Episodes
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This week, Fr. Paul emphasizes from Exodus what the Apostle Paul underscores in Galatians and people of all religions systematically ignore: “if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession among all the peoples.” (Exodus 19:5), (Episode 265)
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When coming across a word, a phrase, or a passage in the Bible, our natural tendency as modern disciples is to interrogate a text and then assign meaning to it. If we can pin a piece of text down, it’s like having a part of the puzzle solved in our heads once and for all. The inconvenient idea that a text’s value and usage can change—that its meaning depends on where and how it is placed in a story—troubles us because it thwarts any hope we have of gaining control over the author.
We naturally prefer an assigned, fixed meaning over context, functionality, and syntax because assigned meaning addresses a deep psychological insecurity. Humans desperately want to feel safe and in control. When we assign meaning to something, we become its maker and master. It settles in as part of our creation narrative, and we ascend in glory as the gods of our own illusions. Fast forward to the digital age full of echo chambers and majority illusions. Why not rule in hell if you hold the power to control its meaning?
When we assign meaning, we imagine we are pinning something down in the text when, in fact, we are chasing ghosts of our own making: mental abstractions disconnected from what is written on the page. So when you come across a familiar quote of John the Baptist, you must not ask, what does John mean? The correct question is, how do John’s words function in this gospel at this point in the canon? How were they used in previous books? Based on their usage here, what is the author saying in this gospel, in this situation, at this point in the New Testament?
Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 3:7-9 (Episode 472)
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Missing episodes?
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This week Fr. Paul deftly points out that in the story of the Bible, the personal and singular primacy of Moses is the individual and singular primacy of the five books of the Law. (Episode 264)
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The use of Isaiah 40 in all four gospels underscores the centrality of the wilderness as God’s base of operations for preaching the gospel outside of and in opposition to the things that human beings construct both mentally and physically.
Still, this fact does not give us a license to claim an abstract understanding of the meaning of Isaiah 40 or what it implies for the writers of the New Testament. A word, phrase or even a passage from a biblical text holds no meaning in abstraction. Even when placed in context, words extracted from Scripture are powerless when stripped of their canonical syntax and literary function.
While the systematic use of Isaiah 40 highlights the significance of the midbar and shepherdism in all four gospels, Mark’s gospel applies Isaiah 40 to the conspiracy against St. Paul’s teaching, emphasizing Paul’s function as the voice of the Lord in the wilderness. In contrast, faced with a gentile audience already evangelized by St. Paul, Luke is much more interested in demonstrating how the Lord goes about flattening, smoothing, and straightening the crooked places of Rome and Jerusalem.
In each text, the where, when, how, and why of Isaiah 40 are made functional along with the way its language is employed to drive home the author’s specific point. To make the mistake of generalizing or glossing over the value of each appearance is as misguided as ignoring or dismissing the Bible’s endless repetition of certain passages because we heard them, and we think we know them. Arrogance may look good on God, but it looks like ignorance on the rest of us.
Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 3:3-6 (Episode 471)
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This week, Fr. Paul explains that, unlike adults, children between the ages of six and ten, upon hearing the story of the battle with Amalek in the book of Exodus, will immediately understand that despite the weariness of Moses, it is God, not Moses, who is leading the battle. (Episode 263)
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What’s in a name? When Richard and I began this week’s episode, we were struck by the wealth of information packed into two verses. Through the simple arrangement of people and places, Luke leaves a trail of names, like breadcrumbs, along a path that moves all through the Bible, well beyond his gospel. In this sense, the beginning of chapter 3 is like an easter egg, a road sign that pops up along the way and screams, “hey you,” keep hearing the story because there is a bigger story in motion.
There are plenty of functional names to unpack at the beginning of Luke 3. But one stands out among the pack: Lysanias. It appears only once, which indicates its significance. In translation, it means the release of sorrow. However, what’s far more curious, especially in the passage’s context (and something we did not know at the time of recording), is that Lysanias was also a general of Alexander the Great, mentioned at least twice in Arrian's Anabasis of Alexander.
Sometimes it’s worth paying attention to the details.
Richard and I discuss Luke 3:1-2. (Episode 470)
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This week, Fr. Paul explains that Shepard culture has no settlements because there is no settling and, therefore, no buildings. (Expose 262)
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“Let the canon of our and holy God-bearing Fathers be confirmed in this particular also; that a presbyter is not ordained before he is thirty years of age, even if he is a very worthy man, let him be kept back. Our Lord Jesus Christ was baptized and began teaching when he was thirty. In like manner, let no deacon be ordained before he is twenty-five, nor a deaconess before she is forty.” - Canon 14, Council in Trullo (692 AD)
This canon, patterned after Scripture, reflects the common sense of Luke’s gospel—an attitude that would become pervasive in early Christian traditions—it is good for a person to wait. Just as Jesus had no say in his name, like any human child, no matter how talented, wise, or knowledgeable—he was accountable to God to honor and obey his parents—to submit to instruction at home, and to wait until the appointed time to begin his ministry.
So strict is the hearing of this teaching in the Coptic church that a man is forbidden to seek ordination of his own free will. A candidate for the priesthood is only a candidate if he is called, in a very literal sense, if his bishop contacts him and says, I would like you to be ordained a priest. In this tradition, from the candidate’s perspective, everything—the time and even the opportunity to serve—is totally in God’s hands.
In a preview of what he will write in the Acts of the Apostles, Luke proclaims an increase in the wisdom of the child Jesus under the Law of the Lord. Jesus, at the age of twelve, is not the same man who will begin his teaching ministry at thirty. As Luke keeps stressing, the child, Jesus, continues to grow. In Luke, it is the Law of the that Lord imparts grace, and every person, including Jesus, must submit to it, even if it ends in crucifixion.
Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 2:41-52
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This week, Fr. Paul reminds us that because the biblical manna comes from heaven, it is a gift over which we have no control. (Episode 261)
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Western philosophy is obsessed with (dare I say, oppressed by) the illusion of choice. Let’s paraphrase a helpful example from Luis Elizondo to illustrate this point:
Imagine you were given the power to build anything you want using your chosen materials. Your goal is to build something that can withstand the test of time, at least as long as the planet’s lifespan. Remember that the oldest structures we know of have only been around a few thousand years and are already fast decaying. In comparison, the earth is estimated to be older than 4.5 billion years. What could you possibly make, using what materials, that would not be overtaken by natural processes, which erode, erase, compress, and melt everything over and over again for millions, nay, billions of years?
Natural processes will eventually destroy even the junk we put in orbit. Do we know what was ever built on this planet, save the few stone scraps we call historical ruins? In a few million years, will anyone even know that we were here?
We imagine that we have a choice. To build. To prosper. To thrive. To grow. To live life as we see fit. However, life comes down, not to choice, but to Simeon, the one “who hears” and bears witness to the teaching, and Anna, the one filled with the “grace” of the teaching. Unlike the Temple of stone, or anything made by human hands, this teaching—the Law of the Lord—given to safeguard human life, cannot be destroyed by natural processes. The seed of this teaching, like the seed of life itself, continues from generation to generation.
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (Matthew 24:35)
Richard and I discuss the gospel of Luke2: 39-40.
This week's episode is dedicated to the loving memory of Fr. Daniel Rentel and to all those who perished in the earthquake and Türkiye and Syria.
May their memory be eternal.
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In today’s program, Fr. Paul explains that a prophet is an individual put in their position by God to speak God’s words according to his own divine will. (Episode 260)
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In the natural world, as observed through the lens of the scientific method, when counting a person’s age, we measure their lifespan against the time it takes for our planet to revolve around the sun. We observe and measure phenomena. But we do not observe or measure phenomena in literature—perhaps especially in biblical literature. Instead, when dealing with a written text, we operate in an artificial environment architected by the hand of the author.
The age, lineage, occupation, situation—even the name of the Prophetess Anna, as she appears in the story of Luke’s Gospel, all have a functional meaning. To observe her age in the story is not to measure her lifespan using our planet’s cyclical orbit or to ponder how a woman could live so long in those times. To observe her age in the story is to ask why the author chose the number 84 or mentioned any number at all in the first place.
To note an observable artifact in literature is to ask “why” concerning every choice the author makes inside the universe of their artificial environment. In Luke 2, this type of questioning leads to a curious possibility. Maybe it’s Anna herself who desperately needs to be ransomed by Christ inside the Temple of stone in Jerusalem.
Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 2:36-38. (Episode 467)
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This week, Fr. Paul highlights Hebrew terminology in Moses’ Song of Victory that underscores the centrality of shepherdism in Scripture. (Episode 259)
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In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul explains that God’s people are held up as an example of sin, not so that sin is excused or justified, but as a cautionary tale, codified in the story of Scripture, an example to all peoples of how not to behave. The parallel teaching, also found in St. Paul’s exegesis of the Old Testament, is the non-example of Abraham’s trust in God’s commandment. Not in his righteous deeds, ideas, or words about God--Paul points instead specifically to his trust in God’s directive, as the Apostle says, his faith.
Abraham trusted, and it was added to him as righteousness. Likewise, Simeon trusted the command of his master and remained faithful to the end, according to the Word of the Lord. By imitating the obedience of Abraham, Simeon was shown to be a true child of the same father, through whom the Torah, not Israel, was lifted up as a light to enlighten the Gentiles. Luke explains that this Light is the true glory of Israel. Much to Mary’s sorrow, it looks nothing like human glory and comes at a high cost.
Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 2: 27-32. (Episode 466)
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This week, Fr. Paul notes that the commonly used expression “the original text” is misleading since there is only one text, which, in fact, is the original. (Episode 258)
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Scripture is clever. When Simeon stands in the temple waiting, he does so at the pleasure of his master. He has no agency, control, or personal expectations, yet he has a duty. As his very name suggests, he is to hear and obey the words of God until his death, trusting that God will fulfill his promise to achieve salvation, carrying those words in victory over the nations. He has no right to insist on an outcome and, at the same time, no right to lose hope. So what was Simeon’s job? What is a man with no agency supposed to do?
The Prophet David said: “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but abides forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people both now and forever.” (Psalm 125)
Moses said to the people: “Do not be afraid! Stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today, you will never see again, forever. The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.” (Exodus 14:13-14)
Stand firm. Stand your ground. Hear and obey. Trust in the words of Scripture. Stay the course--each person in that state in which he was called.
It’s not that a person of duty does not have agency. On the contrary, such a person transfers agency to their allegiance. They still have work to do. The literary metaphor of Simeon standing firm at his post reflects such work, which defers all agency to the commandments of God. Standing firm in anticipation of a great war with no hope of victory and trusting in God for salvation to the point of death is hardly standing still. On the contrary, it’s frightening, challenging, and--as the story goes--honorable and breathtaking.
Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 2:27-32. (Episode 465)
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This Week, Fr. Paul notes the importance of the hiphil and how English translations of Exodus fall short in rendering its functional meaning. (Episode 257)
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Universities, schools, and centers of faith are giving up on knowledge and selling out. What happened this past week at Hamline University indicates a trend in which an agenda other than the mission to impart knowledge controls what is permissible in the classroom.
Knowledge is not a popularity contest. A teacher does not share information to offend or pacify feelings. A teacher imparts whatever they learn; they share whatever they discover and pass it on--be it historical, natural, or, if it concerns faith, Scriptural. Whatever they have uncovered remains, no matter what the students say, feel, or believe. That is why it does not matter when a disciple turns away from instruction. Like a 14th-century painting, the knowledge in question was there before them and will remain long after they return to the dust from which they were taken.
The Gentiles who seek to grow their universities have betrayed a sacred trust. In the Book of Acts, the second half of the Lukan diptych, the evangelist does not allow us to speak about growing the church. Instead, he forces us to surrender to St. Paul's gospel, hoping, against hope, that the word of the Lord, not the community, will grow and prevail mightily. (Acts 19:20) So long as our universities need students--or our churches need parishioners--there is no hope for growth in the knowledge of God, let alone basic instruction in art history.This week's episode is dedicated to the few and the proud--the teachers committed to teaching in the service of knowledge, not personal gain. Beginning with Professor Prater, you know who you are. May God lift you up and embolden you for the sake of the needy. Remember the words of the Lord's prophet. It's not you they hate.
Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 2:25-26. (Episode 464)
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This week, Fr. Paul explains that a sign in the Bible is distinct from a miracle and is used to assign a function or meaning to something within the story. (Episode 256)
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Lies are comfortable. We lie to soothe feelings. To make agendas appealing, to sell things. We find lies so attractive that we bend our terminology to accommodate them. Instead of analyzing information, we discuss “narratives.” Instead of taking responsibility for our actions and their outcomes, we rush to share our stories and our vision. “The visionary,” Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “lies to himself, the liar only to others.” How is it then that we, a society made-up of personal narratives and visionary thinkers, are surprised when the newest politician lies about almost everything?
The crisis is not moral. It begins with a false premise accepted long ago that a person can extract meaning from a text. We adopt the fantasy that we understand a text or any complex data set without knowing the actual content of the text. What we then call meaning is almost always the lie we tell ourselves to fill in the blank spaces left over by the work we’ve not done--this is the actual definition of the infamous personal narrative.
To understand Luke’s meaning, we must force ourselves to strip away the lies of translation, cultural bias, and centuries of third-party narratives and visions imposed on the biblical text to finally hear the meaning grammatically embedded in the connective tissue of Luke itself.
So much ado about the word firstborn in the many theologies of English speakers, and it doesn’t even appear in Luke 2:23.
Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 2:22-24. (Episode 463)
The following music was used for this media project:
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Music: Inspiring Teaser by Rafael Krux
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/5672-inspiring-teaser
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