Posted on 09/30/2013 11:30:08 AM PDT by 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.”
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:
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.
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:
So when you wake up tomorrow, do the following:
What? You’re too busy. Sorry, you just got served a yellow card:
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
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It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. - John 6:63
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Um, 'cause their church tells them it's mythology?
I know this is touted as a “start”, but reading the Psalms, Proverbs and the first four books of the New Testament gets one nowhere NEAR reading, much less studying, the WHOLE Bible (only six books out of 66). It really is ALL intertwined as the “whole counsel of God”. I’m glad that Catholicism is encouraging Bible study independent of what gets used in Mass.
the reason that there are multiple thousands of protestant denominations and only 1 Catholic church is the protestants have decided that they are individually better able to interpret the Bible that are the fathers of the church. The Catholic Church has been interpreting the Bible that they wrote for 2,000 years...the prottys have given it a try for about 400 years...see the difference???
Contortionist rants aside, how about you demonstrate with chapter and verse where exactly Jesus and the Apostles SPECIFICALLY quoted from these Apocryphal books and approved of them as Divinely-inspired sacred Scripture? You refer to a "canon" that existed "several hundred years prior" to Jesus birth, yet the ONLY ones who would have considered the books that belonged in a canon (rule of faith) would have been those Jews you condemn as "Pharisees who could not possibly have had any legitimate authority". Quite a conundrum, ey?
The Septuagint was a Greek translation of all the recognized Old Testament books and which also included those books called "deuterocanonical" (second canon). The Jewish religious leaders, however, NEVER accorded those books the same level of respect and consideration as those that make up what even today we ALL agree are the Old Testament books of the Bible. They rejected them NOT because of any "Christian" connection - which would be impossible - but because they reverenced what they KNEW had been given to them BY Almighty God and they knew that they were not permitted by God to add to those books He had delivered unto them by His prophets (holy men of God moved by the Holy Spirit). If one reads Jerome's introductions to those Apocryphal books that he included in his Latin translation, he also denies their canonical equivalence. So, in truth, it is not "anti-Christ", "anti-Christian", "Pharisees" who reject the canonicity of these extra books, but Christians down through the ages - just as Old Yeller said. When Jesus or the Apostles quoted Old Testament Scripture, they could have been using the Septuagint, or just plain, old speaking in Greek - which WAS the lingua franca of that time and place. Just because the Septuagint was used, it provides NO proof that the Apocrypha was held with the same esteem as God-breathed Holy Scripture. Jesus and the Apostles also used sayings that were not found in ANY of those books, but their quoting a work does not automatically imply divine inspiration.
Our FRiend Elsie has composed a great little comprehensive list of all the places in Scripture Jesus or the Apostles prefaced their teachings with, "It is written" HERE. Why don't you show us where they did that for ANY of those seven books so praised by some that they place them on par with Holy Scripture and condemn anyone else who disagrees with them.
I was thinking about this the other day how when we buy a car or really any kind of device, it comes with an instruction manual. That book was written specifically for that product by those who developed and built it and it's design is to enable us to effectively utilize said product. When I got a new cell phone, I went through that guide so that I could know how certain things are done on it. I could have ignored the manual and ad-libbed my way through, but to fully get it right and functioning the way it was designed, I really needed to go to the book.
Now, our beliefs are like that. God gave us the instruction manual (the Bible) for our lives and He included everything in there that was necessary for our life and godliness and which, when followed, we can have abundant lives and go to be with Him for eternity. Do some people ignore the Bible and "wing it"? Sure they do. Do some only look up the parts that matter to them and fail to get the "whole picture"? Yep, that they do. Do some just count on others who read the manual to tell them how it all is supposed to work and don't think they need bother with reading it for themselves? Yes, and a few just might meet up with the right person who tells them the truth straight away and they believe. But the new convert should be encouraged to study the manual for his own benefit and assurance. The best results come from knowing how God desires us to live and then obeying Him - having that manual, being familiar with it and comforted by it leads to that abundant life we have been promised. God loves us and wants what is best for us - He gave us the manual to make sure we know that.
Malarkey!
If you are asking this seriously; you might want to study some of the Early heresies.
Adoptionism Belief that Jesus was born as a mere (non-divine) man, was supremely virtuous and that he was adopted later as "Son of God" by the descent of the Spirit on him.
Apollinarism Belief that Jesus had a human body and lower soul (the seat of the emotions) but a divine mind. Apollinaris further taught that the souls of men were propagated by other souls, as well as their bodies.
Arianism Denial of the true divinity of Jesus Christ taking various specific forms, but all agreed that Jesus Christ was created by the Father, that he had a beginning in time, and that the title "Son of God" was a courtesy one.
Docetism Belief that Jesus' physical body was an illusion, as was his crucifixion; that is, Jesus only seemed to have a physical body and to physically die, but in reality he was incorporeal, a pure spirit, and hence could not physically die.
Macedonians or Pneumatomachians ("Spirit fighters") While accepting the divinity of Jesus Christ as affirmed at Nicea in 325, they denied that of the Holy Spirit which they saw as a creation of the Son, and a servant of the Father and the Son
Melchisedechians Considered Melchisedech an incarnation of the Logos (divine Word) and identified him with the Holy Ghost
Monarchianism An overemphasis on the indivisibility of God (the Father) at the expense of the other "persons" of the Trinity leading to either Sabellianism (Modalism) or to Adoptionism.
Monophysitism or Eutychianism Belief that Christ's divinity dominates and overwhelms his humanity, as opposed to the Chalcedonian position which holds that Christ has two natures, one divine and one human or the Miaphysite position which holds that the human nature and pre-incarnate divine nature of Christ were united as one divine human nature from the point of the Incarnation onwards.
Monothelitism Belief that Jesus Christ had two natures but only one will. This is contrary to the orthodox interpretation of Christology, which teaches that Jesus Christ has two wills (human and divine) corresponding to his two natures
Patripassianism Belief that the Father and Son are not two distinct persons, and thus God the Father suffered on the cross as Jesus.
Psilanthropism Belief that Jesus is "merely human": either that he never became divine, or that he never existed prior to his incarnation as a man.
Sabellianism Belief that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three characterizations of one God, rather than three distinct "persons" in one God.
These are just a small sample of the way the train can "jump the tracks". It was the Catholic Church ALONE that fought these early heresies. If you look closely at the early heresies (There are many more you can see listed at Wikipedia.) you will see many of them repeated through the ages into modern time.
.....Well better for that small amount then NO amount.
MPU, have you ever attended a catholic mass? The entire liturgy is worship of God vs the Evangelical service of cherry picking and discussing one piece of scripture.
Excellent, excellent point! Like cancer cells, these non-denominational churches split and divide with increasing frequency, each one claiming to have the truth.
This is true, but this article is about STARTing to begin reading your bible.
It does no good to complain that folks do not solve calculus problems when they've not yet become proficient with multiplication tables.
also keep in mind that a majority of our people are literate and could read the Bible if they wanted to, but they've been brought up on the milk of talking heads on the boob tube, and reading ANYTHING is like Holy Water to Dracula to them; consequently this means that they are subject to false teachers.
"Come to Me, all who are heavy burdened and I will give you rest.
My yoke is easy."
When trying to slog thru Numbers, a noobie is HIGHLY tempted to give up!
This would be a GOOD time to pick up another classic - Pilgrim’s Progress - and readit for a while.
That’s over in the OTHER thread.
This one shows promise of a bit more civil discourse.
(But I’m late getting to it; so we’ll see...)
Oh?
Then what MUST we do, to do the work GOD requires?
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