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

[boatbums]

“They” are getting to be pretty easy to interpret, don’t ya think? ;o)

[daniel1212]

The first part reminds of those emails that come with the letters in the words all mixed up. It is to show how wonderful the mind’s eye is that it can see past the goofy order of the words and know what the correct one is. I could read it without the translation but am only so so at Scrabble;)

That is good. I was trying to type at a comfortable pace but do better i go slower, and when my hands are warmer .

[Elsie]

Posting the same error twice only makes you twice a wrong.

remember that...

---

Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.^[1]

Pope John XII (955–964), who gave land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife.

Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, 1045, 1047–1048), who "sold" the Papacy

Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), who is lampooned in Dante's Divine Comedy

Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), who complained that he did not hear enough screaming when Cardinals who had conspired against him were tortured.^[2]

Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), a Borgia, who was guilty of nepotism and whose unattended corpse swelled until it could barely fit in a coffin.^[3]

Pope Leo X (1513–1521), a spendthrift member of the Medici family who once spent 1/7 of his predecessors' reserves on a single ceremony^[4]

Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), also a Medici, whose power-politicking with France, Spain, and Germany got Rome sacked.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Popes

[Elsie]

... No kidding really, I am shocked That was Iscool I was quoting, he admitted in the post I quoted that he was one of the two people who said heaven was in outer space.

So?

EVERY catholic in this thread says that Mary is alive in heaven!

[Elsie]

There’s nothing TO ‘interpret’; just READ it!

[terycarl]

Oh, you mean like the "we've been here for 2013 years" date? The time that would be thirty years BEFORE Jesus' ministry even got off the ground? If you cannot be honest about the little details tell me why should you be trusted with the big ones?

since you, nor anyone else on Earth, knows the exact date when Christ appointed Peter to head His church....why not accept my guess as accurate as any other ???

[terycarl]

like He said we should - in REMEMBRANCE OF HIM and recognizing we are all part of that one loaf

one must always remember his/her fifth grade english class where we learned to diagram a sentence in order to learn its' true meaning...

Christ said"Do this(so far an imperative sentence telling you what to do....THIS) and then He tells you why to do THIS.....in remembrance of Me....the entire command is to do THIS....why is irrelevant!

[terycarl]

post 1869....again your diatribe on the few bad Popes there have been in the 2,013 year old history of the church....and by the way, without the Catholic Church telling you about all those bad boys, you’d never have heard of them....we keep our own house clean.....by the way, there was no one else in the world who would have done it....we had to do it ourselves.....say “thanks Catholics”

[terycarl]

I can afford to give the state of Indiana a dollar .....and hope to win something. I'm smart enough not to.

I might win....you never will

as an aside I know a man who won 1 million...has a bar/restaurant here in Indiana, and I know of 2 women who won $50,000 each....you don't buy a ticket to enhance your retirement package, you include it in your entertainment budget and....who knows???

[terycarl]

Christianity has been brought forward(saved in many instances) by the Catholic Church.... Elijah!! How ya been, boy??

Elijah was out of here LONG before Christianity was established By Christ on Peter and the Apoetles...I merely point out that without Catholics, you would have no idea of who Christ was.

[terycarl]

You should have KILLED Luther when you had the chance.

Christianity would be in far better shape if they had....sigh, oh well, next time

[terycarl]

Mighty bold talk for a one-eyed fat man!

I'll have you know that I have two eyes!

[terycarl]

1. cause to change in form, character, or function. "production processes that converted raw material into useful forms"

in every example in your "convert" example, except the one concerning socialism, the conversion was upward....you don't convert down!...convert iron ore into a useable product...convert crude oil into gasoline, convert money into the many uses it was intended for....you NEVER convert gasoline into crudw oil...you never convert a Catholic into something lesser.

[terycarl]

As intelligent as you claim to be, history does NOT record the fact that Catholicism invented the Counter REVOLT to try to correct some of it's excesses.

Luther could not "reform"...he could only revolt

the Catholic church, on the other hane could indeed "reform" and in some cases she did....reformation comes from within, revolution is reserved for those who leave the parent institution and decide to start their own....

see:American revolution...didn't change England one iota...just launched a different version of government...

[terycarl]

So? If you guys are right, the crackers and grape juice we partake of WILL turn into the 'real stuff' when we consume it; just like yours

nope, unfortunately it doesn't work that way, I could get into the sacristy of the local Catholic church, chow down on hosts, drink all the altar wine I could handle and it would be no more benefit to me that attending a protestant "communion" service....The Priest (Catholic) has recieved the SACRAMENT of Holy Orders, a Sacrament instituted by Christ...and by entering into the Sacrament, the priest has been given the power, by God, to consecrate bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ...That's a truth that has been accepted by Christianity for 2,013 years....close enough for me!!!

[terycarl]

But isn't that the height of foolishness??? One standing on the inside screaming, 'you can't leave', to the one standing on the outside...

Not if you're in the Catholic Church, or a bomb shelter, or a tornado shelter.....

[Iscool]

Not if you're in the Catholic Church, or a bomb shelter, or a tornado shelter.....

LOL...

Or perhaps a septic tank...

[terycarl]

post 1923....I wonder where wikipedia could have ever come up with that “naughty Pope” information...probably where they, and you, came up with everything that you know about the new testament, and most of what you know about the old testament...the Catholic Church!!!

[terycarl]

EVERY catholic in this thread says that Mary is alive in heaven!

you say she isn't....chapter and verse please....and I'm not asking you to prove a negative, I'm asking you to prove erroneous, a point declared to be a dogma of the church. which was promised to be free from error by none less that Jesus Christ Himself...