St. Paul

speaker

78 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Dec 2024 last heard Dec 2024

St. Paul’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

No recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) · Day 348: Rules for the New Life (2024) · 13 Dec 2024 podcast

Those who grieve the Holy Spirit. No, no, no. Put away bitterness and wrath and anger and instead be kind to one another. and put away malice and be tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. So important. Therefore be imitators of God as his beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

And he goes on to talk about all the other ways in which just you need to put off those works of the flesh, those works of this world and put on the Holy Spirit and walk in the spirit. And it's so important, so important for all of us. Now, one of the big things we need to talk about is chapter five. is husbands, love your wives, wives be subject to your husbands.

You know, this is actually a reading that more couples choose this reading as their second reading in their wedding than virtually any other second reading. Once we go through and explain what Ephesians chapter five means, we have a thing on the theology of the body. The theology of the body was teaching

done over the course of five years or so by Pope John Paul II, in which he not only talks about the relationship between men and women, but also the relationship of the sexual act and human dignity and human nature and human love. And it's really incredible. In that teaching, we always cover Ephesians chapter five.

And that whole sense of wives be subject to your husbands and husbands love your wives. And when we explain it, virtually every, I don't want to exaggerate, but virtually every bride says, that's going to be my wedding reading. They love it. Why? Because at first glance, it sounds like you have to demean yourself, right? At first glance, it sounds like, oh, I'm going to subject myself, right?

So wives be subject to your husbands as to the Lord. We already covered this. Remember, we covered the fact that earlier when St. Paul was writing, he made it very clear that to submit oneself was not the same thing as declaring one to be inferior to someone's superior. That's not the case here either. In fact, what's happening is we even have St.

Paul writing here in Ephesians 5 saying that here is the head, Jesus, and here's his body, the church. And so we recognize that, of course, that the church is underneath the head, is under the rule of our Lord Jesus Christ. But think about this. Is someone's body less valuable than their head? No, that's not the case.

There's this weird, strange, mysterious equality between head and body and between body and head. And so here in a similar way, here's St. Paul who says, okay, wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord and husbands, love your wives. Now, beyond that, we know this because verse 21 says, be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.

So husbands and wives are basically racing to the bottom. Think about this. Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. No one gets to lord it over anyone else. That's the kind of the upshot of this whole thing. No one gets to lord it over anyone else. It's a race to the bottom. It's a race to serve. It's a race to be subject to the other. And so wives, yep, be subject to your husbands.

But then also husbands, verse 25, love your wives. How? As Christ loved the church. How did Christ love the church? That he gave himself up for her. That he laid down his life for her. That he rejected what he wanted and instead lived his life and gave his life so that she could have life. And so again, this is not about dominance. This is not about being superior.

This is about the race to the bottom. So husbands love your wives. How? As Christ loved the church, which is not to say lording it over, not to say dominating in any way, shape or form, not saying, well, I'm in charge. Therefore, what I want goes not in any way, shape or form. Jesus, what did he do? He humbled himself, took the form of a slave. We're gonna hear that tomorrow.

He humbled himself and took the form of a slave. And this is the call to all husbands. How can you, as a husband, love your wife as Christ loved the church? It is not by having her do for you whatever you want, but by humbly submitting yourself and laying down your life so that she can have life. It's saying no to what you want so she can have what she needs.

And this is, this is the high call and Jesus or St. Paul says this, I say about this in reference to Christ and the churches is the great mystery. And this is what we're called to as well. And same with children and parents and slaves and masters. Again, he's white. We're talking about slaves and masters. Well, how come St. Paul doesn't say just, you know, set your slaves free?

Well, he's talking about, okay, this is, again, it's a whole economy in here where good masters would be essentially in this case, good employers and good slaves in this case would be good, simply good employees. In fact, St. Paul makes it very, very clear in verse nine, chapter six, masters do the same to them, basically treating them well and forbear threatening.

You don't threaten them knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven and that there is no partiality with him. This is so important that yes, equality all the way through. Complementarity, absolutely. Submission to one another, yes. Not dominance, of course not, but a race to the bottom, a race to serve, a race to love, a race to respect and honor each other.

because we're in a battle. And this is the reality. We spend so much time fighting with each other. We spend so much time fighting politics. We spend so much time fighting with people who disagree with us. And St. Paul makes it absolutely clear.

Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness and the heavenly places. Therefore, take the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand. Ah, so important because that's the key. This is a really long day.

I'm so sorry for that. But here we are at the end of St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians and one day away from the end of the Acts of the Apostles. I'm praying for you today. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.

Showing 61–78 of 78 · page 4 of 4