The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 347: Witness to Unbelievers (2023)

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

Fr. Mike outlines Paul’s trial before King Agrippa and his efforts to use his conversion story to convert those hearing his case. He also leads us through the first half of Ephesians, emphasizing Paul’s main theme of unity in the spirit. Today’s readings are from Acts 26, Ephesians 1-3, and Proverbs 29:18-21. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. It is day 347. We are reading from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 26, from St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians, the first three chapters, chapters 1, 2, and 3, as well as the book of Proverbs, chapter 29, verses 18 through 21. As always,

the Bible translation I'm hoarsely reading from is the Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition. I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a year reading plan to tick off these last few days, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a year. You can also subscribe to this podcast by clicking on subscribe and receiving daily episodes and daily updates. Today is day 347. I think that means there's 19 days left, which is an incredible gift. And we are reading from Acts of the Apostles chapter 26, Ephesians 1, 2, and 3, and Proverbs chapter 29, verses 18 through 21. The Acts of the Apostles, chapter 26. Paul makes his defense before Agrippa.

Agrippa said to Paul, You have permission to speak for yourself. Then Paul stretched out his hand and made his defense. I think myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews, because you are especially familiar with all customs and controversies of the Jews. Therefore, I beg you to listen to me patiently. My manner of life from my youth, spent from the beginning among my own nation and at Jerusalem, is known by all the Jews. They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest

party of our religion, I have lived as a Pharisee. And now I stand here on trial for hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O King. Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth, and I did so in Jerusalem. I not only shut up many of the saints in prison by authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme. And in raging fury against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities. Paul tells of his conversion.

Thus I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining round me and those who journeyed with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It hurts you to kick against the goads. And I said, who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and bear witness to the things in which you have seen me, and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from the people and from the Paul tells of his preaching. Wherefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,

but declared first to those at Damascus, then at Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and perform deeds worthy of their repentance. For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me. To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass, that the Christ must suffer, and that by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to the people and to the Gentiles. Paul appeals to Agrippa to believe. And as he thus made his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, you are mad. Your great

learning is turning you mad. But Paul said, I am not mad, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking the sober truth. For the king knows about these things, and to him I speak freely, for I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe. And Agrippa said to Paul, In a short time you think to make me a Christian. And Paul said, Whether short or long, I would to God, that not only you, but also all who hear me this day, might become such as I am, except for these chains. Then the king rose, and the governor and Bernice, and those who were sitting with them.

And when they had withdrawn, they said to one another, This man is doing nothing to deserve death or imprisonment. And Agrippa said to Festus, This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar. A letter of Paul to the Ephesians. Chapter 1. Salutation. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the Ephesians, chapter 1, Salutation. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are also faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Spiritual Blessings in Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be

holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace grace which he lavished upon us. For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him, according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will, we who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed

to live for the praise of his glory. In him, you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. Paul's Prayer For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,

and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe, according to the working of his great might, which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule And you he made alive. fullness of him who fills all in all. Chapter 2. From Death to Life with Christ. And you he made alive, when you were dead through the trespass and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing.

It is the gift of God, not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in Christ. made in the flesh by hands. Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end. And he came and preached

peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him, we both have access in one spirit to the father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. Chapter 3. Paul's ministry to the Gentiles. For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles,

assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that is, how the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,

and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose which he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confidence of access through Prayer for the Ephesians family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think to him, be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. The book of Proverbs chapter 29 29, verses 18 through 21. Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him. He who pampers his servant from childhood will in the end find him his heir. Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. We thank you.

Thank you so much. You are God the Father. You're the one from whom all fatherhood comes. You and those you gather to be yours, to be your family. This is where we get the idea of family. The very idea of fatherhood, the very idea of family comes from you. The very reality of love is found in your deepest identity. In your deepest identity, God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is.

You are a communion of persons. You're an eternal exchange of love. You pour yourself out in love to the Son, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is, you are a communion of persons. You're an eternal exchange of love. You pour yourself out in love to the Son, Father, and the Son, Jesus Christ, you pour yourself out in love to the Father, and we give you praise for the Spirit that is the third person, so real, that love that's so real that it's a third person. Lord God, all fatherhood, all family on earth comes from you. And so we just thank you. Thank you for bringing us into your family.

Thank you for making us your children. Thank you for allowing us access in the power of your Holy Spirit to be able to cry out, Abba, Father. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Okay, so as I mentioned, a little hoarse today. Hopefully it's not too annoying or too bothersome, but we have

St. Paul once again. You know, it's really incredible. Paul is someone, if you give him some lemons and a bunch of sugar, he's going to make lemonade because, you know, you can't just make lemonades with lemons. You need sugar. But say here's St. Paul who is on trial and he uses this opportunity to basically try to convert the people that are listening to his case, essentially. And you think about this, like, think about the, I don't want to say just positivity. That's not necessarily it. The can-do attitude, maybe that's part of it. But even more, the deep virtue, the deep theological virtue of hope, which is, God, you can do anything with any circumstance. God, you can do any good,

even in the worst possible situation. And so here is St. Paul, and he's in front of Agrippa, and in front of Festus, in front of Bernice, and all these other people. And basically, he's telling them his story, right? He tells them his conversion story.

And then, I love this, at the end of chapter 26, he then says, he says, King Agrippa, do you believe in the prophets? I know you believe. And Agrippa says to Paul, you're trying to make me a Christian, basically. And in a short time, you want to make me a Christian. And I love Paul's response.

Well, I don't care, short or long, it doesn't matter. I don't care if you do this quickly, you do this slow. I would to God that not only you, but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am, except for the chains, except for being locked up. And of course, Agrippa and Bernice and Festus, they would have let him go. But Agrippa said to Festus, this man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar. So he's going to be shipped off to Rome, you know, really phenomenally because he read the St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians. And St. Paul writes this letter to the Ephesians from house arrest in Rome, which is kind of this, again,

providential way in which our readings are kind of going together here, that we realize that as Paul's writing a number of these letters, but particularly the one we're reading today, St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians, he's writing to the church in Ephesus while being under house arrest in Rome. And now, so house arrest was basically a situation, I came across this in a commentary, what house arrest involved was a guard, basically, of a Roman soldier of some sort, who his job was when it was Paul's turn or whoever the person was going to be on trial, when it was their turn to stand up in court, they had an hour. They had an hour to bring that person, the guards did, an hour to bring that person before the authorities,

before Caesar in this case, right? And here's Paul. So it's kind of like lighthouse rest, right? Here is Paul who is using this opportunity, not only in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 26, but also here when he's writing to the Ephesians as an opportunity to witness to these guards, witness to these people who were assigned to take care of him and assigned to make sure that he would appear before Caesar when it was time.

But Paul's writing to the Ephesians and what's going on in Ephesus? Well, we know that Ephesus was one of the more significant cities, right? We have Jerusalem, obviously, clearly significant. We have Corinth. We read through St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians, and that was a very unique city. Ephesus was also an incredibly unique city. It was a port city for a while.

Actually, if you go there right now, the ocean is quite a ways away because it's been filled up with silt. You don't need to know all the details, but at the time, it was a very religious city. It was a very cosmopolitan city, and it was a very religious city, as I think I said before the third time. And so a lot of conversions there, not only among those who are Jews who recognize that Jesus is truly the Messiah, but also among the Gentiles who came to believe in the one God and in Jesus Christ whom he has sent. And so what is happening is what's happened a bunch, which is I just see divisions, right? We have the Jewish Christians, we have the Gentile Christians, and we see this place

of separation, this place of maybe us versus them, those people who believed that you had to follow the law in order to follow Jesus and those who came to Christ directly as opposed to going through Judaism. Paul's kind of one of his more primary points of the letter to the Ephesians is going to be, we're all coming from these different places and yet we're united in the one spirit, one baptism, one faith, one God and father of us all, you know, one Jesus Christ. And so this is going to be really incredible as Paul is talking about. Here's all of the spiritual blessings that you've received.

I mean, this is, he's trying to point out the fact that they're united in Jesus by highlighting, okay, if you're a Jewish Christian, look how many blessings you have in your life. If you're a Gentile Christian, look at all the blessings you have in your life. It goes on in verse one. He says, well, actually, let's go back up in chapter one, verse five. He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. In him, we have the redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses,

according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us. And this is to the Gentile Christians and to the Jewish Christians. Paul is making this absolutely clear and that he has so much in store. Again, in later on in chapter one, St. Paul says, and what is the immeasurable greatness of the power, his power in us who believe according to the workings of his great might, which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead is far above all rule and authority and power and dominion. And gosh, it's just Paul's highlighting the fact that you all were dead and now you're all alive in Jesus Christ. Whether you came from a Jewish tradition or he came from some kind of Greco-Roman Gentile tradition, you were dead and now you are alive. That's the highlight, the theme of the second half of chapter two.

You are now one in Christ. Now, one of my favorite lines is St. Paul's letter to Ephesians chapter two, where again, St. Paul's summarizing this process of moving from death to life. He says in verse three, among these, we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind. And so we were by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Again, he says we, which means Jewish Christians, Gentile Christians. This is where we used to live. But then he goes on to say, what happened to all of us in verse four, but God who I love this.

Oh, but God, this is, if you want to just write some, something, put it on a, on a throw pillow or maybe tape it up above your mirror over your sink in your bathroom, is these two words, but God, B-U-T, capital G-O-D, but God. So we were dead. We were dead in sin. We were dead in our broken human nature. Here we are again, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind, but God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. But grace, you have been saved and raised us up with him and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that he might show us the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness

towards us. And then so good for grace. You've been saved through faith. This is not your own. This is not your own doing the gift of God. Again, grace. We've been saved through faith. And last thing, I just want to, ah, gosh, again, knowing that, knowing that the point of Ephesians is here, we're united. We're one Jewish Christians, Gentile Christians. We're all part of this one family in God that he highlights the fact of the Gentiles. So the beginning of chapter two, yep, we were all by nature, children of wrath, but then he highlights the Gentiles and he says this, oh, it's so good. Remember, he says, remember that you were at that time before you met Jesus. Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, right? So they weren't part of the promises of Israel, strangers to the covenants

of promise. And here's the line that Pope Benedict wrote about. He said, having no hope and without God in the world. Now think about this. Having no hope and living without God in the world. This is how so many people live right now. One of the missionary impetuses, right? Impetai? I don't know.

Missionary mandates for us is that we know this. We know that all of those who don't know of Jesus Christ, who don't know who God really is, the idea of hope is just wishful thinking. The idea of hope is just optimism, but that's not what hope is. Hope is, I know I can trust in another. It's that trust placed in another.

But those who live without Jesus live without hope, and they live without god in the world not that god doesn't love them not that god doesn't show himself in hidden and shadowy ways but the depth of who god is and the breadth of who god is and the height who god is you know people who don't know christ live without hope and without god in the world even those who have heard about jesus but have never encountered jesus live without hope and without god in the world. Even those who have heard about Jesus, but have never encountered Jesus live without hope and without God in the world. And this is how all of us, every single one of us, that's why Paul goes on to say, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. So we're no longer strangers and sojourners,

but your fellow citizens with the saints and the members of the household of God. And this is the key, right? Is that every one of us at one point were alienated from God. At one point, every one of us did not belong to God. We belonged to the evil one, but God has rescued us. Whether they were originally Jewish or whether originally Gentile, God has rescued us in Christ Jesus and made us one in him. So we are no longer strangers. We're no longer sojourners, but now we're brothers and sisters. We are sons and daughters of the father. And that's so incredible. I love to just end this with the last line of

chapter three, where St. Paul says, now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. I think that's a great prayer to end today. It's just a gift to be able to go through the beginning of St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians today. I'm praying for you. Please, please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.