Highlights from Past Studies

​Matthew

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Matthew 7:7-11​

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PURPOSE OF THIS LESSON

The purpose was to study Jesus' teaching on prayer from Matthew 7:7-11, specifically the instruction to "ask and ye shall receive."

This is Jesus giving direct instruction about prayer and God's character as a loving Father who does not mock His children's prayers.

MOST IMPORTANT POINTS

• God answers prayers in His own way and timing, not necessarily as we ask

• Prayer should be continuous and persistent ("keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking"), not just one-time requests

• God will only give us what is good for us, based on His wisdom and justice

• God does not mock our prayers or refuse them out of cruelty

• We need to be proactive in prayer, not passive - taking steps and looking for God's direction through open or closed doors

• The examples Jesus used (bread, fish, egg) were all basic needs, not luxury items, suggesting we should pray for necessities

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MOST DIFFICULT PART TO PUT INTO PRACTICE

• Discerning whether answers come from God or other sources

• Dealing with unanswered prayers, especially regarding suffering and loss of loved ones

• Balancing surrender to God's will with taking active steps to solve problems

• Continuing to pray when life experiences have been shattering or feel like betrayal

• Asking for help when trust has been broken

• Avoiding the "prosperity gospel" misinterpretation that God will give whatever we want

ANY SPECIAL GREEK WORDS

• Definite command (one-time action, like "shut the door")

• Present imperative (continuous action, like "always shut the door")

The passage uses the present imperative, meaning "keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking"

EMOTIONS MANIFESTED IN THIS SECTION

• Fear and anxiety about loved ones facing serious illness or death

• Feelings of betrayal by people or even by God

• Difficulty trusting and asking for help

• Breaking points under overwhelming circumstances

• Relief and peace when prayers were answered

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Matthew 7:28–29

PURPOSE OF THIS LESSON

Matthew closes the Sermon on the Mount by recording the crowd's astonished reaction. This was Matthew's intentional editorial note — showing not just what Jesus taught, but how people received it. The purpose is to contrast Jesus' authority with that of the scribes, and to validate the Sermon on the Mount as something qualitatively different from anything the crowd had heard before.

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MOST INTERESTING POINT

Jesus taught "as one having authority, and not as the scribes." The layers of authority present in that culture included: Roman legal authority, Mosaic authority, the authority of the prophets, and the derivative authority of scribes drawing from the Targums (rabbinic commentaries). Jesus stepped outside all of those frameworks and spoke from his own authority — "It has been said… but I say unto you." The Message Bible captures the crowd's reaction simply as: "This was the best teaching they had ever heard."

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MOST DIFFICULT PART TO PUT INTO PRACTICE

We must not read these stories as distant history. We have to place ourselves inside them.

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ANY SPECIAL GREEK WORDS

The word translated "multitude" or "crowd" (ochlos) appears 176 times in the New Testament — a common word, but its frequency here underscores how public and broad Jesus' audience was. The crowd's astonishment at the end suggests they were present and engaged throughout, rather than Jesus only speaking to the disciples.

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EMOTIONS MANIFESTED IN THIS SECTION

Astonishment on the part of the crowd - he outperformed the scribes even without making the crowd his direct audience. The sense is of effortless, magnetic authority.

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HOW THIS COMPARES TO OTHER GOSPEL ACCOUNTS

The group referenced Luke and John accounts indirectly, for instance when guards were sent to arrest Jesus and returned empty-handed, saying "No man ever spoke like this man" — a parallel testament to Jesus' commanding presence and authority, drawn from a different gospel moment but thematically identical to the crowd's reaction here.

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Matthew 8:1–4

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PURPOSE OF THIS LESSON

The first miracle following the Sermon on the Mount — the transition from Jesus' words of authority to his actions of authority. The lesson demonstrates what the Kingdom will look like in practice. Connected to Jeremiah 31:34 — complete forgiveness, sins remembered no more. The leper's cleansing is a concrete picture of restitution.

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MOST INTERESTING POINT

Jesus reached out and touched the leper. This was utterly forbidden — rabbis threw stones at lepers to keep them away, refused to eat food purchased on streets where lepers had walked, and performed death rituals over them. Barclay writes: "There has never been a disease which so separated a man from his fellow men as leprosy" — and that there is "no more amazing sentence in the New Testament" than the simple statement that Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.

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From the NIV: the leper says "if you want to, you can make me clean," and Jesus replies, "Of course I want to." Jesus imposed no doctrinal checklist, no penance — just immediate, unconditional healing in response to faith.

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MOST DIFFICULT PART TO PUT INTO PRACTICE

This modeling of personal application — trusting Jesus for healing of anxiety and physical ailments, not just sin — was the group's answer to what is hardest to actually live out.

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EMOTIONS MANIFESTED IN THIS SECTION

The man's barely-containable joy at the moment of cleansing — the Luke account confirms he immediately told everyone despite Jesus' instruction to stay quiet. The warmth of "Of course I want to" as a window into Jesus' and God's genuine desire to heal and forgive.

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HOW THIS COMPARES TO OTHER GOSPEL ACCOUNTS

In Luke 17, where Jesus cleanses ten lepers — only one returns to give thanks, prompting Jesus' question "Where are the other nine?" — drawing a parallel to how much of humanity senses a greater power but few actually give glory to God. Compare to the blind man in John, suggesting the interchange between the healed man and the priests likely mirrored what the cleansed leper would have experienced: skepticism, interrogation, and ultimate inability to deny the miracle.

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Matthew 8:5-13

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A Roman centurion approaches Jesus asking him to heal his servant, Jesus offers to come, the centurion deflects saying he's not worthy and that Jesus only needs to speak the word, drawing the analogy from his own military authority. Jesus marvels, declaring he's found greater faith than anywhere in Israel, then heals the servant from a distance.

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Key discussion points:

Parallel account in Luke 7 adds that the centurion actually sent Jewish elders to speak on his behalf, who vouched for his character. The centurion may have been in the crowd at the Sermon on the Mount, given how closely connected he was to the Jewish community. The centurion calling Jesus "Lord" lands differently right after the passage where Jesus says "many will say Lord, Lord and I will not know them."

Barclay says that the centurion's care for his servant was highly unusual — Roman masters generally treated servants as expendable property.

Irony that Matthew, writing primarily to a Jewish audience, here records Jesus publicly putting down that same audience. Supportive of the idea that national Israel holds no special elevated position in the kingdom, connecting it to Paul's "neither Greek nor Jew."

God's promise to Israel at Sinai was conditional ("if you follow my ways") and they kept forgetting the second clause.

Connected the passage to Jonah: both stories involve outsiders receiving mercy that the "insiders" resented. The kingdom won't function without forgiveness, and resentment over historical suffering will be one of the real challenges of the kingdom age.

World Cup observation — watching players from 48 nations, including Black and white players hugging after losses — is a contemporary picture of what it might look like when people are focused on something other than power and tribalism.

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Matthew 8:14-15

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Fever in the ancient world was serious due to no antibiotics. Drawing from Barclay, there's three likely causes: Malta fever (brucellosis, a bacterial infection from animals), intermittent fever (possibly typhoid), and most likely malaria, given the marshy ground around the Sea of Galilee near Capernaum and Tiberias.

Jesus touched her hand, the fever left, and she immediately got up and served them. This was likely Peter's house (probably Jesus' base of operations in the region) and she likely played an ongoing hospitality role. Especially with Clement of Alexandria's account that Peter and his wife were eventually martyred together.

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Matthew 8:16-17

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Mass healings likely happened after sundown because Jews couldn't carry burdens on the Sabbath so they waited until the Sabbath ended before bringing people to Jesus.

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On the sheer scale of Jesus' healing ministry: over roughly 1,000 days, healing perhaps 100 people a day, each healed person telling at least 10 others — potentially reaching millions. It would have been nearly impossible for anyone in the region not to have heard of Jesus as a healer, which reframes Palm Sunday's enormous crowds as entirely plausible.

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Demon Possession — The Disputed Question

Matthew quotes Isaiah ("he took our sicknesses and removed our diseases") as the fulfillment of the evening's healings — but Isaiah says nothing about demons. Strange that the center of the passage is demon-casting, while the fulfillment scripture only references disease. King James wrote Demonology — a justification for witch trials — just three years before commissioning his Bible translation, raising the question of whether "demon-possessed" was amplified in translation for political reasons.

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Barclay: in the ancient world, anything medically unexplained was attributed to demons. Demon possession was simply the cultural vocabulary for illness with no other explanation — epilepsy, mental illness, etc.

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Demons might work subtly the way Satan worked on Eve — not through explicit invitation but through gradual weakening. After the Flood restricted the fallen angels from physically interbreeding with humans (Genesis 6), possession may have become their next available strategy.

Barclay on ancient Jewish demonology — 7.5 million demons, 10,000 on each side of a person, inhabiting tombs and deserts, especially dangerous to women in childbirth and lonely travelers. This context helps explain why ordinary Jews believed intensely in literal possession. Degrees of possession rather than a binary.

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The core point is that Jesus healed all who were afflicted, regardless of what the affliction was labeled. Whether every case was literal possession or not, the knowledge gap of the time likely caused people to overattribute illness to demonic causes — and that doesn't mean possession never existed, just that it probably wasn't as universal as depicted. The translation concern — Matthew's own fulfillment citation doesn't mention demons, which is theologically odd if demon-casting was the main event.

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Matthew 8:18–22

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PURPOSE OF THIS LESSON

To examine two would-be followers of Jesus — a scribe and a disciple — and what Jesus's responses reveal about the willingness to sacrifice earthly comforts, status, and even family obligations in order to follow him. It's fundamentally about counting the cost of discipleship.

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MOST IMPORTANT POINT

Priorities. Following Jesus doesn't necessarily mean abandoning every earthly interest or family responsibility, but it does mean those things can't take precedence over serving the Lord. The first man was told he'd have to give up everything, while the second was told he needed to prioritize following Jesus above his other obligations — both point to the same underlying principle of ordering your life around discipleship first.

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MOST DIFFICULT PART TO PUT INTO PRACTICE

Grief and family loss specifically — how to honor real family obligations (like caring for a dying parent, or being present through a family crisis) without letting grief or family duty become an excuse to step back from commitment to the Lord indefinitely. You take care of what needs to be done, but you don't let it consume years of your life to the exclusion of moving forward in service.

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ANY SPECIAL GREEK WORDS

The Greek word kurios (translated "Lord") used by the second disciple — defined as "he to whom a person or thing belongs... master or lord," signaling a position of rightful authority, in contrast to the first man calling Jesus merely "teacher" (a term implying more of an equal, respected colleague than a master).

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EMOTIONS MANIFESTED IN THIS SECTION

Sadness/grief (over losing a parent), reluctance or hesitation (the second disciple's bargaining — "let me first..."). There's also an implied tension or discomfort in being confronted with a demand for total priority.

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HOW THIS COMPARES TO OTHER GOSPEL ACCOUNTS

This episode (or its elements) also appears in Luke and John. There is also a parallel to the separate account of the rich young ruler told to sell everything and follow Jesus, which illustrates the same "willingness to give up everything" theme even though it's a different narrative encounter.

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Matthew 8:23–27

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PURPOSE OF THIS LESSON

Twofold: (1) to show that the Lord has control over everything, even the elements, and (2) to show that what was prophesied comes to pass — the episode maps directly onto Psalm 107's description of sailors in distress crying out to God.

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MOST IMPORTANT POINT

The disciples' cry — "Lord/Master, save us, we are perishing" — follows the structure of Psalm 107 almost word for word (sailors tossed by a storm, crying to the Lord, He calms the sea, they rejoice). The Greek word translated "storm" (seismos) is used 14 times across the New Testament and is everywhere else rendered "earthquake," "shaking," or "commotion" — never "storm" — and each other use marks a moment of divine ordaining or prophecy fulfillment (e.g., the earthquake at Jesus's death, the earthquake at the tomb, the earthquakes of Revelation). This suggests the event was not an ordinary squall but something intentionally tied to that pattern.

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MOST DIFFICULT PART TO PUT INTO PRACTICE

Discerning when a threat is genuinely dangerous versus when it only feels that way — and trusting God's control in situations we can't see Him in physically, the way the disciples could see Jesus asleep in the boat.

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ANY SPECIAL GREEK WORDS

• Seismos (σεισμός) — the word translated "storm" in Matthew 8:24; elsewhere consistently translated "earthquake." Strong's #4578 gives three possible senses: a shaking/commotion, a tempest, or an earthquake, derived from the verb #4575 ("to cause a commotion"). Matthew's choice of this word could point to an actual earthquake/tsunami-type event versus a violent windstorm (the word for "wind" in Mark and Luke's parallel accounts was also discussed, including a possible connection to "the four winds"/cardinal winds imagery elsewhere in scripture).

EMOTIONS MANIFESTED IN THIS SECTION

Literal, existential fear from the disciples — experienced fishermen who believed they were about to die, not simply inconvenienced. Contrasted with Jesus's calm (He is asleep through it) and then His pointed, almost blunt response — "O you of little faith" — either a rebuke, a wake-up call to spiritual maturity, or simply a neutral statement of fact depending on tone and relationship.

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HOW THIS COMPARES TO OTHER GOSPEL ACCOUNTS

Mark and Luke also record the event. Matthew has Jesus rebuke the disciples' fear before calming the storm; Mark has Him calm the storm first and question their fear afterward. Mark also notes the boat was already filling with water. Matthew is the only account that uses the "earthquake" word; Mark and Luke frame it in terms of wind.

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Group discussion highlights:

• Debate over whether "seismos" points to an actual undersea earthquake/tsunami event versus ordinary — if severe — Sea of Galilee windstorms (the lake sits in a geological rift and is known for sudden, violent squalls funneled down surrounding valleys).

• The Sea of Galilee's small size (roughly 13 x 8 miles) was discussed relative to other lakes (Flathead Lake, Lake Washington) — small enough that land is visible across it, which made the ferocity of this storm more striking.

• Symbolic reading: earthquakes/shaking in scripture often accompany end-times imagery; water may represent truth and wind may represent teaching, so Jesus "rebuking" the wind and sea could symbolize correcting false teaching amid unsettling upheaval. Flagged as a thread worth developing further, not a settled conclusion.

• Whether "O you of little faith" is a rebuke, a term of endearment, or neutral depends on tone/relationship — no consensus, but general agreement it carries at least mild correction.

• This event is a possible turning point in the disciples' understanding of who Jesus was — beyond healing (common among many in Israel) to command over nature itself.

Matthew 8:28–34

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PURPOSE OF THIS LESSON

To show that Jesus was an extraordinary exorcist — more powerful than any other exorcist known in the ancient world, consistent with His identity as the Son of God. Unlike other exorcists of the time who relied on incantations or invoking another name, Jesus simply commanded and the demons obeyed.

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MOST IMPORTANT POINT

We are not really in control of our lives regardless, so the lesson is to trust God even when His work disrupts our sense of control — believing in Jesus is not the same as fully surrendering to what He asks of us.

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MOST DIFFICULT PART TO PUT INTO PRACTICE

Surrendering to God in faith rather than resisting what following Him might require, even when we already believe in Him.

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ANY SPECIAL GREEK WORDS

• "Demon" itself — background was given on how the concept evolved: in the Old Testament there was little developed theology of demons/spirits (some references in Job and around "the Satan"); Jewish demonology by Jesus's time had absorbed Persian, Babylonian, Greek, and Canaanite influences during the periods of foreign occupation, filtered through belief in one God. There was no single unified Jewish doctrine of demons even by Jesus's day.

• "Legion" — the demon's name given in Mark's account (not named in Matthew) — a direct reference to a Roman military legion, i.e., "we are many."

• Discussion of Girgashites/Gergesenes vs. Gadarenes (place names differ between Matthew and Mark's manuscripts) and the meaning of "met him" (Strong's #5221 — an intentional encounter).

EMOTIONS MANIFESTED IN THIS SECTION

Compassion was the emphasis — for the possessed men themselves, and by extension for people today dealing with what might be described as mental illness. The townspeople's reaction was fear/self-protection: after losing their pigs, they pleaded with Jesus to leave the region rather than expressing gratitude.

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HOW THIS COMPARES TO OTHER GOSPEL ACCOUNTS

Matthew's account is brief (about 7 verses) and features two demon-possessed men; Mark's parallel (chapter 5) is much longer (about 20 verses) and features only one man, named "Legion." Matthew's version centers attention on Jesus's authority; Mark's more detailed version centers attention on the restored man himself. Luke also has a shorter parallel account, closer to Mark's single-man version.

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Group discussion highlights:

• The region (Gadarenes/Gergesenes) was Gentile territory in the Decapolis (ten Greek cities), not Jewish land — which explains the presence of pig herds and suggests everyone involved (the possessed men, the herders, the townspeople) was likely non-Jewish, not Israelite.

• Geographic tension noted: the named towns were 5–30 miles from the lake depending on translation/location, raising the question of how pigs could run "down the steep bank into the lake" from that distance — discussed as possibly an unresolved geographic detail, a different/unnamed body of water, or simply compressed narrative distance.

• Jesus likely made the crossing intentionally to get away from the crowds pressing Him on the western shore, landing in unfamiliar, non-Jewish territory for a period of relative peace — which then turned into another significant encounter.

• The healed man's fame-spreading throughout the Decapolis (per Mark) was noted as a pivot point — an early instance of the gospel reaching a clearly non-Jewish population.

• ​If this was Jewish territory, why was there a herd of pigs?

• The pigs may have been there because the region was near Gentile Greek cities (the Decapolis), outside strict Jewish jurisdiction. Symbolic dimension: pigs were an unclean animal associated with Rome, so the demons going into pigs and then drowning would have carried a politically charged message for Jewish onlookers — Rome's symbol being destroyed.

• Non-practicing Jews may have quietly broke dietary laws, or there might have been a market supplying pork to the Roman army. Or even just merchants and travelers passing through.

• It may have been in one of the Decapolis cities — which would explain the presence of pigs entirely.

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August 23rd, 2026

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Matthew 8's account of the two demon-possessed men at Gadara:

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• How did the demons know to ask if Jesus had come to torture/judge them "before the appointed time"?

• John Walton’s Demons and Spirits in Biblical Theology — Walton cautions against reading the question as automatically eschatological, since the text doesn't demand a "future cosmic judgment" reading.

• The group noted this caution matters more for anyone coming from an end-times-oriented tradition (like Pastor Russell's), since that lens shapes what the text seems to imply.

Recognition of Jesus & the Tartarus rabbit hole

• Discussion turned to the demons instantly recognizing Jesus as "Son of God" — striking, since even ordinary people often didn't grasp this yet.

• This led to weighing how much authority to give 2 Peter 2:4 ("cast into Tartarus, to be kept for judgment"), given:

  • Uncertainty about Petrine authorship

  • 2 Peter/Jude's reliance on non-canonical apocalyptic material

• The group traced "Tartarus" itself — not a Dante invention, but rooted in classical Greek philosophy (Plato's Gorgias, ~400 BC).

• This extended into the Septuagint's use of Tartarus-language in Job and Proverbs, and back to the Genesis 6 Nephilim narrative and the law's prohibition on consulting "familiar spirits."

Grounding the discussion in the story's purpose

• One member offered a narrative reading of the spirit realm's investment in the whole biblical story:

  • Drawing on Paul's language of believers being "a spectacle to men and angels"

  • Watching from Eden onward to see if Satan's rebellion would succeed

  • Likely knowing Jesus before the incarnation, as the one through whom they were created

  • "Legion" reflecting beings aware some judgment is coming, without knowing exactly when

• The group kept returning to the point that, regardless of how deep the angelology goes, the story's core purpose is showing Jesus' authority over the supernatural.

Wrestling with the pigs

• One member admitted they couldn't fully make sense of the demons' choice:

  • They clearly knew who Jesus was and expected change, just not this abruptly

  • Entering the pigs gave them no apparent benefit, since the herd drowned within minutes

  • Takeaway: the story is simply an admonition to stay away from occultism and spiritism

• Since the demons don't die when the pigs do, what did they actually gain from the swap?

Metaphor, Rome, and the danger of over-labeling

• The story may function partly as metaphor:

  • Matthew's account is far shorter than Mark's and omits "Legion" and the 2,000 pigs

  • Raises questions about harmonizing two independently written sources

  • A Roman legion's symbol was reportedly a boar — "Legion" may carry a coded reference to Roman occupation and the cost of Pax Romana

• Then one member reflected more personally:

  • Believes possession is real in principle, but wary of how readily some traditions label things demonic when it’s mental illness

  • Warned against a "devil made me do it" mentality that avoids personal responsibility

  • Concluded this is fundamentally an unseen-realm question, so prefers not to dwell on it

Where the real line is: seeking vs. being afflicted

• Building on the earlier point about the law against consulting familiar spirits, another member argued laws like that exist because of real consequences for breaking them.

• Dividing line: not mental illness vs. possession, but whether someone actively seeks out contact with the spirit world.

  • Consulting someone believed dead means encountering something pretending to be them — something older than them, and not benevolent

  • Connected this to the ambiguity of Mary Magdalene's "seven demons" (literal vs. symbolic of total spiritual overtaking)

  • Even a literal case implies a prior action or extreme motive (grief, vengeance) — people don't become possessed at random

  • Drew a parallel to the vampire-invitation trope as a cultural echo of the same principle

• Pushback: Job was afflicted without seeking anything out.

• Response: God's permission to Satan functioned as the "invitation" in Job's case.

Job, and Satan's hierarchy of concern

• Starting point: a marginal translation renders God's opening words not as "have you considered my servant Job" but as "why have you turned your heart toward my servant Job?" — suggesting God didn't initiate the confrontation; Job's own faithfulness drew Satan's attention.

• From this, a broader model of how Satan operates, as a strategist working through a hierarchy:

  • Most people — no direct intervention needed; Satan can see they're already headed toward failure on their own and simply lets them go

  • Those showing spiritual progress — treated as a potential threat; Satan identifies a known weakness and engineers a trial around it

  • A small number of Job-like individuals — Satan gets personally involved, which God permits because of the confidence he has in that person's ability to withstand it

• Most people in the lowest tier, not yet mature enough to warrant direct attention.

• The core reasoning: the bar for direct satanic involvement is high, and most people are simply left to their own devices below it.

An alternate reading: no possession of the pigs at all

• Barclay offers a very different take: the pigs were never actually possessed.

• In this view, the spirit didn't transfer at all — the sheer commotion and chaos caused by the two afflicted men was what spooked the pigs into stampeding into the water.

Red Sea parallel

• Building on earlier Rome/Legion metaphor, the pigs' drowning connects to the Exodus story — Pharaoh's army drowning in the Red Sea.

• Deliberate literary parallel: ancient listeners familiar with the Exodus account would hear the pigs' drowning and register the same message — that Jesus is more powerful than Rome, just as God's power exceeded Pharaoh's.

• Jesus's rule is presented as categorically better for individuals and nations than Roman rule, when "that day comes."

• Broader hypothesis: that people with trauma (PTSD, and what today gets labeled schizophrenia, etc.) may be especially vulnerable to this kind of spiritual influence.

Can fallen angels procreate? (Genesis 6 revisited)

• The number of fallen angels is fixed, reasoning from Jesus's statement that resurrected people "neither marry nor are given in marriage" and are "like the angels of heaven" — implying angels themselves can't procreate. This inability was precisely what drew fallen angels toward humanity in Genesis 6: procreation was something uniquely available to humans, not angels. This same status differential — angels seeing humans as "lower beings" — may explain why the demons in the Gospel account showed no more regard for the men they possessed than for the pigs they moved into afterward.

• Richard Ruth talk referenced: the "sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair" is sometimes more precisely rendered "daughters of the man" (i.e., specifically Adam's line), suggesting the angels' interest began once they witnessed humans reaching reproductive adulthood — something apparently new and astonishing to them, implying procreation wasn't something they'd seen before, even among animals.

• Expanded on this with a biological framing: procreation requires close genetic compatibility (comparing it to how lions and tigers can interbreed but their offspring can't reproduce further, while humans and chimpanzees can't interbreed at all). This implies angels and humans were closely — but not fully — related, consistent with humans being made "a little lower than the angels. The delay before God's judgment might have functioned partly as a test — floating the possibility the angels hoped to "make their own super race" — not asserting outright malice, just that the act was a violation of the created order regardless of intent.

A tangent on ancient Near Eastern mythology and shared origins

• Some of this material has roots in ancient mythology, which biblical writers adapted for their own purposes.

• Bible existed as oral tradition before being written down, as did every civilization's early history, and that if all humanity descended from a common origin, shared mythological motifs across cultures make sense rather than undermining the biblical account — the stories get diluted over time but trace back to the same origin, and this shared-origin explanation covers other cross-cultural parallels too, like flood narratives.

A tangent on future population and modern gender questions

• If resurrection means no one dies anymore, how does population growth get managed once the earth is filled, given humanity was told to "multiply and fill the earth" but nothing about expanding beyond it.

• Human culture's differentiation between men and women seems to be shifting, and that this may relate to declining interest/capacity for procreation — describing it as already underway, not just a hypothetical future.

• Society becoming "more androgynous and less capable of reproducing."