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

[narses]

Vet, you are trying to understand spiritual matters with the flesh and it is not possible.

Mindreading is neither Christian nor acceptable behavior here. But you know that, right?

[Salvation]

JuestJust

[Salvation]

“Unless you are baptized with Water and the Spirit.”

[jodyel]

The one that counts in spiritual matters is Spirit. Water (flesh) is the outward sign one has the Spirit.

But if you are just baptizing with water and you think that gives you the Spirit, then think again.

And since none of you get it, guess what that means?

Yep.

[Salvation]

No, in Matthew, Christ sent out the apostles saying (and I paraphrase) “Go to all the nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Without water — there is no baptism in the Catholic Church. The water must be pored on the three persons of the Holy Trinity as they are said by the priest or deacon.

[jodyel]

Unfortunately, I am not PC.

If one does not understand born again and Spirit filled, one may believe in Jesus and think one has the Spirit when one really doesn’t. I don’t have to be a mind reader to see who is born again and Spirit filled. One believer is as plain as day to another believer.

That is what we are dealing with here. And that is why we are trying so hard to get you to see. Yet again, that is the job of the Lord though....we speak the truth and He makes it known to you.

You guys may think you have a pretty neat club in the RCC, but you ain’t seen nothing till you are inside the Lord’s club!

1 Corinthians 2:9

New International Version (NIV)

9 However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”[a]—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

[narses]

” I don’t have to be a mind reader to see who is born again and Spirit filled. One believer is as plain as day to another believer. “

Wrong. Again.

“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.’ “

[Elsie]

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).

Strange...

King James has it slightly different:

27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.

29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.

[narses]

And since none of you get it,And since none of you get it,And since none of you get it,And since none of you get it,And since none of you get it,And since none of you get it,And since none of you get it,And since none of you get it,

Mindreading. Again.

Against the rules here - didn’t you know that?

[Elsie]

Hogwash. Just like the rest of the hogwash flung around by those who cannot resist twisting the facts into a lie rather than face the Truth.

Mary has been dead a long, LONG time...

[narses]

Well said!

[narses]

“Only pagans believe in eating the literal flesh and blood of gods.”

“Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?”

Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.

Whoever eats 19 my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.

For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.

Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.

This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum

Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”

Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, “Does this shock you?

What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?

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.
But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.

And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”
As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him
Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you twelve? Yet is not one of you a devil?”

He was referring to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot; it was he who would betray him, one of the Twelve.” [John 6: 49-71]

[narses]

My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden,
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm:
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree.
He has filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He has sent empty away.
He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy;
As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His posterity forever.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen

Magníficat ánima mea Dóminum,
et exsultávit spíritus meus
in Deo salvatóre meo,
quia respéxit humilitátem
ancíllæ suæ.

Ecce enim ex hoc beátam
me dicent omnes generatiónes,
quia fecit mihi magna,
qui potens est,
et sanctum nomen eius,
et misericórdia eius in progénies
et progénies timéntibus eum.
Fecit poténtiam in bráchio suo,
dispérsit supérbos mente cordis sui;
depósuit poténtes de sede
et exaltávit húmiles.
Esuriéntes implévit bonis
et dívites dimísit inánes.
Suscépit Ísrael púerum suum,
recordátus misericórdiæ,
sicut locútus est ad patres nostros,
Ábraham et sémini eius in sæcula.

Glória Patri et Fílio
et Spirítui Sancto.
Sicut erat in princípio,
et nunc et semper,
et in sæcula sæculórum.

Amen.

She became the Mother of God, in which work so many and such great good things are bestowed on her as pass man’s understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among which she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the Father in heaven, and such a Child . . . Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the Mother of God . . . None can say of her nor announce to her greater things, even though he had as many tongues as the earth possesses flowers and blades of grass: the sky, stars; and the sea, grains of sand. It needs to be pondered in the heart what it means to be the Mother of God.

(Commentary on the Magnificat, 1521; in Luther’s Works, Pelikan et al, vol. 21, 326)

[jodyel]

Oh, I understand what you are telling me. Water baptism is the Catholic thing....unfortunately water baptism is no guarantee of spiritual baptism.

It happens in this order: one is first born again of the Spirit, then one has a water baptism to confirm one has the Spirit.

Water baptism is also done in Protestant churches, but again that is no guarantee of spiritual baptism.

If people waited till they truly were born again to have a water baptism, not many would get baptized by water.

[narses]

"It happens in this order: one is first born again of the Spirit, then one has a water baptism to confirm one has the Spirit."

[jodyel]

Wah, wah, wah.

Go read your dictionary and try to learn some new and bigger words. lol

[Elsie]

Paul’s comment makes sense only if the bread and wine became the real body and blood of Christ.

HMMMmmm...

---

Speaking of making sense; why didn't you start EARLIER in the chapter with verses to look at??

20 When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper.
21 For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken.

22 What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? what shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.

Whatever you say about the elements; they are sure NOT what Paul is describing here! Or in the AMOUNTS described here!

[narses]

“King James has it slightly different:”

So the proddie rewrite has a difference? Who woulda thunk it?

[Elsie]

The fact is that Christ’s flesh avails much!

So THAT's why the women went to the tomb!!

Hoping to get some FLESH to eat!

(Zombies have been around a LONG time it seems!)