Please enjoy "an online, self-paced tutorial" on the birth of Jesus as depicted from TWO DIFFERENT theologies we find in the New Testament, that of Matthew and Luke. Learn what the Gospels are and ARE NOT. Please go through the introductory materials through the conclusion. Learn the difference between truth and fact and discover the truth about Christ's birth.
Step One: The Birth of Jesus -- Two Gospel Narratives
Step Two: Introductory Matterials and Proper Interpretation of the Gospel Matterial
Step Three: The Gospel of Matthew's Infancy Narrative
Step Four: The Gospel of Luke's Infancy Narrative
Step Five: Conclusion: The Historicity of the Infancy Narratives, Similarities Between Matthean and Lucan Infancy Narratives, The Birth of Jesus Today, and Self-Check
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
Bible Alive: Faith through Christian History
Bible Alive: Faith through Christian History
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Answer the following questions:
1. How does faith relate to revelation? What did the most ancient Christians think faith was?
2. What caused Christian understanding of faith to develop?
3. What is the epiphanic model of revelation?
4. Who were the “Fathers of the Church” and what did they think about faith?
5. What did St. Justin Martyr do for understanding of faith? What is faith according to St. Justin? What is a believer according to St. Justin?
6. What concerning faith was St. Irenæus of Lyon interested? What is a believer according to St. Irenæus?
7. What was faith according to St. Clement of Alexandria?
8. What is meant by “gnosis” and “Gnosticism”? What influence did Gnosticism have over our understanding of faith?
9. What is faith according to St. Augustine of Hippo?
10. What is the only motive or foundation for faith?
11. How does faith and human freedom relate?
12. Describe Semi-pelagianism.
13. Is there any human cooperation involved in faith?
14. What is meant by “nonhistorical orthodoxy” and its approach to Sacred Scripture and the documents from Church teaching?
15. Describe the Second Council of Orange and what happened there.
16. What is the extremely important, yet rarely known teaching of Augustine and the Council of Orange? What ramifications does it have for fundamentalist Catholic and other 20th and 21st century Christian apologists?
17. Describe faith in the Middle Ages. What is the doctrinal-theoretical model?
18. What did St. Thomas Aquinas have to say about faith? Is faith only about the intellect?
19. What is the source of faith? What is its goal?
20. What was faith for Martin Luther?
21. What was the Council of Trent? Describe it. What was it in response to? What did Trent say about faith? What does faith have to do with justification? What is justification?
22. Explain the various positions about revelation and its possibility held by “modernity.”
23. Define rationalism, fideism, and traditionalism. How did these views help shape the First Vatican Council? What did Vatican I think about faith? How did Vatican I broaden or widen our understanding of faith?
24. What is the communicative-theoretical model of revelation and how did it arise?
25. What two new aspects about faith did the Second Vatican Council emphasize?
Friday, October 16, 2009
Bible Alive: Faith in John
Bible Alive: "Faith in John"
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Answer the following questions:
1. Read John 17:3. It seems that for John, faith is similar to what Paul thinks about it. But what does John place greater stress on concerning faith? To believe in Christ is to ______ Him.
2. Read Jn 16:30 and and 6:69. Is the object of faith more explicit in John than elsewhere in the New Testament? Who is the object of faith?
3. Read Jn 5:19-27, 12:44, 49, 14:1, 6-11, 16:27-30; and 1 Jn 2:23. Who, according to John, shares a unique unity with the Father? Say I have faith in this one; who then automatically have I faith in also?
4. Read Jn 14:15-23, 15:15, 26, 16:13. Can the knowledge of God be assimilated independently, or by human power, according to John? What is the only way this can be?
5. Read Jn 6:44-46, 57. What is the only way by which we share in Christ’s own filial knowledge of God?
6. Read Jn 3:16-17, 36, 5:24; 1 Jn 3:1, 15, 5:12-13. What, according to John, does the believer already possess? What is this? What does it consist of (Jn 17:3, 24, 26; 1 Jn 3:1-2)?
7. Read Jn 2:22, 5:47, 8:45. There is something unique about John’s take on faith. What is it? What then is faith according to John?
8. Read Jn 17:20. What also must I place my trust in, according to John, of which faith consists?
9. Read 1 Jn 5:7-12; Jn 1:29-35; 14:12-14. What does faith involve, according to John? Is the role of this figure emphasized in John’s writings? Does creation play a part in this according to John? What Catholic principle then is especially stressed in John’s writings.
10. Read Jn 3:36 (cf. 3:18-20). What does faith bring us, according to John? What does unfaith bring us, according to John?
11. Read Jn 1:10-11. What is the greatest tragedy according to John?
12. Read 1 Jn 3:23. What for John is the work of faith? Is this like Paul?
13. Let’s summarize faith in John. Gather all these themes.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Bible Alive: Faith in the Synoptic Gospels & Acts
Answer the following questions after watching the slideshow.
1. Describe faith according to the theology of the Synoptic Gospels.
2. Read Mt 9:28 and Mk 4:40 and Lk 8:25. What does Jesus in the Synoptics demand?
3. Read Mk 5:34, 36, 9:23, 11:22-23; Lk 17:6. In the Synoptics, the act of faith is being first directed toward whom?
4. Read Mk 8:27-30, 38. In the Synoptics, is faith directed toward another person? If so, to whom? Of what would that faith, according to the Synoptics, consist?
5. Read Mk 9:37; 12:1-11, 35-37; Mt 10:32-33, 11:27-30, 16:17-19. What lies behind every utterance of Jesus about faith in the Synoptics? Describe it.
6. Let’s summarize Synoptic faith. Gather all these themes.
7. Describe faith according to the theology of Acts.
8. Read Acts 8:12-14. Describe faith in that passage. What is being received? From who? In what form is that which is given?
9. Read Acts 5:14, 9:42, 11:17, 15:1. In Acts, who are “believers”? Can they be people who get convinced of what the Apostles tell them and stay alone? Why or why not? What, according to Acts, is the object of belief and on what is that centered?
10. Read Acts 2:36. Make no mistake—what, according to Acts, is the heart of faith?
11. Read Acts 2:38, cf. 10:43-48, 18:8, 20:21. How does one express, according to Acts, acceptance of the crucified and risen Jesus as Lord?
12. What else, according to what we have seen so far, does Acts say faith requires?
13. Since, according to Acts, God’s Word is personified in Christ, what does faith necessarily involve? Can this relationship be individualistic, one-on-one (see Acts 9:1-5)? Why or why not?
14. In what we have seen so far, in Acts can faith simply be a subjective attitude, or must it be something more? If so, what does it embody (according to Acts)?
15. Let’s summarize faith in Acts. Gather all these themes.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Bible Alive: Faith in Paul
Bible Alive "Faith in Paul"
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Faith in the Pauline Literature
1. Look at Gen 15:6 and Rom 4:3. To what is faith connected in the mind of Paul? How is this thing (of which faith is intimately connected) achieved for Paul?
2. Read Eph 2:8-9. What, for Paul, is faith the key of? What does faith liberate us from? What must one do to have these things?
3. Read Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Phil 3:9-10. What, according to Paul, is faith for the justified or righteousness?
4. Read 2 Cor 5:17. What is faith in conjunction with baptism (according to Paul)?
5. Read Gal 2:20. Who for Paul is the central object of faith?
6. Read Rom 10:8, 13-15. Is faith for Paul just a matter of believing in Christ, or is it something more? If more, what? Indeed, for Paul, what does faith come from?
7. Look at how Paul bookends his massive Letter to the Romans: read Rom 1:5 and 16:26. What is similar about both passages? Is faith then, for Paul, simply intellectual assent or emotional “YES!” to Jesus or the Apostolic preaching? If not, what is it also?
8. Read 2 Cor 10:15; 1 Thess 3:10; Rom 14:1. Can Paul think that faith is accomplished in a single act or moment? Why or why not?
9. Read Gal 5:6. What is the principle for faith to grow according to Paul?
10. Read 1 Cor 2:2-16, 12:3; Eph 1:17-18, 3:14-17; Col 2:2. What for Paul is faith (think EYES)? What, by faith, are we able to “see” and “grasp” and “enter into”?
11. Read Gal 4:8-9; Eph 4:18, 5:8; 2 Cor 4:6. How, according to Paul, does the believer pass from ignorance of God onto the knowledge and love of God?
12. Rom 8:11, 19-23, 29; 1 Cor 6:15-20; 2 Cor 5:8; Phil 1:19-23, 3:19-21; 1 Thess 4:17. What, according to Paul, are all things oriented toward? Given this, how important for Catholics is the principle of sacramentality?
13. Let’s summarize faith in Paul. Gather all these themes.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Bible Alive: An Old Testament Analysis of Faith
An Old Testament Analysis of Faith
1. Think of the word amen. When do we use it? What does it mean?
2. Read Ex 17:12 and Is 33:6. What do the images used here speak about faith called aman? What does aman imply Is “aman” an individual experience?
3. Israel placed its aman in Yahweh. Describe Yahweh according to Ps 36:5-7. Is Yahweh faithful? If so, to what? What is this faithfulness founded on?
4. Read Deut 9:23 and Ps 119:66-67. If Yahweh is faithful this way, what must his people do?
5. Can we call this aman only intellectual assent or an emotional state? Does it involve something deeper? If so what?
6. In this sort of aman, or faith, who is our founding father? Gen 15:1-6. What is significant about this figure’s aman?
7. Read Is 28:16. What is faith for Isaiah? Say I am a king descended from David and the dreaded Assyrians are at my front door having devastated the land … and I am next! What should I do, according to Isaiah, assemble an army? Why or why not? What, for Isaiah, does faith consist of?
8. The intellectual quality of faith is more prominent in Isaiah 40-66. Read Is 43:8-10. Israelites are deemed “faithful” inasmuch as they do what, according to this passage? Is this a purely intellectual activity? Why or why not?
9. What is the foundation stone to Old Testament faith? Why? Consider Gen 1-2, Ex 3.
10. Read Gen 6:9, 22, 7:5 and 22:1-18. How is Old Testament faith expressed? The response of faith is primarily emotional, intellectual, or something else? If something else, what is it?
11. Read Deut 6:17 and 7:11-13. What is Old Testament faith essentially related to? What does this reality between God and Israel grant the people? What is humankind’s response in faith? Is faith ever a one-on-one affair between God and individual believer?
12. Read Job 4:6. With what in the righteous man does faith unite? What does this generate?
13. Read Ex 20:3 and Deut 5:7. Can Old Testament faith have any compromises?
14. Think of the Books Daniel and Judith. What becomes of faith after the Babylonian captivity in 538 BC?
15. Let’s summarize Old Testament faith. Gather all these themes.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Praying as Listening: The Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Below are the Readings (NAB) from this Sunday's liturgy. Under each passage there are clarification notes to better help us see the literal sense so that we can journey prayerfully into the Spiritual sense. Then this is followed by a sermon by Fr. Robert Barron which is hyperlinked for your listening pleasure. Enjoy, and your comments are welcome.
The First Reading: Isaiah 45:4-7a
Thus says the LORD: Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing. Streams will burst forth in the desert, and rivers in the steppe. The burning sands will become pools, and the thirsty ground, springs of water.
Isaiah 40-55, though collected together under the name Isaiah, was not written by Isaiah son of Amoz (born sometime in the 8th century BC). These chapters were written much later, the oracles recorded here being far different in tone than Is 1-39. Scholars believe a Second Isaiah, called “Deutero-Isaiah,” wrote this “Book of Consolation” down at the end of the Babylonian exile (539 BC) long after the original Isaiah had ministered and died. Today’s first reading comes from a section of Deutero-Isaiah dealing with the Persian Messiah. The overall message stresses that the fall of Babylon and the reign of Persia, which Deutero-Isaiah and his audience experienced, is the work of God.
The Book of Isaiah presents us with an opportunity to reveal false and naïve assumptions in biblical fundamentalism as well as challenges for the modern Christian Bible reader. For over 1500 years Christians regarded this book in its present edited form as the product of a single author, Isaiah of Jerusalem. But due to critical scholarship and its analytical tools (endorsed and taught by the shepherding authority of the Catholic Church in Divino Afflante Spiritu, a papal encyclical by Pope Pius XII; the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, or Dei Verbum; and the Pontifical Biblical Commission’s 1993 document “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church”; see also Catechism of the Catholic Church # 110), we are urged to read it distinguishing Proto-Isaiah (Chapters 1-39), Deutero-Isaiah (40-55), and Trito-Isaiah (56-66).
Likewise fundamentalists, under the false assumption that prophets are predictors of the future, treasure Isaiah because it seems to foretell important moments in Jesus’ life. This is contrary to historical critical analysis which demands we grasp the Isaian texts in their historical context FIRST. All three “Isaiahs” wrote for THEIR OWN TIMES. They required NO FOREKNOWLEDGE of future events hundreds of years later in order to give their message.
When the Gospel writers use Isaiah, therefore, we learn more about the Apostle’s faith than we do about Isaiah’s own message. Indeed, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, the Apostles understand God’s work as interpreted by “Isaiah” as initially fulfilled in the times “he” spoke of, but ultimately fulfilled in the Mystery of Christ, died and risen.
In the First Reading we see motifs of healing and liberation from ailments of blindness and deafness, paralysis and being mute. How it relates to today’s Gospel should be clear—the manifestation of divinity happens in the brokenness of our humanity. This is the UNCOMFORTABLE Gospel. God comes where and when we least expect it. Our God is BEYOND what we expect. We need to open up to God. The Good News is that we must be AWARE.
Psalm 146:7, 8-9, 9-10
The Responsorial is:
Praise the Lord, my soul! or: Alleluia. The God of Jacob keeps faith forever, secures justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets captives free. R. Praise the Lord, my soul! or: Alleluia. The LORD gives sight to the blind; the LORD raises up those who were bowed down. The LORD loves the just; the LORD protects strangers. R. Praise the Lord, my soul! or: Alleluia. The fatherless and the widow the LORD sustains, but the way of the wicked he thwarts. The LORD shall reign forever; your God, O Zion, through all generations. Alleluia. R. Praise the Lord, my soul! or: Alleluia.
This hymn was written for people to rely on God alone and as a warning NOT to rely on mortal human beings. Notice it is the God of Jacob—the supplanter, the trickster, the one who trips, the one who deceives, the cheater. If we are “Jacob,” what tendencies do we have to the family of humankind? But look at Jacob’s God—God secures justice for the oppressed, God gives food for the hungry, God sets captives free. What a paradox is the expression “the God of Jacob”! And how are we at the work of this God? How are we to the homeless?—do we work to secure their justice, or rather do we exclude them, work to banish them, frightened for our dwindling property value and safety? How are we to the sick of our society? Do we honestly help them, see them with our sacramental faith (and, thus, see Christ in them), or do we banish them to exist under bridges forever as outcasts and pariahs?
Notice that this “God of Jacob” is Yahweh, the God who gives sight to the blind, who raises up the lowly, who loves those who do justice, who protects the stranger. Is this our God, Jacob? Do we do these things and live this way? Is it not we who ARE blind by choice? Is it not we who celebrate the Great and the Famous and the Celebrity and the Popular? Is it not we whose hands bleed with injustice? Is it not we who idolize the familiar, who attack the alien, the strange, the not-familiar? But God is the not-familiar. The Psalm invites us to wrestle with God, like Jacob-Israel. Praise God, who comes to embrace the blind and the miserable!
The Second Reading: Jas 2:1-5
My brothers and sisters, show no partiality
as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.
For if a man with gold rings and fine clothes
comes into your assembly,
and a poor person in shabby clothes also comes in,
and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes
and say, “Sit here, please, ”
while you say to the poor one, “Stand there,” or “Sit at my feet, ”
have you not made distinctions among yourselves
and become judges with evil designs?
Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him?
Are we Christians better than anyone else? NO! Here we are called to mirror God’s actions in the structures of the Church. If God is impartial, how should the Church be? If the poor and the marginalized be favored by God, how should the Church be? Is this how we are? In what ways do we need to change? Someone said metanoia (repentance) is more about “I’m awake” than “I am sorry.”
The Gospel: Mk 7:31-37
Again Jesus left the district of Tyre
and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee,
into the district of the Decapolis.
And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment
and begged him to lay his hand on him.
He took him off by himself away from the crowd.
He put his finger into the man’s ears
and, spitting, touched his tongue;
then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him,
“Ephphatha!”— that is, “Be opened!” —
And immediately the man’s ears were opened,
his speech impediment was removed,
and he spoke plainly.
He ordered them not to tell anyone.
But the more he ordered them not to,
the more they proclaimed it.
They were exceedingly astonished and they said,
“He has done all things well.
He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
Please enjoy Fr. Robert Barron’s words on the Gospel.
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