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

[Elsie]

you keep repeating the list of bad Popes.....in 2,013 yewars is that the best you can do???

Is LUTHER the best YOU can do?

Why didn't you KILL him when you had the chance?

[metmom]

LOL!!!!

[Elsie]

my religious organization was promised by Christ to be infallible

HMMMmmm...

I guess that let every man be a liar thingy (Romans 3:4) was just some kinda parabull or something; eh?

[Elsie]

...one out of the 30,000 or so protestant denominations???

You keep repeating this number. Is this the best you can do in 500 years?

At least I produce Names and Evidence - you just mechanically jabber a number as though that is supposed to mean something.

Man up, big boy, and produce a LIST for us all to read!

[metmom]

[Elsie]

The Catholic Church came before the gospels.

Yeah: Genesis 3

[Elsie]

it is perfectly logical and certainly biblical!!!

So; you finally agree that Mary is dead.

Good; as that is a start...

[Elsie]

If Martin Luther had never lived you would be a Catholic and we wouldn’t be having this ridiculous conversation.

If you guys had KILLED him when you had the chance, we wouldn’t be having this wonderful conversation.

Blame Pope Leo X for dropping the ball.

[metmom]

What makes it a hoot is that by their own admission, their 'separated brethren' can be saved, no matter how imperfectly... rendering their whole system wholly unnecessary - After all, the very concept pf a thing made absolutely necessary loses every bit of it's force the very moment it is admitted there is another way.

A little detail that completely escapes the attention of virtually every FRoman Catholic on this forum.

[Elsie]

they said nothing about her death and where she was buried....surely they would have recorded that and honored her burial place, but they didn't.

you are getting it.

Whatever Mary did after the Gospels was so unimportant that it did NOT get recorded.

[Elsie]

At times; she’d probably pack my bag!

[terycarl]

So THAT's why the women went to the tomb!! Hoping to get some FLESH to eat! (Zombies have been around a LONG time it seems!)

your humor is underwhelming

[Iscool]

Catholic scholars compiled the Bible. Deal with it and move on. Without the Catholic Church there would be no Holy Bible.

That's the same as saying without the Catholic Church there would be no God...

So I guess we should thank the Catholic Church for God...

[metmom]

To be deep in Scripture is to cease to be Catholic.

[GeronL]

One is saved through their faith in Jesus/God not the Catholic Church or any other church.

[metmom]

There is not and never has been a scintilla of anti-protestant bigotry on FR.

FOTFLOL!!!!!!!!!!!

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!

[verga]

Catholic scholars compiled the Bible. Deal with it and move on. Without the Catholic Church there would be no Holy Bible.

More than that. It was the Catholic Church that copied the Bible by hand before the printing press. We were the ones that protected it from the barbarian hordes that sacked from and later when the Vandals and Vikings etc... invaded from the north.

[terycarl]

embrace his words, all of them, not just one isolated verse like the catholics.

wait a second....a protestant is accusing a Catholic of picking and choosing individual verses????????the irony of it all!!!!

[metmom]

Catholics have no problem at all understanding scripture....they wrote it.

Catholics are 2,000 years old, eh?

What book did you write?

[Elsie]

Oh the intent of the post was just to be snide then. Got it.

I owe you an apology.

There is another thread (heck; it may be THIS one) that stated the RCC did not ALLOW folks to have their own personal copy of scripture, and it had been bandied back and forth.

My mistake was, not noticing which reply number you were replying to when I jumped into your conversation.

THAT caused me to conclude (improperly) that you had 'moved the goalposts' to BEFORE there was a BIBLE to have possession of in the first place.

You were talking about one thing - and I wrongly assumed you were referring to another.

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I'll slink away now to go see if my crow pie is just about baked...