Before we get started, I just wanted to offer a quick thank you to all those who have supported the Catechism in the Year or the Bible in the Year podcast. We hear stories every day about how those shows have transformed people's lives. Because of your prayers and financial gifts, you are a significant part of that. You might ask a question, though. The question is, what does Ascension do with these financial gifts? Great question. The answer is we make authentically Catholic podcasts and videos and other digital content to help people know the Catholic faith and grow closer to God. We do it all for free. If you found this podcast, we hope that this podcast to be helpful in your life and would like to help us continue making free Catholic content we can post online, please consider making a financial contribution, an ongoing financial contribution, by going to ascensionpress. Com/support. That's ascensionpress. Com/support. Thank you and God bless. 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 324. We are three days into the Age of the Church. We're reading Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 3, as well as the letter of St. Paul to the Romans, chapters four and 5. We're reading also Proverbs 27:1-3. As always, the Bible translation I'm 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 plot, you can visit ascensionpress. Com/biblein here. You can also subscribe to this podcast by clicking on subscribe and receiving daily episodes and daily updates. Today is day 324, reading the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter three, the letter of St. Paul to the Romans, chapters four and five, as well as Proverbs, chapter 27, the first three verses. The Acts of the Apostles, chapter three, Peter heals a lame beggar. Now, Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour, and a man, Lame from birth, was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of those who entered the temple.

Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked for alms, and Peter directed his gaze at him with John and said, Look at us. He fixed his attention upon them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, I have no silver and gold, but I give you what I have in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth: rise and walk. He took him by the right-hand and raised him up. Immediately, his feet and ankles were made strong and leaping up, he stood and walked and entered the temple with him, walking and leaping and praising God. All the people saw him walking and praising God and recognized him as the one who sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. Peter addresses the people in Solomon's portico. While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon's astounded. When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, men of Israel. Why do you wander at this? Or why do you stare at us as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?

The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant, Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate when he had decided to release him. But you denied the holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be granted to you and killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this, we are witnesses. And His name, by faith in his name, has made this man strong whom you see and know. And the faith, which is through Jesus, has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all. And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets that this Christ should suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent, therefore, and turn again that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.

Moses said, The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet from your brethren as he raised me up. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you, and it shall be that every soul that does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people. And all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and those who came afterwards also proclaimed these days, You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant, which God gave to your fathers, saying to Abraham, and in your posterity shall all the families of the earth be blessed. God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first to bless you and turning every one of you from your wickedness. The letter of St. Paul to the Romans, chapter 4, the example of the faith of Abraham. What then shall we say about Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Now, to one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift, but as his due.

To one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness. Also, David pronounces a blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works, blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not reckon His sin. Is this blessing pronounced only upon the circumcised or also upon the uncircumcised? We say that faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received circumcision as a sign or a seal of the righteousness, which he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them. Likewise, the father of the circumcised, who are not merely circumcised, but also followed the example of the faith which our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. God's promise revealed through faith. The promise to Abraham and his descendants that they should inherit the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

If it is the adherence of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath. But where there is no law, there is no transgression. That is why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherence of the law, but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, for he is the father of us all. As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations. In the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope, he believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, so shall your descendants be. He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about 100 years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

That is why his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness. But the words, It was reckoned to him, were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him that raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was put to death for our trespass and raised for our justification. Chapter Five, Results of justification. Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him, we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character and character produces hope. Hope does not disappoint us because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why? One will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man, one will dare even to die. But God shows His love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Since therefore, we are now justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by His life. Not only so, but we also rejoiceice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation, Adam and Christ. Therefore, as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned, sin indeed was in the world before the law was given. But sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass, for if many died through one man's trespass, how much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many? And the free gift is not like the effect of that one man's sin, for the judgment following one trespass brought to condemnation.

But the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. If, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life to the one man, Jesus Christ. Then, as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. For as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience, many will be made righteous. Law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 27, verses 1-3. Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth. Let another praise you, and not your own mouth, a stranger, and not your own lips. A stone is heavy and sand is weighty, but a fool's provocation is heavier than both. Father and heaven, we give you praise and thank you so much. Thank you for the gift of this day.

Thank you for the gift of your mercies, which are new every single morning. Thank you for the gift of grace that comes to us as a complete and free gift, not something that we've earned and not something that we deserve, but simply something that we receive because of your goodness, not because of our worth, not because of our goodness, not because our dignity, but simply because you are good, because you are just, because you are the God who is good. You're the Lord of all, and you have purchased us at a price. You've won us to yourself not only by resting us from the power of sin and death, but you've won our hearts by revealing your gentle heart, your strong heart, your faithful heart, your relentless heart that loves us and chooses us no matter what. We thank you. Help us to choose you. Help us to receive your love no matter what. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of Holy Spirit. Amen. Speaking of in Jesus' name is incredible. Acts the Apostles, chapter three. We had Pentecost, and now there's thousands of people who have been baptized.

Now there's the people who are following the Lord. They're gathering together. We mentioned this before in chapter two. They held steadfastly to the Apostles teaching and fellowship, breaking the bread, the prayers, that's Acts in 242, so important. But here is Acts chapter three, Peter and John going up to the temple. Now, why would they go up to the temple? They go up to the temple to pray because they're good Jews. We have to remember this. The reason why we spent all of that time reading through the Old Testament is because the Old Testament is still in effect. The New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. When I say it's still in effect, what I mean is that there was this heresy way back in the day that said that the Old Testament is abolished now, that the scriptures and the Hebrew scriptures completely unnecessary and useless. That's not the case. That was a heresy that was condemned essentially. It says, No, the New Testament or in Christ, Jesus, the Old Testament, God's promises of old are fulfilled, not abolished. Jesus even says as much. Here are Peter and John going up to the temple.

Yeah, maybe they're going up there because they want the opportunity to be able to preach in the temple precincts, but also because they're going up at the hour of prayer because they saw themselves as Jews, just Judaism fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Okay, here they are. There's a person sitting, begging at the gate. I love this because they look at him intently and it says that the man looks back at them, expecting that they would give him something. Peter says, We neither have gold nor silver, but what we do have, we give you freely in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, I say to you, arise, and the man is able to walk. I love his response. It is exactly the response you would expect from anybody who was unable to walk, who then all of a sudden is completely restored. Multiple times it says, Leaping up, he stood and walked into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God. Then they saw him walking and praising God. They saw him leaping and they saw him. Exactly, that's what you would be doing if you were unable to walk and you were able once again to be fully restored, wouldn't you use that gift?

This goes back to Acts chapter two. Yesterday we talked about this, how here's the Lord who sends the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. To do what? Not simply to get into a holy huddle, but to move out and to use the gift that God has given to them. Here is the beggar who was unable to walk. Now God has given him the gift of being able to walk. What is he doing? He's using the gift that God gave to him. This is one of the things for every single one of us. God has given all of us various gifts. Those gifts, yes, are meant to be enjoyed, but they're also meant to be used. We glorify the Lord. We glorify the Lord when we give him thanks for the gifts he's given us. I would say we glorify him even further when we use the gifts that he has given us. Here are Peter and John using the gift of healing. Here is the man who has been given the gift of walking and leaping and dancing and jumping, and he's using that gift. But it's so powerful because this miracle accompanies what? This miracle accompanies the proclamation of Jesus.

One of the things that has happened in the last 2,000 years of Christianity is there are many mighty works. There are many incredible miracles. But those miracles, they almost all have to accompany the proclamation of Jesus Christ as the Lord, as the savior, as the one who has conquered death on behalf of the Father and for us. This is so important. Miracles, yes, are because God loves us. Miracles exist. But in some ways, you say the function of miracles or the reason why God would continue to do miracles in our world, not only because He loves us, because sometimes the miracle doesn't happen right, but even is so that he can be known. That here is the mighty work that's done, here is the miracle that's wrought. Here is the healing that happens, so that he can then be proclaimed. That's the key thing because we realize, yes, physical healing is so important, but spiritual healing is even more important because spiritual suffering and spiritual death is even more debilitating. Again, healing almost always must accompany the proclamation of Jesus Christ as Lord, as it happens today. It's incredible. In chapter three, you're going to find out that it also comes at a price, because then tomorrow we're going to see that Peter and John are summoned before the Council, the Sanhedrin.

We'll see how that goes tomorrow. But today we also have the letter of St. Paul to the Romans. As I mentioned before, this is St. Paul's master work. This is a proclamation of the Gospel like none other. It's going to be really difficult to try to sum up what is St. Paul saying in his letter to the Romans. But one of the things he is saying, remember before this, he talked about how those who are Gentiles, those who didn't know the law, they didn't know the revelation of God, they have no excuse because they should know right from wrong. The Jews, they do know right from wrong, and also they don't live up to the law. Basically, no one lives up to the law. Yet yesterday we heard in chapter three about, Yes, but we've all fallen short of the glory of God, but we're justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption, which is Christ Jesus, which is incredible. Then in chapters four and five, chapter four, St. Paul points to Abraham, which I love because not only do we hear about Abraham in chapter three of the Acts of the Apostles, but we also hear about Abraham in chapter four of Romans.

The point that Paul is making is... Let's go back. Remember, in Rome, there were two groups of Christians: Christians who came from Judaism and Christians who did not come from Judaism. There was a span of maybe five years or so where Jews were kicked out of Rome. Now they came back, including Jews who were Christians. They came back and they might have different views on how things should be done, how people should live. The role of circumcision, it might be one of those roles. St. Paul goes back to the circumcision of Abraham and says, Okay, was it Abraham's circumcision that made him righteous or was it his faith? We go back to, remember Genesis, that actually Abraham trusted in the Lord before he was circumcised, and that circumcision was a sign of his trust. But he already had faith in the Lord. He already trusted in the Lord before the circumcision. St. Paul is making the point of saying, Yep, Abraham at one point was circumcised, but also he had faith before he was circumcised. Therefore, circumcision itself is ultimately, he's going to say, It doesn't mean anything. Now, obviously, it meant something in the Old Covenant.

But in this context, where you have Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians having debates over the role of circumcision, Paul is saying, No, no, this is why it depends on faith, because Abraham had faith even prior to the circumcision. Hopefully that makes some sense. I mean, obviously, it gets deeper than that because it's a call for us to have faith as well. But that's the context and the example that St. Paul is using here in chapter four. Then chapter five is just... I mean, there's so many things to say, but two of my favorites, I'll say this, two of my favorites. At the beginning of chapter five, St. Paul says, Okay, therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Imagine this, because St. Paul would later go on to describe how actually there was a time when we were enemies of God. Let's pause on that for a second. There was a time when you and I were enemies of God. Through our sins, we make ourselves enemies again. But St. Paul says, We're justified by faith, and we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

That Jesus has transformed our enemy that we have between us and God into a friendship, into peace. Now through him, we have access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. That is incredible. Those are the first two verses of chapter five. But then beyond that, he says, more than that, we rejoiceice in our sufferings. Why? Because we know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. It's not useless, right? We know that God uses everything. We know that nothing is wasted when given to God. So even our sufferings do something. Our sufferings produce endurance. Endurance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint because we have God's love in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. But then, but then, here's my favorite, I quote this probably once a week, but probably, While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why? One will hardly die for a righteous man.

Though perhaps for a good man, one will dare even to die. But God, in my translation I use oftentimes as the New American Bible, it says, But God proves His love. In RSV here it says, But God shows His love. But God shows His love for us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. This is such good news that while we were enemies of God, He died for us. While we were His enemies, Jesus Christ died for us. While we were yet sinners, He died for us. Yes, if we were good, maybe a really good person, if we were already righteous, if we were already His friends, maybe a good person would even find courage to die. But God proves His love for us, and that while we were still His enemies, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. How much more, he goes on to say, How much more that now we're reconciled shall we be saved by his life. This is just, oh, my gosh, what a gift. Incredible gift. Then it was on to talk about Adam, the old Adam, through whose disobedience brought death to the world.

Here's Jesus, the new Adam, and through his obedience brings life to everyone who belongs to him. You guys, this is literally what they call The Great Adventure. We spent over 300 days listening to this huge story. Now, this is the apex of the story. This is the summary of the story that all of the promises from the Old Testament, all the hope and all the longing, all the suffering, all the ups and downs, all the brokenness of the Old Testament is now fulfilled in Jesus Christ. We have access to that because of Him, because of His unending, relentless love for every single one of us, you and I have access to this grace because while we were enemies of God, He died for us. While we were sinners, while we were broken, while we had nothing to offer, He offered everything to give us the chance to belong to Him, to give us a chance to be His, to give us the chance to be His sons and daughters and let God be our Father. This is insane. Oh, what a gift. Okay, I was saying, anyways, I'm gushing. I apologize. But praise the Lord.

He loves you so much. Right now, and you need to know this, the Lord God loves you very much. He delights in you. He declares over you. You are mine. Never believe the lie that you're not wanted. Never believe the lie that your life doesn't matter. You are loved. You're wanted and he will never stop loving you no matter what. I hope that you believe that. I pray that you believe that, and I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless. -i'm a traveler. -i'm a traveler.