Hi again, everyone. Thanks so much for your support
of the Logical Bible Study Ministry.
This is going to be another bonus episode where we take a
look at some questions and try and provide some responses to
those questions that have come in from you guys as the
listeners. Thank you so much for sending in
your questions. I can't always get to all of
them straight away, but I do try and respond to as many of them
as possible. And one of the main ways I do
that is through these bonus episodes that we try and do
occasionally. So thank you again so much for
your support of the ministry. I'm so glad to hear from many of
you about how God is using these episodes to deepen your
understanding of scripture and to bring him into a deeper
relationship with him. So let's have a look at this
question here from Georgette. The Sermon on the Mount says the
Kingdom of heaven will begin with Jesus being on the earth,
right? Then in other places it's clear
that the only way to enter the Kingdom of heaven is through
Jesus. So what happens to people who
lived and died before Jesus came or didn't hear from Jesus?
Now I'll stop there. The church actually has fairly
clear teaching on this since the time of Vatican 2, and you can
find this in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well.
It's, it's quite a common question what how can someone
enter the Kingdom of heaven if they don't have some sort of
knowledge of or relationship with Christ?
And the way you frame it, Georgette is a really
interesting way, which is Jesus himself is so clear that he
himself is the manifestation of the Kingdom of heaven, as he
says in the Sermon on the Mount. So how does that work for people
who don't know Jesus or, or lived and died before Jesus
came, so they didn't have an opportunity to hear from Jesus?
The basic answer the church gives us is that it is possible
for non Christians to make it into heaven.
And the way that would work is God would judge people based on
what they did know or and what they did with that knowledge.
Or sometimes it's phrased as how did they respond to the life
that they did have. Certainly people prior to the
time of Christ had information about God that they could
respond to. And indeed, people after the
time of Christ have information about God in working in their
hearts that they can respond to, whether or not they know Jesus.
And Vatican 2 did make this fairly clear, so I'll read some
paragraphs from the catechism and you can go a bit deeper on
this if you'd like to. Paragraph 847.
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ in
his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart
and moved by grace, try in their actions to do His will as they
know it. Through the dictates of their
conscience, these two may achieve eternal salvation.
The next paragraph, 848, goes on to talk about how we don't know
exactly how God would bring these people to salvation, given
that the primary way salvation happens is through faith in
Jesus and the sacraments. So we don't know exactly how it
will work outside those things. But the Catechism does affirm
that God can absolutely do that because he's not bound to the
sacraments. Now Georgette goes on.
She says, My hypothesis is God has a mysterious effect on the
nature of time. So perhaps during the strange
moment between the end of life as we know it and the beginning
of the Kingdom and or the beginning of heaven, God
stretches that second out to accommodate all the
conversations, ponderings and questions necessary and then
allows them to make up their mind.
Now that's an interesting hypothesis, Georgia, this idea
that straight after the moment of death, God is able to do some
things with time and then sort of give them some more
information to then make a decision at that point.
That would not be compatible with church teaching.
That the church's teaching is basically that you don't get a
second chance after your death. The state that your soul was in
at the time of your death, that state is permanently fixed
straight after death. So there's no, you can't change
your mind after death, even in the second, as you describe it
here, the second or the microsecond in between someone's
death and their judgement there is it's not possible for them to
make a new decision. It's what this decisions the
person made prior to their death, that's what determines
their judgement. So although your hypothesis is
really good in the sense that God can do some interesting
things with time, probably he can make the effects of prayer
transcend into the past and the future and all sorts of things
like that. So I hope that brings clarity to
your question, Georgette. It is a great question and one
that a lot of people ask. So the next question is from
Rebecca. It's about the sacrament of
confession. As a recent Catholic, my
transforming Protestant mind can't help but ask the question.
And by the way, it's I can totally relate to that.
I, I myself had a, a time when I was Protestant and then as when
I was considering coming back to the Catholic Church, I had a lot
of questions. And sometimes you still kind of
operate out of this particular way of thinking.
That's like a Protestant mindset where you you want definitive
answers to everything. And I totally get all that.
So she asks, did did Jesus mean the disciples, just the
disciples? Or was the phrase the power to
forgive sins meant for all Christians?
So this is at the end of towards the end of John's Gospel when
Jesus breathes on the apostles and says receive the Holy
Spirit. Whatever sins you forgive are
forgiven and whatever sins you retain are retained.
So she's asking what could this be meant for all Christians?
The basic answer to that would be no.
And by the way, the website Catholic Answers has some really
good information about the word, the Greek words that are used
here and how this relates to Sacramento theology.
A couple of things point us in the direction of thinking that
this was just for the apostles and their successes.
Key thing there would be Jesus breathes on them.
This is a very direct supernatural thing where he's
almost imparting a a special power to them.
We know that the apostles appointed successes, and that
these successes to the apostles were the bishops who had
particular authority and particular abilities to do
things in the Church that other Christians didn't have.
It's reasonable to think that the power to forgive sins is one
of those things that was given just to the apostles, just to be
passed on to their successors. Unlike something in the Sermon
on the Mount where Jesus chooses it to be quite a public
instructions to all of those who are present.
This is one of these private things where, and he does this a
lot after his death. These are private things he just
wants to give to his apostles for them to use as leaders of
the church. So it's not that the it's not
the case that the power to forgive sins is given to all
Christians. It's actually given to a select
group, which is then passed on to the bishops, and then the
bishops can then choose to share that power with other ordained
people, which is what they'd we do in the Catholic Church with
priests, the power to forgive sins is primarily held by the
Bishop, and that is then shared with the priests.
So I know that's only half an answer, but I hope it sort of
points you in that or gives you some hints as to how we get to
that answer just by studying the text itself.
But again, I want to reinforce, have a look at Catholic answers
because that might answer your question in a more direct,
specific way. She goes on to say I'm so
grateful to this ministry as it has helped me understand the
reading of the Bible from a Catholic lens, one I was never
taught even after attending a Christian college and taking
Bible courses. Thank you so much for those kind
comments, Rebecca, and I pray that this ministry will continue
to be helpful to you. Another question here from
Georgette. Again, thank you for sending in
your questions. They're always very thoughtful.
She is commenting on the words of Jesus, where Jesus says some
of you will not taste death until all of these things take
place. And I did mention in in the
resources associated with that verse, and it does appear across
the synoptic gospels. I did say that there's multiple
ways of interpreting what's Jesus referring to.
And he says some of you here will not taste death.
I said that a good case can be made that that's referring to
the middle coming in 70 AD because some of Jesus disciples
will still be alive at 70 AD. And it certainly fits with the
context of what Jesus is saying there.
It could also refer to the events associated with his death
and resurrection because certainly some theological, a
lot of theological significance and eschatological significance
is attached to that. But her question is, I had
initially interpreted that portion as if it meant something
like this. Some of these people here will
not taste death before entering the Kingdom means some will
ascend to heaven in their earthly bodies like Moses and
Elijah. You listeners, you'll probably
know that Moses and Elijah, or we'll take Elijah as an example,
Elijah did not die and he went straight to heaven in his
earthly body. So Georgette's wondering, could
that be what Jesus is saying? Well, I don't think it's what
Jesus is saying because, well, let's look again at what Jesus
says here, specifically Matthew chapter 16, verses 27 to 28.
The Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of
his Father, and then he'll repay each person according to what he
has done. Truly, I say to you, there are
some standing here who will not taste death until they see the
Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.
So the key elements here, there's some people that Jesus
is speaking to in his crowd who will not die before they see the
Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.
That could certainly apply to Jesus.
Death or resurrection could apply to some who is still alive
at 70 AD. But Georgette's wondering, could
that refer to some people there who simply didn't die and just
were ascended straight to heaven?
We don't have any record of that happening.
That's the key problem with this hypothesis.
We don't have any record from the Bible or church tradition
that even the apostles were taken straight up to heaven
without tasting death. They did, in fact, all die
before ascending into heaven, as far as we know.
So that would not be a good way of explaining what he meant
there. But Georgette is doing really
well to wrestle with this verse and to think about different
ways of understanding it. And that's exactly what we
should do as Catholics. She goes on to ask some other
questions about how can we get more information about 70 AD in
the middle coming. And this is a very common
question that I receive because there are quite a few places in
the Gospels where Jesus talks about events that seem to be
fulfilled in AD 70 with the destruction of the temple after
the first Jewish Roman War. And a lot of people have never
heard this information before. So once again, the key resource
that I use from a theological perspective, from a biblical
studies perspective in particular, that helps give you
some information about AD 70, a good book by a Catholic scholar
would be Rapture, End Times Error That leaves the Bible
behind. That's what it's called by David
Currie. It goes into what was this
Jewish Roman war that we're fairly ignorant of and how are
various parts of the New Testament, including Revelation,
including Daniel as well in the Old Testament and including the
Gospels, how are they all fulfilled quite specifically in
AD 70? So I would encourage you to look
at that book once again, you don't have to accept all of the
conclusions there because there is no official Catholic teaching
on how exactly Jesus prophecies, particularly in the Olivet
Discourse, are fulfilled. But I do think a good case is
made there in that book, if you want to take a look at it.
I've got a question here from Robert, who's asking about a
bonus episode. And these bonus episodes are
parts of the gospels that are never read at Mass.
These are released to Patreon supporters of the ministry.
So if you've ever wanted to hear parts of the gospels that you
don't get to hear as part of the regular podcast because they're
not covered in Mass, and that is about 20 or maybe even 25% of
the gospels that fits into that category.
So he's asking about the Luke Chapter 9, verses 37 to 43, a
bonus episode which is where Jesus casts the demon out of the
boy. It's the one where the dad asks
on behalf of his son, to help cast the demon out of the boy.
Now, we do cover Matthew and Mark's versions of this as part
of the regular podcast, but Luke's version of that story is
never included in The Lectionary.
So Robert's question is simply, why doesn't the Catholic Church
include Luke's version of this story?
The basic reason is when the Lectionary publishes sat down to
work out what Gospel readings are we going to include across
the liturgical year, they only have a certain number of
weekdays to work with, and they can't quite fit all of all the
sections of all four Gospels in reasonable chunks across the
entire weekday cycle. So there are some parts that
have to leave out when it comes to Luke's Gospel.
Remember that across the liturgical year.
Across the weekday cycle of the liturgical year, Mark's Gospel
is read first, then Matthew, and then Luke.
So the idea seems to be from the perspective of the lectionary
publishers, by the time they get to Luke, they only really want
to include hard hitting ones that are not that haven't
already been included from Mark and Matthew's Gospel earlier in
the in the liturgical year, particularly stories that are
included across all three gospels.
The lectionary publishers felt that it's not necessary to to
have those, to have that story read three times in a liturgical
cycle. So often you'll find there's
parts of Luke's Gospel that are doubled up in Matthew and Mark
that the that the lectionary publishers have said it's not
necessary to include this and instead just focus on the parts
of Luke that haven't already been covered in Matthew and
Mark. I hope that makes sense.
And it's a very good question. There's a question here from Peg
about an Old Testament passage, and I'll just answer this one
briefly. She says, thanks so much for
this wonderful opportunity to learn more about Scripture.
Who do you think the Scripture is referring to in Deuteronomy
28 when it mentions the foreigners?
So the passage that Peg Peg is mentioning here is Deuteronomy
28 verses 43 to 45, which says the foreigners who reside among
you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink
lower and lower and it goes on from there.
Now always think about the context.
This is in context where Moses is warning about these are
curses basically of what will happen to the Israelites in the
years following the wilderness wanderings if they are not
obedient to God. And one of the curses is the
foreigners will rise higher, higher than the Jews in their
status, and eventually they'll basically become slaves of these
foreigners. The basic answer is, who are the
foreigners? It's the nations surrounding
Israel. You'll know that for most of
Israel's history, they are surrounded by various different
people groups. The blessings, on the other
hand, if you look at Deuteronomy 28, the blessings are that if
they're Jews of faith, what it called, they'll become basically
the greatest of people and other foreigners will serve them.
But here it's flipped on its head.
I hope that gives you a good basic answer to that question
from the Old Testament. And we do hope to do some
resources on the Old Testament eventually as part of the
ministry. We've got a good question here
from Vivian who wants to know about the rich young ruler,
particularly in Matthew's version.
In Matthew chapter 19 she says thank you for this enlightening
exegesis. I find it hard to understand
though, that there could be a person in the New Testament who
has kept God's commandments since his youth.
Does the verse mean that this young man has not violated or
sinned against any of the commandments literally since his
youth? This is something we discussed
in the exegesis. Where is it really true that
this man has kept all the commandments since his youth?
In that episode I discussed that it's possible that he's just
deceiving himself where he thinks he's kept the
commandments, but he hasn't. But that's not what Jesus says
in response. Jesus seems to be it doesn't
seem to deny what the young man says.
He seems to think it's OK for the man to think that he's kept
all the commandments. So I think the best way to
interpret this is, yes, the man has probably, through very good
teaching, very good raising from his parents, taken the
commandments of God seriously and has followed them.
Now, from the perspective of Catholic theology, generally,
theologians would say it is possible to avoid mortal sin
through faithful obedience to God's law, even if one isn't a
Christian. However, it's not possible to
avoid venial sin unless there's a very special grace given from
God. So generally we could, and this
is just hypothesizing, but we could say it's possible for some
people to genuinely try and follow God as best they can,
even if they don't have the fullest revelation of Jesus, and
it's possible for them to avoid mortal sin.
This man seems to be an example of that.
That will be my interpretation of it.
This man has kept all of the commandments since his youth.
Now, of course, Jesus goes on to say, well, you've met the basic
commandments, basic requirements of the commandments, but there
is more. You need to come and follow me.
And in Catholic moral theology, that's called the sequela
Christi. True perfection means following
Christ, not just doing the bare minimum of the commandments.
I hope that gives you an answer to, Yeah, a really interesting
question in moral theology. So Kathy has submitted a
question on Patreon. And Kathy, thank you so much for
your support of the ministry. She says, I've heard your
exegesis about the Old Testament text concerning divorce and
Jesus words in relation to that. And you would know that that's
in Matthew 19. It's also in Mark's Gospel as
well, where Jesus basically talks about how divorce is not
part of God's plan. So Kathy says, where does
Catholic annulment fit into this?
So annulment or declaration of nullity is the correct
terminology in Catholic theology is a recognition that a marriage
never really existed in the 1st place.
So it's not just what some people call a Catholic version
of divorce. Catholics don't believe that
divorce is ever at least a real divorce is never really
possible. Civil divorce in terms of legal
government divorce is certainly possible, but from a Catholic
perspective, actual divorce is totally contrary to God's will.
So Catholic annulment is not a divorce, it's actually a
recognition that there never was a marriage existing in the 1st
place. You can dive into some resources
on Canon law to get more specifics about that, but I hope
that gives you a basic answer to the question.
The Catechism in its section on the sacrament of marriage also
goes into this in a bit of detail too.
Lisa has a really good question here.
She says thank you for all you're doing, but I'm confused
by something. Jesus was dead for three days
and three nights. He was crucified on Friday and
rose again on Sunday, fulfilling the prophecy he spoke about
himself. For as Jonah was three days and
three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man
will be 3 days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
And that's from Matthew chapter 12, verse 40.
But if you if he was crucified on Friday and rose on Sunday,
that's only two nights. So that's a really good question
from Lisa. This is something we actually do
address in that episode from Matthew chapter 12, verse 40.
Because if you read this from a Western lens, 3 days and three
nights means essentially 4 days. That's that's how we count days
from a Western perspective. But from a 1st century Jewish
perspective, they considered parts of days to count as a day
so you can actually fit. Three days and three nights
across Good Friday and Easter Sunday to Easter Sunday in the
Jewish way of thinking about things in terms of parts of
days, particularly when you're also factor in that for the
Jewish perspective, their day started at sundown.
So all of that. Catholic biblical scholars have
shown this quite clearly that it does still meet the requirement
of three days and three nights. So Catholic Answers has a quick
page called How to Count 3 days. There's some other websites that
go into this as well. The biblical scholar RT France
says this three days and three nights was a Jewish idiom to a
period covering only two nights. And that's in his commentary on
the Gospel of Matthew. So this has been fairly well
answered and I hope that gives you a good answer to that
question. Lisa, thank you for sending it
in. Quick question here from Nikki.
She wants to know is there a study Bible that I recommend?
This is something that I talk about in the behind the scenes
episode on Patreon. So if you are a supporter at any
level on Patreon, there is a behind the scenes episode where
I talk about myself, the history of the ministry, the way I go
about studying scripture and doing these exegesis episodes.
So the a good brief study Bible or a not in depth one is the
Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. You'll hear many Catholic
websites talking about this this Bible, and it is very good.
It doesn't always give you notes for every single verse, so it's
not quite at the level of detail that we do in this podcast, but
it's a very good study Bible that gives you most of what you
need to know to understand the context of most parts of the
gospels and Scripture. And if you want to go a bit
further, the main verse by verse commentary that I would
recommend is it's called the Catholic Commentary on on Sacred
Scripture by Baker Academic Publishing, which has a volume,
a verse by verse commentary volume for every single book of
the New Testament. And I would definitely recommend
that too. I hope that helps.
Nikki, We have a question here from Vanessa.
She says I'm Portuguese and Catholic.
I've been listening to your podcast and I love it.
Thank you so much for your initiative and dedication to
this project. It truly draws me closer to
Jesus. Thank you for that wonderful
feedback, Vanessa. She says I have one question or
doubt about the gifts given to the early church.
She's talking here about gifts of healing and speaking in
tongues. You mentioned in your exegesis
that scholars seem to agree that some gifts, like the miracles
were given especially to the early church.
But whenever I have contact with the charismatic movement, I can
witness the gifts that the book of Acts describes or the Gospel
of Mark. Mark chapter 16 verse 17 talks
about this. When it is written, these signs
will accompany those who believe.
Couldn't it also be about us? This is something that I do
address in these exegesis episodes and we'll go into more
detail in the book of Acts. When we look at our exegesis on
Acts, basically you're right. The the middle ground position
that I would propose here is that God gave the charismatic
gifts for the Apostolic period in a very concentrated specific
way where quite a lot of Christians were able to use
these gifts as a way of getting the church movement off the
ground. This is what God wanted.
He wanted to have very strong presence of these spiritual
gifts in the early church. The spiritual gifts continue
today in the church, but perhaps not at the same intensity.
So that would be the way that I would describe that where the
spiritual gifts are indeed available to the church today.
And that's what you would, you seem to be encountering in the
charismatic movement, but perhaps with a different focus,
maybe with a different purpose. A lot more has been written
about this. You'll hear Catholic scholars
having different opinions about this.
But I hope that that sort of middle ground position helps you
make sense of the biblical texts, keeping in mind that they
were written, particularly that phrase from Matthew, chapter 16,
verse 17 was written primarily for the apostles and those in
the early generations. But it also, as you say, does
apply to all Christians as well. So I hope that gives you a good
answer, Vanessa. So we'll leave it there for
today for our Q&A episode. We've got quite a few more
questions to get through and we'll do more of these bonus Q&A
episodes. I love hearing from you.
Please keep sending your questions in and I'll get to
them. It may not be straight away, but
we will. I will respond to them.
Keep an ear out for other bonus episodes in the future.
And we're going to talk about some other projects that the
ministry is going to work on as well.
There's more good things coming from Logical Bible Study.
And thank you so much for those of you who listen to this
ministry and tell other people about it.
That does make a massive difference.
I want to keep encouraging you to leave reviews on Apple
Podcasts and other platforms that you can use to leave
reviews and if you can support the ministry as well.
And there'll be a link to that in the episode description.
Thanks once again. I hope these audio resources
continue to help you in your journey drawing closer to God.
And we'll continue with the regular podcast episodes
tomorrow.