The Scripture Study Podcast
The Scripture Study is a space for anyone who loves the Word and wants more—more understanding, more clarity, more depth. This podcast is for aspiring scriptorians, passionate learners, and those seeking to strengthen their scripture study habits. Together, we explore the text deeply, unpack meaning, and develop the tools needed to study scripture with intention and insight. Come curious, come hungry, and come ready to grow.
The Scripture Study Podcast
How Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments Shape Israel’s Identity and Our Faith Today
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In this episode of The Scripture Study Podcast, Susan Petersen and Cindy Madsen explore the significance of Mount Sinai, the Ten Commandments, and the biblical concept of covenant. Examining the ancient covenant framework of suzerain and vassal, they discuss how God establishes a sacred relationship with Israel and how that pattern continues through modern faith commitments such as baptism and temple ordinances. The hosts also unpack the unique role of the Decalogue, the communal nature of sin and accountability in ancient Israel, and the way biblical law unites both sacred and everyday life.
Drawing on insights from Jewish scholars, C.S. Lewis, and Christian theology, Susan and Cindy examine the relationship between faith, objective moral truth, and God’s divine order. They invite listeners to see God’s commandments not as restrictions, but as expressions of His character and covenant love, offering a deeper understanding of what it means to trust Him and walk the covenant path.
00:00 Introduction to Mount Sinai
02:45 The Nature of God's Covenant
06:37 Covenants in the Ancient World
13:13 The Uniqueness of the Sinai Covenant
16:09 The Ten Commandments as "The Ten Words"
22:03 The Fusion of Sacred and Secular Law
34:24 The Simplicity and Motivation of the Decalogue
37:01 Israel's Acceptance of the Torah
40:37 The Challenge of Belief
44:54 Objective Truth vs. Subjective Feeling
52:48 The Transcendental: The Good, True, and Beautiful
59:00 God as the Source of All Truth and Goodness
Join Us
The Scripture Study Podcast is your midweek Bible boost—designed to help you grow in understanding, confidence, and love for God’s word.
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend!
Resources
Instagram (Susan Petersen)
https://www.instagram.com/susan.m.petersen/
Manuals and Study Guides
Come, Follow Me Manual
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/come-follow-me
Books
The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis
https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-abolition-of-man-c-s-lewis
The Words of Torah by Rabbi Yehoshua Wender
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah
Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/
(Complete online text hosted by New Advent, a long-established Catholic reference site.)
Scholars and Religious Leaders
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
https://rabbisacks.org/
Join Us
The Scripture Study Podcast is your midweek Bible boost—designed to help you grow in understanding, confidence, and love for God’s word.
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend!
Welcome to the Scripture Study Podcast. I'm Susan Peterson. And I'm Cindy Madsen. We're so glad you're here with us. The Scripture Study Podcast is designed to be your midweek Bible boost. Let's dig in.
SPEAKER_01Hi, welcome back to the Scripture Study Podcast. I am your host, Susan Peterson.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Cindy Manson.
SPEAKER_01Hi, Cindy. How are you?
SPEAKER_00I'm doing great, Susan. How are you?
SPEAKER_01I'm good. It's Friday for us. Yeah. And I am ready for the weekend. I know, right? Yes. I am too. Yes, it's beautiful. So let's talk about Mount Sinai. Let's do it. We've made it. We've made it. We're here.
SPEAKER_00Yes, mountain. We walked through the wilderness. We're here at Mount Sinai. And let's talk about the Ten Commandments and the law.
SPEAKER_01So good? Yes, I'm so excited.
SPEAKER_00So Nahum Sarna, who's one of my favorite Jewish biblical scholars, he wrote, quote, the arrival at Sinai inaugurates the culminating stage in the process of forging Israel's national identity and spiritual destiny. The shared experiences of bondage and liberation are to be supplemented and given ultimate meaning by a great communal encounter with God. Henceforth, Israel is to be a people inextricably bound to God by a covenant relationship, close quote. The Hebrew term for covenant, Susan, is the seminal biblical word breed. I'm sure you've probably heard that. Yeah. Well, the Christian designation of our scripture, our what we consider our sacred scripture, is testament. So we will talk about the Old Testament and the New Testament. Okay. For Jews, it would be the Hebrew Bible, which is just our Old Testament. But that word testament, it is expressing the idea of covenant because it comes from a Greek word which means covenant. And so by calling the Old Covenant and New Covenant. So you can see from early on in the Christian era, covenant is a concept that was the controlling idea of biblical faith. In the Come Follow Me manual, it says this about covenant: quote, you are a child of the covenant. You make a covenant with God when you are baptized and when you partake of the sacrament, and you receive the fullness of the covenant with the sacred ordinances of the temple. Through these covenants and ordinances, we become God's people. We are bound to Him with everlasting ties. Once we make a covenant with God, President Russell M. Nelson has taught, we have left neutral ground forever. God will not abandon his relationship with those who have forged such a bond with him. In fact, all of those who have made a covenant with God have access to a special kind of love and mercy. Because of our covenant with God, he will never tire in his efforts to help us, and we will never exhaust his merciful patience with us. You will see this in the story of God's covenant people in the Old Testament, and you will see it in your own life as one of his covenant children. This is the precious understanding granted to us because of the restoration of the Abrahamic covenant through the prophet Joseph Smith. So when you read about covenants in the Old Testament, don't think just about God's relationship with ancient Israel. Think also about his relationship with you. Close covenant, close quote.
SPEAKER_01Close covenant. Do you remember when President Nelson gave this talk? I do. Yeah, and he talked about Hesed.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yes. That idea of Hesed has become really popular right now, especially in our church.
SPEAKER_01I remember when he said that when he gave the definition of Hesed. And it really, I remember this whole talk actually, it really hit me. My favorite part is when he says it starts out kind of scary, you leave neutral ground. So you're like, oh wait, what does that say to you? Like, oh, it's a little scary, right?
SPEAKER_00It is, yes. You you leave this idea of neutrality, or I always think of it kind of a sitting on the fence. You haven't committed one way or the other. And you enter into covenant with God.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00You made a serious commitment.
SPEAKER_01Yes. But then he follows that up with the best promise. I think of maybe one of his best promises from his presidency, which is God will not abandon his relationship with those who have forged such a bond with him. In fact, all those who have made this covenant with God have access to a special kind of love and mercy. Isn't that pretty?
SPEAKER_00Does it remind you of Elder Kieran's talk when he said that God is relentlessly in pursuit of you? Yes. When you make that covenant. And it's interesting because you see that, right? Yes. Over, especially as we move into the stories of Israel, of the children of Israel in the land, when they move into the land, and then you're going to see all kinds of ways in which they they really fall from the ideal of what they should be, but God doesn't give up on them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it extends to your children in a sense, which is also just so beautiful. Absolutely. And you actually see that through generations. If you take a really macro view at it and you step back, you can see him keeping that covenant with the generations, which is beautiful.
SPEAKER_00It reminds me, it's kind of interesting. We talked about my husband's a patriarch. You will always get your lineage and your patriarchal blessing. Yeah. But what's really interesting is now you can go, you go and get the patriarchal blessings of your ancestors who have passed away before you. Now I'm a convert, so the only one I can get is my dad, who unfortunately passed away way before we would have liked. But Barney, my husband, I mean, there are loads of patriarchal blessings. And what is interesting is that sometimes the promises that are made to your ancestors, they will be fulfilled in you. So looking at your patriarchal blessings, your patriarchal blessing and the patriarchal blessing of your ancestors, a lot of times you can really see what spiritual DNA you've inherited. Yeah, but also how some of the promises made to them are going to be fulfilled in you. So this generational covenant.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's important.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's beautiful. Okay, sorry, we're way off track, but only on only on page one. We're gonna go back to page one.
SPEAKER_00Let's we're gonna go to page two now. Okay, okay. Okay, so with this concept of covenant that it talks about in the come follow me, with that in the back of our minds, we're gonna turn to the context of covenant in the ancient world. So in the ancient Near East, relationships between individuals as well as between states were ordered and regulated by means of covenant or treaties. So we have a lot of examples of these types of treaties that have survived, and they come from various parts of the ancient Near East and they divide into two basic categories. So the first one is what would be called a parity treaty, and parity just means equal or the same rank or of the same value. So in these treaties, the contracting parties negotiate as equals. And the second type of treaty that you find is what is termed the suzerain vassal treaty. So a suzerain is the definition of that is it's either a dominant state, a dominant ruler, or a feudal lord, that type of a figure that controls the foreign policy and the international affairs of a weaker or a vassal state, while allowing to some degree their domestic autonomy. So the suzerain vassal treaty is one where one party transparently imposes its will on another party. Okay. When you study these documents, particularly those, the latter type, the suzerain vassal type, it will show that this type of treaty very strongly influenced the biblical concept of Barit or covenant. And this should be expected, right? Because in order for the concept of Barit to be intelligible to the Israelites, it makes sense to structure it according to the accepted patterns of the legal documents at that time. Yeah. And let's be clear: the covenant that we are making with God, he is the suzerain. We are the vassal, right?
SPEAKER_01Yes, and that's uh evident in Abraham's covenant, where he walks through the animals by himself. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And God initiates the covenant, he gives the terms of the covenant, yes, we accept it, right? We are the vassal. Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_01Well, President Nelson says we forge it with him through our intentions, our actions, our deeds. Yes.
SPEAKER_00So Nahum Sarna points out that the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments, as we know it, they are kind of in this class by themselves, but they are a part of the covenantal relationship that God is now making with Israel at Mount Sinai.
SPEAKER_01Yes, because every time there are covenants and promises, there's an obligation. Yes. Exactly. And the obligation is it's a good obligation, but it's there. It's light in respect to if you look at tithing, all you have is the Lord's. All he asks is 10% back. And so that's a thing. I think sometimes I've, and not to go off on a tangent, sorry, we're not even on page.
SPEAKER_00We're not we haven't made it to page screen, but it's okay, guys. We'll get there.
SPEAKER_01It's why you're I'm gonna tangent a little bit because I hear a lot of people not understand. Like, why does my church get to tell me X, Y, or Z? And we see this a lot right now, and I see it on social media everywhere. And your church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, is not telling you it's not your church. Well, well, it's not telling what to drink, it's not telling you what to wear, it's not telling you what underwear to wear. If you want to go to the temple and you want to act as proxy for other people, you have to obey these laws. And they're not telling you you're doing is if you're entering into a covenant relationship, it is okay for God to have expectations of you in that relationship in the same way that you have expectations of Barney. Barney doesn't have a girlfriend on the side. No, he does not. That is an expectation of him, right? And it's okay for you to have that expectation because you're married to him. And so that is we have entered into a covenant. We have entered into a covenant, and so the church is not telling you what to wear, what to do. That is an expectation from God. And in order to go to the temple and act as proxy, because proxy requires purity, and we know this from the Garden of Gethsemane, where Christ was the lamb at the slaughter and he was pure, and he was standing in proxy for all of us in all of those things. Proxy requires purity, anyway. That's my tangent.
SPEAKER_00No, it's really true, and I think the important part also is realizing like this is not my church, right? No, this is Jesus' church. Jesus' church, yes, and so you get to join his church, yes, which means he is the suzerain, yeah, he's the one in charge, yes, he gets to set the rules, right? Yes, he's the powerful party, we're the weak party. We can't walk into heaven by ourselves.
SPEAKER_01No, in fact, we're kept out for our safety. Exactly. Because it is a scary, dangerous place.
SPEAKER_00But that is why when the children of Israel think about it, they come to Mount Sinai. Yes, God descends, and what do they see? They see a volcano, right? Like they see a cloud, fire, yeah, clouds, lightning, rumors, trumpets, ramps, trumpets, rams from as a voice. This is not like this little pleasant experience. Yes, this is awe-inspiring and frightening. And then they see Moses go up there into the mountain. And of course, the question is why wasn't Moses scared? Well, he'd already had an experience with God, right? In the bush. Yeah, he's already seen this. So he goes into this mountain and then he doesn't come back for 40 days. And what do they think? He's dead. He's dead.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because it was so scary. How could he have survived that? Yes.
SPEAKER_00And they had been given these rules do not touch the mountain. Yeah, right. If you touch the mountain, you're going to be stoned. But part of the reason was because if you touch the mountain and go up into this, you are not pure enough. You will be killed.
SPEAKER_01You this is for your own safety. It is for your own safety. And the first thing the angel said to Moses at the bush, stand up, stand up, don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_00Get up.
SPEAKER_01You taught me this. Everyone who enters a throne room of God, fear. Terrified. Yes. And and you should be. Yes. But we have a bridegroom. And that is what we're talking about. It's the covenants. Just as you have expectations of your spouse or your children or your family members or whatever, he is our bridegroom. Yes. So tangently for now.
unknownFor now.
SPEAKER_00Go off another one.
SPEAKER_01Yes, for sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So anyway, so Nahum Sarna points out the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments as we know them are in a class by themselves. The idea of a covenantal relationship between God and an entire people is unparalleled in the ancient Near East. Similarly unique is the setting of the covenant within a narrative context. And it's this narrative context that gives the covenant its meaning and its significance. The covenant would be devalued were the link between them severed. What Sarna is saying is that it is the story around the laws, how the laws are applied, how God operates within the narrative that gives the law its meaning. And because laws are all about how to create a holy nation and a kingdom of priests that is so sanctified that God can dwell with them. That's why it is encased in the narrative. Yeah. Right. We're going to have the law, and then we're going to have the narrative, which is going to tell us why we have the law and how to apply it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So this leads directly to another original feature, which is the way that the covenant affects the internal life of the vassal by regulating individual behavior and human relationships, right? It's regulating your behavior. Okay. So that's important to understand. It's your internal life. God is concerned about that. So such a preoccupation with social affairs, this is way beyond the scope and intent of all other ancient treaties, whose sole concern is for the external affairs of the vassal, right? All they're caring about is how am I going to get money from the vassal state? How will the vassal state enrich me as the sovereign suzerain? But that's not what God's concerned with. God's not concerned with your external. What God is concerned with is your internal. Remember, it's man who regards the exterior of the person. God is looking at your heart. So again, going back to what you were saying, and I'm going off scripture. Why should the church care about your underwear? Well, they don't care about your underwear. No. They care about the fact that you're wearing the garment of the holy priesthood. That is reflecting your interior relationship with God. Do you want to be a priest or a priestess? Well, if you do, then God is going to tell you what clothing to wear, which we will talk more about in the next podcast when we talk about priestly clothing.
SPEAKER_01And the only reason you're a priest or a priestess is to be a savior on Mount Zion. Exactly. And so again, it's service. It's service. It's to bring the body of Christ together. And it's not for yourself. You can never use a priesthood for yourself.
SPEAKER_00You cannot, because if you do, like it says in 121, amen to the priesthood, right? You just lose it. You lose it. Yeah. Exactly. So despite the uniqueness of the Ten Commandments that we talked about, like we were talking about, Ten Commandments are unique. However, many of its provisions are also closely paralleled in the wisdom and ethical literature of the ancient world. Several other ancient law collections rest upon foundations of ethical and moral principles of justice morality. This isn't just unique to the Bible. Sins of a moral and ethical nature, such as bearing false witness, disrespect of parents, theft, adultery, and murder. These are all listed in what are called the magic texts from Mesopotamia, known as the Sherpa series. The declaration of innocence that is located in chapter 125 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, it is formulated in negative terms, but it closely testifies to the reality of positive moral deeds. It's obvious that the great civilizations of the Nile and the Mesopotamian valleys could not have functioned without a commitment to a set of ethical ideals and principles of morality. No society can function if you do not have ethical ideals and a common principle of morality. So I think it's important to understand that the term Ten Commandments is derived from a traditional translation of the Hebrew phrase asarat ha deverim, which literally means the ten words. Okay. So if it were the ten commandments, it would be aserat ha mitzvot, because mitzvah mitzvot is a form. Mitzvah means commandment, but it's not. It's ha, it's ha deverim, the words. And in fact, the Jews in ancient Alexandria and Egypt translated it literally into the Greek, which is Decka logoi, Decka meaning ten logoi meaning words. And this gave rise to the more accurate English alternative for the Ten Commandments, which is the Decalogue. So now you know where that comes from. Love it. The ten words, the ten words. So what is revolutionary about the Decalogue in Israel is not so much its content as the way in which these norms of conduct are regarded as being expressions of the divine will, right? They are the word of God, in this case, the 10 words of God. And because of that, they are eternally binding on the individual and the society as a whole. Think about the significance that of Jesus, where John talks about Jesus is in the beginning was the word, and the word was God. Yeah. A lot of that is going back to this. Okay. Okay. Because these are the word. They are the ten words. And who does it come from? It comes from the word. It comes from Jesus, the Jehovah.
SPEAKER_01You know, sometimes the Bible is like, you've said this before, blood everywhere.
SPEAKER_00There's blood everywhere.
SPEAKER_01Like weird things like this. However, if you look at the law and what you're meant to do as God, right? It's not a chore. No. It is God, literally. The word was God. God. Just like when you think about if you take an animal and you sacrifice the animal, but you look at that animal and you think, this is me. And this animal is like proxy for me. And if not, I have to be the one that sits here. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it's very powerful. It's very powerful. So thinking of like any of the laws as this is God. And when I don't keep this, what am I saying?
SPEAKER_00Well, nice way to say it would be I don't trust you. So I'm not going to keep your law. Yes. But it's also, I don't trust you, so I'm going to rebel against you. Yeah. And not keep your law. Yeah. I think a lot of it does come to trust, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So back to the text. Back to the text. So the society as a whole in the Decalogue in the biblical culture, both are equally answerable to God. And that was not the case in pagan cultures. In fact, a large part, we were just talking about blood everywhere, a large part of the Day of Atonement ceremony, it deals with the corporate sin of Israel, the communal sin. Western individualism, that idea of individualism, that is not a part of the ancient world. Yeah. The ancient world is very communal. Even their sin, your sin does not affect just you, it pollutes the whole community. So in the Day of Atonement ceremony, for example, one of the things that you're atoning for is you are atoning for an intentional sin. Things you may have done you don't even realize are a sin. So that's one thing that's being atoned for. But another thing is there is a concept that the sin of the whole community has polluted all of the camp, even into the tabernacle and temple itself. I mean, the tabernacle and holy of holies itself. In some way, the sin is starting to force its way in there and it's got to be atoned for. So that's kind of this idea.
SPEAKER_01I learned a few years ago that a lot of times when there's like a heinous crime that really affects someone, that the whole community has to forgive. Which is so interesting, right?
SPEAKER_00It is communal, and our world is not that way. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01Okay, Cindy. So this is all super interesting. And something that I'm thinking about with these feasts and the communal and everyone is it kind of seems like there's not a difference between church and State. And can you talk a little bit more about that?
SPEAKER_00Right. Right. Is there a distinction? Yeah. Between the sacred and secular? Yeah. Yes. Yes. And that's an interesting question, too. Again, back to what you were saying. I don't really go into social media. You know that.
SPEAKER_01Um she doesn't believe in it. So I don't know. Listen, Cindy's busy and she hasn't got up on these. You haven't figured out how to put it into your life. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Is there a difference, right? This is reminding me. Is there a difference between the religious and the non-religious, right? Should God be able to control the non-religious part, right? Yeah. I think that's kind of what, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's really interesting. So, yes, this is what's really interesting about the Decalogue or the Law of Moses, right? And then the laws that come after that. And we don't really read those in our come follow me readings. They kind of skip over the law part. We just have the narrative. I think probably part of that is because as a culture, we're really just not used to law. Yeah. We're not used to reading this. So we go with the easy thing, which is the narrative. But really, what happens is the decalogue and these laws, there is a fusion of those. In modern times, it would be classified as religious and then secular, right? Yeah. Or church and state. Church and state, right? Yeah. Religious obligations, social obligations, right?
SPEAKER_01And I think you see it in people too.
SPEAKER_00You do, yeah. Right. So that I think that is what this whole, like I said, I'm not on social media, but it sounds like this is what this whole thing is about. Is it is God, because God is in charge of the church, right? We talk about that. Jesus is the head of the church. Does Jesus have the right to tell me what to wear? Well, if you read the Bible, I'm talking about both Old and New Testament, Jesus would be saying, Yes, yes, I do have the right to tell you what to wear. If you want to have if you have entered into covenant with me.
SPEAKER_01Yes, if you want to have a deeper relationship with me, then yes, there will be some stipulations. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01If you want to practice as a priest or a priestess, yes.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. So in the biblical context, both categories, religious and secular alike, are a hundred percent accepted as coming from God. So societal concerns then are rooted in the religious conscience. Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, who's recently passed away, but really an amazing scholar, he says, civil law, he says, is not secular law. He said, We do not believe in the idea render to Caesar what is Caesar and to God what belongs to God. I'm gonna side note here. I think he's misinterpreting what Jesus was saying here. But we believe, he goes on, he says, we believe in the separation of powers, but not in the secularization of the law or the spiritualization of faith. And then he makes this really interesting comment. He says, the Sanhedrin or the Supreme Court that existed in ancient Judaism, the Sanhedrin must be placed near the temple to teach that law itself must be driven by a religious vision. The greatest of these visions is quote, do not oppress a stranger. You know what it is to be a stranger, for you yourselves were strangers in Egypt. And that's in Numbers 23, 9. This is Rabbi Saxe. He says the Jewish vision of justice, given its detailed articulation here for the first time, is based not on expediency or pragmatism, nor even on abstract philosophical principles, but on the concrete historical memories of the Jewish people as one nation under God. Centuries earlier, God had chosen Abraham so that he would teach his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is just and right. Justice in Judaism flows from the experience of injustice at the hand of the Egyptians and the God-given challenge to create a radically different form of society in Israel. This is already foreshadowed in the first chapter of the Torah with its statement of the equal and absolute dignity of the human person as the image of God. That is why society must be based on the rule of law, impartially administered, treating all alike. Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give a testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd and do not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit. That also is in Exodus 23, 2 through 3. To be sure, Rabbi Sachs says, at the highest levels of mysticism, God is to be found in the innermost depths of the human soul. But he says, God is equally to be found in the public square and in the structures of society, in the marketplace, the corridors of power, and the courts of justice. He says there must be no gap, no dissociation of sensibilities between the court of justice, the meeting place of man and man, and the temple place, the meeting place of man and God. I love that idea. He says essentially he's saying there must be no gap between the secular and the sacred.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And I think maturing is realizing that in your life that God can do it all. And I think sometimes when I was younger, I thought all of that God was more concerned about my spiritual life than my secular life. And I think you see it in the world as a whole, as like this macro level, and then as a micro level too. Okay.
SPEAKER_00That's exactly right. And I think that's why it's really important for us to read the law parts of the Bible, because you will see how God is involved in the micro part of your life, not just the macro part. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And you can get overwhelmed. I think my friend Emily once told me when you get out of Leviticus, there's 800 and something laws.
SPEAKER_00620 something, I think. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's a lot. That's a lot. That's not what we're saying.
SPEAKER_00No, but yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, there's nuance in your life. However, it is your responsibility to go to God and to ask God, hey, here's what I see is said. Where do you want me to keep this and how? And he will tell you, yeah. And sometimes you get a different answer for different situations. No, this time we're going to stick over here. But then sometimes it's like, yeah, we can be a little bit further over here. But if you include God in that, it'll start to become a little bit of a second nature to you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think Leviticus, well, you know, I love Leviticus. It's your favorite, right? Yes. It really is. And I will tell you, if you read Leviticus, you will find every single covenantal obligation we make in the temple. It is all there in Leviticus. It's not new, it's there. You will find the covenant of sacrifice and obedience. You find the covenant of chastity, the law of the gospel. Every single covenant that you make in the temple was also a part of the ancient temple. And I think that's important to understand. It's God has not changed. God is the same. He's the same yesterday. He's the same today. He's the same forever.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and all of those covenants lead you back to Christ. So you're going to find Christ all over Leviticus. And sometimes it's just a fingerprint, but he is there.
SPEAKER_00He is there loud and clear. Loud and clear. You have to take the time to look and to study it. It's not an easy read, but it's a worthwhile read.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So in our modern world, a lot of times we'll focus on the interpretation of the ancient text, right? Right. However, in Jesus' day, he criticizes the Pharisees for building a fence around the law. And rabbinic Judaism and the Talmud do exactly that. Biblical text is in the middle of the page surrounded by commentary. What will set the Ten Commandments apart from this? Is there a lot of commentary on the Ten Commandments?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yes. That's a good question. Yes. Exactly. Because a lot of times we tend to think it was different. Jesus was saying, Oh, you Pharisees, there's a lot of wrong that's going on there and what you're doing, you're adding things.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00And they were to some degree. Yeah. And that is true. But I think what he's not discounting the law because he gave it, right? He's giving what we have in the Old Testament, he is giving. What he's saying to the Pharisees is that sometimes in the things that they are doing, they're not only pressing beyond the mark, but they are doing things for their own benefit and not for the benefit that the law was originally given of the whole.
SPEAKER_01And I like how he says you put a fence around it, which means some people can come in, some people can't, which is not theirs to say. That's exactly that's Jesus's to say. Exactly. Yeah, that is exactly. And so the criticism is not, hey, you're practicing the law too tightly. That's not it. Because I know people in my own life, and I'm sure you do. Some people like to stick closer, some people like to be a little further out. Some leashes are long, some leashes are short. And but there's a leash. There's a leash, sure. And but they were trying to say, no, we hold the leash. And they don't. We're not dogs. I'm not that was maybe a bad metaphor.
SPEAKER_00I thought it was a good metaphor.
SPEAKER_01Okay, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_00I like that.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00I like that. So yeah, yeah, no, that's all true.
SPEAKER_01So anytime anyone wants to stand between you and God and say, You can only come to God through me. Red flag.
SPEAKER_00Right. We come to God through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01Through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00But it's important to recognize He is the one who holds the leash. Yes. And there is one. And so we don't get to say to Jesus, you need to accommodate yourself to me. No, no, no. We get to say, Oh, I have to accommodate myself to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I will do my best. And here's what I can do and take it to him. But anytime there is someone that is trying to say, in order to get to X, Y, or Z, you need to go through me. It's not true. You need to go through Jesus. And are there people who can help you get closer to Jesus? Yes.
SPEAKER_00But and I should say, unless they are the key holders, right? Yes.
SPEAKER_01Yes. But even then, they can't.
SPEAKER_00The prophet has the right to tell the church what to do. Right. Right.
SPEAKER_01To share, to share. And I feel like there's nuance in here that I don't know why I'm thinking about there are people and sects that go off just a very little bit, but you end up really far away, right here. Which is the prophet holds the keys for the salvation of the priesthood keys. And he can tell you what to do. However, you do not go through him to get to Elohim. You go through Jehovah. Right. Through the keys, which he holds, but there's a distinction there. And I think it's really important. Right. And I think that's the Pharisees' criticism is they held keys, maybe they were priests, I'm sure. But it was not through them that people got to heaven or back to God. Yeah. It's through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think also it's important to realize that at that time, like we think of Judaism as being what we see right now, which is rabbinic Judaism. But at the time of Jesus, that had not solidified as the way that Judaism was interpreted. There were many different ways that people, I would say sex, S-E-C-T-S of Judaism. Um and so different ways, I know different ways. Yes, we want to make sure we're you understand what I'm saying. Sure, yes, that it's being interpreted. And Jesus is trying to help them to land back on the correct way, right? Yeah. It had kind of gotten off. Yes. Okay, so now here we go. Nope. It's this is good stuff. Okay, another feature of the Decalogue, then, is the Decalogue is very short, absolute, positive and negative imperatives, right? Thou shalt, thou shalt not. Yes, there's no qualifications, and it's mostly presented without any accompanying penalties or threats of punishment. Except, of course, I would point out to my children often where it says, honor thy father and thy mother. It says afterwards that thy days may be long in the land. And I would tell my kids that is so I don't kill you because of what you're doing right now. But anyway, most of it is just thou shalt, or thou shalt not, you know, there's not a lot of stuff ever. So the idea is that the covenant itself is this self-reinforcing document. And the motivation for fulfilling its stipulations is not fear of retribution, right? It's this desire to conform to the divine will, to God's will. You fulfilling God's will, it's going to be reinforced by spiritual discipline and the moral fiber of the individual. So if we go to Exodus chapter 19, verses 1 through 8, this is what it says. It says, On the third new moon, after the Israelites had gone forth from the land of Egypt, on this very day, they entered the wilderness of Sinai. Having journeyed from Egypt, they entered the wilderness of Sinai and encamped in the wilderness. It says that Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him from the mountains, saying, Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob. You're going to say, You have seen, God says, what I did to the Egyptians. This beautiful phrase, how I bore you on eagle's wings. I love that, right? It's so good. Oh, I just love that. It's so good. Yes. And then he said, I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to me. He says, Now then, if you will obey me faithfully and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession. So beautiful among all the people. Indeed, all the earth is mine. But you, he says, you know, you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel. Moses came and he summoned the elders of the people and he put before them all that the Lord had commanded them. And it says, He just tells them this is what the Lord's command means. And it says, All the people answer as one, saying, All that the Lord has spoken, we will do. Yeah. Okay. So in a book that I have, it's called The Words of Torah, Rabbi Yehoshua Wender writes, quote, I'm going to take kind of a large section. So what it is, what this book is, I'll have to back up just a little bit. In Judaism, the Torah is divided into uh reading sections, kind of like our come follow me, so that you'll read through the whole Torah in a year in this set period of time. Okay. They're called Parshats. And so there's a lot of com, and this has been true for eons. I mean, well, not for eons, but for quite a long time. And so there's a lot of commentary on the parshats on these different sections of the Torah. And so in this book that I have, the words of Torah, it is different rabbis commenting on these different parshats, these sections of the Torah. And so in this situation, you've got Yehoshua Winder, is the rabbi. He is writing about what I just read. And this is what he says. There is a famous midrash in Parshat Vitzot, Parshat Vitzot, Habra, Habracha, that relates to the Jewish peoples receiving the Torah on Harsinai. So Harsinai means the mountain of Sinai. The Midrash says, before we receive the Torah, Hashem, Hashem is a name for God. It means the name because they don't pronounce Yahweh. They do not say that because that is such a sacred thing that the name of God is not pronounced. So they will either say Hashem or Adonai. That's what you'll hear them say. So anyway, in this midrash that he's writing, I mean in this commentary on this parshat, he uses the word Hashem. So when I say Hashem, just think about Jesus, the Jehovah. Okay, that's what it is. All right. So he says this Hashem went to the children of Esau and he offered them the Torah and they asked, What is in it? And Hashem said, Thou shalt not murder. They responded, Our father built his reputation on murder. How can we leave his ways? And so they refused the Torah. Hashem then went to the descendants of Ishmael. Hashem informed them that stealing was forbidden. They too would not abandon the ways of their ancestor. The children of Ammon and Moab also rejected the Torah. Their problem was the prohibition of adultery. After all, their birth was a product of immorality. Finally, B'Nnei Israel were approached and offered the Torah. The Midrash tells us that the Jewish nation's immediate response was, We will do and we will listen. They didn't even bother asking what was in the Torah, for they had total trust in Hashem. Therefore, the Torah became our legacy forever. One can assume, he goes on, that Hashem offered the Torah to those other nations so that in the future they would not be able to come back and complain that only the Jews were given the Torah. The opportunity was there for them. They can only blame themselves. It is important to note that Hashem challenged each nation with the law which would present it with the greatest difficulty. It is possible they could have lived with the other 612 mitzvot, yet each group failed the overall test. It would seem that B'Nai Israel never actually had the test, since they never asked concerning the contents of the Torah. Hashem never tempted them with a similar challenge. If this is true, it would be most interesting to know with which mitzvah would we, the Jewish people, have had the greatest problem. We have been able to pass the test, or would we have failed it like the others? In actuality, there is a deeper understanding of this midrash. Our Ba'ale Musar or teachings of ethical thought tell us that the greatest Yitzir cherah, which is evil inclination, we all have, he's saying, a Yitzerherah. We all have evil inclinations. So he said, the greatest one of the Jewish people is in the realm of philosophy. As a people, we are always questioning, always doubting, and often straying. After the episode of the golden calf, he says, after all, excuse me, the episode of the golden calf came only 40 days after Matan Torah, the Torah was given. This is the meaning of our being a stiff-necked people. It has often been pointed out, he says, that the non-Jewish world seems to have much less of a problem with belief. The ranks of agnostics, humanists, and atheists always seems to have a huge percentage of Jews. Throughout history, we have always been among the first to conceive of or embrace new philosophies. Indeed, it is within the realm of the mind that every Jew has always had its stiffest tests. In light of this explanation, let us examine the midrash. Our response of we shall do and we shall listen seems totally out of character for the Jewish people. How unlike our people to accept something on blind faith. One would think that of all the peoples in the world, the Jews, we the Jews, would be the most unlikely to react in this way. And then he says this. He says, but at least for the moment we reached the level of angels and trusted Hashem implicitly. It was our greatest moment. This was in fact our greatest test, and we passed it with flying colors. For the people of the mind were willing to subjugate their thoughts to those of the creator. Esau had rejected the Torah because of his people's weakness. Ishmael, Ammon, and Moab had done the same, but we had triumphed. What follows? The first commandment, belief in Hashem, the foundation of our faith, but often the loose brick that gives way, not murder, not stealing, not immorality, just plain, simple belief. Simple for others, so difficult for us. We now see that we too were treated like the others. The hardest came first. The difference is that we said yes. He goes on. It is important to know that all the other mitzvot, belief in Hashem has many levels. The older we are, the wiser we grow, the greater should be our faith. This commandment is one of the six mitzvot tadirot, which that means constant commandments. So there are six constant mitzvot. And these are the six commandments that a Jewish person is instructed to keep in mind at all times. And they are number one, believe in God. Okay. Don't believe in other gods. Number two. Three, God is one. He's not made of parts, he's not divided. Number four, you're supposed to love God. Number five, you're supposed to fear God. You're supposed to revere God, hold him in awe. And number six, don't follow your heart and eyes the wrong way. So those are those are what are called the six mitzvot tata rote. So he goes on and he says this this commandment to believe in God is one of the six mittsvotada rote, and it should therefore attract our special attention. Unfortunately, for many of us, it does not. We are often left with a juvenile understanding of Hashem and his universe that we had growing up. Naase Vishima, which is we will do and we will listen, came at a moment of great inspiration. Regrettably, he said it didn't last. The stiff-necked people were soon back in philosophical trouble. We must learn from their error. We must solidify our faith with Torah, with Torah study that speaks to the issue. The first commandment isn't first by accident. It deserves our highest priority. I would say that it is this first commandment. Believe in God, have faith, believe in the Lord. I don't think it's just the Jewish people that struggle with it. I would say that we in the West also struggle with this the most. Why is that? Okay, in a book club that I belong to, we just finished reading what is often considered C. S. Lewis's best, most profound, most prescient book, and it is The Abolition of Man. In abolition, C. S. Lewis is not just arguing that truth exists in an abstract sense. He is arguing that objective truth, objective moral value exists. Some things really are true. Some things really are good. Some things really are admirable, independent of whatever we think, independent of our feelings, he is arguing that objective moral order is built into reality and it is recognized across cultures. It's not invented, it's not optional, it is not culturally relative. So what C.S. Lewis starts out talking about is literature. And he is fighting against a new system of reading called close reading. And that does not mean attentive reading, it means closed reading or a closed system reading. So it's just me and the book and I, with my own mind, I'm going to figure out what this book means to me. The book is not connected to anything outside of itself. Well, the problem is it's that there's a whole tradition of reading, which is often called the literary tradition. So when you read Shakespeare, for example, it's important to know about Elizabethan cosmology because this is going to play not only into the text, it plays into the whole structure of the globe theater. You need to be able to understand the Elizabethan view of reality. And it's also important to understand that these texts, these different works, these literary works, these different texts are talking to each other. Does that sound familiar?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like our Bible.
SPEAKER_00It does, right? What is our Bible? It's a library of different kinds of books, and they are all talking to each other. And there's a context that they are in. And if you don't understand that, you will not understand what the text, what the author is trying to tell you. You're going to completely misinterpret it. So there is this whole tradition then of how to know what is true and how to interpret reality outside of the book. And this is an open system. But what Lewis is arguing against is this concept that the book is a closed system, that there is nothing outside of the book that matters. Well, this it then extends to there is nothing outside of me, the reader, that will contribute to my understanding of or the meaning of the text. The meaning is inside of me. So Lewis sees this as a very slippery slope with unintended consequences. And I think that perhaps many of these new critics, and there's two that he's calling out in specific, just this is an aside, if you want to know, it's I.A. Richards and A.J. Ayers. So I think that probably these new critics thought that what they were doing was treating the literature as a work of art. This is maybe giving a really kind reading to it, but anyway, they're treating it as a work of art to be treated on its own terms, and that you didn't have to bring in context, right? You didn't have to bring in history or philosophy or theology. Just look at this as an individual work of art. What ends up happening is that once you decide that the meaning of a work of literature exists only with the reader, and what the reader decides the text means, then you end up in this crazy place where whatever meaning the reader assigns to the text is the meaning, even if it's not the true meaning at all. Even if the meaning is not even connected with reality, right? So these new literary critics end up opening the door to every wonky kind of postmodern theory of literature that there is. So, for example, somebody who believes in those types of literary theories might say, I think Shakespeare's Macbeth is really a comment on the class system in England. And it's really a Marxist thing, et cetera, et cetera. So when actually, no, Shakespeare has no concept of that. He was really supportive of the aristocracy. All of his works support the hierarchy that existed and the political structures that existed. He's not even an anarchist at all. And so they would say, these postmodernist critics would say, Well, you are bringing in irrelevant information from outside of the text. I have my feelings about the text. I feel that the text is about Marxism, and therefore my feelings trump whatever evidence is outside of the text. Meaning exists only in my feeling about things, only in my emotions. There's no objective reality, there's no reality outside of me and what I think is important. Okay. Okay. Here's an aside too. It's interesting because when I was working at the Museum of Art at BYU as a docent, one of the things in the class that we took about this is you take this whole thing on when you go out before a painting, what you're supposed to do is talk to the people that you're giving the tour to and say, Well, when you look at this painting, what do you feel? What do you think the painting is about? Right? Like there is no concept then of the fact that if this is an old painting, that artist is painting within a set of known symbols, known forms, and that is interpreting what the painting means. Yeah. But see, that's left completely aside. You'll see that in a lot of these, if you ever take a tour, you know, of a lot of exhibits.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we have the best tour guide in Vennet or Florence. So if anyone is ever going to Florence, I'll tell you she is amazing. Awesome. But she didn't do that. Right. She told us about the person, what was going on in their life, what was happening politically, and then the art actually comes alive.
SPEAKER_00Right. Then it speaks to you. Then you understand it exactly. That's exactly it. Yeah. Whereas if you're in a group of people and they're saying, Well, what do you think about it? And somebody says something that you think is absolutely ridiculous. I mean, it has absolutely no connection to what the painting is actually about, right? And then of course you end up with a lot of postmodern art, which personally I think is really terrible. But anyway, there we go. So Lewis is also fighting against what's called logical positivism. And that redefines what precisely is a meaningful statement, right? The idea being that a statement only really means something if you can test it or verify it. For example, the sky is blue, right? You can go outside. Yes, the sky is blue. You can verify it through your senses. Okay. It's testable by experience, right? Science or observation. It is raining outside, or it's true by definition, like math or logic. Two plus two equals four.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So they say logical positivists say if it is neither of those, then it doesn't really say anything meaningful. So A.J. Ayers, one of the guys I talked about, is really the big one behind what's called logical positivism. I.A. Richards was the one about criticism that we were talking about before. A.J. Ayers is logical positivism. So C.S. Lewis is fighting against both of these guys, I.A. Richards and A.J. Ayers. A.J. Ayers would say, when St. John in the gospel says God is love, A.J. Ayers would say that is not even a false statement. It's a meaningless statement because you cannot verify that with any set of data. And logical positivists used this idea to challenge things like religious claims, God is love, right? And metaphysics. And metaphysics are the philosophical questions about being. So what logical positivism is largely pushing against, then, is what is called the transcendentals.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So the transcendentals are the most universal features of reality. They apply to everything that exists without exception. So when people talk about the transcendentals as the good, the true, the beautiful, they're focusing on three of the most meaningful ways that we experience being, that we experience existence as a person. Okay. We experience it through the good, the true, the beautiful. I'm going to try and give a really simple and basic explanation of how this works. And I promise you, when we get to the end of this, there's going to be a point to all this. I really promise. Okay. So I won't go into a lot of the Greek philosophers, but both Plato and Aristotle laid the groundwork for the ideas that later become the transcendentals, especially the idea of the unity of truth, goodness, and beauty. And then the medieval philosophers take Plato's idea of a transcendent unity of truth and goodness, and Aristotle's analysis of being and its properties, they combine them into what becomes known as the doctrine of the transcendentals. So whatever exists is in some way true, good, and one, unified, which later they added beautiful. Thomas Aquinas, who basically pulls the threads together. A lot of this is found in his, it's called the Summa Theologica. I'm going to be honest, I've read large chunks of it. I probably need to reread it about 18 million times. But anyway, he's going to take his insights from Plato and Aristotle and he will turn them into a clear doctrine of the transcendentals. So Thomas Aquinas uses as a starting point Aristotle's idea of being, what actually exists. And Aristotle says something that actually exists is something that has substance. And from this, he argues that anything that exists or anything that has beings has certain features that cannot be separated from it. This is what Aristotle would have said was a unified whole. Okay. And then Aquinas says these features aren't categories like quantity or quality. They are features that apply to everything. So I'm going to try to explain this really in a super simple way. This is how I understand it. So imagine you have a big box of Legos. Okay. Some things about the Legos are really easy to sort into categories, the colors, blue or green, or red, shape. I mean size. Are they big or small? And then shape. Yep. Are they square? Are they long? Are they flat? These are like what Thomas Aquinas would call categories. They are ways you can group things or you can describe things like how big is it? What kind is it? Thomas Aquinas noticed something deeper. He said there are some things about everything that exists that don't fit into those types of categories. In fact, these things are more basic than any category. They don't describe a type of a thing. They describe what it means to be real at all. So think of it like this no matter what Lego piece you pick up, it always has these features. It exists. It's real. This is something that is real. It's not imaginary. It is one thing. There's not half a brick floating out there separately. It is something. Yeah. Right? It's not nothing. It is something. Okay. It is true. You can understand it. It's not nonsensical. It makes sense. It is good in some way. In other words, what he's saying is it can be used for something. Even if it is small, there's use in it, it is useful. You cannot sort bricks, these Lego bricks, into piles based on these things that I just said. You wouldn't say, here is a pile of existing bricks, right? Right. And here's a pile of non-existing bricks. They'd all sit in there. They are all existing. If it didn't exist, it wouldn't even be in a Lego box, right? It's not a Lego. So Aquinas said that these are not categories like size or color. Instead, they are features of being itself. They go along with everything that exists. They are transcendentals, right? They transcend everything. They are the rules that everything automatically follows. Like I exist that's going to come across as me. Anyway, hitting my microphone. So I exist, right? I am here. I have form. Yeah. I'm solid. I have substance. You exist, right? We exist as a person. Now we don't look the same. We don't dress the same. But there is an inherent beingness about us. We are sitting here on my couch in my living room. Yes. Okay. Yes. So the big idea is that categories are a way to sort things like size and shape, but the deeper features are things that everything must already have just to be real, just to be exist, just to exist, just to be a being. Okay. Okay. So categories are labels you put on things, but these deeper features are what make something able to have a label at all. Okay. And then Aquinas is going to add Plato. He takes Plato's idea that truth and goodness ultimately have a single source. But that source is not just an abstract form, which is what Plato would have said. Aquinas says, no, no, it is the highest reality. It is God. God is a pure being. Ipsun essay subsistence. God is pure and perfect truth. God is perfect goodness, right? He embodies this. He is this. So instead of Plato's form of the good, Aquinas says, God is the fullness of being. God is the fullness of truth. God is the fullness of goodness. God is pure being itself. God is perfectly true, perfectly good, perfectly one. So the transcendentals are not just abstract ideas, they are fully unified in God. And this is where Aquinas goes way beyond Aristotle and brings in theology. All things ultimately correspond to the divine intellect, right? God's knowledge. So even if no human knows something, it is still true. And that solves a big problem. Truth does not depend on human minds. Truth is grounded in reality itself. It is, because God is. And here I'm going to go to DNC 9330. All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself as all intelligence, also. Otherwise, there is no existence, right? Truth exists. Truth is an objective reality. And if you do not have truth as an objective reality, if you do not have good or usefulness, something that fulfills its purpose, that's what that means it's good, then there is no point to existence. That's what this is saying. So going back to C.S. Lewis, Lewis is a medievalist, which is Thomas Aquinas is coming out of. And he, along with Tolkien and others, are fighting those philosophies that unfortunately those are the philosophies that are going to end up winning out, which is essentially that there is not objective reality, but that everything is subjective. What I feel is true. So for Lewis, truth or objective moral order, and in the abolition, he's going to express this as a tau, but objective moral order exists. It is not invented, it is not optional, it is not culturally relative. Lewis argues that the existence of objective moral law, a moral reality that exists in all cultures, implies a real structure to the world. Reality is structured such that truth and goodness are not human projections, but they are features that we discover. They exist. It is up to us to discover them, right? Yeah. Unfortunately, as I said, Lewis's position loses out. We have ended up where we are in our modern culture, which is moral relativism. And there is not objective truth. There's only subjective truth, which is my truth. Modern culture consists only of internal reality. Now, there have always been moral relativists. In the ancient world, there were moral relativists. They were a lot of times they were called skeptics. But in the classical world of Plato and Aristotle, and then on into the medieval, there is the concept that the good, the true, and the beautiful were things that were real. They existed independently of yourself. So we are not talking abstractly, we're talking concretely. And ultimately with Thomas Aquinas, we are talking concretely about God Himself. God is the embodiment of beauty. God is the embodiment of the good, right? He is the good. His order is the good, right? Right. If it in Catholicism, they talk about if your affections are disordered, that means that they are not ordered as God has created them, because that is the good. But not only that, but we believe that truth as a principle exists, as something independent that exists outside of us as humans. Again, I'm gonna go back to verse 30. All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself as all intelligence also. Otherwise, there is no existence. So what I want to talk about on the rest of the podcast today is the idea of the good and the true as embodied in the law. The law is the embodiment, in other words, of the good and the true. And next week, what I want to talk about is the beautiful as embodied in the tabernacle and the priestly garments.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Okay. I love this. All right. So we are going to put out two podcasts.
SPEAKER_00So there's gonna be the end of part one because I know this is really long. This has probably been at least a good hour.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00And then we'll also drop part two. You'll be able to listen to that, but maybe it'll make it a little more manageable.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Scripture Study Podcast, your midweek Bible boost. Everything we mentioned on this podcast, if we said there would be a link to it, it is in the show notes wherever you find your podcast. Cindy Madsen currently does not believe in or participate in social media. However, if you would like to follow along with Susan Peterson, she can be found on Instagram at susan.m.peterson. Have a good week.