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

[terycarl]

The FACTS are that the Catholic Church did NOT start when the Catholic Church now CLAIMS that the Catholic Church started.

since the Catholics were the only ones around....we get to name the date....not someone who dropped in on the party 1,600 years late!

[terycarl]

Every pope mentioned in this list was CATHOLIC

WOW!!!!!!your brilliant list of naughty Popes again...I hadn't seen it in ...say a week or so...but it still proves nothing other than that there are sinners in the Catholic Church.....just like any other....and yes, every Pope mentioned was Catholic......but they, in declarations pertaining to faith and morals were.....get this.....infallible...If you don't believe it, YOU point out one, just one, instance where any of them issued a church teaching that was in error.....I didn't think so.

[terycarl]

your post 1628 describes Protestantism prefectly

[bramps]

I have said repeatedly that it is absolutely impossible to have an intelligent discussion about theology/ religion/ Jesus with a protestant
.................................................
let me guess, you feel this way about more than one topic or group of people.

[terycarl]

Why would God, the Creator of everything that ever was, allow His Son to come and live in us, stained vessels that we are?

er....I thought that was the reason He came...to become one of us and offer us salvation in spite of the fact that we were stained....But He still wouldn't have arrived, as God, in a stained vessel when He could create a pure one.

[metmom]

But He still wouldn't have arrived, as God, in a stained vessel when He could create a pure one.

Then why not make all of us pure and save the world a whole lot of suffering?

If He could do it for Mary, He could do it for EVERYONE.

[terycarl]

Yet they brag like a rooster.

to quote a prominant moslem "if you can do(did) it, it ain't bragging"

[terycarl]

The RCC's problem is a failure to EXcommunicate.

WOW, twice in a week or so you have made an intelligent posting....you're right in that the Catholic should be much more obvious in her admonitions to those who are....not less than perfect....but outright ignoring and blaspheming church teachings. some of our present day politicians fill the bill fully.

[terycarl]

It's a good time to put it to the test, Rome "faithfuls". We won't look, we'll pretend we're not hoping and praying that truth will win out.

I need the true Eucharist, and I like the whatssoever you shann bind on shall be bound in Heaven reading....she is 2,013 years old, I'll stick by Her....she can"t be wrong and Christ promised to be with Her until the end of time......long enough for me!!

[terycarl]

81% of all Protestant converts from Catholicism

you don't "convert" from Catholicism....Convert indicated an advancement or upward movement. You deny true Christianity and follow a human founded sect when you fall away from the church.

[terycarl]

what we're rejecting and the claims made by the Catholic church are not supported by Scripture. We're rejecting following a religion

which claims aren't supported by the scriptures given to you by the Catholic church???

rejecting following a religion founded by Christ Himself, on the Apostles.....for one founded by Luther, wesley, Calvin, Knox, Henry VIII, joseph Smith, Parkham, William Booth London, or maybe Aimee semple Mcpherson??????

[terycarl]

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

doesn't really matter, does it?? As intelligent as Luther probably was, he didn't seem to know the difference between "reform" and "Revolt"....he revolted....didn't work out too well!!

[metmom]

which claims aren't supported by the scriptures given to you by the Catholic church???

The assumption of Mary to start with. You certainly ought to be able to find some verse of Scripture somewhere that tells us it happened, can't you?

That missing mass is a mortal sin.

That suffering pays for sins.

That there is no salvation outside of the Catholic church.

[terycarl]

Who has given it up? We PROTESTants just don't believe it magically turns into REAL flesh and REAL blood when consumed!

you have given it up....UNBELIEVABLE...

you think it is crackers and grape juice

Catholics believe that it is the Body and Blood of Christ....just as He said it was....more than once

[terycarl]

...leave the faith for a man-man faith that has no sacraments and no structure. So these two are the IMPORTANT things in Catholicism?

yes, Sacraments like the Eucharist, Penance, Matrimony, Holy Orders.....and structure, so that we are all pretty much on the same page....not spouting thousands of various philosophies based on which of the Protestant "denominations" that we adhere to.

[terycarl]

Then why not make all of us pure and save the world a whole lot of suffering? If He could do it for Mary, He could do it for EVERYONE.

I think that He only did it four times, Adam, Eve, Mary, and Himself....could he have done it for everyone???, I think that was the original idea until Adam and Eve sinned

[NKP_Vet]

Once baptised Catholic,you are always Catholic. If you fall away from the Church you are a LAPSED CATHOLIC. I could care less what PROTESTant faith you might have joined. God will not hold that against you. Try putting your eternal soul before your own earthly interests and go to Confession and get back into your faith. AMEN.

[NKP_Vet]

AMEN.

[NKP_Vet]

Catholics believe the same as the Church Fathers that lived 2,000 years. The REAL PRESENCE! Amen.

[NKP_Vet]

Catholics believe the same as the Church Fathers that lived 2,000 years ago. The REAL PRESENCE! Amen.