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

[Revolting cat!]

I see too much heresy from the missionaries of Harold Camping. We oughta bring back those.

[Religion Moderator]

Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“What I said was take the cafeteria catholics out of the numbers and Church attending Catholics STILL make up the biggest faith denomination in the United States. It’s not even close.”

Yea. And yet that doesn’t mean squat.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Ah, moooore Breatharianism pictures...

[NKP_Vet]

While Tyndale had complaints against the Catholic Church, his big problem was with the King of England. It was the King’s activities and his minions who led to Tyndale’s eventual arrest and execution. Tyndale was part of the great intellectual ferment of the time. The outcome was the production of the Luther Bible in German, the Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible and the King James Bible, a version of the Tyndale Bible.

[verga]

It was a Catholic one. Why wouldn’t it admit Christians of any faith that sought admittance?

[narses]

So Scripture doesn’t mean anything in your odd cult? What does? Your opinion?

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Opinions count for little. Gods revelation of Truth is supreme.

Breatarianism counts least

[verga]

The truth is not bigoted.

[verga]

No translation is perfect, though the Catholic one is the closest. Go back tot he original Greek.

[narses]

“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]

[daniel1212]

It would certainly seem that way, Daniel. We’re the “bigots” because we do not adhere to what the “bigots” say. Strange world we’re in,

As RCs are not to objectively examine evidence in order to ascertain the validity of RC claims, but can only defend Rome (and have great liberty to interpret Scripture to do so), thus the (often abused) term "bigot" aptly applies to them.

Meanwhile, as we are often accused of having diverse opinions, and substantially differ from Luther, it would seem we are the ones not unable to change and intractably committed to one opinion.

Granted there are such in the Prot side as well, but the ethos of the latter in essences holds that we are to follow wherever the truth of Scripture leads. Thus evangelicals historically have been staunch defenders of Scripturally sound beliefs we hold in accord with Rome, while dissenting from traditions of men.

[daniel1212]

Pope Gregory XVL XVL??

Good catch; xvi not xvl

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Is it common among Breatharians to double or triple post? To repost the same art?

[narses]

“Meanwhile, as we are often accused of having diverse opinions, and substantially differ from Luther, it would seem we are the ones not unable to change and intractably committed to one opinion.”

Ya think?

“All of the Lent and Easter abomination is pagan and God clearly condemned it in scripture.”

“God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter.”

[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)

[boatbums]

The Church of England had him beheaded not the Catholic Church.

Not just wrong, wrong on all fronts!

William Tyndale (sometimes spelled Tindall or Tyndall) (ca. 1494–September 6, 1536) was a sixteenth century Protestant reformer and scholar who translated the Bible into the Early Modern English of his day. Although a number of partial and complete English translations had been made from the seventh century onward, Tyndale's was the first to take advantage of the new medium of print, which allowed for its wide distribution. In 1535, Tyndale was arrested, jailed in the castle of Vilvoorde outside Brussels, Belgium for more than a year, tried for heresy and treason and then strangled and burnt at the stake in the castle's courtyard. [1] At the time, the Church believed that if lay people had direct access to the Bible they would misinterpret and misunderstand what they read. Possibly, they would question the teaching of the Church and the authority of the priests. By keeping the Bible in Latin, which few other than priests and scholars could, read, the role of the priest as gatekeeper was protected.

Following the publication of the New Testament, Cardinal Wolsey condemned Tyndale as a heretic and demanded his arrest.

Tyndale went into hiding, possibly for a time in Hamburg, and carried on working. He revised his New Testament and began translating the Old Testament and writing various treatises. In 1530, he wrote The Practyse of Prelates, which seemed to move him briefly to the Catholic side through its opposition to Henry VIII's divorce. This resulted in the king's wrath being directed at him: he asked the emperor Charles V to have Tyndale seized and returned to England.

Eventually, he was betrayed to the authorities. He was kidnapped in Antwerp in 1535, betrayed by Henry Phillips, and held in the castle of Vilvoorde near Brussels.

He was tried on a charge of heresy in 1536 and condemned to the stake, despite Thomas Cromwell's intercession on his behalf. Tyndale was strangled and his body burned at the stake on September 6, 1536. His final words reportedly were, "Oh Lord, open the King of England's eyes." http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/William_Tyndale

[boatbums]

Help stamp out and abolish redundancy!

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Wow. Amazing redundancy.

[metmom]

Gee. We keep telling Catholics we follow Christ and His teachings out of the Bible and they keep harping on the tired old mantra that we reject Christ.

Go figure.