My Rock
As I wrote my memoir, the stumbling blocks weren't just literary. Decades of buried emotions—everything that had blocked me from self-acceptance—came bubbling up like lava breaking through an iceberg.
For nearly fifty years, I used substances and anger to run from a mirror I wasn’t strong enough to look into. Every time I had tried to confront my past, the world answered with empty platitudes.
What changed my life wasn't an altar call. One morning, just futzing around on YouTube, a video from Deep Bible Studies queued up. I was ready to scroll past it, but the narrator began breaking down the Greek roots beneath modern English translations—exposing just how radically original meanings have been diluted and distorted over centuries.
For the first time, I realized the rigid religion I’d spent a lifetime dodging wasn't the truth at all. I decided to open the text and dig into the ancient languages for myself. What I found wasn't a checklist of rules or condemnation; it was an uncompromising reality that finally shattered the shame driving my addiction.
Today, I go to bed without the urge to get high or act out, and I wake up anchored in grace.
I’m not a pastor, a theologian, or an academic. I’m just a man who was handed his life back when the authentic Word cut through the noise. These studies represent the verses that hunted me down and pulled me out of the dark. Read them with an open heart—they don't just speak; they heal.
To be sure that the translations contained in the study material are as true as can be expected, I utilized the Berean Standard Bible (BSB).
The King James remains a benchmark—as faithful a translation as was reasonable when it was penned, and familiar to generations. Yet the seventeenth-century cadence can be difficult to discern without a background in classic literature.
Crucially, both of these versions share one vital trait: they are free of copyright restrictions.
As I dug into this work, a disturbing reality emerged. Many modern commercial translations are locked behind corporate copyrights, often quietly reshaping critical nuances to suit denominational or financial interests. The variance in expressed context between these texts isn't mere semantics—for me, those distortions were toxic enough to nearly cost me my life. The discrepancies are real, intentional, and the stakes could not be higher. My hope is simply to give you the unvarnished tools to see that truth for yourself.
For extended Bible Study, please consider using Bible Hub, where you can easily dig between the lines. Most importantly, where your Bible relationship takes you depends a lot on your relationship with its author. So please work on strengthening that relationship every day.
(I have expanded my ambitions. I intend to add one biblical chapter per day, every day, until I have a page for each one. Every day a chapter is added, is a day free of addiction. Wish me luck!)
