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

[metmom]

Nope, He needed a courier, someone to spread the word, so He founded a Church and ordered her to do so....the Catholic Church.....Smart, wasn't He??

Except that you're wrong. The Bible, written by that Jew Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, tells us that.

Romans 3:1-2 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.

So if it's true that the Catholic church wrote the Scripture, they tell us here that Scripture came from the Jews.

So you are wrong. Consider yourself corrected.

[boatbums]

why would God, the creator of everything that ever was, allow His Son to come to Earth in a stained vessel???? common sense has a lot to do with reality would the body of a sinner be the appropriate house for the Holy Redemmer to abide in??? would He arrive in less than a PERFECT environment???

I join Metmom in asking you to provide even ONE Scripture passage that says Jesus, Almighty God incarnate, required anything MORE than that a virgin would conceive and bear the Messiah. All you really have is wishful, human thinking that God NEVER said was necessary. He came to earth in an imperfect environment, he touched unlcean things and people - that IS the reality. In fact, Jesus was born as a human being like we all are and, with the exception of Mary's virginity - which was how he was not born in sin - she labored with his birth and she brought him forth as a normal child. Scripture says:

But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. (Galatians 4:4,5)

You won't find ANY verses that say Mary had to be sinless - and if she had to have been, then her mother would also have to have been and on and on. Whatever you mean by a "stained vessel" is purely without merit because Jesus was born as a HUMAN man. His sinlessness was because He was GOD, not because his mother was sinless. Scripture says ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God - that means ALL humans who are not God. This casts NO aspersions on Mary - it is how God said it happened. Mary didn't need to be sinless for God to be incarnated.

[metmom]

Do you have one good thing to say about Catholics? It borders on the ridiculous. I post something positive about my faith, and it is immediately attacked.

Maybe if you posted something TRUE about your church instead of just something positive, you wouldn't be challenged.

Makes no difference whatsover what is posted. If it’s Catholic, the longknives come out.

Now THAT's funny, coming from a Catholic, considering the RCC's history of dealing with those who dare to disagree with it.

[boatbums]

According to your lamebrain graft there are no Catholics in the US military. Show me on the graft were the word Catholic is mentioned.

Did you miss lines 22 and 23 on that lamebrain graft(sic)?

[metmom]

it was Elsie who claimed that ALL MEN (Jesus was 100% man) were sinners...I merely questioned the logic of that statement....Pay attention please, before you make inane accusations.

It was Elsie IIRC, who posted SCRIPTURE that says....Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Your issue is with the Holy Spirit, or the RCC who Catholics claim wrote the Bible, not with Elsie, who should have been courtesy pinged since you mentioned his name.

[metmom]

It isn't the unbelief that condemns us but that we stand condemned coming into the world due to our sin nature which is at enmity with God.

It's like the Catholic mindset is that people are saved by default until they reject Christ which is not a Scriptural position, but rather the truth is, we are condemned until we accept Christ.(John 1:12-13)

[metmom]

Ouch.

Another poorly catechized Catholic exposed, I see.

[metmom]

ampu:That takes away +80% of those you counted as catholic when you claimed 1 billion catholics...

tc:WOW, with the same ratios describing all the other churches, there would be 7 Lutherans and 3 1/2 methodists and 2/3 of a pentecostal.

Following your *reasoning* for lack of a better term....

That would mean that there is 560 Lutherans in the world, 280 Methodists, and 53.3333 Pentecostals.

I think your math is a little off.

[metmom]

Nope. I didn’t make the claim. It’s up to the person who makes the claim to support it. Nobody is obligated to take anyone’s say so without evidence.

[metmom]

That’s not a chapter and verse.....

[boatbums]

The Bible is a Catholic document. Without the Catholic Church there would be no gospels. The Catholic Church came before the gospels.

You HAVE to know that the teachings of Jesus as well as further revelation through the Holy Spirit to Paul, Peter, James, Jude and John began to be put in written form within the first two decades of the establishment of the Christian church, copied and distributed to the various assemblies, don't you? What I presume you to say is that there was no "Bible" until the Catholic Church bunched all those books together and called it the canon (the rule of faith). The use of the word "catholic" (c. 105 A.D.) to refer to the universal faith followed by these local assemblies of Christians is NOT the same thing as what came to be known centuries later as the Roman Catholic Church. Let's at least agree on these facts.

Believers and disciples of Jesus Christ began from the moment Jesus began his ministry (perhaps sooner among some of his family) and those who followed Him and heard his teachings - which later were written down through the leading of the Holy Spirit - were the nucleus of the body of Christ, His church - the called-out assembly. It continued to grow especially after the resurrection and the infilling of the Holy Spirit and the entire world was changed by them. But, to call them "catholics" as if they were equal to what calls itself the Roman Catholic Church today is simply untrue. These men and women weren't even called Christians until Antioch - way after Pentecost happened and it was a pejorative term.

If "catholic" means the universal church, the body of Christ, then you guys will have to accept that this includes ALL those who genuinely ARE Christ's - from all times, walks of life and people. You don't own the word.

[metmom]

I realize that there are a zillion misinterpretations of these (not entirely accurate quotations)commentaries, but that is the problem...if 2,000 different interpretations come in to your blog, doesn't that tell you that you should let those, far more capable than you, interpret scripture??????

My blog? What blog?

A *zillion*? How many zero's is that? How many years of study did you take to arrive at that number? How many 0's is that?

Can you provide a link to that source?

2,000 different interpretations? Really? Care to show us where you found 2,000?

However, you're on. Here's a link to some non-Catholic commentaries for this verse....

http://biblehub.com/commentaries/matthew/16-18.htm

And since not 2,000 different interpretations showed up, as far as someone more capable of interpreting Scripture, the Holy Spirit does just a fine job. Better than the non-Spirit filled Catholic commentaries.

[boatbums]

NOTE: UNIVERSAL pope in Rome. Even IF those guys were named bishops of Rome, they did NOT have universal jurisdiction over all of Christendom. There were bishops in Antioch, Jerusalem, Constantinople, Alexandria and elsewhere. Get a history book.

[metmom]

oh great, you are an official nothing....I guess that makes it easier to play golf on Sunday morning...nowhere else to go...no Catholic church, no Lutheran church, no Evangelical church....just "I'LL DO IT MY WAY"...wasn't there a song by that title.....and, after all, life is so much easier if you have no one to answer to....

There are literacy classes available to improve your reading comprehension.

I do not belong to a denomination. Denominations do not save. Jesus does. I am a follower of HIM, not men or man-made organizations.

I answer to Him and Him alone. Hardly the easier road.

[metmom]

tc:Maybe they are and maybe they are not, but He is FAR MORE impressed by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass because He said so...

God tells us what sacrifice we should offer...>

Romans 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

[dsc]

“I’ve good a pretty good idea what ARROGANCE is though.”

No, I don’t think you do.

[dsc]

“Mary is dead.”

She returned her soul to God two millennia ago, certainly.

Do you really think her soul is dead?

[metmom]

LOL!!!

The hypocrisy abounds.....

[dsc]

“The hypocrisy abounds.....”

Ah, now we are joined by an individual who doesn’t know what hypocrisy is.

Can we get a panel member who doesn’t know what “is” means?

[dsc]

“I suppose the solution would be to ping you every time Prots are broadly maligned as you see being done to Catholics.”

I’m more than okay with that. If it’s happening, I’d like to see it.

Perhaps, though, we should agree in advance on a neutral arbiter who would decide whether comments made were indicative of bigotry.