Hi everyone, welcome to this bonus episode of Daily Gospel Exegesis. This is going to be a question and answer episode where I'll do my best to answer some of the listener questions that have come in recently. We try and do these Q&A episodes every now and then. And thank you so much to those who are writing into the ministry with your questions and comments. Often this is the best way for us to learn about the Bible and theology is by engaging specific questions.
So let's start with a question from Carol who emailed in. My relative who is a believer says that we should only use the term brothers and sisters for those who are believers, not non believers. Can you give more clarification on this? So this is an interesting idea. Who do we have the right to call brothers and sisters?
It does depend on how you use the term, and it's probably, you know, the meaning of the term brother and sister is different in different cultures and in different time periods. Biblically speaking, roughly that is accurate. We should refer particularly to other Christians as our brothers and sisters. There is a sense in which all people are brothers in terms of like a broad brotherhood of man kind of view, but that's not really the biblical view.
The biblical view is we have a preferential treatment for those who are in the family of God and who is in the family of God. In Catholic theology, when you become a Christian, you become an adopted member of God's family, which means that all Christians, brothers and sisters of each other. And that is the way the church documents, recent church documents have used the term rather than saying that all people are our brothers and sisters.
So it's probably one of those ones where it's acceptable both ways. But in a specific denotative sense, if we want to be specific, brothers and sisters should really be reserved for other Christians. So I hope that helps you give get a bit of insight on that particular question. Thank you for writing in Carol. The next question is another really good one from Harrison. You often speak about God's will in the podcast.
In your opinion, what does God's will mean in the Gospels or other sources like the Catechism? Thanks. I love the show from Harrison. Thanks for writing in Harrison. This is a really good question. I do mention this idea of following God's will, particularly in reference to the Gospel of Matthew because it's the terms, it's one of the key terms that Jesus himself uses in the Gospel where he says you need to follow the will of my Father if you want to enter the Kingdom of God.
He says that in quite a few of the parables and remember it's, he goes on to say not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of the Father. So what is the will of the Father in the context of the Gospel of Matthew? The will of the Father is following particularly the 2 love commandments, love God and love neighbor. That is how Jesus summarizes the will of God. Now that's not the only way to express the will of God.
That's how Jesus summarizes it. And particularly in the Gospel of Matthew, he keeps coming back to that to say that is how you'll be judged based on whether you followed the love commandments. Now also in Scripture, Paul says he has a really simple way of saying this. He says this is the will of God, your sanctification. That's in First Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 3. So that's also a good way of expressing what's God's will. It's for us to be sanctified. It's a big question.
I don't think the Catechism addresses this question specifically because the question what does God want is another way of rephrasing what's God will, what's God's will? And God wants lots of things. He wants our sanctification, He wants us to follow the commandments, He wants his Kingdom to be spread on earth. So there's different ways of expressing that, but I hope that gives you a bit of an insight into the basics of how it's used in the New Testament.
Next question is from Chris, who's a fellow Australian. He says, firstly, thanks so much for this ministry. I first found it on Hello and it has helped me a lot in understanding scripture. It is so well researched.
I have a question about one of the podcasts you mentioned that Samaritans are basically Jews who had interbred but but in Second Kings 24 to 28 it talks about how after the Israelites were all exiled, Assyrians are sent to settle in their place, but then an Israeli priest was sent back to teach them how to worship the Lord. So the Samaritans in Jesus time were not Jews even if they had the Torah.
Is that correct? So Chris, you've got to basically write the history of the Samaritans is a little bit complex, but basically that's correct. After the Jews were forced to leave the northern Kingdom, the Assyrians then settled the northern Kingdom and various other cultures and races also settled that. Eventually the Jews were allowed back into that part of the world and they interbred with the Assyrians and some of the other
gentiles in there. So what eventually happened was there was sort of a hybrid religion that was formed as a result. They did believe in, it appears they believed in the Torah, but they didn't accept a lot of the other Old Testament writings. So they had their kind of own Samaritan Canon and they had their own kind of Samaritan
traditions as well. The Jews in the Southern Kingdom or Judea eventually came to see them as not really true Jews because they were essentially in their view, half breeds. And also because they didn't accept some of the standard Judean teachings, for example, that Jerusalem is the main place to worship. Samaritans didn't believe that they had their own main place of worship.
So because the Samaritans sort of had their own rival traditions compared to the standard Judean traditions, they were considered to be never fully Jews, even though they did accept many of the basic Jewish teachings that also had their own ones that put them outside that. It's it's not a perfect analogy, but it's a little bit like the relationship between Mormons and standard mainline Christianity.
Mormons have a lot in common with Christians, and on face value they can seem to be Christian, but some of their specific teachings and traditions are in conflict with standard Orthodox Christianity. So it's almost a little bit like a cult if you want to use that language, although that even using that language is an anachronism.
So yes, they had the Torah. In a sense they're Jewish, but they're not fool Jews, and they have particularly some theologically, some theological views that are particularly different that seems to put them outside traditional Judean Orthodoxy. I hope that helps answer the question. Some good study Bibles can go into more of the geographical history of the Samaritan area as well. We have a couple of questions here from Mary, who is a Patreon supporter.
Mary, thank you so much for your support. She says I need your understanding that Jesus told the crucified thief that today he would be with him in heaven. However, Christ remained in the tomb for three days and didn't ascend for some time after. How is this reconciled? Yeah, this is a really good question. This is something that we have mentioned in our exegesis of that passage in Luke, when Jesus in Luke chapter 23 says to the good thief, today you'll be with me in paradise.
Mary's right. If you think about it, Jesus didn't really go to heaven when he died. He actually went to heaven a little bit later on after his ascension, which is 40 days after his resurrection. So how can Jesus say today you'll be with me in paradise? Now the actual term there is paradise and there's a lot of discussion amongst scholars about what exactly does paradise refer to. 1 interpretation would be that paradise just refers to
the abode of the dead. The belief was that when people die, they go to the abode of the dead and the righteous dead go to a place called paradise. Perhaps that's equivalent to Abraham's bosom. So on that view, yes, Jesus and the good thief upon their deaths would have both gone immediately to this temporary place called paradise, which is where their souls, the souls of the righteous, dwell. That seems to be a reasonable reading of that.
However, if you think about it, when Jesus says today you'll be with me in paradise, there's no punctuation in that in the original. So although we tend to read it as today, comma, you will be with me in paradise, It may just be I tell you today you'll be with me in paradise. Both of those are legitimate readings. If you interpret it the second way, then one way of thinking about this is Jesus is not promising the good thief that today he will see him in the next 24 hours, he'll be in
paradise. He's not saying that, he is saying I'm telling you for certain that you will be in paradise, which could mean one day he'll be in the new heavens and new earth depending on the correct interpretation of the word paradise. I hope that gives you a couple
of solutions to work with there. She also asks, do you suppose that Jesus 12 apostles were men because women during Menzies were considered unclean and would not be allowed on the altar since there is so much discussion on women ordination and she goes on from there. There's an interesting question. Is this one of the reasons why in the Christian age women can't be priests? The Catholic Church has had a few documents where it actually talks about the various reasons
why women can't be priests. That particular 1 isn't used. That particular reason that women are ritually unclean is not one of the reasons it's given. And that's probably because in the Jewish, sorry, in the Christian age, ritual uncleanness is not really a thing anymore in Christianity. It was in Judaism. And maybe that factors in into the Old Testament as to why Jewish women could not serve as priests, because they're more
likely to be ritually unclean. And indeed, there are prescriptions for men who are priests that if they become ritually unclean due to body fluids, they had to wash themselves. So that that's a reasonable answer for perhaps one of the major reasons why women couldn't be Jewish priests. However, in the Christian age, Jesus and the apostles were not bound by those ritual purity laws as they come, as they came to understand what God's
requirements are for holiness. In fact, Jesus starts to reveal these in the Gospels, and it's revealed particularly to Peter in the vision of the great sheet coming down where God basically says there's no distinction between the clean and unclean animals. The early Christians did develop an understanding that God in the new covenant age is not particularly concerned with ritual purity.
So that doesn't seem to be one of the major reasons why women were excluded from being Christian priests. I hope that answers your question, and it's a really good one. It's a really good one to
interrogate. I would encourage you to read some of the more recent documents about this from the church such as Inter Insignioris which is a document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which goes into quite a bit of detail about why priestly ordination is reserved to men in the Catholic Church. And Pope John Paul the Second also had a follow up very short document called Ordinacio Saccadotalis where he goes into that same topic.
She also asks about the tears of heaven as in T i.e. Rs. Now it depends what you mean by that. If you mean tears of heaven in terms of for humans, are humans on different tiers when once they reach heaven? This is an interesting question.
Jesus does seem to hint at the fact that people will have different rewards in heaven based on the things they do on earth, and Catholic theology has discussed this a bit in terms of the way we use grace in this life, and maybe in some way proportionate to our reward in the next life. There's no definitive Church teaching as far as I'm aware, in terms of how the levels in heaven work or whether we should
even conceive of them as levels. There's also a Catholic tradition about the choirs of angels, which is like the levels or hierarchy of angels. That's based on some scripture references which talk about powers and principalities, angels and archangels, and the cherubim and the seraphim. So there are different names used for which what are apparently different types or perhaps different functions of
angels. But again, this is a Catholic tradition that has never been formally defined by the Church, but it is a commonly held belief and it's worth looking into. The Catechism itself doesn't talk about the choirs of angels in the traditional sense, but you will find it on many Catholic theology websites as a commonly held Catholic belief. Next, we'll look at a question here from Scott and he shares a bit of himself and his journey here.
At the start, my wife and I are on a journey from being raised Catholic, then spending time in a non denominational church and now feeling called back to the Catholic Church. Not sure what this means or where it will lead us, but we are spending more time in Catholic groups and naturally some questions are coming up. Scott, my story is very, very
similar to that. So I just want to encourage you to keep going, keep asking questions, and eventually you'll find that most of your questions are answered in your journey back to Catholicism. He says. I listen to your Daily Show. Fantastic work. I have deepened my understanding of the scriptures and have been able to share so much because of it. Recently my wife was at a Bible study and the topic of mortal sin and salvation came out came up.
I'm having a hard time understanding clearly what Catholic theology teaches here. I know the Church would never say with certainty that anyone has been sent to hell. Correct me if that's wrong. Now, that is correct, Scott. The Church doesn't define with certainty if someone is in hell. Yeah, the Church can define if someone is in heaven. And that's because there are signs that point strongly in the direction that someone is indeed in heaven.
And many of you would know the criteria for someone to become a St. But presumably those in hell are not able to produce similar signs on earth to tell us that they're in hell. So the Church doesn't define that he goes on. Yet at the same time, if you die in a state of mortal sin, you are separated from God, which means you're going to hell. How can these teachings be understood together? So it's a good question.
The Church does teach that if you commit a mortal sin and you don't repent of it, then it would seem that that person is going to hell, all things considered. Now, the way to resolve this is we can never be sure if someone has committed a mortal sin. Remember, there's three criteria for a mortal sin, which is grave matter, full knowledge, and full consent. We can often have a certainty that a particular action violates commandments in a way
that would make it grave matter. We can have some certainty of that if we dig into it a bit. But the full knowledge and full consent is a subjective criteria, meaning that it's just between the person and God. Only God knows their heart. Only God knows whether they really had full knowledge and full consent. This is developed a bit more in the Catechism, so I do want to point you in the direction of the Catechism, but I hope this gives you a basic answer that
helps resolve that. Yes, the Church says that if someone dies in a state of genuine mortal sin, they will go to hell. However, we can never be sure if someone has genuinely died in a state of mortal sin. So this is a really good question to ask. And this is where distinctions are really helpful. Thanks so much for writing in with that question, Scott, Next, we've got a question here from Richard and this is another
really good question. He firstly wants to know, are you doing the rest of the Bible as well? And indeed, that is part of the plan. It's part of the long term plan is to do some verse by verse exegesis of all of the Bible if we can, starting with a few particular books of the New Testament. And it's the generous support of Patreon supporters that make projects like that possible. And that would determine whether we can keep doing this approach to Scripture.
But all going well, I'd love to keep working through other books of Scripture. Work has started for that on the book of Acts. So I hope to be able to give you some more information about that as the book of Acts exegesis gets ready to be published. He says. I'm, I was wondering if you could help me. I have a Protestant friend who is constantly peppering me with questions. I'm not sure whether he's genuinely curious or more in a gotcha frame of mind with these.
And indeed, it's good that you raise that because you're right. Some people that constantly give you questions from a Protestant perspective might be trying to trap you, or they might genuinely want to know what a Catholic perspective is. His question is, what do Catholics think of John chapter 3, verse 3. Now what that verse says, and I'll read this out from the Jerusalem Bible, which is the
lectionary translation. Jesus said, I tell you most solemnly, unless a man is born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. So you would know that from a Protestant perspective, born from above, By the way, that can also be translated born again, which it's the same same Greek words, it's just differences in translation.
Protestants see born again as an experience that you have where you emotionally or spiritually fuel the presence of God, and that is perhaps the the time you really become a true Christian. They would say you're a born again Christian if you've had that. So it's fair to ask how the Catholics understand that because born again is in fact a phrase that's here in the chapter in the Gospel of John. And Jesus says you have to be born again in order to truly
experience God's divine life. So it's fair to ask, what's a Catholic perspective on born again? Now, we do go through this in our exegesis of this text on Monday of Week 2 of Easter Tide, which you may have heard
recently. But just to go over it again, if you go through the rest of that text, Jesus clarifies that another way of thinking about being born again is being born of water and the Spirit. So a question, another way of asking the question is what do Catholics think Jesus meant by being born of water and the Spirit? If you follow that conversation through, it seems to me that that is one event, being born of water and of the Spirit.
And the Catholic understanding is people are born of water and of the Spirit at baptism. That is when people are born again. In our exegesis, we talk about some ways that we can support that interpretation. One of the key things is the very next thing that happens after this conversation, straight after Jesus finishes talking to Nicodemus, is Jesus and his apostles begin to
baptize people. That's mentioned in chapter 3, verse 22. All through the Gospel of John, water is used as a metaphor for supernatural life. So in John's understanding, our water is connected to receiving supernatural life and there's various other points we make in that episode to support our understanding that born of water and the Spirit really does refer to baptism. So I'd encourage you to look at the episode from Monday of Week
2 of Easter tide. So I hope that is helpful for you, Richard. We'll make this the last question for today from Louisa. And this is a really good, interesting question about salvation theology. She, she says, before I get into my question, I would like to thank you for this podcast because it has helped to understand God, Jesus, his life and his disciples better. So 1000 times, thank you and I hope God gives you many blessings and continues showering with the knowledge of
his word. Thank you for that wonderful feedback Louisa. I'm so glad you're benefiting from the podcast, she says. I just finished listening to one of your exegesis episodes. Can you please further explain what you meant by God gives of himself to redeem his people from slavery? And this is a comment on the episode for Mark chapter 10 verses 35 to 45, which is where it says the Son of man gave himself as a or has come to give
himself as a ransom for many. And in that episode we talked about different ways of understanding what that means. What does it mean to say Jesus is a ransom? So she has some good questions about this because what do we mean when we say God gives of himself? So she says, did God ransom a part of himself to free his people? Now we don't want to talk about God in terms of parts. That would not be correct.
But we do want to say that there is a real sense in which God poured himself out through Jesus, poured himself out through his death of the cross. There was a genuine sacrifice on the part of God to free us from our sins. She says. I mean he can do anything but I wonder if that has implications or did God ransom Jesus even then, meaning he also added to Jesus suffering tab when he came to earth the ransom for the freedom of Egypt.
So she's now sort of wondering when Jesus came to earth and when God came in human flesh in the person of Jesus, did the previous acts of salvation that God did in the Old Testament, like God rescuing his people from Egypt, was that also in a sense paid for or experienced by Jesus on the cross? She says, I mean, Jesus came to redeem all past, present and future. I think there is a sense in which we can say yes, through the grace that Jesus merited on
the cross. There is a sense in which that grace made possible some of the acts that God did in the Old Testament. But we need to be careful there because God the Father certainly did acts in the Old Testament which may not be connected specifically to Jesus ultimate definitive new covenant act, but perhaps they are in some mysterious spiritual way. Remember our Catholic teaching is Mary was free from sin, she was redeemed from contracting any sin because of Jesus death on the cross.
But Jesus death on the cross was a future event from the perspective of Mary's conception. So it is actually part of Catholic teaching that there is a retroactive sense of grace. What Jesus merited on the cross can be applied backwards in time. It certainly was applied backwards in time to Mary. So your speculation here is interesting. Maybe what Jesus did on the cross is in some way involved in all of God's acts of liberation even before the time of Jesus.
And then it gets to the heart of her question, which is or was both times the ransom paid to Satan. So she's wondering, is the ransom paid to God the Father or is it paid to Satan? This is an area of debate, and we did go into that in that episode. Some people have a real problem with saying that Jesus paid a debt to Satan. I do think that makes the most sense of the text, but we're not.
We shouldn't think of it as Jesus bowing to Satan or something like that, but there is a sense in which a certain act was needed to free people from the dominion of Satan and bring them into the Kingdom of God. But of course, it's not the only way to understand that. The Church Fathers, some of them thought about the ransom as a little different. Some of them did think about it in terms of being a ransom to Satan.
There is room for disagreement on this question and it's not an area that has been particularly developed in Catholic teaching, but we do believe that through Jesus death on the cross, it was a real ransom to free people from sin. That may not be a fully satisfying answer, but I hope that starts to give you some things or some clarifications at least to help you work through the issue. Thank you so much, Louisa, for the question and thank you to all those who are writing in questions.
Please keep sending them in. I try and do these Q&A episodes occasionally. Thank you so much to those of you who are supporting the ministry. Please keep telling people about it. Next time you're prompted by your podcast provider to leave a positive review and rating, please make sure you do that because it does make a difference. If you're interested in seeing the kind of things you can get access to by becoming a Patreon supporter, check out the link in the show notes. Thanks.
We'll see you next time.