Bible Basics for Catholics: Class 1 of 9

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

The first of nine classes in the "Bible Basics for Catholics" series, held by Catholic Bible Studies, introduces students to the overarching narrative of Salvation History. Participants are oriented to understand the Bible's story and how it equips them in their daily faith practices. The session sets a foundation for deeper exploration of Biblical covenants and the theme of trust through engaging discussions and an overview of the entire Biblical timeline. The speaker emphasizes the importance of scripture reading and offers methods to enhance the experience through prayer and meditation, aiming to help individuals hear God’s voice in the Bible.

Highlights

The class covers the big story of Salvation History. 🌟
Participants learn about covenants and trust. 🤝
Salvation History traced from Adam and Eve to early Church. 🕊️
Different methods for Bible reading were explored. 📚
The importance of hearing God's voice in scripture is stressed. ✨

Key Takeaways

Understanding Salvation History enriches Bible reading and faith. 📖
God's promises and trust are central themes in scripture. 🤝
Covenants are key to grasping God's relationship with humanity. 📜
Interactive and prayerful Bible reading helps hear God's voice. 🙏
Familiarity with Biblical history is crucial for deeper faith. ⛪

Overview

In this introductory class, participants are immersed into the expansive realm of Salvation History, aiming to arm themselves with the knowledge needed to engage with scripture more meaningfully. The session emphasizes the role of covenants—sacred agreements that form familial bonds—as recurring elements throughout the Bible's narrative. By understanding these themes, participants are better prepared to interpret how historical figures trusted in God’s plan and how it applies to personal faith journeys.

A key focus is the method of interactive and contemplative reading of the Bible, which helps unveil the divine voice embedded in scripture. Attendees are encouraged to engage with the Bible not merely for academic study but to deepen their spiritual connection. This involves using resources like timelines and prayer practices to bring the Biblical contexts and stories to life, highlighting the significance of covenants and trust.

Throughout, the class facilitates discussions and personal reflection, aiming to make these Biblical stories resonate with the audience's personal experiences. By the end, participants gain a foundational understanding of how their relationship with scripture can be a dynamic, enriching component of their daily faith lives, empowered with an appreciation for Biblical history and the timeless covenants God established with humanity.

Chapters

00:30 - 01:00: Introduction and Welcome The chapter titled 'Introduction and Welcome' begins with a musical introduction and applause, setting a positive and engaging tone for the audience.
01:00 - 02:00: Opening Prayer The chapter titled 'Opening Prayer' sets the stage for a class titled 'Bible Basics for Catholics'. The instructor welcomes the participants and expresses enthusiasm about the class, emphasizing its purpose: to familiarize attendees with the overarching narrative of Salvation history found in the Bible. This knowledge aims to enhance personal Bible reading, appreciation of scripture during Mass, and deepen adoration for God. The chapter concludes with an invitation to open in prayer, establishing a reflective and reverent tone for the session.
02:00 - 03:00: Class Overview and Practical Information The chapter starts with a solemn invocation, seeking divine wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. It emphasizes the importance of openness to spiritual guidance and understanding scriptures. The focus is on understanding and appreciating the scriptures in the context of divine salvation plans.
03:00 - 04:30: Purpose of the Class and God's Creation This chapter begins with a spiritual invocation, asking for divine guidance and enlightenment in life's journey. The speaker invites the audience to embrace this guidance to ultimately reach a state of eternal enlightenment and existence with God. This sets the tone for discussing the purpose of the class, likely focusing on spirituality and understanding one's place in God's creation.
04:30 - 05:00: Understanding Salvation History The class titled 'Understanding Salvation History' is structured to run for nine weeks on Monday nights, from 7:00 to 8:15. It is based on the book 'Bible Basics for Catholics' by Dr. John Bergsma from the University of Stubenville. The instructor discusses the book's popularity among the class, expressing enthusiasm for its content, as they will be spending the next nine weeks exploring it. Around half the class has already reviewed the book, indicating a positive reception.
05:00 - 07:00: Themes of Covenant and Trust The chapter titled 'Themes of Covenant and Trust' explores the overarching narrative of Salvation history, offering deep insights throughout. The speaker mentions that despite it being a slim and easy read, it covers the entire story comprehensively. The chapter seems to encourage visual representation as the reader feels compelled to draw pictures to understand better. Additionally, a timeline that proved useful in a previous class called 'Thea quick Journey to the Bible' is revisited, indicating its effectiveness in understanding the themes discussed.
07:00 - 09:30: Approaches to Reading the Bible The chapter titled 'Approaches to Reading the Bible' served as an introductory session in a series of classes. It emphasized the importance of bringing key resources like a Bible to future classes. During this particular class, the focus was on laying the foundation by discussing two main topics: methods of reading the Bible and an introduction to Salvation history. A timeline was used to facilitate the understanding of Salvation history, and group discussions were planned to further engage participants.
10:00 - 42:00: Story of Salvation History and Key Biblical Characters This chapter explores the fundamental question of why God created the universe, with a humorous guess from a character named James suggesting boredom as a reason. The text then references Pope Benedict XVI's explanation that God's creation of the universe was motivated by the desire to enter into a history of love with humanity.
55:00 - 59:00: Conclusion and Q&A This chapter focuses on the concept of a divine purpose for humanity, emphasizing that everyone is called to have a deep, meaningful relationship with God, the creator of the universe. It underscores the importance of understanding the historical context of this relationship and the universal call to holiness, suggesting that comprehending this history is crucial for each person's spiritual journey. The chapter calls for individuals to recognize their potential to become saints by actively engaging with the history that God is continuously writing.

Bible Basics for Catholics: Class 1 of 9 Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 [Music] [Applause] [Music]
00:30 - 01:00 all right everyone I think we'll get started welcome everyone to Bible basics for Catholics I'm so glad to see you all here tonight in this class we are going to become more familiar with the big story of Salvation history contained in our Bibles that way we can be better equipped to read the Bible on our own to appreciate the scripture readings at mass and most of all to adore Our God who has done such great things for us let's open in prayer please
01:00 - 01:30 stand in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen Come Holy Spirit and fill us with your wisdom knowledge and understanding open our minds and speak to us give us the power to understand and relish your scriptures and show us your plan for our Salvation may your word word truly be
01:30 - 02:00 for us a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path by your guidance may we follow that light until we reach the Everlasting day of Eternal Light where you reign with the father and the son one God forever and ever amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen welcome hi thank you let's start off with a practical information
02:00 - 02:30 this class is going to run nine weeks on Monday nights uh from 7 to 8:15 and it's based on this lovely book Bible basics for Catholics by Dr John bergsma from the University of Stubenville how many of you have gotten a chance to take a look at this book you yeah go ahead and pick one up yeah about half of you I love it I didn't even pick it out and uh I'm glad I like it this much seeing as I'm going to be spending the next nine weeks with
02:30 - 03:00 it but uh it's wonderful I mean it's a slim easy read but it covers the whole story of Salvation history and it's packed with deep insights all over the place and it's probably going to force me to draw pictures we also have our timeline we used this in a previous class Thea quick Journey to the Bible and it was so useful I decided to bring it back for this class uh we'll go through this in
03:00 - 03:30 class later tonight uh I recommend to you that you keep this and bring it to Future classes also it' probably be good if you uh brought a Bible to Future classes tonight's class is going to be pure introduction we're going to dig into the book next week tonight we've got two topics reading our Bibles and introduction to Salvation history using this lovely timeline we'll take sometime in between the two topics for some group discussion let's start with the big question
03:30 - 04:00 why did God create the universe take a stab at it anyone James he was bored he was bored nothing better to do Pope Benedict I'm sorry no Pope Benedict the 16th tells us God created the universe in order to enter into a history of love with humankind
04:00 - 04:30 he created the universe so he could love us and not just us here in this room not just us all around the world but every human being throughout history to have a deep relationship with God it is incredibly useful to grasp the history each one of us is called by God to step into that history that he's writing to become a saint but if we don't really know the history if we
04:30 - 05:00 don't know how God's related to his people in the past if we don't know how we're supposed to relate to God in our prayers and in our actions we are going to have a difficult time fulfilling our potential being the people God created us to be we know God speaks to us through the scriptures but if we're not very familiar with the context of the scriptures with the meaning of them we're going to have a harder time hearing from God there's a great scene
05:00 - 05:30 in the book of Acts where Philip the Deacon sees the Ethiopian unic reading the book of Isaiah and asks do you understand what you're reading and the Ethiopian says how can I unless someone explains it to me Philip takes that as an opening to tell him all about Jesus our goal for the next nine weeks is to get that background so we can understand what we're reading we are going to learn the story The Greatest Story Ever Told on a grand scale we're going to look at the history of God's love for us from
05:30 - 06:00 Adam and Eve to the early Church in the book of Acts we want to have the context to help scripture come alive for us we want to hear God's voice in scripture hopefully by the end of class we'll be better able to hear from God in the MTH readings more empowered to read the Bible on our own with understanding and better able to love and appreciate God for everything he's done for us there will be two main themes in this course Covenant and Trust there are any number of ways you
06:00 - 06:30 can unpack the story in the Bible but the author of this book uses the theme of Covenant what's a covenant agreement an agreement a relationship an oath yes it's all those things a covenant is an agreement between people that creates a family bond marriage is a covenant adoption is a covenant it's no accident that God uses those metaphors
06:30 - 07:00 all throughout scripture to describe our relationship with him baptism is our adoption ceremony we're adopted into God's family as his children we are also the bride of Christ Paul tells us your maker is your husband Isaiah tells us so throughout history God has made covenants to bring people into his family he makes promises to his people
07:00 - 07:30 and he always always keeps them so the First theme is Covenant the second theme is trust God keeps his promises do we believe that every character in scripture is at some point faced with the question do you trust God how does each one answer the serpent says to eve eat the fruit does she trust God
07:30 - 08:00 no God says to Noah build a giant boat does he trust God yes yeah he does God says to Abraham your 90-year-old wife is going to have a son does he trust God you know not at first but uh he gets used to the idea he just said good luck my favorite example of how two people answered this question is at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke
08:00 - 08:30 Zechariah and Mary Luke 1 the angel Gabriel appeared to the priest Zachariah in the temple while he was in the Holy Place burning incense on the Altar and Gabriel said to him Zechariah your prayers have been heard your wife Elizabeth who has been Barren is going to give birth to a son his name will be John and he will be a prophet in the
08:30 - 09:00 spirit and power of Elijah and he will prepare the way of the Lord and Zechariah replied how shall I know this how can I be sure of this now Zachariah was a faithful Jew in a faithful time he was a priest he should have known better God is generally patient with people in they ask for signs he realizes
09:00 - 09:30 okay you're weak in FA you need a little more help with Zechariah Gabriel said since you have not believed me this is your sign you're not going to be able to speak till the baby is born six months later Gabriel comes to a young woman named Mary and says to her hail full of grace the Lord is with you Mary you have found favor with God
09:30 - 10:00 you are going to give birth to a son the Son of God and his name will be Jesus and Mary says how will this be for I am a virgin sounds almost like what Zechariah said doesn't it except Gabriel knew what they were thinking Zechariah said how shall I know this how can I know this is true Zechariah wanted proof Mary said how will this be how are
10:00 - 10:30 you going to do this nobody's ever had a virgin birth before what's the plan Mary believed and Gabriel answered her question the power of the most high will overshadow you the holy spirit will come upon you and Mary said I am the handmaiden of the Lord let it be done unto me according to your word so Zechariah doubted God Mary trusted the very very same question
10:30 - 11:00 applies to each one of us today do you trust God you may not have an angel appearing in front of you every day of the week but do the decisions you make do the way you live your life do they show that you trust God let's talk about reading our Bibles we all know we should read our Bibles and yet so many of us don't maybe because we can't find the time but mostly I ECT because we don't seem to be
11:00 - 11:30 getting anything out of it I remember when I was growing up Lutheran I was told that it was a good idea for me to read my Bible every day I could never make myself do it I already know what's in there was my attitude I've heard it in church and Sunday school my whole life it's not like I'm going to find anything new or surprising in there I didn't know what Bible study was for I thought it was supposed to be like academic study you know
11:30 - 12:00 examine this have I learned anything new today no I don't think so I didn't realize that Christians read the Bible not principally to acquire new head knowledge but to hear the voice of God speaking to us now talking to people who grew up Catholic especially people a generation older than myself plenty of people tell me they were never encouraged to read the Bible or they were even actively discouraged from reading the
12:00 - 12:30 Bible that's a crying shame the Bible is a divinely inspired word of God and the Bible is a Catholic book the New Testament was written by Catholics the Old Testament was written by our Elder Brothers in the faith the Jews the Bible was assembled by Catholics to be read in loved by Catholics to lead Catholics to God the Protestants borrowed it from us anyone who taught that Catholics shouldn't read scripture was sadly
12:30 - 13:00 enough following the thinking current at the time but they were departing from the ancient and true tradition of the church here's a quote on reading scripture from the second Vatican Council from da veram the church has always venerated the Divine scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord for in the sacred books the father who is in heaven meets his children with great
13:00 - 13:30 love and speaks with them and the force and the power and the word of God is so great it stands as the support and energy of the church the strength of faith for her sons the food of the soul the pure and everlasting source of spiritual life we need to read our Bibles
13:30 - 14:00 so how do we read our Bibles there's two basic approaches first there's the lurgical way you read the daily Mass readings they're printed in the bulletin you can find them online or you pray the Liturgy of the Hours you can use spiffy devotional books of your choice I like Magnificat some people use the word among us or other ones the advantage of reading your Bible liturgically is that it gets you into the lurgical season it helps you make connections between the old and new Testament readings and it gives you
14:00 - 14:30 meaningful chunks of scripture just the right size to meditate on second there's the just pick up your Bible and read it method a few people do read it beginning to end with success which is great but there are more manageable ways to approach it you can pick any book of the Bible and read through it a little each day if you've never done it before start with a gospel or you can pick a favorite passage that you already know to
14:30 - 15:00 meditate on you know Psalm 23 The Lord is my shepherd John 3:16 for God so love the world and then you just start there and read on from there the advantage of the just pick it up and read method is that it can be more personalized you usually cover more scripture and you get a better sense of the context and big picture for the stories so stop and consider for a moment what role does Scripture play in your life
15:00 - 15:30 if you already have a habit of Bible reading fantastic if you don't do any of these ways sound like they might be worth trying now I fully remember what it was like for me before I became all enthusiastic about the faith when I tried to read the Bible out of a sheer sense of Duty yeah it was dry that's not the kind of Bible reading I want to promote to anyone let's consider now how can we make Bible
15:30 - 16:00 reading meaningful how can we hear from God in scripture the short answer is we pray we bathe the whole time in prayer we pray before we begin asking God to bless our time with him we read slowly and we pray about what we're reading it's never a contest to zip through the most material we read slowly we stay alert for any word or phrase that jumps
16:00 - 16:30 out at us and we meditate on it and consider what meaning this has for us what God might be telling us here then we talk with God about what we're hearing what it means how to apply this to our lives and if God gives us the gift of his presence we rest in him we Gaze on him we bask in his peace and his love be still and know that he is
16:30 - 17:00 God what I've just described is called lexio deina how many of you are familiar with lexio deina just a couple of you okay I'm going to write this on the board then lexio deina it's Latin for divine reading it's an ancient method of reading scripture first made Popular by the benedictines 1500 years ago it's still very popular today lexio deina is how I first connected with God by reading scripture it's got four formal
17:00 - 17:30 steps read meditate pray contemplate so to read the Bible this way you pick a little passage not very long you read it you chew on it you meditate on it see what jumps out at you whatever jumps out at you you pray about it you talk to God about it and then you contemplate God you spend time in his presence when I Tried reading the book Bible this way for the first time about
17:30 - 18:00 10 years ago I experienced the presence of God in scripture powerfully I think for the first time in my life and I went this works I didn't know it could be so easy but different things work for different people it can take some practice to figure out what works for you blessed Jordan of Saxony one of the early Dominicans said the best way to pray is the way you pray most fervently same goes for scripture reading the best way to read scripture
18:00 - 18:30 is the way that brings you closest to God take a moment to consider how you best connect with God so we know reading the Bible is a good idea we even have some ideas for ways to approach the Bible we even have some idea of how we can hear from God reading
18:30 - 19:00 the Bible what still stands in our way in short unfamiliarity with the story God taught his people to pass down the story of all that he's done for us that's most of the book of Deuteronomy by the way lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul talk of them when you are sitting in the house and when you are walking by the way when you lie down and when you rise most practicing Catholics are very
19:00 - 19:30 familiar with the gospels but not familiar enough with a plot of the whole story to feel comfortable just opening up the Bible and reading it you know we don't usually go ah Samuel Isaiah Amos old friends usually not over the next nine weeks we're going to get familiar with the plot of the whole story I hope that this book in this class will really open up the scriptures for for us just like
19:30 - 20:00 Philip the Deacon opened up the scriptures for the Ethiopian so uh get into small groups you're pretty much already into small groups at your tables and uh it's time for discussion questions we're going to discuss our relationship with scripture [Music]
20:00 - 20:30 all right everyone we are going to spend the rest of class looking at the story of Salvation history we're going to go over the whole thing in one shot so that we've got a lovely foundation for everything to come we're going to start by going through this timeline I'll take about 5 minutes just to explain this for those of you that have never seen it before it's two excited and uh incredibly
20:30 - 21:00 helpful turn to the first side where it says early world do you all see early World there on the top left all right so along the top we've got the headings that describe what's going on in Israel's history I'm just going to read off all the headings early World Patriarchs Egypt and exodus desert wanderings conquest and judges Royal Kingdom
21:00 - 21:30 divided Kingdom Exile return macban Revolt Messianic fulfillment and the church so there is all of your Bible History in nutshell okay got it all right go back to early world yeah you got it you're all good under early World it says Genesis 1-1 that line right there tells you what part of the Bible tells this this part
21:30 - 22:00 of the story now what's interesting is there's 73 books in the Bible but you can tell the plot of the story in just 14 books 14 historical books that go one right after the other I'm going to read those out loud those books are Genesis Exodus numbers Joshua Judges 1 and 2 Samuel 1 and 2 Kings Ezra Nehemiah first macbes Luke and
22:00 - 22:30 acts so if you're feeling ambitious that's a good alternative to uh reading through the Bible by the time you're done with this class you're going to be more than equipped to read through those 14 books because that'll be everything we just covered so if you want to really get a good grasp on the Bible take this class and then go read those 14 books you'll uh you'll really
22:30 - 23:00 have a handle on the Bible after that all right under Genesis 1-11 where it says one holy couple one Holy Family one holy tribe those are the covenants those are the different covenants that God makes with his people and notice how each one gets bigger as God's family grows until it finally ends up with one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church all right under the covenants you've got the bouncy Red Line what in the world is
23:00 - 23:30 that that is the genealogy of Jesus the people on that red line of the ancestors of Jesus so why does the line bounce well way on the far left it's uh on the timeline it says Northern countries the land of Canaan South and Egypt do you see that so where the red line is tells you where the action is taking place uh up top Northern countries that Babylon middle is the land of Canaan
23:30 - 24:00 Israel and the bottom is Egypt so there's where the people are uh in the little boxes scattered all over the middle you've got the major events like Number One Creation number two fall and all the way down at the bottom it tells you the approximate dates of this time period for early world it's just creation through 2000 BC below that it tells you what what's the world power at this point in history
24:00 - 24:30 it starts with Egypt and below that it tells you what's going on in secular history the first event they've got listed is when the great pyramids were built so there is how to read this timeline it's got an incredible amount of information in it about what's going on in the Bible when really good for helping to get a handle on things now you can keep your timelines open in front of of you you'll probably want to we're going to take a walk
24:30 - 25:00 through the entire Bible we're going to look at God's plan of forgiveness mercy and salvation and we're going to take a look at who trusted God and who didn't here it goes in the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth he created everything perfect and he created us human beings to share in his own Divine Life and happiness we're created in his in we have intelligence and reason
25:00 - 25:30 creativity capacity to love God also gave us free will the freedom to choose our actions the first human beings abused that gift of freedom and chose not to follow God by turning away from God human beings as well as creation itself became corrupted and subject to death you see when people turn away from God they turn away from life
25:30 - 26:00 itself God is life God is love God is Ultimate Reality when we sin we're turning away from those things and we become these selfish little beings wrapped in on ourselves filled with our own fretful wants and desires imprisoned in ourselves does this sound familiar to anyone yeah that's what sin does to us but ever since people first turned away from God God has been calling us back he is still
26:00 - 26:30 the great champion of free will he never forces anyone to come back but he does tell us in the strongest possible terms that only with him can there possibly be life and life abundantly immediately after they sinned God promised Adam and Eve that he would one day send Humanity a savior God expressed his desire to draw all people to himself by establishing a covenant with Noah and his descendants that is to say with every person on the earth yet Noah's descendants set
26:30 - 27:00 themselves against God building a tower to reach the heavens out of sheer Pride Tower of Babel so to limit the damage that arrogant people could do God confused their languages and Scattered them over the Earth in their pride people lost the knowledge of God and became pagans worshiping all kinds of different Idols now we come to our next time period the time of the Patriarchs in order to reveal himself in
27:00 - 27:30 a deep way to humanity God cultivated One Nation on Earth as his very own giving them particular knowledge of himself that was Israel that's right the Jewish people became the foundation from which the rest of the world would ultimately learn about God and his salvation God began forming Israel by calling a man named Abram just so you can picture how this
27:30 - 28:00 ties in with world history Abram lived around the year 2000 BC in the city of ER in ancient Mesopotamia it's that first civilization that we all learn about in uh world history class back in high school with the zigurat and the code of hamurabi and uniform tablets the Fertile Crescent this all ring a bell yeah that's where Abraham lived so God called Abram an elderly man to
28:00 - 28:30 leave his home take his relatives take everything he owned and resettle in a far distant land the land of Canaan did Abram trust God yes he did and for that God made a covenant with him renaming him Abraham which means the father of many nations quite a name they give to someone who doesn't have any kids yeah we'll uh we'll hear more about that story in a couple more weeks but God
28:30 - 29:00 made three promises to Abraham that lay the groundwork for the rest of the Bible you can find them in Genesis 12 veres 1 through3 there's the rest of the Bible in a nutshell but you can also find them on your timeline right in front of you where it says abrahamic Covenant God promised Abraham's descendants three things land a kingdom and worldwide blessing the first promise was the land of Canaan that's why it's called the
29:00 - 29:30 promised land that promise was fulfilled when Moses and Joshua led the children of Israel out of Egypt and into the land flowing with milk and honey the second promise was that Abraham's descendants would be Kings this was fulfilled by King David and all of the kings that came after him the third promise was that all the people of the Earth would be blessed through
29:30 - 30:00 Abraham that was fulfilled with Jesus Abraham eventually had a son Isaac who had a son Jacob Jacob had 12 sons who are the founding fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel they've got all 12 of them in a little box there on your chart there's the 12 tribes of Israel two of these sons are especially important for now Judah he's on the red line he's the ancestor of Jesus you've heard Jesus
30:00 - 30:30 called the lion of the tribe of Judah yeah and then there's Joseph Joseph moves the whole plot of the story forward I think I'll tell you the story of Joseph because it's fun you want to hear it yeah chess is nodding back there okay Joseph Joseph had Visions he had visions that one day his brothers would B bow down to him which seemed terribly unlikely because he was kid 11 of 12 and
30:30 - 31:00 his brothers hated him because he was the father's favorite he got the coat of many colors didn't have to work and so Joseph once told his brothers about this vision from God Som day you're going to bow down to me and his brothers let him know what they thought of this idea by selling him into slavery Joseph was taken down into Egypt by slavers and from there things only got worse the wife of his master tried to
31:00 - 31:30 seduce him Joseph refused for moral reasons and she uh made accusations against him had Joseph thrown in prison so now Joseph is languishing in prison and he still remembers his promise to God that uh or his promise that God made him that someday his brothers are going to bow down to him does Joseph trust God yes he does he does not despair he realizes that God's still got a plan for him that God keeps his
31:30 - 32:00 promises so Joseph he still got this gift from God too of having visions and of interpreting dreams some years pass and Pharaoh has a dream Pharaoh dreams about seven fat cows that are eaten up by seven skinny cows and Pharaoh says who can tell me the meaning of this dream one of Pharaoh's advisers says oh there's a man down in prison that can do dreams I'll get them for you pulls up Joseph in
32:00 - 32:30 front of pharaoh and Joseph says your dream means that there will be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of terrible famine Pharaoh tells Joseph great you're in charge of the relief effort get to it and just like that Joseph went from being a slave in prison to prime minister of Egypt number two in the Kingdom s years pass Egypt is prepared for the famine nowhere else is from all around people
32:30 - 33:00 flood into Egypt refugees because everywhere else they're starving Joseph's brothers come to Egypt they come before Joseph they don't recognize him and they bow at his feet and say we need food Joseph tests them he wants to know if they've changed if they're better than they used to be they pass the test and he reveals who he is they all make up up he forgives his brothers and he
33:00 - 33:30 and Pharaoh invite the whole extended family to come down and live in Egypt you can have the best land so the family of Jacob all 12 tribes come down to Egypt they're honored guests of the Pharaoh because Joseph is the Great Hero who saved Egypt and all of the Israelites live in Egypt happily ever after the end there's a whole lot more here yeah not
33:30 - 34:00 quite so now we reach the time period of Egypt and exodus for 400 years the Israelites became slaves in Egypt the time of Joseph passed until a pharaoh came that had never heard of Joseph he made the Israelites slaves God Called Moses to lead them out of slavery God Called to Moses from the burning bush and told him I want you to go to pharaoh and say Let My People
34:00 - 34:30 Go did Moses trust God you know he had a tough time with it at first I mean the Charleston hon version didn't the Charleston hon version is more than ready to to go in there but uh the version in Exodus he said not me I I don't do public speaking tell my brother Aaron to do it instead but Moses went anyway he put one foot in
34:30 - 35:00 front of the other he went back to Egypt and with his brother Aaron went up in front of pharaoh and said let my people go and after the first plague or two Moses trusted God he got the hang of it God freed the Israelites from sler by all sorts of Miracles you have the 10 plagues you've got the first Passover where uh the angel of death comes for the first born and God tells the Israelites slaughter a lamb take the blood of the lamb and paint it on your
35:00 - 35:30 doorposts and the angel of death will pass over you and so from that point forward the Israelites celebrated every year how they were saved from Death by the blood of the Lamb looking forward to Jesus God brought them out of Egypt part of the Red Sea for them saved them from the Egyptian Army and the Israelites were intensely grateful for about three days God then LED them through the Wilderness in a pillar of cloud and a
35:30 - 36:00 pillar of fire he fed them with Mana from Heaven he gave them water from a rock and then God spoke to them at Mount siani and said I am the Lord your God you shall have no other gods before me I am the one who rescued you from slavery God gave them the law The Ten Commandments and established a priesthood to show the Israelites how to live and how to worship him his people learned that God is all all good all holy all powerful all loving and that he
36:00 - 36:30 protected and cared for them did the Israelites trust him no here we move into the desert wanderings desert wanderings The Book of Numbers despite all the Wonders they saw and all the Miracles God worked to protect them the Israelites never did trust him they a golden calf to worship they constantly turned to other Idols
36:30 - 37:00 they constantly grumbled against God we're a sick of Mana we want meat enough of this miraculous food well God gave them Quail they weren't very happy then either did God keep protecting them yes he gave them Second Chances time and time again he kept feeding them with Mana from Heaven their clothes never wore out for those 40 years in the wilderness The Souls of their shoes
37:00 - 37:30 never wore through in all that wandering God revealed himself to them as a god merciful and gracious slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and still the Israelites wouldn't trust him we get to numbers 13 one year after they left Egypt this is after the Ten Commandments after they've built the ark of the covenant in the Tabernacle God leads them in that pillar of cloud
37:30 - 38:00 and Pillar of Fire to the edge of the promised land it's time to go in Moses sends in some spies to scout out the land and the spies come back saying there's Giants in the land there's huge cities there's big thick walls we feel like grasshoppers next to these people we can't go in there and the people won't go in only two people want to go in two of the spies Joshua and Caleb out of two million people they're
38:00 - 38:30 the two that trust God but everyone else picks up rocks to Stone Joshua and Caleb to death and at that point God comes down and says because you will not go into the promised land the land I've prepared for you the land I have promis to give you have it your way you're going to wander in the desert for 40 years your children will go
38:30 - 39:00 in at that point they went never mind we're ready to go into the promised land now and they started marching in it didn't work they used up all their chances at that point so they wandered in the desert for 40 years after 40 Years of wandering Moses died we've now reached the time period of conquest and judges it was time for Joshua to lead the israelit ites into the promised land
39:00 - 39:30 the battle plan God gave him involved marching around the city of Jericho for seven days and watching its walls tumble to the ground did Joshua trust God absolutely absolutely you bet he did and for a brief moment in history the Israelites did too they were done with wandering in the wilderness and so to enter the promised land they followed every crazy order God and Joshua gave them and they were quite a few but once they settled in the promised land and that generation
39:30 - 40:00 passed the Israelites forgot about God and turned back to Idols once more that's the Book of Judges if you look at your timeline you'll see a box that says 12 judges and a circle that says seven times uh the judges were all regional leaders that's why there's 12 of them but they go through this uh this cycle seven times seven times the Israelites follow this cycle of sin servitude supplication salvation and
40:00 - 40:30 silence what happens is sin the Israelites worshiped Idols to bring them to their senses God allows them to be conquered by a foreign Nation then the Israelites would turn back to God and pray to him for help God save us and God would raise up a leader like Deborah or Gideon or Samson to save Israel from its enemies and the isra Israelites would praise God and be intensely grateful for
40:30 - 41:00 about 3 days then they'd forget all about it go back to idol worship and the cycle would begin again they've got short memories for about 200 years Israel was stuck in this cycle spiraling downwards into ever greater idolatry and violence until God called a boy named Samuel I think we all heard that one at Mass just to a couple of weeks ago didn't we yeah God made Samuel a great
41:00 - 41:30 prophet priest and leader of the people Samuel called the Israelites for repentance and brought them back to worshiping God but when Samuel grew old the people feared a return of the cycle of being conquered over and over again and they cried out we want a king to rule us we want a king who can raise an army to protect us anoint for us a King Samuel reminded to the people that God was supposed to be their King and
41:30 - 42:00 that if they would only follow him he would protect them the people said oh yeah that's worked really well in the past give us a king did the Israelites trust God no they never really gave God a chance to be their King Samuel was devastated he saw this is the people's ultimate rejection of God but God told Samuel to give the people what what they wanted so Samuel anointed a king for them a tall and handsome man named
42:00 - 42:30 Saul now we're on to the next time period the Royal Kingdom and around the year 1,000 BC Saul became Israel's first king did Saul trust God not so much at first he seemed like a good King at first he sought out God's will but time revealed he was both proud and
42:30 - 43:00 insecure you know the two go together pretty often he compulsively felt the need to take the Reigns out of God's hands and make sure things were done right himself kind of a control freak one day Samuel was running late for church so to speak Samuel was supposed to perform a sacrifice before Saul could lead the troops into battle s wasn't there Saul needed to get this show on the road so Saul went up to the Altar and performed
43:00 - 43:30 the sacrifice himself Saul wasn't a priest major no no Samuel told Saul you've just lost your kingdom and Samuel went out and anointed a teenage Shepherd boy named David to be the next king did David trust God absolutely even as a Young Man David at the Lord's prompting went up against the Giant Goliath and won a great victory
43:30 - 44:00 for Israel David was Fearless but when Saul found out that Samuel had anointed David the next King Saul LED his armies up and down Israel for years trying to hunt him down and kill him and yet David still trusted God on several occasions David had the opportunity to kill Saul and yet David refused he said I will not raise my hand against the Lord's anointed his life is
44:00 - 44:30 God's not mine David was a man of Mercy he was called a man after God's Own Heart just like God he was merciful over and over again through all those years on the Run hiding in caves he wrote wonderful psalms about trusting God through anything the Lord is my light and my salvation Whom Shall I Fear the Lord is the stronghold of my life of whom shall I be afraid when evildoers assail me to devour My
44:30 - 45:00 Flesh my adversaries and foes they shall stumble and fall and eventually Saul died and David became king of Israel God was very close to David the poet full of praises the man of mercy and God made a covenant with him promising him that his Royal Dynasty would last forever that one of his descendants would be the Son of
45:00 - 45:30 God after David came his son Solomon did Solomon trust God at first Solomon asked God for wisdom and he was the wisest ruler who ever lived he built the temple and the glory of Israel reached its height in his day but in his later years he sinned he was brought down by lust and idolatry he had imported for himself hundreds of
45:30 - 46:00 foreign wives and concubines who brought with them their local idols and eventually Solomon started worshiping the idols with them and building temples for them tradition has it that Solomon repented towards the end of his life but the damage is already done Solomon had reintroduced idolatry back into Israel God spoke to him for the sake of your father David I will not take the kingdom away from you but I will take it
46:00 - 46:30 away from your son this is the blackest period in Israel's history as you can tell by the black shading it's the divided Kingdom when Solomon died his son rabam became king you'll see his name down there he's the first king in red on the bottom now rabam was a bit of an idiot to say he didn't inherit his father 's wisdom is a bit of an understatement he didn't inherit his
46:30 - 47:00 father's wisdom he didn't know God he was raised by his Idol worshipping mother he he had an absent father imagine that when he became king he asked his father's advisers how should I rule the advisor said your father was a great king but he was very hard on the people taxing them and using their labor to build his monuments lighten their load and the people will love you forever then rabam went and asked some of his
47:00 - 47:30 friends you know his drinking buddies how should I rule and his friend said show the people who's boss yeah guess which group he listened to rabam was harsh and the people revolted against him led by a soldier named jeroboam rabam and jeroboam just to be confusing and the Kingdom of Israel split into take a look at your timelines in
47:30 - 48:00 the north you have the northern kingdom called Israel all those kings of the northern kingdom starting with jeroboam were evil jeroboam he didn't trust God he was afraid that all of his people would defect back to the South to the real king and the real Temple and the real capital of Jerusalem so he built two golden calves placed them in temples and said here are the gods who brought you
48:00 - 48:30 out of slavery in Egypt clearly his reading of the book of Exodus didn't go so well from that point forward the northern kingdom was engulfed in idolatry God sent great prophets to call them back to himself over and over again like Elijah and Elisha but the people did not listen in in the South you have the southern Kingdom called Judah there you
48:30 - 49:00 have the uh real king and the real Temple but the situation there wasn't much better most of those kings down there in red on the chart were Idol worshippers again God called great prophets to set to bring the people back to himself like Isaiah and Jeremiah they warned the people that if they did not turn back to God if they didn't be light to the Nations that God had called them to be if they didn't prepare the way for
49:00 - 49:30 the coming of the Lord God would have to take drastic measures to bring them back to their senses he would remove them from the promised land the people did not turn back to God so that's exactly what happened our next time period is exile the northern kingdom was in worse shape so it went first the Northern Kingdom of Israel Israel was conquered by the Assyrians the people of Israel
49:30 - 50:00 were deported to Assyria 150 years later it was the southern kingdoms turn the southern Kingdom of Judah was conquered by Babylon people of Judah deported to Babylon in Babylon the people of Judah now known as the Jews were under intense pressure to assimilate to eat pork dress like everyone else and worship King Nebuchadnezzar as their God in Exile in Babylon did the Jews trust
50:00 - 50:30 God yes they did Daniel got thrown to the Lions for Keeping the Faith he trusted God and God protected him Shadrach Meshach and Abednego got thrown into the fiery furnace for Keeping the Faith they trusted God God protected them being taken into Exile did bring the Jews to their sentence they realized the prophets were right
50:30 - 51:00 God did do what he said he was going to do he said he would take us into exile for worshiping idols and he did but the prophets also said that the Exile would not last forever that God in his mercy and faithfulness will return us to the land if we repent and turn back to him so the Jews repented they prayed and they waited patiently for God to keep his promise and of course God did our next time period is the
51:00 - 51:30 return after 70 years of Exile the Persian Emperor Cyrus gave the Jews permission to return to the land they returned in three waves led by zerubabel Ezra and Nehemiah and they began to rebuild Jerusalem the Jews now were very careful to follow God to worship him alone and to keep the law they had finally learned the lesson of History unfortunately some of them went a little too far in the other direction this is where you start getting the
51:30 - 52:00 Pharisees this is where you start getting legalism cropping up where they uh obey the letter of the law and start neglecting the spirit but in the next time period the maban Revolt the Jews were under serious persecution by a Greek ruler Antiochus epiphanies who wanted to Stamp Out Judaism Antiochus killed mothers for circumcising their babies slaughtered old men for refusing to eat pork and he put up a statue of Zeus in the temple
52:00 - 52:30 and demanded the Jews bow down did the Jews trust God yes they did the Jews refused led by the makabe family they revolted against their Greek overlords and miraculously they won the Jews governed themselves for a hundred years until the Roman Empire took over and the time was ripe for the Messiah we've reached the end of the Old
52:30 - 53:00 Testament and come to the time of Messianic fulfillment 2,000 years ago Jesus our Messiah came to bring Salvation to the human race we as human beings could never make up for all the sins that we commit much less all the sins that our forefathers in the faith committed but as true God and true man Jesus could he could offer his infinite Divine Life as a sacrifice to make up for all of our
53:00 - 53:30 sins and give us eternal life now here's a fun question did Jesus trust God trick question right yeah did Jesus trust God the Father well yes of course he did but he struggled Remember The Garden of Gethsemane he prayed he sweated blood he begged God take this cup away from me Jesus in his Humanity recoiled at the
53:30 - 54:00 thought of suffering and dying on the cross he didn't like the thought any more than the rest of us but he surrendered his will to Gods Not My will but yours be done Jesus trusted God he went to the cross and his act of trust made up for all the times every one of us has failed to trust God at the Last Supper Jesus established
54:00 - 54:30 the New Covenant the one foretold by the prophets it was a New Covenant in his blood we are forgiven and granted eternal life by the sacrifice of his body and blood on the cross we accept this Covenant we renew this Covenant every time we partake of his body and blood in the Eucharist and finally the church Jesus founded a
54:30 - 55:00 church grafted onto Israel so now everyone is called to be a part of God's chosen people Jesus sent the church's Holy Spirit at Pentecost to transform us from within so that we can grow to love God love neighbor live lives worthy of Christ and spread the good news of Salvation that's what we find in the Bible we find God's great plan salvation we also find a great cloud of
55:00 - 55:30 witnesses people in every age who demonstrate for us how to have a relationship with God they show us that God really does speak to us he calls us to have open ears open hearts and to follow him in loving trust we learn from them that we really can trust God that God knows what he's doing every time that God knows what's best for us better than we do we can
55:30 - 56:00 trust him spend time with scripture soak in the life stories of all these people soak in the Divine wisdom soak in the presence of the Saints of old soak in the presence of God so that when the time comes for you to step up and answer the question do you trust God you'll be ready amen amen amen that's all I've got thoughts or questions James you said the Vatican um
56:00 - 56:30 encouraged reading the Bible so what happened that cuz I did go I'm a 12 year man I went eight years with the nuns and four years with the brothers and I was never encouraged and that was right as Vatican 2 was completed why weren't we ever you know the uh non-catholic Bible reading phase lasted a long time I as far as I can trace it back it started in the late 1200s with the kar Heretics and
56:30 - 57:00 the Catholic church was so what's the word I'm looking for felt so challenged by these Heretics who were were getting their ideas from reading the Bible incorrectly and they we don't want people reading the Bible incorrectly maybe the people in this region shouldn't read the Bible and from there especially after the Protestant Reformation that cultural idea kind of spread in the Catholic Church church that if you encourage the people to read their Bibles too much they might get all kinds of crazy ideas and decide not to
57:00 - 57:30 be Catholic anymore they interpret it wrong yeah that was their line exactly they they didn't trust people to interpret it right well thank goodness they've gone back to the way it was before that and uh now we as Catholics are encouraged to read our Bibles again which is wonderful which is the way it should be which is the way it was in the early church and uh is the way it is today thank God any other
57:30 - 58:00 questions all right let's close in prayer in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen let's pray the Lord's Prayer together Our Father Who Art in Heaven be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as for those who trespass against us and lead us not into
58:00 - 58:30 temptation but deler us from evil amen