Scripture with the Fathers

In this episode we hear from St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria and a special excerpt from Venerable Fulton J. Sheen. We get St. Augustine's take on the "Zodiac Signs" (yes, they had that back in the fifth century too.) And the Fathers answer the question of the significance of the barren women of the Old Testament.

This first episode of the Gospel According to Matthew discusses Who, When, Where, and What of the Gospel. We discuss the language and the genre of the Gospel as well.

Chapter 25 makes the transition from the time of Abraham to Isaac the son of the promise. Isaac prays for his barren wife for 20 years and she has two sons, Jacob and Esau who from the time in their mothers womb struggle. This struggle is played out in history in the immediate with them, again with David subjecting the Edomites and in the end with Christ and His Church and the heretics and non-christians.

The virtues of Rebekah as the typological virtues modeled for the Church for the Bride of Christ. In this episode we complete Chapter 24 and St. Cyril and Chrysostom give us the type of Jesus the eternal bridegroom to His Church as Isaac is to Rebekah. Her virtues are extolled by St. John Chrysostom and St. Cyril gives us the spiritual typology of this event to Christ and his Church. We learn a little about what it was like in the late 300's AD. Seems nothing much changes.

Isaac is the initial and the typological Christ of the Old Testament. We explore some of those typological connections both using other Old Testament texts and that of the New Testament. We consider this foreshadowing as it relates to Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom.

Sarah Dies and Abraham purchases a burial plot and then sends his chief servant to find a bride for his son Isaac among his own kinsmen in the land of his Father, and stops at a well. Is there a theme of bridegrooms, brides and wells in Scripture or is this just a one off?

In this episode we give an overview of the sojourn of Abram/Abraham and how the Scriptures in this history of the Patriarch foreshadows the epic ultimate selfless love of God the Father for his children as the Son for His human brothers. Abraham is truly our father in faith. We hear from St. Cyril of Alexandria how Abraham and Isaac mirror the Father and the Son.

Father Abraham binds Isaac who is willing, at his Father's will to be sacrificed to God. The promise becomes a covenantal blessing to all nations through the descendant of Abraham. We get a excerpt from St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom.

We continue with the exegesis of Dr. Bergsma and Dr. Pitre and then with St. John Chrysostom.

Hagar's Blindness, Covenant between Abraham and Abimelech and the Binding of Isaac in Genesis 22. God caring for Hagar and Ishmael, covenant making and the completeness of seven.

Abraham binds Isaac to sacrifice as a burnt offering: How then will God keep his promise to make of Abraham the father of many nations, that great kings will come from him and that his descendants will be a universal blessing.