The New Testament

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0:00 I'm going to begin this evening with St. Ambrose's prayer before Holy Communion. St. Ambrose was a famous bishop of the early church. He was the one who, through his preaching, helped convert St. Augustine. He baptized St. Augustine. He has a famous writing called On the Mysteries. It's On the Seven Sacraments. It's an amazing writing. He wrote and lived towards the end of the 4th century, so in the late 300s. And he wrote this beautiful prayer called The Prayer Before Holy Communion. And I taped it in the front of my Bible. I like to pray it. I like to take my Bible to Mass and to pray this.

0:53 And what I'm going to do is I'm going to pray from the middle section. I'm not going to pray the entire prayer. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Look upon me with thine eyes of mercy, O Lord Jesus Christ, eternal King, God and man, crucified for man's sake. Graciously hear me, who hope in thee, have mercy on me, who am full of wretchedness and sin. Thou who ceasest, never, to flow as a fountainhead of mercy. Hail, saving victim, offered up upon the gibbet of the cross for me and for all men. Hail, noble and precious blood, flowing from the wounds of my crucified Lord Jesus Christ and washing away the sins of the whole world. Remember, O Lord, thy creature, whom thou hast redeemed with thy blood.

1:55 I repent that I have sinned, I desire to amend what I have done. Take from me, therefore, O most merciful Father, all my iniquities and my sins, so that cleansed in mind and body I may worthily taste the holy of holies. Let's pray our prayer. Lord Jesus Christ, be present now and let your Holy Spirit bow all hearts and love and truth today to hear your word and keep your way. Give us the grace to grasp your word that we may do what we have heard. Instruct us through the scriptures, Lord, as we draw near, O God adored. To God, the Father, and the Son, and Holy Spirit, three in one, to you, blessed Trinity, be praised throughout eternity.

2:55 Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Okay, today we're going to cover chapter 17 of our textbook, Understanding the Scriptures. And for those of you who have ordered textbooks for the spring semester, they're not in yet. So I'll give you guys a call before next week, when those come in. So I'll get those to you, and I'll know who you are by the sign-in sheet. Okay, I'm going to begin with a paragraph from the Catechism. It's paragraph number 129, 129. And this is the first part of the Catechism, which talks about the revelation of God.

3:48 How God has revealed things to us. And it talks about, it's going to help illuminate our study this evening on the New Testament. Because it talks about how we read the New Testament. And how we read the Old Testament, now that we have the New Testament. So here it is. So here it is. Christians read the Old Testament in the light of Christ, crucified and risen. Such typological reading discloses the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament. But it must not make us forget that the Old Testament retains its own intrinsic value as revelation, reaffirmed by our Lord himself. And then at this point, the Catechism gives us this scripture verse, Mark 12, 29-31.

4:50 We're going to look at that in just a moment. Besides, the New Testament has to be read in the light of the Old. Early Christian catechesis, or teaching, made constant use of the Old Testament. And here the Catechism quotes St. Paul in 1 Corinthians. As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old. And the Old Testament is unveiled in the New. And that's a statement by St. Augustine. If you look in the footnotes of the Catechism, it'll say St. Augustine. And it'll show the reference. And again, I'm going to repeat that. The New Testament lies hidden in the Old. And we saw this all last semester.

5:40 We saw all throughout the Old Testament, how the New Testament was kind of concealed within it. And then he continues, and the Old Testament is unveiled. And the word unveil in Greek is apocalypsis, or apocalypse, to unveil. The Old Testament is unveiled, it's revealed in the New. Reveal, you know, veil, comes from the same root. And so, the two Testaments are tied up with one another. And so, as we study the New Testament, when we study the Old Testament, we always hearken forward to the New Testament. And we were looking at the New Testament as we were going throughout the Old. And now, as we go through the New Testament, we're going to be hearkening back to the Old.

6:33 Because if we really want to understand what the New Testament authors are saying, we need to know the Old Testament, because the New Testament authors presuppose that you know the Old Testament well. Okay, let's look at this first passage that the Catechism gives us. It talks about how the Old Testament revelation is reaffirmed by our Lord. So, let's turn to Mark, chapter 12, verse 29. And we'll see where the Catechism is pointing us to, so we can read it in context. And this is what Jesus says in Mark 12, verse 29 through 31. Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy. And this is Jesus quoting Deuteronomy.

7:21 The first is this, the first commandment. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is Lord alone. The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. Okay, so there's our Lord quoting Deuteronomy, the second law, talking about how that revelation still has value for us. Even though that the new has come. Let's look at 1 Corinthians, that second quotation from the Holy, Sacred Scripture that the Catechism gave us. 1 Corinthians, chapter 5. And I believe we used, we went over this, this verse.

8:15 We might have gone over it in a previous session. I know we went over the next one that we're going to be looking at. 1 Corinthians, chapter 5, verses 6 through 8. 1 Corinthians 5, 6 through 8. Your boasting is not appropriate. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all the dough? Clear out the old yeast so that you may become a fresh batch of dough inasmuch as you are unleavened. For our Paschal Lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebrate the feast. Not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Huh?

9:03 You know, it's kind of like, what are you talking about? We need to become a fresh batch of dough? I mean, okay, Paul. What did you have for breakfast? Well, you know, what he's referring to is the feast of unleavened bread that accompanied Passover. You know, this week of festivities. And Christ, when he celebrated the Last Supper, what kind of a meal was that? What was it called? Yeah, the Passover. It was a Passover meal. That's what the Last Supper was. And so Christians, when they celebrate the Lord's Supper, they're celebrating the new Passover. A Passover meal transformed and renewed by Christ. And so St. Paul can say, for our Paschal Lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.

9:53 Just like the Paschal Lamb in the Old Testament was sacrificed, therefore, let us celebrate the feast. What feast? The Lord's Supper. The new Passover. Because Christ is our Passover lamb. So he's using the Old Testament. The Old Testament feast of Passover, which you can read about in Exodus chapter 12. Okay, let's turn to that second reference that the Catechism gives us in 1 Corinthians, which is in chapter 10. Chapter 10, verses 1 through 11. And yes, I remember referring to this in a previous session. 1 Corinthians chapter 10, starting with verse 1. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea.

10:48 And all of them were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. All ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was the Christ. Yet God was not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the desert. These people were baptized into Moses, and they ate spiritual food, and they drank spiritual drink. What are the sacraments of Christian initiation? What are the Christians celebrating? What are these Corinthians, when they became Christians, they were baptized? And they ate the Eucharist, and they drank the Eucharist. And Paul is using the Exodus narrative from the book of Exodus, where Israel came out of Egypt, to talk about the Lord's Supper in the sacrament of baptism.

11:45 He continues in verse 6. These things happened as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil things, as they did. And do not become idolaters, as some of them did. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel. Let us not indulge in immorality, as some of them did, and 23,000 fell within a single day. Let us not test Christ, as some of them did, and suffer death by serpents. Do not grumble, as some of them did, and suffer death by the destroyer. These things happened to them, as an example, and they have been written down as a warning to those people who still follow the Old Testament, right? The non-Christian Jews, right?

12:39 Or the Samaritans. No, he says, as a warning to us, upon whom the end of the ages has come. The end of the ages has come. The fulfillment of the Old Testament has come upon the people of God with the advent of Jesus Christ. And so, here we have Paul saying, Hey, look, if the people in the Old Covenant, without the graces of salvation, without the ability to overcome our sin, without the forgiveness of sins, if they, you know, spurned the Lord and ended up dying, what do you think you can, what do you think you're going to do? How do you think you're going to get off? You know, you people who have grace, who have the supernatural power of the sacraments, who have baptism and Holy Eucharist, and yet, you spurned the Lord.

13:29 You think you're going to get off? No. You know, Paul is, Paul is, uh, X, uh, neighing, or, you know, X-ing the idea of cheap grace. Now that we have grace, you know, it doesn't matter. We can just go and sin. We can be Corinthians. You know, Corinthians, Corinth was a place of great sin back in the day. So, yeah, yeah. Okay. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to continue to quote from the catechism. We just looked at paragraph 129. Now I'm going to read from 131 to 133. And such is the force and power of the word of God, that it can serve the church as her support and vigor, and the children of the church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting font of spiritual life.

14:33 The church isn't talking about the sacraments. This is about the Bible, the word of God. Hence, access to sacred scripture ought to be open wide to the Christian faithful. Now we're in paragraph 132. Therefore, the study of the sacred page should be the very soul of sacred theology. The ministry of the word too, pastoral preaching, catechetics, and all forms of Christian instruction, among which the liturgical homily, the Sunday sermon, should hold pride of place. It is healthily nourished and thrives in holiness through the word of scripture. Paragraph 133. The church forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ by frequent reading of the divine scriptures.

15:33 And then it quotes St. Jerome, who is a contemporary of St. Augustine. Ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ. Okay, so as we enter into the New Testament, what I'm doing is I'm refreshing you in what the church has to say about scripture. You know, this is going to be the energy for our spiritual life. This is going to support us. This is going to feed us. It's going to nourish us. And so, in our diocese, in the diocese of Austin, Texas, what is the year 2007, from January the 1st through December the 31st, what is this year designated as by Bishop Gregory Amen? Wow, you guys are good. Yeah. You read your Catholic diocese in newspaper, the Catholic Spirit.

16:22 That's right. So, this is the year of the word. The year of the word. And, remember, word is God's revelation. It came in the Old Testament through the prophets. And the Jews had an apostolic, not an apostolic, but they had a mosaic tradition that they considered authoritative as well. And so, in the New Testament, the word of God comes to us in sacred scripture as inspired. It's God-breathed. It's the very words of God and the words of men. This is very unique. It's inspired. And the other component, the other channel of divine revelation is apostolic tradition. Apostolic tradition.

17:18 Because not everything got written down in sacred scripture. There are other things. And also, ways to interpret scripture continue in the liturgy of the church. Like, we have baptism all over the New Testament. We have it in 1 Peter. He starts out in the first epistle of Peter. Peter starts out by saying, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope. Later on, he talks about how baptism was prefigured by the saving and deadly waters of the flood. We talked about that last semester. And basically, so he's using, he's talking about baptism in his epistle. We have baptism talked about in John 3. We have baptism talked about in the epistle to Titus.

18:06 We have baptism in Romans 6. We have the baptismal robes talked about in the book of Revelation. Baptism in Hebrews. We just saw baptism in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. It's all over scripture. But, what is baptism? Is it just a symbol? Or does it actually affect what it symbolizes? Is it a, is it in the sense, does it have the power of an oath? Well, the liturgy is the high point of apostolic tradition. That's what Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in one of his books. Is that the liturgy is like the high point of apostolic tradition. We've always been baptizing. We've always known what it means for 2,000 years. And so, apostolic tradition is not inspired. It's not inspired.

18:56 It's animated. It's kept alive in the life of the church. Okay? It's animated. And so, the Holy Spirit animates the church. Animates her life. Keeps her alive. Keeps her life flowing and going. Keeps her interpretation of sacred scripture pure. You know, keeps, and so much so that we know that 400 years later, after Christ, or actually 360 years after Christ, when the church starts canonizing the New Testament, starts saying, okay, the shepherd of Hermes, the Paul's epistle to the Laodiceans, Pope Clement's letter to the Corinthians, the Didache, the epistles of Ignatius, the Apostle, I mean, I'm sorry, the Gospel according to Peter, the Gospel according to Thomas, all these other writings that are purporting to be sacred scripture, the church says, nope, those aren't scripture.

19:52 But yet, some pieces of scripture, such as, um, uh, the epistle to, uh, the epistle of James, the epistle of Jude, uh, I think 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, Revelation, Hebrews, these books were disputed in the church. Ah, some churches didn't consider them scripture, some did. Well, finally, the church animated by apostolic tradition was able to tell us what's in sacred scripture. So they kind of feed off of one another. They, uh, depend upon one another. And I want to point you guys to, uh, a verse in scripture in 2nd Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 15, where St. Paul is writing, by the way, 2nd Thessalonians was one of the, probably one of the, one of the first epistles, one of the first New Testament writings ever to be written.

20:48 Paul's 13 epistles come before, uh, the gospels. And Paul's first epistle probably to be written was 1st Thessalonians. But in 2nd Thessalonians 2, 15, we're given a command. And this command is, he says, therefore brothers, and when he says brethren, he's not excluding you ladies. Brethren means, you know, all of us. God bless you. Therefore brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement, or by a letter of ours. And so these traditions, these traditions come to us, in both ways, by letters of theirs, as well as, what has been passed on in the church, and animated by the spirit.

21:40 So, when I say year of the word, what Bishop Gregory Amon wants to focus on, is scripture, which is part of the word. Or, should I say, one channel of the word. And this sacred scripture, again, is the only inspired literature in the world. I mean, there is no other, no Pope's encyclical, no catechism, nothing else is inspired. This is a unique, prerogative, aspect, of the Bible. That is actually God's word, in the words of men. It doesn't just contain God's word, it is God's word. It is God's word. Are you saying that, is that surprised to the Old Testament as well? Yes. Everything is inspired.

22:27 All the Old Testament, and all of the New Testament. Okay? Now remember, what's inspired are the original autographs, the original writings, not the copies of the copies of the copies. So you could have a transcribable error introduced. And that's, thank goodness that we have biblical sciences, to help us with that. So this year of the word, we're going to be focusing on sacred scripture. We're going to be reading it. We're going to be studying it. There have been Lenten Bible studies, mandated in every parish, throughout the diocese. And so you'll see more of this advertised. And if you feel like participating, in addition to the study, feel free. If you know people who want to do, more of a sharing, more of a life applicable type Bible study, you can let your friends know. But that's going to be the six weeks during Lent.

23:17 Okay. The New Testament. What Latin word does testament come from? You guys remember? Testamentum. Just add a U-M on the end. So testament is really a Latin word. We just take off the U-M. And what word in English does testamentum translate to, besides testament? You guys remember? No? This is in the third lesson, you know, chapter two, the Old Testament. I was talking about this.

24:05 You can remember it was in the third lesson. That is awesome. I wish you could do that. Yeah. It's also talking about the Old Testament. So I had to tell you guys what testament meant, right? Testament means covenant. So, remember we looked at the Last Supper when Jesus said, this chalice, you know, is my blood of the covenant. He uses Moses' words from the book of Exodus. He says, this is the blood of the covenant. Well, St. Jerome, when he translates the Bible into Latin, he says, novum testamentum. That's how he translates new covenant, as it was in Greek.

24:55 Because that's what Jesus, that's what the Gospels are written on in, was Greek. And so he translates this to Latin, and he says, novum testamentum. So he took the challenge, and he said, this is the New Testament. What? No, that's, that's wet. Testament, you know, the New Testament is printed. Right? Yeah, no, testamentum means covenant. So, when we say the Old Testament and the New Testament, it's identical to saying the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The New Covenant. And who, in the Old Testament, prophesied about the New Covenant? He says, I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. I should probably have tested you at the end of last semester.

25:50 Not Zechariah. No. Jeremiah. Either it was Jeremiah or Ezekiel. Which one do you guys think it was? Jeremiah or Ezekiel? Ezekiel actually probably wrote after Jeremiah and used some of what Jeremiah wrote. Okay? So, you see parallels between Jeremiah and Ezekiel as Ezekiel came after Jeremiah. But this is what Jeremiah says in chapter 31. Verse 31. It's easy to remember. Just remember 31. Jeremiah 31, 31. The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Why are there two houses?

26:42 Right. Because the kingdom of David had split into the north and the south. The kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah. So, he's saying I will reunite these kingdoms into one kingdom like it was under David with this Novum Testamentum. This New Testament. Okay? So, the New Testament isn't just Christians came up with it or Jesus invented it. No, this comes from Jeremiah. The word New Testament. Okay. New Testament, Testamentum, Covenant. Okay, the New Testament is composed of how many books or writings? All the purple ones with your Bible tabs?

27:30 That's great. You mean all of it? Just the New Testament. Yes, 27. We have 27. 27 books of the New Testament. Or you could say writings. By the way, what does the word Bible come from? Biblios. What does Biblios mean? Books. Or book. Right. So, Bible means book. So, I have a collection of Bibles at my house. That's right. So, we're calling it the book, right? The Bible. That's what that means.

28:17 Okay, so, first, we have four Gospels. Of course, many more were written, but only four or are authentic or actually, you know, are, were written by authority with, you know, with apostolic authority by the apostles or apostolic men. After the four Gospels, we have Acts of the Apostles. And Acts of the Apostles is the sequel to what Gospel? Luke, right. So, if we were, if we wanted to put the Bible in order properly, probably, we should say Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts of the Apostles, John.

29:03 Because it was one scroll where Luke wrote his Gospel and wrote Acts of the Apostles right after it. It was one writing. But we separate them to put all the four Gospels together. But always remember that Acts of the Apostles was appended to Luke. And then we have Paul's 13 epistles beginning with what epistle? Romans. Trick question. He probably wrote 1 Thessalonians first. But why don't we put 1 Thessalonians right after Acts of the Apostles? Why do we put Romans? Yeah, the length. They're approximately longest to shortest. So we have Romans and we have 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, etc., etc.

29:58 And after Paul's 13 epistles, we have the epistle to the Hebrews, which some people think it was written by Paul, so Paul would have 14 epistles. But the majority of scholars say, no, it wasn't written by Paul. It doesn't say it was written by Paul. Some people in the early church thought it was written by Paul. Other people denied that. It's written very differently, much different Greek than Paul's epistles, so it probably wasn't written by him. Probably. But it could have been. I'm not going to say no. But Hebrews is great because it's a homily from the early church. It was a sermon given most probably on a Sunday, and it was so good that all the Christians started copying it. They said, we want to keep this. Pastor, can we have a copy of that? Can you email it to us? So we emailed it on copies of vellum.

30:48 He had to slaughter a couple of sheep to do that. But Hebrews was an epistle to Jewish Christians who were being tempted by persecution to return back to Judaism. So Hebrews talks about how the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament and prefigures the New Testament and the New Testament fulfills the Old Testament. So Hebrews is just filled with Old Testament. Left to right, front to back, top to bottom. And after Hebrews, we have what we call the seven Catholic epistles. Why do we call them the seven Catholic epistles? Are these the seven books that Catholics have and Protestants don't? No. those are seven Old Testament books that Catholics have and Protestants do not. These seven Catholic epistles are called Catholic by everybody.

31:40 Why do they use that term? Yeah, it means universal. Or more literally, according to the whole. Kata holos. According to the whole. Because these epistles were not written to the Corinthians or to those people in Galatia or those people in Ephesus or to the church in Rome. But they were, they aren't really addressed to anybody. They're kind of universally addressed. You know, so they were sent out to lots of churches. And so, it's sent out to the universal church, the whole church, according to the whole. And then, we, the New Testament is followed with the book of Revelation. And by the way, please do not make the mistake of calling it Revelations.

32:28 One time, I was listening to MC Hammer on one of those broadcasting networks on cable. And MC Hammer was up there, you know, MC Hammer has become like a preacher guy. And so he's up there, you know, and he goes, don't touch this. No, I'm just kidding. He says, MC Hammer goes, let's read from the book of Revelations. And the book of Revelations is, and I'm like, dude, it's not the book of Revelations. It's the book of Revelation. You know? Revelation, comes from the Greek word, I gave it to you earlier, apocalypsis, which means to unveil. Did I spell veil right there?

33:20 Yes? Okay, English professors in the room. Okay, so apocalypsis does not mean the end of the world or Mel Gibson's movie or, you know, it means to unveil. And, we're in our culture, which is Christian, or Catholic, which is Christian, which comes from Judeo roots, from the Jews, what tradition in our culture involves, involves an unveiling at a sacred ceremony? Wedding? Yeah, wedding. And, in the book of Revelation, it specifically says, what's happening is the blank feast of the Lamb. The wedding feast of the Lamb. So, we have the wedding feast of the Lamb, the wedding feast between Jesus and the church and the book of Revelation, right?

34:17 And, it's, it's called the book of Revelation, the book of unveiling, the book of apocalypsis, because we have an unveiling. And, it's possibly, it's very possibly an allusion to the, the revelation of the church, which is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Revelation is all about the coming about of the church. The coming about of the church, which is composed of 144,000 Jewish male virgins, right? And, and a number from all the nations and no one can count. You find out in the book of Genesis. So, when you get to heaven, there will be 144,000 Jewish male virgins. And, as Jehovah's Witnesses teach, the rest of us are, you know, are just doomed to a, just a simple life here on Paradise Earth. Because, heaven is full of the 144,000 already.

35:05 Next time a Jehovah's Witness, talks to you, say, oh, by the way, those 144,000 in heaven, let's read that literally. Those are Jewish male virgins, by the way. So, you say there are no women in heaven. Now, the Gospel of Matthew, how does it begin? What's on the front title page? What does it say? The Gospel according to Matthew. Kata, let me see here, Kata Matayan, I'm going to write it up here in Greek. According to, remember, Catholic comes from kata holos, according to the whole. Well, the Gospel begins with kata, or according to, Matayan. Let me see if I can transliterate this as well as I can.

35:54 M-A-T-T-H-A-I-O-N. Kata Matayan is how it begins. So, this is written by Matthew, it tells us. Is kata Matayan, which was on the original Greek manuscript, is that part of the Bible? Is that inspired sacred scripture? No. That was added to a manuscript centuries, probably in the third century, after the Gospel had been copied and copied Originally, when Matthew wrote his Gospel, Matthew, when he penned the Gospel, he did not say kata Matayan.

36:41 He did not say that. He just started with the genealogy, the genesis, the genealogy, the genesis of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Is that how it begins? Okay, good. Okay. And then later on, somebody else appended this. Nowhere in the Gospel of Matthew does it say that it was written by Matthew. This right here, this title, is apostolic tradition. This is what was handed on by the church. So it's kind of cool to see apostolic tradition in the Bible kind of playing with it.

37:28 And, okay, according to Matthew, who was Matthew? Was he one of the apostles, or was he one of the apostles' disciples, or was he somebody else? He was the apostle. Right. The apostle Matthew. And Matthew, you know, a lot of these apostles had more than one name because they have like a Hebrew name and a Greek name, or Hebrew name and a Roman name. And Matthew's other name is what? Yeah, Levi. So, and is Levi a Greek name? Where does Levi come from? Yeah, one of the twelve tribes of Israel originally. The tribe of Levi. There was a Levi who was the son of Jacob.

38:16 And Jacob had his name changed to Israel, so he's the son of Israel, Levi. So, Matthew was named after Levi. And he was an apostle. What was his profession before he became an apostle? Tax collector. All right, so he worked for the IRS. Great. And you know, the people loved it when tax collectors converted to Christianity. Because they no longer made you pay more than what you really had to pay. They no longer extorted you. So, it was like, please convert to Christianity. We love it when tax collectors stop collecting more than they should. And his gospel was most probably written to a Jewish Christian audience in Palestine.

39:06 Okay, so, a Jewish Christian audience in Palestine. Now, all of the four gospels profusely use the Old Testament. So, you can't say just because Matthew uses the Old Testament or alludes to the Old Testament, therefore he's writing to Jewish Christians. No, The reason why we think this is because he doesn't explain Jewish customs. Whereas Mark, you know, he's like, yeah, and the, you know, Jesus castigated the Pharisees, you know, for putting their human traditions above the word of God because the, you know, the Jews washed their hands in special ceremonial washings after they eat.

39:52 And so Mark kind of explains that. And so we know that, you know, Mark's audience wasn't completely Jewish Christian. It was Gentile Christian. Because the Gentiles didn't do that before they became Christian. They're like, what is Jesus talking about? So Matthew wrote to Jewish Christian audience probably in the Holy Land. It begins with the infancy of Jesus, an infancy narrative. Actually, it begins with his genealogy. So you have the infancy. And after this infancy narrative, it's structured like one of the books of the Old Testament in this way. Matthew's gospel goes like this. Jesus does stuff, heals people, travels, and then he teaches.

40:46 There's a discourse. And then he does stuff, he travels, he does stuff, heals people, then he teaches. Then he does stuff, he travels, he heals people, and he teaches. And this happens five times. There are five successions of this. What Old Testament book was kind of structured like this? Numbers. Remember the book of Numbers? We have Israel's history, a history of sinning, and then law is given because of transgressions. So God's word is revealed. Then we have actions, sin, law is revealed. It happens over and over again. And so the gospel of Matthew is almost kind of like the book of Numbers in that sense. And so we have in the middle, we have the five books of Matthew.

41:37 The five he does something, he says something, he does something, he says something. And what in Matthew, what is the most famous of these discourses, of these sermons? Sermon on the Mount, or the Mount Ten. It says in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, in chapter five, it says that he went up a mountain. In the case, it's called the Sermon on the Mount. And that's chapters five through seven. And then Matthew's gospel culminates in and kind of concludes with the passion-weak narratives, the suffering and resurrection of Jesus. So we have the fulfillment of the Old Testament in the life of Christ. We have his suffering, death, resurrection.

42:26 And then let's not forget that also tied up with that is his ascension into heaven. So this is Matthew's gospel. Matthew traditionally in the early church everybody says that Matthew's gospel came first. It was the first gospel to be written. Now today most scholars will tell you that Mark was written first. And one of the major arguments proposed is that Mark's gospel is shorter. Therefore you know it's kind of like things evolve. You know Mark writes the simple stuff. Matthew takes Mark and it kind of evolves. It gets bigger. You know kind of like that. And like why would anybody take Matthew's gospel and cut out things?

43:12 You know well that may have been the case. It may have been the case it's not that we shouldn't apply the laws of evolution necessarily to the Bible. You know you could end up because what if Mark you know his audience wouldn't really be concerned with all these things written to Jewish Christians and he's writing to a Roman audience who's living in this fast paced city life of Rome and he wants a faster gospel. Mark uses the word immediately how many times? Forty. Mark's gospel is not structured. I mean in any real orderly way. We can't say it's exactly like this and this because Mark's gospel just tells a narrative and goes fast and then immediately and he immediately and they immediately and immediately and then before you know it it's over with.

44:00 So Mark may have used his audience and his own way of writing to shorten Matthew's gospel and it could have been written after Matthew. I'm not saying that definitely Matthew wrote before Mark. I'm saying that let's not follow the mainstream just because everybody thinks that Mark was written first because it's shorter. Matthew had to elaborate upon Mark. was more original. No, not necessarily. Don't buy that. But it still may be the case that Mark did write first. Who knows? We'll know when we get to heaven. And who cares? So we have the Gospel of Mark. And what is Mark's Roman name? What is Mark's Hebrew name? What does he go by with the Jews?

44:51 John, right. So John is his Hebrew name and Mark is his Roman name. So he's also, you know, so if you ever know of anybody named John Mark, you know, they were named after the second evangelist of the Bible, John Mark. And was Mark traditionally, according to tradition, the early church fathers when they were writing about these things, the early church historians, was Mark one of the original twelve apostles? No. Who was he? What was the significance about him? He was a disciple of Peter. Right. Because where did Peter go? Rome. In Peter's epistle, let's see here, I believe it's in 1 Peter, it could be in 2 Peter, let me see here, I forgot exactly which one it's in.

45:49 Let me turn here to, I think it's in 1 Peter, let me turn to it and see if I can't find it for you. Yeah, he says in 1 Peter, at the very end of it, he says, the chosen one at Babylon sends you greeting, as does Mark, my son. Greet one another with a loving kiss. Scripture says it, loving kiss, everybody now, no. Okay, the chosen one at Babylon. Babylon was seen as a codename for Rome. Because when you're, you know, the leader of the church, Peter, where is he? Let's get one of those epistles from one of the Christians. He's at, guys, Babylon. Wait, there's no Babylon around here.

46:38 He couldn't be in Babylon. You know? No, it was, you know, it was like a code word. So, he says, Mark, my son, and most people think that that Mark is Mark, the writer of the gospel. So, Mark was Peter's interpreter, the guy who like, you know, showed him Rome. He's like, okay, Peter, we know that you're really from Palestine, but let me introduce you to the city life, you know, where we have apples and iPods and, you know, all kinds of cool things and we're not from the, you know, from the, from the east. And so, Mark is writing primarily to a Gentile Christian audience, or it could have been Gentiles and, and, and Jewish Christians. But he's writing to Christians. And because he explains all these Jewish things, he translates Aramaic phrases of Jesus.

47:26 So, when Jesus says, Talitha kum, when he, says, I, my God, why be forsaken me upon the cross in Aramaic? Mark gives the Aramaic, then he translates it to, to Greek as Jesus spoke Aramaic. His story goes on and on and in his story, his, his gospel could almost be called the Messiah's secret. Jesus heals somebody, and everybody goes, the Messiah is here! And Jesus goes, shh, don't tell anybody. And then, Jesus goes over here and he reveals something. Everybody goes, you're the Messiah, let's make you king. And then he says, shh, don't tell anybody. And it's almost like, you know, you're waiting, for his office of Messiahship to be proclaimed.

48:19 And then, where does it climax? Where is the proclamation that Jesus is the Messiah? Where, or he's the Son of God, where is this, who is this given by and where? The Roman centurion at the cross, towards the end of Mark's gospel. Let's see if we can't turn there. Towards the end of the gospel of Mark. Okay, ready, set, go. Who can get there first? You're there? What verse? What chapter? Oh, you're not there yet. That's right, you lied. 1539. Ooh, I beat you.

49:07 You were very close. Chapter 15, verse 39 of Mark's gospel. When the centurion who stood facing him saw how he breathed his last, he said, truly this man was the son of God. And remember in the Old Testament, who was the son of God? The Messiah, the anointed, the son of David, had this prerogative of divine sonship. And so, this is the confession of faith. It's like the climax. It's the high point of his gospel. if you're studying the gospel from a literary point of view. Excuse me. And so, a Roman centurion makes the confession of faith.

49:53 Why is this significant? Because Mark's writing to who? Romans. That's right. So, I'm sure there are Roman centurions reading his gospel or going to mass with these Christians going, yeah, that's right, that was a Roman centurion, that's right. Okay, so we have Mark, you know, enculturating his gospel to his audience. And then, the next gospel is written by Luke. And again, nowhere in these gospels does it say Kata Matayan, Kata, you know, Mark, Kata, Luke. This is all from apostolic tradition. And, the, the gospel of Luke, was Luke one of the original twelve apostles?

50:45 No. Was Luke a Jew? No. He's the only Gentile author of the entire Bible. The only Gentile author. Everybody else is an Israelite, from one of the tribes of Israel, one of which is Judah, the Jews. Okay, so Luke is a Gentile. What did he do? What was his, what was his, uh, profession? Yeah, he was a Gentile physician. And so Luke was a companion of which person that's very important? No. Later on, he probably got part of the source of his gospel from Mary, but who did he, Paul, yeah. Did I write that right?

51:33 No, I didn't. Oh man, I get that backwards every time. Physician is an S and then a C at the end. There we go. Okay, Gentile physician. So, Paul, going on all these missionary journeys everywhere, it's great to have a doctor on hand, right? You know, if you're going to go to Mexico for a month, you know, go on a mission trip, you're going to want a doctor on hand. So, so Luke is a physician. He's a Gentile. He's, uh, going alongside Saint Paul. He's Saint Paul's companion in his missions. And so when he, when he finishes gospel and he starts writing Acts of the Apostles, he says, we went to this place and that place. We did this and that because he's with Paul. And we'll see later on that in Acts of the Apostles, Luke writes Acts in order to vindicate Paul.

52:21 He writes it kind of with a literary purpose to show that Paul's in the right. By first showing that Peter said something, then Paul just re-says what Peter said. Peter's, you know, something from Peter raises someone from the dead. Paul raises someone from the dead. Also in Acts of the Apostles, what's really cool is that Luke in his gospel talks about Jesus. Jesus heals people. Jesus raises people from the dead. Jesus preaches. And in Acts of the Apostles, Jesus rises from the dead. Jesus ascends into heaven. They happen right after one another, right? Jesus rose from the dead. the next day ascended into heaven, right? No. How much time passed between the resurrection and the ascension? Forty days. Do you mean between Easter Sunday and Ascension Thursday is forty days?

53:12 That's right. We relive this in the liturgical calendar. Easter Sunday to Ascension Thursday is forty days. And it says in the beginning of Acts of the Apostles that Jesus explained to his disciples what? The kingdom of God. So the kingdom continues to be a major theme in Acts of the Apostles. Forty days. Could you imagine having forty days with Jesus? You'd be asking him everything. You know, what happened? You were crucified. What? So explain the Old Testament to us. Give us some passages. What did you mean when you were celebrating the Last Supper? Was that really your body and your blood? So when we baptize people, I remember we saw the Holy Spirit coming down. Are we supposed to do this as a rite of initiation?

53:59 I mean, I would be all over the place. Yeah. The Apostles had forty days with the resurrected Jesus before his ascension. Lots of things were cleared up. Lots of things were revealed to their fullness. This was very important for the Apostles to have these forty days with their risen Savior and Lord and King. Jesus ascends into heaven and then what does the church start doing? Healing people. Raising people from the dead. In the Gospels, only one person raises from the dead. That's Jesus. He raises several people from the dead. In Acts of the Apostles, Peter raises someone from the dead. Oh my gosh, you're doing what Jesus did. Paul raises someone from the dead. Oh my gosh, you did what? And so the church is doing what Jesus did.

54:45 The ministry of Jesus continues in the church. The life of Jesus, the incarnation, continues called the body of Christ. The church is called the body of Christ by Luke. And who is the body of Christ, this idea of the body of the Christ most important to? Whose insight is this really? The body, that the church is the body of Christ. Why are you persecuting me, Paul? Saul, why are you persecuting me? Paul's conversion. Paul fell off of the horse. A voice comes from heaven. Jesus reveals himself to Paul and he says, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

55:35 I wasn't persecuting you, I was persecuting the church. You're persecuting me. Paul in his epistles continually refers to the church as the body of Christ because of what experience? His conversion. Where Jesus said that Paul was persecuting Jesus, but Paul is persecuting Christ. How do you explain this? Well, the church is the body of Christ. When you persecute the church, you're persecuting Christ. They're inseparable from one another. And so Luke, who is accompanying St. Paul, who's writing St. Paul's theology, talks about the church being the body of Christ. Luke also recounts several times Paul's conversion story. And Luke being a Gentile is concerned about the Gentiles because he himself is a Gentile.

56:23 So, you know, he emphasizes the salvation of the Gentiles and the going out of the gospel to the Gentiles, especially in Acts of the Apostles. Luke's gospel, because he's a physician, you guys ever been to a doctor's office? You ever looked up on that one wall where there are all these little dots? I mean, there's like red, green, blue, and just thousands of files. Completely organized, right? Yeah, doctors have to stay organized. They like systematization. They like organization. They're type A. You know? Maybe they have really bad handwriting, but they're type A. And so Luke, I'm sorry, if any of you are doctors, I don't mean to offend you out there.

57:11 Is anybody a doctor? Raise your hand. Okay, good, we're safe. So he's writing, so he says in the beginning of his gospel, he says, I have set out to write an orderly account. Many have already undertaken a narrative of the events that have happened. So Luke uses sources that have already come before him. And so Luke's gospel is beautifully written. I mean, from a literary point of view, it's beautiful. Unlike Mark's gospel, it's a little bit more rough, it's a little bit more Roman. And it's very orderly, ordered very nicely. It's logically arranged. Disciple of St.

58:01 Paul. And he probably wrote his gospel to both Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians throughout the Mediterranean world. Not in one specific place like Rome or Palestine or also known as the Holy Land. How much time? We don't know. Most of the synoptic gospels, and we call them synoptic because they're like each other, like a synopsis. they look like each other, because they parallel each other, because Luke says he used other writings. He probably used Matthew and Mark, or Matthew or Mark, when he wrote. And so Luke, when he's writing his gospel, he's using his other gospels, so it looks like other gospels.

58:49 We don't know how long it passed. Luke's gospel, scholars really differ in when these were written. Best estimates are between 60 and 90 of the synoptic gospels. John's gospel is anywhere from 50 to 100. Some people go beyond 100, like even to 150, but I think that those are untenable. I would say John's gospel is written somewhere between 50 AD and 100 AD. Why such an early date? Well, there are some really good reasons why, but it would take too much to go over that now. You know, the scholar John A.T. Robinson has come out with a book redating the New Testament, and in this book he says that every book was written before AD 70 was the destruction of the temple, because nobody mentions the destruction of the temple.

59:42 And that's one of the big arguments before 70. Why 70? Why do a lot of people say it was written somewhere between 60 and 70? Why 70? Because that was the destruction of the temple. None of the gospels mention that. They mention Jesus' prophecies of the destruction of the temple. Jesus warns the Christians about the destruction to come, but they never say it happened. And that's what Revelation covers later on, the book of Revelation. Okay, so let's get going here. We have another 15, 20 minutes to go. Let's go to the gospel of John. John's gospel is so different from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I mean, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the synoptic gospels. John, was John, and again, John says that the author of the gospel is the beloved disciple.

1:00:28 We can infer that. But who's the beloved disciple? John. But we don't really know this. If you look closely at the gospel, you can't really prove that. Again, this comes from tradition. And so John, was John traditionally, is he one of the 12 apostles? Yes. He's the youngest. In fact, he was probably a teenager when he was called to be an apostle. So let's not look down on teenagers in the church. If Jesus Christ picks a teenager to be an apostle, I mean, you know, in fact, there's a group out, a Catholic discipleship group called Young Apostles.

1:01:15 I like it a lot. In fact, Timothy, Paul's, the person Paul was training, was a bishop, and he was so young, people weren't taking him seriously. So Paul said, let no one despise you in your youth. And that's that famous quote, you know, let no one despise you in your youth. So don't despise me, guys. Okay? That's the whole reason I'm bringing this up. So John is one of the youngest, and tradition has it that the other 11 were most possibly martyred, and John died of old age. He lived the longest. And so John writes differently than Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John almost kind of presupposes these Gospels. And this gives further evidence. That was written later than 50 A.D. You know, if the other Gospels were written probably in the early 60s or something, John's Gospels were probably written after them.

1:02:05 Because John seems to kind of presuppose them. One time I was listening to a Cademan Call, Cademan Call, you know, is a great Christian band. One of the founders of Cademan's Call, his father is the pastor, or was, of Second Baptist in Houston. And Cademan's Call is a great band, one of my favorites. And they have this song, and they're talking about how Peter took his sword and cut off the servant's ear in the Garden of Gethsemane. And Jesus is like, put that back. You know, put your sword back in its sheath. Huh? How does he know it's Peter? I went and I looked at the Gospel of Matthew, turned there, I'm like, it doesn't say it was Peter. I turned to, I'm like, I've read the Gospels, it does not say who did it.

1:02:52 I turned to Luke, didn't say, turned to Mark, didn't say, I turned to John, John says it was Peter who did it. The Last Supper, all three of the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, Luke, make sure to say exactly what Jesus said. It's very important. Take eat, this is my body, take this cup, it is the cup of the new, I forgot how it goes, even though we repeat it every day, the cup of the new and everlasting covenant, do this in remembrance of me. But John doesn't even give the narrative. Instead, he has Jesus praying for three chapters. In fact, if you open up the Gospel of John, you have a red letter edition of the Bible where it puts Jesus' words in red, you turn to John 14, 15, 16, and 17 are just red. You know, it's just red, because he's just praying forever.

1:03:41 Well, what is John doing? He's giving us a theology of the Eucharist, a theology of the Last Supper. Why do we only allow for Catholics in full communion with the church to receive Holy Communion? Why do we have this oppressive rule? Why are we so exclusive in the church? Is it because we're better than everybody else? Barbara laughs. She's like, of course. No, because you can't receive it unless you believe it. Unless if you believe it. But what if I believed it, but I wasn't in communion with you? Could I still receive? Father Ralph is wrong. That's what he said.

1:04:29 because holy communion is a sign of our full communion. That we believe the same things, that we share the same life, that we're one. It's a sign of it, and not only is it a sign of it, but it produces it. It makes us one. St. Paul says we're all one because we all share in the one loaf. St. Paul isn't talking about that there was a huge big loaf of bread and we all came from all over and ate from it. No, he's talking about Christ, the one loaf. We all eat of Christ and we all become one. It's a sign in the effect. It's a sign of communion, full communion. We don't want to lie with our actions. This is the reason we have this. What does John talk about? What does Jesus talk about in his high priestly prayer in John 14 through 17?

1:05:15 He says that he prays that as the father and I are one, I pray that you all will be one so that the world may believe. He talks about unity, the effecting of unity that we're going to come together. He's giving a theology of the Last Supper. And this is where Catholic theology comes from. We've been studying John's gospel, we've been studying the gospels, we see what they mean and then we apply it to the life of the church, ecclesial life. So this is kind of neat, it kind of shows how the two interplay the church's life and the scriptures. So John's gospel presupposes the three gospels and he kind of gives us explanations of those gospels. He shows us things that the first three don't talk about. He fills in the blanks.

1:06:02 It's a book of, and I'm just going to write this up here because it's so good, I mean it's so important, it's a book of magnificent, beauty. Like Luke's gospel, it's even more beautiful than Luke's gospel I would say. Magnificent beauty. And literary artistry. Literary artistry. If you guys ever go into like a scholarly library, commentaries on the gospels, the commentaries on John will far outnumber the commentaries on Luke, or the commentaries on Matthew, or the commentaries on Mark. Because John writes so well, almost like a riddle, where you're supposed to kind of figure it out.

1:06:56 There are so many little clues in his gospel. And it's so fun to do Bible study, because if you've done your Bible study, you can show this to people, and it's like, oh my gosh, wow, that's how that goes together? That's what that means? I mean, there are different themes. There's Jesus' hour. There are the seven signs. There's the correspondence with the book of Genesis, how he begins. He gives salvation as a new creation. He begins with, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and there was light and darkness, but the light overcame the darkness. What happened in the beginning of Genesis? In the beginning there was God, and he separated the light from the darkness, and put a greater light and a lesser light, one to rule over the day and one to rule over the night.

1:07:48 And then the creation narrative culminates in a marriage. What happens in John chapter 2? A wedding, the wedding feast of Cana. John is using the book of Genesis. There's so much literary artistry, so John is a lot of fun to study, and that's why he's a lot of people's favorite gospel. So John was an apostle, and I'm going to go and move on from the gospels real quick, because we have a small amount of time left. I want to look at St. Paul's 13 epistles. By the way, this week we're going over, we're just giving an overview of the New Testament, kind of talking about what it consists of, giving some insights. Next week, chapter 18 is titled The Incarnation, and we're going to deep-sea dive into scripture again, like we did last semester.

1:08:40 So this week it's an overview. How many books are in the New Testament? How many books are in the Old Testament? How many books are in the Old Testament? 39 if you're a Lutheran, and how many if you're a Catholic? 46. So how many books are in the Bible according to a Catholic? 73. How many books are in the Bible according to a Lutheran? 66. All right. Good. So we're getting some numbers down here. We're getting an overview of what scripture is like. Paul's epistle to the Romans. And I think I may have already said this before in this class, but if you ever run into somebody and they say, I read Paul's epistle to the Romans in one sitting.

1:09:32 I don't need to read it anymore, and I understand it. They are lying. They are lying through their teeth. Paul's epistle to the Romans is one of the most debated over, most complex theological works of art, a theological art that exists in the New Testament. It's incredibly complex. I've done several studies of Romans, and it's a real rollercoaster. Romans is an incredible epistle. Paul does such a wonderful job. And what I'd like to do in our parish is do maybe a four or six week, even though that won't be enough time, but we'll still do it, Bible study on Romans.

1:10:19 We have the epistles to the Corinthians. These were written to the church in Corinth. And there was an epistle between 1st and 2nd Corinthians. Actually, 2nd Corinthians should probably be 3rd Corinthians. But it was lost. So we actually have what could have been sacred scripture, but God didn't ordain it to come about in his providence, that we would have what really should have been, I guess, 1.5 Corinthians. That comes between 1st and 2nd Corinthians. But what's really cool about Corinthians is in 1st Corinthians, Paul says, send a public sinner in your midst, a particular person who's committing a sexual sin. He says, send him to Satan.

1:11:06 Let him be anathema. Paul, what are you, come on, Christian love, charity? Remember 1st Corinthians chapter 13, love is patient, love is kind, love never boasts. What are you doing? He's excommunicating the sinner, he's giving a command for excommunication so that the sinner will realize his sin and repent. What's really cool about 2nd Corinthians is what does it tell us? He repented. He came back to full communion with the church. He was a penitent and he came back. And that's what's really cool, one of the neat features I like about 1st and 2nd Corinthians. We have Galatians, we covered a lot of Galatians last semester. We looked through it about how Paul talks about how we're justified by the life of faith and not the ceremonial precepts of the Mosaic law like circumcision, washing our hands, kosher food laws, ceremonial observances.

1:12:04 The epistle to the Ephesians is about how in the Old Testament you had Jews were God's people and continued and continued throughout history as God's people and then there became an enmity between the Jews and the Gentiles. But what happened in Jesus Christ is that dividing wall of separation, which he's alluding to the wall of the temple that separated the Jew from the Gentile, has been broken down by the cross. And so now both Jew and Gentile can enter the family of God on the same terms. And this is the epistle to the Ephesians. By the way, Ephesians like 1 through 14 is one long sentence. If you ever turn to the beginning of Ephesians, it just continues.

1:12:51 There's no stop. It's just a long run-on sentence. So after that we have Philippians. Philippians is one of the captivity epistles. probably wrote three epistles when he was in captivity. These three epistles, when Paul was in prison, he wrote Ephesus. I mean, not Ephesus. Ephesians. Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. Or Philemon. Those four are called the captivity epistles. You have his two epistles to the Thessalonians. A bunch of people are saying that the second coming of Christ has already happened. Paul's like, no, it hasn't. You all would know if it happened.

1:13:40 That's great. We have his epistles to Timothy, who he's grooming as a young bishop in the church. First and second Timothy talk a lot about ecclesial ministry, about the bishops. Talks about how the church is the pillar and foundation of truth in first Timothy 3.15. He says to Timothy, do not neglect the gift you have which was conferred on you through the prophetic word with the imposition of hands of the presbyterate. He's talking about the sacrament of holy orders given by the laying on of hands. Today we still have that. The bishops lay their hands on the candidates to the ministerial priesthood, the presbyterate, and that's how they're ordained. The gift of the Holy Spirit was given on them.

1:14:28 And then he says to Timothy, later on in the same epistle, do not lay hands too readily on anyone. Why? Because that's where the gift of holy orders is given. So don't just ordain anybody. We don't want bad clergy. And then we have his epistle to Titus, another young bishop in the church. He says, verse 5 of chapter 1, for this reason I left you in Crete so that you might set right what remains to be done, and appoint presbyters in every town. Again, we're talking about the ministry of the church, how Titus is a bishop. He says in verse 15 of chapter 2, say these things, exhort and correct with all authority. There's the authority of the bishopric. He says in verse 10 of chapter 3, after a first and second warning, break off contact with a heretic.

1:15:20 The bishops have the authority to excommunicate. That's how Paul was able to do what he did in 1 Corinthians. He talks about baptism in chapter 3, verse 5. He talks about how we're saved not because of any righteous deeds we had done, but he saved us through the bath of rebirth. It could be translated as the bath of regeneration or the bath of recreation. Actually, the Greek is poly genesis. Beginning. New beginning. He talks about the bath of new beginning. He saved us through the bath of new beginning. He's talking about baptism and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he richly poured out on us. He talks about being justified by grace that comes through baptism. We have the epistle of Philemon, where we have a runaway slave who converted to Christianity after he ran away.

1:16:13 Paul says, return to your master and take this letter with you. Paul exhorts the master to receive him as a brother in Christ and not to punish him too severely. Not even to punish him, but to receive him as a brother. Then we have the epistle to the Hebrews, which we've already talked about. We have James. Paul continually says, we're not saved by works. Some people think that that means being moral. Some people can be immoral, right? Because we're not saved by our good works. Paul meant ceremonial observances, as opposed to the life of faith. James says, literally, that we are justified by works. He's not talking about just any kind of works, like good people are justified. No, he's talking about faith works, basically, is his premise.

1:17:02 Faith cannot be separated from good works. Faith demonstrates itself through works. We have 1 and 2 Peter, which are most probably written by St. Peter the Apostle. We have the three epistles of John, which are very, the first one is also amazing. The first epistle of John has the same themes as the gospel of John. The first epistle of John is one of my favorite epistles of the entire New Testament. If you ever want to realize your own dignity as a Christian, you want to bask in the warmth of God's grace, and you want to reflect upon what you've been made in baptism, and how God looks upon you as a child of God, read 1 John. 1 John is all about divine sonship. And then we have the epistle of Jude, which is incredibly short, and talks about false teachers.

1:17:50 Then we have the book of Revelation, which again talks about the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman legions under Titus Flavius Vespasianus, and talks about the birth of the church, after that, the spreading of the church, and then the final coming of Christ. And then what is the final word of the Bible? The final word of the Bible? The final word of the Bible. No, not the end. How do we end our prayers? Amen. That's how Revelation ends. Amen. He says, come Lord Jesus. Amen. Okay, let us pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, thank you so much for your inspired word, for this year of the word, for giving us the gift of literacy in the printing press, and to be able to sit at home over a cup of coffee, and have you speak to us, not that we hear your word, not that you speak to us audibly, but that you have written a letter to us, and that we

1:18:55 may read it freely without persecution. We thank you for this. Thank you for these wonderful epistles, which inspire our faith and renew us in your love. Please teach us how to read scripture, how to allow it to energize us, to refresh us, to edify us, to build us up. We give you praise and thanks, and we glorify you. We ask that your will would be done in our lives. Teach us in the scriptures how to do that will, and what that will is. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.