Hi everyone, welcome to this bonus episode of the Daily
Gospel Exegesis podcast. So in today's episode.
Like we do sometimes, we. Want to go through some feedback
that I've received here at the Ministry and once again the
point of this. Is really to?
Show you what can happen when people have the tools to
understand the Word of God and to study the Word of God in more
depth. The Word of God we believe is
Catholics is alive and active, and it has amazing results when
people are willing to hear the Word of God explained faithfully
and in a more more than a superficial way.
Amazing stuff happens which you may not think is the case.
Sometimes people are discouraged from doing serious academic
Bible study because they're afraid that it might make things
less spiritual or or make them more likely to doubt the faith.
But I've found here time and time again that the opposite is
the case. When people are able to hear the
Word of God explained and they're given tools to
understand the Word of God in a deeper way themselves, amazing
stuff happens. So you'll hear a few stories
from people today who've written into the ministry in recent
months. And thank you so much to all of
those who do reach out to the ministry with your stories and
your feedback. I do read each one of them.
We don't always have time to cover all of them in these bonus
episodes, but again, I want to encourage each of you who are
listening, use the skills that God has given you to serve the
people of God. That's what I'm trying to do
with this podcast. And as you can see, God has
taken the small grain that I'm able to offer and he's made it
grow into amazing things that has touched many people's lives.
And that's what we're all called to do as Catholics.
So firstly, this first bit of feedback is from Maricella, she
says as a cradle. Catholic.
I'm amazed as to how much I'm learning now in my older years.
Your work is amazing and changing my life into a true
believer and follower of Christ our Lord.
The explanations are clear and thought provoking for me to
reflect on my daily life. So thank.
You so much Maricela, and isn't that amazing?
She has been a cradle Catholic, but she's now in her older years
and now she's just hearing the word of God explained in this
way for the first time. And as she says, it's changing
her into a true believer and follower of Christ.
That is amazing. And that is the ultimate purpose
of this podcast. It's to bring people into a
deeper relationship with Christ. The next bit of feedback I want
to share with you is an interesting comment that I've
received here on Patreon. And this is one of these ones
where sometimes listeners will write in with a different
interpretation from what I've often in one of the episodes.
And it makes me think a bit more and dig a dig a bit more because
this particular one I hadn't heard before.
So Bonnie wrote in to talk about the line Jesus says on the
cross, Eli, Eli Lama Sabachthani, which is typically
in most translations. It's then give the translation
is given by the gospel authors as my God, my God, why have you
forsaken me so? Bonnie says the Aramaic
translation via Doctor Neil Douglas Klotz is my God, my God.
For this I was spared. Therefore, Jesus was not
expressing despair and doubt because he knew that he had not
been forsaken by the Father. Rather, he was emphasizing what
he knew, that he came into the world to do, the will of the
Father, which was to give his own life in reparation for the
sin of the world, the world which gods so loved.
Jesus understood and accepted his destiny, and when he cried
out to the Father, he was punctuating his yes, his Fiat,
his surrender to the will of the Father.
In no conceivable circumstance would God forsake or abandoned
his beloved Son. Ancient Semitic languages such
as Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic proved challenging to later
scholars or scribes who attempted to translate Jesus
Aramaic into Greek. Thank you logical Bible study.
I listen to your exegesis every day now.
This is one of these ones where if you're a listener and you're
a faithful Catholic and you've been studying the word of God
for a while, hopefully as I was reading that out, you should be
starting to formulate how you might respond to a claim like
this, that the, the translation should be my God, my God.
For this I was spared. The first thing to say is
sometimes when you hear these, these cool claims, you will
sometimes be tempted to think, oh, that's really cool, That's
amazing. And you'd be tempted to think
some new discovery has been made that that we should accept.
But when you dig a bit deeper, you'll discover that this is
really not a well regarded translation.
So firstly, think about what's the motivation for translating
My God, My God For this I was spared rather than my God, My
God, why has thou forsaken me? What's the motive for
translating Eli, Eli Lama Sobakhtani that way?
Well, it's probably theological. It's probably because the
translator doesn't like the implication that Jesus is saying
God has abandoned him and they're trying to find another
way of translating the text which which avoids that.
And that's exactly what Bonnie hints at in this comment here.
So she says here that the reason that we've that scholars have
translated it wrong for all these years is because ancient
Semitic languages proved challenging to later scholars or
scribes who attempted to translate Jesus Aramaic into
Greek. Now the problem with that is
what are the Gospels? The Gospels are written in Greek
and occasionally what they do is they record the Jesus original
words in Aramaic, particularly when they think Jesus says
something really important. They include the original
Aramaic and then they include a translation into Greek.
Now she says here later translators, but that in itself
is not correct. It's not later translators or
scribes. It's the actual Gospel authors
themselves who are doing the translation from Aramaic into
Greek. So what we'd have to say is that
the Gospel authors themselves were struggling to translate the
Aramaic. That's an interesting claim, but
as I dug a bit deeper into this, I discovered that this is not a
well regarded translation. Virtually no scholar supports
this translation into My God, My God.
For this I was spared. There's really only a couple
that have suggested that. And in fact, this translation
from Doctor Neil is not a direct translation from the Aramaic.
It's a translation from Syriac, which is a related language, but
it's not the language that Jesus spoke.
So you can see that this translation is a little bit far
fetched. This is the kind of feedback I
really enjoy interacting with because it's an opportunity to
teach the audience how to evaluate claims like this, the
kind of tools we can use when we hear a claim that may not be
exactly right, but it but it has some appeal to it.
And I always enjoy doing things like this.
So whenever you have an alternate translation that I
haven't offered as part of the podcast and you think there
might be something to it, please feel free to write in and then
we can discuss it in one of these episodes here.
We've got a brief comment here from I Am Key on Patreon.
They say I cannot tell you how much I've learned through your
podcast. I cannot get enough.
And I tell everyone about the exegesis.
Every Catholic needs this. Well, thank you so much for that
wonderful feedback. I'm glad to hear that you were
benefiting from it. Deb wrote in to say the exegesis
is on my daily routine through Hello.
I learned so much and really look forward to listening every
day. Thank you for your tremendous
effort to bring context to the Gospel.
Thanks again, Deb, and I'm glad that this is one of the many
resources that you're using as part of your morning routine.
By the way, Hello has a really cool feature where you can sort
of add a group of shows that you like and turn it into a routine.
So hello, the, the app will actually present you this series
of your favorite shows in whatever order you like as part
of a routine. It's well worth checking out on
the Hello app. Chris, a supporter on Patreon
says I've been listening for about a year.
I've learned so much and continue to learn.
My kids listen to it with me while we drive to school.
Chris, that is fantastic to hear that you and your kids are doing
this as something together and that you are allowing your your
kids to learn the Catholic faith in this deeper way.
Thanks so much for writing in, Chris.
We've got this amazing comment that's been left here on Apple
Podcasts from N Clark. This podcast has made me look
forward to my mornings. I've been a Catholic since birth
and even attended Catholic school many years ago, but I've
learned more in the few months I've been listening to this
podcast each morning. In fact, it's inspired me to
look into getting another degree in theology.
Your work is such a blessing. That is fantastic to hear and
thank you so much for leaving that five star review on Apple
Podcasts. I definitely would encourage you
to do some theology study. I've done quite a bit myself and
there's always new things that you can learn by doing formal
theology study and I'm glad this podcast has been part of your
journey. We've got a comment here from
Jeremiah on Apple Podcasts who says this is the best
examinations of the Gospels of Jesus Christ.
They say I wish I could give it seven stars.
The presenter takes a deep dive into the daily Gospel readings
of the Catholic Church by giving a word for word exegesis of the
literal meaning of the text. It's as if he takes our 21st
century's eyes and gives us 1st century reading glasses to
examine the Gospels with. He does a very thorough job of
giving all sides viewpoints where translations or scholarly
debates differ. If you're searching for the
truth, you can find it right here. 20 to 30 minutes every
day. This is the best examination of
the Gospels of Jesus I have found.
Wow. Well thank you so much for that
great review Jeremiah. I love that analogy have of the
podcast helps people have 1st century glasses to understand
the the gospels in their original context.
That is one of the goals of the podcast.
And by the way, if you've been listening to this podcast for a
while, one of the best ways you can support the ministry is by
leaving a review on Apple Podcasts.
Leave a five star review or whatever, however many stars you
think it's worth, and a comment so that people who are
interested in exploring the Gospels but don't know where to
start, they might encounter this podcast through a search on
Apple Podcasts and they might be able to scroll to your comment
to see if it's the kind of podcast that they do want to
give a listen to. And often the best feedback or
the best way to promote the podcast is people's honest
stories about how they're benefiting from the podcast.
So please consider leaving a positive review on whatever
platform you're listening on. It really does make a
difference. One more bit of feedback from
Apple Podcasts from Brainy Baby. I initially heard this podcast
on radio, Radio Maria Australia and now listen daily on Apple
Podcasts. May God continue to bless this
ministry. It is truly one-of-a-kind and
very much needed for both Christians and non Christians.
Thank you very much for all that you do.
Thank you so much for that comment.
And Radio Maria Australia is a radio channel in Australia.
It's a little bit like EWTN in the USA where has a whole lot of
Catholic podcasts that it gets out into the airwaves in the
eastern part of Australia. And if you're an Australian
listener, you should be able to get access to the Radio Maria
radio channel and it's also on their website as well.
So if you are interested in radio channels, this might be
one that's worth checking out in Australia.
The next bit of feedback I want to share, and this is amazing
feedback, so I want to share this entire e-mail in full.
It's from Audrey, my name is Audrey.
I just wanted to express my gratitude for your podcast.
I found it just over a year ago after the Bible in a year and
have been listening to it daily ever since.
As a medical student, free time doesn't exist, so I'm grateful
for an audio program that has already done the research and
background for me so that I have no excuse to let my faith
studies slip. I'm so grateful that I can start
every single day with the Word of God and have immediate
explanations line by line. The real incredible blessing is
the impact your podcast has had on my family.
I introduced your work to my parents, and they've similarly
been listening daily. My father is a Lutheran, and
he's one of the biggest supporters of your work.
In fact, when I'm home, he reminds me to do our daily
exegesis. When I'm at school, they listen
faithfully, too. And just the other day, at the
end of the Bread of Life discourse, he expressed to my
mum and I how he feels he never understood the true nature of
the Eucharist and Christ's presence.
He's now the most Catholic Lutheran you could meet.
He even said how the links you made to the Catechism are the
first times he's heard the Catechism and heartily agrees
with almost every teaching lead laid forth.
It's thanks to your biblical scholarship and clear and
truthful presentation of the exegesis that has opened his
heart and squashed misunderstandings.
My mum's relief and shock after 25 years of marriage disagreeing
over these issues was an extra blessing to see.
Your podcast has been a blessing to my family and I'm certain for
many others. I hope God continues to use your
work to help more than just Catholics to better learn the
faith and grow in our walk with the Lord.
Thank you for all the effort and care you put into this intensive
project. We can see and hear the quality
and dedication you have. Audrey, thank you so much for
that wonderful feedback. This is amazing to hear how the
podcast is help. Well, firstly, it's helping you
have good conversations with your parents about the faith,
but also your dad who's a Lutheran.
This podcast is helping him understand Catholic teachings
for the very first time. I love how you talked about the
bread of life discourse. Indeed, I've found that the
Bread of life discourse for a lot of Catholics, it's something
they know about. They know that it talks about
the Eucharist, but very rarely do we get the opportunity to dig
into it line by line. And here your feedback shows
that when we do are willing to do these studies, it really does
support the Catholic position and it helps non Catholics
understand things and be willing to to be more open to the
Catholic faith. Often you'll hear this idea that
Catholics don't really do Bible studies.
That's a Protestant thing and sometimes that's quite true.
But hopefully feedback like this encourages you that when we are
willing to do true Catholic Bible studies, that actually
helps other Christians see that we're serious about the Bible
and that we do have biblical support for our positions.
So I'd encourage all of you as listeners to consider getting
involved in a local Bible study or starting one if there's not
one in your local area. Small group Bible studies
continue to make a massive difference in the Catholic
Church, but there needs to be more of us who are willing to
make these things happen. So thank you so much for that
wonderful feedback, Audrey. The next bit of feedback here is
from John on Patreon. He says, I think you're doing an
incredible job through your podcast and exegesis to help
people deepen their faith. I hope your ministry is so
successful that you're eventually able to exegesis all
of the New Testament letters and books and then the Old Testament
too. Thanks so much, John.
That is the plan. If we are able to keep the
ministry going, I would love to be able to continue to do other
books of the New Testament. We're currently working on the
book of. Acts.
So there will be some exegesis episodes for the Book of Acts
coming out very soon. The response from people to the
exegesis episodes of the Gospels has been really popular and
positive. So that's been a great blessing
and encouragement to keep doing the rest of the New Testament
using this same format and style.
So if you've been a supporter of the ministry for a while, keep
an eye out for some announcements in the coming
months about how you can get access to an exegesis of the
book of Acts. And then if all goes well with
the ministry, we'll then be able to move on to Paul's letters and
other books of the New Testament.
So there's some exciting things in the pipeline, God willing.
And it's you guys as the listeners who make that
possible, particularly those who are able to financially support
the ministry through the Patreon page.
And if you're interested in supporting the ministry in that
way, there's a link in the episode description.
Next, we've got some feedback here from Steve.
He says I've been enjoying your podcast very much.
I have really learned a lot and it has become part of my daily
routine since early in the year. I especially enjoy your approach
and flow of the podcast. That starts with understanding
and reflecting on the context of the passage before digging in,
but then also how the other gospels treat the same story.
I think this allows us to get a more comprehensive picture and
helps me learn more. Thanks so much for that
feedback, Steve. And yeah, what I often want to
do in this podcast is when we're looking at a particular passage
from one of the gospels, it's always worth cross checking the
other gospels to see if they add in information that's not
present in the passage that we're currently looking at.
Because often that helps fill out the scene and help
understand why particular things play out the way they do.
And that's actually a really important part of studying the
Gospels is being aware that each of the gospel authors focuses on
different aspects of often what is the same situation.
Next, we've got a brief comment here from Susan, who's a Patreon
supporter. She says, I happened upon this
show within the Hello app. I learned so much from it.
The historical and literal commentary helps me to
understand why Jesus said the things he did, which at times
make no sense to me. I chose to support the ministry
because it is in my daily routine.
So thank you so much for your support, Susan.
Your support really does make a difference to the ministry and
indeed, one of the purposes of this podcast is to help you
understand why Jesus said things the way he did say it.
Next, I want to share some feedback that's coming from
Renee and he's sort of offering a interesting spiritual
interpretation based. On what he heard.
From the literal sense in one of the podcast episodes here, which
I think is worth sharing because often listeners to this podcast
will have a sense and make connections with other things in
the Bible that I'm not necessarily always aware of or
able to bring out in the podcast.
So I think this one's worth sharing.
I've been following your program at hello for quite some time,
and I believe it serves as a beautiful means of
evangelization for those seeking to deepen their Catholic faith.
I wanted to share some thoughts on your lesson from the parable
of the Prodigal son. Firstly, I learned from your
program that the father instructs his servants to bring
the white robe and the signet ring for his lost son, alluding
to the Old Testament specifically when Joseph was
made second in power only to Pharaoh.
Secondly, I mentioned to our pastor that Jesus might have
drawn a parallel between this parable and the story of Isaac's
sons Esau and Jacob from the Old Testament.
In that narrative, Rebecca favoured Jacob while Isaac
favoured Esau. Later, Esau sells his birthright
to Jacob for a meagre price, much like the prodigal son
squanders his father's inheritance, dismissing his
older brother's birthright and causing a family grudge.
Moreover, Esau, like the older brother in the prodigal Son,
grows angry at Jacob for his actions, just as the older
brother appeals to their father to celebrate the return of the
prodigal son. Jacob, who received the blessing
of the Abrahamic covenant, became the leader of God's
people and was renamed Israel. In the old Jewish tradition,
celebrations and feasts are essential signs of forgiveness
and mark the renewal of new covenants as we see through
Israel's story. It's worth noting that this
interpretation is personal and not rooted in traditional
biblical scholarship. But I was listening to the story
of Isaac through Bible in a year, and it matched
coincidentally with the Mass that Sunday which read the
parable of the Prodigal Son. So this is a really interesting
interpretation. And and well, it's more of a
connection rather than interpretation between Jacob and
Esau and the two sons in the parable of the prodigal son.
And I think it's a really good point, Renee.
Maybe Jacob is in a sense a prodigal son.
He certainly squanders his father's inheritance or he
abuses it and treats it lightly. But then he later becomes a
great model of faith. There's not an exact parallel
between every aspect of the Prodigal Son parable, but it's
quite possible. That when Jesus gave the parable
of the prodigal son, this may have been in the background of
people's minds. So well done on picking that up
and thank you for sharing it. Renee.
This is a brief e-mail from Bob, who is a Patreon supporter.
She has a really good point here to make about Luke chapter 14,
verses 15 to 24, which is the parable of the wedding banquet.
And you'll remember that in Luke's version of that parable,
at the end of it, the master says to the messengers, because
he still wants more people to attend the wedding, he says to
the messengers, go out and compel people to come in.
And of course, that word is generated a lot of controversy
across theological history because it might imply that a
God wants people to be forced into the Kingdom.
So Bob says, listening to your exegesis for this reading, I
have some thoughts about the word compel.
I think it could mean convince as a lawyer presents a
convincing case or argument, as an orator persuades his
audience, or as a son of God compelled his followers by his
very actions. So Barb, I think you're spot on.
And this is the interpretation that I was leaning towards in my
exegesis of that text. When it says compel, I think the
master doesn't mean go and physically grab them and drag
them into their Kingdom. He means persuade, earnestly
convince them to come into the Kingdom.
I think that's a very good solution.
And I think you're spot on there.
And again, this shows the importance of doing exegesis on
the gospel text because this is a text which if taken out of
context, if that verse is just read as a verse, you could
easily say, well, this proves that God goes against people's
free will and forces them into the Kingdom.
But if you do good research and access good scholarly
perspectives on these things, often you can come to a
resolution, which is what I think is the case here with Luke
chapter 14. Next, I want to share some
feedback here from Jimmy, who is a fellow Australian and a
Patreon supporter. I've come to known logical Bible
study from the Hollow app. I really appreciate your work
and I give thanks to the grace God has given us through you.
I've been a Protestant all my life for 38 years already and
after 20 months of exposing myself to contents like yours
and some others like sing the Hours and Word on fire, I now
find myself attracted to the depth and beauty of Catholic
faith and how I helped and how it helped me to get much closer
to God than before. So thank you for that wonderful
feedback to me. I'm so glad this podcast is
helping you and many others consider the Catholic faith as
the true faith that God wants all Christians to become a part
of. This is the important work that
podcasts like this can do. It can show people that
Catholics can interpret the Bible and they can do it in a
really dynamic, faithful way that can allow people to
reconsider the Catholic faith. So Jimmy goes on to say talk
about his some of the struggles he has as a Protestant.
And indeed, I had a phase of my life where I was a Protestant as
well as many of the Patreon supporters would know.
And you can hear more about that a bit about my own back story
through the Patreon page. Since that time, Jimmy and I
have been able to have some brief exchanges about some other
areas of Catholic theology that he has questions about and that
I've been able to help him with. Lastly, we'll share some brief
feedback here from Victoria, who is also a Patreon supporter.
She says, thanks so much for how you have helped me to grow
spiritually. I'm now leading a Bible study at
my Anglican church and I'm spreading the word there about
your podcast. Thank you so much, Victoria, for
your kind feedback and for spreading the word about the
podcast. Hopefully this kind of feedback
that we've heard today can show you what a ministry like this
can do for Christians of all types.
It's not just for Catholics. It's for anyone who wants to
study the word of God. Seriously, thank you to all of
those who are listening. Thank you for keeping this
ministry in your prayers. And for those who have been able
to support it financially, thank you so much.
Keep an eye out for more bonus episodes in the coming months
where I'll share some more questions and more feedback and
some news about some things the ministry is doing.
We'll see you next time.