Free Bible courses: offer expires Sunday midnight!
Dear Friends:
This Saturday, September 30, is the feast of St. Jerome, patron of Biblical studies and chief patron saint of this lay apostolate, Biblical Foundations International.
In honor of St. Jerome, I'm pleased and privileged to offer you a FREE course or courses on whatever book or books of the Bible you’d like to be tutored in! This offer, however, is limited to the first twelve of you who respond to this offer.
You can pick a short book of the Bible, like the single-chapter epistle of St. Jude. You can pick huge books like the 22-chapter Apocalypse of St. John, the 50-chapter book of Genesis, the 66-chapter book of Isaiah, or the 150-chapter book of Psalms. Or you can pick anything in between. And you can pick as many books as you like: there is no limit to how many you can choose!
Furthermore, it’s entirely up to you how much time you wish to spend learning about each book and how much detail you wish to go into. For example, though I’d strongly recommend covering the 22 chapters of the Apocalypse in (at least) 22 sessions of an hour each, I’m happy to accommodate myself to your limitations: if you want to cover the book in an accelerated, overview fashion — in, say, only two sessions — though you’ll miss out on much fascinating information on the book’s cryptic symbolism, I’m happy to oblige.
My fall semester of tutoring via computer videoconferencing has been well underway now for some weeks. I use Skype, Google Hangouts, or whatever other app people want to use — or simply speak by phone for those who prefer, which comes in handy for any family or friends you have who don’t use a computer.
But, though I’m terribly busy (as always), I want to make a special sacrifice this fall and shoehorn into my already stuffed schedule a dozen more students. In fact, I need to, for reasons I’ll explain below.
Among the many subjects I study on a daily basis and teach to others — dogmatic theology, the Church Fathers, the writings of St. Thomas and other great doctors of the church, canon law, philosophy, apologetics, logic, history (Church history, world history, US history), world literature (especially English and American literature), Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, English grammar and composition, politics and economics — Biblical studies will always be my first and greatest love.
Having studied Sacred Scripture at an intensive level, from the original languages, for over 45 years now, I am utterly convinced that a greater familiarity with the covenantal and symbolic infrastructure of Scripture would not only result in greater numbers of Protestants converting to Catholicism. It would also have meant that far fewer Catholics would have been surprised in these end times by the unprecedented apostasy of our day.
Scripture explicitly warned those who had ears to hear that this apostasy would be triggered by the removal of legitimate successors to the see of Peter and the usurpation of that see by antipopes (2 Thessalonians 2:1-14). This disruption of the papacy, by the way, was previously foretold in Isaiah 22:25, when read in the light of the five preceding verses. Scripture also warned that this apostasy would entail the removal of the true sacrifice of the Mass (Daniel 8:11-13; 11:31) and its replacement by a counterfeit Mass that is an abomination to God (because the objects of adoration are mere non-transubstantiated bread and wine, and not the Eucharistic Body and Blood of Christ) — an abomination that has desecrated and desolated the formerly Catholic altars of the world (Matthew 24:15).
There’s so much more I could say on these and related subjects. (And those who accept this offer will get mountains of material on these matters, free for the asking!) But let me keep this brief and cut to the chase, i.e., to the terms of my offer, which are as follows.
Last May I published — on my website and Facebook page and in emails to my list of customers and supporters — yet another list of courses I was currently offering through my St. Hermengild Online College. Minus the Scripture courses (since those are now free, and so are not listed below), I’ve replicated here, for your convenience, an updated version of that list, which now includes a few new additions:
Latin 101: Introduction to Ecclesiastical Latin
Hebrew 101: Introduction to Old Testament Hebrew
Greek 101: Introduction to New Testament Greek
Church History 101: The First Six Centuries of Christianity
Church History 401: History of the Papacy Through the Middle Ages
Church History 501: The Continental Protestant Reformation: Luther
Church History 502: The Continental Protestant Reformation: Calvin
Church History 503: The English Reformation, and Its Relevance Today
Church History 701: The Second Vatican Council: Its History, Its Sixteen Documents, and Its Implementation Up to the Present Day
Patristics 101: The Apostolic Fathers
Patristics 104: The Life, Theology, and Works of St. Augustine
Philosophy 101: History of Philosophy: Ancient (Greek and Roman)
Philosophy 102: History of Philosophy: Medieval
Philosophy 103: History of Philosophy: Modern
Philosophy 201: Logic & Critical Thinking
Theology 101: The Doctrine of God
Theology 102: The Doctrine of the Trinity
Theology 201: St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, Part I
Theology 401: The Doctrines Concerning Mary
Theology 491: The Doctrine of Hell
Theology 501: Classic Catholic Moral Theology
Apologetics 201: The Case for Theism
Apologetics 202, Special Seminar: The Problem of Evil and the Existence of God
Apologetics 303: The Case Against Islam
Apologetics 304: The Case Against the Jehovah’s Witnesses
Apologetics 305: The Case Against Mormonism
Aoologetics 306: The Case Against Hinduism
Apologetics 307: The Case Against Eastern Orthodoxy
Apologetics 309: The Case Against Protestantism
Apologetics 501: Anti-Sedevacantism Refuted: A Detailed Critique of John Salza and Robert Siscoe’s True or False Pope?
Spirituality 301: Biblical Insights into the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary
Canon Law 101: The 1917 Code of Canon Law
Marriage and Family 101: Classic Catholic Teaching on Marriage and the Family
Political Science 101: Classic Catholic Teaching on the State
US History 101: From Earliest Colonial Times through 1865
US History 201: History of the US Presidency from George Washington through Abraham Lincoln
World History 101: Ancient History to the Fall of Rome in AD 476
World Literature 101: The Greek Classics: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey
World Literature 102: Greek Tragedy: Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles
World Literature 201: Greek and Roman Mythology
World Literature 202: Latin Classics: Vergil and Ovid
World Literature 401: Dante’s Divine Comedy
American Literature 501: Catholic Themes in the Fiction of Flannery O’Connor
English Literature 501: G.K. Chesterton: Early Works
English Literature 601: Catholic Themes in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
English Literature 602: The Works of C.S. Lewis, part one
Drama 201: Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Drama 202: Shakespeare’s King Lear
Science 102: Creation vs. Evolution
Education 101: Designing a Classical Catholic Homeschooling Curriculum
Latin 101: First Year Latin
French 101: First Year French
English 101: English Grammar & Composition
Chess 101: Beginning Chess Fundamentals & Strategies
At that time I invited people to sign up for any of those classes they wished and offered them a deep discount because, as I’ve said many times, I hate writing appeal letters and would much prefer to simply earn the money that Biblical Foundations International needs to carry on its crucial work by tutoring people, rather than requesting donations.
But because the response to that offer was far too small, I was obliged to send out an appeal letter a few weeks later on Trinity Sunday (June 11), letting people know that because I’d been overly generous in producing over 75 free Facebook Live broadcasts on a variety of topics since the preceding November, and had in the process necessarily had to set aside income-producing projects, I was over $7500 deeper in debt.
The response to that appeal, sadly, was similarly small: I received less than half of the amount I needed to get my head back up above water. But, though others advised me that sending out an appeal letter four times a year — once each quarter, in the spring, summer, fall, and winter — would not be seen by anyone as excessive (some apostolates send one out every month!), and that I could therefore legitimately again make an appeal for donations in the middle of this month of September, I have refrained from doing so, due to my aforementioned aversion to writing appeal letters.
Instead, I am happy to earn the money I need by teaching as many of the above courses as people are interested in taking. In fact, in the spirit of Acts 20:33-35 (where St. Paul says in his farewell sermon to the bishops assembled at Ephesus, “I coveted no one’s silver or gold … You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions. In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for He himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’.”), I am happy — far from asking you for a gift — to instead GIVE YOU free courses in whatever book or books of the Bible you wish to study, as I stated at the beginning of this letter.
Here’s how it’ll work. Sign up for any of the above courses — or, if there’s something you wish to study that’s not covered by that list, contact me and I’ll design, just for you, a customized course covering the topic! Pay for at least two hours of instruction at my standard rate of $50 an hour. (That’s already a steal: many if not most tutors — nearly all of whom have much less education and teaching experience than I do — charge $75 an hour or more!) I’ll give you an equal amount of hours of instruction in whatever book(s) of the Bible you wish, absolutely free!
As an example, let’s take the brand new course I just designed in response to several people from around the country who’ve contacted me about this topic in recent weeks, the Apologetics Special Seminar in “The Problem of Evil and the Existence of God.” This course addresses the objection to Christian theism which asks, “How can an all-good, all-wise, all-powerful God exist when there’s so much suffering and evil in the world?”
This is a huge and fascinatingly complex topic that could easily constitute an entire semester course. But let’s say you’re content to cover this topic in a rapid overview fashion in only two sessions. You pay me the $100 (2 hours at $50 an hour) and you’ve not only paid for the course (which can start immediately or whenever you prefer to start), you’ve also earned two additional hours in Biblical studies, to spend however you like. You could spend an hour learning all about the Epistle of St. Jude and another hour on, say, St. Paul’s Epistle to Philemon (also only one chapter long), or the Old Testament book of Obadiah (aka Abdias in the Douay-Rheims), which is also one chapter long — or any other portion of Scripture you like. You could pick a longer work — even an entire gospel, or the Apocalypse, or an Old Testament book — and cover it in a rapid-fire survey fashion in two sessions.
But say you want to study the problem of evil in depth, and devote a dozen hours to it. Pay the $600 for the twelve-hour course and you’ve just earned a dozen free hours of Biblical instruction! Or go longer: study the problem of evil as a 22-session, full semester course and you’ve earned a free semester-long course in St. John’s Apocalypse: 22 hours to cover its 22 chapters, a chapter an hour!
This offer of free Biblical instruction is a limited-time offer that expires at the end of this weekend — at 12 am Eastern Time midnight Sunday night, October 1, to be exact. And it’s limited to the first twelve people who respond to this special offer. I’m hoping to thereby acquire the funds I need to pay the bills due at the beginning of October. You will need to pre-pay for your paid instruction by Sunday midnight, either using PayPal or a credit card (Visa, MasterCard, or Discover), or putting a check in the mail to me at PO Box 569, Dunmore PA 18512.
Again, if you send me $100, you’re not only paying for two hours of instruction in the course you’re paying for, you’re earning two free hours in instruction in whatever Biblical book(s) you choose. If you send $200, you’re getting four free hours. $500 gets you TEN free hours, and so on. But this offer of a free hour of Biblical instruction for each hour of other instruction you pay for is limited to the first twelve who take advantage of this generous offer, and expires at Sunday midnight. After Sunday midnight you are perfectly free to sign up for courses, of course. But you'll no longer get free instruction in the Bible by doing so.
Please contact me as soon as possible to set up your course schedule and earn your FREE hours of Bible instruction in whatever Biblical books interest you, before this generous offer expires Sunday night at midnight! You can email me at gerrymatatics@gerrymatatics.org or call or text me at (570) 969-1724, whichever you prefer. Thank you, and may Almighty God bless you as you seek to equip yourself for the intellectual and spiritual challenges of our age!
Your servant in Christ our King,
Gerry Matatics