Welcome to Form Now. I'm Tim Gray, president of the Augustine Institute, and joining me is Dr. Michael Barber, a professor of scripture here at the Augustine Suit. We're going to continue our wonderful walk through the Gospel of Matthew. We are in Matthew chapter 16. So whether you've been with us through chapters 1 through 15, or you're joining us today, there's always a lot to learn in the Gospel of Matthew. He's the catechism for the early church,

and he really gives us a great window into the life of Jesus Christ.

And I'm excited because Matthew 16 has some wonderful stories,

especially for us Catholics.

These chapters in particular are very, very important.

And we could talk about that when we get later into the chapter. But let's

just start with, you know, chapter 16 and the opening story here, because Jesus is going to

talk about the signs. They want to come and test Jesus, ask him for a sign. That's right.

And then he's going to give him a rather strong response. Why don't we pick up with Jesus's

response? Okay, sounds good.

So Jesus, they ask him for a sign, and Jesus says, when it is evening, you say it will be fair weather for the sky is red.

And in the morning, it will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.

You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the

signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it

except the sign of Jonah. So this is really significant passage because Jesus is explaining that of course they can read the

natural signs but they don't have the ability to recognize what's unfolding before them here

the Messiah is present and they are unwilling really to recognize the miracles that Jesus is

performing in their midst.

And of course, here we have that phrase, the signs of the times,

that gets thrown out quite a bit in magisterial documents of the church

gets used quite a bit in papal documents.

And one thing that we have to recognize is signs of the times is especially

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