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]

So Holy Scripture means nothing in your world?

When you sin, then what?

“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.’ “

[boatbums]

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.

Another Catholic myth.

[boatbums]

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

But yours is better than the others?

Greek - John 6:37 Πᾶν ὃ δίδωσίν μοι ὁ πατὴρ πρὸς ἐμὲ ἥξει καὶ τὸν ἐρχόμενον πρὸς με οὐ μὴ ἐκβάλω ἔξω

Latin Vulgate - omne quod dat mihi Pater ad me veniet et eum qui venit ad me non eiciam foras

[boatbums]

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

Since when are Unitarian Universalists consider "Christians" in Roman Catholicism?

[metmom]

When you sin, then what?

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity.

Jesus forgives us when we sin.

We don't need a priest to do it or tell us that its been done. God Himself does it, faithfully.

[verga]

Since when are Unitarian Universalists consider "Christians" in Roman Catholicism?

Kenny is one of the strongest Christians I have ever met. He loves Jesus with all his heart and preaches Him every chance he gets. I am somewhat shocked and offended that you would question this mans belief/ faith with out knowing him.

[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.’ “

[narses]

[metmom]

Hey, bb. You got told you were wrong in no uncertain terms.

You had a picture posted at you.

There’s proof if I ever saw it. /s

[NKP_Vet]

Can’t read your graph without a magnifying glass. But once again, the Catholic Church is the biggest Christian denomination in the world and the United States. There are more Protestants combined that Catholics, but here we are talking about all protestant denomations. But when you break them down, no single protestant denomination comes close to the number of Catholics in the country. And I still stand by my statement that lapsed Catholics (those that don’t bother to attend Mass, but media still refers to them as Catholic) are a bigger group than any protestant denomination.

[NKP_Vet]

” His final words reportedly were, “Oh Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.”

Notice he didn’t say “Oh, Lord, open the Pope’s eyes”.

Tyndales translation was so erroneously and deficient that the Protestants tried him for heresy and killed him. His problems was primarily with the Protestants.

As to the Catholic Church, it was the first to make the Bible available in many languages.
Here are some facts that your friend should be aware of:
As has been pointed out many times before, It is the Catholic Church which made the Bible available in the commonly used languages throughout the millennia.

153-170 A.D. THE FIRST TREATISE ON “THE HARMONY OF THE GOSPELS.”: The earliest attempt at constructing a Harmony was that of Tatian (died a.d. 172). and its title, Diatessaron, furnishes abundant evidence of the early acceptance in the Catholic Church of our four canonical Gospels The next Harmony was that of Ammonius of Alexandria, the teacher of Origen, It appeared about A.D. 220,

2nd - 3rd A.D. CENTURY THE FIRST BIBLE SCHOOL: The early Catholics started a school in Alexandria for the learning the Gospels and other early Catholic writings.

250 A.D. THE FIRST PARALLEL LANGUAGE BIBLE: The Catholic Origen creates the Hexapla edition of the Old Testament which contained parallel Hebrew and Greek versions.

250 A.D. THE FIRST CATHOLIC LIBRARY: The Catholic Origen creates a very well-stocked library in Caesarea, for the purpose of studing the Gospels and other early Catholic writings.

250-300 A.D. THE FIRST BIBLE IN BOOK FORM: The Jews used long papyrus scrolls, the Early Catholics were the first to use the book (codex) form for sacred scriptures.

4TH CENTURY THE FIRST USE OF THE WORD “BIBLE” was by the Catholic Church: It came from the Greek word “biblos” which means the inner bark of the papyrus, paper-reed, from which paper was originally made, in Egypt. The Latin form “Biblia” spelled with a capital letter, came to mean “the Book of Books,” “The Book” by way of pre-eminence, the inspired Book, etc. The Holy Scriptures were first called the Bible by St. Chrysostom, the Catholic Archbishop of Constantinople, in the 4th century.
4TH CENTURY THE OLDEST EXISTING BIBLES: The two oldest existing Bible containing both the Old and most complete New Testaments called today the Codex Vaticanus (325-350 A.D.), the Codex Sinaiticus (340-350 A.D.), the Codex Ephraemi (345 A.D.), and the Codex Alexandrinus (450 A.D) were hand copied by Catholic monks.
__________________
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Wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.
Dirige Domine Deus meus, viam meam in conspectu tuo.
http://catholictruth.webs.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-jBa...layer_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5Y1G...eature=channel

To be continued...........

[Elsie]

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

Ok...

There are certain folks on this thread that make unsubstantiated claims.

The jury will toss out their testimony.

[Elsie]

It was the King’s activities and his minions who led to Tyndale’s eventual arrest and execution.

Who was a ROMAN CATHOLIC.

There is NO getting around it!

[Elsie]

Amazing redundancy.

You spelled immature foolishness incorrectly.

[Elsie]

Kenny is one of the strongest Christians I have ever met. He loves Jesus with all his heart and preaches Him every chance he gets. I am somewhat shocked and offended that you would question this mans belief/ faith with out knowing him.

Luther was one of the strongest Christians I have ever heard of. He loved Jesus with all his heart and preached Him every chance he got. I am somewhat shocked and offended that you would question this mans belief/ faith.

[Elsie]

Notice he didn’t say “Oh, Lord, open the Pope’s eyes”.

Or, "Oh Mary; pray for me!"

[boatbums]

Kenny is one of the strongest Christians I have ever met. He loves Jesus with all his heart and preaches Him every chance he gets. I am somewhat shocked and offended that you would question this mans belief/ faith with out knowing him.

You are "shocked and offended" that I would question a man's beliefs when that seems to be mostly what FRoman Catholics do here on a daily basis even to those who confess Jesus Christ as savior and Lord! I don't know your friend "Kenny" and my question was not geared to him personally, as you should have known, just that the UU church is often attacked by Roman Catholics here as not being Christian because they doubt the Trinity.

I would question why a "strong" Christian would choose to worship in a church that professes:

Unitarian Universalism welcomes people with diverse beliefs. Individual Unitarian Universalists may identify with and draw inspiration from many different religious or philosophical traditions, which can include Atheism/Agnosticism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Paganism. http://www.uua.org/beliefs/faq/index.shtml

Odd that. Perhaps because Catholicism is growing more "Ecumenical" in its views, the UU church is peachy keen with them all!

[boatbums]

Right...question all statistics as “Fractal Wrongness”. I didn’t create the chart. Maybe you could help your cause by posting one that DOES match what was claimed? Go ahead, prove you can do more than post inane cartoons in lieu of intelligent dialog.

[boatbums]

ANNNNND NOW we see the FRoman Catholic double-step back! Yee-haw!!!

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“Can’t read your graph without a magnifying glass. But once again, the Catholic Church is the biggest Christian denomination in the world and the United States. There are more Protestants combined that Catholics, but here we are talking about all protestant denomations. But when you break them down, no single protestant denomination comes close to the number of Catholics in the country. And I still stand by my statement that lapsed Catholics (those that don’t bother to attend Mass, but media still refers to them as Catholic) are a bigger group than any protestant denomination.”

Once again, who cares? There are more Hindus than practicing Catholics. Who cares?

Once again, why do only 10% of Catholics go to mass? What are you guys doing to them?

Once again, why are you bragging about how lapsed Catholics outnumber practicing Christians?