The viral Bible teacher who rejected Paul - 5 years later | The Christian Truther Tragedy

Five years ago, an event took place that shook the faith of many people and it sparked a lot of dialogue. Just recently, a video was released by a ministry called Christian Truthers. Shalom. Shalom.

We are live.

Welcome.

Thank you for joining me tonight. This is kind of a sort of a seemingly off the cuff live stream. Although it's not quite off the cuff per se. This has been about two years coming.

The teacher went along to give 50 reasons why Paul is a false apostle. And because I knew the danger to salvation within people when they start denying Paul and ripping his books out of the Bible, I reached out to my friend David Wilbur and we collaborated and published a video in response titled Defending Paul Testing the Christian Truth for rejection of Paul as Apostle.

My heart is that he will repent and that he'll come to his senses.

I've made the decision to no longer trust in the Bible as an inerrant, inspired word of God or whatever. The sooner Christians realize realize that the entire basis of their faith system is based on mythology, the better off we'll all be. I'm an agnostic atheist, so I really don't think that the New Testament or Old is a good source for actual morality. But hey, if you want to follow an author like Paul who ripped off most of his doctrines from Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Seneca and many, many others.

Have a blast.

When the Holy Spirit convicts you, that's a beautiful thing. It gives you an opportunity to repent of your sin and that area of your life back over to Christ.

Some people denied Paul, following in the footsteps of Justin, and others stood steadfast, retaining Paul in their Bibles. But much damage has been done by this. And many of you may have never considered the problems that comes in when we start denying Paul as an apostle and how it could lead to even denying the Messiah and becoming an enemy of God, as in the example that we're going to be discussing today. So it's now five years later. Much has transpired, but we've come to a place where we can test the fruit of this theology that Justin put forth among believers, whether it was for or against the kingdom of God. And so I'm welcoming on David to join me as he did those years ago as we revisit this. David, thank you so much.

Hey pd, it's great to be with you again. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, awesome. So before we dig into this, I want to just explain to you why we're doing this now. We're doing this for the protection of the body of Christ today. Just like when Justin did it. There are many false teachers running around hoping to convince you that you need to deny Paul as an apostle.

And.

And the ramifications of this is of course, that we throw out Galatians, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philemon, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Ephesians, Colossians, and even other books like the Book of Acts. And we'll explain why that is. In rare times like this, it's important for us to address things head on, even when it involves people. The Bible warns us that wolves will come among us and spread destructive heresies. I think we sometimes forget that when we read the Gospels like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. We're not just reading about the glorious salvation of Yeshua. We're also reading about the tragic betrayal of Yeshua. And we see the journey of Judas given to us as an example of what it looks like and how we should fear and how we should avoid a warning to us all to not follow in those same footsteps today. We're gonna begin with just playing you guys a clip from Justin in his days before he started denying Paul. And then we're gonna play a after clip after he denied Paul. Let's begin with that Clip number one.

I think we need to be reminded of who the Holy Spirit is. You see, the Holy Spirit is part of the triune God. Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit is the same powerful God Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. So when we say that the Holy Spirit is dwelling in us, then we have to remember that God himself is dwelling in us as his temple, our body now his temple. Really, when we look at the traits and the fruit of the Holy Spirit working through us, we're looking straight at the nature and the traits of God himself. So a good way to start is just to remember that when we're looking at the fruit of the Spirit, we're looking at the nature of God coming out through us. And when we look for someone who gave us a perfect example of what it looks like when God works through them 100% of the time, we can look at the man and the God of Jesus Christ himself.

I'd now like to just play an after clip that's from more recently.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Oh, really? Tough guy?

Well, what about them? Got stuff to do.

Ah, okay. Come back when you can't stay so long.

Yeah. David, can you share with us? What do you think about that?

Well, yeah, so a lot has obviously changed since that time that, that we put out that video. And what we just watched, I think is the, the last video clip that you played. It's really to be expected when you start on that trajectory of denying scripture and being willing to throw out scripture, it's, it's to be expected that you would end up in that place. And that's precisely what we predicted when we put out that video five years ago. It's like, listen, when you start throwing out, you know, much of the New Testament, you, you're, you're going to end up eventually rejecting all of the New Testament. And then what's to keep you from rejecting the whole Bible and, and rejecting God entirely? And so that, that's what happened. The, the prediction came true. Unfortunately, you know, it really is a case where I hate to say I told you so, but this is one that's a natural consequence. He's just following the logic to its conclusion.

Yeah, and that's why we urgently jumped on to make that response. We put out like two weeks after he put out his 50 reasons to never Deny Paul. And you know, when I think about it all, and I see the first video that we played now of how he was and I see where he's now, to be honest, when I found that old video of him, I got emotional. I was like, I can't believe. I mean, how you could never imagine that someone who seems so convicted about the truth of who God is, wants to teach others who started ministry, who seems to be doing it with good intention, at least at that point. And suddenly there's this spiral over time. And we will soon discover that spiral didn't take long at all to happen. And it should honestly put fear in us all to not dabble with taking out books out of what we now see as the established canon or inserting books. You know, David, something that I think some people don't realize is, and before he came to starting to deny Paul, he was becoming more popular when he started to discuss apocryphal books. And it drew people because it's interesting, mysterious, but if you think about it, that's already meddling with the canon. It's already taking, saying this book that we call, that we have as the Bible is incomplete. There's inspired things outside of it we need to find and put in here. And I have the authority to modify this to my likes. And so when it comes to now Paul that I don't like, say, right, I see these things, he says, I don't like those things. It's easy to now just remove that and this becomes a fluid Bible that we just make into our own image.

You know, a lot of people that go down this path of sensationalism looking at extra biblical books to, you know, incorporate into the canon. They, A lot of these people, quite frankly, they don't understand why we have the canon that we have. They don't understand how the canon developed and, and, you know, why, why it is those books that, that are part of the canon. And so they, it really is just a lack of information and a lack of good information, I should say.

Yeah, I agree. I'd like to run through just the timeline quickly so that everyone who's not aware of how things went can understand. So in April 2020, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Justin decides to release this video, 50 Reasons to Never Quote Paul Again. And he obviously questions Paul as well as other books like the Book of Acts. A few weeks later, me and David responds. We put out defending Paul, testing his rejection of Paul's apostle. We warn him not to not fall away from the Messiah. And, you know, we'll go into more reasons as to why that happens later. Justin then also in the same month, puts out a video sharing what gave him the confirmation to move ahead with releasing this teaching to teach others to deny Paul. And he does this by explaining he had received dreams, visions and signs from heaven that prompted him to do so. This was a fundamental confirmation to Justin. So we'll be playing some of those and discussing some of that and what went wrong there as well, soon. Then later in 2020, that same in response to warnings that his theology may lead him to deny the Messiah, he makes a series titled the Messiah Complex where he tries to defend why Jesus is the Messiah. Right. This sounds like a good thing, right?

Since publishing the first part of this two days ago, I have been falsely accused over and over, even by quote, unquote, big YouTubers who claim that I will now reject the Messiah. Next.

But the next year, February, March 2021, he publicly denies Jesus as the Messiah. This is about 11 months after he denies Paul publicly. He makes the statements that Christianity adopted everything from paganism. And he said, I am questioning the authenticity of the New Testament and the existence of a historical Jesus character. Right. David, I don't know if you remember that part. Do you remember when he came out with that and what was your reaction to that at that point?

Yeah, so I actually did another response to that video where he gave his reasons for not believing that the Messiah or that. Yeshua, is the Messiah. And so he came to deny the New Testament and the Gospel altogether, you know, as we, as we predicted he would. You just have to accept these things by blind faith, right? No, no, there are very good reasons why we have the canon. We have, there are very good reasons why we know that Paul is not a false apostle, that the Messiah is, is that he rose from the dead, that he was who he claimed to be. But I think that for Justin, he just did not have good information. He, he was, he had a very shall. And you know, he, he was a teacher when he shouldn't have been a teacher. You know, James warns that not many should become teachers, especially those who have bitter jealousy in their hearts and selfish ambition. Particularly people with selfish ambition should not be teachers. And, and because what happens, we all stumble in many ways. Well, when a teacher stumbles, when someone who has influence stumbles, could potentially lead many other people astray as well.

And we'll be addressing some of the arguments. We're not going to address every single one. We already did that in that previous video we put out and we'll link that in the description for everyone. Just moving ahead with, as I finish off this timeline Then in September 2021, around there, that same year that he denies Yeshua, he deletes all of his pro Maasiah teachings from his ministry Christian Truthers and then he renames his ministry of Christian Truthers to bullet holes in the Bible. His ministry is now suddenly transformed into an anti missionary channel. Using his existing Christian audience, he's built up over the years to now teach them why Jesus is not the Messiah, why they need to leave him. We can start here with the question how can we avoid this type of downfall ourselves? And you know, when I look at this example, I see two facets, I see theologically and we're going to discuss some of those things. That's what David's been talking about so far as well. He lacked understanding of scripture, he lacked reverence for the scriptures. And then there was also an aspect of how he received confirmations, a lack of care in handling these signs that he thinks he's receiving, these dreams and visions in particular dreams and visions that he himself received, his friends and his family around him received. That was the confirmation to propel him to release that teaching according to himself. And so now we're going to just take a moment, in short, look at a few of those and just see what he said. First I'm going to let him explain to us why he is sharing these to Us.

I do this study. I conduct this study with much trepidation, much fear, much anxiety. Like I said, I didn't want to, but I knew I had to because Yah had given me so many confirmations.

All right, Justin saying he had to because God gave him so many confirmations. Now he's going to explain to us what those confirmations are. The first one being of his fish dying.

It was impressed upon my heart deeply that the best time to share this is during unleavened Bread. The writings of Paul had become leaven for most people in the Christian denomination and even for many people who try to come to Torah and then read Paul and go the other way. During the feast of Unleavened Bread, my fish, which I have a Beta fish, you can't see it just on the other side of my desk, I had a fish named Paul. He was a betta fish that my daughter picked out a couple years ago. And during the feast of unleavened Bread, my fish named Paul died. Now, again, if it was just my fish died, you know, people would be like, dude, you're crazy. You're losing it. But it wasn't just my fish died. It was. That was just one of many, many things.

It seems like he's equating his fish named Paul dying. At the same time he puts out the video against Paul as a sign that this is God telling him to do so. You know, I'm not going to try and interpret his dreams for him or his signs, but I do think that when we, no matter the interpretation, we should always consider that when things happen around us, it seems to confirm something. It has to always be tested to Scripture itself. And when you are using signs to go against Scripture, instead of, if there's a sign, let it be confirmed by Scripture. You know, that's, I think, the primary downfall here from the beginning. Did you have any thoughts on that?

No. I think you summed it up well. Yeah, it's. I like to call it Sola feels. So you have Sola scriptura. You know, Scripture is the final authority on all matters of faith and practice. Justin here seems to be operating on the basis of Sola feels. You know, he is operating on the basis of what he feels and, and, and what he, you know, these. It's the confirmation bias based on, you know, what, you know, events that happen to him and how he, how he feels about it and interprets that on an emotional level. And it's, it's not a proper foundation. And so when you're operating upon that foundation that that is, you know, you're going to end up in a bad place. You know, he was already into a lot of weird stuff before he started denying Paul and getting into really false doctrine. But he was already promoting a lot of other false doctrine and a lot of sensational stuff. This passage from First Timothy 1, which I guess Justin would say this doesn't count because it's from Paul. I digress. He says in chapter one, verse three, Paul saying, as I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. And that perfectly characterizes where Justin was. He had devoted himself to myths and all kinds of vain discussion and weird stuff. That is, it gets you a lot of views on YouTube because it's very sensational, but it is shallow and hollow. It only entertains vain discussion and speculations. It is not the truth that, you know, based on the Scriptures that the apostles taught the people to uphold and to focus on. And so that, you know, that goes back to having that solid foundation.

Yes. And just as a reminder to everyone, the reason that we are discussing these is because it's, you know, there are believers who can have dreams and visions and who may think that they've seen a sign in heaven. Right. And there are biblical examples of biblical characters receiving dreams, receiving visions. We see Peter receiving a vision of these animals. Right. We see Joseph receiving dreams. Right. This is a biblical idea, but we have to be careful when we think we're receiving something, because in this case, I don't know. But either Justin is being led by imagination or the enemy is coming with dreams, visions and signs. Whatever the case, when we have to also remember that the enemy can deceive us in whichever way and lead us astray. Just because we have a dream or see a sign doesn't mean that it is from God. And we have to test those things. So let's look at another example here.

As I'm finishing up writing these, these references into my. My outline about the wolf, the ravenous wolf. It doesn't just say a wolf. It says Benjamin is a ravenous wolf. And Messiah said that these. These wolves in sheep's clothing are like ravenous wolves. And when I was making that connection, my wife ran in from outside through the back door here, and it was like, justin, Justin, you have to come see this quick. So I run outside, and she's pointing in the sky, says, look. And I look at this cloud, and it's a cloud that looks like a wolf. And she's like, don't you see it looks like a wolf? And I'm like, yeah, it does. And she had no idea what I was typing about, because while I was sitting here studying and writing my outline for the last two hours, she was on the back porch talking to people, messaging people, reading and stuff like that. So the timing of that was pretty impossible, to say the least. And I just stood there like, you have to come through this verse that I just typed down into my. My. My notes, because I literally was just writing about a wolf, and I literally cannot make this stuff up. I mean, I guess you could, but. Yeah, that would require a lot of creative lying, that's for sure.

He's talking about the scripture that. Talking about false prophets. Beware false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but they're inwardly ravenous wolves. You recognize them by their fr. And he thinks that because his wife told him she sees a wolf in a cloud, you know, that's confirmation, because he's thinking about Paul, that Paul is this wolf, and this is now what he needs to go and teach other people. I guess my only question would be, considering where we are today with Justin, was Paul the wolf or was Justin the wolf? That would be my question, because today he is confirmed a wolf leading people away from Yeshua.

Well, yeah, especially he kept his YouTube channel. Right. He just rebranded it. Right. So, yeah. Yeah. So he's literally the Christian audience that he had built up. He's just now. Now. Yeah. Teaching them. Yeah. To a different message.

Right. So this example as well, of seeing a cloud as a picture of something that is not enough. Guys, to throw out Paul. Okay, one more, and then we'll move on.

She had a dream that she was in a field. I'm talking to her husband, and she overhears what I'm saying to her husband. And she said that I sounded, like, panicked. And I was telling him, we need to hurry and get these seeds in the ground now. We have to get these in the ground now. We got to plant now. We have to hurry up. Hurry, hurry, hurry. And she was, like, concerned. And wondering what's going on. But they agreed, like, okay, we need to plant in a hurry. And so she said, she turns, and we all start to plant. We all start to turn and go to the ground and to sow seed and do whatever we're doing with the ground to prepare for planting. And she said these snakes that were like vipers came up out of the ground, out of the dirt, and jumped at all of our faces. And she said it was kind of like a matrix moment where everyone was just like. Like, kind of, you know, one of those things where everyone just barely gets missed by one of these vipers. And she said as the viper went behind her, it just, poof, disappeared and went away, and the threat was gone. And she literally just was like, yeah, I don't know if that means anything. Do you guys. Do you guys think it has any meaning? And I literally almost once again fell out of my chair. Because whether you can acknowledge it or not, that is a prophetic dream. That was a prophetic dream. The attitude that I had in her dream where I was like, we got to do this now. We got to do this now. That was the attitude that was given to me the night that I went live to share the information that Yah has shown me about Paul. From within the very soil that we're trying to sow, snakes came to attack us and try to bite our faces, and nobody was harmed. As a result, all of us managed.

To.

Escape unscathed in her dream.

Okay, so this urgency to plant was the urgency he had when he went to proclaim Paul is false and these snakes came to attack him. Ironically, instead of looking as to whether the dreams and visions and signs are aligning with Scripture, he uses them to abolish Scripture. It plays into this agenda to get rid of Paul. You know, I'll just read 1 Thessalonians 5:20. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything. Hold fast to what is good. And also 1 John 4. 1. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. And one last one I'll read for us is Jeremiah 14:14. And the Lord said to me, the prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying you, a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds. You know, I would submit, guys, that this is unfortunately what was happening. You know, he was deceived himself. Yeah, I mean guys, there's not much to say. I just wanted to share that with you so that we can all be warned of the danger of being led by these signs. All right, this is the last clip I'll play of him. I'm going to let him just give us his concluding thoughts on what he believes these signs and visions did for him.

I have to ask myself from a very logical and calm place, do I believe that the enemy has worked in me? This other amazing co op couple that's been in Torah longer than us from Utah and through, and through killing my fish named Paul, which is stupid, but and through my wife who is just a humble servant. I mean I have to believe that either Satan has choreographed all of this to convince me to do something stupid or in fact, yah has.

All right, you know, so to his question, could the enemy have worked in me? I think it's today clear the enemy has by the anti missionary teachings that he is distributing. Back then he was still a believer, but now we can, he can answer that question for himself as we all can. You know, he mentioned, can it be that we have all been deceived, Me and my friends and my family. Well, as kind as people can be, they can be deceived, as experienced as believers could be. As he mentioned, some of his friends were experienced believers. They can be deceived. And the sad part to me is that why did, if these believers were mature and experienced, why did that not rip him away from these false doctrines? Why did they encourage him? You know, I think that's the sad part is this is not Justin alone. There were people around him who encouraged him in this and cheered him on. Right?

Well, yeah, his, a lot of people in his YouTube audience. And that's, that's the danger of setting yourself up as a teacher when you shouldn't be. And, and quite frankly, he should not have been teaching. You know, he, he was. You know, there is a reason why James says that you will be judged more strictly and there's a reason why there are warnings attached to, to that position. Because Paul also warns that there are people that are seeking those teachers that will scratch their ears, right? They have itching ears and they set up people to tell them what they want to hear. And whether that be, you know, prosperity gospel stuff, whether that be, you know, sensationalistic stuff, the theological junk food as I like to call it, there's a reason why those, those warnings are given in the Bible and is easy when you have a platform. It's kind of like that, you know, you are getting that feedback and.

Feedback loop.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's, that's the word I was looking for. Yeah, it's a feedback loop. And so of course you're going to, you're going to be affirmed. And you know, if what you're saying resonates with other people, you know, that's going to affirm you in the direction that you're. You're going. And, and so, and you're just going to.

There has to be a disconnect from, you know, in that sense from people. You need to be led by the Holy Spirit of my God and the Scriptures. And there's going to be people who come along and understand and people who don't. But regardless, the people aren't what's supposed to be leading us. If I just, if we run after numbers, we run after what's popular. We're going to go and teach the world what the world wants to hear. And that's what happened in this case, ultimately.

Yeah. And if I may say, I mean just for, for anyone that has a teaching gift, anyone who feels called to teach, this is why accountability is important because it is easy to. You can't just let your YouTube audience be your accountability and just, you know, because that's going to, you're just going to follow the numbers. As you just mentioned. Pd, in that case, you need people, other teachers, other experienced pastors and, and people in the faith to be able to guide you, those who have wisdom that, that accountability is so important so that you, you don't go off on, on these tangents that, that are just, that are just nonsense.

I think we can shift and talk about the theological things a bit more now. So, you know, I'll just say this, that after everything happened so far, we see that Justin now starts uploading these anti Paul videos that he did under the Christian Truther ministry. He now uploads it to the bullet holes in the Bible anti missionary channel. Right. So he, he sees these as being valuable tools now to get people to deny the faith. Which is a very interesting point because before he saw, he published it as a Christian was just exploring this. But later he realized actually denying Paul is a good tool to use to get people to ultimately deny the Messiah because that's his ultimate goal this day. As it stands.

Why do I say that these three simple verses from Paul are super destructive to the entire narrative of the New Testament.

So when people say, well pd, Paul is not my savior, it's not a big deal. I can deny Paul and Just follow Jesus. Well, Justin even later came to understand that actually it is a big deal to deny Paul and he uses that as part of his tools. David, maybe we can begin with explaining to people why is it that rejecting Paul leads to a rejection of the Messiah.

Yeah, to. Before that, to kind of just comment on what you just said. Yeah, it's a very subversive tactic. And I, I also, I, I want to say this to warn other people that, that, yeah, what you just said, PD is, is totally right. And that's why you have anti missionaries attacking Paul. When you look at people like Tovia Singer, for example, why on earth does Tovia Singer attack Paul? It's not necessarily because he has an issue with Paul. It is because he has an issue with the Gospel that Paul preached. And so it's a very subversive tactic. If he could get you to question Paul, if he could get you to doubt Paul, you know, that will set you on the trajectory which will eventually lead you into rejecting the entire New Testament and doubting the, the reliability of the entire New Testament. So that is why you'll hear these subversive Argum from people like Tovia Singer and others that, like, oh, you know, the other apostles, they, they upheld Torah. You know, some of the other apostles, they were, they were Jewish, they were good. They're fine. But, but Paul, Paul's the real problem. He's, he's the real source of the, you know, Christian antinomianism or whatever, which we'll talk about later. So I just, I just want to mention that to, to kind of help people be on guard against that tactic because it is it. Everyone, I mean, as we see with Justin and, and even with someone like Tovia Singer, it the issue for them, even, even they acknowledge that denying Paul will bring you to the place of denying the Messiah. And so that, that's, that's why they do it. That's why they use that argument.

Absolutely. You, you cannot remain logically consistent in your reasonings by denying Paul and yet still saying, well, Jesus is okay, because denying Paul has consequences that reaches further even than Paul's own ladders. It reaches into the book of Acts, which was written by Luke, a close companion of Paul, because Acts of course, endorses Paul and then it draws into question the other apostles. The other apostles walked with Paul. They also. Maybe we could read, if I may read Acts. We can start with Acts 21, if that's right. David. Yeah, please, I'll just read this for us and then we can comment on it. This is a case that's very well known of how Paul was visiting Jerusalem. It says, when we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly. Right? This is important because he's talking about the elders. The following day Paul went in with us to, to James and all the elders were present. After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry. And when they heard it, they glorified God and they said to him, you see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who are believed and are zealous for the law. And they have been told about you that you teach the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs. What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come. Do therefore what we tell you before. Men under a vow. Take him, purify yourself along with them. Pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself live in observance of the law. Right. So David, you want to comment a bit on this? What does this tell us, right, about Paul and his interaction with the apostles?

Yeah, so this is a very important passage and it's interesting because that is one of the objections, at least one of the objections that you will hear from, you know, anti missionaries or like people like Tovia Singer, and this was an objection that Justin made as well, is that Paul was an antinomian. Paul, he, he taught against the law of Moses. He taught against Torah observance, He abandoned the law. And so that is an objection that you will hear. Well, that is the very objection that is addressed right here in Acts 21. And so this is an important passage on multiple levels because here Luke, the author of Acts, he's, he's portraying James and Paul as fully Torah observant. Paul, he submits to James instructions. He's, you know, he, the, the implication here is that the rumor is false. Like James is saying, like people heard this about you, that you reject the law, that you teach Jews among the, the congregations that you're teaching to not circumcise their sons and to walk away from the law of Moses. Here do these things to show that there is nothing in what they say about you, that it is a false truth rumor and that you do live in observance of the law. And then as you keep reading, that's exactly what he does. He he goes and he takes the men and he purifies himself along with them and gives the notice for the offering to be presented at the temple. So he. So. So this is important. So Luke portrays Paul as refuting the objection that he has abandoned the law, the very same objection that. That people today are making against Paul. Why is this important? Because Luke is one of Paul's earliest interpreters. So the people that want to claim that Paul is an antinomian, they. They want to say, like, okay, if you read. If you read some of Paul's letters, he makes statements where it appears that he is against the law of Moses, he against the Torah. Well, Luke, who is depicting Paul here, who is writing about Paul's beliefs and his convictions and where he stands with regard to the law. Luke is portraying Paul as not an antinomian. So Luke is one of Paul's earliest interpreters. He is. He is a companion of Paul. He would have been familiar with Paul's theology and his beliefs and his lifestyle. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, so Luke. Luke says that the rumor is false, that Paul is not an antinomian, that Paul fully endorses the law and lives by it. And you read the whole book of Acts. I mean, my goodness, Paul is. He is prioritizing the feast days. He's like, I have to get to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of Shavuot or Pentecost. He is prioritizing Sabbath worship. He is going to the synagogue on. On the Sabbath day. Luke says that it is his custom to worship in the synagogue on the Sabbath, just as it was Jesus's custom in Luke 4. In Acts 16, a synagogue wasn't available, so he. He still kept the Sabbath, though he went to the river to pray on. In Acts 15, he's like, we still got to keep the Sabbath even though there's no synagogue. Paul was very dedicated to the Torah. And Luke depicts this. And so that is one of Paul's earliest interpreters from the first century. We have another one, Peter. Peter, in chapter three, he says that in. He essentially says that interpreting Paul in an antinomian way is a misunderstanding of his letters. If you want to pull up the passage really quick, Peter, he references Paul and he talks about how there are some things in his letters that are hard to understand. Right there in verse 16. And he says, ignorant and unstable twist what Paul says in his letters to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. And then he gives a warning. He says, you therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of a lawless people and lose your own stability. What is the error of lawless people? It involves twisting Paul's letters. So the error of lawless people is associated with misunderstanding Paul's letters, twisting them and lawlessness. There. Peter also uses it earlier, but you know, to refer to, you know, this, the sins of people in Sodom. Philo also uses that, that same Greek word that's translated lawless to describe those who transgress the law of Moses and consequently fall under the. The punishments of the covenant. He describes them as lawless people, using the same word there. And so, and the false teachers that Peter is addressing here, there, he also describes them as people who have walked away from the way of righteousness and the holy commandment. And these are phrases that, that the Psalmist used to describe a life characterized by obedience to the Torah, right? And Psalm 1, you have, this is the way of righteousness, you know, walking and meditating upon the law, and so on and so forth. And so twisting Paul's letters is associated with the error of lawlessness, according to Peter. And Peter says that misinterpreting his letters in that way is a distortion. It's a twisting. So if you say that Paul is an antinomian, you are twisting his letters. And that is, that is one of Paul's earliest interpreters. An objection that might be raised against this. You know, we can't trust that Luke and Peter accurate. Accurately represented Paul. Right? And so that gets to what we were talking about earlier, of how this puts you on the path of denying the rest of the New Testament, because now you have to throw out second Peter and you have to throw out the Book of Acts, and then you have to throw out Luke and then you have to throw out all, all this other stuff. But they'll say, well, you, you can't trust that Luke and Peter accurately represented Paul. They, they were lying. They were falsely depicting him as someone who is for the Torah. Well, this objection falls apart because it relies on the assumption that Luke and Peter were firmly convinced that the Torah is valid because that belief is necessary to justify their intention to falsely portray Paul as faithful to the Torah. But if that assumption is true, wouldn't it make more sense for Luke and Peter to warn against Paul's supposed antinomianism rather than to lie to defend him? Especially if Paul's letters promoted antinomianism, why would they lie? To protect him and to validate his teachings if his teachings undermined their own convictions about the Torah? It doesn't make any sense. You could also say that, well, and this is eventually, this is inevitably where people go, is that, well, you know, Luke and Peter, they did not actually know Paul. These are pseudonymous writings. They, you know, they're not reliable. But number one, this objection is, is it ignores historical evidence that confirms the authorship of these writings. And, and it's just a, it's a dismissal. It's not an actual argument because there are actually very good reasons why we can trust that these writings are reliable. But aside from that, even just for the sake of argument, if we say that these writings are pseudonymous, they still represent the earliest Christian interpretations of Paul's theology concerning the law of Moses. So even if they're pseudonymous, even if we grant that this is how Paul's earliest interpreters understood his theology with respect to the Torah and how did they depict his theology as fully in line with the Torah? That, that the notion that his writings reject the Torah, that that's a distortion, it's a twisting of his writings and that Paul was, was fully obedient to the Torah, even commandments like the Sabbath and the festivals. And so yeah, if you want to go down this path, you are going against the earliest Christian tradition that we have concerning Paul's views on, on, on these letters. And I know I've been going for long, Peter, but if I can make a one last point on this, we even see this with later Jewish interpreters like Jewish communities, like the sect of the Nazarenes. You know, there are, there was a Jewish sect known as the sect of Nazarenes that they believed that the Torah was still in effect and they fully embraced Paul as an apostle. If I could read this quote from Ray Pritts, he is a scholar and he wrote a book on this Jewish sect of Nazarenes. The book is called Nazarene Jewish Christianity. And he basically goes through all of the primary sources, everything that we know about this group and documents what they actually believed. And he says there emerges from our considerations an entity, a viable entity of law keeping Christians of Jewish background. These were direct descendants of the first Jewish believers in Jesus. They did not reject the apostleship of Paul. They recognized his commission from God to preach to the Gentiles and they seem fully to have accepted the fruit of his labors. End quote. Here you have a Torah observant Christian group. These are Jewish Christians who fully affirmed the law of Moses and they also fully affirmed Paul's apostleship.

Yeah, it was good, brother. Thank you. You know, in ancient times, as you just read, people saw whether in the biblical evidence that we read in Acts and to Peter, or whether in the historical evidence that you just read about the Nazarenes, right? We're seeing people seeing Paul alongside the law as a law keeper, teaching obedience to God's law. And we have hundreds of thousands of believers in this very moment, including me and David, by the way, who believe that we can read Paul, get edified by Paul, see his writings as inspired scripture, and see that he is not teaching against the law of God. He's not an antinomian. So, you know, that is evidence in of itself as well, living and breathing evidence. One more thing that people just. While we're here, this is really the most important part of this whole conversation because Justin put out his video 50 Reasons why Paul is Basically False. We only really need this reason to prove he's not, because we have all of these people around him who are recognized, people who have more authority than me and David or anyone else today. People like Peter, who was appointed as the leader of the early church, who is saying, hey, this poor guy, he's cool, right? That's a big deal. No false teacher today can come and say, well, I have more authority than Peter. And I can tell you that Peter made a mistake. Now if you come and say, well, look, we throw out Acts, okay, you want to get rid of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. You want to get rid of how Peter received this vision. You want to get rid of the Jerusalem Council determinations and all of these edifying things. Okay, you have to do that. And then you say, okay, well, we also need to get rid of two Peter. And one thing that people say that I also want to mention about 2 Peter is they talk about how the literary style of 2 Peter is different from 1 Peter. And that means 2 Peter is not supposed. Is not written by Peter. And I want to remind everyone that scribes were often used by the early church. And in fact, we see in 1 Peter 5:12 that Peter himself mentions by Silvanus. This is at the conclusion of this letter of one Peter by Silvanus, a faithful brother, as I regard him, I have written briefly to you, right? So we can see that through people, he is writing to us and to the churches. And so when we see different literary styles, it could be because there was a scribe used here or not there, or different scribes used in different places. But we can also consider that when people write to different places, like if I speak at an American church and I speak at the next month at a South African church, which is what Happened like in December. I'm going to use different vocabulary. I'm going to use a different style of speech. My setting and my context and my audience is different. So it is normal to have different ways of speaking. If you took my sermon in South Africa and my sermon in the US you put them next to each other. You may even as just writing, you may even say, well, this may not even be the same PD because he's speaking so differently, because I have to. These are different people with different environments. It's a different country. Right? So I'm just saying, like, you know, scholars, some scholars can become critical, right? In this sense. And that is not in of itself evidence that is satisfactory. And last thing I'll say on that is the themes of 1 Peter and 2 Peter, there are differences between them, as is typical, right? We see different biblical books have different themes. One Peter talks to believers who are in suffering and encourages them. And Two Peter talks and addresses false teachers. Now, if I was a false teacher, am I going to go after 1 Peter or 2 Peter? Am I going to say 1 Peter is false or 2 Peter is false? If 2 Peter is the one who goes after false teachers? You know, I think all of us can think for ourselves which one is going to be the one the false teacher takes issue with most. And that is two Peter, he says. But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And so the issue at hand today is exactly about this. So it's not a, it's not a shock that Justin would, would love to consider to Peter not being Scripture. All right.

Another point that I would make is that not only do Paul's earliest interpreters confirm that he is not an antinomian, that he fully endorses the law of Moses, Paul himself, if you read his letters, yes, as Peter says in Second Peter, there are some things that are hard to understand, but there are also other things that are very clear where Paul fully endorses the Torah, even, even laws like the festivals, like in First Corinthians 5, 8, he tells us, the Corinthians let us therefore celebrate the festival. And so that indicates that the Corinthians were celebrating the festival and that Paul had no problem with that. You know, he, he fully endorsed that. And we see in the book of Romans he says that our faith in The Messiah, Romans 3, 31, our faith in the Messiah does not nullify the law, but Rather, by faith, we establish the law. In Romans chapter 8, he says in verse 7 that the carnal mind, the mind that that is focused on the flesh, that it does not submit to the law of God. Indeed it cannot. But in earlier, in verse 4 of Romans 8, he says that the Spirit, those who walk according to the Spirit, are enabled to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law. That. And that hearkens back to the prophecies that we see in the Tanakh, the Old Testament, where Ezekiel talks about how God is going to give the people his spirit, put his spirit within them, and cause them to live according to his statutes and rules and commandments. Paul is alluding to that in Romans 8:4 and says that you know through the Spirit you are enabled to walk according to the law.

Absolutely. A few more. Romans 2:13, he says, the doers of the law will be just, justified. Romans 7:25, he says, I myself serve the law of God with my mind. He says in Romans 7:7, if it's not been for the law, I would not have known sin. And in Romans 7:12, he says, the law is holy commandment is holy, righteous and good. And Romans 7:22, he says, I delight in the law of God. It's just all over the place if you look for it.

And so these passages are very pronomian statements that, that really can't be understood any other way. I mean, Paul is fully teaching the law. He's saying that the law is still valid and, and you still should live by it, and you should celebrate the festival. And so, yeah, so not only are Paul's earliest interpreters telling us that Paul did not abandon the law, but Paul himself also says that David, absolutely, I agree with you.

So when it seems like Paul is saying things that seems like he's leading us away from law keeping, we should immediately have a red flag in our interpretation and be like, whoa. But that contradicts what all these people around him are saying. That contradicts all these other verses of what he is saying. And we must then actually be misunderstanding him. That is Peter's warning, right? That we will misunderstand Paul into what lawlessness? That's the particular error that he warns against. And that is the exact error that Peter accurately foretold as what people are falling into even this day. Let me give one example of a statement of Paul that confuses people. In Romans 6:13, we see Paul saying the following. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments of righteousness, for sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law, but under grace. And so this statement of to not be under the law any longer is very often misunderstood. People think he's saying that we do not have to obey the law anymore. But this statement to not be under the law, that we are no longer under the law but under grace, is in reference to the dominion that the law had over us before we came to Christ because the law accused us and condemned us rightfully so because we are breakers of the law, that is our sin. That is why Jesus had to come and die for us. But because Jesus came to die for us, the law is no longer holding us under itself. We can be free from our sins. We can be wiped clean and forgiven, and we can enter by grace. That's why he says we're now under grace. He is in Romans speaking and trying to explain to us what is salvation and how do we attain salvation. It is by faith. It is by the sacrifice of Yeshua that sets us free to no longer be under the condemnation of the law. So, yeah, that's one example. There's many more. Please check out our series on Galatians on Romans. We go through these verse by verse. If you want to learn more and you have other questions as a listener, perhaps.

There are good answers to difficult questions. You know, there are good answers to things that are confusing in scripture. And I would just urge people to stay grounded in truth. Stay, you know, seek out solid teachers that, that know the Word, that are grounded in spirit and truth and that, you know, that are not just teaching sensationalism and, you know, chasing after views on YouTube, but who just really love the Word and who have shown themselves to be diligent students of the Word. There. There are good, good resources out there. And. And my heart breaks for Justin. It really does, because it. It didn't have to be this way. You know, he. He had a bad foundation, a shallow foundation, a shallow knowledge of scriptures, really. He should not have been teaching. And he had that. That feedback loop that, that set him on this trajectory. The consequences are dire. Like. Like, it's. If you head down this path, you know, that's. It's to be expected that you would end up where Justin has ended up.

Yeah. And, guys, you know, for me, I can speak personally. This is hard. I had this underlying sadness all the way through this recording with David because I don't like that I have to be confronted with someone who had such a hard fall and I don't want that on anyone else. That is why we are talking about this tonight. It breaks my, my heart that this has occurred. My heart breaks for Justin. It breaks for everyone around him who also went along. And you know, we're going to pray now for them all. But guys, please search out the scriptures. Do not be deceived by what ends up becoming a false prophet and make sure, as David said, that you find yourself in a community of people who can keep you accountable, who can look out to for you can have your back. Because we're all going to come across things and scratch our head and wonder sometimes, have doubts perhaps, but we need people around us who love us enough to tell us when we are wrong, to tell us why we're wrong and to lead us to the feet of Yeshua so we can find him at the cross and so we can keep. Because as long as we keep holding on to him, as long as we see that he is our only hope of salvation for deliverance from this body of sin that we're in, you know, that is he's going to be the person because he's alive, the person who is going to lead us into all that is true. But it does mean that we have to stick with him, that we have to look at who he is appointed to feed us, which includes the apostles that he has given us, including the Apostle Paul and this beautiful word that we have today preserve meticulously. Let us understand that God has given us a word that has been preserved by his power. And that is part of our faith in him, is to believe that he has the power to preserve his word. Because if he doesn't have that, we don't have access to truth. We do not have access to hope. Because if we do not have truth, how will we know what is true and what is a lie? How do we test things? What do we test teachers too? How do we know our dreams and visions are of God or not if we don't have something to test it to? Right? So I'll leave you guys with that. Let us pray as we conclude this. Father, I thank you so much, Lord, for the word that you've given us. And Father, we pray for all people who are in doubt, who are uncertain, who are confused, even those who have fallen away from the Messiah, who have rejected the words of God. Father, I ask, Lord, that you would draw their hearts, that you would pierce their hearts like you pierced the hearts of the man in Acts 2, Lord, that they came and they stepped forward in repentance that day where 3,000 got baptized. Lord there is hope for even those who put Yeshua on the cross. There is hope for all of us if we would turn to him no matter how far we've gone down the line into the opposite direction. And father I ask that right now you would convict those and open their eyes to see the beauty of your word and truth. In the name of Yeshua I pray. Amen. David thank you so much for joining me brother. It was an honor again to have you. Can you share for everyone how they can find you in your teachings?

Yeah so it was great to be with you brother. Thanks for the invitation and yeah you can find me at my website davidwilber.com and I'm also on YouTube just search my name David Wilber on all the social media sites and yeah I would love to connect with you.

Thank you David and thank you everyone for joining us. Many many blessings to you and shalom Sa.