Are We Using the Bible The Wrong Way?

Reflections on Word of God Sunday, January 21, 2023

Today's First Reading is from the Book of the Prophet Jonah, and tells the story of Jonah's call from God to go to a pagan city and preach repentance to the sinful people there.

Today's Second Reading is from the First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians. St. Paul admonishes his converts to DO what our Lord himself advised His followers—always to be ready for the judgment.

Today's Gospel is from the Gospel of Mark, reminding us that Jesus came to announce to all men the good news of God's Kingdom and His eternal plan for them...and for them to take action on it.
----- ----- -----
Did you get that?

- Repentance. - Be ready for Gods judgement - Follow Christ in action as a way of life. Some excellent advice, eh? But at this junction I feel we should make a few significant points ABOUT the word of God.

+ When Christ told the people of Galilee..."Repent and believe in the gospel," he did not mean, nor did he imply, "the Bible."

+ When we read in Luke....“He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Lk 24:45) – it isn't referring to, "the Bible."

+ When Matthew wrote the words, “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel...”. he did not mean "the Bible," either.

    I recently undertook a concise history of the Bible's origin and development, and one thing I quickly learned in this labor is just how little myself, and most of us, know about it. This leaves me in a peculiar predicament as regards the Bible:

    I know about it, and I believe its Word as inspired - but I think most people use it the wrong way.

    Let me explain.     I'm reminded that this word, “gospel” had a different connotation than our word, “Bible.”     It referred to the fact that Christ, the Messiah of the Jews, had come in fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures. When Matthew, Luke, and Jesus mentioned, “gospel,” or Scripture, it called to the fufillment of the OLD Testament, the Hebrew scriptures – not the New Testament.

    Remember, at that time, there was no Bible as we know it. There was no New Testament, and there was no future vision for one....that came much later, and for reasons of which most are unaware.
    So where does that leave us?
    Well, in short, it means we have to be careful.

    Today, we have been indoctrinated with the belief that digging around in the Bible is the key to salvation...

”You'll go to heaven if you just read that Bible.”

Well...hold on a minute.
    The Bible, as sacred Scripture, speaks of the Kingdom of God, proclaimed by Christ as the One Son of God, the very essence of God, who endured suffering for our sins, and then entered into his glory. But we find Jesus speaking of the Kingdom of God as recorded in the New Testament over 100 times, and salvation - about 7 times. So what do you think was Christ's focus? And yet, what does everyone focus on? "Being saved," of course, which doesn't even appear in the Bible in just that way. That mental imagery came out of 19th and 20th Century evangelism. But most people focus on that, today. But that was a mere fraction of what Jesus was teaching us.
    In fact, the WHOLE of Scripture speaks of Gods Kingdom and Christ as it's harbinger. But THAT is the important point - the whole thing in context must be understood.
Not just fragments shouted out at church, put on a T-shirt, or used in arguments on Facebook.

    Rather, the whole of the Old Testament, The Epistles and Christ's mission and ACTIONS, from his life, to his death and His Resurrection..., it must all be seen from 10,000 feet.
    Moreover, if we do take this holistic approach, we find some very obvious calls to action as regards our salvation. + Baptism – original, pre-Christ sin, is cleansed through baptism of water and Spirit.

+ Repent — to turn from SIN and die to your old life, and live a new life in the Kingdom which Christ announced.

+ Confess SIN - confession and repentance were cornerstones of what Christ taught the Apostles... and what they taught others. Unconfessed sins are unforgiven sins - which cretes a breach between you and God.

+ Forgive Sins – “as you forgive, or as you do not forgive,” he told His Apostles, and he authorized them to do that. This is also part of admitting ones sins and being reconciled with God for those sins.

+ Partake of the Eucharist – “take my body and eat of it, for the forgiveness of sins...do this in memory of me.” THis was not a symbolic thing - he meant it. The Apostles and all thosewho followed understood that he meant it as just that way.

    Christ was quite clear about the Kingdom of God being with us, now. We should be living in it with our lives, filling our lives with the "yeast" of Gods Kingdom, letting it grow and work from within. His Apostles got the message, too, that this was a crucial, “package deal.” Our short journey toward heaven and the true life which God arranged for us begins here, now, as Christ kicked off the Kingdom.           So lets look at just one instance from the Bible that SHOULD have an impact on us.

    In the Book of Luke, we read of the journey that the un-recognized Lord makes with the disciples going to Emmaus – it ended with a meal, if you recall.
    They all sit down at table, Jesus takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it and offers it to them. At that moment, their eyes are opened, and they recognize Him as Christ.

    However, this lovely scene clearly demonstrates the unbreakable bond between sacred Scripture, living in the Kingdom and the EUCHARIST in the present... It's right there, clearly described.

    But more than that, it shows the Bible ITSELF pointing out that these external sacraments form our connection to the Kingdom of God. Baptism, Reconciliation, Eucharis.     However, they are generally rejected, in part or in whole, everywhere in Christendom outside the Catholic Church... while the same folks who reject them jump to replace these things by re-interpreting the Bible that describes them..., the Bible which didn't exist when Christ instituted them.

    So, if people pick and choose what they want to make Scripture mean, we are left to ask: What IS the value of Scripture?

    We get an inkling of that answer in the Second Letter to Timothy, where Saint Paul urges his co-worker to have constant recourse to sacred Scripture, because... “all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”
    And to quote Captain Obvious, this can be taken to mean that, “Scripture is good.”

    But remember, Paul didn't mean "the Bible" or the New Testament. Those didn't exist in his time. All he knew was what we refer to as the Old Testament,

    What Paul is saying is that, “Scripture,” is good for things like teaching, correction of wayward error, or for 'righteousness training.'
But he does not even suggest that poking around in the Bible in order to interpret it in your way is how to live in the Kingdom of God, nor is it a guarantee of salvation.
    So it follows that when we hear the expression, “word of God,” it means more than that. It literally leads us to follow Jesus - not just by reading what was written about Him after the fact - but to do what Jesus DID in action.

    Because that is really what the whole of the Bible is about – it leads us to faith in the gift of Gods saving grace, our life in the Kingdom of God, and the grace of salvation through an entirety of understanding AND activity.
    This is why we should avoid private interpretation of Scripture, and especially “cherry-picking” from the Bible.

    It's actually a very complex thing, and it even warns us to be careful of doing that lest we misinterpret.
         Okay fine - so how SHOULD we approach the Bible? That answer is simple, and you might not like it if you're a non-Catholic. Here it is:

We should have confidence in the Holy Spirit as He provides inspiration, by...

1. Allowing the Catholic Church to teach us the sacred Scriptures

2. Relying on the Church's Magisterium to authentically interpret Scripture

3. Utilizing the Catechism of the Church, the writings of the Church fathers (who were closer to Scriptures origin than we are), and the Scripture to enlighten us and make the Scriptures the norm in our spiritual life of Gods Kingdom.

    Okay, I know that list will not sit well with those raised on modern, “Bible only, Bible study,” and self-interpretation of Scripture as a routine practice. I understand.

    But there's no way to dodge around it: Most of us are *not* scholars in biblical history, language, culture, etc., and it IS complicated and easy to mis-interpret if we want it to suit ourselves. And well,....Jesus never handed out the first "Bible."

    That library of collected works (as we know it) came way late to the party.

    So when diving into the Word of God, my advice is to get some assistance from the people that made it available in the first place – the Catholic Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, by itself, is literally a study guide that embraces the entire Bible. If you study along with THAT - you'd know what the Bible is about.
Maybe you love Catholics, maybe you hate 'em..., but they've been doing it since the beginning,...nearly 2,000 years. They arent going to come drag you off to Mass, and they won't bite.... so just relax and let 'em help.

References 1. "The Sunday Readings" by Fr. Kevin O'Sullivan, O.F.M., 2. “Aperuit Illis,” Pope Francis S.J., September, 2019, 3. 3. CatholicCulture.org

4. https://youtu.be/5SizJygAeMw?si=Av-WeLkBqeeVJ_yE