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

[jodyel]

I guess some think that is the only way to understand the things of God......but what did God say?

Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

God is Spirit....hence one must be born again of the Spirit to understand the things of God.

Man is flesh...hence one will never understand by reasoning in the flesh.

Man needs to be joined with the Spirit. And God takes great delight in confounding men of education and humbling them with His truth. Anyone not understanding this is NOT born again of the Spirit.

This is what they are after and must pray for it. Don’t just think you have the Spirit.....KNOW you have the Spirit.

[CynicalBear]

>>Oh, I forget, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were pentacostals<<

Well, let’s look.

Pentecostalism or Classical Pentecostalism is a renewal movement within Christianity that places special emphasis on a direct personal experience of God through the baptism with the Holy Spirit. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentecostalism]

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Seems like a personal act to me.

1 Peter 3:12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

Again, looks like a personal relationship to me and by Peter no less.

John 17:23: Christ Himself prays to His Father: "I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one."

Jesus “in us” seems rather personal to me.

Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me."

There again. Rather personal if you ask me.

Romans 8:9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

Galatians 3:27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

Still rather personal if you ask me.

"For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit" (I Corinthians 12:13).

2 Corinthians 1:22 Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.

John 7:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. 39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: Looks like they could be more Pentecostal than Catholic to me.

>> and Jimmy Swaggart is the Pope.<<

Don’t know what Jimmy Swaggart but no popes in either scripture or those that follow it’s truths.

[verga]

Insert Narses YOPIOS cartoon here.

[CynicalBear]

>>What is it about "a Masters Degree in Theology" that dooms the recipient to the dark side?<<

1 Corinthians 1:27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

Isaiah 44:24 Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself; 25 That frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad; that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish;

[verga]

Pop all the corn you want, just don’t hold your breath for a sensible answer.

I gave it the only answer it deserved.

[Salvation]

And many of his followers left him because that was too hard of a saying.

And many non-Catholics have forsaken the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist too.

A loss to those people who left Jesus, and a loss to those who refuse to believe in transubstantiation.

[CynicalBear]

Only pagans believe in eating the literal flesh and blood of gods. Real Christians understand Christ’s explanation in John 6 that it’s spiritual not physical.

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.

But alas, Catholics, being predominantly pagan influenced as they are, insist it’s the flesh.

[Salvation]

**FReeper “aMorePerfectUnion”, I see that you’ve turned your back on the Catholic faith, and converted to some other beliefs. Recently FReeper “.45 Long Colt” said that, out of his caring for Catholics, he was sharing a link pointing to the conversion story of a Dominican priest who became a Protestant, converting like you did.**

This is proselytism and the Pope says it is nonsense!

Juest share the Gospel; that’s evangelization

[NKP_Vet]

“Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and all the others, were keepers of “The Way” of Yeshua, and about as far from catholic as one could get”.

Catholic means Universal. Before the Great Schism of 1054 all were called Christians. Mark, Luke, Matthew and John were Christians. When Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity went their separate ways, they become the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. BUT, all were Christian before and Christian after. The Roman Catholic Church compiled the Bible. In concurrence with the opinion of St. Augustine, and being prompted by the Holy Spirit, Pope St. Damasus I, at the Council of Rome in 382, issued a decree appropriately called,”The Decree of Damasus”, in which he listed the canonical books of both the Old and New Testaments. He then asked St. Jerome to use this canon and to write a new Bible translation which included an Old Testament of 46 books, which were all in the Septuagint, and a New Testament of 27 books.

[Salvation]

Fantastic post! So many sources of information.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“The Roman Catholic Church compiled the Bible.”

It is one prideful rooster who believes his crowing makes the sun rise.

[NKP_Vet]

I went into my degree studies a protestant, and came out a Catholic. The truth is the truth no matter how many times you want to deny it. I was tired of not living the truth. The fullness of the Christian faith is the Catholic Church. Been going strong now for some 2,000 years.

[CynicalBear]

One day you will be horridly disappointed and will probably blame the RCC rather than realize it was your choice. My advice would be the same as the admonishment in Revelation, “come out of her lest ye partake in her plaques”. Unless of course you are not one of “His people”.

[Iscool]

You didn’t answer the question: WHERE does it say you must be born again? Are you admitting the Bible doesn’t say that?

My bible says that, and you know that...Even Peter uses the phrase born again...You've already been drug thru the mud on that topic..Why bring it up again???

[Iscool]

Where is it that you studied Greek again? You see in the definition YOU posted My definition was the PRIMARY definition, yours was a secondary definition in use much later.

How hypocritical...Nine time out of ten one has to search for the itty bitty definitions stuck in the middle or end of the choices to dig out the Catholic definitions of words...

[Jvette]

Such a lovely post!

You are right, it can be difficult to be a Catholic Christian in this world. Grace is a gift and God will pour it out on you for whatever you need. Just ask:)

[Jvette]

Only in the RCC that exists in your fantasy world.

[Jvette]

Of course, in the beginning of the Church, individuals did not have a copy of any of the NT writings and therefore could not read it for themselves.

The readings were only done communally. But, then not everyone is concerned with facts.

[Jvette]

Worse, it makes them mean.

[narses]

“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ “

... unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.