From AVATAR.parti@ecunet.orgMon Apr 14 23:04:55 1997
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 97 23:25:57 EST
From: AVATAR.parti@ecunet.org
To: BIBLE-GUIDE@cin.org
Subject: PROLOGUE
Resent-Date: Wed, 8 Jan 97 23:25:57 EST
Resent-From: bible-guide <bible-guide@monica.cin.org>


                                 PROLOGUE

There is no more important book in all of history.  The Bible is the most 
important book you will ever read.  It has shaped more of history, changed 
more hearts, effected more change, than any book in all of history, and 
probably more than all the other books in history combined.  It is unusual 
in many respect, but most unusual in this respect, for no other book has 
this quality - it is the written revelation of God Himself, revealed to 
mankind by His own special agents and representatives in circumstances 
which assure us that the truths therein are not of man's origin, and 
therefore are deserving of the utmost trust and confidence, deriving as 
they do from a God who neither deceives nor can be deceived. 

A bewildered Pilate, reluctant to put this man to death and searching 
desperately for some way to let him free, asked Him "What is truth?" (1) 
And Jesus replied that "everyone who is of the truth hears my voice";(2) 
and Pilate went away as bewildered as before. 

The world is filled not only with error, but with deliberate falsehood, 
both within the Church and without.  The Church herself cannot teach error 
any more than could Jesus Christ - but there are those who claim to be 
teaching in His Name, but who teach things that cannot have come from the 
mind of God, however plausible they may seem to our dimmed intellects.  
Would that our prideful wills were half as dimmed as our intellects have 
been! 

Jesus reminded his Apostles often of the Old Testament Scriptures which 
said things like: "...they are those who testify of me";(3)  and again He 
said that "...all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of 
Moses and in the prophets and in the psalms concerning Me." (4)

After the Lord arose from the dead, He walked with two of His disciples on 
the road to Emmaus, and they "recognized Him not", and "...beginning with 
Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them in all the scriptures the 
things which concerned Himself." (5)  And in so doing, he taught those of 
us who have made the reading of the Scriptures a central part of our 
spiritual lives the real purpose of Scripture - to know Him better, that, 
as the Third Baltimore Catechism taught us, in knowing Him better, we may 
"serve Him better in this life, and thereby be happy with Him in the 
next." 

It is a particularly Catholic thing I've never really understood that 
Catholics tend not to read the Bible. The old myth that the Church has 
discouraged it doesn't explain it either, for, even if true, the Church 
discourages much behavior, from fornication and adultery to theft to 
slander to lying and cheating to  outright murder, which seems not to have 
stopped her children from practicing all those forms of evil.  It would 
seem this particular "teaching" is the only one which her children have 
taken so closely to heart! 

Because they do not read the Bible, they have poorly-framed ideas of what 
really constitutes God's will; and as a consequence of that, they often 
fall into sins with a reckless abandon they might not otherwise have had.  

Still others limit their knowledge of God and His Divine Plan for the 
salvation of mankind by reading only the New Testament.  Some, still 
worse, limit themselves to reading only the parts they find 
enjoyable....or which seem to have an approving impact on their 
lifestyles.  Few will read the entire Bible, still fewer will actively 
study it.  It is then no surprise when they develop incomplete and 
inaccurate ideas and conclusions.  

It is an attitude of foolish arrogance to believe we are qualified to 
decide what we need to read and what we do not.  It seems to say that God 
is not sufficiently wise to know what we need, that we know best what's 
best for us.  Your average human author would expect you to begin at the 
beginning of his book and read through to the finish....why would it be 
different for the God who designed the mind with which you read? 

IF you see the Bible as a book which is quite uniquely God's Book, rather 
than someone else's, you'll give it the priority over the other affairs of 
your daily life it deserves.  You will set aside some portion of every day 
to familiarize yourself with the things of God, and introduce to yourself 
the author of all that is.  And, if you are one who wishes to please Him 
in all things, you will look at those Scriptures with a single-minded 
intention to understand them *fully*, and to obey them as totally as you 
are able.  It will avail you little if you read them with only the 
curiosity of the idle - the Bible is meant to be understood, accepted, AND 
OBEYED!  Be very careful not to treat it otherwise - to do so is to play 
with the very fires of damnation itself. 

I want to encourage you to read the Bible every day.  Fifteen minutes a 
day, and following this course exactly as it is laid out will take you 
through the entirety of the Bible, Old Testament AND New, in about a 
year's time.  If you do this systematically and with an open mind and open 
heart, filled with the desire to "know Him," that you may the better 
"serve Him, and thereby be happy with Him in the next life", you will soon 
come to the understanding of Jesus Christ, who promised us that HE is "the 
Way, and the Truth and the Life." 

If you allow His Word to work in your heart, you will discover it really 
*does* have the power to change hearts and lives; you will see it 
happening in yours.  It will open up the doors of faith and understanding, 
understanding of both God AND of yourself.  He Himself will show you the 
secrets of your own heart, secrets you never knew were there, the 
beautiful and the ugly alike.  You can be the person God has wished you to 
be from before the Universe began.  So, read His Word today, and trust 
that His Word will have meaning for you today. 

                                                                   Fr. Hal
                     ________________________________

 John 18:37-38

 John 5:39

 Luke 24:44

 Luke 24:27

 John 14:6


