How to Read the Bible – A Three Step Plan (written for Catholics - valid for all)

taylormarshall.com ^ | September 30, 2013 | Dr. Taylor Marshall

[NYer]

How do you read the Bible? Today is the feast day of Saint Jerome, who once quipped, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”

“Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” – Saint Jerome

It’s a running joke that if you want to find a Bible verse, you ought to ask a Protestant and not a Catholic. Protestants read the Bible. Catholics not so much.

This raises the question:

Why Don’t More Catholics Read the Bible?

I think the answer lies in the fact that we Catholics go to Mass. The Holy Mass has at least two Bible readings every time. If you pray the Breviary or Liturgy of Hours, multiply that several times.

Joe Catholic says to himself, “Why should I study the Bible? I go to Mass. I hear it there. Check and check.”

There is something beautiful in this. For Catholics, Bible reading is liturgical. Hence, Bible reading remains chiefly a community experience.

Three Step Plan to Kick It Up a Notch

It’s good to listen to the readings from the Bible at Holy Mass. However, we also need a personal (even private) encounter with God in the pages of Sacred Scripture. All of the saints breathed Sacred Scripture. Scripture served as the grammar for their souls. They couldn’t communicate without it.

Here are some basic spiritual needs that you have every single day of your life:

1. Praise – Voicing your delight in God and His provision for your life. Gratitude destroys discouragement.
2. Wisdom – You need practical advice to navigate the complexities of life.
3. Challenge – You need to be lifted higher. You need to grow in your faith. You need to be inspired. You must be an intentional Christian.

So when you wake up tomorrow, do the following:

1. Read a Psalm. Start with Psalm 1. Make it your anthem of praise for that day.
2. Read at least one Proverb. Proverbs are the wisdom morsels of your day. There are 31 chapters. Why not read one chapter every day during the month. Oct 1 is Provers 1. October 31 is Proverbs 31. You get the idea.
3. Read a chapter of the one of the Gospels. This is your challenge. Your Savior challenges you in the four Gospels. He calls you to be not merely a nominal Catholic but a disciple. You cannot seriously read the Gospels and stay lukewarm. Christ speaks in a way that cannot be ignored.

“But I’m so busy. I don’t have the time!”

What? You’re too busy. Sorry, you just got served a yellow card:

That’s a yellow card. You’ve been warned…

Doing these three readings will take you only 3-5 minutes. That’s the time of a commercial break. It will change your life for good. I promise. It takes 21 days to make a habit, so give it 21 days and see if you aren’t hooked. Put the Bible on your night stand and read it in the mornings. Start fresh.

“Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” – Saint Jerome, Doctor of the Church

[Elsie]

Like cancer cells, these non-denominational churches split and divide with increasing frequency, each one claiming to have the truth.

They DO??

Who taught you this?

[Mrs. Don-o]

"For many years, 'we' were actively discouraged from reading it, lest it lead us to question or challenge any dogma officially coming from Church hierarchy."

I don't question your veracity here, Buckeye -- not at all, you have a rep as a truthteller --- but you should change the 'we' to 'I' or 'some of us.' I say that becdause in my 62 years, that has never been true for me or for any Catholic I know.

Though your experence may have been different. Your childhood may have been ruined by rampantly ignorant churcholics! Trahison des clercs!

When I was preparing for Confirmation --- this would have been almost exactly 50 years ago --- we were told by the nuns (SSJ's) that if we didn't have a personal Bible, we should demand our parents to get us one for our next birthday, or Christmas.

I still have mine, Confraternity-Douay translation. In the beginning are prefaces written by the publisher and by Pius XII and quoting saints from wayback, saying "YOU HAVE TO READ SCRIPTURE."

Evidently some people didn't get the memo? But it's misleading to say 'we' weren't told this.

"What mean 'we', Kemosabe!?"

[Mrs. Don-o]

#102

And this was before Vat. II (at least, my edition was published 1960).

And hey, personal Bible reading carried an Indulgence! (Enchiridion Indugentiarium 684.)

Don't you wish you had one?

[verga]

WIFE (whom you claim to love dearly) 2-3 minutes a day.

I have seen commercials for medication that will take care of that problem.

[smvoice]

What, are you kidding, Rashputin?? The whole RCC system is built on the Book of Revelation! If you had only ONE book of the Bible, Revelation is all you would need to build your system of worship. It seems that is all the Catholic Church owned when they set about to create a religion. Read it and see for yourself.

[verga]

The whole RCC system is built on the Book of Revelation! <

You are close, the Mass has quite a bit in common with Revelation. The Lamb's Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth

Great book, I don't advise reading it unless you want to know the truth.

[Elsie]

[Elsie]

Don’t you wish NOW that your chosen religion had KILLED Luther when it had a chance?

[Elsie]

Passover: the YEARLY meal Jesus was eating when He said...

[Elsie]

It's a cunning ploy; designed to get a PROTESTant into wasting their time trying to show it's wrong.

[Elsie]

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“.....Well better for that small amount then NO amount.”

We can agree that some exposure to God’s Word is better than none.

I hasten to add that our standard as believers in Christ is “to love God with ALL our minds” - not being lazy enough to just be spoon-fed like infants.

At what point in Catholicism, are people encouraged to become fully devoted disciples, like workman rightly dividing the Word of Truth? How many do?

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“MPU, have you ever attended a catholic mass? The entire liturgy is worship of God vs the Evangelical service of cherry picking and discussing one piece of scripture. “

Perhaps you missed that I grew up as a Catholic and served for years as an alter boy?

In any case, in numerous Catholic churches, I watched dirges sung in place of joyful worship, watched people where were given part of the truth of the path of salvation live lives of uncertainty, and witnessed the substitution of so many earthly and pagan practices for knowing God and accepting His salvation.

Perhaps you also missed when I posted that in numerous evangelical churches I attended for years, there was a systematic exposition of the Scriptures, book by book, chapter by chapter, and verse by verse - through the Hebrew Scriptures and through the New Testament. ALL of it. Many times. Not repeating by rote just 27% and leaving out 73%, as the mass does.

I aspire for all believers of every denomination to know the full counsel of God’s truth in order to be mature.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“Our club is the ONLY authentic club. Any other clubs are NOT approved by us; the Official Club Approvers that are approved by GOD himself. “

The ONLY Infallible Official Club.

[Rashputin]

It's hard to believe that someone who is so lacking in IQ, knowledge of the doctrines they claim to believe, or an ability to conmprehend they read, that they do not recognize a reference to non-Catholic heretics turning the book of Revelation into a long list of cash cow heresies could also have an ego so bloated that they think anyone would fall for their garbage.

Of course, it is possible that people who toss out obviously childish, twisted, trash could just have a massively bloated ego along with the usual Self and Self Alone narcacisstic fantasies and therefore think FReepers are dimwitted and gullible enough to swallow their absurdities.

Either way, Scripture describes such folks thusly

to make sure we Christians can recognize them at once by their behavior.

[smvoice]

Perhaps you should take your vitriol up with verga, as he agrees somewhat with my post. See his post 116. It must really blow to be you, Rashputin.

[smvoice]

Post 107 is verga’s post to me regarding this subject. Get over yourself, Rash.

[verga]

Perhaps you missed that I grew up as a Catholic and served for years as an alter boy?

I could be wrong, but I believe and "alter boy" would actually be a girl. Now if you were an altar boy ......(J/K, couldn't resist)

[aMorePerfectUnion]

:-)