Today is the final post in my series on leading a Bible study (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5). Here are my concluding Do’s and Don’ts:
DON’T: Forget the heart
I’m a very “head” oriented person. When I study the Bible I like to pull apart texts, examine the words, look at the historical background and get straight to the meaning of the text. It is only after I’ve done all this that I’m ready to engage with the Scripture on a “heart” level. However, I know that in this I am an oddity! I find that most people engage with Scripture on an emotional level much earlier in the process. Therefore, to lead an engaging bible study I must accommodate this and allow people to respond emotionally to the Scripture before we’ve dissected every technical detail of the text.
DON’T: Forget the head
…having said that, don’t neglect the exegesis. I have been to Bible studies before which have been nothing more than a “feeling sharing group”. That was all anyone ever talked about, how they felt about the text! The actual meaning of the text wasn’t even examined.
DO: Keep the hippy, tree-hugging stuff to a minimum… 😉
In this week’s episode, we return to the Early Church and discuss the successors to the Apostles, known as the Early Church Fathers. Somehow Nessa manages to talk about relationships… :-/
* I mentioned my article I’ve written called “Before 300” where I outline 21 documented beliefs of Christians prior to the rise of the Emperor Constantine:
Part #1: The Church
1. The Church is Catholic
2. The Church has a three-fold structure of leadership
3. There is unity through episcopal authority and schism is evil
4. Sacred Tradition is authoritative
5. Worship is liturgical
6. There is Apostolic Succession
7. Peter has Primacy
Part #2: Salvation & Sacraments
1. The Eucharist is a Sacrifice
2. Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist
3. The Eucharist is taken to the sick
4. Infants are to be baptized
5. Baptism actually washes away sin
6. Priests forgive sins
7. Works are involved in salvation
Part #3: The Saints and Our Lady
1. Prayers are said for the dead
2. There is purgation after death
3. Relics are venerated and Saints are celebrated
4. Mary is the New Eve
5. Mary was a perpetual virgin
6. Mary is the Mother of God
7. Prayers are made and songs are sung to Mary
1. Antiquity Did this person live sometime between the time of Christ and the end of the 8th Century? This span of time is called the “Patristic Era” (“Patristic” simply means relating to the Early Church Fathers).
2. Sanctity Did this person live a life of outstanding holiness? Is this person a canonized Saint?
3. Orthodoxy
Did this person hold heretical views? Tertullian and Origen are two early Christians who are typically disqualified here due to some of their erroneous beliefs. We therefore instead give them the title of “Early Ecclesiastical Writers”.
4. Church Recognition and Approval Has the Church and Christians throughout history generally referred to this person as a Father of the Church?
* There were about one hundred Early Church Fathers.
* The Early Church Fathers of the 1st and 2nd Centuries are usually called the “Apostolic Fathers” since they were born during the era of the Apostles.
* We then briefly spoke about three Apostolic Fathers:
1. St. Clement of Rome
* A successor to St. Peter as Bishop of Rome
* He wrote a letter to the Church at Corinth (AD ~96) in response to the ejection of their clergy
* In the letter he gives many Old Testament examples of those who flaunted God-given authority and who suffered the consequences
* In a particularly beautiful passage reminiscent of 1 Corinthians 13, Clement exhorts the Corinthians to love. I had a small rant about 1 Corinthians 13, pointing out that Paul is speaking of “agape” love rather than “eros” love.
2. St. Ignatius of Antioch
* A successor to St. Peter as Bishop of Antioch
* Taken to Rome in chains (AD ~107) to be thrown to wild animals
* Wrote seven letters, one to St. Polycarp (see below), several to nearby Churches and one to the Church in Rome
* In his letter to the Roman Church he begs them to not interfere with his coming martyrdom: “I beseech of you not to show an unseasonable goodwill towards me. Suffer me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of God”
* In the account of his martyrdom, the Governor tells Polycarp to say “Caesar is Lord”, but Polycarp knew that “Christ/Jesus is Lord”. He was told to “revile Christ”, but he responded: “Eighty-six years have I served Him, and He never did me any wrong: how then dare I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?”
* Prior to being burned alive, Polycarp gives a prayer which sounds an awful lot like a Eucharistic Prayer.
* As he was burned, people reported the smell of baking bread.
* Some Jews claimed that the Christians might start worshipping Polycarp after his death. The author of the Martyrdom account says the following: “They did not realize that we could never abandon Christ, He who suffered for our salvation – the blameless one for sinners! – or worship any other. Him we worship as being the Son of God, the martyrs we love as being disciples and imitators of the Lord; and deservedly so, because of their unsurpassable devotion to their King and Teacher. May it be our good fortune, too, to be their companions and fellow disciples!”
* After his death, the Christians gathered Polycarp’s relics and and interred them in a fitting place: “There the Lord will permit us, as far as possible, to assemble in rapturous joy and celebrate his martyrdom – his birthday – both in order to commemorate the heroes that have gone before, and to train the heroes yet to come…”
* In last week’s episode, we spoke about another Early Church Father, St. Basil of Caesarea.
* If you would like to read what the different Fathers wrote about the Sunday Gospel, you can look it up using the Catena Aurea (“Golden Chain”), a collection of patristic commentary which was assembled by St. Thomas Aquinas. You can also get it on your mobile!
Now, to be honest, I’m not much of a Vanity Fair magazine reader. I guess I’m not really part of their core demographic. After all, it’s not like their articles regularly reference Star Wars, martial arts, Catholic theology or computer programming languages. As such, typical Vanity Fair content is not really my thing.
However, the November issue of Vanity Fair features something that attracted my interest, an interview with Jennifer Lawrence, the star of the popular “Hunger Games” movies.
As you may know, about a month ago Miss Lawrence’s iCloud account was hacked and nude photos found there were released onto the internet. In the Vanity Fair interview she spoke about this invasion of privacy and the trauma she experienced as a result. In the part where she spoke about the photos, she made a comment which I found no less revealing than the pictures themselves. Here’s what she said:
“I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he’s going to look at you.”
I’m afraid to say that the sentiment expressed here is one which may well be felt by other women, which makes me very sad.
I had this blog entry in my “drafts” folder for over six months and it’s been quite some time since I posted an entry for the “Stuff I’ve had to learn“ category. Today I would like to remedy this situation by presenting a piece of wisdom that I’ve been forced to learn over the years.
This bit of advice has certainly resolved many tense situations and has saved more than one friendship:
Don’t be too eager to hit…
Turbo-Charged Communication
Communication today is certainly quicker than it was in the past. It is now extremely easy to fire off a quick message to someone on the other side of the world, whereas in times past it required the purchase of stationery equipment, the composition of a letter, the purchase of the appropriate stamp and delivery to the nearest postbox. A substantial wait was then required before a reply would be received.
I’m all in favour of modern communication methods – cell phones, skype, email and text messaging make communicating with those in far-flung places both efficient and cheap. For me personally, it’s what makes living in America and staying in close contact with friends in England possible. However, I would suggest that our advances in technology sometimes make communication just a little bit *too* easy…
I’ve got a longer article in progress on the subject of abortion, but today’s post is an extremely short entry on a point I’ve been wanting to mention for some time…
Whenever you see an abortion debate, either in a formal setting or on Facebook, it’s not long before you hear someone, typically from the pro-choice side, talk about “fertilized eggs”. I only note this because I think it’s always worth pointing out that “fertilized egg” is something of a misnomer…
I say this because once an egg is fertilized, it ceases being an egg. It is now a new, distinct human organism. Calling it a “fertilized egg” is rather like referring to a man as a “married bachelor”. It’s nonsensical since, once married, a man ceases to be a bachelor. Likewise, we would never refer to someone being a “born fetus” because once the child is born it ceases to be a fetus.
Back when I started this blog, I led a Young Adult Bible study group, so each week I would post my notes concerning the upcoming Mass Readings. My goal was to produce a commentary for the entirety of the Sunday Lectionary. However, this came to an end when I started attending an Eastern-Rite parish and handed the Bible Study over to another leader. The Eastern Churches have a different liturgical calendar and Lectionary, so the project came to an end.
This Wednesday I was leading a Bible study at a Roman-Rite parish, so I thought I would revive my tradition of posting my notes for today’s readings…
Continuing through the Qur’an, today I read the following chapters:
Surah 108 – “Abundance” (Al-Kauther)
A three-verse chapter in which Allah tells Muhammad that He has granted him the most abundant good and cut off Muhammad’s enemies from good things in this life and the next.
Questions
Q1. Muhammad is told to “offer sacrifice to [Allah alone]”. What sacrifices did Muhammad offer?
I’ve got a longer article in progress on the subject of abortion, but today’s post is an extremely short entry on a point I’ve been wanting to mention for some time…
