Bible Basics: Getting Through the Bible in One Hour with Dr. John Bergsma

welcome to our professional development webinar series today there are more than 300 of us gathered from across the US and Canada and we appreciate that you're joining us for the latest presentation in the Ave Maria press professional development webinar series for those of you who are here with us for the first time I'd like to introduce myself my name is Diana Leinen I'm the Parrish resources marketing specialists at Ave Maria press and I will be moderating today's webinar how to get through the Bible in an hour this webinar is brought to you exclusively by Ave Maria pres and partnership with the National Association for lay ministry and the National Association for catechetical leadership everyone in our audience is muted today but you are able to ask questions questions may be sent to our presenters through an instant message so please take a moment now to find the box for typing questions on your GoToWebinar tool pane simply click the Sun button in the bottom right corner it's right here to send your question to our presenter and he will field those at the end of his presentation I'd also like to note that this webinar is being recorded so those of you who are hoping to take notes please know that you will have the opportunity to view this recording for free at a later date the link will be emailed to you by the end of this week and that recording has options for you to pause rewind and fast-forward at your own convenience so now that we've gone through all the technical information I would like to extend a very warm welcome to our presenter dr. John Bergsma dr. Bergsma is an associate professor of theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville and the senior fellow at the st. Paul Center for biblical theology twice voted faculty of the year by graduating classes at Franciscan he is a popular teacher whose love of Scripture inspires his students dr. Bergsma holds and holds a Masters of Divinity and master of theology degrees from Calvin seminary and served as a Protestant pastor for four years before entering the Catholic Church he became Catholic in 2001 while working on his doctorate in theology at the University of Notre Dame he specialises specialized in Old Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls graduating with high honors in 2004 his articles some co-authored with Scott Hahn have appeared in several academic journals and in lay witness he he excuse me he has appeared as a guest on EWTN the journey home Franciscan University presents and relevant radios drew Marini show he and his wife Don liveth their seven children in Steubenville Ohio so John welcome and thank you so much for being with us today and it's great to be with you tell you that I'm gonna go ahead and pass the presentation mode over to you and let you take it away looks great you're up and running okay here we go we got to move fast because we are gonna try to get through the Bible in an hour in fact less than an hour we're going to try to get through it in about 40 minutes so we're going to keep the preliminaries very short as Diana mentioned this will be recorded so you can refer to it if things go by too fast you don't catch them and furthermore all the information that I'm getting presenting is in the book bio basics for Catholics which you can get and refer to it now I'm having technical difficulties here there we go okay okay so obviously if you're going to get through the Bible in a short amount of time for example this the presentation that we're about to do would be suitable for say an our CIA presentation or if you were doing baptismal catechesis or if you were beginning a Bible study or beginning a course in Scripture or any other time where a where a review of salvation history would be appropriate in any of those circumstances you're going to want to get to sacred history in a very brief amount of time and that requires focus and so the simple focus that we're going to employ is a focus on covenant now we have to ask ourselves what is covenant covenant is the extension of kinship by oath you know we talked about covenant a lot in the Catholic Church however if you asked your average Catholic what is a covenant they might fumble for a definition well covenant is the extension of kinship by oath as we're going to mention the moment God deals with us via covenants because he wants us to become part of his family even though we are not part of his family by nature why is covenant important covenant is important because many reasons first of all it is the principle by which we divide the Bible into its two major sections the Old Covenant and the New Covenant we usually say Testament which is the Latin word or translation for the term covenant again covenant is important in the liturgy the fourth Eucharistic prayer for example used to say again and again you offered a covenant to man now it says time and again you offer them covenants that fourth Eucharistic prayer is summarizing all salvation history as a sequence of covenants again the the Eucharistic celebration at the consecration of the cup describes the Eucharist as the new and eternal covenant now since the Eucharist is the source and summit of Christian life the fact that it is called a covenant indicates to us that the concept or meaning or reality of covenant must be very important because it is the source and summit of our life so if we look at this phrase used in the consecration the cup about the new and eternal covenant think about it we would see that it implies that there were old and temporary covenants that preceded the new and eternal covenant that we now have and in fact come up we now have a special because it's new and eternal unlike those old and temporary ones so understanding something about the old and temporary ones helps us to appreciate what's so great about the new covenant and that is why we're gonna be focusing on covenants as we whiz through salvation history in the next 35 minutes okay so why does God deal with this through covenants because he wants to make us his family that we are not by nature we talked about that already and understand the Bible depends on grasping the sequence of its covenants so let's get started with the Adamic of creation covenant we're referring here to Genesis chapters 1 and 2 which show us the original perfection in which God created man in a coven ental relationship with himself in which mankind enjoyed a fee lleol that means a sun-li or a childlike relationship with God so here we're going to draw a Mount Eden I'm a visual learner and these sketches that we're going to do here help me to remember help my students to remember how salvation history goes and how the flowed Bible goes so I've prepared these in advance usually I do these freehand on a board or on an overhead projector or some other form medium I have these pre-prepared in the fancy PowerPoint format here but they kind of represent what I would draw a freehand if I were doing this live why I'm doing it why but you know I mean anyway this is Mount Eden Eden as a mountain we know that for various texts in the Bible ezekiel 28:14 being one of them and we're drawing in eden here and of course eden was marked by fruit trees including The Tree of Life that's the Tree of Life right there this is 2:9 I didn't draw the tree the knowledge of good and evil because it's a bad memory I don't forget about it but here we got a river coming out of Eden that's a very important symbol in creation in salvation history the river that flows out of Eden ultimately fulfilled in the River of Life which flows from the body of Christ that river flowing out of Eden is mentioned in Genesis 2:10 of course Adam and Eve are there so let's get gen Adam here and our wonderful mother Eve dressed in the latest fashion for stick figures and what else was in Eden gold was in Eden or at least nearby so I'm drawing a little gold bar there and that's much Genesis 2:12 and jewels were present in Eden that's awesome instant in Genesis 2:12 why are the gold and jewels important it's because Eden was the original or primordial sanctuary the holy place and all subsequent sanctuaries in Salvation history the tabernacle the temple they were all decorated to look like Eden and that's an important fact important concept to grasp how salvation history runs what else is in Eden well we had angels there cherubim they're only mentioned at the end of the story where one has a dangerous sword but they were there all the time the seal makes that clear so this is our picture of the situation of humanity at the beginning of human history and the Adamic or creation covenant so some people ask how do we know that there was a covenant back in these early chapters of Genesis because the actual word covenant is not used well there's several clues that indirectly show us that there was a covenant one of those clues is Adams sonship Adam is described as being made in the image and likeness of God in Genesis 1:26 when we look for the significance of the term image and likeness we have to turn to Genesis 5 3 where it says that Seth was made in the image and likeness of his father Adam that's a little clue that shows us that image and likeness on the language of sonship they are what a son is to his father and taking an implement image that information back to justice 1:26 we can say that Adam was created as it were as any son Lior feel relationship with God as a 6:7 in Sirach 1417 also described or speaking about a covenant either with Adam or at creation and give you those text there but you will not see them in English translation you have to look at the original Greek or Hebrew most English translations do not get them completely accurately another fact that points to a covenant at the beginning of time is the seven-day structure of creation 7 is the Covenant number in the Hebrew language when you make a covenant you do that literally by 7 yourself and so God sevens himself in creation during the seven days of creation and then creation ends with the Sabbath day which is called the sign of the Covenant in excess 31 but the Sabbath was present all the way from creation which implies there was a covenant at creation and church tradition likewise tells us that there was a covenant at the beginning of time and some of our ritual prayers alright so let's do a close-up on Adam to get an understanding of what the Covenant privileges were at the beginning there is Adam and all his glory don't be embarrassed that he's naked it's all right it's before the fall but anyway Adam had five roles in the first role that Adam enjoyed was the role of sonship and we talked about that already how he's made in the image and likeness of God which is the language of sonship and so to designate him as a son I'm giving him a shining face that's what I call the figlio shine his face shines of the glory of God his father that's a good image and I'm also gonna make him smiling he was also a king in Genesis 1:26 he said to have dominion over the world in that language of Dominion is the language of kingship so let's give him a crown and a scepter he is Universal King yeah let's get my hands so you can hold that scepter Adam is also priest Genesis 2:15 says he was put in the garden to work in to guard the garden if we do a little bit of biblical study and look for the next time that those two Birds work in guard are used together the next time we'll find they will be in the Book of Numbers where they describe the role of the priests what the priests had to do in the sanctuary so that the two terms working guard tell us that Adam had the role of priest in the sanctuary Eden which was the original temple as we just discussed Adam also was a prophet in justice - 19 - 20 he names the animals on behalf of God that is speaking on God's behalf someone who speaks on God's behalf we call him a prophet and slowly erase his face and redraw it as he serene Leda claims on the Word of God and finally Adam is also a bridegroom let's give him a left hand and the ring on the finger there he is the universal bridegroom he is married to all of humanity because all of humanity consists of only one person Eve at this point in salvation history so these are the privileges of the Covenant and these are also our roles and you can look in the Catechism 901 through 908 we're just scribes especially the kingship priesthood and prophethood of every Christian believer by virtue of our baptism now what happened there was a fall where Adam and Eve rejected God as father and denied or lost for themselves the privileges of being children of God and the fall that they committed eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil of all the consumption of fruit and they became naked and they were ashamed and they got a curse and that's all record in Genesis 3:1 through 24 we're very familiar with the story so drawing a little mural here I've made a small icon I'm waving my curser hopefully you can see that over the image of Eden here and after Eden we have a fall and as we go through this presentation we're going to fill in this mural now the next stop in salvation history is the noahic covenant just to briefly between adam and noah things went from bad to worse until we get to the point in Genesis 6 where the world is filled with violence and abuse and God decides to start over and the important thing about the flood that we remember is that as it is a starting over it is a re-creation Genesis 1:2 says that at the beginning of creation the world was covered with water in the flood God covers the world with water once more just like it was originally and then he brings the dry land up out of the water once more through the power of his spirit hovering or blowing over the waters and so the flood is all a kind of recreation and Mount Ararat is a kind of new Mount Eden and the Ark which is a floating Eden or floating garden as it were as Oh illogical garden it comes to rest on Mount Ararat I'm sketching this in here the ark by the way was a big boxy structure didn't have to go anywhere so it didn't have to be fluid dynamic it just had to float and there is Noah there and then the snakes slither out I always do snakes is it easy to draw they always do drafts this I like giraffes and and besides they need to stretch their necks really bad after all those weeks on the ark so they got out first and what else doesn't know I do he builds an altar to God I'm gonna speed this up a little bit get those ones in there put some wood on top of the altar and they took some of the seven pairs of clean animals that he brought along and he offered them sacrifice bummer for them they made it all the way through the flood only to be sacrificed at the end anyway excuse me that is life Noah offer sacrifice it goes up to heaven it is a pleasing aroma in God's nostrils this scripture says in God makes a covenant with Noah in Genesis at the end of Genesis chapter 8 and the beginning of Genesis chapter 9 and that that covenant that God makes with Noah uses the language of Genesis chapter one language like be fruitful and multiply fill the earth and subdue it and the significance of that language shared with Joseph Swan and mrs. 9 is that the covenant that God is making with Noah is a renewal of the Adamic covenant and so sonship is restored to Noah but there is some damage to the original Shalom Shalom is a Hebrew word meaning peace or integrity and some of the original Shalom ik reiation is lost because after the flood there is fear between man and the animals and man can eat the animals which Adam did not do Adam was truly a vegetarian there wasn't that fear between Adam and the animals back at creation so that's a sign that even though we're in a sonship relationship with God again something has been lost it's not quite perfect and that's a situation that we are in with the noahic covenant well what happened after the new a covenant well Adam had his own little fall as he read in Genesis 20 through 27 he consumed fruit in the form of wine got drunk got naked hand came in saw his shame Noah woke up cursed hands the sentence it's a sad little story and kind of difficult as well but the point for us right now is that it's a repeat of the sin of Adam and Eve in the garden and so it's kind of the fault of Noah which reintroduces some unfortunate consequences into human history and things go again from bad to worse so here we have our mural we've drawn in the Adamic covenant here we got the noahic covenant following the newett comment there was also fall that led eventually to universal rebellion of the Tower of Babel where mankind took its collective fist at God's nose by building a tower to defy God and of course God scattered them in their languages but that didn't restore people to friendship with God and so God had to adopt a different strategy a different approach than the flood we're not gonna wipe out the bad people and start over what we're gonna do is work with one man's family to restore blessing to all the world and so this is what happens in justice chapter 12 at the very beginning of that chapter the beginning of Abraham's story in Scripture God speaks to Abraham and says to him I will make of you a great nation I'll bless you and make your name great so that you'll be a blessing I will bless those who bless you and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves well the most important statements in scripture and in fact all the salvation history virtually flows from these two verses because these verses have three promises within them each of those promises is raised to the level of a covenant in the process of Abraham's life you might say what's the difference would you promise in a covenant promises like an engagement ring the Covenant is like a wedding ring so there are three promises here the first one is Abraham I'm going to make you a great nation and that promise was raised to a more solid level by being incorporated as a covenant with Abraham in Genesis chapter 15 it's the comment that we call the comment between pieces the reason why we call it that is because this covenant was made by cutting animals in pieces many animals were cut in pieces I'm just doing the cow right here this cow is cut in half and and now what happened was God appeared in the form of a flaming torch and also a fire pot which I decided not to draw but anyway gods in the divine torch passes through the pieces and that was an ancient covenant making ritual and in Genesis chapter 15 God makes this covenant with Abraham and promises to make Abraham into a great nation but he says nothing to Abraham about his name being great or about Universal blessing which are the other promises of Genesis 12 2 and 3 so the next promise that we find a justice 12:2 and 3 was that God said I will make your name great and that was actually raised to the level of a covenant not in justice 15 but a couple chapters later in Genesis 17 in a covenant making ritual where Abe recuerda had Abraham circumcised himself and this is what we call the covenant of circumcision now I was struggling with how to pictorially represent circumcision and of course that presents some challenges so all I'm going to do is a big knife and we will know what it stands for but that's Genesis 17 right there that's a cone of circumcision and in that coma if you read Genesis 17 carefully God for the first time from a serum his name is gonna be greater doesn't process it but makes it I covered it the first time it also promises Abraham for the first time that royalty are going to come from his line the key thing that you need to get here to make the connection is the fact that great name is an ancient idiom that refers to royalty okay Kings had great names okay so refers to royalty all right now the final promise that you see in Genesis 12 1 through 3 is that through Abraham all the nations would be blessed and that is raised to the level of Covenant at the end of Abraham's life in a dramatic event which we're going to pictorially represent at this point and it takes place Genesis chapter 22 where God decides to test Abraham and he tests Abraham by telling Abraham go to a mountain I will show you it so we later find out it's a mountain called Mount Moriah and their offer your son your only son Isaac as a sacrifice to me so this is Abraham on Mount Moriah we give him a little beard so that we know it's Abraham and let's draw an altar in there and I'm gonna speed this up because these stones take altar building is a lengthy process anyway we follow the wood on top of there and then we put Isaac on the top this is a test from God he was going to see if Abraham was willing to part with his only begotten Son he was testing Abraham's figlio or suddenly devotion and trust well the important thing about the story that we need to grasp is that at the beginning of Genesis 22 Abraham puts the wood of the sacrifice on to Isaac's back and Isaac carries the wood up the mountain that's important because it takes a lot of wood to burn up an entire sacrifice and that's a very heavy load and that little fact Clues us into the reality that Isaac at this time is a strapping young man he's no longer a boy everybody thinks he's five years old and that Abraham drags him kicking and screaming up the mountain to sacrifice and not the case Isaac was a strong young man Abraham carries the much lighter load of a knife in a fire pot and the significance of that is Isaac could have overpowered his father Abraham or he could have run away and that lets us know that when Abraham binds Isaac and lays him out the altar it was a death that Isaac freely accepted that Isaac was a willing party to the sacrifice and that's what makes it such a big and meritorious event in Salvation history Abraham the father Isaac the son are acting out a mine or an imitation of Calvary where the father will sacrifice the only begotten Son and God is testing them to see if they're willing to undergo what he the Holy Trinity will have to do in order to bring salvation to all mankind well Abraham and Isaac passed the test there's the knife Abraham's hand and of course we know what happens Isaac is there the ram in the thicket but afterwards there's an important statement from God after the conclusion of this attempted sacrifice God swears to Abraham from heaven I remember that we said a covenant is the extension of kinship by oath and here we have God swearing which is forming a covenant with Abraham and he says I have sworn because you have not haven't held your only begotten Son I will surely bless you and by your siege to all the nations of the earth be blessed okay so there finally the promise of universal blessing to all the earth is incorporated into a covenant a binding unbreakable agreement with Abraham at the end of his life so that gives us a little simplified icon here on the Abrahamic covered the sir mural we've gone through the dynamic that no way I could know the Abrahamic and now we're moving on through salvation history and we come to the Mosaic Covenant now between Abraham and Moses what happens is God through his Providence has the people of Israel Abraham's descendants descend into Egypt where they have plenty of food and for hundreds of years they grow and prosper until there's tens of thousands upon them and they have truly become a great nation except for only one thing they need some land they have enough people they need some land so God sends Moses to them to get them out of Egypt and to bring them into their own land so they can be truly a great nation as God had promised to Abraham and so Moses takes them out to Mount Sinai where he forms a covenant between the people of God and God himself this is Moses the way we can tell it's Mel this is that there are two beams of light coming from Moses face the Bible does say that beams of light came from Moses face st. Jerome is translated in the Latin Vulgate as horns coming from Moses face which is why we see horns on Moses in very much church by Kannagi but we're getting it right we're putting beams of light coming from Moses face and there are the ten commandments the ten commandments are the family rules of the Covenant we've said that covenant is the extension of kinship by oath it forms a family all families have rules that go and how they get along together my family has rules they're all in the refrigerator but these rules were written on stone tablets they are the Ten Commandments the first three describe how should behave towards our parent who is God the Father and the other seven describe how we are to behave towards our siblings who are other people so the take what's our family law this family relationship be formed by covenant on Mount Sinai and God appeared at Mount Sinai in an awesome storm which I'm going to simply represent just the cloud and a lightning bolt although there was a lot of other phenomena at the same time and this is required in Exodus 19 through 24 so this is the Mosaic Covenant it formed the people of Israel into a great nation and it had the potential to restore them to Adamic sonship because it is in Exodus 19 verses five and six just before the Ten Commandments are giving God says the people of Israel if you keep this covenant I will make you into a royal priesthood the whole people is all going to be a royal priesthood that's kingship and priesthood right there those are the privileges that Adam enjoyed in the garden so that was trying to raise Israel to be a corporate son of God unfortunately they broke the Ten Commandments as we all know at the Golden Calf in episode in Exodus chapter 32 they broke the Ten Commandments now Moses interceded for the people and so the rift was healed and the Covenant was renewed and that's an exodus 34 but a lot more laws were added into the Covenant after it was renewed and all those laws are found in the Book of Leviticus they were like penances extra burdens or duties that God added into the Covenant relationship because of the people's sin and in the Book of Leviticus God did not appear any more to the people because he was more distant from them but the Book of Leviticus passed on to the Book of Numbers and in the Book of Numbers we had a lot of disaster as the people of God rebelled again and again again a total of ten times in the wilderness and so finally at the end of 40 years they were no longer at a mountain they were at the plains the plains of Moab and Moses remakes the covenant with the people for the final time on the plains of Moab in the entire book of Deuteronomy and when he does so he's not all happy you'll find that if you read the book carefully he's in quite a grumpy mood when he writes the book of Deuteronomy and he's got a look at how many laws he's got there he's just got laws and law it's a very long book he has a lot more laws in that's all in the plains of Moab so let's recap what happened well we had a fall in the golden calf after mosaic cover was made Kona was renewed a little bit later but more laws were added the entire Book of Leviticus then we go into numbers and this all these Falls all these covenant breaches look at them all there's about ten of them while they're wandering in the wilderness and so Moses at the end of that time he read me is the Covenant the book of Deuteronomy but he doesn't in a severe and compromised form really quickly what I mean by that is yes the severe laws you know if you disobey your parents stone on the spot that's what Deuteronomy says and a lot of other severe laws like that and also some compromise laws where the standards are lowered because of the hardness of the people's hearts for example divorce is allowed for the first time in the book of Deuteronomy so that's not a very good situation to be in they're still in the Mosaic Covenant but the Mosaic Covenant has been dumbed down and it's almost like martial law now it's not a real good situation to be under so here we go we've gone to the Adamic the new Abrahamic and the mosaic mosaic was broken by the calf and then things went downhill after that now what happened well Joshua of course did succeed in getting the people into land but as soon as Joshua dies the people go back to their rebellious waves and things go from bad to worse through the whole book of Judges which is just a big disaster all the way into the first half of the book of Samuel until finally finally finally at first 0-16 we get some hope where David shows up David a man after God's own heart David's going to get us out of this sling that we have our collective cells in and this is David David rises to the kingship over Israel he's a blessed man he's followed the Holy Spirit and when he becomes king God makes a covenant with him in 2nd Samuel 17 which is also described in Psalm 89 and by this covenant relationship that God makes with David David becomes permanent king over Israel and he gains this privilege also for all his heirs so that's David with his crown and he's smiling because he has a son of God and he has this covenant and part of the terms of the Covenant with David was that David or his son was to build the house of God which we know of as a temple that's the temple there in Jerusalem built on the terrace big squares squarish building that's how it kind of how it looked courts very simplified and these are the terms of the Davidic covenant the king was the son of God okay so this is approach to Adam and joy that Israel was offered but Israel rejected now this privilege is given to Israel's king and the people will then enjoy the trickle down benefits of divine sonship another term of the Covenant was at the king who is a synagogue would build the temple of God you see that saying see my seven thirteen and also this king the son of David would rule not only the Israel but over the whole world and that began in David's time where he expanded the king of the surrounding nations in Solomon expanded yet more and if things have been going kept going well it would have expanded to fill the whole earth but unfortunately David's sons were Rascals and so after the comment was made there was a long decline after Solomon and that long decline of the Davidic Kingdom was recorded first Kings 12 through second Kings 25 the end of the books of Kings and it ultimately culminates an exile where the the rascal sent a David got the people in so much trouble that God removed them from their land now what was God doing during that whole time well he was sending to them the prophets and so now we talk after this brief review here we got the bureau we put in a Davidic here okay we've got the decline going in so now we're gonna talk about the New Covenant in the prophets during the period of Israel's decline before she was exiled God sent the great prophets Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel and they spoke to the people and basically they had a two-fold message they said people you are condemned because you don't follow the Mosaic Covenant and there is some good news though and that good news is God is going to send you a new covenant and this new covenant is going to involve the restoration of the Davidic covenant and the Davidic King and a new temple and all the other good things that the Davidic covenant evolved so I've got my prophet here with his mouth serenely proclaiming God's Word and here we have a future king I made him in dotted lines because he's a virtual-reality he's not really yet he's coming and so the the Prophet is speaking about a reality that is to come a future king and a future temple when the whole Davidic covenant situation is going to be restored and these are some key texts down here probably new coven in the prophets here's one this is the kiyose of the key text Jeremiah 31:31 Jeremiah says behold the days are coming says the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah but what jeremiah says agrees with with what Isaiah says Isaiah use a slightly different language but I say it 55:3 he says incline your ear come to me hear that your soul may live and I'll make with you an everlasting covenant my steadfast your love for David so I say it doesn't use it for new covenant uses everlasting covenant but it is the same reality and then we have Ezekiel who says and I the Lord will be their God in my servant David shall be Prince among them that shows us the Davidic restoration there and I'll make with him a common of peace that's Ezekiel's term so that they may dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods okay so this is what the prophets do and so we put them in there they talk about the new covenant which is to come and they give people hope during the period of decline and that brings us to the New Testament and to the Eucharistic covenant Jesus of course shows up to fulfill all the comments in the New Testament beginning right from the first verse Matthew 1:1 which says the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the Son of David the son of Abraham this is the introduction of the entire New Testament which points out to us that Jesus has come to fulfill the role of Adam because it's Facebook the genealogy is only used in one other place in the Bible and that's in Genesis 5:1 the book in the genealogy of Adam so st. Matthew is comparing Jesus to a new Adam also by calling him the son of David and not a son of David Matthew implies that Jesus has come to fulfill all the good things in the Davidic covenant by calling him the son of Abraham and not a son of Abraham he's implying he the Jesus come to fulfill all the good things about the Abrahamic covenant and although does not mention this first Matthew does showed you used to be a new Moses Moses gave the people bread from heaven in the wilderness Jesus gives people see national bread and the feeding of the 5,000 the feeding the 4,000 Moses went up on a mountaintop and gave that people divine law Jesus climbs the Mount of Beatitudes in Matthew Matthew chapter 5 and gives people a new law for a new covenant that's what we call the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 through 7 etc so Jesus is a new Moses leads people to a new Passover etc yes is a new David we've already mentioned that but the exorcisms that Jesus performs remember that David was able to perform exorcisms by playing his praise music in the courts of Saul which drove out the demons that's why when Jesus exercises people they call him the son of David there's many other Davidic types or titik images and the Gospels where Jesus is shown to be David Ayer well the climate's of the Gospels of course comes at the Last Supper and at Calvary so we're drawing one mountain here Calvary where our Lord was crucified in Mount Zion where he celebrated Last Supper I'm very close to one another on the great Hill which is Jerusalem and so we want to talk about the Last Supper first this is in Luke chapter 22 what we call the institution narrative that describes the Last Supper where Jesus is - of the Eucharist and there's our Eucharistic host in our Eucharistic cup and in that first ritual when Jesus was performing this special Last Supper for the disciples he said that this cup is the New Covenant in my blood now the disciples were probably flabbergasted when a Lord said that because they had been waiting five hundred years for the fulfillment of Jeremiah's promise of a new covenant and here Jesus is telling them it's being fulfilled right now in your presence through this meal that I'm giving you so that was indeed a very dramatic event for them this is the new code in my blood that's why I called the Eucharistic covenant I called the called the really the new covenant in the Eucharistic coming are the same thing but I call it Eucharistic after it's fulfilled in new well it's just being prophesied in order to distinguish them for teaching purposes but this cup is the new color of my blood that identifies the Eucharist as the New Covenant and of course that unbloody sacrifice at the Last Supper needed to be completed and confirmed by Christ's blood sacrifice of himself on the cross which we draw in right here this is our Lord on the cross now we said that a covenant is the extension of kinship by oath you see the Eucharist extends kinship to us because it gives us the body and blood of Christ and you are what you eat so when we take his body and blood and become we become his volume when we become the kin of God we become the family of God and that's kind of the covenant ill-nature right there now something dramatic happens on the cross our Lord's side is pierced and out of it came a flow of blood and water which is an image of the bloody stream that flowed from the side of the Temple Mount during sacrifice time when all the all the blood from the Lance would mingle with the stream of water and flow down the side of the hill in Jerusalem and so it's showing our Lord's body to be the new temple but it's it's very significant it points beyond itself the significance is not just the blood and why was coming out of his body but it's a fulfillment of what our Lord said in John 7:37 that out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water which is really a temple idea going all the way back to the original temple even though River fluid flowed out of Eden but this this water blood flowing from the side of Christ is really a sign of the holy spirit which flows out of the body of Christ it's the holy spirit is released at Christ's death to come over us in that holy spirit comes to us primarily through the sacraments baptismal water Eucharistic blood that holy spirit comes to us and comes into our hearts and as st. Paul says God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts crying Abba Father so Christ's sacrifice on the cross releases the Spirit the Spirit falls on us like God's just like God's breath went into Adams nostrils so that spirit falls on us goes into us and makes us into children of God and cries out in our hearts Abba Father we are now restored to that Adamic figlio relationship that relationship of being children of God okay we have gotten through that's the Holy Spirit conscience by Christ we have basically gotten through the Bible in about 40 minutes here and Diana was that heard that yeah it was great yeah okay I'm just are you still seeing my screen I am okay just a couple of things I want to show that's the that's the whole diagram that we've gone through and this is the cheat sheet of what we've just done with all the information there that folks can use if they want to replicate this presentation in some kind of educational situation and I want to just quickly show our viewers how they can get that cheat sheet if you go to my website which is John Bergsma dot-com this will come up and are you seeing that Diana yep there it is okay and then you press lecture outlines from my workshop and you go to the one that says mountains and meteors Old Testament you hit the outline and that's a free PDF download and then it comes up and then you can download that and this PDF comes up and it's got its got the cheat sheet for the presentation that we just did a little bit less elaborately of course and it's got some other stuff that that folks might be find useful and that's free they can also buy the CDs or the mp3s of course not only for the mountains and meteor set but for a lot of other different subjects but but that cheat sheet would be useful and that's absolutely free before you click away from that John can you just so we so we're at John Bergsma comm and could you just a show our listeners one more time what to click on to find their way to that free download sure and on the side here we've got lecture outlines and you click on that and it takes you to my CD offerings or mp3 offerings and you want to go down to the one says mountains and mediators i've got volume on the old testament new what you want is the outline for the old testament one you click that outline button in a with a PDF download and it includes not only the cheat sheet but some other resources as well great thanks and that's going to be really valuable to our parish ministers so you have the recorded webinar that will be available later this week you have the location you can find the free download and then of course all these drawings are in dr. burrs Mo's look with Ave Maria pressed so there's there's three ways to to find it for your ministry so at this at this point in the webinar I'd like to open up the floor to anyone who has questions for dr. Bergsma again just use your go-to webinar tool pane to send those in and we have we have time for a few so we're just going to start with if gospel is such a key concept why don't certain books say anything about covenant like the Gospel of John okay yeah such a key concept why do some books of the Bible not mention it and and like the case case in point would be the Gospel of John okay the reason for that is that covenant is oriented towards kinship I mean the purpose of purpose of a covenant is to get you into family relationship with God now in the Gospel of John the Apostle John just bypasses covenant which has served its purpose and he just dwells on our figlio relationship on our family relationship with God and so in the in the Gospel of John you have all this language of sonship and family and of course in the First Epistle to where Saint John emphasizes that we you know we've become the children of God through Jesus Christ so once you have that family relationship you don't need to be talking about coveting all the time anymore and that's why the Apostle John kind of leaves it behind and just uses the family language in his writings great thank you Robert writes in and says how does the book of Hebrews play into this covenant concept covenant only used in the consecration of the cup and in the book of Hebrews yeah comment is very important in the in the book of Hebrews you know it's used extensively there that's not of course the only place in the New Testament covenants used also used in the Gospels at the institution and in Saint Paul in some important places but in in the book of Hebrews the the point that the author of Hebrews is trying to make is that our New Covenant that we have through Jesus Christ is so much better than the old Mosaic Covenant and we saw that in the presentation we saw how because the people's rebellion the Mosaic Covenant kept being broken and then having to be remade and each time it was remade there are more laws and they were more compromises and so it ended up being kind of a damaged form just you know to speak unsophisticated ly okay so the the New Covenant through Christ where we have this direct participation in God's nature by you know taking his body and blood through the Eucharist and having the Holy Spirit that's such a much more intimate relationship than was available in the Old Covenant especially in its final form the book of Deuteronomy which in which the people of Israel were actually quite distance from distant from God and didn't share his spirit anymore so that that's that's it in a nutshell okay we have a couple questions about sacraments Connie says where are other sacraments instituted why or how and Paul says how do the seven sacraments tie into the seven covenants are each of the sacraments Micro covenants yeah well that's that's a good question I wouldn't line up the sacraments in like make a make a comparison between you know where one sacrament corresponds to the Adamic and a different ones corresponds to NOAA Corps something like that because for example the sacrament of baptism involves us being plunged into water and this plunging into water is involved in several of the different covenants for example creation in Genesis one was up out of water and then the flood which preceded the noahic covenant obviously involved water in the Mosaic Covenant involved the crossing of the Red Sea so there's not a one-for-one correspondence between one of those seven covenants and one of the seven sacraments but the for some of the for some of the sacraments almost all the covenants have elements of that sacrament in them baptism and Eucharist would be the best examples where both washing and eating are involved in almost all of the seven covenants of the well really it is less than seven in the Old Testament but the the five or so covenants of the Old Testament not counting the new so to summarize most of the covenants the Old Testament involved types or images of several of the sacraments of the New Covenant now what was Connie's question again Dana oh let's see let's go back to find it sorry about that you know what I've lost it but okay Connie if you're still with us please resend it so that I can ask it again okay I apologize that's right asking Paul Paul's I think anyway so do you have another one yep I'm Brad writes in and says dr. Bergsma if a covenant is an unbreakable family bond how are we to understand the number of changes from covenant to covenant is God simply renewing and building upon the original covenant with mankind back in Genesis or is he doing something brand new each time if so what happens to the covenants that had come before yeah that's it that's a great question and different scholars and theologians come down in different positions on that and some you know it's a fresh thing every time I I tend to go with what what was proposed there that that really there's there's kind of a fundamental covenant that goes through different forms or different economy each term that we have this new arrangement and it's not a completely new thing it picks up the promises and the relationship that we're established by the previous covenant and adds to them and I always say each successive covenant assimilates the previous ones more or less I you know you'd have to make some distinctions when we get down to the nitty-gritty but more or less each successive covenant assimilates the previous ones and that's why when we look at the new covenant and we went over this briefly in the presentation our Lord comes to bring this new covenant but we see that he is a new Adam he's a new David he's a new named Abraham he's a new Moses you know so he he incorporates an assembly it's all that went before and brings it to a higher level so I think that's that's really how you have to view it now a bit about the unbreakable nature not every covenant is unbreakable for example the Mosaic Covenant was not unbreakable it was breakable and it was broken when a covenant is broken it's on the option of the offended party what to do and God is the offended party throughout salvation history decides to continue to honor the Covenant even though we've broken it from our end and he keeps offering us the Covenant in a different form okay and that's that's God's grace towards us certain covenants were unbreakable like Abraham's the final form of Abraham's covenant with God swears by his own self and justice way to you that's unbreakable because it's completely on God to make sure it gets fulfilled and that's why the promise to Abraham becomes the bedrock or foundation that leads ultimately to the gospel God promises us he's going to do it on his own power no matter what okay thank you Connie thank you for sending your question again Connie asked where are other sacraments instituted why or how okay well I would take a while to to go through but let's just take the sacrament of Holy Orders which would be the bestow on the apostles of the authority as the first bishops we would see that in John chapter 20 our Lord's resurrection when he breeze on the apostles and gives them the authority to forgive sins actually that that act right there gives us the the basis or the the founding of two covenants not only Holy Orders which establishes the Apostles as officers filled with authority from the Holy Spirit to act on behalf of Christ it's also the start in the origin of the sacrament of reconciliation because at the same time he bestows on them the power to either forgive or to retain sins and that's the power that's exercised in in the sacrament of reconciliation now the the sacrament of marriage you know it has its own special history it's really established as a sacred thing all the way back in in creation but Jesus reveals and shows its sacred sacramental nature by his blessing being present at the wedding at Cana in John chapter 2 and also by upholding the unbreakable nature of marriage in Matthew 19 saying that divorce is not possible so in those places we see him speaking to the sacrament of marriage so those are a couple of examples and it would take us too long to get into each sacrament of scriptural basis for each one but but those are some Institute yeah you know baptism the course instituted by Christ through his own baptism and then by telling the Apostles at the end of Matthew to go out and baptize the name of the Father Son Holy Spirit etc so those are some examples and you know other other information would be available as close as the Catechism if you look at what the Catechism as to see I need show I need a snack great Thank You Roberto Wrightson has the Dead Sea Scrolls improved or confirmed the history of salvation as presented today that's a great question I would say the the Dead Sea Scrolls are not as significant for confirming salvation history as some other archaeological find for example archeological remains from David's time have confirmed that David was a you know a real historical King back in the 10th century and some some other finds have confirmed aspects of Abraham's life like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah for example the Dead Sea scrolls were all written in the last 2 centuries before the coming of Jesus and so they don't tell us very much about Old Testament history and it's more of like external witness to the events of salvation history but what the what the Dead Sea Scrolls do show us is that Jews living just prior to the time of Jesus could read the Old Testament and understand what the New Covenant was basically going to look like because when we look at the Dead Sea Scrolls we see this religious group of celibate men who are living out of the shores the Dead Sea and they were daily practicing a meal involving the eating of bread and the drinking of wine in a sacred ritual and they are practicing daily baptismal washing which they believed communicated to them the the Holy Spirit and they were doing a lot of other things in their communal life that resemble what the church would one day look like and it's not that the church got anything from their community or learned anything from them but simply that they were reading the scriptures and they were accurately seeing what the shape of things to come was going to be simply by reading the Old Testament and this helps us to understand why Jesus is sometimes frustrated with the disciples or other people in the New Testament when he tells them things and they don't understand for example Nicodemus he's trying to tell you students about baptism in John 3 Nicodemus doesn't understand and GSS how come you can't grasp this even though you're a leader of Israel and the reason why Jesus is you know calling Nicodemus out there is because there were Jews who did understand concepts like baptism and they were the the sceen through living down the shores the density so I think that the Dead Sea Scrolls really help us to understand more the New Testament than the old and and help us also to understand some some really interesting features of our own faith and in our rootedness of our faith in Judaism so that's it hey Charles wrote in and asked why circumcision rather than another science a slicing an earlobe yes absolutely that is an excellent question okay if you look what if you look carefully at Genesis 16 and 17 Abraham has a kind of a fall in Genesis 16 which resembles the fall in the garden he listens to his wife Sarah when she has a bad idea and then he gets naked with Hagar and he conceives a child and it leads to a situation of curse with the Ishmael who becomes the father of the Arabs so everyone was a kind of fall and so he does that through procreation and so when you come back in Genesis 17 God gives him the sign of circumcision which has a couple different symbolisms number one it's a symbolic rebuke of the part of the body with which Abraham sinned in the previous chapter secondly whereas God had Abraham cut animals back in Genesis 15 in Genesis 17 he has Abraham cut his own body which is a more dramatic act and more painful act obviously so we're upping the ante as we progress in these covenants and thirdly circumcision was a sign meaning if I am NOT obedient to my covenant may I be cut off like this piece of flesh that's being cut off and the idea was being cut off from the body of God's people or like dying without any descendants and it just being forgotten okay so those are the symbolism of circumcision may have some other symbolisms as well but that is a great question thanks a lot for asking it I think we have time for two more so we'll just Jordan writes the presentation seemed to stop at the cross how does the final fulfillment of the new covenant work in the end or final judgment yeah that's just an awesome question and if I add another 10 minutes I would have liked to do another mountain I should have been the new Jerusalem and draw a cube therefore the cubicle bride that comes down to heaven from God and and a lamb as the groom because it's the wedding feast of the Lamb and we could talk about the comes the consummation of salvation history so I mean that is great you know if you had a little more time I'd like to go on into that but you know the the book of Revelation wraps us all up the book of Revelation is full of sevens and we talked about seven being the covenant number and that's stressing that we're getting a fulfillment of everything covenantal when you look at book of Revelation there's elements of the Mosaic Covenant there's elements of the dynamic covenant there's elements of the new coming everything is joined together and it all culminates in this great wedding feast of the Lamb at the end where the lamb is is married to his bride which is the New Jerusalem which is basically the church nc marriage is one of the two primary forms of covenant the other being adoptive sonship okay so that great marriage at the end of Salvation history is this great culminating covenant where everything passed away we just see God as our spouse face to face this is the nuptial union that we're moving towards so that's what I would have done if we got some more time talking about stuff like that and kind of develop that a little bit more I wish we did have more time this has been a really great question and answer session so John thank you again for your presentation and thanks to all of our attendees for for tuning in and for all your great questions I just want to share one comment as we move in to the next slide Jay France wrote Doctor Bergsma I have your new book Bible basics for Catholics and it's the best I have ever seen on the explanation of the Old Testament being fulfilled in the new many thanks so thanks Jay for your comment and for those of you who want to check out what Jay is talking about we have as a gesture of our appreciation a 20% off discounts for those of you who are in attendance and you can see a promotion code here on your screen this code will be emailed to you when we email the link for the webinar recording but I'll pause for just a second so that you can jot it down if you want to buy the book right now it's e AV zero five one two zero four e r9 n and that discount of 20% off is valid through May 29th if you're not already a friend of Ave Maria press online I want to invite you to join us on all of our online outlets social media sites Facebook Twitter we have a Vimeo and a YouTube channel we have a blog for religious educators called engaging faith we have a Stations of the Cross app out on the iTunes Store and we have material available online at script I also want to direct you to this this is our our website and if you would like to bookmark this link Ave Maria press com forward slash webinar - videos this is where all of the recordings of previous webinars are housed online and you can access these for free at any time and dr. burrows presentation will be available at the end of this week at this site so please mark your calendars for the next two webinars in our professional development series next up on Tuesday June 12th Melissa cidade director of Kara's pastoral assistant surveys program will present view from the pews emerging models of pastoral leadership parishioner survey this webinar will present the results of an infused survey that provides a better understanding of how parishioners view their parishes and how satisfied they are with them and this webinar is a partnership of Kara and the emerging models of pastoral leadership and then on Tuesday June 19th Jared DS our digital publishing specialists and I together will offer a webinar tour of our new website together for life online everyone who is involved in preparing couples for the sacrament of marriage will benefit from the a short 30 minute introduction to together for life online calm a website that provides interactive marriage preparation and marriage enrichment resources for engaged couples married couples and parish ministers before we sign off I'd just like to thank again our partners the National Association for lay ministry and the National Conference for catechetical leadership we appreciate your relationship and partnership and our professional development webinar series and we ask all of you who are listening to check out these organizations if you're not familiar with them you can go online to their websites and also to their Facebook and Twitter pages so have a great afternoon everyone enjoy the Memorial Day weekend that's coming up and please join us again next month for the next professional development webinar

Channel: Ave Maria Press

Views: 23,968

Rating: 4.9069767 out of 5

Keywords: Bible (Religious Text), bible basics, franciscan university, john bergsma, salvation history, old testament, Bible Basics for Catholics, ave maria press, avemariapress, Salvation (Christianity), catholic

Id: BmxgYU54rgU

Length: 63min 3sec (3783 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 19 2012