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In episode 497 of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb bring the Parable of the Talents to a close with one of the most theologically rich discussions in recent memory. Beginning in Matthew 25:24, they zero in on the one-talent servant — not merely as a cautionary tale about productivity, but as a profound case study in distorted theology. The servant's fatal error wasn't laziness alone; it was a fundamentally false picture of his master. That mischaracterization produced a craven, fearful inaction that the hosts argue maps directly onto the eschatological stakes of the parable. Drawing on Calvin, William Ames, and Reformed confessional commitments, Tony and Jesse make the case that right theology is never merely academic — it shapes the whole of life, and ultimately determines one's eschatological destiny. Key Takeaways The one-talent servant's core failure is theological, not behavioral — he constructs a false image of his master as harsh and exploitative, and that distorted theology governs everything that follows. False theology produces fatal inaction — the servant's fear is not godly fear but a craven dread rooted entirely in his mischaracterization of the master's character. The knowledge of God and the knowledge of self are inseparable — following Calvin's Institutes, the hosts argue that a right understanding of God as gracious and generous will produce active, trusting faithfulness, while a distorted view produces fearful, minimal compliance. The parable is fundamentally eschatological, not merely practical — interpreting the talents primarily as spiritual gifts or ministry opportunities misses the point; the parable is about who belongs to the master's kingdom and who does not. Character precedes action — the faithful servants do not become faithful by producing returns; they produce returns because they are faithful. The wicked servant buries his talent because he is wicked, not the other way around. William Ames understood the servant's sin as a violation of the ninth commandment — by burying his talent, the servant effectively bears false witness against God's own estimation of the gift, rejecting both the gift and the Giver. The "outer darkness" language is not out of place — it is the natural eschatological conclusion for someone who never genuinely knew or trusted the master, making the parable a picture of what it means to be outside the grace and presence of God entirely. Key Concepts False Theology as the Root of Inaction The most striking feature of the one-talent servant's account is not what he did — or failed to do — but what he believed. He tells his master, "I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed." Tony and Jesse point out that nothing in the parable supports this characterization. A master who entrusts his servants with what amounts to decades of wages — hundreds of years' worth of labor between three servants — is not a hard, exploitative figure. He is astonishingly generous and trusting. The servant has constructed a theological fiction, and that fiction becomes the prison of his own inaction. This is not a peripheral observation; it is the interpretive key to the entire parable. What we believe about God determines everything about how we live before Him. The Knowledge of God Shapes the Whole of Life Calvin famously opens the Institutes with the observation that the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self are so bound together that it is nearly impossible to determine which is logically prior. Jesse draws on this insight to show that the one-talent servant's self-understanding — timid, fearful, paralyzed — flows directly from his distorted image of God. A person who genuinely knows God as gracious, generous, and long-suffering will be motivated to active, trusting faithfulness. A person who privately believes God to be harsh and demanding will retreat into fearful, minimalist compliance. This is not merely a first-century observation. It is a diagnostic tool for self-examination: the shape of our obedience reveals the shape of our theology. Reformed orthodoxy has always insisted that right doctrine is not academic — it is the engine of the Christian life. Character Precedes Action — The Anti-Works-Righteousness Reading One of the most important guardrails Tony and Jesse set up in this episode is against a subtle works-righteousness reading of the parable. It is tempting to hear the parable and conclude: do productive things for the kingdom, and you will be welcomed as a good and faithful servant. But the hosts argue that this inverts the logic of the text entirely. The faithful servants are not commended because they generated a return; they generated a return because they are faithful servants. The wicked servant buries his talent because he is wicked — his character drives his conduct, not the reverse. Justification and sanctification alike are received by faith in Christ alone, and no reading of this parable should suggest that our eschatological standing is secured by our productivity. The sheep act like sheep because they are sheep. That punchline, Tony notes, will carry them straight into the sheep and the goats passage next week. Memorable Quotes "Who is it that's not going to be saved in the last day? It's the people who don't recognize the master. The people who think that the master is a hard man who reaps where he has not sown and gathers where he has not scattered. Well, if we think that's who God is, we have a lot of trouble coming our way." — Tony Arsenal "A person who genuinely knows the living God as gracious, generous, long-suffering, with that kind of hesed kind of love — that person will be motivated to active, trusting faithfulness. A person who privately believes God to be harsh and demanding is always going to retreat in this fearful, minimal kind of compliance." — Jesse Schwamb "The sheep act like sheep because they're sheep. They don't become sheep because they do sheep things. They do sheep things because they're sheep." — Tony Arsenal Full Transcript Welcome to episode four hundred and ninety seven of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse  And I'm Tony, and this is the podcast with ears to hear Hey, brother  [00:00:42] Jesse Schwamb: Hey, brother. We're back at it again. We're hanging out in Matthew's gospel, the 25th chapter, and it's time to, I think, close out the Parable of the Talents, where we've got two servants that double their master's money, and one who buries his in the ground like a Calvinist who's confused predestination with doing nothing. And of course, all of this irony is the faithful servants, they can't even take credit. The master supplied the capital, the ability, and apparently even the bull market. It's grace all the way down. But meanwhile, the one talent guy returns exactly what he was given and he gets absolutely wrecked, and we're gonna dig into that. Gonna dig into- ... that later.  [00:01:26] Affirm or Deny Segment [00:01:26] Jesse Schwamb: But before we do, it's what everybody's waiting for. It's that time in the podcast where we affirm with something that we really like or we recommend or we think is undervalued, or we deny against something that's exactly the opposite. Not worth it, no good, get it out of here. So Tony, are you affirming with or denying against?  [00:01:43] Tony Arsenal: I'm denying against something related to the World Cup. Um-  [00:01:47] Jesse Schwamb: Okay ...  [00:01:48] Tony Arsenal: I am not a purist, so please don't hear me as, like, elitist soccer dude who is resistant to any sort of changes, but, um, I didn't actually even know this was happening. Are you following the World Cup at all, Jesse? [00:02:01] Jesse Schwamb: I'm trying to. I'm not against it, I'm just finding myself- Yeah ... stuck in  [00:02:05] Tony Arsenal: trying to like- There, there's a lot going on.  [00:02:06] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah ... yeah, coordinate everything.  [00:02:07] Tony Arsenal: Um, one of the things that they... And they're at weird times this year too- Yes ... at least so far they are.  [00:02:11] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly.  [00:02:11] Hydration Breaks Rant [00:02:11] Tony Arsenal: Um, one of the things this year that I noticed that I didn't know was happening, and I hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, is, uh, I, I guess I understand why they're doing it, but they've instituted what they're calling mandatory hydration breaks-  [00:02:25] Jesse Schwamb: Oh,  [00:02:26] Tony Arsenal: I've read about this uh, into the games. Yeah. And essentially what this has done is it's turned a game that used to be, uh, and has always been two 45-minute halves-  [00:02:38] Jesse Schwamb: Mm-hmm ...  [00:02:38] Tony Arsenal: um, uh, with overage time, right? So, like, the, the ref will sometimes just, like, add a couple minutes. Usually it's, you know, three to five, maybe 10 minutes at the most to the end of the, the half. They've turned that from, uh, two 45-minute halves into now four, what is that? Like, 23-minute quarters, 22 and a half- Right ... minute quarters. Um, and they're not always quarters. They're not always evenly split. They sometimes do the hydration break early or later. Um, this is awful. It's just awful, right? One of the, one of the, um, maybe this is me being a little bit of a soccer purist. One of the things about soccer that makes it a challenging sport is the endurance of it.  [00:03:21] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:03:22] Tony Arsenal: Right? And contrary to what I think most people think when they watch soccer, um, it's one of the few games, few professional games that doesn't have a ton of breaks- Right? There's not a lot of times where, where match play actually stops for any real amount of time. Um, and that's what stoppage time is. It's not intended to be something like football, where there often is time on the clock where the clock is still moving, but the game is not, like, actively progressing forward, right? Right. You have to do something special to stop the clock. In soccer, uh, at least historically, 45 minutes of play is 45 minutes of play. It's, it's 45 minutes of actual actionable play. And now, um, you know, they stop the game. The clock doesn't continue, but now the game stre- like, the, the game itself stretches longer 'cause they've introduced these additional breaks. So I'm denying, uh... This just sounds like s- I'm such a ghoul here. I'm denying mandatory hydration breaks, not because I want soccer players to get sunstroke. Uh, they get plenty of water. There's plenty of times they get to stop and get water. It's- And this is... We didn't have mandatory hydration breaks when the World Cup was in Qatar. Right. Right? And everybody, for the most part, was fine. Like, the players were all fine. There were no casualties on the field. I don't even recall, like, major medical problems on the field. We're in LA now. Yeah, it's warm, summer, but come on, guys. Like, let's, let's, let's be real. This is not, uh, this is not rec league. This is not, you know, U15 league play with, with kids. These are adult men who condition for a living. Like, this is their job, is to be conditioned and for their bodies to be in peak performance. So it's just... It just interrupts the game. I don't know. I'm, I'm being a little crotchety here, but I feel like I have a right to be 'cause this is my show, and I can do what I want to. That's absolutely true. So I'm denying hydration breaks, mandatory hydrat- hydration breaks, which change the game. And a commentator actually commented about that on, on the match the other day. Um, it changes the dynamic of the game. It changes the strategy of the game. Um, it changes the whole feel of the game, right from the strategy of how long you have to be able to go, right? This will change how- how footballers have to condition themselves, 'cause they're no longer having to condition themselves for two 45-minute halves. They're having to condition themselves for four 22-and-a-half minute quarters, um, which is not the same game as, as that. So anyway, we'll- it's yet to see, be seen if that has any real impact on the outcome of any games or anything like that. But it was annoying to me, so I'm denying mandatory hydration breaks. [00:05:59] Jesse Schwamb: That's great. We haven't had a good denial in a little while on this podcast. I think that's fantastic. I mean, not the break, but the denial itself. Plus, and I don't wanna be... You'll have to tell me if I'm speaking conspiratorial here, because most of my apparent World Cup and general sports news still comes from The Wall Street Journal, so that might be a weird place to get it. But- ... the, I became aware of this through an article that was lamenting the exact same thing. Yeah. It was just basically all the arguments that you said. Like, it's weird, and the game wasn't designed this way, and it's definitely like an interruption. It's definitely like an insertion.  [00:06:32] Ads and Soccer Purism [00:06:32] Jesse Schwamb: And then, of course, was all the stuff about, isn't this really about just allowing commercial break time, and it's more about that, and we're just conveniently saying that we need the hydration breaks. And what else would they, we have them do if we needed to force them to take a break but say, "You know what? Why don't you guys take a knee and get some water- Yeah ... while we show you some ads?" So I imagine that doesn't sit well with people either.  [00:06:52] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that that's the case. Again, I, I haven't even been able to watch a full, full World Cup match, so I don't, I don't know... I don't even know how long the hydration breaks are, to be honest with you. But yes, it's an interruption in play where they can cut to commercial. And whether that was why they put this in place or not, or whether they're just utilizing it, it's obnoxious. Like, part of the fun of watching soccer is that there is no commercial break for the first 45 minutes. Right. Um, that's just part of- Which is unusual in sports ... part of the joy of the game, is that it's a continual game with no real breaks. Um, even when, like, a player is injured because, you know, there's an injury on the field or something like that, um, even when that happens, they don't cut to commercial because there was no planned commercial. They don't have anything there. Right. So, um, it's changed, like, the way... Y- you know, even, even things like this is gonna change how uniforms are thought out, because sponsorship money through uniforms used to be the m- one of the main commercial-driving, like, sponsorships for, um, for the game. So I'm just annoyed by it. [00:07:53] More Rule Changes [00:07:53] Tony Arsenal: There's an- a couple other things that I'm annoyed by this year. They have this... It's kinda like that automatic up call checker thing we talked about. Right. They have this, like, um- They call it mistaken identity, uh, recheck. Basically where if a player is fouled or appears to be fouled, they can, someone can flag it and it will recheck it and, like, digitally the system tells them whether there was a foul or not. And like I said before when we were talking about this a little bit before, um, there is a real element in the game, or there has been a real element to the game historically, where the ump is almost like, or the ref is almost like a third player, and you have to be wise and play the ref. Um, you have to, you know, there's, there's an element of a little bit of, uh, espionage and subtle- Right you know, subterfuge here going on in the game that I think people outside the game who are just watching, they look and they think like, "Oh, yeah, that guy flopped." But there's a whole, like, art and there's a whole form to that, and there's real cost if you do it poorly. Um, and so, like, we've already had one instance where a yellow card was called on a player. Uh, the other player simulated the foul. Um, and so they reversed it and gave the other guy a yellow card, but they did that after the game. Um, which, which is a whole other thing. Like, you play a whole game, um I could talk about this all night. Like when you get, when you get a red card- ... you're, you're out for an entire game, not just- Right the rest of this game. You're out for an entire game. Your position is out for an entire game, so that might mean you start the next match down a player. Well, what does that mean if you are given a red card sort of posthumously after the match, right? Right. Like, you- it's changed the whole calculation because for the whole game, that player, uh, was playing as though he didn't have a yellow card. And that, maybe that's good, maybe that's bad, but he was playing the game as though he didn't have a yellow card, and then all of a sudden now he does. Um, he doesn't go... I don't think he goes into the next match starting with a yellow card. Um, a- and so I'm kind of like, "Well, what's the, what's the point?" But, um, you know, some of that plays into, like, if there's ties and ties, match, match point ties, then they start looking at who has penalties and stuff. But either way, it's annoying that they, they're introducing this. Like, we didn't need to have... Yes, there's probably a place for reviewing a, a bad ref's calls. Right. They've also added, like, automatic on offsides. There was a whole strategy and a whole part of the game of forcing a person offsides, of drawing a person offsides, being offsides without looking like you're offsides. Some people may look at that and go, "Well, that's cheating," but no, it's actually just part of the game. Right. Like, playing the ref and understanding that is part of the game. And now it's still part of the game, but it's part of the game in a different way, and that's... Maybe I am just being a purist, but I just, I don't like it. I don't like it. Give me back my beautiful game the way it's always been and get off my lawn, get off the turf, get off my pitch, whatever. Um, I'm denying the fact that the World Cup is not as it's always been. But also, like, we don't need this stuff. Like, the World Cup has been fine for how many years?  [00:11:03] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:11:03] Tony Arsenal: We don't need water breaks like this- W- i- you know, if it was like last World Cup, five players died from dehydration in the middle of the... Like, okay, like yeah, let's do some water breaks. But like, nobody died. Nobody even had major medical emergencies. I think a couple people had to come out of the game a little early 'cause they weren't well-hydrated. But like- Right ... run to the side, get a water bottle. Like, you can do that in the middle of a game. There's nothing- Yeah ... against the rules to stand by the sideline, drink when someone's doing a substitution or even in the middle of the game. I've seen that happen, where someone will sprint over to the sideline, they'll take a drink of water, and then they'll throw the cup back over. So anywho, we should move on. This could be my entire, my entire rant of, for a whole episode- Good ... against the weird changes in, in World Cup soccer, so.  [00:11:48] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, I love it.  [00:11:49] Peacock Spanish Hack [00:11:49] Jesse Schwamb: My favorite hack, uh, for World Cup soccer so far this year, and this was given to me by a colleague, uh, and a brother, I think this is fantastic, is right now because my wife is convalescing, we have all the subscriptions temporarily to allow, like, the full healing process to take place. Watch whatever you want, wherever you want. Except for the World Cup, because the, uh... I- it was just, like, where you could actually get it in English was, like, crazy expensive, at least for me. So here's the thing, though. Somebody reminded me uh, that we have Peacock and that because of Telemundo, could just watch and stream the entire World Cup in Spanish. So guess what, loved ones? We're learning a lot more Spanish- I love it ... and we're watching the World Cup with the announcers on. I'm not turning off that, 'cause that's the best part. And, you know, I'm getting, like, 25% of what's being said, but it is awesome. And there's- Yeah ... a lot more energy and excitement. So if for some reason you have Peacock and you're saying, "Oh, I'm missing the World Cup," technically you don't have to. It's all there for you. That's amazing. Just you gotta embrace Spanish.  [00:12:46] Tony Arsenal: That's amazing. And yes, actually, it probably is more entertaining.  [00:12:49] Jesse Schwamb: It is.  [00:12:50] Tony Arsenal: Um, and you don't, you don't need to... You really don't need to understand what the commentator is- No I mean, like 90% of the time the commentator's like, "Oh, he's having a good year," and, uh- ... yeah, like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, he's looking real great. Do you see how his, uh, laces are laced up?" Like, they're just trying to fill time.  [00:13:05] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:13:05] Tony Arsenal: So it doesn't really matter what they're saying. And when it does matter what they're saying, you'll get it just from the-  [00:13:11] Jesse Schwamb: Yes [00:13:11] Tony Arsenal: just from what the announcer's voices are doing. So I'll have to check that out. Yeah, the, the matches are at weird times, at least so far. I think, I think that once we get out of group play, m- a lot of the matches shift to the East Coast, so there'll be, uh, a little bit more normal times.  [00:13:25] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:13:25] Tony Arsenal: But, like, the first, the first, uh, US match was at 9:00 Eastern Time, and then, like, the last one's at 10:00 Eastern Time. Yeah.  [00:13:32] Jesse Schwamb: So  [00:13:33] Tony Arsenal: late. Yeah, super late, and it's a, it's a three-hour match by the time you, you get done with halftime and everything. So yeah, it'll, it'll... It's, it's frustrating. Although historically, um, every time the men, the men's team has won their first match, they've gotten out of group play, and every time they've lost their fir- first match, they have not gotten out of group play. And we, we really, really won our first match. Yes. Yeah. So I think, I think we'll get out of group play. I think probably, depending on how the, the cards roll, um, we'll probably, we'll probably get through our first elimination round, maybe our second, but we're not gonna go much further than that. Um, even, even that would be a, a pretty good victory, so- Anyway, football is life, right? Danny Ross. Um, do, did you watch Ted last night? Yes,  [00:14:24] Jesse Schwamb: I have seen it. Yes.  [00:14:25] Tony Arsenal: That was good. Football is life. Um, that's me this time of year. Like, I wore a soccer jersey to work on Friday, and nobody could tell me I couldn't do that, and I didn't care. So- I  [00:14:33] Jesse Schwamb: love it ...  [00:14:34] Tony Arsenal: uh, nobody even tried. Everybody, everybody's fine. Everybody loves soccer- How dare they ... and loves the World Cup, so. Yeah. That's the truth. Anywho, save me from this. I, I literally could talk about soccer all night. This is the one sport that I get like this. And the... Not even the one sport. The one sporting event that I get like this about is the World Cup. I love it. So you've gotta, you gotta stop me or I'm not gonna, not gonna stop. Let  [00:14:54] Jesse Schwamb: it out.  [00:14:54] Hydration Tabs Recommendation [00:14:54] Jesse Schwamb: Well, I would say, like, we could play that game with our affirmations and denials where it's, like, six degrees of separation, but we only need one. And this is gonna sound like it was planned, but it wasn't. Your denial, of course, as you've just well articulated, was about hydration breaks. Turns out my affirmation is actually about hydration. So-  [00:15:11] Tony Arsenal: Jesse's affirming hydration breaks. We're about  [00:15:13] Jesse Schwamb: to fight. Yeah. No, I'm, I'm definitely not a- affirming hydration breaks, but this might be the kind of hydration they're having. I don't know, but it's the one I'm gonna recommend. So where I live, it is the summertime, and where I live, we get both the heat and the humidity, and that's the oppressive part, isn't it? It's where it feels like the inside of a dog's mouth. And so I actually just came back from a run, and my go-to hydration break for myself is, uh, Nuun, N-U-U-N. And here's the reason why, is I've had Gatorade, I've had all the... I've had Liquid IV, I've had all that stuff. Most of the time it's r- too sweet. Nuun is just these effervescent dissolvable tablets that you drop into water, and it creates this low sugar electrolyte drink. It has all, like, the normal stuff. It has sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, chloride, all that good stuff, but there's just one gram of sugar. And it's this convenient little tab. Like, you can just get this whole little roll of tabs. You can carry them with you if you're going hiking or you're camping or you're out and gonna do a run. You just drop them into a bottle of water or whatever size water you want. I usually go 32 ounces is the way I like it. They have all, all kinds of flavors. It's just the right thing. Like, it's... It is like the refreshing thing of water, but when you're like, "You know what? I wanna taste something that's not water." So Nuun is, like, the right thing. I may have referred to it before, so I'm sorry if I did. But I'm referring with you can order it on, like, Amazon or any kind of, I don't know, general kind of camping or sports-oriented store is probably gonna be there. But it's... For me, it's the right thing because I don't know about you, but I find most sports drinks, like, in general too sweet. Like, you, you start... You have one, and then if I get through it, I'm kind of like, "Ugh, now I feel like my mouth is, like, really just coated in sugar, and that's not what I wanted." Yeah. So this feels like you're, you're getting a little less sweetness, but you don't feel guilty afterwards like you've just consumed a bunch of sugar. I will admit, I drink one I guess it's like 12 ounce Gatorade every week, just one. And this is because there's a delightful and loving, like, 72-year-old woman in our congregation who brings, I believe it's her own, she invests this every week. She brings for the team that is doing the worship through music Gatorade, uh, because she thinks we need to be replenished. So really, we have a hydration break- ... right before the service. But she, it's so beautiful and so delightful, I will never refuse it, and I am also on often parched at the time. So-  [00:17:31] Tony Arsenal: Yeah ...  [00:17:31] Jesse Schwamb: it does work out, so.  [00:17:31] Tony Arsenal: Jesse's worship team goes real hard. They need to hydrate in the middle. They do a mandatory hydration break in the middle of the- It's, yeah middle of the service.  [00:17:39] Jesse Schwamb: It's mandatory. Yes. We are strict.  [00:17:41] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And it's an, it's a good time for announcements and commercial breaks. Um, yeah. I, I think, uh, and you're... I don't know if you're gonna believe me when I say this. With all of the Nuun that passes its way around the family home when we're all here- Yeah at summertime, I've never had-  [00:17:57] Jesse Schwamb: Oh, really? ...  [00:17:57] Tony Arsenal: Nuun. Yeah. We never tried it. I think our go-to for, for sort of powdered energy drink or powdered, uh, sports drink is little Propel packets.  [00:18:05] Jesse Schwamb: Um- Oh,  [00:18:05] Tony Arsenal: that's not bad either. Propel's not bad. I like Propel. It's very sweet, but it, it doesn't- Yeah ... um, Propel- doesn't add sugar. I think that they've, they've got their formula where it's a sugar-free formula. Um, but it is very sweet. So sometimes I'll only do, like, a half a packet of Propel- Yeah ... which I know kind of, they, they argue that or they, like, advertise as, like, "It's the perfect balance of electro-" I don't know if it's the perfect balance of electrolytes, but- Um, but some is better than none probably. Yeah. And, uh, Propel is not better than Nuun apparently, so.  [00:18:36] Jesse Schwamb: I, I, I think Nuun is, like, top shelf electrolyte. And you can get it, like I said, in lots of flavors. One of the fun things is you can get it caffeinated or uncaffeinated. I mean, most, most of it is uncaffeinated. But if you're like you wanted to have some, they have a what they call Kona Cola, and it is cola-flavored and has caffeine. It's amazing, because it's, like, just slightly effervescent, a little bit bubbly. Not too much. It's still, like, refreshing, but if you like the cola flavor, which as you know is its own distinct combination of elements and spices, then it's right on. So- Yeah ... it's really nice. So there you go. Yeah. Nuun- I- And if you're gonna take a hydration break because you're being forced to while you're playing soccer, I highly suggest you choose Nuun. That's the way to go.  [00:19:22] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what they're drinking. I think most of the time they're just drinking water.  [00:19:26] Jesse Schwamb: Probably.  [00:19:26] Tony Arsenal: So I, I don't... I mean, I, I think you're supposed to drink something with some electrolytes, so maybe they have some electrolyte-  [00:19:32] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah ...  [00:19:32] Tony Arsenal: water in it. I don't know.  [00:19:33] Jesse Schwamb: I don't know. Probably.  [00:19:34] Join the Telegram Group [00:19:34] Jesse Schwamb: Here's the thing. If you wanna tell us what you like to drink or when you are, let's say, serving the Lord's people by participating in worship through music and you're forced to take a hydration break, as I am at times, then you need to go to t.mereformedbrotherhood. Put that into your browser right now. Take a hydration break and put t.mereformedbrotherhood into your browser and that will send you to a link for Telegram, which is just a little chat app in which we have a small corner of the world. It's brothers and sisters listening to the podcast, interacting, and it's about time, actually, we probably had some kinda taste test stuff-  [00:20:11] Tony Arsenal: Yeah with,  [00:20:12] Jesse Schwamb: like, these kinda hydration drinks. There's so many of them now. Some of them are, like, purposely salty. Some of them are really sweet. Some have all these crazy and wild flavors. Some of them have all kinds of caffeine. So let us know what you like, but best way to do that- Please ... is join the Telegram group. [00:20:26] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And please do not, uh, do not make your church stop their service for a hydration break. Please don't do that. The only hydration break I wanna hear you talking about in your church service is a baptism. So please-  [00:20:38] Jesse Schwamb: I knew that's  [00:20:38] Tony Arsenal: where you were going ... do not interrupt the Lord's day for a hydration break. Just if you need water, just, like, step out of the room, take a drink of water, come back. Or if you're in a church that lets you have water in the sanctuary, like most do, just take a drink. That's true. You don't have to- Yeah ... stand up. You don't need to have- That's good ... anyone interpret. Just take a quick drink and then be quiet. Just  [00:20:54] Jesse Schwamb: go to the sidelines, maybe sub out- Mm-hmm ... with somebody else who can play bass, and take a quick drink.  [00:21:00] Tony Arsenal: Exactly. Come back. Yeah. Or just dump the, dump the Propel powder straight in your mouth.  [00:21:05] Jesse Schwamb: I thought you were gonna say like have somebody come up, preferably like an elder, and just hose you down with a thing of Gatorade while you're, while you're  playing  [00:21:10] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, exactly. Just go up to the baptismal font, take a scoop of water, dump the Propel directly in the baptis- no, I'm just kidding. I shouldn't joke about that stuff. Yeah.  [00:21:19] Back to Matthew 25 [00:21:19] Tony Arsenal: Anyway, Jesse, I'm excited because although we are probably gonna round out this parable, we're not done with these parables because- Oh, yeah, that's  [00:21:28] Jesse Schwamb: right [00:21:28] Tony Arsenal: although we're gonna finish this parable this week, we'll probably finish it and get started talking about, uh, the next, the little chunk of text, which is not a parable, but we can't really, uh, divorce it from these parables 'cause they're all telling, they're all making the same or a very similar point about what the kingdom of heaven will be like in relation to the end times- Mm-hmm in relation to the eschatological, um, outcome of all things. Uh, and, and Christ in his teaching, um, he kind of rounds out this teaching and finalizes what these parables mean by talking to us about the sheep and the goats. Um, which again, is not really formed like a parable, but, uh, but it has very similar structures. It has some similar elements to it. Um, but it, it's so integral to what these, all what this sort of like, uh, anthology of eschatological parables mean in all the discourse. We really have to cover that to, to cover the others fully. But tonight we're gonna finish our discussion about the parable of the talents, which I'm excited about because I think we're gonna, we're gonna round out on some stuff that, um, I, I hope you've heard, uh, is probably not as, um, prominent as it should be. Uh, and this, we talked about last time that this parable has been, uh, not necessarily applied properly in many popular- Right ... teachings. Uh, and so I'm, I'm sure you've heard not so great interpretations. Hopefully we're gonna give you an interpretation that's a little bit more accurate and faithful to what the Bible teaches. [00:23:00] Reading the Parable Text [00:23:00] Jesse Schwamb: And so we're gonna pick it up in verse 24 of Matthew 25, because you'll probably recall, and if you haven't it's because you need to go back and listen, that we talked about the first two of these servants and the return that they were able to garner on the investment which the Lord gave them when He went away. And then there's the third dude. So we're gonna pick it up there and go all the way to the end of this, which allow us to close it out. So beginning verse 24, "And the one also had received the one talent came up and said, 'Master, I knew you'd be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. And I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. See, have what is yours.' But the master answered and said to him, 'You wicked, lazy slave. You knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed; therefore you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have at least received my money back with interest. Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has 10 talents. For to everyone who has more, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who does not have, even what he does not have,' excuse me, 'what he does have shall be taken away. And throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'"  [00:24:18] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:24:19] Textual Notes and Transition [00:24:19] Tony Arsenal: There, there's some, um, some textual things about this that I think, uh, we sh- should at least acknowledge. I don't know that we're gonna dig too deep into them. Um, it is very possible to, um, to read verse 30 Almost as an interpretive statement in itself rather than part of the, um, part of the parable itself. And, and so let me, let me see if I can, can parse that out. So if we read it as though it's part of the parable, then it is the s- the, the master in the parable who is saying, "And cast the worthless servant into the darkness; in the place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." I think that's the most natural reading, so I'll, I'll put my cards on the table that I think that we should read this as part of the parable itself. It's also possible linguistically and grammatically to sort of read this as an explanation, where Christ is now taking this principle of what has happened with the worthless servant, right? That even what he has will be taken away. And then, and then to sort of read this as a commentary that sort of, uh, like we saw before, um, kind of bridges this section with the next. So instead of reading, "And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness," uh, as though it were part of the parable, that it was this master within the parable saying this, we can read this as Christ saying that this is what will happen to those who are worthless servants. And then that follows up with, in verse 31, kind of h- connecting to when the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all nations. Right. Th- this next sort of, like, more explicit, non-parabolical, um, uh, eschatological teaching. I think that former one is more natural, but just because it's, it's present in a lot of the commentaries that this is there, I wanted to at least call that out. I don't know that it makes a ton of difference in terms of how we understand the parable, but I do think, you know, part of what it means for us to wrestle through this is not just to take a particular position on the text, but to discuss, like, some of these ambiguities that are present. Um, and, and sometimes, um Sometimes I think we need to be cautious and really think through, because, uh, let me, let me rephrase it this way. None of the teaching in the Bible is sort of uninterpreted, untranslated, raw teaching of Christ. All of this is coming to us from the apostles retelling it, and yes, inspired by the Holy Spirit, so all of it's God's Word. But it's not as though, um, it's not as though Christ was first speaking in Greek. That's the big thing. But there are some places in the New Testament, in the Gospels, where it's not always clear whether a passage is Christ speaking or the, uh, the Gospel writer interpreting what Christ is speaking. This is one of those places where there's a little bit of a question mark about that. Um, again, I think the most natural reading is to read this as part of the statement of the master within the parable, but I did wanna just comment on that before we moved on much further.  [00:27:31] Buried Talent Scandal [00:27:31] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that's helpful because I think we've gotta understand that end in light of how it's evolving. And we, we're starting with that stark contrast between the first two, which receive this great reward, which receive accolades and praise, and then you have this one talent servant's response is all about hiddenness. He just digs a hole, puts it in the ground, and hides it away. Which by the way, of course, we talked about this in the other parables, like in the ancient world, burying valuables was recognized as a form of safekeeping. I mean, I think even Josephus mentions that. We talk about the pearl of great price. There was something to be known for, well, I have this valuable thing. The best place for me to, the best place for me to put it so that it isn't compromised is in the ground, in a secret place. And there's like a surface level, I guess, reasonableness to that act. But what's interesting and where it comes in with that heat that you're kinda talking about, that ends up being in the end this grand statement of the eschatological, eschatological reality, is that the parable here with this one talent servant treats all that action as like complete catastrophic failure. And I, I think as much as I can understand it, it's because the master did not give him this talent to protect it from loss. He gave it to him for, to use it for gain And so the servant has mistaken the nature of that commission entirely. He substituted like the security-seeking for risk-taking faithfulness. And so I think that informs some of then what happens in these latter verses here, like when we get all the way down to 30. Because I think when we read that, we see the, like the redistribution as scandalous. But the scandal really is in this lack of actions. Like gifts exercised grow, but gifts buried, they just atrophy. So the one t- talent servant's talent is taken because he's, he's already been treated as n- as it was, was nothing. He's functionally like forfeited it by burying it. And so the transfer of the 10-talent servant is the formal confirmation of what his own choices had, had already produced. I think there is something there about like the eschatological reality, reality that will unfold in the judgment, which of course leads to, into the end of this chapter  [00:29:36] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right on that.  [00:29:39] Misreading The Master [00:29:39] Tony Arsenal: Um, what we see the problem with the one talent servant is not, um, not that he's not productive.  [00:29:49] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:29:49] Tony Arsenal: I mean, I think that's, that's actually the symptom of the illness, not the illness itself. What we see with the, the one talent servant is that he misunderstands his task, as you're pointing out, but more foundationally, he misunderstands his master, right? And that, that's really the, the main point of the parable when we kinda get... You know, Christ, um, when He's telling a parable, He explains the parable. Sometimes He doesn't explain the parable at all. He just sorta drops the parable and then moves on. Other times He will give the interpretation itself, like directly. We saw that in the parable of the, uh, of the soils or the parable of the sower. Um, and, and other times the kind of like the main explanation of the parable is, is actually embedded in the parable. And I think for this parable, the main explanation is when the, the one talent servant, uh, comes forward and he, when he's explaining why he did what he did-  [00:30:47] Jesse Schwamb: Right [00:30:48] Tony Arsenal: he says, "Well, I knew you were a," uh, let me just find it for sure here. He says, um, "I knew that you were a..." I just lost it. My brain is totally lost here. You ever have that happen where you're trying to find a word- Yes ... on a text and you just can't? He says, "Master," in verse 24, he says, "Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. So I was afraid. I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours." There's a number of statements in here that just don't make any sense. Like, they're just... Like you said, a lot of these parables have kind of like a chump figure, where, like, he's sort of like the designated idiot of the parable. [00:31:31] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:31:32] Tony Arsenal: In this instance, there's so much wrong that it's almost hard to find something right. And, you know, he starts out, he says, "I knew you were a hard man." There's nothing in the parable, there's nothing that suggests that this is a hard man. There's nothing to suggest that. He, as we said last week, he trusts these servants with an almost unimaginable amount of wealth, right? He just leaves hundreds of years worth of wealth in the, in the, like... And it's not even like he's going off to war and he may never be coming back. He's just going on a journey.  [00:32:05] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:32:05] Tony Arsenal: He's just traveling for a little while, and he's like, "I'm gonna leave 100 years worth of labor with this guy and 40 years worth of labor with this guy and 20 years worth of labor with this guy." He, what, what, in what world is that a hard man who just blesses and trusts his servants with that amount of unimaginable wealth? But then he says, "I knew that you, uh, reaped where you did not sow and gathered where you scattered no seed." First of all, um, what kind of person accumulates this kind of wealth without reaping, uh, without the, like, a- apart from the principle of reaping and sowing and gathering and, and scattering? Like, he obviously is a very successful businessman. Um, the, the fact that this, uh, servant is couching this in agricultural terms, I think it's reasonable to think that this is a very successful landowner who has made good use of his land, has turned a profit Obviously he's reaping where he sows and he's gathering where he scattered or he wouldn't have this kind of money to throw around to leave with his servants in the first place. But the servant doesn't recognize that the fact that he was given one talent is in fact the master reaping or sowing and scattering the seed of these talents. So he's saying like, "Well, you reap where you have not sown," but the fact is like he was sown a full talent worth of resources and he, the, the master expected to reap what he had sown when he gets back. So this servant He's worthless and he's lazy, but he's also just kind of dumb in that he just doesn't- Right ... recognize the reality of what's going on. He has an incorrect understanding of who the master is. He thinks he's a hard man, when actually he's an incredibly trusting and generous master, right? The, the ESV masks this as servants. We're not talking about hired hands here. We're talking about slaves. Right. We're talking about h- probably about household slaves. This is doulos. These are the slaves that work in the fields, um, as opposed to, like, diakonos, which are the slaves that work in the house, right? These are, these are field servants. These are laborers that are indentured or are, are in servitude, and he gives them enough wages, enough labor, enough money, they could just take off and leave with it. They could buy their own freedom with this. Right. He trusts them with that. That's not a description of a hard man, a hard, lazy man who sows w- reaps where he doesn't sow and gathers where he doesn't scatter. So the primary issue here with this servant is not that he's lazy, although he is lazy. It's not that he's wicked. He is wicked. It's that he doesn't recognize who the master is. He doesn't understand who the master is and what is expected of him as a servant of that master, which I think, I think, as I've thought about this over the last week or so, I think that actually says everything about the eschatological import of this, right? Yes. Who is it that's not going to be saved in the last day?  [00:34:56] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.  [00:34:57] Tony Arsenal: It's the people who don't recognize the master. Right on. The people who think that the master is a hard man who reaps where he has not sown and gathers where he has not scattered. Well, if we think that's who God is, we have a lot of trouble coming our way. [00:35:10] Fearful False Theology [00:35:10] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that is the heart, right, of this dude's sin. It's a false theology of God that produces then this fearful inaction. Because, like you said, it's not just that he's been lazy. He has constructed this weird, distorted picture of his master, and then he allows that distortion to govern his behavior. So this, quote-unquote, "fear" is not like the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom, but it's this kind of craven dread that's rooted in a mischaracterization of the master's entire character. And one of the things that I think, among many, that's really great about the Reformed theological tradition is that it's always assisted, and I th- hopefully we along with it in our conversations, that, like, the right theology is not merely academic. It does shape the whole life, which is why, like, Calvin famously opens his institutes with this observation that the knowledge of God and the knowledge of self are bound together. So- Yeah ... a person who genuinely knows the living God as gracious, generous, long-suffering, with that kind of hesed kind of love, who is good- W- that person will be motivated to active, trusting faithfulness. A person who privately believes God to be harsh and demanding is always, I think, going to retreat in this fearful, minimal kind of minimum champion-type compliance. It's the same thing, I think I always think about this for some reason, and mention it a lot probably, but it's the same thing with Joseph's brothers finding all their money back in the sacks-  [00:36:31] Tony Arsenal: Yeah ...  [00:36:32] Jesse Schwamb: with their food. It's, like, in that instant moment, all they have is fear and dread. And it- for this guy, that's exactly what he has. But it doesn't start, like you're saying, merely because he realizes that he should have done more, or he's comparing his return with that of everybody else, or even that he's going back and taking a look at his own actions and finding them to be full of want or lack. In fact, he does a really good job, at least in his own mind, theologically justifying his behavior. So here, what he, the real crime, the real shame, the real sin is that somehow he views the master as harsh and demanding and exploitative. That's wild. But of course, that was the root of everything else, which I think does give us pause to reflect on our own lives, like I said, as we come to understanding how this parable reads us. [00:37:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:37:21] Red Letters And Commentary [00:37:21] Tony Arsenal: And, um- Part of the reason why I think it's important to understand what I was talking about earlier with, you know, the, the Gospels are an interesting sort of like composite document in that, yes, they contain the true sayings of Jesus, the true, true, um, words of Christ. But this is also, a- and I promise that this will loop back around, this is, um, this is important for us. The red letters are no more God's word than the black letters, right? Mm-hmm. And what I mean by that is, like, the, the so-called words of Christ in scripture are not more inspired or more profitable than the words that are the commentary of the apostles. And I only say so-called, and I'll explain why I say that. As I said, like, Matthew is translating, uh, he- first of all, he's recalling what Christ has said. He's, he's probably not, um, sitting there with a, with a quill and a, you know, a piece of paper or a piece of parchment- Right ... transcribing what's, what Christ is saying as he goes. Right? He's, he was there. Matthew was there. He's recalling what Christ has said under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He's making editorial decisions about what Christ taught in terms of like, what of Christ's teaching do I capture? What do I summarize? And I think there's ... It's important because every word is inspired, but also it's understandable. And what I mean here, and what, the reason I'm kind of belaboring that is I think there's an interesting thing that happens in verse 29. It says, "For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance. And from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken." So this, this concept actually that, um, that verse 30 might be, uh, might actually be Matthew's commentary or even Christ's explanation of the parable, I think that actually, that actually expands to verse 29 in some of the commentators. So if we read it this way, and I think this, this may be valuable for us to at least ponder. If we read it this way, verse 27 is still the master in the parable space. It says, "Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has 10 talents." There's a way of understanding this text, uh, and it's grammatically acceptable. I think theologically it doesn't change a lot, but it's worth us at least considering this. There's a way of reading this text where that's the end of the parable, and then Christ is explaining the parable, or Ma- or even maybe Matthew is commenting on the parable. It says, "For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance. But to the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away." Now, I think that, um, as I said, the most natural way to read this is that the parable proper ends with verse 30, that all of this is part of the parable, all of this is the master in the parable speaking. But I do think verses 29 and 30 take on a more explanatory, um, uh, explanatory role, and this is the main reason why. The, the one parable, one talent servant in the parable, he's not properly described as the one who has not, right? He had one talent. He was given one talent. Right. It's not as though he had zero talents. The one who has not, even what he has will be taken away, and the one who has, more will be given.  [00:41:01] Has And Has Not [00:41:01] Tony Arsenal: This is actually, I think, where we can go really sideways on this parable. I hear this parable often interpreted as sort of this understanding that, like, God has blessed His people with certain gifts, and we have to use our gifts in the kingdom to be productive, and people who use their gifts in productive fashion will be given more responsibility and more opportunities. People who don't use their gifts, whatever opportunities they have will be taken away from them. Now, I, I would argue that's probably true on a practical level, um, and that's just actually just true in general, right? Right. A person who has responsibility, th- think of, like, your working environment. M- you know, all, most of our listeners are not working in regular pastoral ministry. This is one of those areas where I think, actually, the corporate world is more representative of how things are. Um, in the corporate world, if you are given responsibility and you excel and use that responsibility well and you are a productive servant of your company that you work for, you're going to be given more responsibility, whether that's in the form of a promotion, which is the ideal circumstances, or whether that's just your responsibilities as assigned, a job description expanding without pay. Either way, if you do a good job, if you, if you take the sphere of influence, the sphere of responsibility that you're given and you do a good job and you shepherd that well and you steward that well, that sphere of influence, that sphere of responsibility will expand. Um- If you squander it and you sit in your office watching TikTok videos or listening to music and you don't use that, uh, responsibility well, that sphere of influence will shrink, and ultimately it will shrink until you no longer have a job, right? It works a little differently, I think, in, like, traditional pastoral roles, and I think there are some in our audience that, them, are in those roles that this may not fit. That's a good general principle. I don't think that's what this is teaching. Like, I don't think this, this parable is about, like, productive ministry opportunities. Right. And if it was, we wouldn't be talking about people who have none, have not, right? We would be talking about people who have less. We'd be talking about people who are given less responsibility. The person who has no responsibility is who's in view here. And that's why- Mm ... I think it actually, this is shifting, this ex- explanation, whether it's, uh, sort of like an explanation, an explanatory punchline to the parable that's part of the parable itself, or whether it's Jesus or Matthew commenting on the meaning of the parable. The difference between those two things is important for us to think about. It's not so important in terms of what the actual meaning is. Because the difference here is that what we've now done is we've shifted from the context of a financial grounded analogy in the parable to now a broader discussion about the fact that there are those who have, and there are those who have not. And the people who have will be given more, and the people who have not will be taken away from. And if we were talking strictly financially, then now we're, like, in, like, Occupy Wall Street, 1% kind of era. We're talking about salvation. We're talking about, um, we're talking about the fact that God gives salvation to some, and He does not give salvation to others. He gives grace to some, and He does not give grace to others. And to those who have grace, more grace will be given. To those who have not grace, more will be taken away. And the outcome of that- Is that the worthless servant who is the one who has not, the worthless servant will be cast into the outer darkness, right? This is a, an explanation of what it means to be a worthless servant who ultimately ends their time. Ends is not the right word. Who ultimately has the outcome of s- of outer darkness for all eternity. If this parable is just about how we use our giftings and our skills and our money for the kingdom, and we're expected to be productive and to, like, increase the kingdom through our tithing and through our, like our service, then this comment about, like, the outer darkness is really out of place. Unless, unless we earn our salvation by that. Which of course we know we don't.  [00:45:22] Jesse Schwamb: Right. Right.  [00:45:24] Wicked And Slothful Heart [00:45:24] Jesse Schwamb: Here's how I think everything you said is true, and the scripture actually bears this out because it was exactly where you're going with that, which is we're talking more about the identity. Like, what, what makes this servant or slave worthless? That's the critical question. And then if we understand that, it'll help inform how we then interpret this idea of sheeps and goats, which we'll get to in a whole other episode. But if you look at verses 26 and 27, where the master then responds to this slave calls him wicked and slothful, slothful, right? So that his, his basically lack of usefulness comes embedded or underneath those two terms. So one, obviously the wickedness here is moral. It's a failure to fulfill a covenantal obligation to the master, which we've been talking about. So again, it's not just about laziness. Like there's, there's so much more there. It's as if that's the entry point for the master to bring condemnation on him in two forms. One is that wickedness. The second is this idea of like slothfulness, which is dispen- I was gonna say dispensational, but what I meant to say is dispositional. So it's like, uh, like a subtle inertia of the will, and together they're describing a person, and I think this is a critical point. This is a person whose heart has never been genuinely aligned with the master's purposes. Now, when we understand it that way, I think, then everything that follows makes a lot more sense because it's not just about bad timing in the market. It's not just about being fearful that you're gonna lose money and you're risk-averse, so therefore you hid, hid everything. It's really this idea that this, this s- slave, this one talent slave, he was not on board, not vibing with, not aligned with, however you wanna say it, with the master's purposes from the very beginning. And there is maybe we might say like a minimum of faithfulness, even interest on the deposit that God requires. But the question of course is never am I doing what the five talent servant does, but it's always am I using what I have been given? And in this way, like are we finding ourselves aligned, that our hearts are leaning into, that we find ourselves tilting towards what God has for us, both understanding who He is and who we are in light of who He is. What I find interesting is I found some really unique commentary from the great puritan William Ames in his book Conscience, with the Power and Cases Thereof. That's a title that only a puritan could- ... forward, um, where he actually treats this failure. So getting again to the sense of like why is it so grievous? Like in other words, why does the action of this servant, which we've already kind of touched on, lead into basically a character attack on the servant, and why is the connection between those two things legitimate? What he basically says is that he treats the failure to use one's gifts as God has given as a violation of the ninth commandment, which is bearing false witness against God's own estimation of those gifts. So this slothful servant, by burying his talent, effectively says, "This is not worth using." That is like the thing that God has given me, who God is Himself, I reject fully and outright. So why would that person then not be cast into outer darkness in kind of keeping with both like the, the breadth and scope of this parable, but also essentially what it's teaching about who this last, you know, servant is? [00:48:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, and you know, as you say that, I think too, um- There's an element of this that is Because it ties to this servant's misunderstanding of the master, and then, a- and I think you're, you're bringing Calvin in here and, and sort of the idea that our knowledge of God and our kn- knowledge of self are so, like, intertwined that it- Right ... it's almost difficult to understand which comes first. Yes. Yes. Calvin concludes that the knowledge of God is logically prior, but he, he also acknowledges that, like, it's really tough to sort of like figure out which one is more logically prior. This servant starts from the understanding that the master is a wicked master, that he is an immoral, lazy master. I- and it's, it's ironic. It does- the text doesn't say this, but I think it's a reasonable extrapolation. Um, the, the wicked, slothful servant projects his own wickedness and his own slothfulness onto the master, right? He, he projects that the master is a wicked man, is a hard man, and also that he's lazy. He, he does- he reaps where he doesn't sow, he gathers where he doesn't scatter. And the action of the, of the, the character of the servant is not derived from his inaction. Right. It's his inaction that- Yes ... causes the, or it's his, his character- Character ... that drives his lack of action, right?  [00:50:12] Sheep Goats Identity [00:50:12] Tony Arsenal: The good and faithful servants, they're not, and this is where we're gonna come when we come next week. Like, this is where we're gonna go when we get to next week's. Just as maybe, like, I, I want you to listen next week, but you probably don't need to, 'cause I'm gonna give you the whole punchline here.  [00:50:27] Jesse Schwamb: Wow.  [00:50:27] Tony Arsenal: The sheep act like sheep because they're sheep.  [00:50:29] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:50:30] Tony Arsenal: They don't become sheep because they do sheep things. They do sheep things because they're sheep, and the goats do goat things because they're goats.  [00:50:37] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:50:37] Tony Arsenal: The wicked, lazy servant does wicked, lazy servant things because he's a wicked lady- lazy servant, right? He buries the talent in the ground because he's a wicked, lazy servant. The good, faithful servants j- just do what good, faithful servants do. They, they make a return on the master's talents because that's what they do, right? And I think where we have to be really careful and where, uh, the other pitfall that this parable can bring us to, and I kinda referenced it a little bit earlier, is there can be sort of this subtle works righteousness that creeps in, that we can believe if we're really good and productive for the kingdom, then that's what will earn us the good and faithful servant commendation when we, we cross into glory. The reality is there are those who cross into glory and hear good and faithful servant, right? There are those who will hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master." And there are those who will not. They will have what little they have taken away from them, and they will be cast into the outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth, right? That's not a statement on what we've earned. It's a statement on who we are.  [00:51:48] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:51:49] Tony Arsenal: So you can either be the faithful servant who trusts the character of the Lord, who doesn't think Him to be a hard man, who reaps where He doesn't sow and gathers where He doesn't scatter. You can trust the master, and in the act of trusting the master and knowing His character, you just do what good, faithful servants do. You work hard, you follow the servant, the master's lead, and you produce a return on what is there. Right? In, a- and we didn't talk about this too much. In effect, these servants are reflecting the nature of the master.  [00:52:23] Jesse Schwamb: That's right.  [00:52:23] Tony Arsenal: Because you don't get to the point where you can leave 100 years worth of wealth to one servant, and 40 years worth of wealth to another servant, and 20 years worth of wealth to another servant if you have not yourself been a productive, faithful person who knows how to reap and sow appropriately, right? [00:52:42] Gospel Joy Or Darkness [00:52:42] Tony Arsenal: That is the key to this parable,

What does it mean to faith your way toward healing? On this episode of Sermon Brainwave, Karoline Lewis, Cody Sanders, and Matt Skinner dig into the lectionary texts for the Second Sunday after Pentecost (June 7, 2026): Matthew 9:9–13, 18–26; Hosea 5:15–6:6; Genesis 12:1–9; Psalm 50:7–15; and Romans 4:13–25.The conversation moves from the unlikely calling of Matthew the tax collector to the woman who reached for healing in secret, to Abram's costly and risky act of faithfulness. Along the way, the hosts explore what mercy looks like in practice, how "faith" functions more as a verb than a noun, and why a God who can be counted on matters deeply for preachers and congregations right now.They also note that Romans begins a 15-week summer run through the lectionary, and offer a preview of rich Matthean material ahead through the fall.

Matthew 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit because the kingdom of the heavens is of them." The first thing Jesus teaches in the book of Matthew is that the poor in spirit are blessed.Over the next few episodes I'll present an exegetical interpretation of the first eight "beatitudes" or "makarisms" according to Matthew. Whilst there are plenty of biblical interpretations and theological interpretations around, it would be good to present an exegetical interpretation (based on the Matthean text).   

Episode 125In Part 1 of our two-part series on the Synoptic Problem, we begin with a big-picture overview of the issue: Why do Matthew, Mark, and Luke share so much in common—and where do they differ? Michael then presents the case for Matthean priority, drawing from D.A. Black's Why Four Gospels? He outlines a historical sequence where Matthew writes first, Luke follows with a chronological account under Paul's guidance in Caesarea, and Peter, to support Luke's Gospel, teaches from both Matthew and Luke in Rome. John Mark, serving as Peter's interpreter, later compiles these teachings into what becomes the Gospel of Mark.Find our videocast here: https://youtu.be/RxKXIS3SLEsMusic from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):⁠https://uppbeat.io/t/reakt-music/deep-stone⁠License code: 2QZOZ2YHZ5UTE7C8Find more Take 2 Theology content at https://take2pod.wordpress.com/

Episode NotesEpisode 93: Matthew 5 - Blessings, Curses, and Moving Mountains: The Architecture of Matthew's GospelMarch 4, 2025 - Host: Dr. Gregory HallIn this episode we're diving into Matthew chapter 5 and we'll notice a fascinating aspect of Matthew gospel. Matthew organizes Jesus' major addresses into five distinct sermons. The first and the last of which are delivered on mountains. and today, we'll unpack a link back to the Old Testament story of Moses and Joshua.Resources Referenced and/or Read:Thanks to Dr. Warren Gage for the bulk of the material in this episode. Gage, W. A. (2010). Essays in Biblical Theology (pp. 63–65). Warren A. Gage. - The Blessings and Cursings upon Gerizim and Ebal - The law of Moses instructed the people, when Joshua led them into the good land promised to the fathers, to assemble before the mountains of Gerizim and Ebal for a ceremony reaffirming their fidelity to the Lord and the law of the covenant (Deut 27–28). The entire nation of Israel was to be arranged in ranks by their tribes in the valley between the slopes of the two mountains. Six tribes stood upon the skirts of Ebal, and six tribes stood upon the skirts of Gerizim. Joshua spoke all the law of Moses in the hearing of the twelve tribes of Israel (Josh 8:30–35). The six tribes upon Gerizim spoke the blessings that would be poured out as long as the nation obeyed the law and the covenant (Deut 28:1–14). The six tribes upon Ebal spoke the curses that would come upon the nation if they disobeyed the law (Deut 27:15–28). All the tribes affirmed that, upon their disobedience, a nation from afar would come upon them like the eagle, besieging the fortified walls of Israel (Deut 28:49–52) and driving all the people into exile among the nations (Deut 28:64–68). As each group of six tribes spoke the blessings and the cursings of the law, the six tribes opposite answered with an antiphonal avowal of their fidelity to the covenant and their imprecatory oath of obedience to the Lord. In the New Testament, Matthew's Gospel portrays Jesus as the True Joshua presiding over a new ceremony of blessing and cursing. To recognize this portrayal, we must understand something of the structure of the first Gospel. Matthew arranges his Gospel around seven mountains. These mountains are 1) the mountain of the temptation (4:8), 2) the mountain of the beatitudes (5:1), 3) the mountain of the separation (14:23), 4) the mountain of the feeding in the wilderness (15:29), 5) the mountain of the transfiguration (17:1), 6) the mountain of the Olivet discourse (24:3), and 7) the mountain of the commissioning (28:16). The seven Matthean mountains are arranged chiastically, with corresponding pairs arrayed around the central mountain of the wilderness feeding. The mountains relevant to the Joshua typology are the second mountain and the sixth, which frame Matthew's five discourses. The second mountain is the mountain of the beatitudes in Galilee, the site of the first discourse called the “Sermon on the Mount” (5:1–8:28). The corresponding sixth mountain, the site of the last or “Olivet Discourse,” is the mountain before Jerusalem (24:3–26:1). Matthew's typology of the True Joshua is built around the relationship between the blessings pronounced upon the mount of the beatitudes in Galilee and the woes (or curses) spoken against the Pharisees in Jerusalem. By juxtaposing these mountains, Matthew anticipates the blessings to descend upon the mountain of the Gentiles, which has become Gerizim, and the destruction to come upon Jerusalem, which has become Ebal. Jesus solemnly pronounces nine beatitudes upon the mountain in Galilee (Matt 5:3–12). Eight corresponding woes or curses are enumerated against Jerusalem, framed as antiphonal responses to the beatitudes spoken in Galilee. The juxtaposition of Matthew's two mountains constitutes the restatement of the solemn ceremony at Shechem, and darkly foretells the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the people for their disobedience to the law of Moses in rejecting the Prophet of whom Moses spoke (Matt 24:2).Matthew Study Resources at the Rethinking Scripture Website: https://rethinkingscripture.com/matthew-study-resources/Here are a few resources regarding my first tour guide in Israel, Halvor Ronning.New American Standard Bible: 1995 update (Mt 4:18–22). (1995). The Lockman Foundation.Show Music:Intro/Outro - "Growth" by Armani Delos SantosTransition Music - produced by Jacob A. HallPodcast Website:The All-America Listener Challenge Updates: https://rethinkingscripture.comMy New Podcast Studio... The Upper Room: https://rethinkingscripture.com/podcast-episodes/More information about The Homes and Help Initiative: https://rethinkingscripture.com/homes-help-initiative/Sister site: RethinkingRest.comRethinking Rest... the Book is now available. The Rethinking Rest audiobook is available only on Audible: More information: https://rethinkingrest.com/the-book/Social Media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RethinkingScripture Twitter: @RethinkingStuffInstagram: Rethinking_ScriptureYouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6YCLg2UldJiA0dsg0KkvLAPowered and distributed by Simplecast.

Questions Covered: 01:52 – Question: What exactly is Paul referring to in Galatians 3:1 when he says Christ was “publicly exhibited/portrayed as crucified”? Is it possible Paul knew of the Shroud of Turin? Or maybe he's referring to very early iconography of the Crucifixion? 05:30 – In the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5, could it be logically deduced that Peter was exercising the ability to retain sins? 10:28 – If Jesus was born in 3 or 4 BC, and lived to be 33, would it be more accurate to say the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension took place in AD 29 or 30, as opposed to the commonly cited AD 33? 16:25 – Since Mary was preserved from original sin, did she experience sickness? 19:59 – If St. Joseph had children other than Jesus (as some traditions hold) why wouldn't they be the legal heirs to David's throne? 23:36 – What is your take on Revelation 6:10? 33:16 – How authoritative are the Pontifical Biblical Commission’s early decrees on traditional authorship (for example in 1914 the PBC declared Paul wrote Hebrews)? Now the PBC is not part of the magisterium, but at the time of these declarations it was. It seems like almost no Catholic scholar nowadays thinks Paul wrote Hebrews, but I don’t understand why the PBC’s earlier declarations are no longer authoritative. (Including supporting Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, supporting Matthean priority, etc) 37:31 – I was talking to a fallen away Catholic. How do you respond when they say Adam had a first wife named Lilith and Eve was his second wife? 40:20 – I understand if a couple divorces legally they're still married in the eyes of the church. If one wanted to get remarried, they would have to get an annulment from the church, but suppose that marriage produced children. What does the annulment mean for the children of that marriage as far as the church is concerned?? Or another way of putting it: if my parents got annulment from the church, does the church still recognize me as a baptized Catholic? or do I suddenly become a bastard child (for lack of a better term)?? 45:08 – How should we understand Jesus “fulfilling the law”, specifically considering the abandonment of many of the laws of the old covenant? 49:16 – Prior to the fall — Did “Adam and Eve” have Preternatural Gifts if they existed under the Federal Headship Model or the Polygenism Model?  If they did what would have been the morality of Human Beings, with Preternatural Gifts, mating with human like beings without preternatural gifts. …

A proposed solution to the synoptic problem holds that the Gospel of Mark was used as a source by the Gospel of Luke, then both of these were used as sources by the Gospel of Matthew, referred to as the Matthean Posteriority hypothesis. A renowned Bible scholar continues to present his thought provoking arguments in support of a historical Jesus and the texts associated with his life and ministry. Enjoy this Encore Presentation! Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World podcast available at https://amzn.to/3YJpTqZ Books by Jimmy Akin available at https://amzn.to/3shLkD8     THANKS for the many wonderful comments, messages, ratings and reviews. All of them are regularly posted for your reading pleasure on https://patreon.com/markvinet where you can also get exclusive access to Bonus episodes, Ad-Free content, Extra materials, and an eBook Welcome Gift when joining our growing community on Patreon or Donate on PayPal at https://bit.ly/3cx9OOL and receive an eBook GIFT. SUPPORT this series by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at no extra charge to you). It costs you nothing to shop using this FREE store entry link and by doing so encourages & helps us create more quality content. Thanks! Mark Vinet's HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA podcast: www.parthenonpodcast.com/history-of-north-america                                                  Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet      Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels  Twitter: https://twitter.com/HistoricalJesu   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9  YouTube Podcast Playlist: https://www.bit.ly/34tBizu  TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@historyofnorthamerica  Books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM  Linktree: https://linktr.ee/WadeOrganization                                                              Source: When Were the Gospels Written? (The Dates of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) from Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World podcast with Dom Bettinelli. Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In observance of the Feast of All Saints, we jump back to earlier in Matthew as Jesus is giving his sermon on the mount. Elizabeth Garnsey, John Kennedy, and Rob Schwartz talk about the Beatitudes and what Jesus meant by the word "blessed". Plus, how does Matthew's version differ from Luke's and what needed to be conveyed to the Matthean community.Want to have your question or comment featured on the podcast? Leave a voicemail on our Rev'd Up hotline! Call (203) 442-5002.Learn more about St. Mark's at https://www.stmarksnewcanaan.org

A proposed solution to the synoptic problem holds that the Gospel of Mark was used as a source by the Gospel of Luke, then both of these were used as sources by the Gospel of Matthew, referred to as the Matthean Posteriority hypothesis. A renowned Bible scholar continues to present his thought provoking arguments in support of a historical Jesus and the texts associated with his life and ministry.  Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World podcast available at https://amzn.to/3YJpTqZ Books by Jimmy Akin available at https://amzn.to/3shLkD8     Thanks for the many wonderful comments, messages, ratings and reviews. All of them are regularly posted for your reading pleasure on https://patreon.com/markvinet along with the Completists Honor Roll, Collaborators Lists, and where you can also get exclusive access to Bonus episodes, Ad-Free content, Extra materials, and an eBook Welcome Gift when joining our growing community on Patreon or Donate on PayPal at https://bit.ly/3cx9OOL and receive an eBook GIFT. SUPPORT this channel by enjoying a wide-range of useful & FUN Gadgets at https://twitter.com/GadgetzGuy OR by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM (Amazon gives us credit at no extra charge to you). It costs you nothing to shop using this FREE store entry link and by doing so encourages, supports & helps us to create more quality content for this series. Thanks! Mark Vinet's HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA podcast: www.parthenonpodcast.com/history-of-north-america                                                Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet        Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels  Twitter: https://twitter.com/HistoricalJesu   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9  YouTube Podcast Playlist: https://www.bit.ly/34tBizu  TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@historyofnorthamerica  Books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM  Linktree: https://linktr.ee/WadeOrganization                                                    Source: When Were the Gospels Written? (The Dates of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) from Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World podcast with Dom Bettinelli. Audio excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Did Matthew or Mark come first? David defends Matthean priority. 

This is Easter Sunday. The scripture is the Matthean account of the women arriving at the tomb to be met by an angel and then by the risen Jesus. Having been in “a Good Friday place” for several weeks now from our community's sorrow, and having preached on “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” in a Good Friday service, Carol confessed to having felt lost as late as yesterday. From this text in Matthew, she realized that those closest to Jesus must have felt down and lost, too, from the burial of Jesus through their Sabbath day. Then on the first day of the week those two Mary's went to the tomb, still deep in grief, only to witness an angel opening the tomb and announcing the resurrection. They are convinced and leave to tell the disciples as the angel had instructed them to do, but in a culmination to their experience, the risen Jesus appears to them. We, too, leave this place having experienced the resurrection, so that we, like the two Mary's and the disciples, are sent out to love in the power of resurrection, recalling the words of Jesus, “I am with you always.”

In contrast to our Shrove Tuesday Jazz Mass, which is a celebratory service, on Ash Wednesday we turn our hearts and minds to the introspection and meditation of the Lenten season, using the sign of the cross in ashes on our foreheads as a symbol of that shift. The Rev. Carol Cavin-Dillon gives the homily, “To Show or Not To Show,” initially asking whether when we leave the service we will wipe the ashes off our foreheads or will leave the ashes there for others to see. The scripture for the service, from the Matthean version of the Sermon on the Mount, seems to give us both answers, and so, “It depends.”

For the record, I don't care about Han Solo or whether he shot first in the cantina scene in Star Wars. I care about Matthew. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Mark, too, and Luke, and John. It's just that Mark didn't shoot first. Mark shot second. Like Mark Antony's speech at Caesar's funeral, it started with a line such as, “I've come to bury Matthew, not to praise him!” This scholarship to remove Matthew as the first Gospel writer started in anti-Catholic Protestant universities in Europe, using biased textual criticism that ignored all historical testimony in writing and Sacred Tradition. But why would they do that? Why would anyone do that? Who benefits? Let me beat this topic a bit longer…First and foremost, knocking down Matthew to second or third very clearly elevates the Protestant argument against Peter as the first Pope and apostolic succession. This cannot be understated. If there is one position to attack on the Catholic Church, it's to get the Papacy in check-mate, and when the direct assault of the Protestants didn't work, a long “march through the culture” happened in the universities. Today we can observe the atheists like Bart Ehrman in lockstep with the Marxists. It makes for strange bedfellows. Since the workers of the world did not unite to overthrow capitalism and religion, a long atheist “march through the culture” is happening. (Spoiler alert: at the end these marches, guess who will still be there? Yes, the answer is the Catholic Church. This is not the first rodeo for the Church. There have been large, violent, and lengthy attacks before in the forms of the Arians, Nestorians, Albigensians, Islam, and a hundred others.) As we watch the fragmentation of Protestantism, and the latest ascendency of what is becoming known as wokeness, we can observe a process of atomization unfolding. A scattering is happening. We can read about the annual splintering of the Baptists at their conventions. Even this week as I write this, the United Methodist Church will soon be no longer United but “Wedged” instead. On the other side, the unbelievers form factions that come and go, like the Masons, the humanists, the deconstructionists, the freethinkers, the “Brights” (the hilarious, brief attempt at a religion started by Richard Dawkins, which I was quite enamored with when I was fallen away and thought Dawkins was deep instead of ridiculous). These fads come and go, because none of them are from God. We are in the last days of the Masons because they were always just a reaction and a copycat. The humanists can't get along, or even form a coherent set of ideas, because they worship the human, and that makes for seven billion gods. The woke are already destroying one another, as the head is now eating the tail. One thing that always plays out is the breakdown of unity among unbelievers. It's ugly. It's not beautiful. It's ugly…because it's not from God.The tragedy, however, in doing this teardown of Matthew, is that these well-intentioned Pope-haters (which is considered a virtue in some Protestant circles) managed to undermine all of sacred scripture, not just the parts that affect the Catholic Church. A nice summary of this long tragedy is in a book by Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker called The Decline and Fall of Sacred Scripture. The obsession with scholarly insight into scripture did not elevate the word of God, it devalued it and ripped out the supernatural altogether. Yet the supernatural is still in there, despite decades of academic wrestling over.Why does this research undermine the Gospel? Because if Matthew is written after the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem, when the Romans laid waste to all things Jewish, Jesus' prediction about the temple being disassembled becomes really, really weak. If Matthew wrote this after 70 A.D., which all “modern” biased scholarship suggests, then it makes no sense. As Jesus came out of the temple and was going away, his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. Then he asked them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” (Matthew 24:1-2)Now, faithful scholarship believes Matthew was written between 42 and 68 A.D., which makes sense with this statement (and everything else above). However, scholars who lack faith place Matthew as being written after 70 A.D. and only that Matthew drew from “earlier sources,” but the problem is that the suspicion is already branded on the text and when scholars refer to “earlier sources” they are not referring to the Hebrew version of Matthew that tradition speaks about. And here are the suspicions: 1.) That the prediction of the temple destruction was added after the fact to make Jesus look prophetic. 2.) That the pro-Catholic verses about Peter and the Sacraments were added later to shore up the case for Catholic authority. 3.) That all of the Gospel is dubious at best because so much time passed that an eyewitness account is impossible. What I can never fully get my head around is this. The main argument for Mark being first is that…: Mark is shorter. The second reason is that Mark is…: Mark is a weaker writer. Both of these arguments can be turned around and argued against to say that Matthew was first because Matthew is longer and Matthew is a better writer. These arguments for “Mark shot first” are inventions and bear no weight whatsoever on facts, and you can argue it until you are blue in the face without it getting anywhere, and scholars have done just that. But somehow these arguments have great staying power because scholarship has anointed these two ideas with the ink of published papers. Never mind that the journals are biased toward “Mark shot first” to begin with. Never mind that you probably can't get a job teaching Biblical studies if you objected to these arguments (read this fascinating article about 19th century German hiring and firing of those who didn't toe the party line). The following may come as a shock to the modern person who likes to “follow the science” and assumes that science and experts would never lie: scholars and scientists are every bit as prone to simping, scapegoating, and “dry-labbing” facts as are religious and business people, and correcting an error in scholarship or science is like turning a super-tanker around in the ocean; it takes a long time, and a lot of energy, and a lot of convincing, because usually no one wants to admit things are going in the wrong direction. There's too much money, time, and sunk costs to change direction. The Titanic didn't sink because an iceberg hit it. The Titanic sunk because it ran into an iceberg. The problem of pride in the mind and assumed perfection preceded the collision. The iceberg just happened to be the reality that smashed a false idea. In praise of science, it usually will self-correct over time because sooner or later someone calls out the lie. The researcher who produces false results will be outed, even if it takes a century. However, Biblical scholarship is not biology or physics, so there is much more room for bias, just like in sociology or history or literary criticism, and the will of whoever is in power, whether it's a king or department chair, can skew the results dramatically toward the desired outcome through wordsmithing. Even in hiring, the bias for the desired outcome of future research is accomplished, because if an academic researcher would like a job but shows inclinations against the status quo, then their application will be passed over. This is no different than the Church, where an atheist cannot become a priest. But the faith is laid out in full display in the Church, where the preachers and teachers must profess the faith. In academia, this is hidden. Under the guise of “free speech” there is anything but such a thing, and therein lies the problem: the lies. Thus is a bias and motive protected, fenced off, in the walled gardens of academia, and there is no place more fenced off in the modern world than the university. They are the modern Levites, the experts who hand down the truth. As we try to downplay Moses and religious ways, our modern academic experts act more like Moses on Sinai than Moses himself, even wearing lab coats in their TV interviews, or being interviewed in rooms with walls bearing diplomas for the lay people, or giving TED talks from on high to the plebes watching at home on YouTube. So, back to the absurd argument of “It's shorter.” If I want to argue that “Mark shot first” because “it's shorter,” if I stare long and hard enough at Mark, I will find a case and enough evidence for the outcome I'm seeking. This is the beauty of textual criticism - it's an interpretive dance based solely on internal evidence, and therefore a fantasy. On the flip side, if I want to argue that Matthew is first because “it's longer,” I can do that, too. After all, you can spin a text into whatever you like, if you just use internal evidence of the text itself.The difference, however, is that a scholar most likely cannot publish the findings for an argument that “Matthew is longer, therefore first.” In secular academics, to get a job teaching such things, or to get accepted in a graduate program, is unlikely. This is the problem with modern academia; it is as rigid as the Pharisees in what you are allowed to say or believe. The book 1984 was written in an era of totalitarian governments, but today it applies very well to American universities and public schools, and this is exactly why so many teachers are leaving the profession. No one enjoys living a lie. As a former English major, I will say this pointing at myself: This spin problem is why you never want English majors being the navigators for your nation. They can spin gold into straw very easily, but they cannot spin straw into gold. They can only spin. They spin and toil and undo things, but by and large they do not create anything. A career is made of unpacking and teasing out meaning, calling out prejudices, pointing out oppression - but never producing or making anything. Lit-crit and Biblical-crit at the modern university is full of morality, guilt, and finger-pointing, to the point that three modern academics were able to publish several hoax papers on grievance studies that were accepted mainly because of their use on ridiculous postmodern jargon. “The trio set out with the intent to expose problems in what they called ‘grievance studies', referring to academic areas where they claim ‘a culture has developed in which only certain conclusions are allowed… and put social grievances ahead of objective truth'.”Now, with the humanities in free-fall, the jig is up on modern scholarship, since it's reaching the tipping point, the last phase, where the head becomes too heavy for the body to carry it any longer. Now we reach the point in a society where the workers of the world unite, but not the way that intellectuals like Marx think. The workers unite because they are tired of pulling the cart and being told they are the evil ones. So for the most part, I try not to worry about this long attack on Matthew. Jesus warned us not to worry. One thing is for sure: even if Matthew hadn't written at all, and we were still simply rolling by oral tradition, the message of Christ would still be growing, because it is from God, and nothing on this earth, nothing in this world, can halt what is from God. Jesus warned us about spinning and toiling, using clothing as an example, and clothing is even a metaphor in the Garden to hide our nakedness. Our reputations and opinions are kind of like clothing, where we fashion these elaborate fig leaves to cover ourselves. Jesus warns us to knock it off, and quit worrying: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin.” He warns us about men of little faith: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.”So I should really just stop bothering about the fact that “Matthew shot first,” because I know that tradition tells us his Gospel was first, and having faith means trusting in Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium of the Church. I know that. And yet, sometimes I let it bother me, because the real reason behind all of this is not a search for the truth, but the search for an outcome. The obvious aim of this kind of scholarship from the start has been to undermine the Church, and it remains so to this day. Whether it comes from the cynicism of unbelievers or the broadsides of Protestants, the desired outcome is the capitulation of the bishop of Rome, a.k.a. the Pope, who is on the chair of Peter, on the rock of the Church that Christ founded. And clearly scholars will not destroy the church, because Jesus promised that the “gates of hell will not prevail against” his Church. So they can certainly try to undermine it, but ultimately will fail, and they are failing now. It will play out exactly as every other attempt to destroy the Church, in that it will be messy, but the Church will remain when the dust settles, just as it has outlasted every other heresy and empire. This campaign has produced thousands of papers and articles on the Synoptic Problem, which was not a problem at all until modern scholarship made it into one, in the same universities that brought us the sad philosophy and ideas that conjured 20th century Germany, China, and the Soviet Union, and all of the horrors. These things are not unrelated. The stoking of the “will-to-power” didn't just happen in political nationalism and social Darwinism and Marxist revolutions. It happened most definitely in Biblical scholarship as well. Now, they meant it for bad, but as always, God will in the end, use it for good. This is how God deals with folks like Julius Wellhausen and Gottlieb Storr. He will do so with modern doubters too, like Bart Ehrman and his atheist disciples. The funny thing about scholarship's search for “truth” that wants to debunk Christianity is that they often end up organizing and collating information better so that new insights to Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition can be found. In other words, the unbelievers and anti-Catholics help faithful writers write better books on the truth of Christ. The anti-Catholics are like Joseph's eleven brothers in Genesis that throw him down the well and sell him into slavery, only to find out later that Joseph ended up thriving while they starved. In short, there was great incentive to crush Catholicism in Lutheran Germany from the time old Gottlieb Storr first whispered the idea of “Mark shot first” in 1786. For any philosophy aficionados, this connection will be interesting: one of Gottlieb Storr's students was none other than Hegel, who was the muse of Karl Marx. You have to marvel at it really, how these connections lead down the path of unbelief. The mess we are in today is the product of a lot of cross-pollination and rebellion (I wanted to say inbreeding but that would be uncharitable). What's interesting to me is these Hatfields and McCoys are actually all in the same family, as Protestant Storr begat unbelieving Hegel, and Hegel begat atheist Marx, and Marx begat Nietzsche, and Nietzsche begat Sartre, and Sartre begat Derrida, and Derrida begat Foucault, and Foucault begat the many-headed monster of wokeism. These are the names. This is how we've come to live in the book of Judges again in 2023 because “in those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.” (Judges 21:25) The path of denying that sin exists starts small, but balloons into the denial of God. In hindsight, this all should have been as predictable as a stock market bubble, but the prophets of doom, those annoying gnats, are never heard until afterward.When Bismarck and company were consolidating power in Germany, this little snowball of Biblical criticism rolled, and rolled, and rolled, and the re-shaping of the Bible into a secular book has been so successful that when I attended a Catholic University for a year (from which I want my money back), I learned about “Marcan Priority,” which is a fancy way of saying that “Mark shot first.” I was also told that “We don't know who wrote the Gospels.” Both of these statements are false. If only that were the worst of it. The “Mark shot first” theory is not only taught in Catholic colleges. No, no, no. “Mark shot first” is taught in the American bishops' official Bible footnotes, in the “New American Bible,” the NAB. The Bible translation itself is fine. It's the footnotes that destroy faith. I am not alone in this feeling. Many others, like Jimmy Akin and Trent Horn to name just two of them, do not like the footnotes, or even the translation very much. You cannot read a page of Matthew in the New American Bible without the writer of the footnotes mentioning the hypothetical “Q” source (a document that doesn't exist and was probably Matthew in Aramaic or Hebrew if it did exist). Further, the footnote author mentions Marcan priority, and Mark as the source. So the footnotes of the New American Bible disagree with 1800 years of Tradition. How interesting. Someday I hope to learn who the author was of these footnotes. The root problem here is a lack of a supernatural view of the Bible, of which I may do a whole additional series on, because it's so important, but I can't dive deeply on it here without getting way off track, as I tend to do. This Bible, this New American Bible, with these heretical and faithless footnotes, is given to Confirmation students across America. It is everywhere. They are given out like a medal, a right of passage at Confirmation. I've discarded mine. So should you. Get a Word on Fire Bible or Ignatius Study Bible instead, or if you don't want a Catholic study Bible, get an ESV Study Bible that has faithful footnotes. I guess I can breathe a sigh of relief here because most Catholics don't actually read the Bible. (Score one for the Protestants. See - I don't always pick on the protestors. Some of the Protestant study Bibles have better footnotes, far more faithful ones than the New American Bible). Worst of all, the USCCB, the United States Catholic Bishops' website, uses these same footnotes. I weep. Here I weep. This is a travesty that must be uprooted and ripped out of the Church. I wrote a letter to the USCCB requesting that the footnotes be taken down, or better, printed off and used for kindling. (“But that's book burning, you Nazi!”) Fine, let's just delete them and use the Ignatius Study Bible footnotes instead. Now there is a Catholic study Bible that is faithful to the Scripture and the Tradition. Again, the New American Bible is fine, but the footnotes must have been written by my liberal arts professors who hadn't been to Mass in a long time - probably ever since they received their New American Bible with the footnotes about Marcan priority! Matthew shot first. As I've mentioned before, in the Bible, in the Commandments, and in the story of Creation, order matters, and the order of which the four evangelists wrote also matters greatly. The ordering of them in the form of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John doesn't just roll off the tongue. It's also the order in which they came to be on paper. And even if Matthew was translated from Hebrew into Greek, he was first, has always been first, and the early Church had no reason to pretend this was the case, unlike the scholars who tried to upend history by twisting words. One thing that should be an immediate head scratcher for you is this: if Christianity started in Jerusalem, where Christ was crucified, effectively on Pentecost, and most of the initial arguments were with Jews and Christ's followers, then why would Mark, written in Greek, be the first? Warning: if you attend a university, almost any university, you will never hear these arguments. This is all hidden from you, as the modern Biblical scholars have buried these. In 1995, I was taught only Marcan Priority…at a Catholic college, of all places. The great thing about truth, however, is that it cannot be buried forever. My hope is that someday, just as the Dead Sea Scrolls were found by some kids throwing rocks in caves, that another jar will turn up in Israel, and inside it will be Aramaic Matthew, and all of this false scholarship, and I mean all of it, will turn to dust. Matthew shot first.The following is from a biblical site where people argue about these things, copied in full. (From https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com). What are the arguments in favor of Matthean Priority?External Evidence* Matthew is almost unanimously testified as the oldest gospel by the church fathers. Clement of Alexandria even supported both Matthew and Luke as before Mark. This is significant because Mark is said to have founded the Coptic branch of Christianity in Alexandria, Egypt. If any place were to argue for Markan priority, Egypt would be the most likely. A sampling of the church fathers' testimony follows:* Papias “Matthew wrote in Hebrew and others translated.” (HE 3.39.16)* Origen said the first gospel was written by Matthew in Hebrew. (HE 6.25.4)* Irenaeus (grandson in the faith of John by Polycarp of Smyrna) said the first gospel was written written by Matthew in land of Hebrews in their own language. (Against Heresies. 3.1.1)* Eusebius — Matthew had first preached to Hebrews and wrote in their own language (HE 3.24.6)* Jerome “Matthew was the first to compose in Hebrew and his text is still available in [library near Bethlehem].” He even challenged his critics to go see it if they doubted. (Lives of Illustrious Men ch. 3)As the church rose out of the mission to the gentiles, it is interesting that the church fathers supported the Judaic gospel of Matthew instead of Mark. Also consider that they testify that Mark was the companion of the Apostle Peter in Rome which became one of the five sees of the early church (Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, Egypt). Unless the tradition of Matthean priority were very early, it is unlikely that they would all arrive at it independently. In fact, the slight differences in their testimonies provide evidence that they came from different sources.* Even though one of the main arguments for Markan priority is that Mark is shorter and "later authors would be more likely to expand than contract," such is not always the case (see, for example, the Reader's Digest Condensed Library). Summarizing a longer work is well known and has been for a long time. There are even ancient works which name their sources and state, "this work will be a shorter, more understandable account of the events than X."* The Didache clearly relies on Matthew. While the date of this document is debated between AD 50 and AD 150, the earlier it is, the earlier Matthew has to be.* When you examine second-century Christian writings, Matthew is quoted far more frequently than Mark. So is Luke. If Mark enjoyed a period when it was the only written gospel, it seems that it should have been more popular. Likewise, Matthew's Gospel enjoys a more central place in the second century liturgy than any other gospel or even Paul's epistles. (see, for example, Massaux's extensive treatment of the subject here)Internal EvidenceI am separating textual evidence from internal evidence. The difference is that internal evidence will be themes or concepts while textual evidence deals with specific words and phrases.* The fall of Jerusalem is completely missing from Matthew. This event rocked the Jewish world. Matthew, who so often points out when a prophecy is fulfilled, does not add an editorial comment to Jesus' prophecy that Jerusalem would be overthrown. Not a single "and this prophecy was fulfilled" about the fall.Some have pointed to Matthew 22:7 as referring to the fall of Jerusalem as an event happening in the past. In fact, this verse is almost universally accepted as such. However, sending in troops and burning a city with fire were quite common ways of dealing with troublesome cities in the past. In fact, it is so common in Near Eastern, Old Testament, and Rabbinic writings that its occurrence here should not be thought to refer to a single event.Moreover, for an after-the-fact prophecy, Matt 22:7 is very inexact. While the walls of Jerusalem fell, it was the temple that burned. In fact, post event "prophecies" do make this distinction.We have overthrown the wall of Zion and we have burnt the place of the mighty God (II Baruch 7.1). [I.e. the temple. For this sense, cf. II Mace. 5.17-20; John 11.48; Acts6.14; 21.28; etc.]They delivered ... to the enemy the overthrown wall, and plundered the house, and burnt the temple (II Baruch 80.3).And a Roman leader shall come to Syria, who shall burn down Solyma's [Jerusalem's] temple with fire, and therewith slay many men, and shall waste the great land of the Jews with its broad way (Sibylline Oracles 4.125-7).It seems to me that if this were being written post AD 70, then the prophecy would have been altered to distinguish the fates of the city and temple. Christians did come to see the burning of the Temple as God's judgment on the Jewish leadership, but the events do not correspond closely enough to require Christ's parable to be a reference to it or the wording to be an after the fact description. A final note on Matthew and the city can be found in Matthew 27:8 ("For this reason that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day."). Matthew seems to view the city as still intact when he writes that.Likewise, the cryptic statement in Matt 24, "let the reader understand" need not mean the "this prophecy has been fulfilled." Whenever Matthew wants to say that a prophecy has been fulfilled, he says so (for example, Matt 1:22; 2:15; 2:23; 3:15; 4:14; etc).I understand Matthew 24 to be referring to the parousia. Matthew states that the distress of those days will be followed immediately by the coming of the Son of Man (24:29). This did not happen in AD 70. If Matthew is trying to portray Jesus as an unmatched prophet, he failed by including material that did not happen.* While Matthew contains a high Christology, this by no means means it has to be written after Mark who does not present such a high theology. (Easily explained if Mark's Gospel is meant for an audience who is new in the faith.) Paul's letters contain a high Christology, and most scholars date Paul (died ~64) before Mark (who they place ~70). Moreover, Paul's letters show that Christian traditions even earlier than his had a high Christology.* The same can be said for Matthew's high liturgy. In fact, one of the verses that is brought out to show Matthew came late in the first century or beyond is Matthew 18:17 based on the word "church." However, this ignores that the Greek word used there, ecclesia, enjoyed wide usage in the Septuagint to translate qahal, "sacred assembly," and was used by diaspora Jews.Textual Evidence* There are a significant number of places in Matthew where the parallel account in Mark makes more sense to have been edited down than for Matthew to expand. It is possible to read Mark with the hypothesis that it came from Matthew and run into no redactional problems that challenge said hypothesis. However, reading Matthew as a redaction of Mark does cause such problems.* There are places where Mark uses a certain word but Matthew does not, even though he used that word in other places (for example "pherein"). This makes more sense with Mark editing Matthew than of Matthew copying Mark.* There are places where Matthew has phrases he likes and uses them consistently. Mark has parallels of most of these accounts and is very free in his translations of the phrases. It makes more sense for Mark to be free styling from Matthew than it does for Matthew to be forcing the phrase into his wording whenever he sees it in Mark. One of these phrases is opias de genomenes, found first in Mt 8:16 and Mk 1:32. Markan priority has to conclude that Matthew copied the form exactly as Mark had it the first time, then always and consistently used the same grammar whenever he found a similar phrase in Mark and introducing it himself in Mt 20:8 which has no parallel in Mark.* There are places where Mark combines details from both Matthew and Luke. An example of these duplicate expressions can be seen in Mark 1:32 compared to Mt 8:16 and Luk 4:40.Mk 1:32 When evening came, after the sun had set, they began bringing to Him all who were ill and those who were demon-possessed.Mt 8:16 When evening came, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill.Lk 4:40 While the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and laying His hands on each one of them, He was healing them.In these parallels, Mark combines the introductory phrases from both Matthew and Luke. In this case, Markan priority would require that Luke know of both Matthew and Mark and consciously choose to use the exact phrase that Matthew does not. However, if Matthew writes first and Luke second, there is no such problem.* Matthew leaves semitisms in place where Mark smoothens them. This includes wording and patterns that Mark breaks. Yes, Mark has eight semitic words, but Matthew has many more semitisms (so does Luke, a plethora of semitisms). Many of Mark's semitisms seem to be added for drama while Matthew's flow naturally.Adding to the semitisms are 12 times where Matthew (and Luke) uses the participle of a verb while Mark uses the past tense. Using a participle for the second verb in a set (and he answered, saying) is well-known when coming from a semitic language (all over the Septuagint) but is not used in normal Greek. Mark also uses these participles but not as often. It would be more likely to edit them out than to edit them back in.Many more examples exist where Matthew and Luke agree with one another in wording and Mark is different.* Matthew and Luke both record 8 healing miracles. Mark has 10. The two left out of both Matthew and Luke are the saliva miracles (Mark 7:32-35 and 8:24). Did they both decide to skip the same miracles independently or did Mark add them from another source?More details can be found here and here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.whydidpetersink.com

How to understand the Christian concept of God versus the pagan gods. Pope Benedict XVI (emeritus) wrote "Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives." In it he discusses the difference between mythic conceptions of divine birth, like the rape of Europa by Zeus and the Matthean and Lukan accounts of the virgin birth. Comparing the two, he focuses on how differently the divine is understood. He writes, "The difference between the concepts involved is so profound that one really cannot speak of true parallels. In the Gospel accounts, the oneness of the one God and the infinite distance between God and creature is fully preserved. There is no mixture, no demi-god. It is God's creative word alone that brings about something new. Jesus, born of Mary, is fully man and fully God, without confusion and without. " Pope Benedict XVI. Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives . The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. We will explore this and more on Oro Valley Catholic for the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121822.cfm Music by the St. Mark Choir pursuant to One License for podcasting, # A-726294

Jesus said we're to pray, “forgive us our debts” (Matthew 6:12-KJV) or the Matthean version: “and forgive us our trespasses.” And then in verse 14, He reiterates the importance of forgiveness… “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”But are we not already forgiven?Why the Lord's Prayer is a collective prayerA quick review of Episodes 15, 16 and 17 is definitely in order here - The Lies We Believe About Sin, Forgiveness & SanctificationHow sin is punishedWhat happens spiritually and physically when we don't forgiveGrab a copy of Fran's book, Surviving Spiritual AbuseGet more help from Trish and Guests! IW Unleashed: The new community membership for mission minded entrepreneurial women. Get ready to live a life unleashed! Embracing Rest: Encounter the place of Resting in Jesus - the REAL Truth of how to experience joy, peace, and healing!

Bible Study: (1:02) RV 11:19A; 12:1-6A, 10AB Father discusses the connection between today's feast and Revelation 1 COR 15:20-27 Do we have universal salvation?  LK 1:39-56 Mary offers her prayer of thanksgiving  Letters: (15:06) Fr. Mike writes in to Fr. Simon about the Bible in a Year program  A listener writes in about becoming an oblate  Story about inviting a Mormon in for food Is the Pope updating the teaching on contraception?  Listener asks about the Cross being the Kingdom What is the best way to read the Bible?  A caller asks about the Matthean exception for marriage Do I have to go to Mass if I'm going on a trip in a remote area?   Word of the Day: Assumption (32:47) Callers  (39:11) - Could you explain the 28 Holy Stairs Devotion?  (41:17) - Could I go to a wedding of a non-practicing Catholic in a secular setting? (46:13) - I just love Fr. Simon and appreciate him and I'm a contributor 

Jesus of Nazareth is the great Subject of our preaching and the Hero of our Sermons, but in what ways should Jesus be a role model in our preaching style and sermon construction? In this engaging conversation with Matthean scholar Dr Jonathan Pennington, Mike Neglia finds out in what ways the authoritative yet mysterious preaching of the Messiah is exemplary for contemporary expositors (and a few ways that He is NOT supposed to be our role-model). Dr Pennington also speaks about the Beatitudes, human flourishing and ways to structure a sermon series the encompasses the entire Sermon on the Mount (and a little bit about heavy metal!) Jonathan T. Pennington is currently Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky (USA). He has also regularly served as a visiting professor at Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando), Southeastern Seminary, The Village Church Institute (Dallas), and The Institute of Biblical Studies in Orlando, FL as well as Morling College (Melbourne, Australia).He is also the Spiritual Formation Pastor at Sojourn East and regularly speaks and teaches in churches all over the country.He earned a B.A. in History as well as a Teaching Certificate from Northern Illinois University. He received the Master of Divinity degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Chicago), where he also taught Greek for two years as a NT Fellow. During his time at TEDS he also served for five years as the Associate Pastor at the Evangelical Free Church of Mt. Morris in northern Illinois.He holds the PhD in New Testament Studies from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland (in St. Mary's College), where he wrote a thesis entitled “Heaven and Earth in the Gospel of Matthew” under the supervision of Professors Richard Bauckham and Philip Esler. He attended St. Andrews as a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar and while there he also served as a lecturer in Greek. Dr. Pennington is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the Evangelical Theological Society, the Tyndale Fellowship (Cambridge), the Institute for Biblical Research, and the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies. He has published a wide variety of books, articles, and Greek and Hebrew language tools. (For fuller information see the Publications pages.) He is the also the host and co-producer of the YouTube show Cars, Coffee, Theology. If you want to support Dr. Pennington's teaching and preaching ministry you can do so here -- https://www.humanflourishingministries.com/donate Resources Mentioned: 11 Part Sermon on the Mount Devotional lockdown series : https://www.jonathanpennington.com/preaching-and-speaking-resourcces Jesus the Great Philosopher: http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/jesus-the-great-philosopher/403660 Small Preaching https://www.smallpreaching.com/ The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/the-sermon-on-the-mount-and-human-flourishing/349604 Recommended Episodes Dr Pennington's earlier episode on Expositors Collective: https://www.expositorscollective.com/podcast/2021/8/10/the-first-and-last-minute-of-your-sermon-jonathan-pennington Daniel Fusco : https://www.expositorscollective.com/podcast/2021/8/24/daniel-fusco-tilling-the-soil Sam Allberry: https://www.expositorscollective.com/podcast/2021/9/21/embodied-preaching-sam-allberry The Expositors Collective is a growing network of pastors, leaders, and laypeople which exists to equip, encourage, and mentor the next generation of Christ-centered preachers. We provide resources through our weekly podcast, our two-day intentional training seminars, and interactive webinars.Our next in-person Training Weekend for men and women of all ages will be in Boise, Idaho on October 14-15, 2022 at Calvary Boise. In this interactive seminar, attendees will meet in groups and build ongoing relationships.Join our private Facebook group to continue the conversation: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ExpositorsCollectiveThe Expositors Collective podcast is part of the GoodLion podcast network, for more thought provoking Christian podcasts visit https://goodlion.io

GOSPEL POWER l JULY 5, 2022 - TUESDAY 14th Week in Ordinary Time Gospel: Mt 9:32-38 32A demoniac who was mute was brought to Jesus. 33And when the demon had been cast out, the one who had been mute spoke; and the crowds were amazed and said, “Never has anything like this been seen in Israel.” 34But the Pharisees said, “By the ruler of the demons he casts out the demons.” 35Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. 36When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” The reaction of the Pharisees to Jesus' successful exorcism is similar to what we call today “bullying.” They assert their own superiority through verbal abuse aimed at discrediting Jesus in the eyes of the crowds who witnessed the powerful deed. In this Matthean version of the episode, Jesus demonstrates that the most effective way to silence such bullies is to ignore them. Secure in his identity and committed to his mission, Jesus refuses to be lured into a petty quarrel that can distract him from his more important concerns. Thus, he walks away without a word to continue his mission. He has been sent into the world to embody God's compassion for his people, and nothing could deter him from doing that. Lord Jesus, help us to have that single-hearted focus on the greater things of God, and thus shun pettiness. Amen.

Episode 827 (25:49) In this episode: The Sermon on the Plain; word Blessed vs. Happy; Lukan version vs. Matthean version; Reflection on the Beatitudes Related Web Sites:  My Website Podcast Page All Previous Episodes

We modern folk like to think we invented confusion, but human beings have always been easily confused. We hear and see whatever we want, ignoring everything only to marvel at a phantom we mistake for our reflection. In Matthew 27, this behavior exposes the characters' folly in the story. The bystanders are listening for something other than the content of what is preached from the cross. Like us, they find what they are listening for and miss everything. You might say it's a Matthean critique of pre-modern post-modernism. Or maybe they're just confused. Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Matthew 27:47-50. Episode 416 Matthew 27:47-50; Music:Dirt Rhodes by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3650-dirt-rhodesLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

When English speakers co-opt the Matthean expression, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” they inevitably de-scripturalize them. They twist the words of Jesus as though they refer to an inner psychological struggle or matter of conscience: “I want to do the right thing, but my nature fights against it.” After 400 episodes of the Bible as Literature podcast, do you still need us to spell it out for you? On what basis do you assume that the spirit which opposes Peter's flesh has anything to do with Peter, let alone your make-believe inner struggle? Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Matthew 26:40-42. This week's episode is presented in loving memory of Saleh Canavati. Episode 400 Matthew 26:40-42; Music:Vision of Persistence by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4592-vision-of-persistenceLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

On this episode, Pastor Warr rides solo as he embodies the Crazy Charlie meme to explain his research and theories regarding Markan priority while constantly mispronouncing both Markan and Matthean priority theory. Yay!

No parable is more widely abused than the Parable of the Talents. On the heels of a series of Matthean stories that warn of destruction and judgment, the Master assigns a duty to each of his slaves in anticipation, yet again, of the coming judgment. He does not want their money. He has no interest in their stewardship plans or building programs. Nowhere is their talk of parish growth or volunteer sign-up sheets. Lastly, and most importantly, when Matthew uses the word “talents,” he is not talking about our special, unique gifts from God. He is talking about the content of St. Paul's teaching. Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Matthew 25:14-15.Episode 384 Matthew 25:14-15; Music:As I Figure by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3383-as-i-figureLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

For those who impose a triumphalist or sectarian premise on the Bible, it is impossible to hear the Parable of the Ten Virgins. Even if they accept Matthew’s warning that the church will be judged—even if they understand that the virgins represent churches—they immediately assume that their church is numbered among the prudent. But the very fact of a Matthean reckoning implies that the jury is still out for all of us. So, the question is, is the body of our church prepared for the arrival of the Bridegroom? Since all ten virgins (representing all the churches of the earth) were found sleeping at the wheel, how did some manage to survive? What should your church be doing to scrape by on that day, despite itself? Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Matthew 25:5-9.Episode 382 Matthew 25:5-9; Music:Pulse by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4250-pulseLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

We continue in Gospel Discipleship. This week the Gospel of Matthew and those whom is resonates with.

We continue in Gospel Discipleship. This week the Gospel of Matthew and those whom is resonates with.

New season, new photo, new song, new sound quality! Doesn't get much better than that! Thank you, Lord Jesus! In this season, we are going to get deep down and dirty with the Sermon on the Mount, one of the most known and controversial speeches in all of history. In this episode, we get contextual and also delve into Luke's version of the Sermon in order to help us learn what to expect in the sessions ahead. Check it out, subscribe, review, and support! Best love to you all. :) Intro Song: Rise Artist: Skillet Album: Rise Copyright 2013 --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/20minutepods/support

We end our series on the Sermon on the Mount with the Matthean passage that ends the sermon in chapter 7. It is the familiar story of two houses, one built on sand and the other on rock. It is easy to understand the difference, but what does it mean for Jesus to caution us to build our house on rock? And how, in our current situation of needing to keep our distance from others during the COVID-19 threat, do we hear the words and act on them?

We end our series on the Sermon on the Mount with the Matthean passage that ends the sermon in chapter 7. It is the familiar story of two houses, one built on sand and the other on rock. It is easy to understand the difference, but what does it mean for Jesus to caution us to build our house on rock? And how, in our current situation of needing to keep our distance from others during the COVID-19 threat, do we hear the words and act on them?

  If you've grown up in church - and maybe even if you haven't - you've probably heard of the conversion of Paul the apostle. Initially, as the story goes, Saul was an enemy of Christians and had them arrested. He was even at the murder/martyrdom of the deacon Stephen, and was apparently the government official there that signed off on his impromptu (and likely illegal) execution. So far, so good - all accurate. Then, later on the Damascus Road, as Acts 9 tells it, Saul meets Jesus, and becomes a Christian. For the rest of his life after meeting Jesus, Saul is now known as Paul because Jesus has not only changed his heart, but changed his name! Great story, bro, but... is that what really happened? Actually, it isn't. But - before we discuss Saul/Paul and biblical names, let's read Acts 9 together! Fantastic testimony! Saul is such a notorious enemy of Christians that when God directly tells the prophet Ananias to go pray for him, Ananias has the temerity (or perhaps, the foolishness) to try and tell God that He was mistaken about sending Ananias to go and pray healing for Saul. God convinces Him that He's right, and Ananias is wrong - duh - and then Saul is healed and delivered. And then, Ananias gives him his new name - right? Actually, no. Saul is still Saul. In fact, in Acts 9:19-20, we see that Saul has become an evangelistic dynamo: "Saul was with the disciples in Damascus for some time. 20 Immediately he began proclaiming Jesus in the synagogues: “He is the Son of God.” But...his name is still Saul! Later, Saul goes to Jerusalem to try and join the church there, but they are still afraid of him, so he decides to change his name to something more Jewish sounding, right? Actually, no - he remains Saul...and Saul is a Hebrew name! Then we take a Saul break for a couple of chapters to let Peter eat some goats and pigs and such. At the end of chapter 11, the focus turns back to Saul, who has been sort of exiled to his hometown of Tarsus partially because Christians are afraid of him, but mostly because people that aren't Christians are after him. But - praise God! - good old Barnabas, the son of encouragement, comes along, and takes Saul (that's still his name) to the church in Antioch, which is a Greek/Gentile city that would be in modern day Turkey. At Antioch, Saul becomes a valued member of the church AND IS STILL CALLED SAUL. Finally, we get to Acts 13. The Gentile church at Antioch is flourishing, and filled with seasoned prophets and teachers from many different nations, including at least two Africans: Lucius of Cyrene and a guy named Simeon the Black (which is a pretty cool name, if you ask me). The Holy Spirit sets apart two of those prophet/teachers for an evangelism mission, and calls them out by name: Barnabas and SAUL. Yes, God Himself calls him Saul years after His conversion. And then we get to the changeover - blink and you miss it! 9 But Saul—also called Paul—filled with the Holy Spirit Acts 13:9 And after that its Paul, the whole Paul and nothing but the Paul. Following that verse, the only time we hear the name "Saul" in the Bible is when Paul is recounting His testimony on the Damascus road. In every other instance, he is simply called 'Paul.' So - our big question: Why did Saul become Paul? And the answer is - HE DIDN'T! Saul is both a Roman citizen and a Hebrew citizen, and as such, he would have two names - a very common practice in the first century. I have a good friend with Mexican origins who is called Johnny by most people here in Salinas, California, but his real name is Juan. Something very similar is happening here with Saul/Paul. (Read more about dual names here) Some dual names came about because a person had an encounter with God, and God changes their name. Abram becomes Abraham, and Jacob the deceiver becomes Israel the overcomer. But in Saul's case - Saul was his Hebrew name, and Paul his Greek/Gentile name, and that is what he went by once God called him to take the good news of Jesus to the Gentiles. I have no doubt that if one of Paul's old Hebrew friends had seen him, that he would have hailed him as 'Saul.' and Paul/Saul would have answered without batting an eye. One last little rabbit trail about names. Let's say that you and I encounter a certain dashing British fellow (or lady, as is the case at the moment) who is a Doctor, but not the medical kind. And this Doctor has a an interesting blue police box that is larger on the inside than on the outside and - HOLY COW! it can go back in time. If our Doctor friend asks me where to go - I'd immediately ask to go back to first century Jerusalem - I want to see Jesus! Here's the sort of interesting thing. If I could speak Aramaic - which was the dominant Jewish spoken language at the time - I would have a very hard time finding Jesus, no matter how many people I asked. They would probably look at me like I was crazy, and tell me they had never heard of a 'Jesus!' What if I asked for Saul, or Paul or Luke, or Matthew, or Peter? I'd get the same response! Why - because those people are myths that only appear in the Bible? NO!! Because Jesus wasn't called Jesus when He was here, and neither was Saul/Paul called Saul/Paul, or Luke called Luke or Matthew called Matthew or Peter called Peter! Confused yet? Well - don't be. Those names are ENGLISH - and English was not a language in the first century A.D. Saul's name would be pronounced more like "Shaul." (with an SH!) His Greek name would have been Paulos. How about Peter - you mean Petros (Greek) or Shimon Ben Yonah (Hebrew) or Keephah - the apparent Aramaic transliteration of the word 'stone.') Luke would be Loukas, and Matthew would be Levi or Matthean. What about Jesus? Well, most likely, he would have been Yehoshua Ben Yosef, which was later shortened to Yeshua Ben Yosef. Both are shortened forms of Joshua, son of Joseph, and the Hebrew name means "YHVH is salvation." Jesus name in Greek is apparently a transliteration of the Hebrew, and is " Iesous" which is pronounced sort of like Ee-ay-soos. Our English word 'Jesus' comes from that via a complicated bit of etymology that would be somewhat boring to non word-geeks. Here's a bit of a stunner if you haven't realized it yet: the name 'Jesus' and the name 'Joshua' are the same names in terms of meaning and origin. Joshua is an anglicized version of Yeshua and Jesus is an anglicized version of the Greek Iesous. (note: anglicized means " make English in form or character. ") We will talk at length about the name Jesus/Iesous at some point in an upcoming pod, but for now it is good to simply remember that Jesus/Peter/Paul/Luke/Mark, etc. are Anglicized versions of Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic names.

  If you've grown up in church - and maybe even if you haven't - you've probably heard of the conversion of Paul the apostle. Initially, as the story goes, Saul was an enemy of Christians and had them arrested. He was even at the murder/martyrdom of the deacon Stephen, and was apparently the government official there that signed off on his impromptu (and likely illegal) execution. So far, so good - all accurate. Then, later on the Damascus Road, as Acts 9 tells it, Saul meets Jesus, and becomes a Christian. For the rest of his life after meeting Jesus, Saul is now known as Paul because Jesus has not only changed his heart, but changed his name! Great story, bro, but... is that what really happened? Actually, it isn't. But - before we discuss Saul/Paul and biblical names, let's read Acts 9 together! Fantastic testimony! Saul is such a notorious enemy of Christians that when God directly tells the prophet Ananias to go pray for him, Ananias has the temerity (or perhaps, the foolishness) to try and tell God that He was mistaken about sending Ananias to go and pray healing for Saul. God convinces Him that He's right, and Ananias is wrong - duh - and then Saul is healed and delivered. And then, Ananias gives him his new name - right? Actually, no. Saul is still Saul. In fact, in Acts 9:19-20, we see that Saul has become an evangelistic dynamo: "Saul was with the disciples in Damascus for some time. 20 Immediately he began proclaiming Jesus in the synagogues: “He is the Son of God.” But...his name is still Saul! Later, Saul goes to Jerusalem to try and join the church there, but they are still afraid of him, so he decides to change his name to something more Jewish sounding, right? Actually, no - he remains Saul...and Saul is a Hebrew name! Then we take a Saul break for a couple of chapters to let Peter eat some goats and pigs and such. At the end of chapter 11, the focus turns back to Saul, who has been sort of exiled to his hometown of Tarsus partially because Christians are afraid of him, but mostly because people that aren't Christians are after him. But - praise God! - good old Barnabas, the son of encouragement, comes along, and takes Saul (that's still his name) to the church in Antioch, which is a Greek/Gentile city that would be in modern day Turkey. At Antioch, Saul becomes a valued member of the church AND IS STILL CALLED SAUL. Finally, we get to Acts 13. The Gentile church at Antioch is flourishing, and filled with seasoned prophets and teachers from many different nations, including at least two Africans: Lucius of Cyrene and a guy named Simeon the Black (which is a pretty cool name, if you ask me). The Holy Spirit sets apart two of those prophet/teachers for an evangelism mission, and calls them out by name: Barnabas and SAUL. Yes, God Himself calls him Saul years after His conversion. And then we get to the changeover - blink and you miss it! 9 But Saul—also called Paul—filled with the Holy Spirit Acts 13:9 And after that its Paul, the whole Paul and nothing but the Paul. Following that verse, the only time we hear the name "Saul" in the Bible is when Paul is recounting His testimony on the Damascus road. In every other instance, he is simply called 'Paul.' So - our big question: Why did Saul become Paul? And the answer is - HE DIDN'T! Saul is both a Roman citizen and a Hebrew citizen, and as such, he would have two names - a very common practice in the first century. I have a good friend with Mexican origins who is called Johnny by most people here in Salinas, California, but his real name is Juan. Something very similar is happening here with Saul/Paul. (Read more about dual names here) Some dual names came about because a person had an encounter with God, and God changes their name. Abram becomes Abraham, and Jacob the deceiver becomes Israel the overcomer. But in Saul's case - Saul was his Hebrew name, and Paul his Greek/Gentile name, and that is what he went by once God called him to take the good news of Jesus to the Gentiles. I have no doubt that if one of Paul's old Hebrew friends had seen him, that he would have hailed him as 'Saul.' and Paul/Saul would have answered without batting an eye. One last little rabbit trail about names. Let's say that you and I encounter a certain dashing British fellow (or lady, as is the case at the moment) who is a Doctor, but not the medical kind. And this Doctor has a an interesting blue police box that is larger on the inside than on the outside and - HOLY COW! it can go back in time. If our Doctor friend asks me where to go - I'd immediately ask to go back to first century Jerusalem - I want to see Jesus! Here's the sort of interesting thing. If I could speak Aramaic - which was the dominant Jewish spoken language at the time - I would have a very hard time finding Jesus, no matter how many people I asked. They would probably look at me like I was crazy, and tell me they had never heard of a 'Jesus!' What if I asked for Saul, or Paul or Luke, or Matthew, or Peter? I'd get the same response! Why - because those people are myths that only appear in the Bible? NO!! Because Jesus wasn't called Jesus when He was here, and neither was Saul/Paul called Saul/Paul, or Luke called Luke or Matthew called Matthew or Peter called Peter! Confused yet? Well - don't be. Those names are ENGLISH - and English was not a language in the first century A.D. Saul's name would be pronounced more like "Shaul." (with an SH!) His Greek name would have been Paulos. How about Peter - you mean Petros (Greek) or Shimon Ben Yonah (Hebrew) or Keephah - the apparent Aramaic transliteration of the word 'stone.') Luke would be Loukas, and Matthew would be Levi or Matthean. What about Jesus? Well, most likely, he would have been Yehoshua Ben Yosef, which was later shortened to Yeshua Ben Yosef. Both are shortened forms of Joshua, son of Joseph, and the Hebrew name means "YHVH is salvation." Jesus name in Greek is apparently a transliteration of the Hebrew, and is " Iesous" which is pronounced sort of like Ee-ay-soos. Our English word 'Jesus' comes from that via a complicated bit of etymology that would be somewhat boring to non word-geeks. Here's a bit of a stunner if you haven't realized it yet: the name 'Jesus' and the name 'Joshua' are the same names in terms of meaning and origin. Joshua is an anglicized version of Yeshua and Jesus is an anglicized version of the Greek Iesous. (note: anglicized means " make English in form or character. ") We will talk at length about the name Jesus/Iesous at some point in an upcoming pod, but for now it is good to simply remember that Jesus/Peter/Paul/Luke/Mark, etc. are Anglicized versions of Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic names.

How to tell the truth. Christmas can be a sentimental season. There are no carols about the “slaughter of the innocents,” at least not in Protestant experience. But Matthew won’t leave us with a gauzy manger scene in a startlingly clean barn; he has an accompanying memory in mind that must have its say. We’re reminded of another Matthean warning, coming later: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matthew 11:12). To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

This is what you've all been waiting for. . . or at least what Chris was waiting for. Time to learn about the Matthean version about the temptation of Christ (sans-Willem Dafoe). Enjoy listening to Satan vs. Jesus. As always, check us out on the 'gram @beerandbibleshow and at the website beerandbible.com

In Matthew’s account of the parable of the sower, Jesus demonstrates the meaning of three critical Matthean teachings: 1) “Seek and ye shall find,” 2) “The eye is the lamp of the body,” and 3) “Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven.” The last warning baffles modern Christians for whom religion is a pursuit of happiness vis-à-vis emotional and psychological consolation. Matthew’s Gospel dynamites this illusion in it’s proclamation and application of Isaiah, where the showdown between God and his people makes it very clear that some sins are definitely unforgivable. Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Matthew 13:14-16. Episode 302 Matthew 13:14-16; Music from https://filmmusic.io: “Come Play With Me” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

People claim to be members of God’s household—to be followers of his teaching—but in the Roman Empire, your master determines your household, and in the Bible, your fears reveal your true master. Insofar as our fears control us, the Matthean metaphor of the Roman household contextualizes this dynamic perfectly, as a kind of slavery. If human beings are controlled by their fears, why not transfer this power to a Master who truly cares for us—not a Roman patrician, but a teacher—the one who gives us wisdom for the sake of the common good. Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Matthew 10:24-31. Episode Matthew 10:24-31 Subscribe: feedpress.me/the-bible-as-literature; Music from https://filmmusic.io: “Tyrant” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

When Jesus crosses the Roman sea in Matthew, he brings the good news of the Matthean genology—of the liberation of God’s people from captivity—to the gentiles living under the control of Caesar. The Gadarene exorcism consolidates a pattern in Matthew: those whom we assume to be wrong are the very ones who obey the command of the Master. Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Matthew 8:28-34. Episode 270 Matthew 8:28-34; Subscribe: http://feedpress.me/the-bible-as-literature; “Nightdreams” Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http:// creativecommons .org/ licenses /by/3.0/

In this episode, Dr. Licona explores the idea of Matthean Priority (the hypothesis that the gospel of Matthew was written first). Who holds this hypothesis and what does it mean for other views on the gospel?The Risen Jesus podcast with Dr. Mike Licona equips people to have a deeper understanding of the Gospel, history, and New Testament studies. The program is hosted by Kurt Jaros and produced in partnership with Defenders Media.website | http://risenjesus.comfacebook | http://www.fb.me/michael.r.licona/twitter | http://www.twitter.com/michaellicona

This week we introduce ourselves to Jeremiah, the Reverse Moses, and an epic, ironic, mythological indictment of Israelite idolatry. Jeremiah leaks into the Matthew reading this week as Jesus is compared to the prophet in a Matthean addition to the original account from Mark. Read more »

In a typical Disney movie, the writers present a protagonist-coming-of-age who faces adversity (usually an identity crisis, an injustice, or both) discovers who they are, overcomes their challenge, and then, finally, realizes their true destiny...as king, queen, or a special person of sorts who can change the world. These stories are popular because they soothe our ego with reassurances of our self-importance and unique value. From the perspective of Scripture, they're the worst kind of lie. In the ancient world, it was bad enough that kings and emperors believed in their unique value and special destiny. Now everyone is a Caesar in their own right. Yikes! Thankfully, the Matthean genealogy not only disbelieves David's destiny but works actively to subvert it. Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Matthew 1:4-6. Episode 223 Matthew 1:4-6; Subscribe: http://feedpress.me/the-bible-as-literature; “Mistake the Getaway” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com (http://incompetech.com/)) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http:// creativecommons .org/ licenses /by/3.0/

How do we verify any early church claims since the gospels and the epistles along with "Church history" all point towards being propaganda? Why didn't Jesus stone Mary Magdalene?   I know Jesus calls out the stone throwers  (John 8:7), but wouldn't Jesus be without sin and therefore be able to throw the first stone?  Would it be a sin in His fatherâ??s eyes not to follow the laws of the OT?  I was wondering what did Judas betray in the first place?  Jesus was a local celebrity, his views were pretty much out there, known to anyone who wanted to be familiar with them. What kind of inside info did Judas have? Concerning the age of Jesus at the start of his mission: Why thirty? I think the Bible has its own internal logic so Jesus's age had to be thirty for some reason right? Mt 28:19 has an explicitly trinitarian formula for baptism, which contradicts the Jesus-name formula from Acts 2:38. Might the Matthean text be an interpolation? In whose name did John the Baptist baptize? Cannot one can believe in God, and see the Bible as moot? Some say that "He cuts off every branch that does not produce fruit" in John 15:2 could be translated as "He lifts-up every branch that does not produce fruit." Is that true? Are biblical scholars really so entrenched or fearful for their jobs that they really wonâ??t even consider the idea of Jesus as a myth?  What does that say about New Testament scholarship?  Theme music provided by: Peter Benjamin - composer for media www.peterbenjaminmusic.org peterbenjaminmusic@gmail.com

This podcast is a recording of the talk I gave at the third session of the Fall Scripture Study I'm leading at Our Lady of Lourdes: From Creation to Incarnation.  Today's focus was the Matthean genealogy.  The podcast runs for 35:35.

The Gospel of Matthew is one of the most important books of the Bible. Many great New Testament verses are memorized using the Matthean version. This Gospel also bridges the two testaments. Dr. David Bauer presents a survey of the Gospel - one that will be helpful to use in preparing for Bible study or sermon preparation.

NT Pod 29 discusses The Matthean Riddle, the question of why it is that Matthew's Gospel is apparently so Jewish and yet so anti-Jewish.It is thirteen and a half minutes long. Feel free to leave your comments below. NT Pod 29: The Matthean Riddle (mp3)NT Pod 29: The Matthean Riddle (mp3) (Alternative location)Key texts: Matthew 1-2, Matt. 3.7, 5.10-12, 6.7, 8.10-12, 9.20, 10.17, 12.34, 13.52, 21.43, 23.5, 23.23-24, 27.25.Thanks to Ram2000, Me and You, for the opening theme, released under a Creative Commons agreement.

NT Pod 29 discusses The Matthean Riddle, the question of why it is that Matthew's Gospel is apparently so Jewish and yet so anti-Jewish.It is thirteen and a half minutes long. Feel free to leave your comments below. NT Pod 29: The Matthean Riddle (mp3)NT Pod 29: The Matthean Riddle (mp3) (Alternative location)Key texts: Matthew 1-2, Matt. 3.7, 5.10-12, 6.7, 8.10-12, 9.20, 10.17, 12.34, 13.52, 21.43, 23.5, 23.23-24, 27.25.Thanks to Ram2000, Me and You, for the opening theme, released under a Creative Commons agreement.

Matthean Infancy Narrative (Continued)

John's Prologue Part 2 and Matthean Infancy Narrative