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“Is it a sin to marry outside your faith?” This question opens a discussion on the nuances of faith and relationships, including interpretations of 2 Corinthians and the concept of being unequally yoked. Other topics addressed include the implications of Matthew 7:6 on sharing scripture, the nature of particular judgment, and the meaning of being poor in spirit.
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Welcome back. Catholic gifts was live. Jimmy Akin, our guest. Holy smoke, it felt I think I
must have been having fun that first hour because it felt like it took about five minutes.
That was a quick hour for me. But again, you were doing all the work, Jimmy, so
it might go a little slower for you, I don't know. It's a little slower, but it wasn't a drag.
Okay, good. You can ask Jimmy anything you want about the Bible. It's your Bible questions for
Jimmy Akin today, 888-318-7884. We talked about the Jimmy, we talked about the mysterious world
podcast, but we didn't talk about the Jimmy Akin podcast. Those drop on Monday. What do we got at the
Jimmy Akin podcast? Well, this last Monday, as I mentioned last hour, I published a video where I
interact with Evangelical Apologist Frank Turek. He was given a lecture tour, and he had an
interaction with a student named Chase at University of North Florida, and Chase is a Catholic
gentleman. He's also nice. I really nice. I spoke to him. Frank is also really nice. I've
been on his show. He and I have had positive reactions. In this exchange, Chase did a really
good job standing up for the Catholic faith, and Frank, even though he's a really sweet guy,
he could have used some improvement on some of the points that he made. So I went through and offered
helpful thoughts about arguments. Frank might not want to make in that form in the future,
in the spirit of Iron Sharpen's Iron, and Man Sharpen's another. So I was trying to be very
helpful, very cordial, and you can check out all of the advice that I had for Frank. There's more
than an hour of it. Then, that's very helpful. I want to be helpful. Then I coming up on this
Monday, I'm going to be looking at the prophet Elijah. There is an incident where he's on the run
from Queen Jezebel, and God directs him to take a journey to Mount Sinai, which is only about 11
days away from where he is, but it says he travels day and night, and it took him 40 days to get there.
Now, you can go a lot farther in 40 days and 40 nights of travel, even if you're just doing,
say, 12 hours of walking per day. He could have, if the Mediterranean Sea wasn't in the way,
he could have walked all the way to Rome. So what's going on with, and that's not an exaggeration,
I did the math, he could have walked to Rome if it wasn't for the Mediterranean Sea. So what's going
on with these numbers? And so Monday's episode is going to be talking about how we need to
use different expectations when we approach various things, the Bible has to say, including
the use of numbers, and whether they're always meant literally or not.
Oh, I'm so glad that you did that, because I do think, yeah, because the ancient mind that
wrote that work is not thinking about the numbers necessarily the same way, the modern person
who went to a public school is thinking about it. That's right. And this is a, it's a short
episode. I figure after doing more than an hour on Frank, I give the listeners a short one,
but it's an illustrative incident in scripture that I think makes the point effectively,
that we can't just use our modern expectations when we're reading ancient literature.
Check out the Jimmy Akin podcast, wherever you get your podcast, you can also go to Jimmy's page
youtube.com slash Jimmy Akin, and you'll find all this stuff that we talk about, and much,
much more. All right, to the phones we go, Bible questions for Jimmy Akin,
go into Matthew in Canada. Well, that narrows it down, listening on catholic.com. Welcome, Matthew.
Yeah, second largest country in the world geographically.
That's right. Thanks for having me on, guys.
But we're very happy to have you. Go ahead, Matthew.
So I'm a catholic, and I was chatting with a Protestant friend about whether it was a sin
for a Christian to marry a non-Christian. So my friend took the position that it was,
citing the passage in second Corinthians where St. Paul warns the Corinthians to not become
unequally yoked. I, of course, am aware of how the church will grant dysmensations
for Catholics to marry non-Catholics. And I didn't think that the church would permit that
if it was actually a sin. So the argument that I made was that Paul was giving his opinion
rather than relay a direct command from God. So while it would be unwise, it wouldn't be a sin.
So I just want to know what you think of my response. Like, was I correct? Or is there some error
in how I respond it? Is there a better way to defend these dysmensations? I'd love to know your thoughts.
Well, I guess I guess there are several different levels on which to think about this question.
First is the exgetical level. So I'm not looking at church teaching. I'm not looking at church law.
I'm not looking at anything like that. I'm just looking at the text and saying, what can I establish
from the text? Well, I can establish from the text that it is not a sin to be married to a non-Christian
because Saint Paul had many converts who had been married before they were Christian and he
expected them to stay married and be faithful spouses to their non-Christian spouse. So the mere
fact that you are married to someone who's a non-Christian is clearly not a sin. The question
would be, can you voluntarily enter a marriage with a non-Christian if you are a Christian?
And this is where the text in 2 Corinthians 6 becomes relevant. I would say based on my knowledge
of that text that both positions are potentially defensible on exogetical grounds. I think that
I think that you can read that passage as saying here Paul is articulating something that would
be sinful to do. You could also read it as Paul is saying something that it would be unwise to do
this or not preferable to do this but not saying it's a sin because he doesn't mention sin in this
passage. I think you could also have a kind of middle position where Paul, you could see Paul
is saying, well, it would be a sin in less special circumstances apply but if those special
circumstances apply it would not be sinful. So I think you could read this text in several
different ways and on an exogetical level my thought would be, and I'd have to think about this more,
but my first thought would be that this text under determines the question. That is, it does not
contain enough data for us to determine one of these interpretations over the others. So I think
the passage is ambiguous. At least my first thought is the passage is ambiguous enough to accommodate
several different interpretations and I wouldn't feel confident on exogetical grounds saying this is,
this one is what it definitely means. So that's handling this text from an exogetical perspective
which is the one that you and your friend have in common. Thinking about it as a Catholic though,
I also can consider church law and practice and so forth and you're right. The church
does grant dispensations for people to marry non-Catholics. It's clearly to marry non-Christians.
These are mixed marriage dispensations and it's clear that I technically they're what are known as
disparity of cult dispensations. It's clearly not preferable because if it was preferable you wouldn't
need a dispensation for it. But the church also requires that the Catholic party in a marriage be
in a state of grace at the time the marriage is performed. And if they're not in a state of grace,
the marriage will still be valid, but in order to have a illicit or lawful celebration of marriage,
the Catholic party needs to be in a state of grace. And so you could combine the fact that the
church does grant dispensations for disparity of cult with the fact that the Catholic party is
going to need to be in a state of grace and infer that this isn't or at least is not automatically
a sin, certainly not a mortal sin. So I think you've got an argument there and that would be
consistent with the idea either that Paul is not conceptualizing marrying a non-Christian as
always a sin. He might allow it in some circumstances or that he's just giving advice.
He's saying this in preferable, but he's not saying it's sinful to do this. I think both of those
are live options exegetically and they're also consistent with church practice. So I would say that
you offered a reasonable counter-proposal to your friend. I just wouldn't be able to prove it
at the current point because I'd need to do more study to see if I thought I could narrow down
the options further. I just couldn't prove it to your friend using exegetical grounds which are
the ones that he would accept. So what I might say to him is, hey, this passage can be read more than
one way and so I could acknowledge, well, if I'm limited to just what I can determine from the
text your interpretation friend is possible, but so are these other two interpretations and it
looks like this passage under determines the issue and we shouldn't either one of us should just
be automatically reading our preference onto it. Okay, Matthew. Yeah, thank you very much for
the very thorough answer. Thanks, Jimmy. No problem. Well, thank you for the call, Matthew.
I got to take a break there. I think I better take a break. All right, we'll be right back.
If you don't go anywhere, I see all those lines full, but we're going to work our way through them.
So hang on right back with more Bible questions for Jimmy on Catholic Cancer's Live.
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Jimmy Akin, our guest Bible questions for Jimmy and they just keep coming so off we go to Illinois.
Mary is in Illinois. Mary, welcome. You got a Bible question?
I do. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. A couple of years ago, I was collecting some
Bibles. Our parish had an excess of Bibles. They were paperback Bibles. Nothing
very fancy except for the word of God, of course. And as I was gathering them, a clergy member
made the comment that not to give what is holy to dogs and not to throw pearls to swine.
And it really took me a back. I was giving these Bibles to homeless people. I do some outreach
in my community. And I often pray with them and give crucifixes and miraculous medals.
And I just, so is that considered? Should I just think if you buy Bibles out like that?
It just, I wasn't sure where that fit into Matthew 6, 7, 6, excuse me.
Okay. So Jesus is obviously using a metaphor here because he's not talking about literal
dogs and literal pigs. He's talking about giving things that are holy to humans
for whom it would be in one way or another inappropriate to give them these holy things,
because they're not going to respect them. So let me ask you a question. Two questions.
And these are also the same two questions I would be inclined to ask the priest who said this.
Do you think that homeless people are metaphorically dogs? Yes or no? No, that actually
brought my eyes. No. Okay. How about this? Do you think that homeless people are metaphorically swine?
No, absolutely not. No, good. You have a functioning sense of empathy. Congratulations,
you're not a sociopath, which might not be able to say to the priest who told you this.
So the idea, oh, also, by the way, did our Lord ever say anything about helping the poor?
Exactly. Yeah, he kind of did, didn't he? So we want to help the poor
to the extent we can and giving them, assuming they are receptive to spiritual
things like a crucifix or rosary or a Bible or say in a prayer with you, to the extent they're
they're receptive to those. Those are spiritual works of mercy that you should do for them.
Now, that doesn't mean that you should do them with every homeless person. There might be
homeless people who would not be receptive to this who would, you know, take a Bible and maybe
after you're gone, rip it up or something like that, you know, because they they want to be
defiant and nasty towards Christianity. There are some homeless people, just like there are some
honed people who are metaphorically dogs and swine. And for those you don't want to give them
holy things that they're going to disrespect and dishonor. But that's some people
and it has nothing to do with whether they've got a home or not. If the person is open to spiritual
works of mercy, like praying with them, giving them a crucifix, giving them a Bible, giving them a
rosary, you know, then that's a good thing to do. You want to do that. So, so I, you know, I want to
be as generous in spirit as I can to this priest and there is a caution that, you know, you should
think about if I give this person a Bible, is it best to give it to this person or would it be
better to give it to someone else? Maybe someone who's homeless who would appreciate it more.
So I want to be generous of spirit in thinking through his position, but taking his apparent
position without qualification, I would say it's positively sociopathic.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for much better. I often give them reading
glasses so they can read and talk. It's really a beautiful experience. And yeah, very, very rewarding
and humbling. So great. We'll keep up to good work. Mary, I'd like to send you one of Jimmy's books
and I'll tell you what, I'd like any one of you want. Edgar will walk you through the titles.
If there's a particular book that Jimmy Aiken has written, we'll send it to you. Just give a
send address there in Illinois. Thank you very much for that call. Mary. All right, off to Fresno,
California. We go Jordans and Fresno, watching on YouTube. Hey, Jordan, you got a Bible question?
Yes. Can you guys hear me? Yes. Ah, yes. So there's not two questions. And the first question
has to do a lot with the second question. But the first question is there's two perspectives.
And I noticed with Catholic answers on reading articles, I even read, sorry,
called Catholic answers from Charles Grande, or something like that. But pretty much
this perspective was that Hades, of course, you know, it's just this a boat of the dead.
Like when you go to Revelation of 2013, when it talks about Hades being, let me read quick.
Oh, yeah, death in Hades giving up the dead and, you know, they're thrown into this like a fire.
In this verse, it's seen as like, oh, Hades is refers to the abode of the dead, which means anyone
in heaven, Dahena, purgatory, et cetera. And so pretty much, pretty much they're trying to say this
perspective that Dahena is where people right now, when they're particularly judged, that's where
they go now. And the second phase is in the final judgment where it's the soul and body, not just the
soul. But then I found this other perspective where I found like Michael Lawton or Sam Shamoon saying
that, no, like right now when you die, particular judgment, you go to Hades and then in the final
judgment, that's when you get thrown into what is called Dahena. So I just wanted to clarify first
before asking my second question on that. If we first, you know, is it Hades or I think Dahena,
I'm aware also of, you know, the translations, of course, from infernos from Latin and them
having the same health definition, but I just wanted to clarify that.
Okay. Well, first of all, I haven't read the article you mentioned. I haven't heard the
individuals you mentioned express opinions on this. So I can't comment on what they've said.
There may be something that, you know, got lost in the transmission or something. So I'm not
critiquing anybody here, but what I can do is tell you what the relevant terms mean. Hades or
in Greek, Hades is a term for the place of the dead. Everybody goes to Hades or Hades when you die.
Good or bad, you go to Hades. And if you're going specifically to the place of the bad dead,
a different term will be used. The Aramaic term is Dahena. The Greek term is Tartarus.
And so Hades is a general term that refers to where all of the dead go. And there are more specialized
terms to indicate the place where the evil dead go. And I'll cycle it, you know, I'll use my
boomstick with the evil dead if I have to. But what's that guy's name? Oh, man, I'm sorry,
but that actor I care Bruce Campbell. Yeah. All right. Good Bruce Campbell reference. Yeah.
So when Revelation 20 says that death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, Hades there
is being used in the sense of the place of all the dead. What John is saying is everybody who is
dead gets brought back to life. Death and this is what's called sometimes called synonymous
parallelism. Death by saying death gave up its dead and the place of the dead gave up its dead.
It's another way of saying everybody who's dead gets resurrected. So that's what's going on there.
Now you can therefore validly say that today if you're using terms the Greek way, the way the
New Testament is used them, yeah, you could say that that everybody goes to Hades when you die.
That just means they go to the place of the dead. But that will be very confusing if you say
both because the term Hades has shifted meaning and a new conceptual framework
has come about where people think not in terms of a common place of the dead but different places
of the dead like heaven, purgatory and hell. An equivalent that would get the same point across
in modern language would be to say when you die you go to the afterlife because the afterlife is
where everybody who's dead goes without breaking it down into further categories.
So again, that's what I'd say to your first question. What's your second?
I'm sorry. And so for that first question just to clarify if somebody dies right now,
I can say like, oh, hey, since I can specify, hey, they go, they can go, they're so
possibility they go straight to Gehena. They could go to Gehena, yeah, if they're lost souls,
they would go to Gehena. If they're dead, I'm in other words. Got you. Okay, so Gehena,
you know, is active now. Okay, got you. Okay, so my second question was, and the reason I was
asking all this was because my kind of causal infotarian girlfriend, she pretty much brought up this
thing where you're your parental hostel. What girlfriend? You miss a Terry. Oh, or sorry,
one is one is kind of one is okay. Okay. Yes, she brought up this idea that instead that there's
no, there's no such thing as particular judgment, but there's like more of this place of rest
where people await the final judgment. And I guess the main idea to use was kind of, you know,
Revelation 14, 13, but and you know, I looked it up a lot and the way Catholics defend this,
I noticed they always use Luke 16 with the Reshman and Lazarus, or they use the seed on the cross
to show that hey, like no, you go straight to this place of comfort or this place of torment,
my girlfriend brought up that that comes before she has actually ascends into heaven. That doesn't,
so that comes before, you know, the time of grace. And then I also brought up to her, you know, the
verses of when Paul, you know, says, oh, to depart and get you with Christ or in second Corinthians,
away from the body at home with the Lord, but at that, in those verses, it also doesn't specify
when they'll be at home with the Lord. I mean, of course, everybody wants to be at home with the
Lord or be with Christ, but it doesn't say that it's going to be immediate or it's going to be
in that final judgment. So how would I go biblically explain that this particular judgment
actually exists? I'll tell you what, Jordan, you did get around to the question, but you gave Jimmy
two seconds before the music started to play. So I'm going to have to ask you to hang out. You've
taken up those two seconds, I guess. Well, were you going to answer? Did you have something you
could pull out of your hat in those two seconds? That would have been impressive. Jordan,
hang on. We're going to get to your, I'll let Jimmy, I'm sorry, Jimmy, if he could have done
it in two seconds. I'll let Jimmy gather himself from the disappointment of not getting to answer
that and we'll come right back answer your question, Jordan, and Catholic answers live.
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Welcome back to Catholic Cancer's Live. Jimmy Aiken is our guest. It's your Bible questions for
Jimmy Aiken this hour. And I got a couple of lines open that which has not been the case today.
So if you'd like to get your Bible question and whether you know a lot about the Bible or
nothing about the Bible, whether you are a committed Christian or completely secular.
If you've got a Bible question, we'd love to take it. 888-318-788-4. When we went to the
break Jordan in Fresno had just finished his question. But Jimmy, I'm going to let you
converse with Jordan. He hung out, but you had a follow-up question for him.
Yeah. So Jordan, I need to ask you a follow-up to make sure I'm answering the right question
because you said that your girlfriend believes that everybody experience or well at least she
believes that there aren't people experiencing suffering before the time of the second coming
in the general resurrection. But does she and she spoke in terms of a place of rest for these
individuals? Does she believe that they have caught that both the good and the bad dead
have conscious experiences between death and resurrection? Yes or no? Or does she interpret the
rest as unconsciousness? No, that's the thing. It's for her. She says because I brought up to her
how many people died they're alive in Christ and they can be alive in Christ. And obviously she says
no, I mean they're conscious, but it's more of like they're just waiting. Okay, and she thinks that
applies to both the good and the bad, right? Yes, but only after. Okay, yes, only after.
In our age, yes, yeah, got it, got it, got it. Okay, so this is a position that has or one
similar to this have been entertained by a few people in church history. This is very far from a
common position. But I would say that there certainly are passages that talk about the saved the
good dead experiencing rest prior to the resurrection. That's true. But we don't really have people,
we don't really have passages focused on what happens to the to the lost to the bad dead prior
to the resurrection except we've got we've got the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. And in that
it's clear that Lazarus has gone to a place of comfort and rest. The rich man has gone to a place
of torment. And so what your girlfriends move is is to say, well, that doesn't apply to our age.
Does she acknowledge that there will be people who will be lost on the last day?
Yeah, she acknowledges that when the final judgment. Okay, okay, good, good, hang on, Jordan,
just so you know, we're I'm trying to we've spent a good bit of time with you. And at some point
soon, we're going to have to move on. So I in any event otherwise, Si is going to eat my lunch and
you know, or you just said you fast for 22 hours a day. I get nothing if I eat your lunch. I literally
get nothing. In any metaphor, Si, metaphor, um, haven't said that. Uh, so the the question I would have
for her is if someone has rejected, uh, Christ and they and they ended up in a state of suffering
before the time of Christ, before Christ's death and resurrection. What do you have in scripture
that indicates a change in that? Because Jesus Himself gave us this parable. He gave it two
Christians. It's meant to teach Christians about how things work. And, um, and so consequently,
unless we have something else that overrules that, we should assume that these kinds of experiences
are happening today that, um, that some people, uh, experience comfort and rest, enjoy in the
afterlife and some people, even before the resurrection and that some people experience, uh,
suffering before the resurrection. So given that Jesus gave this parable to us Christians, we
ought to assume, well, that's the kind of stuff that's happening. In less, we can come up with
passages that contradict that. And so what your girlfriend would need to do is not just find
passages that refer to people experiencing rest in the afterlife, but passages because it's certain
that there are going to be people experiencing rest in the afterlife, specifically Christians who
have died in God's grace are going to experience rest in the afterlife, just like Lazarus does in
the parable. But what she needs to find are passages that say not only will saved Christians rest,
but damned people will rest too. And presumably, they also need to not have knowledge of the coming
doom for them. If they're going to be damned on the last day, and they're just kind of waiting
right now, they would need to not really know about their fate. Otherwise, they're going to be
distressed. I know if I'm waiting for the resurrection, and I already know that I'm going to be damned
on the last day, that's going to create. So I kill it. Would that create intense anxiety, fear,
and anguish for you? It sure would, Jimmy. Yeah, it would mean too. So it seems to me that your
friend's interpretation is something that is interesting, but it's going to be hard to come up with
passages that actually meet, that actually teach what she would need to be taught, which is not that
some people have rast or things like that, but that specifically the damned have rast until the
resurrection. And there aren't such passages. So I would say that the information we're given by
Jesus in the parable of Lazarus in the rich man is going to govern in less than until we get
such passages. And I'm setting aside everything. Revelation says because before the resurrection,
it's not focused on the damned. It's focused on the saved. But it does show them in heaven
in glorious, having glorious experiences. And something else that's worth pointing out is
Revelation only ever shows us. And this is an argument I think that's worth exploring.
Revelation only ever shows us the saved in heaven. It does show the saved in heaven,
like the martyrs under the altar in heaven, or those who come up out of the great tribulation.
So it does show a saved people in heaven before the resurrection. And it never shows us damned
people in heaven before the resurrection. So that would suggest that the fate of the saved
before the resurrection and the fate of the damned before the resurrection is different.
And that would suggest that there has been a distinguishing or particular judgment between
the saved and the damned. I will leave that there. We're going to keep moving. Try to get everybody
on here. Every time I call for calls, we get a lot of them. So off to Virginia, we go. Jason
is in Virginia watching on YouTube. Jason, go ahead with your Bible question.
Yes. How do I combat the idea of the great theology used in the Bible? I know the
contemporaries of the great theology point to Jason. I'm not able to hear you. You're
distorting pretty heavily. Could you take us off speakerphone and talk directly into the phone?
Yes. Can you give him better now? Little better. It's still pretty hard, Jason. Give it a try.
Let's see how it goes. Yes. My question is about pre-grace theology and how to combat that using
the Bible. Okay. Thank you for stating it concisely. That made it much easier to hear. So
there are a variety of passages that I would appeal to in combating free grace theology. For people
who may not be familiar, free grace theology is a minority position in Protestantism that holds
that basically intellectual ascent to the truths of the Christian faith is what saves you.
That you don't need beyond that to trust God or love God and man. Just intellectual ascent alone
will save you and you consequently don't need to live a life of love of God and neighbor in order to
be saved. You can't lose your salvation and their interpretation of faith alone which is actually
rejected by most Protestants is all you need to be saved and as soon as you're saved, you're saved
forever can never do anything to change that. There are multiple fronts on which I would critique
free grace theology using scripture. One of them is the adequacy of belief without
free grace theologyologians will frequently redefine repentance as just a change of mind based on
the word parts that are used in the Greek word metanoia, the word for repentance. They'll say,
well, based on its word parts, it's etymology. It would mean just change of mind. So if you change
your mind and say, oh yeah, I guess all those acts of adultery I did were bad. But I'm going to
keep doing it. I just recognize now that it's bad. Well, that would that would be sufficient
repentance for salvation. And that's clearly not the teaching of scripture. You can see that, for
example, in the gospels where John the Baptist has like soldiers and tax collectors come to him
and Pharisees come to him and he tells them especially the Pharisees bring forth fruit in keeping
with repentance. So repentance in the biblical mind is not just a sterile change of mind where you
just recognize, oh, I guess that thing I'm doing is a sin. It's something that is meant to bear fruit.
You don't do that sin anymore. Also in first Corinthians Saint Paul makes it clear that and he's
talking to Christians, he's talking to people who are already within the community of salvation. He says,
if you do the following things, you're not going to inherit the kingdom of God. So there are moral
requirements if you want to, if you want to be saved, you may not. So those are points I would
raise. I would also raise the point that the concept of faith can be understood in multiple
different ways. It can be understood as merely intellectual ascent. It can be understood as
intellectual ascent that incorporates trust in God and it can be understood as intellectual
ascent that incorporates trust in God and love of God and neighbor. And Saint Paul makes it clear
that it's the latter kind that saves. That indicates in first Corinthians 13 that if I have love,
if I have faith, you know, little move mountains, but I don't have love, I don't gain any benefit
from that. And he says what in Galatians 5, 6 that what does count in Christ is not circumcision or
un-circumcision. So he's talking about what counts towards salvation. But what counts is faith working
through love. So it's faith formed by love that is effective for salvation, not mere intellectual
ascent to the truths of Christianity as James makes clear when he points out in James 2 that even
the demons believe and they still tremble at the prospects of God's wrath. Then there's the claim
you can never lose your salvation and there are literally dozens of passages in scripture that
deal with that and indicate you can lose your salvation. So those are some of the lines that I would
pursue. I can see size about to say we're going to have to go to a break, but I wrote about all this
in my book The Drama of Salvation. So why don't we try to send you a copy of that and that can be
a further assistance? All you got to do is hang on, give us an address and we'll send it out to you.
Jason, we're very grateful to a donor who makes it possible for us to send these books out.
It's a great great thing that that donor does to make that possible. And Jason, we'd love you to
be a beneficiary of it. Just hang on, we'll send you the Drama of Salvation. Jimmy's right, we
got to take a break right back with more Bible questions for Jimmy Aiken on Catholic Answers Live.
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Hi, this is Father Mike Schmitz. I invite you to listen to Bible in the year and Catechism in the
year here on EWTN Radio. On Catechism in the Year, you'll encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for
us. Throughout the year, we read the Catechism of the Catholic Church with direct quotes plus
time for explanations and reflections. I hope you can join us every day or as often as you can.
Bible in a year and Catechism in a year with Father Mike Schmitz, tonight at 10 PM Eastern, 7 PM
Pacific on EWTN Radio.
Welcome back. Catechism is live. Jimmy Aiken, our guest. We've taken Bible questions.
Lots of great Bible questions so far. So back to the phones we go, because as I've said,
we'll try to get to everybody before we have to go. Keith is in Houston, Texas listening
on the I Heart Radio app. Glad you're here. Keith, go ahead with your question about the Bible for
Jimmy. Thank you. This might be a, I feel a little silly asking this question, but it might be fun
also in, in John 21, verse 15. Keith, are you, Keith, hang on Keith? Are you, could you take
us off speakerphone and talk directly into your phone? Oh, you are currently off speakerphone.
All right, right into the phone. Okay, right into the phone then. How's that? All right. That better?
Yep. Okay. In John 21, 15, Jesus asks Peter, do you love me more than these? What does
these refer to? Is it the other disciples? The fish? Or is he asking Peter if Peter loves
him more than these other disciples love him? And what do we do with that? Okay. So,
Cite Kellett, you can help me out here. All right. Do fish generally love the people who catch and
eat them? They do not. Okay, so I think we can rule out the fish. It's not them.
And that would mean that since Jesus doesn't specify any other frame of reference,
that the natural interpretation of the pronoun these is going to be the other people who are present.
And we're told who they are. It's a group of seven people, so six, if you deduct Saint Peter,
but right up at the front of the chapter in John 21, verse 2, it says that the people who were
present were Simon Peter, that's one, Thomas called the twin, that's two, Nathaniel of Cana
and Galilee, that's three, the sons of Zebedee, that's four and five, and then two other disciples,
that six and seven. And you can debate whether the author of the gospel is John the son of Zebedee
or whether he's another John, if he's another John, then he's one of the two unnamed disciples.
So you've got seven people other than Jesus present. When Jesus asks Saint Peter, do you love me
more than these? Okay, that eliminates Saint Peter. So he's asking Peter, do you love me more than
these six other disciples do? All right. Thank you for that clarification. All right, well,
thank you very much for the question. Thanks for calling. It's Bible questions for Jimmy.
I do love the idea of could it be the fish? I mean, it's like, yeah, fish don't normally like
love the people who catch and eat them, but it's Jesus Christ, man, could the fish maybe love him?
Fish love me, man, because I can't catch them and eat them. It's not fact, if I go fishing,
nobody catches a fish. I am like the bad luck man of fishing expeditions.
Have you ever had fish nibble your toes? Yeah, I've had that that it's a weird sensation.
Yeah, it is, isn't it? Yeah. I've nibbled some fish too, though, I must say. I've given
as well as I'm not living, not living once. I haven't done that yet, but fried ones I have.
Paul and Wisconsin, listening to EWTN on channel 130, serious XM satellite radio, go ahead with your
Bible question. Yeah, thanks for taking my call. Sure. My question has to do with Saint Paul,
and at the end of Acts, he is arguing in front of an enrollment official, and Paul is actually
trying to proselytize him, and eventually the X tells us that the enrollment official doesn't
think that Paul is in anything worthy of death, and they wouldn't let him go, but Paul appealed
to Caesar, and so they sent him to Caesar. So why so many years later did Paul get beheaded?
Was there something that changed when he was in Rome?
Okay, so the end of the enrollment official you're referring to is Portius Festus, who
was the brand new governor of Judea that had been sent, and you're referring to a conversation
that he had with the Jewish ruler Herod a grip of the second, and the two of them are having
a private conversation and expressed the opinion that Paul could have been released
if he hadn't appealed the case to Rome because that took it out of Festus's hands.
And then Paul does, so that is the story so far for those who may not be familiar with what we're
discussing. Festus then does his duty, by the way, Psycalod, I love that Festus is also this
character on Gunsmoke. Oh yeah, like Festus. It's hard not hard not to think of that Festus
when I'm thinking about the biblical Festus, but in any event he ships Paul off to Rome,
he has adventures getting there, and then he ends up in Rome for two years under house arrest.
And suddenly the book of Acts stops, and the only sensible explanation for why it stops is
that's when Luke was writing. So we can't look at Acts to tell us what the eventual outcome
of the trial was. We do have evidence that Paul was later beheaded, but when Acts cuts off,
it's in 8060, and we have no evidence that Nero was hostile to Christians in 8060. He became
hostile to Christians after the great fire of Rome in 8064, because people accused him, Nero,
of set in the fire, so he could remodel Rome the way he wanted it. And he then, according to
the Roman historian Tacitus, used Christians as scapegoats and said, oh no, they set fire to the city.
So those Christians there are a bunch of arsonists, and that's when Nero started persecuting
Christians. The evidence we have from various patristic sources, meaning early church writers,
is that Paul was actually released. He was acquitted at his first trial, which happened between
8060 and 8064, and then he went on other missionary journeys. He got to go to Spain, according to
our information, which comes in this case from the year 70. We have a reference to him from
Clement of Rome saying he got to go to the furthest reaches of the West, and if you're already in Rome,
the furthest reaches of the West means Spain. So Paul, that gives us evidence, Paul was released
from this captivity. He ended up traveling like he wanted to. He got to go to Spain like he wanted to,
but then he gets arrested later, still during the reign of Nero, and gets put to death because
the great fire of Rome had happened. Nero had turned against Christians, and actually Paul
was probably executed while Nero was in Greece, and he was executed by some officials of Nero
that he had put in charge of Rome, but they were following a policy that Nero had set of
executing Christian leaders like Peter and Paul. So that's what changed. It was the great fire of
Rome's soured imperial opinion on Christians. Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you very much.
All right. Let's go to Noah real quick in Springfield, Tennessee, watching on YouTube.
Noah, if you can ask this question very quickly, Jimmy will answer you, but if it's not quick,
he won't have time. Yes, I was just wondering what it meant to be poor and spirit in the attitudes.
Beautiful. Thank you. It basically means having the admirable qualities of being poor and not
having the admirable quality, the dis admirable qualities of being rich. So things like humility,
dependence on God, not being thrilled with having rich possessions and lording it over other people,
but just being humble and serving God and serving others, that's what being poor and spirit means,
as opposed to having the negative qualities that some poor people have, like just being obsessed
with money, because you got so little of it, or the negative qualities of being rich, like being
obsessed with money because you want more and more and more of it. So basically it's being humble,
serving God, serving neighbor, and not having the negative qualities of being either poor or rich,
or that I should say that either poor or rich people can have. Noah, I am very grateful to you.
That was extremely quick, and I want to send you a copy of Jimmy's book, The Bible is a Catholic book.
To say thanks, and we only had a minute with you, so you'll have a little more time with Jimmy
reading the book. Jimmy Aiken really enjoyed those two hours. That for me, that went very quickly,
thank you for that. Yeah, me too, thank you. That was a lot of fun. Check out Jimmy Aiken's
mysterious world, mysterious.fm, wherever you get your podcast, or at Jimmy Aiken's YouTube channel,
youtube.com slash Jimmy Aiken. And if you go there, you can also find the Jimmy Aiken podcast,
which is also available wherever you get your podcasts. That will do it for us. We'll see you
next time, God willing, right here on Cappiganso's Live.

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