By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — Understanding God’s living presence among people is more than an academic study, and had inspired Christians in more dangerous times to give up their lives, a theology professor at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, told the fifth annual Southwest Biblical Conference.
Bob Rice, Ph.D., told the conference that despite many worries today, including COVID-19, the early Church grew larger even when Christians were being burned in the streets, and that COVID is far from being the plague of the fourteenth-century Black Death, which killed one of every three people, and they didn’t understand it.
The “message of fearlessness is frequently in the Scriptures,” in fact 365 times, once for every day in the year except Leap Year, Rice said. “Other Christians in other environments have been more heavily persecuted,” but they reacted courageously.
The biblical conference, co-sponsored with the Institute of Catholic Theology (ICT), based at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Phoenix, was conducted entirely by Zoom this year because of health and travel restrictions. The theme was: “Be Not Afraid: Its Biblical Foundation and Importance Today.”
ICT Director Eric Westby, Ph.D., noted that it was easier to get people back into the Zoom meeting after the breaks between Rice’s three talks than when people used to attend the conferences in-person at St. Thomas the Apostle Church — which had been preceded by morning Mass.
During the breaks at the church building, there had been snacks and drinks outside, and a number of people in the shadow of the bell tower to chat with.
Westby noted this year’s conference occurred on the Feast of the Presentation of Mary, during the hundredth anniversary year of the birth of St. John Paul II.
Rice presented all three of the November 21 morning talks because the other scheduled speaker, Franciscan University’s president, Fr. Dave Pivonka, TOR, still was recovering from the coronavirus.
At first Pivonka felt “just horrible,” Rice said, but now he’s “sore and tired and exhausted.”
Although everyone has been affected by fear of the virus, Rice said, people often are more distracted by fears of various possibilities that may happen to them than what actually happens.
The first time “fear” occurs in Scripture is when Adam in the Garden of Eden tells God, “I hid from you because I was afraid,” he said.
“He’s not a God who delights in punishment,” but in merciful love who “wanted to adopt us” as His children, Rice said.
God doesn’t try to patch things up here and there, but He “makes all things new,” he said. “It wasn’t that something got broken and He put a piece of tape on it.”
When Jesus was asked how He prayed, He referred to God as “Abba.” However, Rice said, this isn’t best translated as “Daddy,” but rather as a beloved father.
On the other hand, he said, when Muslims refer to “Allah,” they mean their “Master,” and they’d view the use of “Abba” for God as disrespectful.
Rice said he encounters some students who lack a positive relationship with their father, or even the father’s presence at all, and Rice has been told not to talk about a father because they won’t know what he’s talking about, but in fact they know exactly what he means.
That God would forgive people their sins “changes everything,” and is far more important than COVID-19 or who has political power, he said.
Faith in God can be put to the test by the power of evil, he said. “Maybe He’s not powerful enough?” But, “(N)othing is impossible with God. . . . .
“If we can confidently say, ‘I believe in God, the Father almighty,’ then we have nothing to fear,” Rice said.
God’s Timing
Later in his talk, Rice said the parting of the Red Sea for the Israelites was impressive, but the forgiveness of sins in Confession is “way more impressive.”
The idea of “remaining courageous in a time of upheaval” raises the question of when was there ever a time without some upheaval, Rice said — even if a nation wasn’t experiencing this, maybe an individual family was, or vice-versa.
People believe the current time is the worst ever, he said, but “God’s power is made perfect in weakness.”
“A stunning amount of people in our culture are deists,” who think God just swoops in like Superman for a big problem, but isn’t present in everyday life, he said, but the deist attitude “is very contrary” to Scripture.
However, he said, God’s timing may not be what people expect. When, for instance, Jesus received the message that Lazarus was dying, He delayed for a few days, “just to make sure he’s dead” first, instead of going to him right away.
Still, He called Lazarus forth from the tomb after He arrived, Rice said, adding later, “You never know what His timing is about.”
Recalling another instance, Rice said that after Jesus’ Ascension, Peter healed the crippled beggar at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple in Jerusalem, even though the beggar presumably had been there for years, and while on Earth Jesus had walked past him without healing him.
There’s a lot of fear of death now, Rice said, and if people are focused on the things of the flesh, death is the worst evil, but not if they’re focused on the things of the spirit.
Noting the amount of trauma, rejection, and suffering that Jesus experienced, Rice said, “He suffered because He wanted to be in the fire with us. . . . We have a friend and a brother in Jesus,” who reminds people they’re not alone when He says to “be not afraid.”
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