Reread my response. I don’t feel like it’s at odds with your second comment, which I agree with more.
The point was more about.. how the implementation of the meaning of the words has come about, and what those things both are in truth.
Plenty of reason to be skeptical of the current agreement, given how it came about
just because that court jew Rothschild and friends wrote the Balfour Declaration
Exactly. I don’t view the Bible as “their story”, but as “our story”, or moreso even, “God’s Story”. Does “Zion” only refer to a specific hill in Jerusalem and the original land of the twelve tribes after they crossed the Jordan, or does it refer to the land of God’s people when He dwells among them in Righteousness?
For your consideration though, as what I believe to be a step toward that, whichever it may be…
However, if they disobeyed and turned away from God, they would face consequences and lose their land.
Last time I checked they're still afraid of bacon
Matthew 5:17Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets:I am not come to destroy, but to >>fulfil<<.
Only by faith in Christ can they return the right way
1 Corinthians 3:4For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I [am] of Apollos; are ye not carnal?
Romans 4:3For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
“God is unchanging.” True.
“God reveals His character pieces at a time” True.
“God told Israel what they must do to follow Him.” True.
“God told Israel, now stop all that it’s all bad now.” _____
1 Corinthians 1:13Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?
Christ himself said things different than the church teaches.
2 Peter 3:15-16And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
The churches tend to teach from Paul. There are weightier matters than bacon, for certain, which were very much being neglected in Jesus’ time, but it was also said that till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle of the Law would pass away.
We get offended that the WEF tells us we will eat ze bugs, but shrimp are very literally sea cockroaches, and we know that bug chitin is bad for us, and that getting mercury inside our bodies is bad for us, and we didn’t have any trouble with either of those things because we were told it was fine to eat shrimp because the Law was abolished, and look how much Red Lobster charges for them! They wouldn’t charge us $17.95 for cockroaches!! That’s absurd!
The WEF bugs narratives are disclosure. We were already eating ze bugs!
Believe me, I can keep going, and do pork (which is worse), too, or you can just take God’s Word for it. God’s Word is spiritual. God’s Word is practical. All God’s Word is breathed, relevant, unchanging, and useful for instruction (“applicable”).
Matthew 7:13Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide [is] the gate, and broad [is] the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat
If you want to throw something back at me, I recommend this one:
Matthew 5:19Whosoever thereforeshall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoevershall do and teach [them],the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Still working on the “doing” and “not breaking” parts, and on far greater matters than shrimp.
It’s a long explanation, but this is just a common claim which I merely firmly believe should be corrected. If Jesus was the Law made flesh, and he did away with himself at the cross, … that … would be very odd … one might even call it a house being divided against itself. Why did he bother to teach the Law in the first place, then, if we should proceed to ignore it upon receiving salvation? Should we sun more, that Grace might exist in greater abundance? To what were all the fathers of the faith faithful to, if not the Law and God’s commands to them?
In peace and love, fren, and sorry I’m not better at brevity.
Now you've got me thinking!! I have an immediate question: are you implying Zionism is God's purported plan but was just initialized by the wrong people / at the wrong time / for the wrong motives, or that it's entirely and inherently wrong and a yuuge misunderstanding of the scripture, or that you aren't sure but lean towards one or the other?
My answer: I lean more towards it being a complete misunderstanding and thus misapplication of the scriptures
edit- I'm gonna respond to your comment too I just need some time
Exactly. I’m suspecting after it being the first option, yes.
Meanwhile we have a bunch of people literally arguing against the word … literally “anti-christs”, many being wolves in sheeps clothing - and they’re in every camp.
Woe to them who call good “evil” and evil “good” when righteousness is restored. All it takes is a word,..
9On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour: 10And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance, 11And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: 12Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. 13And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. 14But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. 15And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. 16This was done thrice: and the vessel was received up again into heaven.
Acts 15
18Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. 19Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: 20But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood. 21For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.
Also wouldn't you get more mercury from fish than shrimp? Jesus ate fish
Yes these matters are small but still in the same vein. Are you striving to fulfill the Law of Moses? The way I understand it is through faith in Christ you are changed into a holy person as you grow in Him. Paul says in Galatians not to let anybody "Judaize" you as a believer. He also mentions elsewhere that whoever has the faith to eat a food let them be, and likewise to whoever abstains let him be.
I did link unbelieving Jews and abstaination from pork, perhaps that was the wrong link to make.
My point was that until Israel believes in their Messiah they remain in exile.
I also lean towards Zion being spiritual now, and the more people who come in to that spiritual land, the more it will manifest physically in the world. I believe we are marching towards Zion, worldwide. I don't think it is limited to a plot of dirt in the middle east. I could be wrong though
One more bit on the Law... In line with my spiritual Zion angle, and in line with recorded history, though the world looks insane right now if you consider what was common place 100, 500, 1000, 2000 years ago, things like public orgies, fatal blood sports, eye for an eye vigilante justice (as opposed to a court of law dishing out eye for an eye which was the point of that statute), human sacrifice, rape, torture during executions, lynch mobs, animal cruelty, child abuse, forced prostitution, on and on I could go; these things not only happened but were commonly accepted as the norm. As Christ, the embodiment of the Law, permeates human hearts worldwide and throughout history, we see the "norms" looking more and more in line with the spirit of the Law. 1000 years ago a man might not flinch, might even cheer, when watching someone be tortured to death. Today this would be received with almost unanimous horror. Look at the fury unleashed by child abuse / sex trafficking. In times past most people wouldn't bat an eye. They might even look at the child prostitute with disgust!
I argue that the Law of Moses, or rather of God, is being seeded every day in the hearts of mankind through every action small or great which those who believe in Him commit. Regardless of whether all the physical bloodline Israelites believe in Him, His followers are standing in the gap in the meantime and mankind as a whole is benefitting.
There’s a lot of ground covered here, so I’ll try to address it by subject, starting with agreements and moving to answers/discernments.
His followers are standing in the gap in the meantime and mankind as a whole is benefitting. - Amen.
though the world looks insane right now if you consider what was common place 100, 500, 1000, 2000 years ago, <list of human insanities>. Today this would be received with almost unanimous horror. - Depends on where you’re at, but there are certainly a lot of places where this has been improved. I’d love to see us get back to Detroit before going off to foreign lands (though I repeat myself), but that’s me.
I also lean towards Zion being spiritual now, and the more people who come in to that spiritual land, the more it will manifest physically in the world. I believe we are marching towards Zion, worldwide. I don't think it is limited to a plot of dirt in the middle east. - I tend to lean toward Rev 1:5-7, and think it is both spiritual and physical, with the physical being called to emulate the spiritual. “On Earth as it is in Heaven”. We are presently seeing legal/political mechanisms being revealed that may make it possible for Americans to reattain kingship rather than serfdom/slavery. Pray it be so. There may or may not end up being something special about that specific plot of land. We’ll see. Perhaps even the Red Shield ends up being used as Herod was, but we likely agree that’s up to God, not us. The “future proves past” lens applies nicely to things like this.
Deuteronomy 28:1-2,"If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God." I believe this has applied, and can apply again, to America. There were a mixed multitude present at Mount Sinai. Not everyone was descended from Jacob. Further, Matthew 3:9 and Romans 11. Falling into unbelief and coming into fairhfulness change who “Israel” is across time, though there will always be a remnant of the first seed.
To other questions:
Also wouldn't you get more mercury from fish than shrimp? Jesus ate fish
This is somewhat muddied today by how we farm fish rather than simply catching fish, but it’s also not only about mercury. Generally speaking, “you are what you eat”, and the farther up the chain we go, or if we go down to creatures that feed on dead matter, the more untoward things we take in and make a part of us, generally speaking. If our body is a temple (1 Corinthians 19:20), presented as a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1), would we seek to take the remains of a rotting corpse and smear it around a church, or do we not try to keep what we eat as pure and as close to living as we can? There are times where the choices are starvation or malnourishment, or eating things we shouldn’t, or times where we might be presented things to eat where we can make inroads with unbelievers on weightier matters. Romans 14:23 seems to indicate that eating such things can fall under grace through [more general] faith.
My point was that until Israel believes in their Messiah they remain in exile. - Christianity is grafted into “Israel”, “the faithful followers of God” (Romans 11). There may even be many people who are of the lost tribes without knowing who they are. Broken branches, sadly. We are not grafted into “Israel”, “the political entity” (well, we are, but not biblically or by choice). A big part of what triggered me to look at scripture this way is how we appear to be in exile and under quite a few biblical curses in our own lands right now (Leviticus 26:14-46 - seriously, go read those verses and tremble). Israel in exile, or becoming close to it, if you will. If we are completely under boundless grace, why? We are currently unfaithful and we are currently losing our land. As you noted: However, if they disobeyed and turned away from God, they would face consequences and lose their land. See Deuteronomy 28:15-68, Leviticus 26:39
[Paul] also mentions elsewhere that whoever has the faith to eat a food let them be, and likewise to whoever abstains let him be. Please don’t take this as me trying to harass or pursue, but discussing how we understand scriptures and how we engage with sin and righteousness are certainly within the range of our calling, and is the same way you are engaging with me. It would most certainly be untoward to sit next to a man eating shrimp and make a gross issue of it and try to shame him, but by the same means, if we aught not do something (“sin”), not bringing it up for discussion, inspection, and correction is also a problem, yes?
Are you striving to fulfill the Law of Moses? - Fulfill? No. Keep? Yes. I doubt anyone but Jesus is able to fulfill the law, though some verses are certainly interesting in that direction.
The way I understand it is through faith in Christ you are changed into a holy person as you grow in Him. Paul says in Galatians not to let anybody "Judaize" you as a believer. - This is true, but it also matters what “Judaize” means. Even at that time the leaders had created a heavy yoke of tradition that was required to be followed in order to be considered faithful. The Talmud is full of these sorts of things. I agree with Paul here, just with a different concept of “Judaize”. You wouldn’t catch me with a black cube taped to my forehead any time soon, as I disagree on that tradition being needed to keep that scripture.
Regarding Acts 10 and Acts 15. Acts 15, to me, says to bring unbelievers into the faith slowly, so that they might not fall into knowing sin while trying to bring their actions into righteousness. It seems like how one would go about exercising. Don’t start running a marathon with no training. We have also found out that there is a difference between knowingly breaking the law and accidentally or unintentionally breaking the law, in terms of dealing with our government criminals. God looks at sin the same way, please pray he has mercy upon me, for I have most definitely sinned knowingly.
For Acts 15, as with “Judaize”, what matters is context and meaning. I do not claim to be able to guarantee the proper meaning of that verse, as there is disagreement on it. There are people who say that it is referring to not treating gentiles as being unclean (Jews held tradition of not eating with them, which was often gasped toward Jesus’ act of doing so by the leaders of the synagogue). You are presenting it in its traditional church context of “it is ok to eat anything”.
What I do know, is that for it to be acceptable, under any conditions, to eat anything we want (what is meant by the word “food” is also important - in biblical context, if it wasn’t kosher, it wasn’t “food”, though it might be “edible”), then it has to abolish the law. That brings .. a lot of questions up.
How does a vision of Peter override the very direct statement of Jesus? Matthew 5:17Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets:I am not come to destroy, but to >>fulfil<<..
Why do the Ten Commandments selectively remain in play?
Assuming those are still in play, why do we continue to obey other parts of the law, and only disregard the laws on food and appointed times? We still do not approve of tattoos or cuttings (though this has changed in the last 20 years, and for the same reason!). We still do not approve of bribery. We still do not approve of anyone copulating with their grandmother, or their brother’s wife (that means you, Hunter!). We still believe the poor should have equal standing in court as the rich.
If there’s no need to try and follow the Law, or no benefit to trying to follow the Law, or even worse if the law is a curse (!!) (Galatians 3:10-14, totally out of context), why did the founding fathers draw so heavily on it to construct the Constitution?
If the law is done away with, what constitutes “sin”, specifically?
Does it not seem odd that if the Law was to be done away with, that Jesus himself wouldn’t have said so while he was with the apostles, rather than saying that it was not done away with and waiting for after his death to have that incredibly important matter be taught by just two apostles via only a few verses? This seems to me to indicate we are missing context on the parts that appear to say that we can disregard the Law (Torah/Genesis-Deuteronomy).
There are a handful of NT scriptures, mostly by Paul, that seem to be taken out of context and used to overrule 75% of the Bible, and the very direct statements of Jesus himself. I do not think this is the correct approach, and has also led to a lot of corruption working in, as the church as a whole no longer accepts that all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16-17), but rather, effectively, “those guys were supposed to do that”, rather than “we are called to do this as part of preparing our bodies to be a temple and living sacrifice and bringing our nation into righteousness.”
Now, something that I don’t think is in play anymore, it’s the sacrificial system. That was tied to the Law of Sin and Death, and I believe has been done away with through fulfillment, and not abolition. Read Hebrews 7:11-28 with an eye toward the purpose of the sacrificial system. If the sacrifice was for atonement, and was imperfect and thus needed to be done often, and a perfect sacrifice has since been made, what need is there for any further external sacrifice? (And sure enough, a few short years after Jesus’ resurrection, it became impossible to operate the sacrificial system and it has not been operated since then. Hee!). Meanwhile, if it was done away with through abolition, that would seem to indicate that God changed His mind. That line of thought seems to lead to bad places.
If I had to sum it up… the Law, in and of itself, does not provide salvation. Salvation comes by grace, through faith (which is “obedient action that grows out of belief”). However, disobeying and disregarding the Law sure seem to be really good paths to condemnation. The food thing, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily the biggest issue, but thinking that the Law is done away with and inapplicable is a huge issue. We similarly shouldn’t try to pick and choose which laws to follow based solely on if we’re trying to get backing for an opinion of ours, but rather our opinion should be based on what the law says, and tested constantly to ensure that our understanding is contextually correct.
Hope you find blessing in this comment. I think it’s very important information to consider. Be sure to check everything out for yourself, as I do not claim to be The Truth, this is only the lens that has made the scriptures make the most sense to me, and to finally actually start working on cleaning up the sin in my life.
Reread my response. I don’t feel like it’s at odds with your second comment, which I agree with more.
The point was more about.. how the implementation of the meaning of the words has come about, and what those things both are in truth.
Exactly. I don’t view the Bible as “their story”, but as “our story”, or moreso even, “God’s Story”. Does “Zion” only refer to a specific hill in Jerusalem and the original land of the twelve tribes after they crossed the Jordan, or does it refer to the land of God’s people when He dwells among them in Righteousness?
For your consideration though, as what I believe to be a step toward that, whichever it may be…
Matthew 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to >>fulfil<<.
1 Corinthians 3:4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I [am] of Apollos; are ye not carnal?
Romans 4:3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
“God is unchanging.” True. “God reveals His character pieces at a time” True. “God told Israel what they must do to follow Him.” True. “God told Israel, now stop all that it’s all bad now.” _____
1 Corinthians 1:13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?
Christ himself said things different than the church teaches.
2 Peter 3:15-16 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
The churches tend to teach from Paul. There are weightier matters than bacon, for certain, which were very much being neglected in Jesus’ time, but it was also said that till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle of the Law would pass away.
We get offended that the WEF tells us we will eat ze bugs, but shrimp are very literally sea cockroaches, and we know that bug chitin is bad for us, and that getting mercury inside our bodies is bad for us, and we didn’t have any trouble with either of those things because we were told it was fine to eat shrimp because the Law was abolished, and look how much Red Lobster charges for them! They wouldn’t charge us $17.95 for cockroaches!! That’s absurd!
The WEF bugs narratives are disclosure. We were already eating ze bugs!
Believe me, I can keep going, and do pork (which is worse), too, or you can just take God’s Word for it. God’s Word is spiritual. God’s Word is practical. All God’s Word is breathed, relevant, unchanging, and useful for instruction (“applicable”).
Matthew 7:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide [is] the gate, and broad [is] the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat
If you want to throw something back at me, I recommend this one:
Matthew 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach [them], the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Still working on the “doing” and “not breaking” parts, and on far greater matters than shrimp.
It’s a long explanation, but this is just a common claim which I merely firmly believe should be corrected. If Jesus was the Law made flesh, and he did away with himself at the cross, … that … would be very odd … one might even call it a house being divided against itself. Why did he bother to teach the Law in the first place, then, if we should proceed to ignore it upon receiving salvation? Should we sun more, that Grace might exist in greater abundance? To what were all the fathers of the faith faithful to, if not the Law and God’s commands to them?
In peace and love, fren, and sorry I’m not better at brevity.
Now you've got me thinking!! I have an immediate question: are you implying Zionism is God's purported plan but was just initialized by the wrong people / at the wrong time / for the wrong motives, or that it's entirely and inherently wrong and a yuuge misunderstanding of the scripture, or that you aren't sure but lean towards one or the other?
My answer: I lean more towards it being a complete misunderstanding and thus misapplication of the scriptures
edit- I'm gonna respond to your comment too I just need some time
Exactly. I’m suspecting after it being the first option, yes.
Meanwhile we have a bunch of people literally arguing against the word … literally “anti-christs”, many being wolves in sheeps clothing - and they’re in every camp.
Woe to them who call good “evil” and evil “good” when righteousness is restored. All it takes is a word,..
Sorry I forgot to come back to this!
As to the shrimp and pork, how do you reconcile:
Acts 10
Acts 15
Also wouldn't you get more mercury from fish than shrimp? Jesus ate fish
Yes these matters are small but still in the same vein. Are you striving to fulfill the Law of Moses? The way I understand it is through faith in Christ you are changed into a holy person as you grow in Him. Paul says in Galatians not to let anybody "Judaize" you as a believer. He also mentions elsewhere that whoever has the faith to eat a food let them be, and likewise to whoever abstains let him be.
I did link unbelieving Jews and abstaination from pork, perhaps that was the wrong link to make.
My point was that until Israel believes in their Messiah they remain in exile.
I also lean towards Zion being spiritual now, and the more people who come in to that spiritual land, the more it will manifest physically in the world. I believe we are marching towards Zion, worldwide. I don't think it is limited to a plot of dirt in the middle east. I could be wrong though
One more bit on the Law... In line with my spiritual Zion angle, and in line with recorded history, though the world looks insane right now if you consider what was common place 100, 500, 1000, 2000 years ago, things like public orgies, fatal blood sports, eye for an eye vigilante justice (as opposed to a court of law dishing out eye for an eye which was the point of that statute), human sacrifice, rape, torture during executions, lynch mobs, animal cruelty, child abuse, forced prostitution, on and on I could go; these things not only happened but were commonly accepted as the norm. As Christ, the embodiment of the Law, permeates human hearts worldwide and throughout history, we see the "norms" looking more and more in line with the spirit of the Law. 1000 years ago a man might not flinch, might even cheer, when watching someone be tortured to death. Today this would be received with almost unanimous horror. Look at the fury unleashed by child abuse / sex trafficking. In times past most people wouldn't bat an eye. They might even look at the child prostitute with disgust!
I argue that the Law of Moses, or rather of God, is being seeded every day in the hearts of mankind through every action small or great which those who believe in Him commit. Regardless of whether all the physical bloodline Israelites believe in Him, His followers are standing in the gap in the meantime and mankind as a whole is benefitting.
There’s a lot of ground covered here, so I’ll try to address it by subject, starting with agreements and moving to answers/discernments.
To other questions:
Regarding Acts 10 and Acts 15. Acts 15, to me, says to bring unbelievers into the faith slowly, so that they might not fall into knowing sin while trying to bring their actions into righteousness. It seems like how one would go about exercising. Don’t start running a marathon with no training. We have also found out that there is a difference between knowingly breaking the law and accidentally or unintentionally breaking the law, in terms of dealing with our government criminals. God looks at sin the same way, please pray he has mercy upon me, for I have most definitely sinned knowingly.
For Acts 15, as with “Judaize”, what matters is context and meaning. I do not claim to be able to guarantee the proper meaning of that verse, as there is disagreement on it. There are people who say that it is referring to not treating gentiles as being unclean (Jews held tradition of not eating with them, which was often gasped toward Jesus’ act of doing so by the leaders of the synagogue). You are presenting it in its traditional church context of “it is ok to eat anything”.
What I do know, is that for it to be acceptable, under any conditions, to eat anything we want (what is meant by the word “food” is also important - in biblical context, if it wasn’t kosher, it wasn’t “food”, though it might be “edible”), then it has to abolish the law. That brings .. a lot of questions up.
There are a handful of NT scriptures, mostly by Paul, that seem to be taken out of context and used to overrule 75% of the Bible, and the very direct statements of Jesus himself. I do not think this is the correct approach, and has also led to a lot of corruption working in, as the church as a whole no longer accepts that all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16-17), but rather, effectively, “those guys were supposed to do that”, rather than “we are called to do this as part of preparing our bodies to be a temple and living sacrifice and bringing our nation into righteousness.”
Now, something that I don’t think is in play anymore, it’s the sacrificial system. That was tied to the Law of Sin and Death, and I believe has been done away with through fulfillment, and not abolition. Read Hebrews 7:11-28 with an eye toward the purpose of the sacrificial system. If the sacrifice was for atonement, and was imperfect and thus needed to be done often, and a perfect sacrifice has since been made, what need is there for any further external sacrifice? (And sure enough, a few short years after Jesus’ resurrection, it became impossible to operate the sacrificial system and it has not been operated since then. Hee!). Meanwhile, if it was done away with through abolition, that would seem to indicate that God changed His mind. That line of thought seems to lead to bad places.
If I had to sum it up… the Law, in and of itself, does not provide salvation. Salvation comes by grace, through faith (which is “obedient action that grows out of belief”). However, disobeying and disregarding the Law sure seem to be really good paths to condemnation. The food thing, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily the biggest issue, but thinking that the Law is done away with and inapplicable is a huge issue. We similarly shouldn’t try to pick and choose which laws to follow based solely on if we’re trying to get backing for an opinion of ours, but rather our opinion should be based on what the law says, and tested constantly to ensure that our understanding is contextually correct.
Hope you find blessing in this comment. I think it’s very important information to consider. Be sure to check everything out for yourself, as I do not claim to be The Truth, this is only the lens that has made the scriptures make the most sense to me, and to finally actually start working on cleaning up the sin in my life.