Judging
In objecting to the Church speaking out on moral issues, a friend recently quoted the “Judge not…” line from Scripture. It made me think of this…
Tag: Bible
Suffering – Part 1: Is it inevitable?
I’ve been working on a document for a friend which examines the Scriptural perspective on suffering. I thought I’d share a few sections of it here…
Read the Cat!
Yesterday I posted the MP3 recordings of “Dei Verbum”, the document on Sacred Scripture from the Second Vatican Council.
I decided that today I’d also post the section of the Catechism on Sacred Scripture, which draws extremely heavily from that Council document.
Catechism On Scripture (PDF) (MP3)
Speaking of the Catechism, did you know that Flocknote have a service which will email you a short section of the Catechism each day?
Leading a Bible study Feedback: Part 2
Today I’m going to continue looking at some of the feedback I received from my series on Leading a Bible Study. Yesterday I considered the meeting location and today I’m going to look at the comments concerning the discussion itself.
A Bible study leader should try and encourage the shy members of the group to speak up
Impressing Girls at Bible Studies
Have you ever been to a Bible study with a guy who always seems able to find the right page of the Bible in seconds? It’s impressive, right? You’re still flipping backwards and forwards through the Bible while he’s looking smug, polishing his glasses and helping the more attractive females in the group find the right page…
I would suggest that he’s able to find things so quickly, in large part, due to his understanding of the structure of the Bible. We looked at the structure of the New Testament yesterday, so let’s apply what we covered yesterday.
Let’s say that we’re looking for the 2 Timothy 3:15…
We know that Paul wrote this letter. Therefore 2 Timothy 3:15 must appear after the Gospels and Acts.
We also know that if we find ourselves flicking through the epistles from other Saints (James, Peter etc.) then we’ve gone too far.
When we’ve found the Pauline epistles, we have to narrow down our search…
We know that 2nd Timothy is a letter to a person (Timothy), so it must appear in the second half of Paul’s letters, after his letters to communities.
After a little bit of searching we finally come across 2nd Timothy. We turn to Chapter 3 and look to the 15th verse:
…from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. – 2 Timothy 3:15
So it’s clear that understanding the structure of the Bible makes it considerably easier to navigate. Now you can be a Bible ninja too 🙂
From Nathan Huang
The Shape of the New Testament
One of the wonderful treasures of the Catholic faith in the Roman Rite is the Lectionary.
Every Sunday the congregation hears large chunks of Scripture selected from different parts of the Bible, from both the Old and New Testaments:
1. Old Testament passage
2. Psalm
3. New Testament Epistle
4. Gospel Reading
Making Connections
The Readings selected for each week are usually united by a common theme. This is especially true for the Old Testament passage and the Gospel Reading. The brilliance of this arrangement is that it shows the unity between the Old and New Testaments. As the great Early Church Father, St. Augustine, wrote:
“The New Testament is hidden in the Old and the Old is revealed in the New”
– St. Augustine of Hippo, “Quaestiones in Heptateuchum” 2.73
However, as good as this arrangement is, I have found that it can lead to certain difficulties. In particular, Catholics can sometimes have difficulties understanding how the Readings they hear on Sunday relate to the respective books of Scripture from which they are drawn, and also how those books fit into the the New Testament as a whole.
What can be done to address this problem? Well, when leading small Bible study groups, I always begin by asking those present to walk me through their New Testament’s “Table of Contents” page. I do this because, as with most things, once one comprehends the overall structure of something, the contents becomes less intimidating and more memorable because one already understands the framework and context in which that content has been placed.
Clients From Hell
I’m subscribed to Clients From Hell. Here’s a great post from yesterday:
Client: Do you animate bible stories?
Me: We don’t currently, but we can animate anything you like. What do you have in mind?
Client: Well how much is it to animate the bible?
Me: Well it depends on what stories from the bible you want. The duration of the animation, how many characters, sets etc. Do you have a script?
Client: Well I don’t want to elaborate on the bible, I just want to animate it for the kids.
Me: Right, okay, but in order to give you a budget I need to start somewhere so I can figure out roughly how many characters, props and such.
Client: How much time will it take for creation?
Me: The creation of the assets? Characters, sets etc?
Client: No, Creation, in the book of Genesis.
Me: A lot more then 7 days.