My 5th Letter to Ted R. Weiland.

From: John Hurt
1857 Brindley Hollow Rd
Buffalo Valley, TN 38548

To: Ted R. Weiland
Mission to Israel
PO Box 248
Scottsbluff, NE 69363

Hello Ted,

I would like to ask you to develop lessons to teach the doctrines of Christ, as Christ never authorized us to teach the doctrines of other men, per His instruction:

Matthew 28:(19) Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: (20) Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Notice that Christ did not authorize us to teach Paul, Peter, James or the doctrines of any other teacher, just the doctrines of Christ.

YHWH also told us to teach the doctrines of Christ in Deuteronomy 18, as quoted by Peter in Acts 3:22-23:

Acts 3:(22) For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. (23) And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.

YHWH said we must hear Christ, and not other people. Christ said that He alone is to be our sole teacher and instructor:

Matthew 23:(8) But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. (9) And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. (10) Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah.

Only Christ should be our Teacher, and He should be the only one we hear, not James, John, Peter, or Paul. These men are not superior to Christ, as Christ said in John 13:16:

John 13:16 Verily, verily, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his lord, nor an apostle greater than he who sent him;

Please make a detailed “multi-part” sermon on Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. With all the years of study put into the audio files of your ministry, I did not see one that teaches only the doctrines of Christ. You have good insights, and do a very detailed analysis of your materials. Why not teach the doctrines of Christ?

From your statements in your Part 27 of 1st Timothy about the “Anti-Paul” faction, you have made some statements about Paul being supported by Peter in 2nd Peter 3:15-16. Here is my answer:

2nd Peter is considered by Bible Scholars to be authored by someone other than Peter, because the writing style is very different from 1st Peter. For the details on this problem, look at the article on 2nd Peter at Wikipedia.

2nd Peter 3:15-16 implies that the Apostle Peter said the writings of Paul have the same authority as the other “scripture” or “graphe” in the Bible, and so Paul’s writings should be accepted by all. The problem with this statement is that Peter died between 64 and 68 AD, while Paul had not completed the writing of his epistles until 67 AD. There had not been sufficient time for the epistles of Paul to examined by the early church, or for them to be elevated to the status of “graphe” or “other scripture” before the death of Peter. The timeline of this statement “by Peter” is illogical as Peter died before the epistles of Paul were completed. That is why Bible Scholars believe 2nd Peter 3:15-16 was not written by Peter, and was completed “in Peter’s name” as late as 150 AD.

But even if the “real Peter” did write 2nd Peter 3:15-16, Peter lacks the authority to raise Paul above Christ. Both Peter and Paul are inferior to Christ. (John 13:16)

Paul contradicts Christ on the Law, as Christ said no part of the Law would be abolished (Matt 5:18), while Paul said that at least part of it has been abolished (Col 2:14, Eph 2:15). Christ also has a different path to salvation by obedience (Matt 19:16-19), in opposition to Paul’s salvation by grace through faith (Eph 2:8-9). Christ and Paul do not agree, and Christ is supreme, even if this supposed “Peter” promotes Paul.

Also, per your statements, when Paul said that James, Peter and John gave him “the right hand of fellowship” in Galatians 2:9, - Paul is lying – and here is how we know:

James confronted Paul in Acts 21:18-25 that Paul was teaching against circumcision, against the Law of Moses, against the customs like keeping the sabbath, and the eating of meat offered to idols (verse 25) – all of which Paul openly teaches in his epistles.

In Acts 21:21, James uses the word “forsake”, which is “apostasia”, and so James said Paul was accused of being an apostate against Moses, a crime that carries the death sentence of Deuteronomy 13:1-10. Paul was in danger of being stoned to death for apostasy, per God’s Law. So, to save his own skin, Paul lies to James that the statements in Paul’s epistles are not true, and takes a ritual bath as a Nazarite vow to prove that he does not teach his own false doctrines. This is how Paul lied to James.

Yet, in Galatians 2:9, we are asked to believe “by Paul’s words only” that Paul was given the “right hand of fellowship” by James, Peter and John, when these True Apostles knew that Paul was a liar. That’s impossible. Paul is a liar, and here is the proof:

Paul lied before the Sanhedrin in Acts 23:5 when he called the High Priest a whited, or “urinal” wall, then said that he did not know that he was the High Priest. Yet, the High Priest wore garments and a head piece that only the High Priest could wear, sat in the chair where only the High Priest could sit, and Paul had previously gotten letters to go to Damascus from the High Priest in Acts 9:1. Paul knew exactly who this man was, but lied to get himself out of a jam. He also renounced Christ in that court by claiming to be a Pharisee and not a Christian, and then lied and said the reason he was in court was about the resurrection of the dead (Acts 23:6), when he was there for bringing Greeks into the Temple. (Acts 21:28-29) Paul is a liar.

So how could James have fellowship with Paul? He couldn’t, as Paul had borne a false witness. This is why Paul is falsely claiming “the right hand of fellowship” with the True Apostles to make him appear acceptable to others. Paul is lying to all of us.

The “real” James destroys Paul’s “faith alone” arguments in Rom 4:3 and Gal 3:6 by writing in James 2:14-26 that “faith without works is dead”. James 2:23 gives the correct reading of Genesis 15:6 that the promises God made to Abraham were for God’s righteousness, not ours. The correct reading is: “Abraham believed God and Abraham counted it to God for righteousness”, not the other way around that Paul has sold to us. You are not righteous because you keep a thought in your head, or “faith”. Righteousness comes only through obedience. (Deut 6:25, Luke 1:6)

The Apostle John condemns Paul and calls him the antichrist for teaching that Christ did not come in the flesh, (1 John 4:3, 2nd John 1:7), as Paul preaches that Christ came only in the “likeness” of flesh, and was not really fully a man in the flesh. (Rom 8:3, Phil 2:7 – compare to Acts 14:11). So how could the Apostle John give Paul the “right hand of fellowship” when John called Paul the antichrist? He couldn’t. Paul is lying to us. Paul tells us he can lie to promote the word of God (Rom 3:7), which is blasphemy. So Paul even admits himself that he is a liar. We should take Paul at his word on this point.

Ted, you also pointed to 1 Tim 1:8-10 to indicate that Paul is not anti-Nomian. Paul also speaks this way at the end of Romans, chapter 2 and appears to support God’s Law. Like you, I have tried to use these verses in an anti-Nomian church to show that Paul supported the law. But there are so many other statements by Paul against the Law, and that is how the anti-Nomians would counter my arguments. Statements like “Christ is the end of the law”, “nailed to the cross”, “dead to the law”, and nearly the entire 3rd, 4th, and 5th chapters of Galatians are statements by Paul against God’s Law.

James calls Paul “a double minded man, who is unstable in all of his ways” for making statements that contradict themselves. Paul does this in many areas, for example by both blessing the Jews (Rom 11:28) and cursing them (1 Thess 2:14-15).

So, by picking and choosing the words of Paul, you can make him say anything. But what you can’t do, is to bring the world back to God’s Law through Paul. Paul is the reason Luther, Calvin, and all of the Catholic and mainline churches have abandoned God’s Laws. Regardless of what you believe, the rest of the world believes that Paul has abolished the Law through Paul’s authority as a supposed “true” apostle of Christ.

Ted, I hope you can spend the next year considering whether Paul is a true apostle, and preach only the doctrines of Christ in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

One final note: In our communications, I would hope that you would follow the instructions of Christ in Matthew 18:15-17:

(15) Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.

(16) But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.

(17) And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.

After listening to your 1st Timothy Part 27 about the “Anti-Paul faction”, it seems that you are starting to move to Matthew 18:17 in your communications with me, without following what Christ said in verses 15 and 16. My private correspondence with you is not for everyone in your public ministry. I would ask you to “tell him his fault between thee and him alone” in your communications to me as Christ has instructed you. If you had done as Christ said, and gotten me to agree with you, then Christ said “if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.” Yes, you could win me to your side. Christ said that people are more important than “winning the argument.”

But Paul ignored this commandment of Christ and blasted Peter in Galatians 2, by condemning Peter “before them all” (verse 14), and not privately as Christ instructed. And Paul is still condemning Peter in front of everyone that reads Paul’s “Galatians”. Paul has been using the written media to discredit Peter for the last 2,000 years.

And we never heard Peter’s side of the story. It could be that Peter followed what Christ said in Revelations 2:14, and would not eat meat offered to idols by the Gentiles, something that Paul condones in 1 Cor 8. I believe that Paul could not prevail before the church about meat offered to idols, so he twisted Peter’s position into a straw man for everyone that reads Galatians so that Paul could finally “win the argument”. How petty.

How we treat our fellow man shows who our master really is. Will you respond as Christ instructed you, or will you treat me like Paul did to Peter? Or just ignore me and cling to Paul over Christ?

Iron sharpens iron. Could we learn from each other, or does one of us have to “win” every time? Could we humble ourselves before God’s Word and find out the truth together?

It is very important to note that I have answered every one of your statements, but you have not been able to answer “even one” of my statements about Paul. And I have never attacked you personally, only Paul. You are not Paul’s disciple, but a disciple of Christ and serve Him only.

So you should be able to “stand back” from Paul and put him on trial, just like the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2:2, who found Paul to be a false apostle, and a liar.

Is Paul a false apostle? How and when did Paul become an apostle?

How can there be a 13th apostle, when Christ said there were only 12 Apostles sitting on 12 thrones judging the 12 Tribes of Israel?

Does the Book of Acts prove to us that Paul is a liar? What are your answers to these statements about Paul?

Looking forward to your answers, and I will try to answer any questions you may have.

John Hurt

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My 6th Letter to Ted R. Weiland: June 24th, 2023