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

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“I merely point out that without Catholics, you would have no idea of who Christ was. “

Somehow, I think the omnipotence and sovereignty of God would have accomplished His will.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“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!!! “

Evidence please.

Start posting for every 10 years during the first 100 years after christ and then every 25 years after that. Or admit you like to blow smoke.

[NKP_Vet]

He also made another change in Romans. Romans 4:15 states,

...because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression.

Yet in his German translation, Martin Luther added the word ‘only’ before the term ‘wrath’ to Romans 4:15

This presumably was to attempt to justify his position to discredit the law.

[metmom]

OK, I’ll raise you a Genesis 3:15 where God tells Eve that the offspring she bears will bruise the serpents head and the Catholic version changes the pronoun from *he* to *she*.
http://biblehub.com/genesis/3-15.htm

And Acts 2:38 where Peter tells the Jews to *repent* and the Catholic Bible translates the Greek word for *repent* as *do penance*.
http://biblehub.com/acts/2-38.htm

Now, about that criticism of changing the Bible......

[boatbums]

He also made another change in Romans. Romans 4:15 states, ...because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression. Yet in his German translation, Martin Luther added the word ‘only’ before the term ‘wrath’ to Romans 4:15 This presumably was to attempt to justify his position to discredit the law.

Why shouldn't the "law" be discredited? It cannot bring salvation but DOES only bring down the wrath of God against all sin. But I looked up the dispute at http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/search?q=romans+4%3A15, a very helpful site for your future reference prior to using that Luther card again. In it we learn:

That something she read previously may have been Patrick O'Hare's Facts About Luther. Father O'Hare states, "Romans IV, 15; 'the law worketh wrath,'' he translates, 'the law worketh only wrath,' thus adding a word to the text and changing its sense." Luther's translation reads, "Sintemal das Gesetz nur Zorn anrichtet; denn wo das Gesetz nicht ist, da ist auch keine Übertretung." Father O'Hare is certainly correct as to the way Luther translated the verse.

On the other hand, is the sense of the meaning changed by using the word "only"? Luther states in The Bondage of the Will, "Again, since the law is the power of sin [I Cor. 15:56] in that it serves only to reveal and not to remove sin, it makes the conscience guilty before God, and threatens it with wrath. That is what Paul means when he says: “The law brings wrath” [Rom. 4:15]. How, then, could there be any possibility of attaining righteousness through the law?" [LW 33:271]. Or as he states elsewhere,

The Law cannot restore the soul, for it is a Word that makes demands on us and commands us that we shall love God with all our hearts, etc., and our neighbors as ourselves (Matt. 22:37, 39). It damns him that does otherwise and pronounces this sentence upon him (Gal. 3:10; Deut. 27:26): “Cursed be everyone who does not do all the things written in the Book of the Law.” Now, it is certain that nobody on earth does that; therefore the Law comes in due time with its sentence and only grieves and frightens the souls. Where no help is provided, it presses them so that they must despair and be lost forever. St. Paul therefore says (Rom. 3:20): “By the Law comes only knowledge of sin,” and (Rom. 4:15): “The Law brings only wrath” [LW 12:164]. I would certainly be interested in any Roman Catholic explaining why the way Luther rendered the verse changes its sense (as Father O'Hare argues). In the context of Romans 4, the Law certainly is bringing only wrath. Perhaps it's because Father O'Hare believed the works of the law aid justification. If that's the case, Luther responds:

Paul excludes all works so completely as to say that the works of the Law, though it is God's law and word, do not aid us in justification. Using Abraham as an example, he argues that Abraham was so justified without works that even the highest work, which had been commanded by God, over and above all others, namely circumcision, did not aid him in justification. Rather, Abraham was justified without circumcision and without any works, but by faith, as he says in Chapter 4: "If Abraham were justified by works, he may boast, but not before God." So, when all works are so completely rejected — which must mean faith alone justifies — whoever would speak plainly and clearly about this rejection of works will have to say "Faith alone justifies and not works." The matter itself and the nature of language requires it.

"But," they say, "it has an objectionable tone, and people infer from it that they need not do any good works." Dear me, what are we to say? Is it not much more offensive when Paul himself, while not using the term "faith alone," spells it out even more bluntly, putting the finishing touches on it by saying "Without the works of the Law?" And in Galatians 1 (as well as in many other places) he says "not by works of the law." The expression "faith alone" may perhaps be glossed over somehow, but the phrase "without the works of the law" is so blunt, offensive, and scandalous that no amount of interpretation can help it. How much more might people learn from this that "they need not do any good works," when they hear this teaching about the works themselves stated in such a clear strong way: "No works", "without works", "not by works"! If it is not offensive to preach "without works," "not by works," "no works," why is it offensive to preach "by faith alone"?

Still more offensive is that Paul does not reject just ordinary works, but works of the law! One could easily take offense at that all the more and say that the law is condemned and cursed before God, and so we should be doing nothing but what is against the law, as it is said in Romans 3: "Why not do evil so that there might be more good?" This is what one Rottengeist of our time began to do. Should we reject Paul's word because of such "offense" or refrain from speaking freely about faith? Dear me, Saint Paul and I want to offend like this, for we preach so strongly against works and insist upon faith alone just so that people will be offended, stumble and fall, that they may learn that they are not saved by good works but only by Christ's death and resurrection. Knowing that they cannot be saved by their good works of the law, how much more will they realize that they shall not be saved by bad works, or without the law! Therefore, it does not follow that because good works do not help, bad works will; just as it does not follow that because the sun cannot help a blind man to see, the night and darkness must help him to see.

I am amazed that anyone can object to something as evident as this. Just tell me: Is Christ's death and resurrection our work, that we do, or not? Of course it is not our work, nor is it the work of any law. Now it is Christ's death and resurrection alone which saves and frees us from sin, as Paul writes in Romans 4: "He died for our sins and rose for our justification." Tell me, further: What is the work by which we take hold of Christ's death and resurrection? It cannot be any external work, but only the eternal faith that is in the heart. Faith alone, indeed all alone, without any works, takes hold of this death and resurrection when it is preached through the gospel. Then why all this ranting and raving, this making of heretics and burning them at the stake, when it is clear at its very core that faith alone takes hold of Christ's death and resurrection, without any works, and that his death and resurrection are our life and righteousness? As this fact is so obvious, that faith alone conveys, grasps, and imparts this life and righteousness — why should we not say so? It is not heretical to believe that faith alone lays hold on Christ and gives life; and yet it seems to be heresy if someone mentions it. Are they not insane, foolish and absurd? They will admit that it is right but they brand the telling of it as wrong, though nothing can be simultaneously right and wrong.

Is your assertion that the "law", in Paul's use of it in Romans, does not bring the wrath of God? Perhaps you need to dust off your Bible and read the whole book of Romans.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“This presumably was to attempt to justify his position to discredit the law.”

So if Luther was on FR, you would be mind reading?

[boatbums]

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

Great. Please post some evidence from 2000 years ago from a Church Father. That would be 3 AD. Show what you have.

Just got done reading this article about The Wobbly and Heretical Evolution of Rome's Doctrine of Real Presence. Interesting how that what the Catholic Church now claims to believe was once considered BY the Catholic Church as heresy. We learn:

The doctrine concerning the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, not coming into special discussion, remained indefinite and obscure [during the period from 100-325 AD]. The ancient church made more account of the worthy participation of the ordinance than of the logical apprehension of it. She looked upon it as the holiest mystery of Christian worship, and accordingly, celebrated it with the deepest devotion, without inquiring into the mode of Christ’s presence, nor into the relation of the sensible signs to his flesh and blood. It is unhistorical to carry any of the later theories back into this age; although it has been done frequently in the apologetic and polemic discussion of this subject.

By the end of the sixth century this Greek concept, which could have served the interests of a more balanced theology of the Eucharistic sacrifice, was no longer present to the Western tradition. At the same time the tendency of the Western theology of Eucharistic sacrifice toward postulating a complete disjunction between the historical sacrifice of the cross and the Eucharistic sacrifice received additional support from Pope Gregory the Great’s saying that “(Christ) in the mystery of the holy sacrifice is offered for us again (iterum)” [from Dialogorum libri iv 4.58 (PL 77.425CD). This text is one of the earliest that refers to Christ being “newly” offered. Supported by the authority of Gregory it became an important proof text for the notion that the sacrifice of Christ is repeated in each Mass in an “unbloody way” (19-22).

Thus we have come full circle: here we have papal affirmation (and it’s Pope Gregory The Great!) of the very opposite of what the Scripture teaches, in which Christ died “once for all,” and “is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

Modern Roman Catholicism has tried to play down that embarrassing “repeated in an unbloody way” language, and have made the effort to re-adopt the “re-presentation of the one sacrifice” imagery; but modern Roman Catholics should know that is a Greek concept that Rome once rejected.

For those Roman Catholics who think that Rome’s doctrine of the Eucharist is somehow the Eucharistic doctrine of the Lord’s Supper that was held by the earliest church, you are just simply deceived. You are putting more faith in the vascillating “traditions” of the Roman church, than you are in either the genuine early traditions of the church, or the clear teachings of Scripture on this matter.

[Jvette]

Had a post that I thought I completed. It appears I didn’t.

Will have to redo later since I have no time now.

[NKP_Vet]

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/christ-in-the-eucharist

Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16). So when we receive Communion, we actually participate in the body and blood of Christ, not just eat symbols of them. Paul also said, “Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. . . . For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor. 11:27, 29). “To answer for the body and blood” of someone meant to be guilty of a crime as serious as homicide. How could eating mere bread and wine “unworthily” be so serious? Paul’s comment makes sense only if the bread and wine became the real body and blood of Christ.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“That is, we give thanks to God for the cup because of what it symbolizes, namely our sharing in the benefits of Christ’s shed blood (cf. 11:25).
Likewise the bread used at the Christian feast, the Lord’s Supper, is a symbol of our participation in the effects of Christ’s slain body (cf. 11:24).

The Greek word here translated “sharing” (NASB) or “participation” (NIV;
koinonia) in other places reads “fellowship” or “communion.” This is why another name for the Lord’s Supper is the communion service.” TC

It is a symbolic sharing/fellowship together in memory of His actions at Passover. He commanded us to do this in memory of Him - not to resacrifice. him.

[terycarl]

Where they swerve off into guesswork, wishful thinking or assumptions - especially when these are contrary to Scripture - then we should trust in Scripture rather than the proclamations of fallible men

the Catholic Church wrote scripture so they officially NEVER declare anything contrary to it. The proclamations she makes are not made by fallible men, but by an infallible hierarchy....guaranteed so by Christ Himself....I'll buy that!

[aMorePerfectUnion]

When you wrest that passage out of its context - the problem in Corinth of participation in pagan feasts - you completely miss Paul’s line of reasoning.... That participation in pagan feasts is sharing in demonic power. Sharing the Communion service with believers is a sharing in the reality of Christ and what He did.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“the Catholic Church wrote scripture “

No they did not. There were no Romanistic Christians at the time.

[terycarl]

I was baptized twice

the first time that you were officially and legitametly baptized, you were baptized Catholic and you remain a Catholic, not a practicing one, but a Catholic nevertheless......if the first baptism was, for some reason invalid, and the second was necessary, you were then baptized Catholic.....whenever a valid baptism takes place, it enables you to be a member of the Christian church....since the Catholic church is the only true and complete Christian church, you are baptized into her....WELCOME HOME!!!....you cannot be baptized into a denomination.....imposible. You are baptized Catholic and decide, for whatever reason, to fall away from the true church....then so be it, you are a member of a Christian denomination that is incomplete...

[NKP_Vet]

The Catholic Church started before Christ died. It means Universal. Part of that Church was called Roman Catholic after the Great Schism in 1054, when the Christian churches in the East and West separated.

The East–West Schism is the medieval division of Chalcedonian Christianity into Eastern (Greek) and Western (Latin) branches, which later became commonly known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, respectively.

Technically, there is no Roman Catholic Church. The proper name is Catholic Church. And this Catholic Church compiled the Holy Bible. Working through the Holy Spirit, the Church determined what would be inspired and not the inspired Word of God.

[terycarl]

The ACT of water baptism is supposed to be done AFTER one receives Jesus Christ and makes a personal decision to follow Him in newness of life.

that is almost a perfect description of what the Sacrament of Confirmation....Confirmation is a Sacrament through which the Holy Spirit comes to us, in a special way, to enable us to profess our faith as strong and perfect Christians and soldiers of Jesus Christ.

I learned and memorized that in 4th grade, St. Rose of Lima Catholic school, Milwaukee, in 1947.....it still applies.

[terycarl]

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 ???

the RCC is infallible in that matter, others aren't.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Three errors in your post...

1. The Church started at Pentecost, when believers were baptized into the Body of Christ.

2. Oh, there is a Roman Catholic Church that over centuries combined paganism with Christianity.

3. The Roman church did not “determine” what would be inspired. You claim to have a degree, and yet your post makes it clear that you do not understand Inspiration, Transmission, or Preservation. Send your degree back, or ask for a refund.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“
the RCC is infallible in that matter, others aren’t. “

No it is not. Never was. Never will be.there is no evidence to prove your claim. It is simply an opinion.

[terycarl]

And, after that, you must 'remember' just what the THIS was, that Jesus was talking about: a yearly REMEMBERANCE meal of GOD's saving mercy from bondage to the Egyptians. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What Most of Christianity has done to this MEAL is indescribeable

the Passover meal, an old testament jewish celebration was, indeed, a very special occasion...still is, However, the last supper is now a Christian tradition and celebrates Christ's institution of the Eucharist, wherein He consecrated bread and wine into His body and blood and gave the apostles the power and authority to continue the practice....for 2,013 years the true Christian church has taught just that....what Christianity has done to this meal is to continue it as Christ ordered....DO THIS...in memory of Me