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

[aMorePerfectUnion]

It is interesting that you brag about the Catholic Church, while Christians here are focused on Christ...

[metmom]

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.

Well, then, if you are not going to consider all of Protestantism as one denomination, to be consistent, we will need to break Catholicism into all the sects or rites that exist in it.

The EO consider Roman Catholicism wrong, schismatics. They claim to be the original church which the Roman rite left.

There is not a whole lot of unity and warm fuzzies towards each other in some of the different Catholic rites.

Roman Catholicism has a snotty holier-than-thou attitude towards other Catholic rites which irritates those in the other rites.

Last count by a FReeper was that there were some 22 Catholic rites. Hardly the unity it likes to claim.

[metmom]

God promises to forgive my sin if I confess it to Him.

No mere man is going to get off telling me that that man himself retained any sins of mine that God promised He would forgive if confessed.

God is not subservient to the whims of man.

[Elsie]

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

[Elsie]

You can't spell narcissist without a certain catholic on this thread.

[verga]

as you should have known, just that the UU church is often attacked by Roman Catholics

Your statements did not attack the UU church it questioned the Christianity of a dear friend that always displayed more Christian charity than I see from the vast majority of the anti-Catholics on this forum.

[Alamo-Girl]

Truly, I would be concerned if I were in the majority of Christians:

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. - Matthew 7:13-14

God's Name is I AM.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

AG,
I agree. It isn’t about numbers - not for Gideon and not for His own in this age. It is only about Him and His glory.

Blessings.

[Alamo-Girl]

Amen!

May God bless you always, dear AMorePerfectUnion!

[NKP_Vet]

Henry the 8th was excommunicated from the Catholic Church by Pope Clement before he “Henry” had Tyndale put to death. To call Henry the 8th a Roman Catholic, when he despised anything to do with the Church and made himself the sole head of the Church in England is playing loose with facts. The truth of the matter is the Catholic Church didn’t have Tyndale’s killed. Henry the 8th did. Henry the 8th was head of the Church of England, not the Roman Catholic Church.

[NKP_Vet]

“Last count by a FReeper was that there were some 22 Catholic rites. Hardly the unity it likes to claim”.

Rites? How many Protestant rites are there? 35,000 or is it 50,000? All coming up with their own idea of what the Bible says and what constitutes the Word of God and morality. How many say it’s perfectly OK for two homosexuals to get “married” and have women preachers? How many could care less about murdering the unborn. Their doctrine is based on show of hands, not the Holy Bible. How many different rites in the land of PROTESTism. 35,000, 55,000, 100,000 or does it even matter?

[terycarl]

Okay...reconcile Extra Ecclesia Nulla Sallas with Lumen Gentium. One Pope claims outside of the Roman Catholic Church no one can be saved and the other, also from a Pope, claims that people CAN be saved outside of membership in the Roman Catholic Church

easy..encyclicals are letters...thoughts...not ex cathedra teachings. There are a very limited times when a Pope speaks Infallibly....the others are opinions....one pope feels this way..another that way...like politicians I guess

[terycarl]

You are saying that all Protestants reject the truth of Jesus Christ and do not follow Him?

YES, I am saying that all Protestants have denied the fullness of Christianity....Do they follow Christ...not fully, do they deny Christ, not deny, but not fully follow either...Christ formed a church and instructed His followers to adhere to what He had originated...Catholics have done so for 2,013 years...Protestants decided in the 1600's that they knew a better way.....they were wrong.....do they still follow Christ, yes, but in an incomplete way.

[terycarl]

that bottle of bloody milk was cool....stupid, but cool!

[terycarl]

Who weren't smart enough, evidently, to INCLUDE their TRADITIONs so that THEY would be called 'scripture'; too!

nope...traditions aren't scriptures, but both are equally important...do you suppose that the earliest Christians, say for the first 100 or 200 years had written scriptures, books, papers, teachings, papyrus documents to read (they couldn't read)...nope, they had tradition, people speaking to them from experience or hearsay...probably more tradition than the written word advanced Christianity for probably the first 300-400 years...there just wasn't the availability of written documents which nobody could read anyway...

[terycarl]

I didn’t think so. Because there IS NO verse in Scripture that says that salvation is only through the Catholic church and that all who believe are Catholics.

in those exact terms, of course not, but in meaning..The earliest of the followers of Christ, Apostles, diciples, friends, family, whatever of Christ became known as Catholic....Christ established a church through which they, and mankind could seek salvation...that was the Catholic Church. Those who follow His lead will prosper, those who don't.....who knows??

[terycarl]

But is a total, unsubstantiated false statement, offered without evidence from you. In fact I’ve yet seen any evidence to back up any claim you’ve made in your posts on this thread... Please post what you have. I’d like to see it.

it is impossible for me to print everything that the church has proclaimed that is true...however it is even more impossible for you to print even one...1....one...1 thing that the dhurch has proclaimed that is in error.....1 one

[terycarl]

I do not have to disprove your truth claim. You have to show it is true. You, apparently cannot. That is called “your opinion

now a little common sense should apply here....

I say all scripture is true, you say it isn't and ask me to prove that it is/??? I say that all Catholic Church proclamations are true, you say they aren't and ask me to prove my point.....I'd have to provide every scripture and every Catholic proclamation, explain them, show examples of every one....impossible, However, all you'd have to do to prove me wrong is provide 1...one....1 example of an incorrect scripture or 1...one...example of a Catholic church proclamastion that was in error.....one

[terycarl]

I post “Jesus is God”, I post “Mary was assumed into Heaven”” The first I accept based on Gods Holy word. The second is the opinion of a Pope and you. No evidence.

Jesus promise, whatsoever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven....do you suppose that He left room for error???