How Can Paul Say ‘Don’t Curse’—Yet Do It? | Filip Sylwestrowicz

In this episode of Exploring the Language of Scripture, Daniel Mikkelsen is joined by Filip Sylwestrowicz—a pastor and New Testament scholar—for a rich and thought-provoking conversation on blessings and curses in Paul’s letters, their ancient background, and their relevance for the Church today.

Drawing on passages like Galatians 1, 1 Corinthians 5 and 16, Romans 9 and 12, Filip explores the meaning of anathema, the language of 'handing over to Satan', and the paradox of Paul encouraging believers to bless their persecutors yet pronouncing curses himself. He also examines how the language of curse functioned and was used in the ancient world including the usage of curse tablets, tomb inscriptions, and Qumran rites to highlight how Paul’s use of curses is distinctive—not as acts of vengeance, but as tools to guard the integrity of the gospel and the life of the community.

Whether you’ve wondered why Paul says “Bless, not curse” yet still uses curses, or you’re curious about the pastoral purpose of such pronouncements, this episode offers a fascinating and theologically rich exploration of an often-overlooked theme in the New Testament.

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Don’t Miss the Next Episode:
This episode features a conversation with Paul Foster on the theology and message of the letter to the Colossians.

Chapters:
00:00 – Season 2 Kick-off & Today’s Theme: Blessings and Curses in Paul
01:38 – Guest: Filip Sylwestrowicz — Pastor & NT Scholar
03:39 – How Filip Got Into Greek & Hebrew (and Why It Matters)
07:33 – How Original Languages Change the Way You Read Scripture
11:20 – Greek Nuance: 1 Cor 5; Beersheba; διώκω (diōkō) in Rom 12
19:09 – Why Study Blessings & Curses in Paul?
29:45 – Curses in Antiquity: Tablets, Tombs, and Ritual Authority
35:54 – Curses in Paul’s World: Curse Tablets, Anatolian Tomb Curses, Qumran Rites
46:37 – Galatians 3 & Romans 9: Making Sense of “Curse” and “Anathema”
54:42 – “Anathema” & “Handed to Satan”: What Paul Actually Means
01:02:31 – Pastoral Discipline: Using Curses to Guard Doctrine & Community
01:07:15 – Bless Enemies, Guard the Church: When Paul Won’t—and Will—Curse
01:14:20 – What Follows from Here?

Music Credits:
Music from #Uppbeat
🔗 https://uppbeat.io/t/all-good-fo

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Podcast Keywords:
biblical languages, New Testament, Old Testament, Christ, bible study,  Relationship with God, learn biblical languages, Biblical Theology, Christianity, Covenants, New covenant, old covenant, language acquisition, Biblical Greek, Biblical Hebrew.

Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

So this is one place where actually the blessing and curse as a practice is juxtaposed when Paul says, do not curse people, but bless them instead, which is of course interesting, given that Paul apparently curses some people in some situations. So we have two kinds of curses in Paul. We have anathema, Galatians 1, 8-9, and 1 Corinthians 16-22. And then you have the two passages, 1 Corinthians 5-5 and... 1 Timothy 1.20 when Paul is speaking about handing people over to Satan. I think the curses that Paul pronounces, are different because they're not Paul seeking vengeance for the harm being done to him, but it's Paul protecting the critical form of way of living of the communities. Let's say Jesus cursing a victory in the God push. This is a description of a cursing event, but in Paul we have actually the letter pronouncing curse which is a very striking phenomenon. Welcome back to another episode of Exploring the Language of Scripture, brought to you by NT Greek Tutoring, the place for personalized Greek learning in your spare time. I'm your host, Daniel Mikkelsen, the founder of NT Greek Tutoring and a PhD candidate in New Testament at the University of Edinburgh. This podcast exists to make gems from biblical studies accessible to everyday Christians and show how biblical languages opens up Scripture. Our aim is to increase your love for God and His Word and His mission, so that you'll become more joyful. witnesses for his mission and Welcome back to the first episode of the second season of this podcast and we have some exciting new episodes lined up for you today and in the rest of the season But without further ado today, I'm joined by Filip Sylwestrowicz who completed a DPhil from Oxford University in New Testament m earlier this year, and he's currently the pastor of em Redeemer Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Warsaw. He also teaches New Testament at Warsaw Baptist Theological Seminary. And before he did his PhD, his DPhil, as they say in Oxford, he did his MPhil in Cambridge. And also he did an MDiv from Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary. And he also holds a bachelor's in Hebrew Studies from the University of Warsaw. em In his PhD, Filip studied the relationship between blessings and curses in Paul. And if you want to know more about what that is all about and why Paul uses this kind of language, I'm very interested to figure out how these things work and why Paul is using this kind of language. So stick around for that. I'm very excited about that. And personally, I had the honor to actually study with Filip as we did our MPhil together in Cambridge. And we spent a lot of time together during this time, especially at Tyndale House, where we both had a desk. And we have many great memories together. And since then as well, and there's lots of memories and lots of times together that will be too many to mention here. And unfortunately, we couldn't do it in person, but we have this blessing of technology, so we could actually meet together. But regardless, it's a great honor to have you on the podcast, my friend. Welcome here. Yeah, thank you very much Daniel for invitation. I have fond memories of the time we have spent together at Cambridge. Yeah, thank you for having me. Absolutely, it's a great honour. Anything else you want to add before we jump into the questions? nothing comes to my mind. Sure. So how did you get into the study of biblical languages? Yeah, so I grew up as a Christian. But I had this time of my life when I was around 16 years old, when I started taking my faith even more seriously. That was the time when I got baptized. I'm a Presbyterian pastor now, but I grew up in the Baptist church. So I was baptized at the age of 16. I read the Bible through, like I was reading the Bible. for that, but that was the first time when I actually read the whole thing cover to cover. um And around that time, had a friend, I mean, I still have this friend, but a friend of mine had a quite strong conversion experience, which led him to a passion for revival. And this friend has taught himself Greek. I was quite impressed. mean, he was, think in Poland at that time we had like three stages of education. were like six years of elementary school, three years of like middle secondary schools and then three years of upper secondary school. So he was like at the end of this middle secondary school. He taught himself New Testament Greek from textbooks. Now that's funny, it's very brilliant. I'm not that brilliant. I couldn't do that without a teacher. ah But I spoke to my dad about that and we decided to look for a way to start learning Greek together. And as it happens, there is a nonprofit or charity or foundation in Warsaw, which is devoted to teaching languages of the Bible. And so we hired a tutor from that organization. And we gathered a group of friends and for two years, we're studying together New Testament Greek. That was my first and second grade of the last three years, third of secondary education. And so that was my entry to the world of biblical languages. And the guy who was teaching us was also quite interested in biblical studies. He was finishing his master's at University of Warsaw in Classics and thinking about going into biblical studies. And so after I graduated from high school, I had this kind of vision that I want to study biblical studies. And at the University of Warsaw, there is no faculty of theology. So I went for the closest possible thing, which was a a faculty of inter area individual studies in humanities, this kind of a subdivision within the university where you can tailor your own program. Like you have to take enough courses from one particular department to graduate with degree from that department, but otherwise you are free to take any classes you want. So I did major to use the American language in Hebrew. I got a degree in the Hebrew department, but I always take in Greek. from classics, was taking ancient history. And that was the time when I was first exposed to Hebrew, both biblical and modern. And yeah, and then I just continued to join the biblical languages throughout the rest of my education. Hmm, very good. Yeah, I remember the time in Cambridge where you normally spoke Hebrew with Kim Phillips. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's nice to learn biblical Hebrew and modern Hebrew together. mean, obviously, syntactically, they are quite different languages, but still the morphology is largely the same. So, you know, it certainly helps you to use the language actively rather than just, you know, learn paradigms for the sake of reading. Yeah, definitely. Learning paradigms for the sake of paradigms is never a good way of studying. But how have you experienced knowing the biblical languages and how they've opened up scripture for you? Yeah, so I'm a pastor, I usually have a sermon to prepare every Sunday. And I consistently um read my text in Greek or Hebrew. When I was starting, I used to do the full translation. Now as I got busier, I have given up actually typing the full translation, but I still read through the text and make notes on any... know, grammatical peculiarities and so on. And it helps me in a lot of ways. One thing is it reveals the kind of aesthetical texture of the language. So like, it's different experience to read the book in a translation, a different experience to read the book in the original language. I'm a huge Tolkien nerd. And you have like three translations of the Lord of the Rings into Polish. And one particular translation was doing something talking explicitly wrote that he doesn't want translators into other languages to do it. They were trying to translate their personal names. Like a Brandywine or Underhill, they're trying to find Polish equivalent, like build a etymological Polish words. That was hugely controversial, but in the fan community. But at the same time, that translation was unique. Trying to kind of capture the same experience you have reading, know, talking and translate that into similar experience in Polish. It's not the same thing if you read the Polish text, but you still have English names like Underhill or Bag End or something like that. And so it's a little bit like that with biblical languages. You just won't have the same kind of aesthetical experience. You won't appreciate the word plays. want, know, biblical authors are often quite ticky. They, you know, they play with the words having a similar root and so on. And you just don't have that if you translate that into the other language. And then also, it helps me to make a more responsible decisions in understanding the text. So, Sometimes, know, sometimes there are passages that are genuinely difficult to translate. And then, you know, knowing languages, I know what the options are. Now, I'm not personally a huge fan of the pastors speaking about Greek and Hebrew in their sermons, even though I'm quite hypocritical because I often do that despite saying I don't like that. ah But uh I think at least, you know, it's At the very least, it's important for people who teach the Bible to others to know why ESV makes different decisions than NIV or than NRSV and so on. Hmm. Yeah, that makes good sense, Because sometimes you have multiple options and therefore it's hard for the translator to choose which one captures most of what is available, like semantic range. To say it more technical term, but like when words have this like broadened scope, some words... can't think of like an English equivalent in... But there are words like sometimes I've used Danish idioms and they make no sense in English. And I think it's kind of the same thing happened. with Greek. Yeah. And I suppose that's the same thing in Polish as well. Right. Yeah. So do you have any specific examples? Have you seen something in the original that you have not seen in translation? Yes, sure. One example that actually comes from my work on my PhD. In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul is talking about handing a man over to Satan. And when you look at the details of that passage, you actually notice that the grammar of that passage is quite confusing. So you have Paul saying, you know, uh me being absent in the body, uh but present in the spirit of judge the man as present. And in verse 4 Paul is saying, in the name of the Lord. Now the question is, what in the name of the Lord goes with? Does it go with, you know, I have judge in the name of the Lord? Now, the problem with that is that the verb, have made judgment, is quite removed from that phrase. And so a lot of people may prefer to say something like, when you are gathered in the name of the Lord with my spirit and with the power of the Lord Jesus. But then you have quite a lot of phrases attached to that when you are gathered. So it becomes quite clumsy. And so when you look at the English translations, they differ here. Some of them connect that phrase in the name of the Lord with the latter, some of them the former. And then the same goes for with the power of the Lord Jesus, which can be connected to when you are guarded with the power of the Lord Jesus, like what most translations do. But technically, it's also possible to connect that with hand the man over. with the power of Lord Jesus the Satan. And then also there is a question here of what the infinitive παραδοῦναι (paradounai) 'to hand over' what it goes with, is it dependent on the verb of judged or is it like an independent, imperatively used infinitive? So there are quite a lot of options. And if you try to make the chart of various combinations of those options, it gets quite complicated. And this is one of those passages where, you know, knowing the language at least allows you to appreciate the complexity of a problem. And then from other side of things, I was talking about like the aesthetic value of reading in the language. There is one example that always comes to my mind. I've read it long time ago in the commentary on Genesis and it just stuck with me. There is a passage in Genesis 21 when Abraham is making a covenant with Abimelek and they make the covenant in a place called Beersheba. And now the Hebrew word for swearing or making an oath, making a vow is nisba. The Hebrew word for seven is sheva. So the the the the world of The well of swearing, the well of an oath, be, it sounds very, very similar to well of seven. And then the name Abraham in that pericope, in that passage is used seven times. The name Abimelek is used seven times. And then Abraham is separating seven lamps in order to kind of get an affirmation from Abimelek that yes, this well belongs you. And so there is this kind of play between, you know, the seven and a swearing that, or making an oath that shows you how carefully and aesthetically crafted the portion of genesis is. Again, that's something that is virtually impossible to translate into Polish, like the word seven and make an oath in Polish are not similar at all. nor I don't think they are in English or Danish for that matter. Yeah, so that's quite neat, like the stylistic and the pun, kind of like we sometimes when we make, we might make a pun on something like make a deliberate allusion to like a certain play on the words. And I think that's a good example, that Genesis example is that they're really trying to highlight a point. Hmm. And that's why the language is used the way it's used. And that really is impossible to translate accurately. Not that you're not trying to render the meaning, so the meaning can come to us accurately, but that kind of emphasis is not coming to us. Do you have another example? Um, yeah, so I mean in Genesis, Genesis 1, no, Genesis 2 and 3, right? have, were naked like Adam and Eve and they were not the same. And then in very next verse, the snake was the most cunning of all animals. Now in Hebrew, naked and cunning sounds almost the same. So there is this kind of ticky wordplay between you know those two verses or in Romans Another passage I actually wrote on Romans 12 You You have a word διώκω (diōkō) which means to pursue someone or something? in kind of two different meanings between Romans 12, 13 and 14. So in Romans 12, 13 it ends with τὴν φιλοξενίαν διώκοντες, so 'those who pursue hospitality', right? And then, εὐλογεῖτε τοὺς διώκοντας ὑμᾶς 'blessed those who pursue you' but in the sense of persecuting you, right? So you have a bridge, connection between those two verses. They speak about something different and the words are used in a different sense, but there's a of a verbal connection that links them together despite them talking about different things. So yeah, are quite a lot of moments when you see that language adds the quality that may not even sometimes, well sometimes it does affect interpretation, like I think it adds a layer of meaning in Genesis. Sometimes it doesn't even add a lot of meaning, but it just kind of adds a texture, an aesthetic quality to the text. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you appreciate it in a different way. Yeah, Exactly. And yeah, I think that, yeah, it was James Morgan who like highlighted the triad uses in several places. And like when Paul uses very lean like triadual structures to highlight a point. For example, he was mentioning at the end of 1 Corinthians 13 about love and hope. And that's apparently a triadic structure, which is very hard to translate because we need more to explain what is going on in the text in English, which is hard to render in the same kind of triadic structure that Paul decided to render this particular passage. Yeah, But as I mentioned in the introduction, you've done your studies on blessing and curses in Paul. Why did you decide to do that? I made a a mixture of divine providence and listening to advice of various people at various points of my life. So initially when I was an undergraduate student, I knew I wanted to do a PhD in biblical studies, but I thought I wanted to do a PhD in Old Testament studies. I was majoring in Hebrew, I liked the Old Testament, I still like the Old Testament, it made sense. And then someone talked with me and... pointed out to me that in my context in Poland, we do have a few competent Old Testament scholars within evangelical community. Now it's interesting, in a global scale, maybe the other way around, maybe there are more evangelical New Testament scholars than the Old Testament scholars. But within that particular context in Poland, actually the other way around, we do have evangelical Old Testament scholars. We don't have too many evangelical New Testament scholars in Poland. And that made me think and also I had already a background in Greek. I like Greek. I like both the Old and New Testament. So it was equally fine for me to go one way or the other. And then I had the privilege of doing a few internships at Tyndale House Cambridge when I was in seminary, over the summers, where we worked on the Codex Climatius scriptus, the transcription of the palimpsestate layer of it. And that's my interest in manuscript studies. And so for a while I was thinking maybe I can do a PhD in New Testament manuscript studies or textual criticism. But then again, I talked to someone and I realized listening to someone's advice that my end goal is to teach at the seminary, to be a pastor, to maybe write, but perhaps for a lay audience. And perhaps, you know, more exegetical topic might be a better preparation for something like that than a more technical topic like a textual criticism or manuscript studies. And so, this way I arrived to the point where I was looking for a topic that would be more exegetical and within the field of New Testament studies. And I like Paul. I'm not sure if I had an opportunity to talk to my younger self if I wouldn't say, well, know, the Pauline studies are very crowded. There are other fields within New Testament. Maybe there is need to study other parts of New Testament. But... I'm saying that, know, half joking way. I don't regret working in Paul. I actually came to love Paul a lot through my studies and my appreciation for that part of me that has only grown thanks to spending a few years with Paul. But I think, again, there was a little bit of coincidence or divine providence when I was applying for my MPhil. was preaching over the summer as an intern from Galatians. And one of the striking features of Galatians is of course that Paul is pronouncing a curse to the people who would preach a gospel different than he preached. So I think the coincidence of my application for further studies and spending a lot of time with Galatians over that summer. pushed me in the direction of a curse in Paul. Yeah, rather than like Matthew or Deuteronomy or something like that. Hmm. Yeah, so rather than Deuteronomy or Matthew, Matthew also uses curse language quite prevalently. Yeah, know, mean, Deuteronomy would be interesting for many reasons. Deuteronomy is very interesting from the standpoint of, know, covenant treaties and thinking about, you know, how the blessing and curse is fit within the framework of ancient Eastern covenant tradition. But a lot of people have done that, from what I know. And yeah, I think what drew me to Paul is that in Paul we have those striking passages like Galatians 1 and 1 Corinthians 16, where Paul is using the letter to pronounce a curse. And that's not something I know of from the ancient literature. If someone knows examples of the letters of cursing being attached to letters, I would be very happy to get to know those examples. But it seems unusual, seems striking. And so I guess in this sense, it was interesting to me, more so than, let's say, Jesus cursing a fig tree in the Gospels. Like, this is a description of a cursing event, but in Paul, have actually the letter pronouncing curse, which is a very striking phenomenon. Yes, yeah, that's right. Yeah, and why, why considering the blessing and curses together? Yeah, I've actually, yeah, came to realize throughout my studies that I have much more to say about curse than blessing. And so even though my PhD is tied to the final submission with Practices of Cursing and Blessing in the Letters of Paul, now I'm trying to publish it. And my book proposal title is Practices of Cursing. in the letters of Paul, I dropped the blessing because in reality my PhD was much more about cursing than blessing. But it does certainly make sense to juxtapose them together for a number of reasons. First of all, they are very similar practices, right? I mean, the way I would define a curse would be a ritual performance that leads to someone, you know, experiencing being and the state of affairs created by that performance. So it's not just, you know, a pronouncement of the word that is cursed, but also then the state of affairs created like God's curses upon him, like God has already spoken the curse once, but that there is a state of affairs created that you also call cursed. And then my definition of blessing would be parallel, right? The ritual performance that leads to well-being for someone. And so, you know, those are very similar phenomena and they are very often juxtaposed as in the Deuteronomy covenant traditions. And so it would make sense for Paul, being, you know, a Jew, raised on Deuteronomy, to think in the categories of, you know, blessing and curse as opposite. outcomes in relationship with God, like the curse for disobedience, the blessing for obedience. And we do have a little bit of that in Galatians 3, although Paul is not speaking about the blessing of Deuteronomy, but about the blessing of Abraham, but he still juxtaposes a curse and a blessing. But so it does make sense to juxtapose them together. But What I found out is that in terms of what I was specifically interested in, which is the practice of cursing, so not the curse as a theological theme, as a curse of Deuteronomy, for example, like a curse of the law, but the curse as something that poor people in the churches that poor is writing to do, like perform, speak. And so what I found out is that we have much more evidence in Poland, let us have curses, then we have a blessing. It partly depends, of course, how we take the concluding salutations, a great and peace to you. Are they conventional? you know, we... In Greek, when they would greet someone, they'd say, rejoice. Do they really wish that person to rejoice at that moment, or is it just a convention? This is what you say when you meet someone. So it partly depends on how seriously you take creating pity benedictions as ritual performance, I guess. Either ritual performances, or either more like a conventional greeting. And then you have also a passage about the cup of blessing in 1 Corinthians 10. But then again, more the cup that he blessed. We can make an argument, of course, that through the blessing of the cup, the community participates in the blessing of God. But it still seems a little bit one step removed from actually blessing someone. In terms of cursers, we have Paul cursing people who preached another Gospel in Galatians 1. You have Paul cursing those who do not love the Lord in the end of First Corinthians. We have Paul handing someone over to Satan in 1 Corinthians 5. In 1 Timothy, we have Paul saying, I've handed over to Satan Hymenaeus and Alexander. So we have at least four passages where Paul is either cursing someone or saying to curse someone or telling the community to curse someone. And in terms of a blessing, we do have one explicit passage, 1 and 12, 14, where is commanding, he's telling the community, those who persecute you, do not curse them. So this is one place where actually the blessing and curse as a practice is juxtaposed, and Paul is saying, no, do not curse people, but bless them instead. Which is of course interesting from the given given the Paul apparently curses some people in some situations. It's interesting why he how that fit together with, you know, prohibition of cursing. um But but all of that is to say that it totally makes sense to juxtapose them together both for theological reasons like covenant traditions and. uh because of how the practices are parallel, can even say, alternative to each other as in Romans 12:13. But at the same time, most of material in Paul is about curses. And so most of my work was on curses. Hmm, I see, yeah. That means there is lots to unpack. But maybe we should, before we like go into the details of what you've just been saying, I think it would be maybe helpful because for a lot of like, say, modern people, the idea of curses are kind of quite foreign, maybe even uncomfortable. But what did it mean for people at the time of Paul? Just a quick note before we continue, my one-to-one Greek tutoring application process is now open, but only for short time. If you have been wanting to read the New Testament in Greek with structure, guidance and personal feedback, this is your chance to join my 1 Year 1-to-1 Program. There's only a few spaces available, once they're filled the windows closest, you'll find all the details in the description below, and now back to the episode. I think it would be maybe helpful because for a lot of like, say, modern people, the idea of curses are kind of quite foreign, maybe even uncomfortable. But what did it mean for people at the time of Paul? I think was probably equally uncomfortable to them. I mean, I would imagine that maybe they might have been less skeptical of curses. Like some people, especially in the Western society today, may simply not believe in the power of curses. Although obviously there are a lot of people in modern world who believe in Africa, the whole idea of witches and the idea that some people might cast a curse upon you and then... and hunting them down, the practice of voodoo. So the curse is very much alive in the modern world, even though perhaps there are some portions of the modern world that might be more skeptical of the curse than ancient people would have been. But in terms of the practice being making people uncomfortable, I think it was very much making people uncomfortable. And very often the cursing practices in ancient were in the area of they would say as Sage Practices, Like the whole practice of making cursed tablets. If people, for example, had an issue with someone, would make a tablet and write a curse on the person on that tablet, roll it, pin it with a nail, and bury the tablet in the grave of someone who died prematurely. And that that practice was not something that was, you know, considered like what a virtuous citizen does, right? It was definitely a shady thing to do and make people feel uncomfortable for sure. I guess, I guess the the the idea of of a curse as a sort of expression of someone's authority. So one thing might be the curse that you sort of, you know, make in half secretly against your neighbor to get advantage over him. Another thing is if someone if for example, a father curses his son, like the son did something to gravely offend the father and the father is a person of authority. So he pronounces a curse. And I think And I think the idea of, for example, God being able to bless or curse people is the extension of that concept, That person with certain ritual authority is in a position to bless and curse people. And the ultimate authority, so to say, is God. So it's ultimately God who pronounces blessing or curse on someone. And in this sense, I guess, the curse, for example, for Jewish people would have this kind of religious dimension of something deeply building in their system of beliefs. Yeah, that makes sense here. it's not that they, at least for Western people, we can say, which is maybe more removed than it is for people in other parts of the world where voodoo is practiced quite a lot. It is maybe more comparable to what we find in those cultures that practice voodoo to what we find in contemporary, to Paul. Is that correctly a way of putting it? yeah, so, um, yeah, so in throughout the Greco-Roman antiquity, especially in the time of first and second century AD, but also before, there was this practice of, well, I mean, it ranges from like, I think, fifth century BC all the way to, to late antiquity, but for the Latin cursus, I think the peak is in, one to second century AD, but there is this practice of making the curse tablets. And so yes, they are similar to voodoo in the sense that you make a material object, that is a vehicle of curse on someone and that is, you know, usually done in semi-secret manner. mean, I'm saying semi-secret because it's quite plausible that, that people would spread the gossip about a curse being made so in the sense you know the curse will also make a psychological effect like there will be a suspicion that someone pronounced a curse that that that's something that got you but at the same time they would maintain plausibility and undeniably to write they would not openly say that you'd curse someone because that was found upon if not downright illegal and But also we do find like figurines sometimes, so that would be even more similar to voodoo figurines with pins on their noses being drawn into them. So yeah, the practice of making curse tablets has been quite popular for what you can say. think there are 1,700 cursed tablets altogether found from Roman antiquity, from various locations. That's quite a lot, actually. a lot of tablets. Hmm. Yeah. But how does Paul's usages of blessings and curses compare to that usage he just described in the world he lived in? how the use of blessing and curse is more compare to... Yeah, the other, that they know they use generally in antiquity. yeah, So there are some similarities and differences for sure. I actually in my thesis try to bring in three particular examples of blessing and cursing practices to sort of give me a map of functions of cursers, like social functions, which I can then use to think about what Paul uses curses for. And I use this. specific examples. One is what I already mentioned, the tablets. And in terms of curse tablets, I would say that the curse tablet's primary function is enhancing the agency of the curse maker. So if you are in the situation of love triangle, and you are not sure whether the other person is going to choose you or the other lover, you might curse the other lover in order to gain advantage over him. You have certain agency, like you can, you know, appeal to the person you are interested in, but you are afraid that your normal agency may be not enough, okay? If you go to the court against someone, you have certain agency, you can give a very good court speech, but you might be afraid that your speech is not enough, so the curse is enhancing your agency. And then... The other thing about the tablet is that they are, again, semi-secret. They might perhaps spread gossip about the possibility of curses being made, but they would not openly admit to making the curse. They would deposit the curse secretly. I think here we have a similarity and difference to Paul. So the difference is that Paul is very much not trying to maintain an implausible deniability, like he's pronouncing his curses. in the letters publicly as an authority figure. But I think there is also some similarity in terms of enhancing agency. So especially in the Galatian situation, you know, the Paul's opponents, they have all the time in the world to argue and reason with Galatians. They know what Galatians say. They can tailor their speeches to the response of the audience. They have time to persuade people. They have the benefit of their physical presence in the place. Whereas it Paul has only one shot and the latter to convince the Galatians to reject their teaching, right? And so the absence of Paul is creating a liability that Paul is trying to overcome by strengthening his agency with a curse. And then, you know, in 1 Corinthians 5, when he's speaking about a man who is living with a wife of his father, probably his stepmother, and he is a member of the congregation. Again, Paul is emphasizing his absence. He's saying, I'm absent, but my spirit is with you. And so I've already made judgments, and he's asking the congregation to execute the judgment for him by handing the man over to Satan. So again, the cursing practice is strengthening Paul's agency in his absence. Then the other practice I was thinking about is the funerary curses or epitaph curses, the curses that would be inscribed on the tombs of the people. And those were especially popular in Anatolia, so the modern Turkey. And people, both Jewish and Gentile, would... right in the grave if someone would bury another body or remove my body from the tomb, let this and this and this happen to them. And so what is interesting about these types of curses is that they are conditional curses. They are curses that are not pronounced against someone who has already wronged you, but they are curses pronounced against anyone who would violate the place. And so... In Galatians 1, Paul is protecting the gospel by conditional curse. If someone would preach another gospel, let them be anathema. And then similarly in Corinthians, Paul is saying if someone does not love the Lord, let them be anathema, which I take as a kind of summary of all their bad behavior and courage. So divisions over the Lord's supper, divisions over their gift of tongues, sexual immorality divisions over teachers and so on and And so this kind of conditional aspect is interesting. And in fact, later reception of Paul's curses is actually showing that Paul and curses influence how later Christians protected the object. So on later Christian graves, we do find a formula like if someone would violate the grave, The anatomy of 318 fathers were upon him or let that person be anathema maranata. Now anathema maranata is explicitly the quotation from 1 Corinthians 16 22. And the former one is allusion to the Council of Nicaea. So there were 318 bishop gathered at Nicaea and there were anathemas attached to the decisions of the council. The curse-maker is sort of saying, let the anathemas like those ones of the Council of Nicea fall upon the violators of my grave. But the very use of the language anathema for curses seems to stem from Paul. If we don't find that language in the curses before Paul, it seems that it's Paul who is using the word anathema rather than καταράομαι, κατάρα, or something like that as a cursing word. And then later Christian curses are picking up. on Pauline language. And in fact, when I was in Oxford, there was an exhibition of books. And there was one codex from the Library of Monastery in Reading, where there was an ex-libris in the beginning of the book, pronouncing anathema on anyone who would destroy or damage or do something to the codex. So even as late as in medieval times, that linguistic tradition of pronouncing anathema to protect objects which seems to be influenced by Pauline curses is alive. uh then two more examples, right, the curse tablets and enhancing agency, the protective curses, like the curses on the graves. The third example would be like liturgical curses in Qumran. we have a document that's called a rule of community. And that's the document that seems to regulate the life of a sectarian Jewish community nowadays of whole discussion in Cumberland studies about, you know, how many of those communities were, what the history, how different documents relate to those different communities. But whatever you decide on that, it seems to be a document that describes a life of a certain Jewish community. And it begins actually with a ceremony of new members initiation. And that ceremony of new members initiation is designed after the pattern of Deuteronomy. So in Deuteronomy you have this ceremony where priests and Levites gather and covenant courses are pronounced. And interestingly in Deuteronomy 27, have only curses being pronounced in that ceremony, you actually don't have blessings there. But then in the following chapters, you have a lengthy kind of section of covenant curses and blessings. And so the ceremony in Qumran is patterned after that. But it's also a reworking of Deuteronomy in the sense that in Deuteronomy, Both the blessing and curse are prolapsic. are on people of God. People of God are presented with dual outcome of their behavior. They're going to obey God, they're going to be blessed, they're going to disobey God, they're going to be cursed. Whereas in the community, the blessing is pronounced on all the men who join the Assemble, the Yahad. who separate from the sons of Belial, the west of the world and the rest of Israel. seems like only the members of the Yahad who are the two blessed Israel, not other Jews. And then the curse is pronounced on all the sons of Belial, all the outsiders. And then the curse is also pronounced on the people who would enter the community with an incincerate intention, like those who are going to fall away later. And so in this situation, we have a blessing on Kurt as a kind of right of initiation. But also then in other criminal documents, have a ceremony of expulsion of excluding someone from the community which involves cursing that person. And that that Kurt also draws the boundary of the community. So it kind of distinguishes who's in who's out. We do have that in Paul as well. mean, we don't have in Paul a liturgical ceremony unless you imagine that perhaps handing man over to Satan might have involved some sort of ritual ceremony, but we simply don't know. Paul doesn't describe how it looks like. But certainly the case that for people who in a supposedly grave way violate community code of conduct, like people who demonstrate that they do not love the Lord, like the man who was living with his stepmother, or people who violate the core message of the community, they deviate from the true God, they are least temporarily cursed. Like perhaps I would think that they can repent and rejoin the community of the blessing. But at the same time, there is a sanction of court for violating what the new covenant is. Yeah, that makes sense. you have like these overlaps but differences as well. Hmm. I suppose we have like the most famous passage about curses is probably Galatians 3.13 says like Christ redeemed us the curse of the law when he became a curse for us because it is written, curses anyone who hangs on a Does the understanding of curses and blessings I want to phrase my question properly. So does the understanding of cursing and blessing work out in Paul's own day give us insight, so like what you just described, give us insight into how this verse is to be understood. Yes, so I have thoughts on these passages. Now I purposely avoided these passages in my thesis for some reasons. mean, one reason was more pragmatic, one reason was more technical. So the pragmatic reason was I think Galatians 3 is a topic in itself.

There are literally books written on this Galatians 3: 47:30

6–14. And so it just seemed to me to be much to deal with that within my thesis. That would be, I think, a thesis itself. But also, I was specifically interested in the practices of ritual performances. So like the situation where Paul is cursing someone or speaking about someone being cursed within his churches, rather than a curse is more like a theological theme, where he is more like a theological concept, right? Christ, the law, blessing of Abraham. But I do have some thoughts on this passage. Now, it is a very controversial passage, and the controversiality stems from a certain ambiguity built in the way Paul structures his arguments. So in Galatians 3.10, Paul says, from all the works of the law, ὑπὸ κατάραν (hyo kataran) under a curse, for it is written, curse be on everyone who not abide in everything that is written in the books of law, which cites Deuteronomy. Now, one question is of course, who are those of the law, or like those of the works of the law, is Paul talking about Jews, is Paul talking about... the gentiles who try to abide by the law of Moses and so on. But perhaps more interesting question is with the connection, right? I mean, it would seem that the passage that Paul is citing is not cursing those who try to obey the law, but he's cursing those who do not obey the law. But Paul is saying those who are of the law, or of the works of the law, are cursed because everyone who does not do all the work of the law is cursed. Now, the classical traditional protestant exegesis would say, would kind of supply a missing premise, and that missing premise would be no one is able to fulfill all the law, right? So because no one is able to fulfill all the law, therefore those who are of the law, or of the works of the law, are not doing everything that is written in the book of the law, and therefore they are cursed. But in the recent time, with the whole discussion about new perspective, Paul's new perspective, Paul within Judaism and so on, the people have been proposing other readings of this passage. And so sometimes people might say that perhaps Paul is more talking about people attaching themselves to Israel. So the idea would be not so much that no one is able to fulfill the law. But the idea would be more like Israel has failed to be obedient to God. And Israel is, as a people of God, is still experiencing the exile or the curse and unfaithfulness and so forth. So warning those Gentiles, hey, you don't want to kind of join your lot with the lot of Israel because Israel is not experiencing blessing, right? So you will be joining yourself to the curse of Israel. Now, I tend to be more persuaded by the former reading rather than the latter, but you asked me whether my research has any bearing on this passage. Now, it does not impact the main problem of this passage, which is like what the missing premise is here, ah but I think there is tangential connection with Romans 9, which I did some work on. Romans 9 is a passage where Paul is opening a new section in Romans, right? In Romans 5 to 8, Paul was arguing that since we are justified, now we have a hope that does not fail. And then answering various objections, you might say, various threats to that hope, like sin, death, and law. And then in Romans 9, Paul is moving to the next question, like, is God reliable? We have that argument that we have a hope which does not fail. But since it seems that Israel has been abandoned or Israel seems to be under curse, wouldn't that mean that God who is the source of that hope is an unreliable God because he made promises to Israel and he failed to keep them? And Paul is trying to answer that possible objection. And Paul is beginning with saying, I wish I I could be anathema for my brothers according to the flesh. And there is a little bit discussion again here about what the mechanism of that prayer would be, would Paul kind of his life with Israelites? So some people say that Paul is acquainting the passage where Moses is praying to God to spare Israelites. if not to kill him. And it seems that Moses is kind of saying, throwing his lot with them. He's saying, if you are going to wipe out those people, wipe me out with them. I want to throw my lot with them. want to share their fate, whatever their fate is. I am not connected. I don't really see a lot of connections, like a variable connections between that passage and Paul. So I am, I am more persuaded to think that perhaps the idea is like Paul substituting himself for Israel, like saying, you know, curse me instead of them. But whatever you decide on this junction, whether you go with Paul is trowing his lot with them or offering himself instead of them, it does seem that Paul is saying that those Israelites, those Jews who do not believe in Jesus, their faith is anathema, their faith is cursed. Otherwise, know, why would Paul kind of, you know, offer himself to be cursed if they kind of, for whom or with whom he offers himself would not be cursed, right? It would seem that that level of sacrifice, potential sacrifice would be unnecessary. So I think you can say that, you know, there is a resonance between what Paul is saying in Romans 9 about uh how he understands the situation of the part of Israel outside of Christ. And then with Galatians 3, where he is saying that those who are of the works of the law, might include Gentles who try to obey the law, might include Jewish people who do not follow Jesus Christ. And those who are of the law, they only find the law to be the curse, the judgement of God. They do not find the law to be a blessing. Hmm, yeah, and that connects to that Jesus has taken that instead. Hmm. Yeah, so, yeah, so if you take, yeah, I would, I would take the substitutionary reading, right? I would say that, yeah, Jesus is, taking the curse instead of them. Obviously that, that, that opens again a host of, questions about how that, that relates to, for example, people who, who are not trying to follow the Jewish law. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, I think most Christians kind of understand that idea that Jesus became the curse for us, to redeem us from our sin and God's punishment. But then we have those maybe more obscure blessings and curses language within Paul, for example, which we have mentioned a couple of times, the passage from 1 Corinthians 16 where he says, if anyone does not love The Lord let him be cursed. So how do we deal with that kind of like more obscure language within Paul when he like literally curses people saying you are cursed? Yeah, so we have two kinds of cursers in Paul. We have Anathema, is, know, Galatians 1.8–9, and 1 Corinthians 16.22. And that language of Anathema appears in Romans 9.5, as I mentioned, and 1 Corinthians 12.3, although both passages do not directly speak about Paul cursing anyone in Romans 9, instead of saying, I wish I could myself be cursed. In 1 Corinthians it's very obscure passage of Paul saying that some people either say Jesus is cursed or curse Jesus depending on how you read the Greek of that passage. And then you have the two passages, 1 Corinthians 5.5 and 1 Timothy 1.20 when Paul is speaking about handing people over to Satan. And yeah, I... I would do take that language as a language of curse. And in terms of anathema, it's actually interesting because the anathema is not used as a curse language before Paul. The Greek word anathema basically means something set up, like a vault of offering, for example. And then only in Jewish translation of the Old Testament, in the Septuagint, It gains the negative meaning. The Septuagint uses that word to translate a Hebrew word, harem, which is a devotion for destruction. So like, for example, the Canaanite cities are put under the harem, they're put in the band, they're devoted to destruction. And so Septuagint uses the word that prior to Septuagint doesn't have a negative meaning, it means something devoted to God, offered to God, but not for destruction. And it applies to something that is to be destroyed But it's still not really a curse language. In some prophetic text, think it's Zechariah it's slowly moving in that direction. But um it seems to me that as far as I think we know, Paul, who is the first text who actually uses that word as a completely in a curse formula, as a sort of let that person be anathema, to destruction or devoted to divine judgment. yeah, there was in a kind of classical study of Adolf Deismann argued that Paul is adopting the language that is current in Greco-Roman cursers, like curse tablets. But since Deismann's time, we did not really find too many examples of anatomists being used in Greco-Roman cursers. two or three examples which can be mentioned of a cursor that used the language of anathema. But even then, I would argue that they don't quite do that in the same way as Paul is doing that. For example, sometimes you have anathema at the bottom of a tablet, one case, for example, which is at the bottom of a tablet, which seems to designate the whole tablet as anathema, which might be simply where there's a votive offering. the tablet is a vortuum. um So in any case, it's not a popular language. Even if it appears sporadically in other sources, it's not a popular cursing language. ah so that would suggest to me that Paul is not deriving the language of anathema from curse tablets or cursing practices of his time. But he's deriving that language from, you know, sub-triagint and he's transforming it in the term or even, you know, with antiquity, we never know what takes a lot, right? So we don't know whether Paul is, you know, doing that himself or whether he's relying on some unpreserved pair of sources that would make the move. but certainly always dependent on linguistic tradition that stems from Septuagint, you know, taking the language of anathema in the direction of a negative thing, a negative idea. And so what I would say about this language is that I think it shows us how grave matter for Paul was a violation of the gospel or violation of love of the Lord. uh, so grave that he is, uh, you know, borrowing biblical language for divine judgment and saying, you I consign those who do that thing to the divine judgment. And then similarly with handing over to Satan. Now, uh, again, we have a kind of two exegetical tradition here. So we have a, uh, exegetical tradition that understands that language of a language of curse. and often thinking that the curse leads to the death of the cursed person. And we have an exegetical tradition that thinks that it's more like a metaphorical language for removing from the church. So the church will be the spirit of Jesus, outside of the church the spirit of Satan, you hand over shaman to Satan, you remove them from the church. And part of the reason I think why people don't want to call that a curse is because it seems odd that Paul would basically pronounce a death sentence upon someone and the curse of the interpretation is often understood as that. Given that Paul says, hand the man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that the spirit may live at the day of the Lord. Now, it doesn't specify whether it's his spirit, but... From my point of view, most likely interpretation is that he's speaking about the spirit of the man handed over to Satan. The spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord. And so if he's speaking about the possibility of saving the spirit of the man, it would seem odd to suggest that he might die, but his spirit will be saved. Would the death have some sort of atoning value? There have been people who argued for that, but it seems quite inconsistent with the rest of Paul's theology. And so what I'm trying to do, I'm trying to take the of middling position and say, yes, it is a curse. It is a language of a curse. If you look at the other ancient texts, we do find the language of handing over people to malicious powers in a curse. the very natural reading of that kind of language seems to evoke the idea of a curse to me. But the curses do not necessarily lead to the death of people cursed. And so perhaps Paul is meaning that as a sort of non-lethal curse, as a curse that leads to a penchant of the man. Yeah, that makes sense to me he is, yeah, that Paul is actually trying to say that this guy needs to know that he is in trouble so that he can repent because like the only atoning death that Paul talks about is Jesus' death and resurrection. He's not saying that if you die, then you are alright. He's rather saying probably the opposite. Right. Yeah, so it kind of makes sense to me that he would invoke this curse in order to saying... You are actually in big trouble. You were kind of cursed already. Now we're showing you that that's the case. Yeah, so I think it's important to know that sort of, yeah, especially with anathema language, in a sense, handing over the agency to God, right? I mean, God who executes the anathema. Now, with handing over the Satan is slightly different, in a sense, Satan is becoming the agent of, well, something that I argue might lead to repentance, which is might seem counterintuitive, but I think the idea is sort of that you're left alone with Satan. If your behavior is inconsistent with the faith in Jesus, as you say, you basically have already put yourself outside of the church. Now we are kind of obviously sort of recognizing that state of affairs, leaving you to Satan for you to experience a full... full kind of scale of what Satan's kingdom is like and hopefully repent. Yeah, that makes good sense to me. So we already talked a little bit about it, but what is it that is like distinct about Paul's blessing and curse language in Scripture with other writers of Scripture? Other writers of scripture other than Paul. Yeah. don't have anathema used as a curse in your testament. I mean, you have kata'atema in Revelation, which is a cognate term. In the Old Testament, you obviously have a different language for curse, like arur, and different, and harem, is more like devotion to destruction, that is what the Septuagint would render anathema. And so I would say in the Old Testament, you have two kinds of concepts of a curse, it makes sense. you have a curse, it's like those of Deuteronomy that are pronounced on people for disobedience to God, or situations where sometimes the authority figures may curse someone like Noah cursing the son of Ham and so on. But you also have this kind of second language of banning something, which I guess is a curse in the sense that you devote something to destruction. In case of Canaanites, it's actually Israelites themselves who carry on the destruction. So it's not so much that the ritual performance is invoking God to do something about the Canaanites, but Israelites are those who carry out the deeds. So it's slightly different idea. Yeah, sure. Yeah, blessing you, you have, you know, God's blessing creation. You have the promise of people being blessed in Abraham. I guess one interesting connection is that there seems to be a hierarchy of sort of power to curse and bless in a sense. And then for example, God is the ultimate of authority. So if someone is blessed by God, he cannot be cursed. So why is Noah, you know, cursing Canaan and not Ham? It's Ham who actually sinned against Noah. Well, he's not cursing Ham because God has already blessed Noah and his son. So Noah is in no position to curse someone that is blessed by God. And similarly, why is Balaam not able to curse the Israelites because God blesses them. So there is this concept of hierarchy of power to bless and curse. that makes sense. I guess like so we already kind of touched upon it, but it seems like you are not saying that Paul's language is a blessing and curses are purely rhetorical. It's more than just that. Can you unpack that a little bit? the thesis of my book. Yeah, so what I'm trying to argue is that cursing was part of Paul's pastoral program, so to say. So if you think of Paul as a pastor or a church planter, to use modern plant, he's using a lot of tools in his ministry, right? He's preaching, he's exhorting people in a private setting, he's instructing people. sporadically baptizing people like in 1 Corinthians, he says he haven't baptized too many of them, but that implies that he has baptized some. He is probably presiding over the Eucharist sometimes. He's certainly writing letters, so letters are powerful tool of Paul's ministry. And so what I'm arguing is that the curses are one of the tools in Paul's tool book. Now, perhaps an extreme tool, not the tool that Paul would... get out on a daily basis, but in a particularly grave situation, in a situation of crisis, like when the gospel is threatened in Galatia, like when the community in Corinth is very manifestly failing to follow Jesus, and even so, few examples of tolerating someone leaving with his stepmother and still being part of the community. Paul uses the cursors to intervene. And so I'm saying that the study of other cursing practices can be instructive in a sense that it's give us certain parallels to understand better what's happening. Cursors are a tool that you use to enhance your agency and Paul is absent so he has to enhance his agency. Or curses are the tools to draw the boundaries within community. Paul is showing the boundaries within the community. But also, of course, there are important differences between how Paul curses and how other people might curse. And that brings us to this passage in Romans, where Paul is saying, not curse your persecutors, but instead bless them. so why is the case that Paul is able to curse those who peach another gospel and also make a broad statement, do not curse, even though it persecutes you. And if you think about especially curse tablets in an ancient world, they do show to us a mean part of human nature, right? So they show to us people who want to get advantage over their rivals, and often they even resort to curse to get advantage over their rivals. Or sometimes the curse is exacted, but the exacted is very perverted. Like, for example, in Great Britain, you have a large number of curses being found in Bath and Uly. And a lot of those curses are the curses on thieves. So the curses use the language of exacted, right? They ask God to punish the thieves. But if you compare the crimes and punishments, now you quickly realize it's not exactly these events. Like someone has stolen your cloak and you ask them to suffer greatly for that. They seem to be disproportionate, the curse and the actual value of the item stolen. And so it would make a lot of sense for Christians to perhaps think of a curse as a means of vengeance against those who persecute them. And I think it is important to realize that for Paul, that being a disciple of Christ was imitating Christ. So Paul in 1 Corinthians, for example, in 10.31–11.1, he says, become the imitators of me, just as I am the imitator of Christ. So Paul, Paul is convinced that Christ is following in the steps of Christ. I've been quite influenced by Michael Gorman's book, Christian Formity, where he is describing the spirituality of Paul as patterned after the Philippians 2, where Paul is saying Christ did not count as a thing to be grasped, but instead he emptied himself. So it's kind of the pattern of like not grabbing certain privilege, but rather emptying yourself of certain privilege for the sake of... So even though he was in the form of God, he did not count the privilege as something to be grasped, but instead he emptied himself. And if you look at 1 Corinthians, for example, you see that that's exactly what Paul is telling again and again. Corinthians, he's saying, even if you think it's your privilege to eat the meat offered to idols, do not hold to this privilege, but instead resign from it for the sake of your fellow believers that took offense at that and follow your behavior against the conscience. And he's saying, you I myself did that even though I have a right to be supported by the churches, I did not make use of that right, but rather I work with my own hands. Follow me as I followed Christ in this manner. And so I think, you know, seeking vengeance over your persecutors would be deviating from the way of Christ, right, would be exact opposite of the pattern of behavior given by Christ. But I think the curses that Paul pronounces, are different because they're not Paul seeking vengeance for the harm being done to him, but it's Paul protecting the cruciform way of living of the community. So he's pronouncing curse in Corinthians. against all those people to choose who claim to be followers of Christ but choose not to follow the ways of Christ. So if Paul was cursing the people outside of the followers of Christ, who persecute the Christ followers, be seeking personal vengeance. But if he is cursing people within who don't follow the way, then he is basically He's basically protecting the integrity of the way within the community. And then same with the Gospel right? He's protecting the core message of the community. Hmm, that makes good sense. that maybe is a good segue into like, how can we apply to the listeners and viewers of this podcast our conversation today for their everyday walk with Christ. Yeah, I see the two main applications. One is, I think we should take very seriously both integrity of teaching and integrity of life of church. And so while I am not sure the pastors today should curse people, we are not the apostle Paul, we don't have this kind of authority within the church as Paul did. I think the communities of Christians should nevertheless guard doctrine and exercise discipline in whatever way a given Christian tradition practices discipline, they should be consistent in this. So the purity of the gospel and the purity of the integrity of living out the gospel by the church is important. And if Paul pops in extreme situations, but... did not even shy away from using a curse as a tool in a certain situation, then certainly scaling down the tools appropriately. perhaps we should also show the same concern for the Gospel, and for the integrity of life. Another application would be Romans 12. Romans 12 Paul is saying do not curse your persecutor, bless them. And so while we should make decisive steps against violations of Christ-following within the community of Christ-followers, we should also not be the people who otherwise are known for being vindictive or uh seeking revenge, but we should be known as people who even when we are wronged, we bless rather than curse. Yeah, I think that that's a powerful couple of powerful applications to be sellers for the gospel, for the speak and make sure that it's preached right and that it's not perverted And then also to like have integrity, like a godly integrity of not being vindictive oh and not cursing people, but blessing them even if they don't deserve it. I think that's a wonderful application. So thank you for joining me on the podcast, Filip. And God bless you in your ministry. Yeah. Thank you. You're absolutely most welcome. Most welcome. Thank you. And to you guys out there. See you in the next one. But before you go, if you enjoyed this podcast and you want more people to see it, please subscribe and leave a like. It really helps us create more episodes like this one. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Have a great day and I'll see you in the next one.