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

[metmom]

How anyone could give up the Eucharist and follow a faith started by a motal man, instead of the one started by Christ himself, is beyond me.

Nobody is following *a faith*, a religion. We're following Christ.

I also find that that those that gave up the Catholic faith were totally ignorant of it to start with. Poorly catechised is the main reason. No “devout” Catholic would give up their faith. Just ain’t happen.

No devout Catholic would give up Catholicism. I don't doubt that. However, we know exactly what we're rejecting and the claims made by the Catholic church are not supported by Scripture. We're rejecting following a religion.

And I would suspect the reason that the worse Catholic bashers are lapsed Catholics is because deep inside they they know they did the wrong thing to leave the church, so they lash out at and make fun of anything and everything Catholic.........instead of getting on with their new faith.

Well, I will tell you here and now, you're wrong. Nobody is feeling guilty about leaving Catholicism. It's hard to feel guilt about leaving the bondage of a works based religion that doesn't even guarantee what it promises.

[Elsie]

Sorry, it was an honest answer to what I thought was an honest post.

And I appreciate your answer.

[Elsie]

The Church has made mistakes in things not pertaining to faith and morals. When it has, it has corrected them.

Thank you for admitting this, as most FR catholic posters wave them away and jump on poor Luther again, virtually trying him, digging him up, defingeringing him, setting him to the flame and then tossing him into the Tiber.

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I wonder how far the 'mistakes' in the church would have gone if Luther had NOT nailed anything to the church door that day?

[Elsie]

My fingers do not do whgat i woukld loike them to do...

I wish that I could blame fingers; but it's my BRAIN that evidently tosses out completely different WORDS at times!!

[Elsie]

And then there is that problem with my tongue.

Untamed, it rambles on, in the most awful ways at times...

[Elsie]

How anyone could give up the Eucharist

Who has given it up?

We PROTESTants just don't believe it magically turns into REAL flesh and REAL blood when consumed!

[Elsie]

And if that is not the case, why all the anti-Catholic bigotry.

And if that is not the case, why all the anti-PROTESTant bigotry?

It's a two way street.

[Elsie]

Looks like Rome needs to have Counter Reformation II.

[Elsie]

AMEN!

[Elsie]

I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

[Elsie]

the link in post 1683 leads to nonsense

In what way is it nonsense?

Mary is still dead; isn't she?

[Elsie]

FINALLY....you give advice that might work

Ah; Grasshopper!

You are FINALLY getting it!

[Elsie]

...leave the faith for a man-man faith that has no sacraments and no structure.

So these two are the IMPORTANT things in Catholicism?

[Elsie]

The survey showed that 44 percent of adult Americans are no longer practicing the religious affiliation in which they were raised as children...
.
.
.
The only major religious affiliations that are doing better than the Catholic Church in retaining their members are the Jews at 74 percent and the Mormons at 72”.

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Proverbs 22:6

Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.

---

You've got to be taught...

[dsc]

This is going to be my last post on this thread. There’s just no talking to you people.

I said, “Firstly, I am not protesting anything. It is the protestants who are whining about imaginary anti-protestant bigotry.”

You then said, “You were accusing anyone who said there was anti-Protestant bigotry on FR of lying and claimed NONE existed and NEVER had.”

That’s right.

“What followed were numerous posts of amazed non-Catholic Christians - those who deal with blatant anti-Protestant bigotry on a pretty regular basis by a cast of usual suspects but who very rarely “whine” about it.”

And what followed after that was a demonstration that these people could not substantiate the tiniest scintilla of anti-Protestant bigotry.

“Some Catholics, however, seem to get their knickers in a knot over just about anything that criticizes their “church” and scream “anti-Catholic bigots!!!”, as a kind of knee-jerk reaction.”

Neither can this be substantiated. Where you find a Catholic addressing the subject of anti-Catholic bigotry, you will find a demonstration of anti-Catholic bigotry to justify it. This can be substantiated.

“There ARE many more instances of the SAME bigotry Protestants are accused of exhibiting against Catholics by Catholics against ALL Protestants.”

Not one.

“That you have refused to acknowledge what is clear to see by any other objective person demonstrates a type of bigotry all its own.”

No, it demonstrates that I know what bigotry is.

“You have proved that no amount of evidence will change a mind that has already been made. Don’t imagine no one sees it going on.”

It is howlingly hilarious that you say that after days of failing to produce one single instance of anti-Protestant bigotry.

Not one single instance.

Then you say that this: “Firstly, I am not protesting anything. It is the protestants who are whining about imaginary anti-protestant bigotry,” demonstrates that my “memory…seems to be fading.” To prove this, you point out that this statement in my first post, “There is not and never has been a scintilla of anti-protestant bigotry on FR,” was in response to Elsie’s remark, “the height of anti-Catholic bigorty on FR Boggles the mind.”

In your attempt to prove that I was wrong, you proved that I was correct.

And finally, this: “You were accusing anyone who said there was anti-Protestant bigotry on FR of lying”

I find it interesting that I would have been within the rules had I been accusing “anyone” (by which you meant “everyone”) of lying, but in violation of the rules had I been accusing Elsie of lying.

Any open-minded speaker of English would have taken my statement as an implication that Elsie was lying. However, we here at FR know that I would never do such a thing, and therefore assume that I was accusing everyone who says there is anti-Protestant bigotry here of lying.

Wait a minute, though: Wouldn’t such a thoughtless, broad-brush accusation be worse than a sober, thoughtful accusation that one specific poster is lying?

The worse choice is the one that is against the rules.

[daniel1212]

I have been asked if i have any, so that likely is not the problem.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“for Jimmy Swaggart waving a Bible around”

Straw man much?

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“and leave the faith for a man-man faith”

False assumption that presumes an answer. How’s the weather in Fallacyville today?

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“And by they way there are percentage wise more sexual abuse in protestant faiths than the Catholic Church. If you care to see the numbers I can certainly get them.”

Do those dreaded “Luther followers” also shuffle molesters around to protect them and use their “structure” to give them fresh kids, and keep the authorities at bay?

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“Compared to Catholics, only 60 percent of Baptists, 58 percent of Lutherans, 49 percent of Pentecostals, 48 percent of Methodists, 48 percent of Church of Christ members, 44 percent of Episcopalians, and 36 percent of Presbyterians, are still practicing in the Church of their childhood. The only major religious affiliations that are doing better than the Catholic Church in retaining their members are the Jews at 74 percent and the Mormons at 72”.

You seem to miss that we don’t care which church they go to, as long as they follow Christ. Plus the fact on this thread that your “billions” include the 80-90% who do not practice your faith. You count them when convenient though...