Cast
Doug
Bryan
Location
Studio
Doug in Office Chair at Desk
Bryan enters through front room door and sits on couch
Camera Angles
Doug’s Pespective
Bryan’s Perspective
Act 1, Scene 1
Doug sitting at desk typing away, hears the front door open and Brian enter, not sure who it is yet.
Bryan calls out from front room,
“Hey Doug, you there?”
Doug: “Oh! Hey, Bryan, come on in? How’s it going, bro?”
Bryan: “well, it’s a hot one out there, just thought I’d stick my head in and see how you’re doing…also, I had a question or two…”
Doug: Come on in, bro! Yeah, it’s hot early this year, dang. Sure thing, though, come on in and let’s talk out your questions.
Bryan: yeah, man, I’ve just been watching your channel and some of the things you’re saying strike a chord but man it still feels like you’re treading on some thin ice.”
Doug: I know, right??? What in the wild world of sports is going on here???
Bryan chuckles almost in a sigh of relief.
Doug: man, I felt the same way when I began this journey. I actually begged God not to proceed. I just couldn’t think about anything else. But what really gave me the courage to proceed was all these years of studying narcissism, the Jezebel spirit and especially gaslighting.
Bryan: wait, how did those ideas apply to what you’re saying about Paul contradicting Jesus.
Doug: Paul contradicted his own words, too, in the epistles he can literally contradict and gaslight himself at any moment.
Bryan: wait, what?
Doug: After all these years of studying and experiencing the double speak of people trying to take advantage of not only me, but all of those who I had the honor to minister, too, I began to see the exact same patterns in Paul.
Bryan: Hold on a sec! Dude, are you trying to say that Paul was a narcissist?
Doug: 110% man, I could show you how very easily, he boasted about himself and his “status” as an “apostle” relentlessly, while all the while laying out new doctrines that oppose and are exactly contrary to what Jesus and His own apostles taught.
Bryan: man, I need a drink for this. You got some coffee?
Doug: Sure bro, let me make you one
Doug and Bryan get up from their seats and Doug proceeds to the service table to make Bryan’s coffee while Bryan stands in the door.
Bryan: exhales with great trepidation. Man, I don’t know. Do you realize what you’re saying? You are literally saying that part of the Bible, a part many of us have trusted since birth, is actually heretical. Dude, you’re saying Paul’s writings are anti-Jesus, literally ANTI-Christ!
Doug: I know man, but I’m not the only one in history to have said this. In fact, many of the Believers during Paul’s day and thereafter did not go with Him on this idea that the law was completely done away with, especially since Jesus taught that not one jot or tittle would be. I can’t explain why God is trusting me with this. Who the heck am I? But now that I know what’s up, I have to tell and warn other people. Dude, I truly believe if they let the side of the Pauline gospel that preaches against keeping the law - there is also a side to it that promotes the law - which is part of the doublespeak that forms the gaslight - but I truly believe based on the writings of the apostle John that if people who call themselves Christians don’t seek to keep God’s commandments that they can’t even know God now, nor will they get access to the eternal new heaven and new earth. Jesus will say to them, depart from me ye that work iniquity.
Bryan: wait, wait, wait bruh!!! Are you trying to say that people who don’t know that something is wrong with Paul are all damned?
Doug: no, no, no bro. You can settle down a little (chuckling one of those laughs meant to diffuse).
Bryan looks a little exasperated but makes his own joke by putting two fingers on his jugular while looking at his watch.
Doug laughs.
Scene 2
They both return to the studio room and sit in their chairs.
Doug: I know lots of people, including myself, that read Paul’s epistles and still felt led to keep God’s commandments. Before I knew what I know now, I still had the pull from the Holy Spirit that I was required to do so, especially because Jesus said, “if ye love me keep my commandments.” I saw the conflicting message you can find in the epistles, especially in Galatians, that teaches it’s impossible to keep the law, but I sort of glazed over it. But now that I recognize characteristics of gaslighting I see Paul’s contradiction with Jesus’s teachings shoved in there with a whole bunch of self-contradictory word salad as well.
Bryan: I’m not going to lie, I’ve vaguely seen those contractions but I just glazed over them thinking that the pastors, teachers and scholars knew better, that indeed, Paul knew better, that he knew something I couldn’t know.
Doug: isn’t that exactly what a narcissist wants you to think? Paul was constantly making it out to be people’s pride or sin if they disagreed with “his gospel.”
Bryan: stunned, jaw open. Wow, man, you’re right! I still don’t know that Paul is one, but I hear what you’re saying.
Doug: So many times in the epistles Paul says things like, “a man that thinks he knows something doesn’t know it as he ought to know” to make the reader feel less intelligent or capable so that he will receive Paul’s new doctrine, then he delivers some completely contrary message to God the Father and the Son, such as eating things sacrificed to idols.
Bryan: wait, what?
Doug: yeah, Paul taught there’s a way you can eat things sacrificed to idols even though Jesus and the rest of scripture rails on this activity. For Paul, as long as you know the idol is not the true God and is “nothing,” then you’re fine. He even implies you can even go in the idol’s temple and eat there.
Bryan begins to read it out loud.
Bryan: wait, he does say that!!!
Doug: not to mention he implies the conscience of the one who eats the thing sacrificed to idols is stronger than the one that thinks it’s wrong. This is the exact opposite of the truth. The one with the strong conscience actually has empathy for God and cares deeply about offending Him. God is so offended by false gods and idolatry that he dedicated the first two of the ten commandments to the matter!
Bryan: ok, hold on, let me read that part now. He reads the first two commandments.
Doug: did you know, Bry, that God dictated those OUT LOUD to the Hebrews. They all heard it. That’s how serious he was about it. And he made it perfectly clear that there were to be no other gods before him and no graven images. Yet every Church you go in not only has graven images in the shape of crosses, but also serve false gods.
Bryan: dang, man, don’t they serve Jesus???
Doug; do they?
Bryan: I thought they did???
Doug: If Jesus said to keep my commandments, and He is the Word of God, which includes those ten, why then would the Church celebrate Christmas and Easter and even Sunday Sabbath.
Bryan: I don’t know, because these are Christian celebrations???
Doug: sure, that’s what we’re told, but they’re not. At their very core they are demonic celebrations of pagan dieties. Take, Christmas.
Bryan: hold on, you’re not going to take that from me now are you?
Doug: dude, after you find out some truth about it I would hope you would be so offended for God that you would let it go.
Bryan: hey, we are getting off topic from Paul.
Doug: are we? It’s because of writings like 1 corinthians 8 that all of this paganism is in the Church. Jesus certainly didn’t give space for it, but Paul created all sorts of nebulous gray areas where “all things are lawful, but not all things are expedient.”
Byran: ok, ok, so what is pagan about Christmas?
Doug: to begin with, the celebration occurs during the winter solstice, when the shortest days of the year have passed and now the sun is “regaining its strength,” as it were. So since the sun is so often the basis of pagan worship, it stands to reason that many of its celebrations would occur during solstices and equinoxes. So the tree thing is actually forbidden as pagan in Jeremiah 10:2-6 and is based on the idea of a reincarnated king Nimrod from Genesis 10 coming back as fur tree, something that doesn’t die. He was also thought of as Baal and the sun god, so there are elements of the Roman pagan celebration Sol Invicta as well as Saturnalia in it. You can do just a few hours of research yourself and discover all of these things.
Bryan: but should we still celebrate the birth of Jesus? I mean, He is our Savior.
Doug: well, one, Jesus never asked us to do so, he said to only remember Him and what He did for us when taking the bread and wine, and second, there’s no way He was born in the winter. The shepherds in Israel didn’t stay out at night passed the fall harvest nor would Rome have called a census/taxation where people would have to travel great distances on foot during the shortest days of the year and perhaps days that would have been quite cold. There’s absolutely no way Jesus was born then, but the idea of the birth of the sun god being born then has been around since antiquity.
Bryan: alright, bro, dang, are we even still bros?
Doug: lol, man, I hear ya, but these kinds of conversations are good. Iron sharpens iron, remember?
Bryan, yeah, man, but seriously, I feel so blown away by everything you’re saying. I almost can’t process it.
(Takes a deep breath.)
I actually want you to stop talking for a sec and let me get my bearing.
Doug: sure thing, man, I’ll go back to work while you take a breather, enjoy your coffee and pull a guitar down and play a little if you want to chill.
Bryan: good idea, do you care which one?
Doug: Nah man, God gave them to me, and you can play any of them. But the best one is right above your left shoulder. Try that.
Bryan begins to play while Doug types away.
Screen fades.
Act 2 Scene One
Doug is still typing and Bryan is jamming on the guitar.
Bryan: dude, this guitar sounds so sweet.
Doug: yeah, man, when I tried that one in the guitar shop it sounded the best. It wasn’t the most expensive by far but we stacked it up against nearly all of them and to my ear it just did it for me.
Bryan: why do you think that is?
Doug: well I think it’s because it has a cedar top. Most acoustic guitars have some type of spruce top, but cedar is a little warmer and takes less to get it vibrating, so the finger style I like to play really works well on it.
Bryan: oh, that’s cool man. That’s why the top is darker…
Doug: yeah, it’s actually called western red cedar.
Bryan: whatever it is, I like how it sounds.
Doug: thanks, man. I praise God for it. Wrote a lot of songs on that bad boy.
(Bryan finishing playing, looks at Doug.)
Doug: you know, I was thinking, let’s get old Samson and head to the farm. I’ve overwhelmed you a bit and now I want to get outside and walk and we can talk then if you’re still game for it.
Bryan: yeah, man, I’ve got the time and the change of scenery would be nice. Think we could be back here by 4pm?
Doug: yeah, easily, let’s hit the road. Hey, bring that Bible in case we need it.
(Bryan grabs the Bible off the end table and Doug and Bryan go to the car and load up Samson. Samson climbs the makeshift ramp Doug made into the Suburban.)
Bryan: dude, nice ramp.
Doug: yeah, right, some plywood and a carpet so Samson won’t get splinters
Bryan chuckles
Bryan: man, you love this dog don’t you?
Doug: I really do, Bry, he’s truly my best pal. God used Him in my life like you wouldn’t believe.
They both get in the Suburban.
Doug continues: yeah, he’s been such a blessing. God can really show His love through animals. Sometimes being able to interact with Samson when I believe so many “off the beaten path” things about God and His Word, it’s nice to have friend that doesn’t get “repelled,” by all of that. And he loves keeping the Sabbath! (Chuckle)
Bryan: oh, wait, the Sabbath? You keep that on Saturday, don’t you?
Doug: yeah, man, and it is an incredible thing that I wouldn’t trade. Restores me spiritually and physically to not be all tied up in the world and in work. It truly is incredible. I can totally see that God made the Sabbath FOR MAN.
Bryan: yeah, but isn’t every day a Sabbath?
Doug: every day is certainly a day to rest in the Lord’s goodness, but the other six days we exact our own labors. The seventh is the Day of the Lord. Jesus actually spoke of its observance during the tribulation period.
Bryan: (surprised) He did?
Doug: Yeah, Jesus said that we should pray that “our flight,” that is that when it would be time to run away from the persecution, that it would “not be on the Sabbath day.” What caught me about that statement was, if Jesus planned to do away with Sabbath observance, why would he say something about its observation way off in the future, 2000 years later?
(Bryan grabs the Bible.)
Doug: it’s in Matthew 24
Byran: found it. “Pray that your flight be…”
Bryan: wow, there it is.
Doug: precisely. Pauses, This is why I became a “red letter” Christian.
Bryan: red letter because Jesus’ words are in red?
Doug: Yes. I decided long ago that if Jesus said something clearly I would ALWAYS defer to Him. I mean, He’s the Son of God, right. Not Paul.
Bryan: I should have known you’d bring the Paul contradiction thing up again.
Doug chuckles: I know, right? I guess I can’t help it. That’s the thing about Paul. There’s so much gray area, so much nebulous talk. Look at what he says about eating things sacrificed to idols in chapter 10 of 1 Corinthians.
(Bryan begins to read, gets to the part where Paul talks about how eating things to devils is wrong.)
Bryan: wait a second, now he’s saying what you’ve been saying.
Doug: yep. Do you see how he creates Hegelian dialectics with his own speech? With his own views???
Bryan: woah, he did! Then he says it’s nothing again!!!! He can’t decide!!!
Doug: exactly, man, but it’s written of Jesus in the book of John that He spoke as one with authority and not as the scribes.
Byran: man, I think I’m getting what you’re saying and seeing. I always glazed over these things before.
Doug: we all did, but I think God is opening the eyes of His servants now.
(They pull into the farm. Scene moves to getting out of the truck and walking toward the water.)
Doug: let’s walk old Samson.
They start walking into the penned field as they continue the conversation.
Bryan: is there more?
Doug: more what?
Bryan: more contradictions between Jesus and Paul and even between Paul and himself.
Doug: definitely, but especially with regard to the commandments, how we should treat those in secular power, doctrines on the so called “rapture,” what love is, and more.
Bryan: will you forgive me if I need to just rest on the matter for now?
Doug: of course. I just wanted to answer your questions, but honestly, for me, this is the most important thing I’ve ever been involved with related to God. All I want to do is make sure that the True Gospel of Jesus Christ is quite clear, that He expects us to no only believe on Him, but to keep His commandments, and to get into eternity these two cannot be mutually exclusive.
Bryan: ok, man, you can keep going, but dude, this is so heavy for me.
Doug: (chuckles) we can talk about something else, for sure.
Bryan: no, I want to, bro, because deep down I do know that if what I think we’re being measured by isn’t facts I could be in big trouble.
Doug: Agreed! One hundred!
Bryan: but is there any part of the law that’s been fulfilled?
Doug: oh, yes, and I think the book of Hebrews - not written by Paul - does a great job enumerating what that is.
Bryan: ok, break it down for me.
Doug: Sure thing, in my view what’s been done away with is what Hebrews calls the “carnal ordinances” and these have to do with the blood sacrifices of animals that was done in the first testament.
Bryan: first testament?
Doug: Oh, that’s right, I’m probably the only one who calls what most people call the “Old Testament” the “First Testament.” I do so because I believe the “Old” moniker was put there to discredit it as a legitimate source of God’s Word. Old makes it seem that it no longer applies.
Bryan: hmmm. That makes sense, but continue.
Doug: so when Jesus shed His blood, the blood of bulls and goats would no longer suffice, he took care of the need for blood sacrifice once and for all.
Bryan: that makes sense.
Doug: not only that, but as Jesus told the woman at the well that people would no longer worship in Jerusalem but would worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth, He was saying that the need for a physical building as a temple would no longer be necessary because God the Father and the Son would indwell us, that is Believers, by the Holy Spirit. We became the temples. So now there’s no longer a need for the works of the levitical priesthood, but this did not do away with the commandments. We became the kings and priests of our own temples and what we allow to go on in these temples matters. We should not be hypocrites, but walking with God in Spirit and In TRUTH.
Bryan, wow, that makes sense, too. I think I finally understand what you’re saying and it makes way more sense than having some nebulous “I decide what’s expedient” approach to the Word. Just wow.
Doug: man, I’m so glad. Just make it all about Jesus first and foremost. Follow His teachings. He and His Word are the rock on which we stand. He’s our only True Shepherd and Messiah and anything that contradicts Him is pure rubbish. I feel so free believing this way, but don’t take my word for it. Search the scriptures for yourself.
Bryan: I will man. If Jesus is the Word, I want to know everything about Him. I still have a lot to pray and research on the matter. Part of me is still afraid to say anything against whatever is in the binding of the Book, but you’ve made a lot of good points.
Doug: you have to take something like this at your own pace. It has to be yours, between you and God. I’m not seeking followers for myself but pointing people to Jesus and what HE SAID. That’s the most important thing. Any teachings that contradicts His Word are all SINKING SAND.
Scene fades.
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