Matthew 7:1-29

Summary

---

Catholic Bible Study (Augustine Institute)

Episode Summary: Matthew 7:1-29

Date: November 14, 2025
Host: Dr. Tim Gray
Guest: Dr. Michael Barber

---

Episode Overview

This episode continues the in-depth study of the Gospel of Matthew, focusing on chapter 7—the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount. Dr. Tim Gray and Dr. Michael Barber unpack the teachings of Jesus, exploring themes of judgment, prayer, the Golden Rule, the importance of genuine relationship with God, discernment of true prophets, and the foundational parable of the two houses. The scholars connect Jesus’ teachings to Old Testament motifs, especially Moses and Solomon, and highlight their relevance to the daily Christian life.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Command Not to Judge (00:29–02:22)

• Opening Principle:
  “Judge not, lest you be judged.” (A, 00:35)
• Interpretation:
  • Only God knows the circumstances of each person.
  • Judging others destroys charity and clouds our view of others' dignity.
  • Jesus uses the vivid image of the speck and the beam to highlight how easily we overlook our own faults while being critical of others.
  • Quote:
    “Our self-centeredness looks normally centered to us… You just don’t see it.” (A, 01:48–01:59)
• Need for Spiritual Friendship:
  • “In order to see clearly, we need other people. The implication in all of this is the need for spiritual friendship, the need for the Church.” (B, 02:00–02:22)

---

2. The Call to Prayer and the Golden Rule (02:34–05:22)

• Ask, Seek, Knock:
  Jesus invites perseverance in prayer, advancing from asking, to seeking, to knocking (03:20).
• God’s Generosity:
  • Analogy: No good parent gives their child a stone for bread.
  • “If we know how to give good gifts, how much more does our Father in heaven know how to give us good gifts?” (B, 03:20)
• The Golden Rule:
  “Therefore, what you would wish that people should do to you, do so also to them. For this is the law and the prophets.” (B, 03:20)
  • Jesus summarizes the Law and Prophets in the command to love.
• St. Paul Parallel:
  Loving neighbor fulfills the Law (04:54).

---

3. The Narrow Gate: The Path to Life or Destruction (05:22–07:34)

• Two Paths:
  • “Wide is the gate and easy is the way that leads to destruction… Narrow is the gate and hard the way that leads to life.” (B, 05:24)
  • Dr. Gray draws connections to Moses’ exhortation: “I’ve set before you life and death… choose life.” (A, 06:28–06:41)
• Spiritual Challenge:
  The Christian path is difficult and requires counter-cultural living.

---

4. Discernment: False Prophets and Fruits (07:34–09:47)

• Beware of False Prophets:
  • “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inside they are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you shall know them.” (B, 07:34)
• Fruit as Evidence:
  • Good fruit indicates a good heart.
  • “It’s not the case that we recognize who's holy and who's not by their success... God doesn’t call us to be successful. He calls us to be faithful.” (B, 09:47)

---

5. Deeper Criteria: Relationship with Christ (09:47–14:10)

• Not Works, but Knowing Jesus:

  • “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’... shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (B, 09:47)
  • The repetition “Lord, Lord” is profound—used for God in the Greek Old Testament, so Jesus is claiming divine status (09:47).
  • Quote:
    “What is the crucial criterion here of judgment? It’s not simply doing works in Jesus’ name. It’s knowing him, right? Entering into a true relationship with Christ.” (B, 11:33)
  • Intimacy with God is emphasized—the biblical knowledge (yada) is covenant relationship, not just intellectual assent (A, 16:09).

• Prayer as Relationship:

  • “There’s no relationship possible without prayer.” (B, 11:33)
  • Motivation for Christian action must be rooted in interior relationship with God, not activism for its own sake (A & B, 17:47–18:10).

---

6. The Parable of the Two Houses: Wise vs. Foolish (19:18–22:45)

• Summary Parable:
  • Only those who hear and act on Jesus’ words “will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock… it did not fall because it was built on the rock.” (A, 19:18)
  • Neglect results in collapse: “And it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (A, 19:18)
  • Rabbinic Echo:
    • The wise builder theme refers to Solomon, the builder of the Temple, and echoes wisdom literature contrasting wisdom and folly (A & B, 20:33–22:45).
    • “We are all called to be temples of the Holy Spirit.” (B, 22:45)

---

7. Old Testament Parallels and Thematic Unity (22:45–27:26)

• Jesus as the New Moses and Solomon:

  • Jesus uses language from Moses (entering the land) and temple imagery from Davidic-Solomonic traditions.
  • The parable connects to broader biblical themes: blessing vs. curse, wisdom vs. folly, life vs. death (A, 21:38–22:45).
  • The progression of images: knocking – entering – building a house (A, 23:36–24:23).

• Spiritual Resilience:

  • Both wise and foolish houses face storms—the real difference is the foundation (A & B, 25:25–25:32).

---

8. The Authority of Jesus (27:54–28:35)

• Closing Observations:
  • The crowd is astonished because “he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.” (A, 28:35)
  • Implied anticipation for the next chapters, where Jesus’ authority is made manifest in action (A, 28:35).

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Judgment:
  “You cannot know what’s going on in another person’s heart.” (B, 00:44)
• On Prayer:
  “Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it will be opened to you.” (A, 02:34)
• On Faithfulness Over Success:
  “God doesn’t call us to be successful. He calls us to be faithful.” (B, 09:47)
• On Intimacy with Christ:
  “It’s knowing him, right? Entering into a true relationship with Christ.” (B, 11:33)
• On Spiritual Foundation:
  “Everyone then, who hears these words of mine and does them, will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” (A, 19:18)
• On Authority:
  “He was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes.” (A, 28:35)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Don’t Judge and Spiritual Friendship: 00:29–02:22
• Prayer & The Golden Rule: 02:34–05:22
• Narrow Gate: 05:22–07:34
• False Prophets & Fruits: 07:34–09:47
• True Relationship with Christ: 09:47–14:10
• The Parable of the Two Houses: 19:18–22:45
• Jesus as New Solomon & Moses: 21:38–22:45
• Wider Biblical Themes: 22:45–27:26
• Jesus’ Authority Acknowledged: 27:54–28:35

---

Overall Tone and Style

The discussion is deeply scriptural, theological, yet practical. Both scholars are passionate about connecting biblical study to daily Christian living, emphasizing personal relationship with God, prayer, fidelity, and interior conversion above merely external works or religiosity.

---

For Further Reflection

• Examine your own heart: Am I living from relationship with God, or just performing for Him?
• What foundations am I building my life upon? Do I connect my efforts to deep, prayerful listening to the words of Jesus?
• How does the exhortation to “judge not” challenge my daily interactions?

---

This episode offers a rich tapestry of Scriptural insight, inviting listeners not only to understand Jesus’ teachings but to let them transform the heart and foundation of their spiritual lives.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to form Now I'm Tim Gray, president of the Augustine Institute. And Joining me is Dr. Michael Barber, who's a professor of scripture here at the Augustine Institute. And we're continuing our Bible study on the Gospel of Matthew. So open up your Bibles to Matthew Chapter seven. So we want to. There's a lot in chapter seven, Michael, that we could to cover here. And so let's, let's dive in because I really, I love the ending of Matthew 7 and there's so many. So I don't want to get too. We got to go more quickly, I think, through the first half of chapter seven.

[B]

I was going to say the first three words of chapter seven are the most important. I'm just kidding.

[A]

All right, so don't judge me by my, by my pattern and schedule here. Oh, the first words are, judge not, lest you be judged.

[B]

All right, so Jesus is explaining here a very important principle. And that is as he goes on to say, by the judgment which you judge, you shall be judged. And so Jesus is telling us that we really have to reserve judgment on other people. Right. We cannot know what's going on in another person's heart. And then Jesus adds a very important principle. He says, why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye but not notice the beam that is in your own eye? Or will you say, or how will you say to your brother, let me cast out the speck from your eye and behold, the beam is in your own eye. It's a really funny image, right, the speck. And you got big beam coming out of your eye socket. And the amazing thing here that's important is you can't recognize your own sin. Jesus is teaching us a very important.

[A]

Lesson here because our sin is so fundamental to our own self, our own way of looking at things. And really at the heart of sin is our own selfishness.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

We put ourselves and our own ego at the center of the plot of our own story, but also the story of the world. And so our self centeredness looks normally centered to us.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

You just don't see it.

[B]

And so Jesus is teaching us something very profound here. And it's something that we'll expand on when we get to Matthew 18. And that is that in order to see clearly, we need other people. The implication in all of this is the need for spiritual friendship, the need for the church. Right. We can't just go as lone rangers.

[A]

Yeah. One of the big problems, I think, with making a judgment because only God can ultimately judge because he knows the circumstances, but it destroys charity. And once we make a judgment, you are bad. You are this.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

We don't treat that person in the imago dei. We don't treat them with dignity, typically, and we don't certainly treat them with charity. So, and then I like verse seven because this is one of Augustine's favorite lines. He weaves it throughout the Confessions. He begins it early on in the Confessions. But Jesus teaches about prayer here. And, you know, once he teaches us not to judge, then the next thing is we've got to learn how to pray if we're not going to be judgmental. And he says, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. It's a beautiful threefold progression here. And this idea of asking, more intensive with seeking, and then even more intensive again with knocking.

[B]

And, you know, we could say so many other things about this passage. I'm going to just kind of move along because otherwise we'll never finish a chapter here. But Jesus has another sort of humorous thing to say. He says, which one is there among you? If his son asks him for bread, well, give him a stone. Daddy, I'm hungry. Okay, here's a stone. Who would do such a thing? Or if he also asks for a fish, he will give him a serpent. Who would do such a thing? Obviously, no person would be so cruel to their own children. And so Jesus makes the point then that if we know how to give good gifts, how much more does our Father in heaven know how to give us good gifts? And then Jesus concludes, therefore, what you would wish that people should do to you, do so also to them. For this is the law and the prophets. All the law, all the prophets. And Jesus is going to talk about this later on in the Gospel as well. All the law and prophets are fulfilled in the commandment to love, right?

[A]

This is the silver rule.

[B]

The golden rule, right?

[A]

And in other words, you know, in the Tradition, we call this the Golden Rule, because this is really the heart of Jesus teaching. We've been going through now a couple chapters of the Sermon on the Mount with Jesus imparting a lot of teaching. And here, as a master teacher, as he's getting towards the end, he gives a summary saying that kind of encapsulates the gist of what he wants us to understand and learn.

[B]

And St. Paul will expand on this as well in his Letter to the Romans when he says, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the Law. And he says, for the commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and any other commandment are summed up in this word. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

[A]

That's a beautiful exposition of that.

[B]

Yeah. So it's very clear. And then Jesus goes on to explain that there are two gates. He says, enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and easy is the way that leads to destruction. And there are many who enter it, for narrow is the gate and hard the way that leads to life. And few are those who find it. Now, this is a sobering saying. Jesus is telling us that the way that leads to life is found only by a few. And the way that leads to destruction is wide. It's easy. It's, you know, it's. It's quite simple to. To go to hell. It's going to take a lot more focus. It's going to take a lot more discipline in order to walk the way to life.

[A]

I think here Jesus is, we talked at the beginning here on the Sermon the Mount, that Jesus goes up on a mountain and opens his mouth and teaches, just like Moses. And this is after he prays and fasts for 40 days.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Well, at the end of Moses's great teaching in the Book of Deuteronomy, in Deuteronomy, chapter 30, verse 15. And following Moses kind of sums up his teaching for the Israelites by saying, I've set before you life and death.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And because Moses is pro life, he says, choose life. All right, so Moses says, choose life. And here Jesus is evoking this mosaic choice of life versus death. And he uses two different gates now to embody that idea that there's two ways you can go from here. You can enter the narrow gate, which is the way that leads to, as he says, life. And I think he's evoking that very term of what the. And we remember, we started with the blessings, the Beatitudes, and of course, Deuteronomy promises blessings that will give you life and fullness of life. And here Jesus is showing that if you follow the way of the Beatitudes, which is the blessings, you're going to end up with life. But you're going to have to go against the grain, against the world. The world takes the wide path. Those who follow Christ have to take the narrow way.

[B]

That's right. And some people, by the way, have misinterpreted this passage and said, well, Jesus is talking about this narrow gate that was in the Holy Land. Or no, that's not what's going on here. The way that leads to life, the life that Jesus is talking about, is nothing less than eternal life. And it's really important for us to reflect on that. And we don't have a lot of time to do that now. But in your time of prayer after this Bible study, you might reflect on what does it mean that. That what God intends for us is life. It's sin that leads us to death. Death is the result of us going against God's design for our life. That's real significant, I think. Anyway, moving on. Jesus says, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inside they are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you shall know them are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles. Now, here Jesus is explaining that you can know the works of the wolves, that we don't pass judgment on other people. We don't know what's going on in other people's hearts. But we can tell if. If a leader is truly a good shepherd or if they're a wolf, if they're ultimately going to lead us to death and destruction by looking at their fruits. And so Jesus says, every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces evil fruit. And he goes on to say, every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire. And here we have a very strong image of perdition, the imagery of hell. Right.

[A]

And here again, we have this theme of judgment. And Jesus was preparing us with this, with the idea in verse 13 of the Narrow versus the Wide Way, which Moses is at the end of Deuteronomy and Deuteronomy 30 is warning them about what they do with this teaching. But you recognize them by their fruits.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Good fruit. That means there's a good heart. Bad fruit, not so good.

[B]

Right. And we want to be clear that what Jesus is saying is it's not the case that we recognize who's holy and who's not by their success. Right. That's not the same thing Jesus is. That's not the same thing Jesus is talking about here. We just celebrated the feast of St. Peter Chanel. And of course, St. Peter Chanel in his lifetime did not see great fruit from his labors. It came later after his martyrdom. Nonetheless, we know as Saint Mother Teresa says, God doesn't call us to be successful. He calls us to be faithful. All right. And then we go on. And this is frankly one of my favorite lines in the entire Gospel. And I find it to be the most challenging, most scary, and also in some ways, the most illuminating. Jesus says, not everyone who says to me, lord, Lord. Now, that's really significant because in the Greek version of the Old Testament, that double use of Lord, Lord is only applied to the God of Israel. So Jesus is very clearly identifying himself as not just the Messiah, right, but as God with us as Emmanuel. Not everyone who says to me, lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, on the day of judgment, lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name, and then will I declare to them, I never knew you depart from me, Evildoers. What is the crucial criterion here of judgment? It's not simply doing works in Jesus name. It's knowing him, right? Entering into a true relationship with Christ. And I always like to point out to students, there's no relationship possible without prayer. There's no relationship possible with anyone in our lives if we aren't listening to the other person. This is what prayer really needs to be. Prayer needs to be about not just talking to the Lord. God, give me this, God bless that. God bless this, whatever. It needs to be more than that. It needs to be prayerful reflection. And this is why we do what we do. This is why Bible study is just so essential, right? When we read the Bible in the liturgy, what do we hear? The word of the Lord. And we say thanks be to God, because we recognize the Bible isn't just what God said, it's what God says. The Lord is speaking to us in sacred Scripture. We can come to know him and we can come to hear him speaking to us. And if we're willing to make the time, if we're willing to cooperate with the grace he wants to give us.

[A]

It echoes Michael, what you said with Matthew, chapter six, where Jesus gives us the Our Father, he teaches us to pray. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So Jesus teaches us at the heart of the prayer of our Lord to pray that we may seek that the Father's will would be done. And that's really, I think, a fundamental point of Christian practice and belief is if you're a Christian, you have to pursue the will of The Father and accept the will of the Father. That's so important. One other thing, Michael, I want to shout out here for is the word enter. We saw it in verse 13, enter by the narrow gate. And again here, not everyone who says to me, lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. And, you know, entering is a really important term used by Moses in the book of Deuteronomy. Throughout the book of Deuteronomy, you have, when you go to the good land, the land I'm giving you as an inheritance, and you enter, or later on, it says, when you enter the land that I am giving you. So constantly the expectation, as Moses is teaching the word of God at Sinai and in the desert to Israel, is he's preparing them for entering the promised land. So the whole goal of the journey of the Exodus is to enter the promised land. And here Jesus is talking about entering as the goal of all of his teaching and pursuing the will of the Father that we may enter the kingdom of heaven. So, Michael, why don't you talk about what's Jesus doing by using the language that Moses used for entering the promised land and now using this for the kingdom of heaven.

[B]

Right? So obviously, the goal of the Christian life isn't simply earthly. It's not just about earthly land. It's about entering into the kingdom itself. And what is that kingdom? Well, if you look at the writings of Thomas Aquinas, you look at the writings of other saints, you'll see different definitions of the kingdom. But the way I like to explain it is the kingdom is that realm in which all things are made subject to God's rule in Christ. Right. And where is that especially found? It's in the life of the church, in the liturgy of the Church, where in especially the Eucharistic celebration, we are making an offering of ourselves to the Lord. But the kingdom here, it certainly refers to an otherworldly realm, heaven. But we recognize in the Gospel of Matthew that kingdom that is in heaven is made present on earth through the ministry of the church. And we're gonna see this in greater detail in Matthew 13 when we look at the parables. Something I'd like to highlight here, too, is that in this parable we see Jesus prophesy, He's making an announcement about the future, that there will be those who do not enter into the kingdom of heaven. This is not a hypothetical. This is not a possibility. Jesus is announcing to us that on the last day, there will be people who say, lord, we did all these mighty works, and they won't enter into the kingdom. This is a terrifying prospect. It's this verse that keeps me up at night. I don't want to be those people who. Who focus on external works, focus on all the deeds that you try to do. Lord, I helped at my church. I did a Bible study on the Gospel of Matthew. I want to make sure that I'm among those who know the Lord, because without that, surely we will be excluded from the kingdom.

[A]

I think that's so important, Michael. And I know you're evoking this biblical and especially Hebraic throughout the Old Testament, this idea of knowing is yada. Adam knows Eve. She conceives. That's a deep knowing, intimate knowing. But this idea of knowing for the Hebrew is the idea of covenant knowing. It's the knowing of a person in a deep relationship of intimacy. And so this is exactly what God's inviting us to, isn't it? That's right, to have a relationship of intimacy. Not just a formal, you know, religious observance. It's a personal, deep relationship. And that's why 17 times in this sermon, he will call God Father.

[B]

That's right. Yep. The theme of God as Father is prominent throughout the Sermon on the Mount. Our identity as God's children, and so serving the Lord is of course important, but it's secondary. These who are excluded on the last day put the primary emphasis on their evangelical works. Right. And we are so easily sucked into the temptation that God wants us to be apostles before he wants us to be disciples. I put that wrong. That God wants us to be. Yeah, God wants us. The temptation is to think we're going out to be sent. The apostles are those who are sent, but before they're sent, they're disciples. Before they're sent out, they spend time with Jesus, they live with Jesus. And so Satan will always be able to find another project for us to work on. We can't sacrifice our prayer life, the importance of the interior life, for those kinds of apostolic works.

[A]

Reminds me, Michael, of one of my favorite books is Father Dom Chautard's book the Soul of the Apostolate. And it's a book that I know I've had to go back and reread and reread because I can get into a bit of activism. And I think we Americans can be rather pragmatic. But what we need to be pragmatic most about is a relationship with God.

[B]

Amen.

[A]

And if we have that knowing and intimacy, then we're going to bear fruit. Then we're going to love others, our neighbor and others. And we'll be filled with those good works that Jesus summons us to, to be light at the beginning here in chapter five of Matthew. But it'll come out of being in Christ. Then we can imitate Christ.

[B]

Yeah. And these are the ones who think that they're going to be saved because of their mighty works, because they cast out demons and they performed miracles.

[A]

Well, and I think it's in his name, because they know the of Jesus. That is, they can claim the name Christian. That means that they're going to be saved. But it's not just being Christian in name only, but in heart.

[B]

Right. And what's going to happen at the end of the gospel of Matthew 25? It's not going to be those who perform the most miracles. Jesus on the last day isn't going to say, how many miracles did you work? No, he's going to say, I was hungry and you did not feed me. I was thirsty and you did not give me drink. So it's these, these things that are done that seem like small things, small acts of love that are most expressive of us knowing the Lord. And if we're not careful, we can forget about that.

[A]

And this is what Jesus point is as we pick up in verse 24, it's not just talking the talk. It's going to be about walking the walk with Christ. And so we see Jesus saying, everyone then, who hears these words of mine and does them, that's the two. You got to hear it. And do hear them and does them, will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it was built on the rock. Right. It was founded on the rock. And then we get the next verse. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. What a way to end the Sermon on the Mount.

[B]

Right. And so everyone who hears these words. Which words? These words of the sermon. Right. So Jesus explains here that if you hear these words, the words of the Sermon on the Mount, you can be the wise man. And so St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, explain that the Sermon on the Mount is the perfect sermon because it sums up the Christian life beautifully.

[A]

Yeah, it does. And you know, let's, you know, speaking about the wise versus the Foolish. Here we have Jesus making a great rabbinic move, right? So he's evoking a theme out of the Jewish scriptures. You want to talk about that?

[B]

Sure. The wise man. If you were to think about a wise man who builds on a house, who builds a house, the person you would immediately think of is Solomon. Right? Solomon is the wise man who builds. He builds the temple. And of course, Jesus is, throughout the Gospel of Matthew, the new Solomon. He is the son of David. The first verse of the Gospel highlights this. The book of the Genesis of Jesus Christ, the son of David. But what's important is Jesus isn't here identifying himself as the new Solomon, but believers. In other words, we share in the mission of Jesus. We share in his redemptive work, and we can, in a sense, be taken up into his ministry as the wise man by ordering our lives appropriately.

[A]

And we'll see Jesus make this reference later on, like in Matthew 11 and Matthew, especially Matthew 12, something greater, something greater than Solomon is here. And so he's clearly been teasing out this analogy, this echo to Solomon. But also he's playing a role of Moses here, too, because. Well, actually, even in the wisdom tradition of Israel. And what do we mean by that? The Book of Wisdom, proverbs, you have this idea of two ways. The way of the fool versus the way of the wise man. And so in classic Jewish teaching and in the Rabbinics, you would have this idea that, look, here's the wise way to live and here's the foolish way contrasted. And that's rooted in going back to Moses and his idea that there's two ways that Israel can go with the Torah. The way of blessing. We saw beatitude here, or the way of woe and cursing, the way of wisdom, the way of foolishness, the way of life, the way of death. So these things are juxtaposed throughout from the Torah and Moses through the wisdom literature of Judaism. And now Jesus is bringing these traditions all together, and he's saying, now it all boils down to how you respond to my word.

[B]

Mm. It's really important, too, that you have an image of this idea of building a house, a wise man. What kind of house did the wise men build? A temple. And Jesus explains something greater than the temple is here in himself. But as Paul will go on explaining in his letters, we are all called to be temples of the Holy Spirit. And so we have to think of our own lives in terms of temple building. Are we going to build a temple that is going to stand, or are we going to Build a temple that is going to fall. And there are echoes here with the predictions Jesus makes regarding, I think, the Jerusalem Temple as well in the background as he'll go on to explain. The Jerusalem Temple is going to fall. Why? Because of the wickedness of the leadership of Jerusalem.

[A]

Yeah. I think there's an interesting movement here in this chapter where Jesus early on invite us to pray in verse seven, where he's like, ask, seek, and then knock. Knocking, you're at a door. And then he talks about entering in a couple occasions. Enter by the narrow gate.

[B]

That's right, right.

[A]

The narrow way, the narrow door. And then he talks about not everyone will enter the kingdom of heaven. Who says, lord, Lord, that just simply claiming Jesus as your Lord isn't going to get you in. You have to submit and do the will of his Father, which he taught us to pray so that we could accomplish that. So if we pray.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

God will give us the grace to be able to ask the Sikh to knock on that narrow door and at that narrow gate that we may enter. And then, of course, you have this entering language, then leads to house.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

And so it really beautifully kind of flows together. And it's easy to look at the sayings of Jesus fragmented, you know, in other words, reading them, one saying and then the next saying and the next saying, we step back and realize he's painting a picture here, isn't he?

[B]

Yep. No question about it. And he's reminding us that the root of our success or what our success in the spiritual life is going to be based on is again, what, hearing the words of Jesus. Right. And so it's very important for us to study the Scriptures to reflect on their meaning. We don't want to be like the bad soil and the parable of the sower. Right. And basically what happens there is the seed is cast and then the birds come and gobble it up. And that represents the person who hears the word, but they don't understand it. Right. We don't want to be like that person if we want to be able to survive when the storm comes. And make no mistake about it, storms are going to come. Yeah.

[A]

Both scenarios. It's not like this way. There's storms this way. There's not storms, unfortunately. There's not a direction that doesn't have storms.

[B]

That's right. Either case, our house that we built is going to face storms. If we want it to stand. If we want it to stand, we have to listen to the words of Jesus. And this is why? You know, Tim and I are so devoted to trying to explain the Bible, to teach the Bible. I mean, this is. It's a glorious job. I'm very grateful for it. But this is what we get to do all day here. The reason we do it is because we understand we have a mandate from the Lord.

[A]

You know, one of the things I think of, of course the rock is going to be an analogy or echo to the temple because, you know, Solomon in Chronicles, you know, he builds Mount Moriah on the rock. He builds the temple.

[B]

But certainly in Isaiah, the stone is connected to the temple throughout.

[A]

Right. And. But then I think also there's maybe an extra echo, maybe I'm hearing. But David constantly calls God his rock, you know, in the Psalms is his refuge. And so you have storms. And the idea of the rock being a refuge, that seems to be very Davidic.

[B]

Right. There's no question about it. This image of a house builder. Right. When God makes his covenant promise to give David a kingdom forever, it's after David is expressed in that day, it's after David has expressed a desire to build a house for the Lord. So the Davidic covenant and house building go side by side or hand in hand.

[A]

Well, you know, Michael, as you said, you know, knowing the word of God is so important for our Christian life. And it's at the heart of our mission here at the August Institute, we love to teach Scripture. And I've been so edified. You know, a couple people wrote and said that by watching this Bible study, they're lifelong Catholics, but they said, we're embarrassed to admit we never had a Bible. And then we started watching your Matthew study, and we went out and got Bibles.

[B]

Praise God.

[A]

And so that story just made us so happy to hear, made me thrilled, Made my day and week and month. And I love those stories. And so we're so grateful that so many of you are writing to thank us. We're just so grateful that this Bible study can be a blessing to you. And we're deeply grateful for all those who support us to make this ministry happen through the mission circle and our donors so that we can make this word of God free and available to others.

[B]

Yeah. And I just want to say at the end of this, we have. It says, it says here, and it happened when Jesus finished these words. It reminds us we're going to see this theme throughout the Gospel. So after chapter seven, we have this summary statement after Jesus's speech in chapter 10, after his speech in chapter 13, we've been talking about these major sections of discourse in Matthew. And so we see the first kind of close here. Jesus has been on a mountain. He's been teaching. He is the new Moses and all are amazed at his authority. He even goes beyond the scribes. He teaches like no one else has ever taught. And truly that's the case because he is the Lord.

[A]

Yeah. And that phrase that it uses, he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes. That word authority we're going to see in the next chapter in a big way, big time because Jesus is going. We're going to see Jesus exercising authority and others recognizing Jesus authority. So now we're kind of getting our hint of where we're going to go next in Matthew chapter eight. So thank you for joining us and again thank you to all those who support us through our mission Circle partners. We're grateful for you. We're grateful for all of you. May the Lord bless and keep you.