When Pastors Attack – Addressing the Accusations: Casting Your Pearls Part IV
When we started questioning the writings attributed to Paul, we took it to the “pastor” to help us in discerning the truth of the matter. Instead of him sitting down with us and going through the issues one by one, we were lambasted from the pulpit, as I mentioned in the earlier Parts of this Casting Your Pearls Series. While I don’t want to rehash old business, I do want to address the specific accusations that were hurled at us, because I am sure those of you who are questioning the writings attributed to Paul are experiencing the same or similar attack from inside the “family of God”; for some of you, the attacks have been more vicious than those we have experienced to date. If you have other accusations that I have not mentioned here, I will be happy to update this article to address those accusations from the perspective of the Word as well. First of all, I want you to know that if you are questioning the writings attributed to Apostle Paul, you are not alone. Please don’t give up your search for the Truth, and do not be hasty in your study or jump too quickly to a conclusion
Questioning the Writings Attributed to Paul VS Questioning Paul
You may have noticed that I say “questioning the writings attributed to Paul” instead of “questioning Paul.” We know that Paul was an apostle who taught the gospel to the Gentiles, because we do have other texts from early historians and those still held by the Vatican today. I specifically use the phrase “questioning the writings attributed to Paul,” because we are so far removed from the time of the apostles that we do not know for certain which letters he wrote; we have to take the word of fallible men who set a canon, then more fallible men removed books from that canon at a much later date. Most scholars agree that there are some books they do not believe to have been written by Paul; you can look this up yourself with a simple Google search, and it’s even addressed briefly in Wikipedia. I do not trust any fallible man to tell me what works are inspired by God and which are not, but I do trust the Holy Spirit!
We do not attack Paul, because we do believe him to be a true apostle. Just a side observation, there does appear to be a curse that comes with attacking Paul as an apostle; the people who do so seem to lose grip on any Truth that they once had and start to deny Yeshua and sometimes the whole Word of Yahuah. However, we do question the writings, because we know from history that there are multiple letters that were pseudographical writings which are writings that are written by an anonymous writer under the name of someone else. We also know that things have been added to the texts over the years to push an agenda such as replacing pesach (Passover) with Easter in Acts 12:4, the agenda being to replace YAH’s feast days with pagan ones. We see in some of the translations that the translator(s) added their own ideas into the text an example being in Mark 7:19 where they added to the text the phrase “-thus declaring all foods clean.” All animals are not considered food by YAH’s standards, and thus should not be eaten; however, in the context of that scripture, we understand that Yeshua was talking about the dirt and germs from unwashed hands not defiling the body, but what does defile the body is what comes out from the condition of the heart. By these examples and there are many more, we know that all men are fallible, and we can clearly see that fallible man is not above monkeying with the texts that make up the Bible to alter it in significant and deceptive ways.
I will write articles in the near future specifically addressing the letters that cause us to question whether some of them were authored by Paul in our line-by-line, precept-upon-precept study of each of the letters. One thing to keep in mind when studying the writings attributed to Paul is that Paul cannot make new laws, and neither he nor the other apostles can change YAH’s laws. Also, after studying the writings attributed to Paul, the letters that encourage lawlessness or are anti-Torah, we STILL would not rip out those letters or even disregard them in whole, because in spite of the lawless tilt to some of them there is also many nuggets of valuable information. So, the things that do not agree with the Torah the Prophets, Yeshua, and the other apostles, those we have notated and do disregard, because from front to back, the Bible says obey YAH’s laws.
For now, I will move on to the accusations aimed at us, and will follow with any others that have arisen. I do not, to turn a phrase, wish to continue to beat a dead horse, but there are many people out there who are questioning Paul, because many of the writings attributed to him DO contradict the Torah, Yeshua, and the other disciples’ writings. The thing that started us questioning Paul is that YAH was leading us to obey His commandments and keep his feasts and Sabbaths, but some of the writings attributed to Paul encourage lawlessness. With this in mind, I am really glad that YAH saw fit to allow us to be attacked by the “pastor” as a separating factor, because his mind is so set through years of indoctrination that instead of us leading him to obedience, I really believe he would have urged us along the lawless path. I say that, because every time Todd or I would question obedience to the law, keeping of the Sabbath, etc he would always turn to, “well, Paul said….,” referring us to the writings attributed to Paul that advocate lawlessness.
There are many people who, like us, have zero support, and actually, quite the opposite, people beating them down, discouraging them, disparaging them, tearing them down, confusing them, etc from the ones who call themselves set apart, holy, qodesh, whatever word they wish to use to describe themselves, they masquerade as “the brethren.” THIS SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING!! I will address these issues in full in later articles. This article is specifically addressing the fallacy that questioning Paul is a slippery slope. It just is not a slippery slope.
Just to recap, the sermon that pushed us away from Christianity and the church we had been faithful members of for four years was composed of the following phrases and direct quotes; we were accused of: turning against the Word of Truth and the Holy Scriptures; turning against God-glorifying people; heading down a path of destruction; following Satan and his angels to hell; the Word of God is hard to understand; trying to divide the people’s understanding of the Word of God; destroying trust in the Word; allowing people to make “merchandise” of us because we bought a Cepher Bible which is a different translation than the KJV only version that he pushes; planting seeds of doubt in someone’s mind or heart; false teachers trying to split up people; slippery slope fallacy (divide people’s understanding of the Word of God and destroy their trust in his Word, and the open the door, once they open that door; the floodgate just comes on and they just get swamped with all kinds of doubt in the entire Word); ending with a closing prayer with: that we can bring honor and glory to you, and not cause chaos and destruction and division; this book has been sealed, protected by God for a reason, respect it.
I would also like to address these specific accusations really quickly, not to defend us, but to present the truth and encourage others out there who are in the same or similar situation with not being able to reconcile the writings attributed to Paul with the rest of the Testament.
Turning against the Word of Truth and the Holy Scriptures
We were actually turning TO the Word of Truth and the Holy Scriptures, because we were learning to obey the commandments and the TORAH which is the Truth. We were learning about how important obedience is to Yahuah, and this is what led us to start questioning the writings attributed to Paul. There are several places in the Bible that says we need to have faith in Yeshua and obedience to YAH’s commandments to enter New Jerusalem; one such place is Revelation 14:12 (KJV) which says, “ Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Obviously, both faith and obedience are required!
Turning against God-glorifying people
Was this a self-fulfilling prophecy? We never turned against anyone or treated anyone poorly, we were simply seeking someone who was more educated to help us get answers to the questions that were arising in our home study. What we got instead was abused and rejected. Everyone in the congregation stopped speaking to us, stopped texting us, and ostracized us. So, we were accused of the exact same thing that everyone in the church did to us. Truly, how ironic is that?
Interestingly, I went back and listened to a portion of a sermon shortly after we left and heard the “pastor” tell his congregants to “know your enemies, it’s important to know who you can count on and who you can’t count on.” In context, this was quite obviously a dig at me because I volunteered to create a website for the church, paid for it with my own money, and when all this went down and we decided we would no longer be going to that church to be abused by the “pastor,” I notified the “pastor” that I had stopped maintaining the church’s website. I could not continue to maintain a website that could lead other people to a church where the “pastor” is abusive from the pulpit and teaches lawlessness.
Though I offered to transfer the website to someone else, no one ever responded after several months. At this point, I know that it is obviously not important enough to them to contact me and go through the process of transferring ownership of the website. So, an interesting thing happened, perhaps this was the hand of YAH, but this site and that site both went down. The only way I could get mine back was through the backups I had of it, and (unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it) the church website was never backed up, even though I thought I had it on auto backup. In less than a day, it was gone; even the “experts” were not able to recover it.
He also had told his congregants, quoting Romans 16:17-18 to “mark those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them.” We did not try to cause any divisions among them either, so that was another false accusation. That’s okay, because Yahuah will judge between us, and He will give recompense. A scripture in Amos says, “how can two walk together, except they agree” (Amos 3:3)? We did not turn against them, “God-glorifying” or not. We did walk away from them, because we are walking the path described throughout the Renewed Covenant of having faith in Yeshua AND obeying the laws of Yahuah as Yeshua told us all to do, and they refuse to. We do not agree, and therefore, we cannot walk together. To be honest, there is much peace in that!
Heading down a path of destruction
I’m sorry, but I have no idea how obeying YAH’s commandments, as Yeshua and the Torah tell us to do, is heading down a path of destruction (I Samuel 15:22). As for questioning the writings attributed to Paul leading down a path of destruction, I have to assume that he is referring to the slippery slope fallacy: questioning the writings attributed to Paul will lead to rejection of Yeshua and the whole Bible. Fallacies are, on their face, nonsense and false logic deficient in adequate reasoning. If questioning the writings attributed to Paul causes someone to reject Yeshua and the rest of the Bible, then the person never had any faith to begin with.
We are supposed to test all things, to prove whether they are of Yahuah or not. You have the “Berean Test” mentioned in Acts 17:11. Then we have in the writings of John, I John 4:1-6 about testing the spirits to see if they are of God. There is also Deuteronomy chapter 13 which speaks of Yahuah using prophets and dreamers of dreams, to prove us or test us to know whether we love Yahuah with all our hearts and souls. Revelation 2:2 where Yeshua said, “I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:” Do you honestly think that we should not try these writings that are alleged to be written by apostles?
Following Satan and his angels to hell
I’m sorry, but this was an emotion-based attack that had no root in reality. Obeying the commandments of Yahuah is following Yahuah and Yeshua…who obeyed all the 613 commandments of Yahuah except the ones that did not apply to him, as an example those that apply only to women he would not have obeyed, because they are not laws for men. Questioning the writings attributed to Paul also does not in any logical way mean that someone is following Satan and his angels to hell. We are told in multiple places in the Bible to test or prove people. Why should the writings attributed to Paul be exempt from that? Because some men decided they are canon? Men do not make mistakes right? HA! This same council that set the canon we have today changed it in the late 1800s to remove some books. SO, which was the mistake? Putting those books in or taking them out? I do not trust anyone to tell me what is the Word of YAH, and neither should you. However, I do trust the Ruach HaQodesh.
The Word of God is hard to understand
Say what? No, it is not. This is a lie that is intended to separate people from being able to read, study, and understand the Word on their own with the help of the Ruach HaQodesh, and it insinuates that you need a pastor or teacher or rabbi to teach you what the Bible means. This is utter nonsense. That is how there are so many people in churches who still can’t understand even the simplest of things. That is why there was so much leaven of the Sadducees and Pharisees which Yeshua abhorred and warned his disciples against falling prey to!
YAH’s WORD is so easy to understand that a child can read it and understand, though there are obviously different levels of understanding. YAH is the one who gives understanding, and YAH isn’t going to give you meat to choke on when you can’t even handle the milk…to borrow some expressions used in the bible.
The writings attributed to Paul can be hard to understand, particularly when you have people taking snippets out of context and twisting it to try to make it say what they want it to say. However, when you do a line by line, precept upon precept study of the writings attributed to Paul, then they are not hard to understand at all.
As a matter of fact, we can turn to the WORD to refute this claim. James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” Luke 24:45 says, “Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,…” Even Yeshua’s disciples needed to have the scriptures opened to them by Yeshua in order for them to understand. Psalms 119:130 says, “The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.” And finally: Matthew 11:25 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
Trying to divide people’s understanding of the Word of God
Some of these accusations are a little bizarre. This is one of them that stretches the bounds of reason. How exactly do you divide someone’s understanding of anything? You can’t. Someone may be able to talk you into or persuade you to one stance or another, but if someone can talk you into something or change your mind through persuasion, then someone else can just as easily talk you out of it. This argument in itself is devoid of reason.
Destroying trust in the Word
The Bible does not need any of the writings attributed to Paul to get and understand the message of faith in Yeshua and obedience to the commandments as requirements for redemption. To be perfectly honest, these studies have actually deepened our trust in the Word! I have seen some people who stop believing in the New Testament, although the arguments they use against it are utter garbage and not rooted in understanding, but in ego, pride, and anger.
Allowing people to make “merchandise” of us (because we bought a different translation of the Bible)
This “pastor” is a KJV only person and he really pushes this. The only thing I am going to say here is as a bilingual person, NO TRANSLATION OR TRANSLITERATION IS PERFECT. Period. If you don’t believe me, learn another language and see for yourself.
Planting seeds of doubt in someone’s mind or heart
Here is another bizarre one. Searching for the truth is not planting seeds of doubt in our hearts or anyone else’s.
Slippery Slope Fallacy
This “argument” is so stinking popular that I believe it has become the go-to in answering anyone who is questioning the writings attributed to Paul. You can find more information about the slippery slope fallacy in the article titled Questioning Paul is a Slippery Slope which will be up next week, and once it is up there will be a link attached to the title. Here, I will just say that whenever I hear someone say slippery slope, I tune them out. Why? Because a slippery slope argument is a fallacy. A fallacy means that it is false. It is defective reasoning.
Causing chaos, destruction, and division
This is more nonsense. The only thing that is causing chaos, destruction, and division is people like this “pastor” who viciously attack the people who have questions and are seeking answers to why the writings attributed to Paul are anti-Torah and promote lawlessness.
This book has been sealed, protected by God for a reason, respect it
First, always respect the Word of God, particularly those scriptures that are “thus says Yahuah.” …not thus says Paul or someone pretending to be Paul or Peter or James, etc. If all the books of the Bible were sealed by God, then men would not have been permitted to remove books from it, like they did in the late 1800s. I wonder how many people actually wonder if Yahuah may have allowed some of these letters to be put in as a test to see how much we love Him. We are told in John 14:15, I John 2:3, and many other places that is we love Him, we will keep his commandments. What great testing or proving can Yahuah have provided than to allow things to be put in the Bible to see whether we will believe the writings that encourage lawlessness or whether we will obey his commandments…at least as many as we can and that apply to us right now in this time of dispersion. Remember that Yahuah does not want to spend eternity with a people who are rebellious in heart. We have to want to be obedient.
Again I ask, do you want to be obedient?
