Episode Transcript
[00:00:18] Speaker A: This is probably the most exciting of my Romans adventure. My deep dive this week is the one that I have looked forward to the most. Okay? For one thing, we are attempting the impossible.
We are going to go through the chapters seven and eight of romans in one week and we are going to accomplish it. So that is worth celebrating. That is exciting, but we are going to tackle this. And understanding, of course, that just Romans seven could occupy weeks of study. Everything we've been doing up to this point could actually occupy a semester or more at an academic institution of higher learning.
We could be spending months and months doing this. So we're in week ten. But what's exciting for me, as usual, is to challenge the status quo, to challenge an understanding, to present a new perspective on Paul, and particularly on something that many of you, you have read for decades, all your life, you've read this and you've thought it in a certain way. Most likely. Most likely. And not even because you've been told to think it. It's simply because when you read it, it's hard to not think it because that's sort of what the plain read looks like in some of the things we're going to study today. But listen, we read romans differently now, don't we?
After nine weeks, we understand things about Paul, his mission, his purpose, his audience, his perspective. And that forces us to consider his words that he wrote 2000 years ago in Rome, to Romans, to gentiles. We have to be read aloud. A letter in Rome. We now read it much more like what they would have heard and understood it to be. Now, this series and the scholars who have informed my studies and who now have informed your perspective, I'd certainly like to think that the Holy Spirit has done some informing along the way as well. But this series forces us to reconsider what we've always known, what we thought we knew. And that's why I called it repaving the Romans road. And that's a big project and I'm excited about today because I think it challenges one of the most misunderstood readings in the entire book of Romans.
Chapter seven.
You ready?
Is that enough of an intro?
You ready?
A quote.
Romans seven from roman scholar Stanley stowers. A rereading of Romans.
One might reasonably consider chapter seven the key to the western understanding of Romans, going back to Augustine, but with roots in Origen origin. Way, way back, way, way back. Romans seven facilitated the development of a psychologizing interpretation of Paul's statements about sin law. Boasting grace, it provided interpreters with a supposed analysis of the human predicament to which Christ was the solution. This is big stuff for how the world reads. Paul and I want to address briefly the first section, verse through chapter six. It's actually chapter seven through 25, which needs verse seven through 25, which needs the bulk of our time. But I do want you to just think back to chapter six, the last verse of chapter six, which said, for the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. What are the wages of sin?
Death. Very good. Chapter seven, verse one.
Or do you not know, brothers and sisters, for I'm speaking to those who know the law, that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives. Right away. First off, we need to notice what's is chapter seven a completely random new thought from chapter six? Of course not. It's all connected. It's connected thought. He's been talking about sin death law. Now he's going to give an example to strengthen an argument. Chapter six ended and he said, or do you not know? For I'm speaking to those who know the law. Now, it is assumed by many interpreters that Paul is speaking to who? Who knows the law?
Jews, of course. Jews. That's presumed to be his audience, but that's not who he's talking to.
Does that surprise you? That's not who he's talking to. I've repeatedly shown you the importance of knowing the audience. Specifically, why? These are gentiles. These who know the law are non Jews who have come to know the law, most likely by their association in synagogues as God fearers or proselytes.
They know the law, too. Do you know the law?
Are every one of you jewish? No. How'd you learn it? In a synagogue or your own study or understanding things from a jewish perspective?
They are consistently Paul's audience through six chapters, and they still are in chapter seven, he is not talking to jews. He's staying consistent with his audience. Verse two. This is a long section. I'm pulling up verse two through six. Guys, if you want to put it up, let me just read. For the married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he's alive. But if her husband dies, she's released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is alive, she gives herself to another man, she'll be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she's free from the law, so that she's not an adulteress if she gives herself to another man. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also were put to death in regard to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another for him who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were brought to light by the law were at work in the parts of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we've been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the spirit and not oldness of the letter. Wow. Some big phrases in there, right? Each and every one of them almost pointing to the death and destruction of the law in Paul's mind. Right?
And there's that we again.
There's the we again, we discussed we last week, and I mentioned, of course, that inclusion is important. We need to again pay attention to the fact that Paul's using language that integrates him into his audience. And here he goes even deeper by saying brothers, like, he's really in here. Adelphi, he's bringing in brothers. But I need to point out some of the things that Paul says in that text, particularly the last verses. Guys, if you want to keep it up.
While we were in the flesh.
Sinful passions bearing fruit for death.
These are not the Ways that Paul describes himself, ever.
They are exactly how he has elsewhere described who?
The idolatrous nations, going back to chapter one in romans remember it. And then he says, we've been released from the law, died to that which we were bound to. Oldness of the letter. These are not ways in which Paul has described the Torah for jewish people or in general. Actually, there's not a jewish connection to it, but it certainly, he has described the idolatrous nation's connection to it this way.
He has said this to them, died to that which we were bound, and the futility of trying to draw near to God through it as a gentile without Messiah. So this is his point to his audience, who knows the law, with this entire opening chapter of section of chapter seven, the Gentile Christ followers who he's speaking to, who live in the newness of spirit, that is, as disciples of Jesus, having received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, this is who he's talking to. They are empowered now to live forever, freed from the judgment of the law, which decrees death for sin. Not, of course, by adherence to the law or trying to live according to what Paul describes here for them as the old written code.
Paul says, if you are knowers of the law, because surely I'm speaking to you.
You should know this.
He's giving an example to say, you should know that he speaks of a non jew reading the law without the aid of the Spirit, which has become a significant focus on into chapter eight, he'll continue that. The Gentile Christ followers, Paul is saying, is they are freed from the judgment of the law, not because the law has died. We need to understand that. About that analogy, that's not what it is. That's not what he's saying.
That's not it. Through Christ they have died.
The Gentiles and their old self, they have died. You'll remember, he says, paul's previous language, in romans six three, you were baptized into Christ's death. In other words, that old nasty part of you died, and therefore the law has no valid claim on someone deceased. That's the marriage analogy. That's what he's saying up there, and he's applying it to them. And at the same time, though, think about the wife for whom death canceled marital obligation. Through the spirit, they are free to live, not bound anymore to sin and death, which is what they were married to previously, but now to life in the spirit. Paul says, you have to recognize, my friends, there's got to be a severing of the idea as law, as salvation. It's actually the opposite. The law has the rightful privilege to declare them dead, judged, going to die in sin.
But none of these comparisons, examples that Paul is making are intended to offer Paul's new theology on the law. None of this is redefining the Torah for Christ followers, Jews, none of it, or a dismissal of it. It is only to indicate the place of the holy and just law in the life of the nations. And once again, Paul makes this very, very clear. It is all about Yeshua. For the nations to be able to get in, that is the point. It is kind of confusing. I understand. Thats back and forth. That doesnt make a lot of sense to you. Wait for the study guide, go back and listen, and then email your questions, and then in about six months, ill get to them.
But what he's about to do, what he's about to do is show exactly why a gentile, apart from Yeshua and the spirit, cannot escape the consequence of sin, what it actually looks like when they try.
And this moves us into what I promised in the opener, one of the most challenging reconsiderations of Romans and how it's been read. So hold on to your hats. Romans seven. Seven.
You can put it up.
What follows?
Misinterpreted misused, misapplied. And I'm not just talking about in Paul's letters, I'm talking about the whole Bible. This one is up there.
This section of text has been used to show more than any other, I think that all of humanity is generally just a miserable lot.
You're just useless knowing that we should, but we should do good, but we're incapable of doing good, and we're always defaulting to evil, to sin and disgusting behavior. And at all times, you're constantly at war with yourself. Did you know that about yourself? It's right here.
And it ends, this section of seven, seven through 25, with, oh, what a classic. Oh, what wretched creatures. What wretched man that I am. Right.
Wretched creatures. In his influential commentary, a traditional commentator named Ernst Caseman, a spanish guy. Just kidding. He's german. The experience which Paul envisions. Listen, it's long. The experience which Paul envisions in chapter seven, verse seven and following, consists in the fact that the pious, who alone come into the picture here, do not succeed in realizing the will of God as the true good, so long as the spirit of Christ is not given to them. Instead, in their very acts, they give a place in reality to evil. Although it's not their intentions, their helplessness in the face of this perversion of the intention shows that they are, in fact oriented to the good, that they feel themselves to be under obligation to the will of God, and that they accept it as the norm of their existence. Obviously, Ernst says, this is in the first instance, a depiction of the situation of the jew, who is faithful to the law.
In other words, by these traditional interpretations, Paul is once again preparing to show the world the misplaced loyalty of the jew to the law, the futility of attempting to live by the law. But most profoundly, he's about to show, according to this interpretation, that Pauline Christianity is the antithesis of an imagined jewish religiosity. What we are about to hear, according to traditional interpretation, is Paul's story.
Are you ready for it?
From the beginning.
From the beginning, verse seven. It starts with, guess who you got it from the get go. Chapter seven, verse seven. The interlocutor. What shall we say then? Is the law sin?
What's Paul's response?
Who can say the Greek? By this point, you can. Mega. No.
What shall we say then, Paul? Is the law sin? Are you again trying to berate the law, Paul, to tell us to have nothing to do with it? In the words of Andy Stanley, Paul, should we unhitch from the Old Testament?
Is that what you're saying, Paul?
God forbid. Far from it. And when he says that, we know we're in for something good. Right?
And then, by the most natural read of what follows, begins his apparent autobiography, through the story of his life and the law.
But, friends, what we've observed, what we've observed again and again, is that a straight reed here, or a traditional read, does not take into account the audience, the mission, the purpose, and most of all, the rhetorical devices that Paul has used over and over and over again. Remember roman scholar Lloyd Gaston? If you miss Paul's rhetoric, you miss Paul.
What's coming is a rhetorical device. I've taught it to you before. Prosopopia.
Speech in character, which I've.
It's about to be on the fullest display that it's been in Romans. The big question. Put seven. Seven right here. Far from it. On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law, for I would not have known about coveting had the law not said, you shall not covet. Go on.
But sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment produced in me, coveting of every kind. For apart from the law, sin is dead. You can go on and you'll see the question we must ask. Who is this I?
Who is this me?
That is not an easy question, it turns out, for interpreters through the ages.
Is it a random jew? Is this the pre Christ Jew? Is this the pre Christ pagan sinner? Is this. It's been proposed. Adam. Paul's doing Adam again.
Or is it Paul referring to pre Christ Paul and his ability, his inability, actually, to ever do anything good. Which is the common viewpoint you're familiar with?
What's the straight reed say?
It's Paul.
It's Paul. That's what everyone says.
But, guys, who we attach to I and me changes everything.
No exaggeration. Is it Paul? I want you to consider the Persona you're meeting here in chapter seven, verse seven. And following this is for sure a tortured soul. Yes, but where has Paul given you the idea that he is a tortured soul?
Where is it?
It's the opposite, actually. No.
Circumcised on the 8th day. Proper jewish upbringing. Blameless according to the law.
Extremely zealous for the ancestral traditions. Galatians, be imitators of me. He says to his audience in first corinthians.
Is this a tortured soul?
Furthermore, the person describing themselves as. Go on. I was once alive back. Sorry. I was once alive apart from the law. But when the commandments came, sin came to life, and I died. I want to ask you a question. In what context was Paul ever alive, apart from the law?
Are we talking about the first seven days of his life before he was circumcised and became a member of the covenant? It's ridiculous. That's, of course, not what he's talking about.
That makes no sense. Paul has always proudly and remains proudly associated with the law of God, the Torah of Hashem of Adonai. Further, in verse nine, when the commandment came.
When the commandment came, sin came to life and died. In what context could this be describing? Paul, or any jew, for that matter? When the commandment came, the commandments have always been there. They are a part of jewish life, a part of the covenant agreement of Sinai, a way of demonstrating love and service to God. When the commandment came, that tells us again, therefore, in the highest of probabilities, that the Persona we're hearing from is not jewish.
The commandments came to them. Here we are talking about a gentile, a God fearer, or a proselyte.
This Persona is not a jewish person seeking to keep the law, nor a Christ follower, but one who seeks to do the law as a non jew with a view to that being some kind of self mastery, solution, or highway to salvation. That's what you got.
Paul's point, which he will clearly and exhaustively make, is easy to see here. The attempt of a non jew to fulfill the law without the spirit is doomed to fail.
What we are seeing is the answer to the question asked by the interlocutor in seven seven who asks, so, Paul, what are you saying? Is the law sin?
Paul answers now.
Speech and character. Prosopa pia, a common rhetorical device by which the speaker presents the thought of a fictive, an imagined character, to illustrate the speaker's own point, what is Paul's point? The law is not sin.
Mega noito, God forbid. The law is not the problem. It's the gentile sinner who's the problem, the one without the spirit. That means apart from Messiah, who for whatever reason, through his interactions with Judaism in jewish spaces, believes that the law can save him.
And so here, Paul introduces speech and character, this Persona, to show you what it actually looks like when a gentile is trying to uphold the law without the spirit. Okay, I'll make it more clear. It's this and the I and the me.
It's not Paul.
It's that guy.
And we've not really met this person before.
It's not Adam. It's not Paul. It's not even the Christ following gentiles that are properly oriented toward the law. His illustration is to show gentile brothers and sisters. This is what it looks like when a gentile does this apart from the Messiah, can fulfill parts of the Torah in so many ways they should. But that is enabled solely through the spirit. And you will remember in chapter one and elsewhere, Paul has said gentiles are sinners. Galatians 215. We are Jews. We are not gentile sinners by nature. That's what he says. Pagans.
And remember this caveat. Paul knows that everyone sins, but not everyone sins the same. You remember me saying that multiple times? You got to remember this, because pagans indulge in the works of the flesh on a level that is not to be compared with jews like Paul.
Fornication, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, drunkenness, carousing, to name only a few. And that covers a lot. Carousing, my mom told me, never carouse all of these. All of these are only the outgrowth of the most basic sin you'll remember. It starts with I, ends with yemenite idolatry.
And because of this, because of this, think back to romans one, guys. Romans 128. Just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a depraved mind to do those things that are not proper, that idolatry and all of this behavior and all of that has left a permanent stain imprint.
Right? We talked about this last week. The Gentile in romans seven, who has now come to see the beauty of the commandments, the truth of God, the value of the synagogue, which are all good things.
But though seeing and understanding, he remains tortured by his past, his upbringing, his depraved mind, the thing that God released the Gentiles to because of their inability to recognize him as creator. Right? Listen to the anguish in his words. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I'm fleshly sold into bondage to sin, for I don't understand what I'm doing, for I'm not practicing what I want to do, but I do. The very thing I hate. For the good I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.
Does that sound like the Paul I described to you? That he described to you? Of course not.
The evil I find in the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully agree with the law of God in the inner person, but I see a different law in the parts of my body. Waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, the law which is in my body parts, wretched man that I am, that is a tortured soul.
It's not Paul who will set me free from this body of death.
The conflicted eye is not Paul. It's not his story, it's not his autobiography. None of this has anything to do with the law itself. For the law is, as we know, the holy. The commandment is holy, righteous and good. This is not a jew. The jewish stories to follow in chapters nine through eleven.
But this judaizing gentile. For him, the law points only about how much, and in oh so many ways how he sins.
And again, to conclude this incredibly important and reemphasized point, the law is good. The answer to seven. Is the law sin? Of course not. The law is good. Gentiles following the law is not only good, but necessary for blessing, life, community, relationship. But here Paul, through speech and character, portrays the Gentile in that period of time. I'm not saying you are idolatry, fornicating carousers.
Think about when he's talking and who he's talking to and what's going on in Rome.
That poor roman gentile, first century, trying to take on the mantle of the Torah. It brings all this knowledge of good, but it does not deal with the acrasia of Romans one, the uncontrolled desires that only makes him aware of a repeated moral failing. It's a trap of tragic proportions. I know what to do, but I can't do it.
Who will set me free from this body of death?
Romans 725.
Brothers and sisters, here it comes.
The answer Paul has given all along through various examples and conversations. Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, and the transition to one of the most powerful verses in our biblical text. The next chapter on chapter eight, verse one. Therefore there is therefore, therefore because of all of this, one through seven, therefore because of all of this, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You can say amen. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death, you, singular.
Talking to tortured soul, Romans seven.
And applying it to his entire audience, who can so much relate with the guy Paul just painted. They've walked that road.
Thank God.
Thank you, God. We've been set free. You, he says, brothers and sisters, have been set free, singular. He answered the question. God's telling his gentile.
Paul is telling his gentile audience in this diatribal style, right? Christ Jesus. It's the proper way forward. Christ Jesus and the pneuma. You know the word in Greek? Pneumatic. Pneumatic means you're pushing air. Pneuma, the spirit, the breath.
Christ and the pneuma.
Interlocutor. That was your story. You can relate to it. I know. But now there's no condemnation. You will notice a very significant vocabulary shift now for Paul in romans eight.
He's moving away. He moves from a focus on nomos, which means what? Who remembers law? Nomos. Law. 15 times in chapter seven, five in the first verses of chapter eight, moves away from it, and then spirit shows up 27 times in the book. Chapter eight.
He has made the cut, he's made the shift. Here it is, brothers and sisters. Nu'ma, the wretched man has found deliverance, but not through the law, through Jesus in the spirit. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And to deal with sin. He condemns sin in the flesh so that the, the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. And what is remarkable about that is there is not one bad thing ever yet said about the law, only the weakness of the uncontrolled desires. But now through the spirit, the Gentile is no longer on their own to try to find their way through the law. Why they've been empowered. They are now the ethna, the nations, filled with numa, the spirit.
What a victory, right? What an incredible victory. And this is chapter eight's message. They've come to fulfill the just requirement of the law. At the same time in Messiah, escape the consequences of the law leading to death. Always remember this. Always remember this. Always remember this. I'm speaking to the choir. The law did not die.
The law did not pass away. The law was not fulfilled in the sense of being eradicated. The law was filled full by the spirit of God and by Messiah.
And now the ethnic are partakers in the very same thing.
That's just absolutely. You ought to stand up and run around the room like they do in those pentecostal churches.
For all 8812 814, for all. Those who are led by the spirit of God are children of God. Here Paul powerfully continues this triumphant message to his audience. Took him seven chapters to get there. Here it is, chapter eight. Triumphant, this one. We've encountered this message before in the family of God. Abraham stuff. Chapter, verse 15. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. But you received what kind of spirit? A spirit of adoption. Adoption was a very, very powerful component in Rome. Specifically in Rome. Do you know how Octavian became the emperor Augustus, the most famous emperor in Rome? You know how he became the emperor? He was adopted by Julius Caesar, the roman emperor, who was current concurrent with Paul's writings. Nutcase. Nero. You know how Nero became the emperor in Rome? He was adopted by Claudius, the previous emperor.
This idea of adoption having a gift bestowed on these men, these roman men, by a ruler, and thus they become part of the royal family. That's not an illustration that would have been lost on Paul's roman audience, and he's smart enough to know it. So you have a spirit of adoption. He says, when we cry, Abba father.
Abba father. It is that very spirit bearing witness in our spirit that we are children of God. We. And if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and join heirs with Christ, and if we, in fact suffer with him so that we also may be glorified in him, that is to say, gentiles, you have been adopted into the family of God. So much so that you even get to call the jewish God daddy.
Abba, you get to use jewish language to refer to your father in heaven. That's adoption. And Paul didn't miss a beat dropping that in there. Let me add a quick word about suffering, because that's a big thing in here. And if you're thinking it, no, we're not going into predestination. I'm not going to waste my breath. That's in Romans eight, not going there. Suffering.
Paul mentions it in 17. Again, just after 18. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. I want you to remember Paul's requirements. What are Paul's two big rules? No idolatry and no conversion. Okay? No conversion for salvation. Let's always put that in parentheses. But number one, no idolatry. Okay?
That was a tall order. I've told you multiple times, that was a tall order for romans. Right? No idolatry. Possible exclusion from their community, their family, based on their new identity and messiah. They were judged as dangerous. They could bring the anger of the gods upon their family and society if they weren't participating in the roman cult honoring these idolatrous gods, idolatrous practices. So Paul takes a good section of chapter eight to give that familiar message which simply says, hang on, guys, hang on. Even the world, the very world, is crying out for redemption. Hang on. Keep the hope alive. Sin is still here. Difficulty is still here. You're probably getting treated like crap by your family, and people probably want to kill you because you don't worship aphrodite anymore. Hang on.
That suffering will be worth it. The plan of God will be realized. It has not been realized yet. Why? There's still much to do with my people.
Verses nine through eleven.
But hope is alive, and that is evidenced, my gentile friends, simply by the experience of you being here.
The kingdom is on the brink of arrival. The plan is underway. Okay? The plan of redemption. Our prophets, my jewish prophets, Paul says, have spoken of it. The messiah has spoken of it, and things are getting started. And these feelings of insecurity, hopelessness, you may be feeling apart from your former life, your suffering, being ostracized may be worse. Listen, the part. Go on. Where it says not even knowing how to pray.
Okay? The creation's groaning. He who knows the heart, go back, go forward.
He who searches the heart knows what the mind of the spirit is because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. He says, the spirit is interceding for you. You have this new personality. You're in a new community. You're tackling the world in a whole new way apart from who you once were. You may not even know really like how to pray, who to pray to, what to pray.
But the spirit of God that now dwells within you, the nu'ma prays. This is not about a prayer language.
Going into your closet and speaking in tongues. That's not what this is. This is an incredible force of the spirit of God dwelling within these people that is interceding for them in this incredibly difficult time while they suffer. You got it. Romans eight man, big, big stuff. It's all underway. The spirit cries for redemptions. Our hope will be realized. Paul is most certainly including himself in the story.
Messiah has provided reconciliation apart from the law for the nations. Messiah continues to intercede. Nothing can separate us from him. He will restore and redeem. We are connected, brothers and sisters of the nations, to the God of Israel.
Eight chapters we got there.
Now, in conclusion, there are so many people who would disagree with what I've taught you here. And when you, when you see it, though, when you read it this way, taking note of all the pronouns that we've spent time talking about and the people and the audience and the purpose and the points, I just want to ask you. You don't have to say yes, but doesn't it make so much more sense when you see it, the connected, powerful redemption story for those in Rome to hold on to, which tells the story of the nations and Paul the apostle to the nations. So masterfully putting it down for you, it makes sense. But the thing is, we are not done with the letter. And there is a very important question, and I promise you this is it. Because we have gone a while, there is an important set of questions that remain unanswered. And it is simply, what about the juice?
What about the Jews?
Rabbi, you've done everything about the Gentiles.
You know, this is a particularly relevant question for gentiles in Rome. You know why? Two big reasons. What about the Jews having been redirected, retaught, reaffirmed by Paul's message about their place in the family. Check this out. If God's plan, if God's faithfulness to Israel has Hasdeenen not come to fruition as expected, if one election can fail, then another one can fail, too, right? Which means, Paul, what about the Jews? They were in the story, and now they're out. They're out of the story.
I need to understand this, Paul.
If God's promise has not succeeded, and we, ethne, are in God's plan by virtue of Israel's failure, how can we be sure that God will even stay with us? It's a good question. Another possible consideration from Paul's audience from another angle. Well, Paul, if it's all about the spirit and the law and none of this, I mean, the spirit and messiah and jewishness has little to do with us, and considering that the Jews have not accepted Jesus as Messiah, should we even really care about them anymore? Should we actually write them out of the story? Do they matter anymore?
Haven't they, in essence, written themselves out of God's story?
These are the questions.
And when we return after the high holidays, we will tackle the crescendo of Romans 911, Shabbat Shalom.
[00:44:21] Speaker B: Please visit our website, shalommakin.org, to learn more about us. Join our Live Services access other teachings sign up for our newsletter, join our private network that will connect you with our greater community from around the world, or contribute to the work of Shalom, Macon, thank you for watching, and we look forward to connecting with.
