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

[CynicalBear]

LOL I see what you did there!

[verga]

Thank you for confirming that the Catholic understanding is spot on and admitting your error.

[jodyel]

“Exactly what we have been telling you guys for years...But yet, you continue to interpret this thing carnally...”

And always will till they are born again. Very tough attempting to get “born again and Spirit filled” thru to the natural man.

[CynicalBear]

>> the Catholics wrote the Bible and did not include any errors...God said so.<<

Book, chapter and verse please.

[jodyel]

Yes, one SPIRITUAL truth and it takes being indwelt with His Spirit to understand any of it rightly.

Natural man cannot understand the things of the Spirit. And once you are filled with the Spirit, the Scripture will come alive to you and you will finally see what we have been telling you all along is true.

And you will be ashamed at what you once believed.

[jodyel]

Indeed!

LOL

[jodyel]

I am not presumptuous at all.

Jesus gives assurance of salvation and it is heartbreaking that anyone would teach anything else.

It is why I always say, vlad, that one must be born again of the Spirit to understand spiritual things. They make no sense to the natural man.

Work on that humor, vlad!

Oh, vlad, ya gotta lighten up some!

[jodyel]

It is not rubbing off on me unfortunately, although I am beginning to see the funny side and not be so deadly serious. Maybe that is a start.

[CynicalBear]

He answered that just 10 verses later in that same conversation.

John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

He wasn’t talking about the carnal flesh in verse 53 that you quoted. If Catholics would study scripture instead of the RCC they would know that.

[jodyel]

The Spirit, methinks!

[jodyel]

I meant Go, Elsie as in rah, rah, rah cheering for ya to do that. :)

[CynicalBear]

>> she was assumed into Heaven, taken there by the power of God, not ascended on her own power<<

Book, Chapter and verse please. Surely the apostles would have taught that had it happened.

[jodyel]

My humor will never match his, but it’s nice not to be so deadly serious all the time and just get angry. lol

[jodyel]

Forgot...be indwelt by the Spirit. :)

I find that always helps.

[verga]

And always will till they are born again. Very tough attempting to get “born again and Spirit filled” thru to the natural man.

Where does it say you need to be born again?

[jodyel]

The natural man knows nothing of the Spirit, verga, which is why no one gets it until they are.

We were all there at one time and remember it well. And it is what we pray for all of you. Once indwelt with the Spirit, you will understand.

We don’t want you to have Protestantism, we want you to have the Spirit...and once you do you will shake your head and marvel at God and the way He works.

[jodyel]

I think someone already replied to you, Vet, so I’ll let that reply stand.

[jodyel]

You must be born again of the Spirit, Vet, and that is all any of us here want for all of you. We truly are not the enemy...we were all there at one time and remember how we struggled too. But God in His mercy reached down and gave us His Spirit and now we can understand spiritual things.

Pray for the Spirit. Only He can give it to you.

God bless,
jodyel

[jodyel]

Spiritually reborn or born again.

Jesus to Nicodemus...ya know that passage.

Unless you are born again of the Spirit, you won’t understand it just like Nicodemus did not.

Pray for the Spirit...God’s Spirit to indwell you....and when it does...get ready for the ride of your life. Cause life in the Spirit is never dull!

[CynicalBear]

I don’t know where Catholics cut and paste that from but we have seen it word for word often enough. They always leave out the part where Jesus explains that He was speaking spiritually and not about the actual carnal flesh. Actaully it’s only the pagans who portend to actually eat the physical flesh of their gods.