selective focus photography of person reading book

Reading the Bible

Reading the Bible can be a daunting task, but the goal of many organizations over the years has been to make it easier for the common person to read and understand its message and God’s word.

A good approach

There are two ways that most people approach the Bible – for inspiration and to determine what it means. For inspirational reading it can open one’s heart to God in a very special way. Many people choose to meditate privately or form or join groups that discuss specific passages for the purpose of deepening one’s spiritual side.

On the other hand, not that the two ways never coincide, there are many scholars and regular people that pour over the many pages of Scripture to determine its meaning and revelation to us by God. This takes much care since the Bible has many different literary styles within it. This is most likely due to the reason that it is not just one book, but a collection of books written by many human authors and one divine author. We do not know who all of the authors were. “Bible” comes from ancient words meaning “library”.

In fact, Jews and Christians believe that Scripture was written by humans but under the guise of the Holy Spirit giving the books both human and divine authorship.

The Catholic Church teaches that “the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error the truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation.” Therefore, the Catholic Church believes that what God wants is in the Bible and that it is to benefit us. However, as stated in the beginning, reading the Bible can be a daunting task.

Many mistakes have been made by reading the Bible in a manner that it was not intended to read. For instance, there are many groups out there that take the Bible to be a word-for-word book in which nothing can be taught about Jesus or Christianity unless it is explicitly written in the Bible.

This is a gross error and should be examined carefully. With the first book of the Bible, Genesis, there are two different accounts of creation that happen in two very different orders.

In the first account of creation (Gen. 1:1-2:4) God makes the heavens and the Earth, the animals and then finally man with man being the climax of His creation being as man is created in God’s image. However, in the second story of creation (Gen. 2:4ff-25) God made the heavens and the earth, man then plants and animals. If we take both of these accounts to be literally true we believe in two very different orders of creation at the same time. It is impossible for two contradictory statements to be true at the same time.

Therefore we must conclude that since there are different writing styles in parts of the Bible then possibly the author(s) of these two stories was simply using them to make a specific point rather than providing a scientific account of the beginning of life. Literal translations and interpretations simply leave us open for error and misguidance. Be wary of anyone that treats the Bible as strictly to be read literally.

3 thoughts on “Reading the Bible”

  1. If you read John chapter 3 verse 5 Jesus answered ” Amen, amen. I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. All those who claim to be “born again” do not realize they already were born again when they were Baptized. It is not a Catholic thing. It is a Christian thing. I am a catholic and have both a kjv and a nab. Both bibles say the same thing. Do you not know that Jesus created the Catholic church?

    1. Do you not reallize that we Catholics believe and have faith and trust in Jesus just as non Catholics do? We do not worship what you call idols. Do you call sitting before a cross in your churches idols? Or is the cross a reminder of all that Christ suffered for our sins so we may be in Heaven with him when we die. Sitting before the crucifix is the same thing for us. A statue of the Mother of God is not an idol. She is a reminder of her “YES” to God to be the Mother of HIS son. She reminds us that without that “YES” we would not have the Savior who came to earth to reunite us to God for the sins caused by Adam and Eve. We are saved by the precious blood Jesus shed at HIS crucifixion. We All are. So before you bash the Catholic church, think about who created the church for all of us then think about who created all of the non Catholic churches- man. Man created these churches and it started with Henry VIII. Jesus did not create those churches. Read up on religious history. Satan is not blinding us Catholics. We have our Faith and Belief in Jesus and God’s word. How can that be blinding to us?

  2. I THINK YOU CATHOLICS ARE BLINDED BY SATAN HIMSELF! PLEASE TRY READING THE BIBLE WITH A BORN AGAIN CHRISTIAN THAT KNOWS HIS BIBLE,IF YOU CAN’T SEE THAT EVERYTHING THE RCC TEACHES IS A TOTAL CONTRADICTION TO WHAT THE BIBLE/GOD TEACHES! YOU NEED TO READ YOUR BIBLES (KJV) AND NOT THE RCC CATECHISM,THAT BOOK IS NOT BIBLICAL…WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF PRECIOUS TIME,IF YOU DENY THE TRUTH OF JESUS AND ARE STUDYING A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DOCTRINE THAN WHATS IN THE BIBLE,YOU GUYS ARE IN TROUBLE! PLEASE TAKE THIS MESSAGE SERIOUSLY,I TOOK THE TIME TO WRITE IT FOR GOD AND FOR HIS PEOPLE THAT HE IS LOSING THROUGH THAT FALSE CHURCH! DID YOU EVER HEAR THE VERSE WHEN JESUS SAYS…I LOSE MANY OF MY PEOPLE DUE TO LACK OF KNOWLEDGE? HE IS TALKING ABOUT THE CATHOLICS MAINLY…YOU SIT AMONGST IDOLS AND DO NOT SEE THEM-PLEASE WAKE UP BEFORE ITS TOO LATE.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *