Pearls before Swine

Can Well-crafted Arguments Resurrect the Dead?

“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.”

—Matthew 7:6, ESV

These words appear near the conclusion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, positioned between His warning about judging others (Matthew 7:1-5) and His instruction about persistent prayer (Matthew 7:7-11). The context matters. Jesus has been teaching about the kingdom—its ethics, its demands, its radical call to righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 5:20). Now He addresses the reality that not everyone will receive these truths. Some will trample them. Some will turn hostile.

Jesus is not insulting anyone. He is diagnosing the human condition. He is naming the spiritual reality that sits beneath every conversation about truth, every rejection of the gospel, every mockery of Scripture, and every attempt to persuade the natural person with spiritual things. The problem is not the pearl. The problem is the nature of the one encountering it.

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Not Merely Unwilling, but Unable

We often assume that unbelief is fundamentally an intellectual issue—that if we could just present more evidence, more logic, more historical data, more philosophical clarity, then surely people would believe. The operating assumption is that the problem is ignorance, not inability; lack of information, not lack of regeneration. This shapes how we approach evangelism, apologetics, and conversation with unbelievers.

But Scripture tells a different story. The Bible does not describe the natural person as neutral, curious, or spiritually receptive. It describes him as blind, deaf, dead, hardened, enslaved, darkened, foolish, hostile, and unable—not merely unwilling, but unable. This is the truth Jesus names with the image of pearls before swine. It is not a statement about the value of the pearl but about the nature of the swine. They cannot recognize beauty. They cannot discern worth. They cannot respond rightly to what exceeds their capacity to perceive. Understanding this biblical anthropology transforms how we think about gospel proclamation, the role of evidence and argument, and what actually overcomes spiritual blindness.

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Scriptural Testimony to Total Inability

Scripture does not rely on a single metaphor to describe the unregenerate condition. It stacks them. It layers them. It multiplies them. Across law, prophets, wisdom literature, gospels, and epistles, the testimony is unified and unembarrassed: the natural person is spiritually incapable of receiving the things of God.

A Heart That Cannot Respond

Ezekiel, prophesying to exiled Israel about their covenant unfaithfulness and God’s promised restoration, contrasts their condition with divine intervention: “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). The image is stark—the unregenerate heart is stone, not soft clay awaiting gentle shaping.

Zechariah likewise describes those who refused to listen to God’s law and the words of the prophets: “They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear” (Zechariah 7:12). This was not mere stubbornness but a hardened condition requiring divine remedy.

The narrative of Pharaoh’s heart throughout Exodus demonstrates the same reality—unmoved by plagues, miracles, judgments, or mercy, because evidence does not melt stone. Only God can remove what only God can see needs removing.

A Mind That Cannot Perceive

Paul writes to the Corinthians about those who are perishing: “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). This is not a deficit of information but a condition of blindness.

Similarly, writing to the Ephesians about their former manner of life, Paul describes Gentiles as “darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart” (Ephesians 4:18). The problem is not lack of data but darkened understanding.

Romans 1:21-22 traces the descent: “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” The natural mind needs illumination, not merely information.

Senses That Cannot Discern

When Jesus’ disciples ask why He teaches in parables, He quotes Isaiah to explain the spiritual condition of His hearers: “This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand” (Matthew 13:13). He then quotes Isaiah 6:9-10 directly: “You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed” (Matthew 13:14-15).

The problem is not the clarity of Jesus’ teaching or the quality of His illustrations. The problem is the condition of their spiritual senses. They possess physical sight and hearing but lack spiritual perception.

Later, when the disciples struggle to understand, Jesus asks: “Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?” (Mark 8:17-18). Spiritual perception is not a given—it requires divine opening.

A Condition Not of Weakness but Death

Paul does not describe our former state as spiritual sickness requiring treatment. He describes it as death requiring resurrection: “You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked” (Ephesians 2:1). He continues: “We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:3).

Dead people do not respond to stimuli. They do not evaluate evidence. They do not reason their way to life. They do not need improvement—they need resurrection.

Paul repeats this imagery in Colossians: “You, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him” (Colossians 2:13). Death is not metaphorical exaggeration but theological precision.

A Nature That Cannot Love What It Cannot Perceive

Jesus’ parable of the sower makes this explicit. Some seed falls among thorns, and “the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful” (Mark 4:19). The issue is not the seed’s quality but the soil’s condition. Similarly, His parable of the wheat and tares (Matthew 13:24-30) and His separation of sheep and goats (Matthew 25:31-46) both assume a fundamental distinction in nature, not merely behavior. When confronting those who do not believe Him, Jesus states plainly: “You do not believe because you are not among my sheep” (John 10:26). The causation runs from nature to response, not response to nature. Being among His sheep precedes believing, not vice versa. The swine cannot appreciate the pearl because their nature—physis (φύσις), their essential constitution—prevents recognition of what exceeds their capacity.

A Will That Cannot Free Itself

When Jesus tells those who have believed in Him that “if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” they respond with offense: “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” (John 8:31-33). Jesus corrects their misunderstanding: “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave—doulos (δοῦλος)—to sin” (John 8:34). A slave lacks freedom to simply walk away. Paul develops this imagery in Romans: “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” (Romans 6:16). Before regeneration, “you were slaves of sin” (Romans 6:20). The natural person’s will is not morally free but enslaved to sin’s dominion.

Paul makes the inability explicit: “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot—ou dynamai (οὐ δύναμαι). Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:7-8). This is not will not but cannot—absolute inability, not mere unwillingness. The verb construction emphasizes the complete absence of capacity, not the absence of desire alone.

The Compounding Effect of Judicial Hardening

While the unregenerate condition itself represents spiritual death, Scripture also describes a judicial dimension where God actively confirms those who persistently suppress truth in their hardness. After describing humanity’s suppression of truth and refusal to honor God, Paul writes that “God gave them up” three times in Romans 1—”gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity” (Romans 1:24), “gave them up to dishonorable passions” (Romans 1:26), and “gave them up to a debased mind” (Romans 1:28). This is not the universal condition of all unbelievers but God’s judicial response to sustained rebellion. Similarly, when writing to the Thessalonians about those who are perishing, Paul explains: “They refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12). This judicial hardening compounds the natural inability of spiritual death.

Proverbs personifies Wisdom calling in the streets: “Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you” (Proverbs 1:24-26). This is not the initial condition but the result of persistent refusal. Wisdom’s mockery comes after prolonged spurning of her call.

A Universal Condition Without Exception

Paul’s indictment in Romans leaves no room for exceptions among the unregenerate: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Romans 3:10-12). The repetition is emphatic—no one, not one, no one, all, no one. This is universal diagnosis.

Jesus states the principle with equal clarity: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44). The word can—dynamai (δύναμαι)—denotes capacity, not permission. This is not “no one may come” but “no one is able to come.” He repeats it: “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father” (John 6:65). Coming to Christ requires divine grant, not human achievement.

When Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, Jesus tells him: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Nicodemus misunderstands, thinking of physical birth, and Jesus clarifies: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:5-6). Birth precedes sight. Birth precedes entry. The natural birth produces only flesh; the kingdom requires birth by the Spirit.

The Gospel Reveals the Heart’s Condition

When Paul preaches the gospel, the responses themselves demonstrate the principle. At Athens, when he speaks of the resurrection, “some mocked” (Acts 17:32). The issue was not the weakness of Paul’s argument or the inadequacy of his presentation. The issue was the spiritual condition of those who heard. Paul himself explains this in 1 Corinthians: “The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). Later he states: “Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:22-24). The same message produces radically different responses because the hearers possess radically different spiritual conditions. The gospel does not fail when rejected—it reveals.

Paul reinforces this: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). The natural person—psychikos (ψυχικός), the one possessing natural life but not spiritual life—lacks the capacity for spiritual discernment. This is not intellectual limitation but spiritual inability.

A Nature Problem, Not an Information Problem

Jeremiah poses the rhetorical question to Judah after prolonged covenant unfaithfulness: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil” (Jeremiah 13:23). The prophet is not suggesting ethnic impossibility but moral impossibility rooted in ingrained rebellion. Just as a leopard cannot will away its spots, neither can the habitual evildoer transform his moral nature by decision.

John’s Gospel identifies the fundamental issue: “This is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works be exposed” (John 3:19-20). The problem is not that people need more light but that they love darkness. This is a nature issue—a problem of affection, allegiance, and fundamental orientation.

Paul’s testimony about his own former condition and that of his readers emphasizes this: “We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another” (Titus 3:3). This was not a condition of ignorance awaiting education but of enslavement awaiting liberation, of death awaiting resurrection.

The testimony is overwhelming, canonical, and unavoidable. The natural person is not spiritually neutral, not intellectually hindered, not informationally deficient. He is spiritually dead, naturally unable, and divinely dependent for any hope of response.

The Temptation to Solve Spiritual Death with Human Cleverness

The weight of this biblical testimony confronts a persistent temptation in Christian witness. We may assume the problem is fundamentally intellectual—that if we could construct better arguments, present more compelling evidence, master philosophical sophistication, or perfect our apologetic technique, then surely people would believe. We may imagine that unbelief stems from lack of information rather than spiritual death, from intellectual barriers rather than hearts of stone, from argumentative weakness rather than divine necessity.

This assumption subtly shifts the burden. If the problem is our presentation, then conversion depends on our performance. If the issue is argument quality, then salvation hinges on our intellectual firepower. If unbelief stems from evidential gaps, then we must perfect our case and plug every hole. The pressure mounts. The anxiety grows. We begin to measure faithfulness by results and judge our gospel witness by conversion rates.

But Scripture redirects us. Paul explicitly rejects this paradigm: “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2:1-5). Paul had the intellectual capacity for sophisticated argument—his training under Gamaliel and his letters demonstrate this—but he deliberately avoided relying on human cleverness. Why? So that faith would rest on God’s power, not human persuasion.

This does not mean rejecting reason, evidence, or thoughtful engagement. Peter commands: “Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). Paul’s pattern throughout Acts included reasoning in synagogues and engaging philosophical arguments in Athens (Acts 17:2, 17; 18:4, 19). The issue is not whether we think carefully or answer objections. The issue is where we locate the power to overcome spiritual death.

Arguments cannot resurrect the dead. Evidence cannot soften stone. Logic cannot open blind eyes. Philosophical sophistication cannot free the enslaved will. Apologetic technique cannot overcome the natural person’s inability to accept spiritual things. No amount of human cleverness can solve the problem Jesus named when He spoke of pearls before swine—the problem of nature, not knowledge.

What Common Grace Enables and What It Cannot

Before proceeding further, we must clarify an important distinction. Scripture teaches both the total inability of the natural person regarding spiritual things and the reality of common grace—God’s goodness toward all humanity that restrains sin, enables civic virtue, and allows the unregenerate to recognize aspects of truth, beauty, and morality.

Paul affirms that “when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness” (Romans 2:14-15). The unregenerate possess conscience and can recognize moral law.

Romans 1 likewise acknowledges that “what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:19-20). General revelation makes God’s power and divine nature perceivable.

Common grace enables the unregenerate to:

• Recognize moral beauty and respond to conscience
• Perceive truth in creation and general revelation
• Exercise reason and logical thought
• Appreciate aesthetic beauty
• Practice civic virtue and social good
• Build culture, create art, advance knowledge

What common grace cannot do:

• Enable saving faith in Christ
• Overcome hostility toward God
• Produce love for divine holiness
• Grant spiritual discernment
• Free the will from sin’s bondage
• Resurrect spiritual death

The natural person is not utterly depraved in the sense of being as sinful as possible in every capacity. He retains the image of God, though marred. He can recognize that murder is wrong, that beauty exists, that logic has force.

But he cannot, by these capacities, come to Christ, submit to God’s lordship, or love what he is by nature unable to perceive. Total inability concerns the spiritual realm—the capacity to respond savingly to divine truth.

This distinction matters for gospel conversation. We can appeal to conscience, reason from evidence, and engage intellectual objections. Paul did this consistently.

But we do so recognizing that these serve to remove intellectual excuses and bear witness to truth, not to generate spiritual life. We reason with the unregenerate, but we rely on the Spirit to open eyes.

The Monergistic Work of Regeneration

We have traced Scripture’s testimony to spiritual inability. We have acknowledged the limits of human cleverness. We have clarified what common grace enables and what it cannot. Now we arrive at the heart of the matter: if the natural person is spiritually unable—truly dead, not merely sick—then what actually overcomes this condition?

Scripture’s answer is emphatic and singular: only the regenerating work of God.

Only the Spirit gives life. Jesus states plainly: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all” (John 6:63). Not the flesh plus the Spirit. Not the Spirit cooperating with human effort. The flesh—human capacity, natural ability, self-generated response—is “no help at all.” Zero contribution. The Spirit alone gives life.

Only the Father draws. Jesus already told us: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44). This is not divine assistance to the willing but divine drawing of the unable. The same word—helkyō (ἑλκύω)—appears when Jesus says “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). This is not gentle invitation but effectual drawing.

Only the Son calls His sheep. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). They follow not because they choose to be sheep but because they are His sheep. Nature precedes response.

Only the new birth enables sight. We already saw this in John 3: “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Nicodemus cannot make himself born. Birth is something done to us, not by us. “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). The Spirit’s regenerating work is sovereign, mysterious, and effectual.

Only God removes the heart of stone. Ezekiel’s prophecy was clear: “I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). We do not soften our own hearts. We do not chip away at the stone. God removes it and gives flesh. He performs the surgery only He can perform.

Only God shines light into darkness. Paul traces his own conversion: “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). The same God who spoke light into existence at creation speaks spiritual light into the darkness of the unregenerate heart. This is creative power, not cooperative effort.

Only God raises the dead. Paul connects regeneration explicitly to resurrection: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4-5). We do not resuscitate ourselves. We do not cooperate with our own resurrection. Dead people contribute nothing to their vivification—to make alive.

This is why Paul declares that “the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). Not the power of human persuasion. Not the potency of evidential argument. Not the force of philosophical sophistication. The gospel itself—the message of Christ crucified and risen—carries divine power to accomplish what no human effort can: the resurrection of the spiritually dead.

Gospel Proclamation and Holy Living

If God alone regenerates, and if arguments cannot overcome spiritual death, then what is our responsibility? Two things, both profoundly simple and deeply powerful: proclaim the gospel faithfully and live transformed lives authentically.

First, proclaim the gospel. Not with eloquent wisdom or rhetorical flourish, but with clarity, boldness, and reliance on the Spirit’s power. Paul’s model in Corinth applies universally: preach Christ and Him crucified. This is not anti-intellectualism but proper priority. The gospel is not information to be weighed but power to be unleashed. It confronts the sinner with Christ Himself—His person, His work, His claim, His offer. It bypasses intellectual pride and speaks directly to the conscience. It exposes the heart’s rebellion and invites repentance. It carries the Spirit’s power to accomplish what human argument cannot.

A simple gospel faithfully proclaimed does what clever arguments cannot. It presents the living Christ, not merely propositions about Him. It calls for response, not merely agreement. It offers grace, not merely truth claims. And because the Spirit works through the Word, gospel proclamation becomes the means through which God opens blind eyes and softens stone hearts. We speak, but God gives the increase (1 Corinthians 3:6-7). We sow, but the Spirit brings forth fruit. We proclaim, but God regenerates. This frees us from the burden of manufacturing results and restores us to the dignity of faithful witness.

Second, live transformed lives. Peter connects gospel witness directly to holy conduct: “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12). And again: “In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame” (1 Peter 3:15-16). Notice the sequence: conduct prompts questions, which create opportunities for verbal defense.

A quiet, steady, consistent, holy life becomes a living apologetic that no argument can match. People may reject reasoning. They may dismiss evidence. They may mock propositional claims. But they cannot easily dismiss genuine transformation. When a drunkard becomes sober, a gossip becomes gracious, a greedy person becomes generous, a bitter person becomes forgiving—when these changes persist over years—the testimony speaks with power that transcends verbal argument.

Paul describes this dynamic: “We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life” (2 Corinthians 2:15-16). The same aroma produces opposite responses based on spiritual condition. But the aroma itself—the scent of Christ carried by transformed lives—testifies regardless of response.

This is not to say that living well saves people. It does not. Only God saves. But holy living removes stumbling blocks, silences critics, prompts questions, and bears witness to grace’s reality. Combined with faithful gospel proclamation, it becomes the means through which the Spirit ordinarily works to bring the spiritually dead to life.

We cannot argue the dead into breathing. We cannot reason blindness into sight. We cannot present enough evidence to transform nature. But we can faithfully proclaim Christ, live in the power of His resurrection, and trust the Spirit to do what only He can do: open eyes, soften hearts, draw the unable, and raise the dead.

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The Reality of Human Nature

Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:6 return to us with fresh clarity now: “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.”

This is not cynicism about the gospel’s power. It is realism about human nature. It is wisdom about spiritual inability. It is recognition that the problem is not the pearl’s worth but the recipient’s capacity. The gospel is not weak. The truth is not fragile. Christ is not insufficient. But swine cannot discern pearls because their nature prevents recognition of value that transcends their capacity to perceive.

The same principle governs our gospel witness. We hold out the pearl—precious, beautiful, of infinite worth. We proclaim Christ boldly and live faithfully. But we do not imagine that human cleverness will overcome what only divine power can transform. We do not bear the burden of manufacturing results through apologetic sophistication. We do not measure faithfulness by conversion rates or judge our witness by its persuasive force.

This truth liberates us. It frees us from anxiety about results, knowing that salvation belongs to the Lord (Jonah 2:9). It frees us from the pressure of performance, knowing that the Spirit gives life, not the flesh (John 6:63). It frees us from the illusion that regeneration depends on our intellectual firepower rather than God’s sovereign mercy. It frees us to be faithful witnesses rather than clever salesmen, confident heralds rather than anxious performers.

We sow the seed of the Word. We proclaim Christ crucified. We live as those made new by grace. We hold out the pearl with joy. And we trust that God—in His sovereign mercy, according to His good pleasure, by His mighty power—will open the eyes He chooses to open, soften the hearts He determines to soften, draw those He wills to draw, and raise to life whom He sovereignly calls.

The mystery of regeneration remains His. The power to overcome spiritual death remains His. The timing of conversion remains His. The selection of those whom He saves remains His.

Our calling is simpler and more glorious: proclaim the riches of Christ, live as those transformed by grace, and worship the God who does what we cannot—who makes the blind see, the deaf hear, the dead live, and the stones cry out in praise of the Lamb who was slain.

For salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb (Revelation 7:10). And that is why we rest, why we rejoice, and why we continue to hold out the pearl, knowing that the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead makes alive whom He wills—to the glory of God the Father. Amen.