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

[NYer]

Is John 6:63 not in your Bible?

Not only is it in my bible, the Catholic Church ensured it was also in yours.

It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
John 6:63

Are we to understand that Christ had just commanded his disciples to eat his flesh, then said their doing so would be pointless? Is that what "the flesh is of no avail" means? "Eat my flesh, but you’ll find it’s a waste of time"—is that what he was saying? Hardly.

The fact is that Christ’s flesh avails much! If it were of no avail, then the Son of God incarnated for no reason, he died for no reason, and he rose from the dead for no reason. Christ’s flesh profits us more than anyone else’s in the world. If it profits us nothing, so that the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ are of no avail, then "your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished" (1 Cor. 15:17b–18).

In John 6:63 "flesh profits nothing" refers to mankind’s inclination to think using only what their natural human reason would tell them rather than what God would tell them. Thus in John 8:15–16 Jesus tells his opponents: "You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone that judge, but I and he who sent me." So natural human judgment, unaided by God’s grace, is unreliable; but God’s judgment is always true.

And were the disciples to understand the line "The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life" as nothing but a circumlocution (and a very clumsy one at that) for "symbolic"? No one can come up with such interpretations unless he first holds to the Fundamentalist position and thinks it necessary to find a rationale, no matter how forced, for evading the Catholic interpretation. In John 6:63 "flesh" does not refer to Christ’s own flesh—the context makes this clear—but to mankind’s inclination to think on a natural, human level. "The words I have spoken to you are spirit" does not mean "What I have just said is symbolic." The word "spirit" is never used that way in the Bible. The line means that what Christ has said will be understood only through faith; only by the power of the Spirit and the drawing of the Father (cf. John 6:37, 44–45, 65).

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.

The writings of the early christians ALL confirm this understanding.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Great quotes - two hundred to five hundred years after Christ!

What can you copy and paste from the first one hundred years?

[CynicalBear]

>> Are we to understand that Christ had just commanded his disciples to eat his flesh, then said their doing so would be pointless?<<

Either that or Catholics need to understand that what the RCC teaches is total error. Hmm, either Jesus contradicted Himself or the RCC is in error. Not a tuff choice for non Catholics.

There you go posting that same apparent cut and paste. We have been through this before and not that long ago. Jesus was clearly explaining that He was talking spiritually and not carnally like the Catholics think. Catholics need to seriously pray the Holy Spirit enlightens their heart and mind.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“Not only is it in my bible, the Catholic Church ensured it was also in yours.”

The prideful rooster believes he causes the sun to rise when he crows tooo!

[NYer]

Hmm, either Jesus contradicted Himself or the RCC is in error. Not a tuff choice for non Catholics.

Many of His disciples could not accept this teaching and walked away. In that group was Judas. It is a hard saying ... but He said it and the Catholic Church has followed His command ever since.

There you go posting that same apparent cut and paste. We have been through this before and not that long ago. Jesus was clearly explaining that He was talking spiritually and not carnally like the Catholics think.

Centuries before someone decided to form the evangelical church that you attend, christians accepted the words of Christ and followed them.

Ignatius of Antioch, who had been a disciple of the apostle John and who wrote a letter to the Smyrnaeans about A.D. 110, said, referring to "those who hold heterodox opinions," that "they abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again" (6:2, 7:1).

Forty years later, Justin Martyr, wrote, "Not as common bread or common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, . . . is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (First Apology 66:1–20). Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Theodore of Mopsuestia ALL testified to this belief. The early Church took John 6 literally. In fact, there is no record from the early centuries that implies Christians doubted the constant Catholic interpretation. There exists no document in which the literal interpretation is opposed and only the metaphorical accepted.

But you go ahead and follow the lead of Judas and the others who walked away. We Catholics will continue to follow the words of Christ.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “. but He said it and the Catholic Church has followed His command ever since.” <<

. no he didn’t say it!

Yes, the RCC , as usual has followed the pagan idea to the death, spiritual death.

The gospels are chock full of misunderstandings of Hebraisms by a translator when the Greek was made.

These glaring non-sequiturs show that whoever wrote the Greek was never present when Yeshua, or any other Jew spoke. The disciples speaking Hebrew slang would not be easy for a Hellenist to grasp, unless they were raised in a Jewish synagogue.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “Not only is it in my bible, the Catholic Church ensured it was also in yours.” <<

.
Laughable, but so deeply wrong!

The gospels were well established in the synogogues 2 centuries before the RCC was created.

[CynicalBear]

>>Many of His disciples could not accept this teaching and walked away.<<

Yep, they misunderstood just like the Catholics. Difference is that Catholics have no compunction about eating flesh and drinking blood.

>>Centuries before someone decided to form the evangelical church that you attend<<

And what “evangelical church” do I attend again? It’s the first I’ve heard of it so enlighten me please. Why do Catholics form beliefs not based in fact?

>>We Catholics will continue to follow the words of Christ.<<

Not even close. Those pagan rituals, practices, vestments and beliefs that are incorporated into the RCC are not “words of Christ”.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “Many of His disciples could not accept this teaching and walked away. In that group was Judas.” <<

.
That is an absurd mistake for even a catholic to make!

John 6 was early in Yeshua’s ministry. Judas was with him, carrying his purse of money, until the evening before the crucifixion. Yeshua passed a sop of bread to Judas at the supper that evening.

[boatbums]

You miss the point entirely. These heresies were based on an erroneous interpretation of scripture. It took the Catholic Church years to correct these man made beliefs based on faulty reading fo the writings of the Bible.

Just because I reject your explanation doesn't mean I missed the point. Yes, the Christian church leaders disputed heretical teachings about the divinity of Christ and they used the Holy Scripture to do so. How else was there authority for it? Athanasius, for example, disputed the Arians on the deity of Jesus by using the better argument from Scripture. From http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/Ancients_on_Scripture.html#2:

Athanasius, who attended the Council of Nicaea, disagreed. He explained that Jesus' eternality and the teachings of Nicaea are *clearly* Biblical:

"It is plain then from the above that the Scriptures declare the Son's eternity; it is equally plain from what follows that the Arian phrases 'He was not,' and 'before' and 'when,' are in the same Scriptures predicated of creatures." (Four Discourses Against the Arians, 1:4:13)

"And let them [the Arians] blame themselves in this matter, for they set the example, beginning their war against God with words not in Scripture. However, if a person is interested in the question, let him know, that, even if the expressions [used by those who oppose Arianism] are not in so many words in the Scriptures, yet, as was said before, they contain the sense of the Scriptures, and expressing it, they convey it to those who have their hearing unimpaired for religious doctrine." (Defense of the Nicene Definition, 5:21)

"Vainly then do they run about with the pretext that they have demanded Councils for the faith's sake; for divine Scripture is sufficient above all things; but if a Council be needed on the point, there are the proceedings of the Fathers, for the Nicene Bishops did not neglect this matter, but stated the doctrines so exactly, that persons reading their words honestly, cannot but be reminded by them of the religion towards Christ announced in divine Scripture" (De Synodis, 6)

"A Desire to learn and a yearning for heavenly things is suitable to a religious Emperor; for thus you will truly have 'your heart' also 'in the hand of God.' Since then your Piety desired to learn from us the faith of the Catholic Church, giving thanks for these things to the Lord, we counselled above all things to remind your Piety of the faith confessed by the Fathers at Nicaea. For this certain set at nought, while plotting against us in many ways, because we would not comply with the Arian heresy, and they have become authors of heresy and schisms in the Catholic Church. For the true and pious faith in the Lord has become manifest to all, being both 'known and read' from the Divine Scriptures." (Festal Letter 56:1)

"And this is usual with Scriptures, to express itsellf in inartificial and simple phrases." (Four Discourses Against the Arians, 4:33)

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“Centuries before someone decided to form the evangelical church that you attend, christians accepted the words of Christ and followed them.”

Two thousand years ago, every Christian was evangelical. Christ commanded them to evangelize.

[roamer_1]

Many of His disciples could not accept this teaching and walked away. In that group was Judas. It is a hard saying ... but He said it and the Catholic Church has followed His command ever since.

And in doing so, the Roman church must needfully ignore that Yeshua Himself explains that He is speaking of spirit.

The gist of the entire passage shows Yeshua purposefully winnowing His so called 'followers' to weed out the ones who would not truly follow (to include Judas). Even His inner circle (which did stay) had problems with what He said, until after, when He revealed an explanation - Whereupon, btw, there was no further question at all.

One cannot ignore the explanation, but that is what the papists must do - Include the explanation, and the only thing that makes sense is an intentional winnowing... Those that would think Him capable of breaking Torah, would not truly be His followers... Those that waited found out He did not break Torah.

[verga]

Okay so "again" is a tertiary meaning, we won't even consider it then. Lets stick with the actual definition, the primary definition "From above"

I thought that was how I remembered it from the Grad level classes I took in Koine Greek.

[verga]

Where did you do your study in Greek?

[CynicalBear]

It has to get really old for Catholics to be so wrong so often about what scripture says.

[editor-surveyor]

Judas never left.

He was in the “inner circle” until late in the evening before the “trial” when Judas accused Yeshua.

[verga]

Honestly, verga, we can argue Scripture from now till the cows come home but it is God that opens your eyes.

Words mean things. Until protestants learn that they will wander in a spiritual desert, much like Moses and the Israelites did in an actual one. I will offer my rosary that the scales might be lifted from your eyes.

[verga]

Anecdotal evidence does not compare with my post #59 which presents much more than a “huddle” of scripture.

[verga]

No, you just try to change the subject when you don’t have a leg to stand on.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “I thought that was how I remembered it from the Grad level classes I took in Koine Greek.” <<

.
Wow, it must take severe density to come away from those classes with as little understanding as you demonstrate