a mental imbalance that is no one's own fault for having. It's due to years and years of religious programming, which most of us have had in our past as well. It's simply a hijacking of the right to the right. It's a hijacking of the right to the rational mind through continual inundation of fear and guilt and tribal identity. And so we know that anything that's true doesn't need to be defended. If it needs to be defended, it's a house built on sand. And the waves of logic and reason will eventually knock it over. So we can only sow seeds, as Jesus said, right? Some seeds are going to fall on the rocky ground. Some seeds are going to get eaten by crows and choked up by weeds, but some will fall on fertile soil. And so we can only sow seeds. And so it's important for us to know how to sow seeds properly and leave the rest up to God. And that's what we're going to do today. We're going to give you many examples of Paul derangement syndrome, and we're going to react to some of the comments we received on our Paul episode from a few weeks ago and show you how to respond to people in your life. You may have PDS, maybe your own friends and family, because this is another consistent question we receive on this podcast, right, James? How do I get through to my Christian parents or my Christian friends or partner who thinks that we're going to get through to them? And so we're going to get through to them what I believe is evil and heretical and so forth. So we're going to answer that question today in great detail on this episode of the Jesus Way podcast. So I'll throw it over to you, James, if there's anything you want to add to that before we dive in.
Speaker 4Yeah, that was beautiful, Aaron. And I have a lot of compassion for people with PDS. I think all of us at one time or another have clung to an identity. And when someone speaks contrary to that identity, we can take it very seriously. We can take it very seriously. And it feels like an attack on our soul, on our family, on our friends, on our church, whatever. So it's not just someone laying out some evidence for a point. It can be construed as a personal attack. And I just want everyone to know it's not a personal attack. We're simply laying out what years of research has led us to believe and lots of prayer and meditation and a sincere yearning for the truth and asking for God to show us the truth. And I don't think it's just a personal attack. It's a personal attack. And I even pray to God, like, God, I do not want to teach anything that's untrue. If anything untrue comes out of my mouth, please let me know. I would never want to lead anyone astray. And I'm sure Aaron's the same way. We take this very seriously. We pour our entire being into this podcast. So I hope everyone will hear in our voice that we really mean well for humanity and we want to reestablish the original way.
Speaker 3Yeah. In fact, we care so much about this that we've devoted huge chunks of our life to studying it. And I've even decided to go back to university and get my master's degree in biblical studies because I want to study these topics in much greater detail at a scholarly level. And for years and years of studying Paul, I just kind of got to the end of my own natural abilities to parse out truth from falsity in Paul's letters and like really get a glimpse at this man and what he fundamentally believed and taught. Because there's so much, you know, there's so much convolution around Paul's teachings and every denomination has a different spin on it. So it's like, I want to see what scholars say who are unbiased and just trying to know what's true. And man, from the, I'm taking a class right now on Paul and reading these scholarly works and just diving into the letters of Paul. And not only is it confirming all the conclusions I've come to about Paul, but it's opening up a whole nother level of it. And I'm seeing so many more arguments. We just were reading Romans 7 the other night, James, and just had our minds blown by what Paul was saying and going, man, it all converges in the same direction of like, this is the kind of Hellenistic platonic philosophy Paul wove into Jesus's message. And that became Christianity. And it's not original to Jesus at all. And that, in my opinion, cannot be debated. And so let's go ahead and dive in today, James, to our first couple of videos. What we want to do guys is show you first an example of a more common or subtle version of Paul derangement syndrome, where you have to kind of pick out the crazy statements being made when you really like put them in context. And, you know, it's like a sermon you would hear on Sunday, right? All the way to the other end of the spectrum of total full-blown insanity, Paul derangement syndrome level, which is our good buddy, Robert Breaker. Man, we love that guy so much. Countless hours of entertainment have been had watching Robert Breaker videos. And so we'll show you some clips from him that really highlight what we're trying to talk about today in a bigger way. So let's begin first with this. But this is a very famous Christian pastor from more so from the late nineties, early two thousands. But let's see what he has to say about Paul's gospel. And then some
Speaker 2people say, well, you know, he has no authority. Some people don't like the way that he approaches grace. And lately there's been a real satanic push against Paul. Jenny gave me a thing about a rabbi saying that it's not Jesus they hate, it's Paul they hate. There's a reason for that, by the way. And so I'll be sharing a little bit of that this morning, but just seems like there's a real attack and it's been kind of subtle, but now it's just becoming blatant that people are against Christ or against Paul.
Speaker 3So there's a lot of good Freudian slips in this video clip, but that one right there, I think is particularly funny because he's, he's trying to say Paul, but he accidentally says Christ. And it's like, shows you who your real Christ is, right?
Speaker 2And somebody said, well, what's the big deal? I mean, what is the big deal? I mean, you know, so we don't need Paul. I mean, what's the big deal? Think about this. Without Paul, we have no reason for Israel's blindness today. There's no explanation to it outside of God revealing to Paul the body of Christ and mystery program. Secondly, and I wrote these down late last night, so I hope it makes sense. We have no mention of the body of Christ without Paul. And when you get saved, you become a part of the body of Christ and we're one in Christ. And then also we'd have no Christ in us. You know, uh, uh, in Israel, he came up on people, but he left, but there was not that permanent indwelling like we have through the message of Paul.
Speaker 3So this kind of reveals how they see Paul as the true savior of Christianity, right? Although Jesus came and died for our sins and wants to dwell in us and all that good stuff without Paul, we wouldn't know any of it. So really. Paul's Jesus. Paul gave us the real message, and without Paul, we would have no indwelling of Christ. I think that's a pretty wild statement that I would have a hard time imagining Jesus would agree with, right? Jesus said he's given all power in heaven and earth to us. He gave authority to his disciples to cast out demons, heal the sick, raise the dead, preach his gospel, and he said, I'm with you always, even into the ends of the age. He didn't say, I'm with you always once Paul comes and teaches my real gospel.
Speaker 4Yeah, and Jesus could have saved the whole world a lot of confusion and potentially billions of people going to hell by simply uttering that confessing him as Lord and Savior and believing in his death and resurrection and blood atonement is the path to salvation. After his resurrection, why couldn't Jesus utter that one sentence and save billions of souls from eternal hell? Why did someone else who was killing Christians have to come and change the salvation doctrine? Well, I just don't understand how God wouldn't want to avoid such an important source of confusion by having the Lord, the Master, the King clarify this point very clearly.
Speaker 3Yeah, God is not a sower of discord and confusion. God is the sower of hope. God is the sower of truth and light. And when God speaks, God speaks clearly and unambiguously. And if Jesus came to speak the truth, he would not have convoluted it in such a confusing way and handed it off to a serial killer who came after him. This is crazy. Jesus taught a complete gospel, period. And Jesus's words alone are sufficient for salvation, period. And if we're heretics for that, brother, hallelujah.
Speaker 2Then also, we'd have no rapture, no heavenly position to go to, no one generation that will not die. And if we're alive, then we'll have to go into the tribulation without Paul.
Speaker 3So all y'all who get stuck in the tribulation, you can thank Paul for that. This one's a funny Freudian slip, James, because he says, without Paul, we would have no rapture. That's correct. The whole theology of the rapture came from Paul alone. It didn't come from Jesus, didn't come from anybody, but Paul. And so like, what are you really saying here? Are you saying that if Paul didn't teach about the rapture, then the event itself would never have happened? That's kind of a weird thing to say. Or is he kind of accidentally admitting like, yeah, we can't find the rapture anywhere but in Paul's
Speaker 2writings. Amen. Maybe now we're picking up why people hate him so much. We have no explanation, no understanding of the cross's full accomplishment without the apostle. So Paul, we would
Speaker 3have no understanding of the accomplishment of the cross without Paul. This is something else that I find to be interesting about Paul derangement syndrome is that if you just disagree with Paul, they'll say you hate Paul. Everyone hates Paul is why everyone hates Paul. No one hates Paul. We love Paul. And we say that on every single episode. We just disagree with Paul. And he kind of says the same thing here, right? If this is why so many people hate Paul. No, no, no one hates Paul. I mean, some people maybe do, but we certainly don't hate Paul. People just disagree with Paul. Most people we talk to James, even in our comment section who agree with us, like they don't hate Paul at all. They think Paul taught some good stuff too. And they think Paul meant well, like we do. They just think he was deeply misled and narcissistic and things like that. So these false dichotomies have to be drawn when you're defending, you know, your cult leader, so to speak.
Speaker 2He's the one who told what it really accomplished. And then without Paul, we couldn't prove salvation by grace through faith alone. In the gospel alone, without
Speaker 3Paul, we couldn't prove salvation by faith alone through the gospels alone. That's a pretty mind blowing admission. Like you never hear Christian pastors admit to this stuff, but this guy just coming right out and saying it without Paul, we couldn't prove any of this stuff. And even when he says, James, without Paul, we wouldn't know the full accomplishment of the, of what Jesus did on the cross. It's like, isn't that a problem though? If you say, Hey, without this one guy who came out of the cross, we couldn't prove salvation by faith alone. We wouldn't know the real meaning of Jesus's crucifixion. It's like, but shouldn't that make you skeptical of that person's claims that, Hey, Jesus resurrected and gave his disciples the great commission and told them to go into all the world and preach the gospel. And he never said any of this stuff that Paul says about blood atonement, penal substitution, sacrifice for your sins. That's all from Paul, not from Jesus. And so when you say without Paul, we wouldn't even know what Jesus accomplished on the cross. He was the only one who said it. That makes me less likely to believe in Paul, not more likely. I follow Jesus.
Speaker 4Yeah. And especially because he contradicts Jesus's soteriology and salvation teachings. If Paul was echoing and reciting the teachings of Jesus, it would make it an easier pill to swallow. But we have so many red flags of him oppressing Christians, being a Pharisee, being a Herodian. It's completely reasonable and rational to be skeptical of Paul in this position.
Speaker 3If I came along and taught that Jesus was teaching Taoism in the gospels, and I made all these equivalencies to Taoism and his teachings, and I wrote all these letters and became well-known. And then you're like, Hey, without Aaron, we would never know that Jesus taught Taoism. You'd be like, wait a minute. Only this one guy says Jesus taught Taoism. Like, shouldn't that make you skeptical? But he admits, and he just admitted without Paul, we would not know salvation by faith alone in the gospels. We could never prove it from the gospel alone. That's why I reject it, my friend.
Speaker 2It'd be very difficult. We couldn't prove justification apart from the law. We couldn't prove full, total forgiveness of all of our sins through the finished work of Christ on the cross and the empty tomb.
Speaker 3Man, so he's just admitting everything here. We couldn't prove that Jesus' death atoned for our sins without Paul. We couldn't prove that salvation wasn't through the law without Paul because Jesus said that it was, and that's one of the big contradictions. So again, if you love Jesus, shouldn't you have a problem with this, that we're taking the words of another man and using them to marginalize and dismiss and cover over the words of our supposed master, our Lord and Savior? We should be doing the opposite, right? We should use Jesus as the ultimate litmus test to weigh and measure every other statement against. And if anyone even appears to contradict Jesus, I'm tossing it to you. in the garbage and sticking with Jesus. Because all of us would agree, right? We all agree. Jesus was the perfect demonstration of God. Jesus embodied it. And Jesus taught us and showed us the perfect way. That's why his followers were called followers of the way. So we all agree on that. And then a big swath of people who agree with that turn right around and say, and now I'm going to follow this guy. And what he says, even though it totally contradicts what Jesus said, I believe he taught the real revelation of Jesus. This is not how discipleship works, right? When you become a disciple, you become a disciple of Jesus. You become a disciple of Jesus. You become a disciple of someone. You're saying, I will, I will follow you as the highest ideal of what I'm aiming for. And if anything seems to be in contrast with you, I'm going to ignore it because I want to follow your way. That's what Jesus said. Follow me. And then what does Paul say when he comes along? Follow me. He doesn't say follow Jesus. He says, follow me because I follow Jesus. It's like, okay. So anybody who says I follow Jesus, now I have to follow them because they claim that they follow Jesus. See, we get on a slippery slope. James, anytime we start to give ourselves permission to deviate away from the hard line truths and gospel message that Jesus himself taught, if we stay there, we're going to stay in the safe zone in terms of being deceived. If we give ourselves wiggle room to introduce other people's teachings in theology, as Jesus said, the voice of another, we start to follow the voice of another. Then we're going to get into some dangerous territory and we might end up in a cult like Pollyannity.
Speaker 4Yeah. And it would be different if Jesus said, follow me. I'm going to follow you. Jesus clarified that someone would be coming after him to pick up the cross and carry the message forward, that there would be a new prophet after him who would clarify Jesus's salvation teachings. Well, Jesus claims the exact opposite. He warns us continuously that a Benjaminite would come, that someone would be called the least who taught people not to obey the commandments of God and the laws of God. And he said, follow me. And of course, Paul's name, Paulus, means the least. So we were warned, folks. We were warned that this would happen.
Speaker 3Yes. Jesus did in fact say someone would come after him, but he didn't say that they would clarify his message. He said that they would twist and distort his message. So, wow. Without Paul, we'd have no heavenly position. We'd all go to hell without Paul. Literally no hope. It's like, okay, Paul sounds a lot like a savior to me. You know, without Paul, we go to hell. Without Paul, we have no hope. Oh, I praise Paul, brother, my Lord and my salvation, my hope in God. Thank you, Paul, for saving me from hell. You think maybe we've gotten a little bit off focus from the original message of Jesus?
Speaker 4I mean, what about the earliest Christians who were on the scene before Paul became, I guess, ubiquitous? These disciples of Jesus and their network who accepted and loved Jesus as the Messiah and lived by his teachings. Now they're bound to hell now because they didn't know Paul's teachings. They didn't know Paul's gospel.
Speaker 3It's crazy. What a great universe we live in, right? Now this part is very interesting because we get into more of the true kind of spirit of Paul or perhaps the spirit that was speaking through Paul.
Speaker 2We have it everywhere that we look around us. Now, Galatians 1.6, he says this here. I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ and to another gospel. Not something totally different, but something that had been polluted. Things that they had added to the gospel of grace. Verse 7, he says this, which is not another. You know, you try to create, you try to create another gospel, but in reality, there's only one true gospel that saves today. Amen? And he says, which is not another, but there'll be some that trouble you, these coming from the Jerusalem church, and by what they were doing would pervert the gospel of Christ.
Speaker 3So this guy obviously hasn't studied like secular scholarship and probably doesn't know that he's talking about the disciples of Jesus here. He literally said the Jerusalem church. And it's like, hey, buddy, we know that the Jerusalem church was led by James in Paul's day, the brother of Jesus. We have Paul on trial before James at the Jerusalem church twice in the book of Acts. So if Paul is saying that there's some other people coming from the Jerusalem church teaching another gospel, he can only be talking about the original Nazarene disciples of Jesus led by his brother James, right? So that's another big red flag. Why we're not going to throw James, the brother of Jesus, the 12 disciples, the Nazarenes, the Jerusalem church in the dumpster, because Paul said. No, actually we're going to question Paul because there's a lot more evidence that those people had actually followed the living man, Yeshua, and understood his real gospel. So are we going to get our best credibility from somebody who'd never met Jesus versus his own blood brothers and the 12 disciples and Nazarenes who walked with him on earth? That should cause big problems for any devout Christian who loves Jesus, right?
Speaker 4Yeah, who do we think would, just as an example, and guys, this isn't an analogy, it's an example. People used an analogy from last episode and thought I was literally comparing someone to Jesus. No, I'm just using an example. If Aaron, God forbid, passed away, who do you think would understand his message more? Me, his family, his close friends, or someone 20 years later who was oppressing Aaron's family, his family and friends? Who is closer to the action? Who knew Aaron? Who knows what Aaron taught in person? So it's very obvious when we use this example in another area of life.
Speaker 3Well, also like there would also be somebody who came from Brazil and speaks only Portuguese, you know, who never met me and makes fun of you and my friends and family and says, I have the real revelation of that. Aaron taught. We would all be skeptical of that person. And guess what? That's why everybody was skeptical of Paul in Jesus's day and why all the churches famously rejected him because they knew this guy never met Jesus. We're going to stick with his blood brothers and his 12 disciples.
Speaker 4I could already see the comments. You're comparing Aaron to Jesus. No, we're just using an example of if someone passes away and someone comes later and teaches against what they taught, it's just an analogy, folks.
Speaker 3An analogy is something that is non-literal, just so you guys know.
Speaker 2Yeah. Pervert the true grace gospel that Christ died for your sins. He was buried. He rose again. And that's enough to save you in that alone. You're perverting it by adding and adding and adding to it. Les gave an illustration of what an huckster was. He said, you could have pure wine and then you could add some form of liquid. It still looks like red wine and it's sold as such, but it's not pure. It's been added to. And that's what perversion does. It looks good, but it's only a part of what it's supposed to do. The Judaizers. They were not throwing Paul's gospel out. They left it. Then they added circumcision, keeping the law, water baptism as part of the gospel that they said would save you and keep you safe.
Speaker 3So this is a very funny anachronism here. Again, you have to study actual church history and secular scholarship to know these things. Otherwise, you just kind of hear these phrases, you know, the Jews, the Christians, the Gentiles, the Jews, the Jews, the Jews, the Jews, the Jews, he's talking about. Those are the Jewish Christians. And no, Paul's message did not come before theirs. And then they added into Paul's message. They were angry at Paul and the Nazarenes were trying to have Paul executed again and again as an apostate because they believed that he was adding to their belief about Jesus and their original gospel, the gospel of the 12 and so forth. So it's very funny to posit that some Greek diaspora. A Jew named Paul comes from Turkey to Jerusalem and says, Hey, guys, stop adding to my gospel. I think they were here before you were, Paul. So if anyone's adding to the gospel, it would be you. And doesn't Paul add to the gospel? Does anyone else before Paul say anything about Jesus that Paul said? No, Paul taught a completely unique message that was unknown before Paul, as seen in the Didache and texts like that, early Jewish Christian texts. So obviously this pastor. Doesn't know that. But it's just funny to point out that the exact opposite is historically true, right? The Jewish Christians hated Paul because they believed he was adding to their gospel. And Ambrosiaster, the church father, said they believed he was teaching something different than what Jesus taught. That's a specific historical quote about the Jewish Christians.
Speaker 2Galatians 1.8, Paul says this then. But though we are an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you. Let him be accursed. Now, look at the condemnation on people who do this sort of thing. And by the way, regardless of who they are, whether they're in our seminaries, our pulpits, our Sunday school classes, in home Bible studies, if they are polluting the gospel of grace, note what their end is going to be. They're going to be accursed. Anathema. Damned. Condemned. Wasted. Destroyed. And so that they would not miss the point, he repeats it in verse 9. And we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that which you have received by Paul, let him be accursed.
Speaker 3Wow. Yikes. So if someone at your home Bible study, somebody at church, a friend, a family, if anyone preaches to you a different gospel than what you think Paul taught, right, because that's really what it means, there's no agreement on exactly what Paul taught. There's billions of denominations for that reason. But if anyone preaches a different gospel than you think Paul taught, curse them. Even if an angel comes down from heaven to preach a different gospel, let that angel be accursed, Paul says.
Speaker 5And it's like, didn't this fuzzy memory, but didn't Jesus like? Tell us to love our enemies and bless those who curse us and forgive 70.
Speaker 3It just feels like this isn't really lining up with the teachings of Yeshua, James.
Speaker 4Oh, my goodness. And Paul is saying an angel from heaven. If an angel from heaven, which is a messenger from God, comes and teaches you a gospel different than Paul's, a serial persecutor of Christians, let that angel be accursed. It doesn't. Say an angel from the pit. It doesn't say an angel from hell. It says an angel from heaven. So in a way, that is like the clearest example of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. I've ever seen an angel from heaven is literally a messenger from the father.
Speaker 3I mean, this is the ultimate example of Paul's narcissism. I do not know how any Christian, no matter how in love with Paul, they are, could possibly deny the level of narcissism in this statement, not only does it contradict Jesus, but it contradicts Jesus flagrantly, right? Let's put that aside for a second. Paul is saying if an angel of the Lord descends from the throne room of heaven and preaches to a different gospel, I'm right. And that angel from heaven is wrong. Curse them. That is the most blatant narcissism I've ever seen in my life. And I don't know how you could argue otherwise, but then let's bring back the fact that it directly and blatantly contradicts what Jesus taught to love our enemies and not curse people and not judge them. them and forgive them. And if we have a grievance, go to them in private and settle the grievance. Jesus taught enemy love, forgiveness, and repentance never to curse people. And so yet there's another red flag from Paul that we have to take into account here. Now, with that being said, James, let's go to Robert Breaker, which is going to represent the other end of the spectrum of full-blown lunacy derangement for Paul. And we don't really need to pause the video too much here because there's not a lot of commentary we can or should add. We all can see how crazy this is. But we'll just play it and let you watch it for your own entertainment value. So this guy's name is Robert Breaker. He's a big fan of Paul, no question. And he's got about 800,000 subscribers on YouTube. So don't let yourself think for a moment that this guy is just some kooky, deranged Christian who nobody follows or listens to. He's got a massive audience of Christians who believe that he is teaching the true form of Christianity. So let's check it out. And this, by the way, is a compilation from like an hour and a half long video where he's teaching us why we should follow Paul's gospel and not Jesus. So we just kind of mashed up the funniest, kind of craziest statements he makes in the video. So if you want to watch the whole video, you can go to his channel for the full context. But I think the context will speak for itself. Let's check it out.
Speaker 1Someone ought to be ashamed of themselves if they say, we're under Jesus' ministry, not Paul's ministry. When what I'm going to show you today are the many, many, many, many verses of Paul that says we are under his ministry. Hypocrites. Because they claim to follow Jesus' ministry. I see a bunch of hypocrites. Follow Jesus is to deny yourself. So it's a gospel of do these works. Sell everything you have. No, no, no. You can't own anything. You have it. So you're a hypocrite. You're a liar. You're a liar. I'm sorry. I'm getting heated. I'm getting animated. Because you're under bondage if you're trying to be over here. So you're deceived and you're going to have problems. There were some things Jesus spoke that are very, very harsh and very hard. You have to mutilate yourself if you want to be a follower of Jesus. Because that's what Jesus said.
Speaker 3Okay, I just have to point out the hilarious straw man. He's drawing here really quick. You have to mutilate yourself to follow Jesus. So he's taking literally the passage from Mark 9, 23, I think, where Jesus says, if your right hand causes you to sin, chop it off. Better to enter heaven maimed than thrown into Ghana with both hands. And it's like these are analogies and metaphors. Jesus wasn't advocating for self-mutilation. Also, when he says, take up your cross and follow me, that's an analogy. It doesn't mean literally carry a wood beam around behind me everywhere. But Robert Breaker is saying that, hey, if you want to follow Jesus, you got to do all this stuff, which is crazy, right? So that's why we're under Paul's gospel. It's like, look at the infallible logic we're using here to draw these conclusions.
Speaker 4And Aaron, selling everything you own, is that the rich young ruler parable? Yes. Yeah, so there's different ways to interpret that. But, you know, the rich young ruler may have made an idol of their wealth. So it's a parable of making an idol of riches and wealth and material things. And also, you know, the poor give to the poor is the Ebionim, the Ebionites, the earliest Christians. So it could have been an invitation to sell what you own, give your belongings to the poor, as we know that this is how the first church lived communally in Acts. So that's another way to interpret this is giving up your worldly possessions to really, truly become a disciple, to join the inner group. A group of Yeshua and his followers.
Speaker 3Yeah, well, the context in that passage is Jesus says, if you want to be made perfect, go and sell all you possess. So the rich young ruler already answered Jesus correctly when he says, you know, the commandments and he says, all of the commandments I follow. Love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus says, great, that's it. That's the way to eternal life. But if you want to be made perfect, sell all you possess, give to the Ebionim and follow me. So as you're saying, James, we know that. But that was the requirement to join the Jesus church as per Acts two and Acts four. They lived in voluntary poverty and everyone who joined the Jesus church had to give all their possessions to the church, the community to be admitted entry to it, because it was like their vetting process. Right. If you're really willing to follow this message, which is probably going to lead to your death. Right. It's a very dangerous message to follow. Show us you mean it. Show us you want this with all your heart. Give us all you possess to this community and share it in common with us. Right. If somebody was willing to do that, that meant they were all in. So Jesus, when he's telling all these people in the gospels, sell all you possess to the poor, he was inviting them to be his disciple, but telling them what the requirement was. Again, as we see in Acts chapter two and Acts chapter four, there is no debating that that is the liturgical structure of the Jesus church. So there's a lot of scholarship and textual criticism you have to overlook to make any of these statements, to say the least.
Speaker 1Because you see, I'm under grace. That doesn't sound like grace. And it's Paul, actually, that says that a man that doesn't provide for his house is worse than an infidel. But yet Jesus is saying, don't worry about it. Don't go buy clothes. Don't even wear clothes. You don't need that. That's the way the hippies were.
Speaker 3They're hypocrites. Oh, my gosh. So here he's literally he's doing what we do. Right. When we debunk Paul with Jesus, he's debunking Jesus with Paul. He's like, Paul said, if anyone doesn't do X, Y, Z, they're worse than an infidel. But, oh, then Jesus says, sell all you possess. Don't wear these kind of clothes. He's literally mocking Jesus and holding Paul as the highest standard. It's pretty wild to watch, honestly.
Speaker 1Amen. When you lie to people and tell them that we aren't under Paul's ministry, we're under Jesus' ministry. I'm just preaching the Bible. Doesn't that sound like a hateful man? Who would want to follow somebody like that?
Speaker 3Oh, my God. Doesn't Jesus sound like a hateful man? Who would want to follow? Somebody like Jesus. Man, where do I sign up for this guy's cult?
Speaker 4Yeah. And Jesus said that not one dot, not one iota would pass from the law until heaven and earth pass away. So Jesus was really elucidating or illuminating what the commandments of God passed down through the Torah. He was really clarifying what these laws actually mean spiritually. And he's saying they're never going to pass away until heaven and earth pass away. But Robert. Raker is saying that no, no, no, they pass away. There's a division starting with Paul where all of that stuff passes away. We're under a new covenant now. Bold statement. Yeah.
Speaker 3You've got that dividing line right down the middle there where he's saying here's where Jesus died. Before that is Jesus's old moldy ministry that's done away with. And after that is Paul's shining, brilliant gem of a ministry that we're now under. So he's already contradicting what Jesus said. The law will never pass away. He's got a graph. I'm talking about the law passing the way. You just can't make this stuff up.
Speaker 1You know what austere means? It means hard because they demand excellence. That's that sounds like the Jesus of the Bible that we just read. Are you a Jew? That the ministry of Jesus was to Jews. If you want to believe that that's the way of salvation, then you help yourself. And these people that say we're not under Paul's ministry, but other Jesus ministry are the biggest liars that ever lived. Well, the thinking of those that don't know how to write the divide is, well, Jesus is God. So God's right. Yeah, to the Jews, Paul, here comes
Speaker 3the circular reasoning.
Speaker 1Watch this says, be a followers of me. So did you know you can follow Jesus Christ by following Paul? That's what Paul says.
Speaker 3Oh, man, it's so good. And every leader and
Speaker 4every cult leader in history has said that.
Speaker 3Yeah. Jim Jones said you should follow Jim Jones and drink the Kool-Aid of Jim Jones because that's what Jim Jones said.
Speaker 4Jim Jones speaks for God.
Speaker 3Hard to argue with that.
Speaker 1Now, I'm going to take you through the scriptures now and show you what Paul says about himself and why he's there, why we should be followers of Paul.
Speaker 3I'm going to take you through the scriptures to show you what Paul said about himself of why we should follow Paul. Can you tell that you're in a cult yet?
Speaker 1I want you to know that the gospel that Paul preached was not the same gospel that Jesus preached. What? What? Are you? Okay. You know, a lot of people can't take that. They can't process that. They say, oh, I don't understand. There's only one gospel in the Bible.
Speaker 3No, it's. So, hey, kudos to Robert being honest here, right? Paul did not teach the same gospel as Jesus. We agree, Rob.
Speaker 1Jesus came preaching condemnation. And so Jesus was angry.
Speaker 3Jesus came preaching condemnation and Jesus came angry. I mean, I don't think that's a totally fair assessment of Jesus, but that's just me.
Speaker 1with them when he preached this. Why does Paul say, follow me, and Jesus says, follow me? You've got to make a decision.
Speaker 4Which one do I follow? Exactly. Yes, indeed, Rob.
Speaker 3We all do have to make that decision. Who am I going to follow, Paul or Jesus? Because as our good friend David Natsori said last week, you can't follow both at the same time. You got to choose one. So with that context in mind, we're going to go over some comments now to close the episode about some Pauline Christians who responded to our video on Paul. And you know, James, it was really disappointing as it usually is that I'm always looking for a good scholarly debate. Let's get into the hermeneutics. Let's really dice this thing up and have a good one-on-one debate. And it's always just your evil, your heretic, your haircuts, demonic, you're gay. Yeah. It's like, actually there's really good evidence that Paul might've been gay. That's another episode for another time. Um, but we'll show you some of the comments that came in just to show you how often Christians do kind of back into this derangement syndrome and how we would respond to some of these comments. I'll let you read these James, and then we'll react.
Speaker 4All right. First comment. Guess what folks, you people are falling for a false prophet. And it all starts by being deceived by someone with dashing good looks, spewing lies about the apostle of Christ. That guy in the video should be burned at the stake.
Speaker 3Man, talk about a compliment sandwich, dude. This guy has dashing good looks. Kill him. You should be burned at the stake.
Speaker 4Aw. It really flipped that one on its head. Yeah. How, how on Christ? Like, is that someone disagrees with you? So you want them to be burned at the stake? The most horrifying, painful death. That's a wicked thing to say.
Speaker 3Yeah. I mean, this person is technically calling for my death, right? I should be burned at the stake. Like, are you sure that that's a sin? Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't statement that Jesus would pass off on, my brother? Or would Jesus perhaps say, hey man, you need to love your enemy. You need to forgive him or God can't forgive you. I think that's the response Yeshua would likely have given to a comment like this, not a tacit agreement, thumbs up. Yeah, yeah, burn people who disagree with you. This is where Paul's gospel of let them be accursed can lead people, right? This is the fruit of the tree you are from. If you are passing off on cursing, harming, killing, burning anybody, you are not following Jesus, period. End of story. But the last thing I'll say about this is that I'm really curious what my prophecies are here, James, because you can't be a false prophet if you don't prophesy. And I was unaware that I give prophecies, but please to this user, let us know what prophecies I've given, because I would love to see if they've potentially come to pass or not.
Speaker 4Well, the other day you thought it was going to rain. Turned out to be sunny. So I think burning at the stake is a reasonable punishment.
Speaker 3Totally reasonable. You're a fool, Aaron. Jesus is not your savior. Kundalini is. He's going to save you right to hell. So Kundalini is a feminine presence. If you studied it, you would know that. She's going to send you right to hell is what you mean. Every time you open your mouth, you lie to no end. You are creating your own gospel of Aaron. False teacher. You are so dishonest. You're the one trying to put butts in seats. You're a new age heretic of the worst kind. Your haircut is deceived by a demon. Wow. How does hair get deceived by a demon? That's an interesting claim. You struggle with the gospel that gave to Paul because you're pompous, arrogant grifter. And Paul, literally met Jesus. And yeah, these two fellow liars are your enablers. Reprobate minds. Two plus two equals 10 to y'all because you do too much and dead wrong. A lot to unpack there, James. But my haircut is deceived by a demon. So that's actually even worse than having a demonic haircut. My haircut is itself deceived by a demon. So I guess I better find a new barber, man.
Speaker 4Jeez. Yeah. That was a real zinger. And then they get into the Kundalini. I always find it so hilarious when people say Kundalini is demonic. Well, Aaron, as you teach all the time, how does one activate Kundalini? Through preservation of sexual energy, through celibacy, sexual purity, number one, righteous intent, service to others, having a loving heart. So loving actions, good works.
Speaker 3Yeah, good, good works.
Speaker 4Celibacy and good works, helping the poor is demonic is essentially what they're saying.
Speaker 3Yeah. That's why Jesus said, you know, a tree by its fruit, because if the fruit is good, the tree must be good. And I think you're going to have a hard time convincing me that demons want people to be sexually pure and love the needy. This one was interesting. Why don't you read that one, James?
Speaker 4Paul never met Jesus. What happened on the road to Damascus? Paul also met with some of the disciples to check his theology. The church fathers never discovered this nonsense about Paul as you and your band of false prophets did. Shame on you with all your lies. You are an abomination. Oh, dude, we're false prophets. I'm a false prophet too? Dude, you're a prophet too, man. Wow. This is crazy.
Speaker 3I struggle to remember your prophecies, but this guy seems to know. So that's awesome, dude. We'll have to back check our prophecies after this pod.
Speaker 4I'm going to go check my prophecy journal.
Speaker 3Your false prophecy journal. Now, hold on. The first thing here that's interesting to me is they said Paul also met with some of the disciples to check his theology. I mean, this is one of the things you're like, ah, poor guy's been taught this in church, thinks it's legitimate or has historical standing. But there is absolutely no evidence anywhere that the disciples of Paul are going to check his theology. I mean, this is one of the disciples met with Paul to check his theology. There's nothing but evidence to the contrary in the Bible. Even Paul describes his meeting the disciples in Jerusalem in Galatians 2, and it doesn't go very well. He publicly calls Peter a hypocrite, as we know. The disciples come, Barnabas splits off from Paul because he's embarrassed. And then Paul goes on to be like, those so-called disciples, whatever they were means nothing to me. I'm a better disciple than them because I've suffered more than them. And then as we saw with the previous guy, he's complaining about people coming from Jerusalem. And changing his gospel. And then we have all the attestations outside of the Bible that show major, major problems with Paul's theology for the Jewish Christians of his day, even in the epistle of James. I mean, this is not debated in scholarship. James is refuting Paul, period, in the New Testament. Even the founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther, admitted to this when he said, if anyone can reconcile, you know, faith without works is dead versus we're saved by faith alone. Martin Luther said, I'll put my dunce cap on and let you call me a fool. Because Martin Luther sided with Paul, right? Martin Luther thought that James, the blood brother of Jesus and appointed successor was wrong. And Paul was right. So these are the kind of insane things we see in history that show there was big, a big schism between the disciples and Paul. We see it all in the New Testament. We see it way outside of the New Testament as well. So I'm sorry, my friend, but it's just not true to say the disciples met with Paul and checked his Bible. And then continuing,
Speaker 4wasn't the Bible put together under the influence of the Holy Spirit by serious Bible scholars? That was the reason they included Paul's letters. If that was so, didn't Jesus say, not one jot or tittle must change in his word. Luke also didn't meet the living Jesus. Should the book of Luke and Acts be torn out of the Bible?
Speaker 3That's juicy. So no, Jesus didn't say not one jot or tittle should be removed from the Bible. He said from the law, which came before him. And then it says the Bible was put together under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and Bible scholars. Also an anachronism, right? There were no Bible scholars in that day because the New Testament Bible didn't exist yet. That's why they were putting it together. Bible scholars came long after the canon was put together. And so that doesn't mean there weren't like scholars of literature and stuff. But to say that Luke and Acts are the Bible, because they may not be historically accurate, is approaching the Bible with a very unhelpful framework, right? We don't approach the Bible with this inerrantist framework that says, if I can't prove God literally wrote it, it's trash, burn it, destroy it. That's a false dichotomy. That's not how it works. These documents are incredibly valuable. I've devoted much of my life to studying them. I'm at university right now studying them. I am in love with this book. I truly am. But I'm in love with it because it tells the truth about the human story. And there's lots of manmade passages in this book that show you what people thought about God and Jesus and so forth back in ancient times. And so we see the unfolding narrative of the evolution of consciousness in this book. And not to mention, it's also packed with many divinely inspired gems and pearls of wisdom that we can learn from today. So it's really sad to me, James, when people denigrate the Bible like that, that the Bible doesn't have the power to do that. It doesn't have the power to do that. This framework of inerrancy destroys the true beauty and meaning of this book and just turns it into some sort of like textbook from God that we have to study like good students when it's not that, right? It is this beautiful human book that meets us down in the dirt, eyeball to eyeball in the human experience and shows us how God meets us in that experience as well in our human condition as we are. The Bible is beautiful because it's not perfect and inerrant and infallible, but it actually shows us how God meets us in that experience as well in our human condition as we are. The Bible is beautiful because it's not perfect and inerrant and infallible, but it actually shows us how God meets us in that experience as well in our human condition as well in our human condition as well in our human condition a whole lot of forgotten history that we can discover today through things like textual criticism and biblical scholarship.
Speaker 4Well said, man. continuing on you all sound like pharisees well that's pretty interesting because we're going against a very powerful pharisee well i mean paul
Speaker 3was the chief pharisee right the pharisee of pharisees as he called himself so that's kind
Speaker 4of ironic yeah the entire pauline theology is really a combination of hellenistic philosophy and pharisaical blood sacrifice tradition so 100 might need to remove the log from your own eye there
Speaker 3at eternal investment says this demonic podcast teaches live for yourself paul and jesus teaches die to yourself glad we don't have to deal with selfish people like this in heaven their narcissistic love is so demonic so he's glad we're gonna burn in hell that's not very christ-like and i think it's it's funny how there's always the projection of this is evil demonic demonic your demons your demons your haircuts demons it's like are we hiding some demons in the closet maybe just a little bit
Speaker 4and you know celebrating someone going to hell and being joyful about that is the most wicked thing you could ever believe or think it's worse than wishing someone gets raped and murdered it really is because yeah you're essentially wishing that happens to them for eternity on steroids
Speaker 3yeah being raped and murdered is a million times better than going to hell for eternity
Speaker 4it's infinitely better because it ends yeah exactly it's
Speaker 3hard to think of anything that's worse than eternal conscious torment but it's also like dude if you think there's going to be no annoying people in heaven like have you been to a church service lately because i grew up in church and let me tell you what there's quite a few annoying people there i'm of course i'm just tongue-in-cheek kind of kidding but like it's very true right you're not there is no place you can go after you die where you don't have to deal with people who disagree with you anymore like that's not what heaven is heaven is a place where our spirits go when we align with the law of god the teachings of yeshua when we live the golden rule we go to a frequency realm that matches that frequency and so if you find people annoying and angry and evil and demonic you're going to go to a realm like that of demonic angry evil people that you don't like right this is what near-death experiences reveal so you might want to think about changing your attitude a little bit from the i can't wait to be in heaven where there's none of these people because they'll be burning in hell yeah that's a that's a mentality that might just attract yourself to a hellish afterlife realm my friend and i genuinely don't want that for
Speaker 4you that's what near-death experiences show time and time again indeed they
Speaker 3do it's it's not what you believe that determines which realm you go to it's how you feel and treat how you feel about and treat others so if you hate people in your heart and you're going to be glad they're in hell that's a one-way ticket to a hellish realm ironically right as jesus said judge and you'll be judged condemn and you'll be condemned forgive and you'll be forgiven uh mike mike frady you you are evil and demonic and you are the one who is deceived and into thinking that god's word can be anything but inspired especially by the blessed apostle paul who even had to correct peter if i believe all the scriptures well do you too bad you can't believe because you have your own agenda thank god for galatians chapter one anyone who believes another gospel is accursed even you so hey we just read galatians one from that pastor who also enjoys that paul curses people who disagrees with him so there you go right paul derangement syndrome paul says we should curse people who cares what jesus said about not cursing people and loving them it's like jesus is just easily tossed into the dumpster when you get obsessed with paul's paul's writings because it's just this weird i don't get it man it's like if you say you're a follower of jesus shouldn't you weigh everything paul says against jesus but here we are just celebrating that people who disagree with us are accursed at these nuts says i'm already i'm prepared for some cutting edge high level philosophical arguments here these nuts says your inclusive jesus is a demonic counterfeit designed to lead people to destruction while making them feel spiritually enlightened we know the spirit you're operating in we've read the end of the book you lose so here again we have this kind of tacit celebrating of people being thrown into hell we've read the end of the book you lose which is referring to the book of revelation right where the devil and his angels and those who followed them are thrown into the lake of fire so this person's just kind of like nonchalantly being like yeah you're gonna burn forever man you're gonna lose so i don't need to defeat you in this instagram comment because you're gonna burn in hell forever these are really wicked and awful things to say to people but you always become like the god you worship right and so this person angry exclusive jesus is clearly a product of paul who's this person's true lord and master right when did jesus ever say to exclude people based on their beliefs he condemned people for not loving people or including them as this person says jesus was famous for making his company with sinners and he told us to love the least of these or else you're not getting into his kingdom he commanded us to forgive everyone and to not judge if we want to be forgiven by god and he roundly condemned people who confessed him as lord but didn't obey his greatest commandment to love their neighbor so if jesus has asked directly what's the greatest commandment and he says love your neighbor as yourself it sounds pretty darn inclusive to me james so yeah thanks for your offer brother but i'll stick with my inclusive jesus and you can keep your angry jesus from paul's private
Speaker 4visions i think it's so poetic that it's actually the inclusive path keeping your heart inclusive to all people not casting people into hell not hating people forgiving all people being inclusive in your heart is the exclusive path it is the narrow yeah path so it's so poetic that dichotomy i love it the genius of yeshua
Speaker 3the universe loves irony and paradoxes so it's like yeah keeping your heart completely open to all creation even your enemies dude jesus's standard was even your enemies you've got to love that's a wide open heart man that's an expansive heart and doing that is the narrow way that few find but closing your heart off to people and judging them and attacking them and hating them and you're gonna burn in hell yeah paul paul that's the wide road is being exclusive right keeping your keeping your love to yourself is the wide path it's such a great symbolism of spirituality it's like yeah and that's why yeah the first will be last the last shall be first if you want to exalt yourself be humble if you if you humble yourself you'll be exalted love a good paradox
Speaker 4it's so cool and you know that's why it's such an amazing practice as a christian to pray for your enemies all of these people people telling me i'm a gay loser bound for hell demon heretic false prophet you know what i love you and i genuinely want the best for you and i'll pray for you soul i'll pray for truth and love to enter your heart because what good is it going to do me to hate this person that will only hurt me that will only hurt me and will only lead to the kingdom of hell like we really have to genuinely love each other and want the best for each other to build the kingdom of heaven that is the jesus way yeah it's
Speaker 3why these these kind of interactions are really great catalysts because they they ask you to build the kingdom of heaven and they ask you to really up your game so to speak spiritually in that if somebody who's coming at you like this you know your friend or somebody in your instagram comments finds out you follow the jesus way and they're like you evil heretic gauging your internal reaction to those comments is really helpful because it shows you any degree of insecurity you still have in your beliefs and find out where it is and why it is and you mentioned this james of like you vet yourself and when you see somebody comment and say james you're teaching evil heretical things and you're going to hell and you're leading people there with you that sometimes you'll pause and say is that true and you really check in with yourself and check in with the holy spirit and say god am i teaching people things that are wrong and that's how you actually strengthen your beliefs right because the answer will come back with a resounding no i'm not i'm teaching people what i truly believe is the highest way the jesus way and so then your response can be softer and less defensive because you don't have anything to defend the truth is not threatened right what is real cannot be threatened only illusions can be threatened and so only illusions need to be defended angrily
Speaker 4man that's the way and that's that's why self-reflection is so important self-auditing repentance all these things really asking god am i on the right path and meditating on it am i living in alignment or out of alignment with the the laws of the universe that's such a central pillar to this path
Speaker 3yeah indeed it is man um this next person at morn to moon Also, I have noticed that a lot of false prophets lately is grooming people to call Jesus Yeshua, saying that they don't want to hear the name of Jesus. And I'm wondering if these men on these videos is being misled. If you don't want to use the Greek name, then use the Aramaic name, which is not Yeshua. That name feels off to me. Any thoughts about this? Well, yes, in fact, we do have some thoughts about this. As we say on this podcast, Jesus, Yeshua the Nazarene, was quickly Hellenized and paganized by the Roman Catholic tradition that came after him. And they started calling him by his Greek name, Jesus, and his historical Hebrew name and Aramaic name were forgotten, right? He became Jesus, which was a name that he would have never recognized in his day. If you had gone up to Yeshua and called him Jesus, he would have said, oh, I'm sorry, you have the wrong person. So if Jesus' real historical name, Yeshua, bothers you and feels off to you, all I'm offering is maybe that's a sign of the cognitive dissonance you're holding, that you're actually following a fake tradition that doesn't actually reflect on the historical Jesus because the actual name that he had, Yeshua or Yahashua, feels off to you. These are the ways we can know, right? That we might be holding some cognitive dissonance. If what is true and factual bothers you, there's some dissonance there for sure. Wouldn't you say?
Speaker 4I mean, imagine this in any other scenario for someone, a person, you know. Aaron, you know, I don't really like your name. It feels wrong to me. Oh, well, I like my name. I, it resonates with me. No, I'm not feeling it. I'm the arbiter of, uh, what your name should be.
Speaker 3I'm going to name you this Greek name that feels better.
Speaker 4I'd also look. I'd love to touch, touch on this one last comment too, if that's all right. About, I listened to it for two seconds and all I heard was God speaks to us through symbols and numbers. The universe speaks to us through math. Aaron Abkey is out here preaching Gematria, Kabbalah, back magic, and easily refutable Gnostic doctrines. He's a goofball who makes a lot of money spinning these webs. This comment really cracks me up because how small can you possibly make God the omnipotent creator of the universe? Who generates all of reality and who created all of the rules and laws of existence? He only speaks through this one book when, in fact, every fiber of creation, every molecule in the universe is encoded with the beauty and majesty of the creator. I mean, God's wisdom and love is on every leaf, every blade of grass, every Adam in our body, every breath we take, every breath. Every heartbeat or every heartbeat is encoded with the genius, the profound wisdom of God. So to say that God doesn't speak to us through symbols and numbers and math and physics, I'm sorry, it's retarded.
Speaker 3Well, I mean, we literally wouldn't know anything about the universe without math. Everything in the universe is mathematically calculable. And this is the only reason we have physics, hence the only reason we know about the cosmos, planets. And astronomy. So, yeah, the whole universe does speak to us through math. God created the universe through math. So it just kind of makes me sad, James, when I read comments like this from from Christians, because this was one of the first things that made me not want to be a Christian anymore was I started to see how small minded everybody was. And like, we're not open to mystery. We're not open to a God outside of our box anymore. When we're laughing at people for saying that God speaks to us through symbols and numbers as if that's some crazy thing. Like, that's really sad. Like, you've got a really tiny, small God that's very uninteresting and uninspiring. But I've also never preached Gematria or Kabbalah, magic or Gnostic doctrines, the three things. It's funny, these comments, it's like someone just came here, they heard me say God speaks through numbers and like, this guy teaches, come on, they just jumped to all these conclusions. It's like, I couldn't tell you one thing about any of those things except Gnostic doctrines. But as we know here, I don't actually agree with it. I don't agree with much of Gnosticism. So in any case, you know, these are good examples of how when we close our mind off to God, we end up with really sad viewpoints about the universe that to me, there's nothing that can make you more depressed than believing in a boring, uninteresting, or even like evil, dangerous universe. We don't want to hold these ideas in mind, man. They're so toxic to our spirituality. We want to believe that we live in the most mysterious, magical, incredible, beautiful intelligent, infinite, and eternal universe there is. That's a universe worth living in, right? That's worth being happy about. And I think being happy is something that most Christians don't have a lot of experience with. Because at least when I was a Christian and every Christian I tended to know, we're always carrying these heavy burdens and everything's so damn serious because everyone's going to hell and we got to save him and ah, we're in this big eternal saw movie. It's like, what a depressing reality to live in. Yeah, man. So on this note, let's go ahead and wrap up here, James, with our conclusion of this conversation. What we believe are the top three most important things to keep in mind or rules of engagement with people that have Paul derangement syndrome. Because many of you comment to us, write to us, message us that your friends, your family, your partner, even sometimes your children are hardline, you know, Pauline followers. And so you say, What do I do? How do I interface with them? How do I respond to them when they say this or that? What are the rules for engagement with people on this level of consciousness? And so I'll go through each one, James, and let you respond in turn. The first one we both think is number one is always begin with your common ground, right? Your love for Jesus, your love for Yeshua. We have to start there with somebody who is coming at us with the, you're a heretic, you know, kind of energy trying to refute us because they're, they're already projecting us as their enemy, right? I know that you're a bad, evil person, because you disagree with my mental beliefs. So we're enemies, we're gonna fight, and they're looking for a fight. And so as Jesus said, agree with your adversary quickly, and forgive your enemies, thus you will heap burning coals upon their head. In other words, you will depolarize them if you don't fight evil with evil, but if you overcome evil with good, so always begin with, hey, there's so much we agree on, like, we mostly agree on everything, Jesus, his teachings, you know, all that, just, you know, here's some questions I have for you, right? Always start with your common ground, which is your mutual love and respect for Jesus.
Speaker 4Yeah, this establishes goodwill early on, you could even agree with some of the points they make, say, that's a really good point. You know, I love Jesus, too. Jesus is, is my Lord and Savior and King. I love the Bible, too.
Speaker 3And I love the Bible, too. I love it, too. Yeah. So, I'm going to measure what they say against what Jesus said. Say, "Well, I hear you, man, but you know, Jesus said. " and so I have some problems with that because it seems to me to be a contradiction of what Jesus taught. And you're kind of just offering it as something for them to chew on, not like a, "No, that's wrong." We never get into the fighting energy. We just say, "Look, I follow Jesus. I'm committed to that. And so, I know you say this and this and that, but Jesus said this." And at the very least, what you're looking for is for them to not be able to fault you. For that. But at the very most, what you might get is some of their cognitive dissonance firing, going, "Wait a minute. That is true. That is kind of a contradiction of what Jesus said, and I do claim to be a follower of Jesus. Maybe I should chew on that a little bit." And that's all we're trying to do in these interactions, is force self-inquiry and reflection,
Speaker 4right? And that leads us to our third point is asking questions, because this is the best way to force self-inquiry and get people opened up to these ideas. So we take point number two, cite the words of Jesus, and then ask them questions about them. What do you think Jesus meant when asked how to inherit eternal life? He said, keep the commandments. What does that mean to you? Why do you think Jesus said that as opposed to confess me as Lord and Savior and believe in my resurrection? Wouldn't it make sense for Jesus if that was the path to salvation to say it there? So these questions are really the things that can get the wheels turning because you're not telling them, you're asking them, and then they have to confront what they actually believe internally. So it's extremely effective.
Speaker 3Yes, it is. It is the one, two, three punch formula that if you do it right, you really can't lose because at the very worst. Again, you're going to force some self-reflection at the very most. You might get some honesty and some people actually will say, you know, you're making some fair points here, but let's, let's really quick as we close, James, do a little run through for people. I'll be the Paulian with Paul derangement syndrome. Let's say I'm your friend. We're in the same friend circle. And I saw a post on Instagram, James, where you questioned something Paul said, and I want you to go through the three steps. Okay. As an example for the audience. Okay. Ready? Okay. James, I saw your Instagram post today, and you said that Paul contradicts Jesus. And I think that's evil. And you're a heretic and your, your bald head is deceived by a demon.
Speaker 4Hey, brother, you know, I love a lot of the stuff Paul wrote about. However, the highest ideal for me is Jesus, man. He's my King. And I just really cling to his words. You know, you're, you're a Christian too. We both love Jesus in our heart, right? Don't you love Jesus? Yeah, of course. I'm a, I love Jesus more than anybody. Same here, man. So don't you think if Jesus is our King, if he's our Lord, should we hold his teachings in the Bible to the highest possible esteem above all other teachings in the old Testament, new Testament, Jesus's words should have the highest level of, of, uh, meaning and power. Don't you, would you agree with that?
Speaker 3Well, yes. Yes, yes. But I, I believe Jesus wrote the whole Bible. So when Paul's writing, it's really Jesus writing. So you can't just take something Jesus said in the gospels and dismiss away what Paul said.
Speaker 4Okay. Well, how do you know that Paul is, is Jesus?
Speaker 3Uh, because my pastor told me.
Speaker 4Well, I, I would encourage you to dig deeper into, into that belief because there are some inconsistencies about Paul. But either way, the incarnation of Jesus was the most important event in human history. So I, I would wager that his teachings during his lifetime are more important than anything else that happens in the Bible. Well, how do you feel about that?
Speaker 3I mean, I guess I agree with that, but I mean, are you just saying I, I should throw out anything from Paul if it doesn't agree with Jesus? I mean, come on.
Speaker 4I don't think you need to fall, throw anything out. I just think you need to exalt the teachings of Jesus to the highest degree. And what did Jesus teach about salvation and his earthly ministry? What, what do you believe that Jesus taught about salvation?
Speaker 3What do I believe Jesus taught about salvation? Yes. Uh, he said, uh, believe in me. No one comes to the father, but through me. And I'm the way. And the truth and the life.
Speaker 4So I agree with those statements. I might interpret them in a slightly different way, but Jesus was asked very clearly several times about how does one inherit eternal life? How is one saved? Are you familiar with those verses from Jesus where he clearly is asked, how are you saved? And then he answers the question.
Speaker 3Um, yeah, I mean, yeah, you're right. He does say, keep the commandments and love your neighbor. And that's true. But he also says, believe in me. Okay, now let's flip, let's flip spots. You'd be the contrarian, Apollyon. So, but, but where did Jesus say that you have to confess me as your personal Lord and savior and believe in your heart? God raised me from the dead to be saved.
Speaker 5I mean, this is bullshit.
Speaker 4I'm just asking questions
Speaker 3because look, I agree with you. I agree that Jesus said, believe on me, believe on me, but see, the word there is piste you in Greek, which means to trust and obey. So Jesus is saying, trust and obey in me, right? Follow my commandments. If you love me, keep my commandments. John 14, 15, the one who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me. John 14, 21. So to Jesus, believing in me, didn't mean confess me as Lord and believe in my ontology that I raised from the dead. He's very clear in the book of John, what it means to believe in him, which is to keep the commandments that I raised from the dead, which is to keep the commandments that I raised from the dead. He's very clear in the book of John, what it means to believe in him, which is to keep the commandments that I raised from the dead. He says, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I say? So all I'm asking is, are you absolutely certain that by believe in me, Jesus meant what Paul said and not to keep his commandments? Which one feels like a stronger bet to you?
Speaker 4Well, when Jesus says, don't call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I say for, and then he names different works like casting out demons and performing miracles. He's saying, you can't be saved by your good works. That's it. He's, he's ridiculing those who think they could be saved by their own righteousness and their own works.
Speaker 3And in my opinion, brother, this is not debatable because Jesus has asked in both Matthew and Luke, what is the greatest commandment of all? And he says, without hesitation, love God and love your neighbor as yourself. And then he says, if you do this, you have fulfilled the entire law. So the good thing for us, brother, is that Jesus pulled no punches about what his litmus test was for good works and inheriting his kingdom. He said, if you do not love the Lord, you will not be saved. If you do not love the least of these, feed the poor, taking the widow. If you don't love the least of these, you're not getting into my kingdom because I don't know who you are. And so the ones who came to Jesus to your point, prophesying in his name and so forth, he cast them away from his presence because they didn't love their neighbor as themselves. And so it seems to me, and this is my, my issue between Jesus and Paul. I think Paul meant well and taught some great things, but I think he got Jesus's soteriology a little bit wrong because Paul never says that loving your neighbor as yourself is a prerequisite for eternal life or salvation. He never says it's the greatest commandment. He emphasizes confession and belief over and over again, and that the law is done away with. And I just think that Jesus may have had some issues with Paul as did his brother, James. I understand if you disagree, but I think at least we can both agree that we love and want to follow Jesus above all else. And so that's why I'm just a little bit cautious around some of Paul's writings.
Speaker 4Well, that was interesting. I'll think about it. My, it goes against everything I've learned, but thanks for being kind about it.
Speaker 3So that's actually a great demonstration, James, of what many people have said. We actually ran into a guy at the gym a couple of weeks ago, right? And he overheard us talking about some Jesus stuff. And yeah, what are you guys talking about? We let him into the conversation. He's like, oh, you guys have a podcast. What is it about? And we're talking about what, you know, the Jesus way podcast. And we get into Paul's theology and he keeps pressing us. And he was very, very interested in what we had to say. And we were, you know, just laying it down in simple terms, asking him some questions and being really open with it. And he seemed very open, even though he said, you know, I do disagree with some of what you guys are saying, but I'm interested and I'm going to check out your podcast. You know, that's the right way is just be playful, fun, curious, ask questions. Don't lower your vibration. To the same level as the one who's being defensive and hostile, because you're going to lose when you do that, right? You lose by lowering your vibration. We want to call people up higher, right? That's what this podcast is all about. So any last words you want to leave us with, James, before we close?
Speaker 4Yeah, I would say not to sound like a new age heretic, but your vibration is so important in these discussions. Stay anchored in love. Stay calm. Really see the Christ in that person and seek to help them. Don't seek to belittle them or lecture them. Really, it's a brother and sister. This is a conversation and you don't have to win. All you have to do is plant some seeds and they'll remember your energy more than anything. Even if they disagree with what you say, they'll be like, you know, that guy was super nice or that lady was really kind. And that will end up being the water to help plant to help that person. seed grow yeah
Speaker 3man that heretic sure was kind and loving that's what you want to leave them with right that's the win so thank you guys for watching today hopefully you were blessed and edified by some of what we discussed today and giving you some real hands-on practical tips for interfacing with some of these people in your world who you want to see and live the true jesus way as you have that's what we're here to do right is spread the good news of the true gospel of jesus love god and love people and we'll see you guys on the next episode of the jesus way podcast shalom shalom
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