Garry's Mod is a fun sandbox game that includes several fun game modes. One of those games, Trouble in Terrorist Town (TTT) includes three roles: Detective, Innocent, and Traitor. Traitors are unknown to everyone except other Traitors. Their aim is to kill all Innocents before the time is up. The goal of the innocents is to simply survive until the timer is over, or until all the Traitors have been discovered and killed. The Detective is a special Innocent. Everyone knows the Detective is Innocent, and he has several abilities that allows him to figure out who the Traitors are.
A similar game mode is "Murder". Just like TTT, Murder has one anonymous Murderer, whose goal is to kill all the other players, called Bystanders. Most Bystanders begin completely unarmed (though they can collect parts to eventually get a gun). One of them, however, begins with a gun. If a player has a gun, all players know he is a Bystander. Unlike in TTT, the only distinction between the gun guy and the other Bystanders is that, by random chance, he was given the gun to begin with. Beyond this, there is no distinction in ability, or in title.
One YouTube channel I am subscribed to, called Node, brings these two game modes into real life with Airsoft. To choose their roles, they deal cards. Recently, I re-watched these videos, and I noticed that during their Murder games, they often called the gun guy the Detective. Question: If they had not previously played TTT, would they have done so? My guess is probably not. They would have no reason to. In Murder, there is no Detective. The gun guy is just called a Bystander. Most people, in trying to distinguish between him and the unarmed Bystanders, just call him "gun guy". And indeed, Node themselves usually say "gun guy". Yet, because they have previously played TTT, "gun guy" becomes "the Detective". Their experience in the past altered their perception of their present.
Now here's the annoying part: This concept extends far beyond games. All of us base our perception of our present world on our experiences of the past. This is especially the case when it comes to reading the Bible. Whether you're a Christian or not, the way you read the Bible will inevitably be affected by the mindset with which you approach it. You will read it not only in your own language, but according to your current religious views, and the culture by which you are surrounded.
In debate with heretics, I often advise them to ask one question: "If I was not part of this Church, would I read this verse this way?" The obvious answer is almost always no. Proof texts for any heresy are almost always twisted beyond belief. Does Matthew 16:18 prove the Papacy? Does Mark 10:18 refute the Trinity? Does 2 Peter 3:8 prove God was lying when He said He only took 6 days to create the heavens and the earth? Let's face it: If you have a preconceived view, it doesn't matter how antithetical it is to Scripture, you will see it everywhere.
But this doesn't just extend to heretics, but to unbelievers too. If you want to prove the Bible wrong, you will find a way to do so. Charge it with error, charge it with evil, charge it with contradiction, the truth is, all of these charges, much like the aforementioned heresies, rely on a faulty interpretation.
So where do we go from here? Tragically, completely erasing our past experience and reading the Bible with an unbiased mind is completely impossible. But we can still give it a go. Once we are aware of our bias, we can start to ask how we would see it if we didn't have it? So we can expand my question: If I didn't have this bias, would I read this verse this way? More importantly, don't just read one verse. Read the whole Bible, because it has a lot to say about a lot of different topics.
By far the most important topic is the Gospel, and no single verse can sum that up. But in just one short paragraph, I'm going to try: You're a sinner. As a creation of God, you have thought, said, and done evil things, for which God owes you a rather severe punishment. But God's greatest attribute is His love, and so 2,000 years ago, He sent His Son, Jesus, to live as a man, live a perfect life, then go to the cross. On that cross, He bore your sin, and while bearing your sin, God punished Jesus instead. If you merely believe that Jesus is Lord, and that He died and rose again, you will be saved.