Today’s Gospel reading, which recounts the famous scene of Christ and his apostles at Caesarea Philippi, puts our intellectual life in a stark contrast: we can either think like God or we can think like man. One way leads to illumination, the other to destruction. And Peter, that great apostles of extremes, demonstrates both ways to us in the span of about 30 seconds.

First, the leader of the apostles displays an insight that is not possible by human means:

[Jesus] said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. (Matthew 16:16-17)

Note carefully what Jesus said to Peter: the apostle did not come to a realization of the true identity of Christ by means of deep intellectual thinking or reasoning; he came to it by divine inspiration. Reason alone cannot acknowledge the divinity of Christ; it is necessary to have God Himself reveal it to us.

But then Peter quickly falls back into a more base way of thinking:

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples
that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly
from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.
Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him,
“God forbid, Lord!  No such thing shall ever happen to you.”
He turned and said to Peter,
“Get behind me, Satan!  You are an obstacle to me.
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” (Matthew 16:21-23)

When faced with the prospect of his Lord suffering, Peter reverts to relying on his own intellectual prowess to determine the way things should go. He rejects such a path and decides on his own how Christ should come into his kingdom. But Jesus immediately rebukes Peter, telling him that he no longer is allowing God to illumine his mind, but instead is following the way of man, which in this fallen world is also the way of Satan.

None of this is to say that man should not use his intellect in life; quite the contrary: man should allow his intellect be illuminated and guided by God’s revelation. As St. Paul wrote,

Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

If we depend solely on our own powers, we are sure to follow the highway to destruction. But if we follow God’s way, we can be transformed and follow the path that leads to eternal life and light.

This is a fascinating discovery:

The world’s earliest illustrated Christian book has been saved by a British charity which located it at a remote Ethiopian monastery.

The incredible Garima Gospels are named after a monk who arrived in the African country in the fifth century and is said to have copied them out in just one day.

Beautifully illustrated, the colours are still vivid and thanks to the Ethiopian Heritage Fund have been conserved.

Abba Garima arrived from Constantinople in 494 AD and legend has it that he was able to copy the gospels in a day because God delayed the sun from setting.

The incredible relic has been kept ever since in the Garima Monastery near Adwa in the north of the country, which is in the Tigray region at 7,000 feet.Experts believe it is also the earliest example of book binding still attached to the original pages.

The survival of the Gospels is incredible considering the country has been under Muslim invasion, Italian invasion and a fire in the 1930s destroyed the monastery’s church.

They were written on goat skin in the early Ethiopian language of Ge’ez.

There are two volumes which date from the same time, but the second is written in a different hand from the first. Both contain illustrations and the four Gospels.

Though the texts had been mentioned by the occasional traveller since the 1950s, it had been thought they dated from the 11th century at the earliest.

Carbon dating, however, gives a date between 330 and 650 – which tantalisingly overlaps the date Abba Garima arrived in the country.

Continue reading…

H/t: Byzantine, TX

Each year it seems that it takes ever more ludicrous claims in order to get attention in the mainstream media. The latest from CNN: Gospels don’t say Jesus was crucified, scholar claims. Here is the article with my comments within:

There have been plenty of attacks on Christianity over the years, but few claims have been more surprising than one advanced by an obscure Swedish scholar this spring.

The Gospels do not say Jesus was crucified, Gunnar Samuelsson says.

In fact, he argues, in the original Greek, [beware any argument that is based on the 'original Greek!' It usually means the person is counting on the ignorance of the vast majority of people - including CNN reporters] the ancient texts reveal only that Jesus carried “some kind of torture or execution device” to a hill where “he was suspended” and died, says Samuelsson, who is an evangelical pastor as well as a New Testament scholar. [I wonder if would be called a 'scholar' if he came to traditional conclusions]

“When we say crucifixion, we think about Mel Gibson’s ‘Passion.’ We think about a church, nails, the crown of thorns,” he says, referring to Gibson’s 2004 film, “The Passion of the Christ.”

“We are loaded with pictures of this well-defined punishment called crucifixion – and that is the problem,” he says.

Samuelsson bases his claim on studying 900 years’ worth of ancient texts in the original languages – Hebrew, Latin and Greek, which is the language of the New Testament.

He spent three years reading for 12 hours a day, he says, and he noticed that the critical word normally translated as “crucify” doesn’t necessarily mean that. [So, if this claim is true, he spent around 13,000 hours studying this - does that trump the millions of hours spent by thousands of scholars through the centuries who came to a different conclusion? Ever hear of peer-review?]

“He was handed over to be ‘stauroun,’” Samuelsson says of Jesus, lapsing into Biblical Greek to make his point. [Translation: See? He's a really smarty-pants - he knows Biblical Greek!]

At the time the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were writing their Gospels, that word simply meant “suspended,” the theologian argues.

“This word is used in a much wider sense than ‘crucifixion,’” he says. “It refers to hanging, to suspending vines in a vineyard,” or to any type of suspension.

“He was required to carry his ‘stauros’ to Calvary, and they ‘stauroun’ him. That is all. He carried some kind of torture or execution device to Calvary and he was suspended and he died,” Samuelsson says. [Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament - the work of many scholars over many years and accepted by scholars of both liberal and conservative bent as authoritative - defines it as "an instrument of torture for serious offenses...in three basic forms: a vertical, pointed stake...an upright with a cross-beam above it...or two intersecting beams of equal length." Then it goes on to explain the Roman method of 'stauron' at that time as what we call crucifixion.]

Not everyone is convinced by his research. [In other words, NO ONE is convinced by his research] Garry Wills, the author of “What Jesus Meant,” “What Paul Meant,” and “What the Gospels Meant,” dismisses it as “silliness.” [I'm no fan of Wills, but I couldn't agree with him more. Yet still CNN thought it was worthy of a story.]

“The verb is stauresthai from stauros, cross,” Wills said.

Samuelsson wants to be very clear about what he is saying and what he is not saying.

Most importantly, he says, he is not claiming Jesus was not crucified – only that the Gospels do not say he was.

“I am a pastor, a conservative evangelical pastor, a Christian,” he is at pains to point out. “I do believe that Jesus died the way we thought he died. He died on the cross.”

But, he insists, it is tradition that tells Christians that, not the first four books of the New Testament. [This would not be an issue, in other words, if not for sola scriptura: if something is only in "tradition" that means it is unreliable. Even if Samuelsson were correct - which he is not - then it would still not be a problem for Catholics, as we accept sacred tradition as being a reliable means of passing on information.]

“I tried to read the text as it is, to read the word of God as it stands in our texts,” he says – what he calls “reading on the lines, not reading between the lines.”

Samuelsson says he didn’t set out to undermine one of the most basic tenets of Christianity.

He was working on a dissertation at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden when he noticed a problem with a major book about the history of crucifixion before Jesus.

What was normally thought to be the first description of a crucifixion – by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus – wasn’t a crucifixion at all, but the suspension of a corpse, Samuelsson found by reading the original Greek.

The next example in the book about crucifixion wasn’t a crucifixion either, but the impaling of a hand.

Samuelsson’s doctoral advisor thought his student might be on to something.

“He recommended I scan all the texts, from Homer up to the first century – 900 years of crucifixion texts,” Samuelsson recalled, calling it “a huge amount of work.”

But, he says, “I love ancient texts. They just consume me.” So he started reading.

He found very little evidence of crucifixion as a method of execution, though he did find corpses being suspended, people being hanged from trees, and more gruesome methods of execution such as impaling people by the belly or rectum.

The same Greek word was used to refer to all the different practices, he found.

That’s what led him to doubt that the Gospels specify that Jesus was crucified.

At the time they were written, “there is no word in Greek, Latin, Aramaic or Hebrew that means crucifixion in the sense that we think of it,” he says.

It’s only after the death of Jesus – and because of the death of Jesus – that the Greek word “stauroun” comes specifically to mean executing a person on the cross, he argues.

He admits, of course, that the most likely reason early Christians though Jesus was crucified is that, in fact, he was. [Proof of the idiocy of much of modern biblical scholarship. They completely divorce the texts of the Bible from the world in which it was produced. This guys admits that the reason it was seen as crucifixion is because it was, in fact, a crucifixion. But the text doesn't say it in the way he wants, so now he questions it. This would be like the first accounts of JFK's death just saying he "died of a bullet wound" and then hundreds of years later claiming he really wasn't shot because the original accounts only said "died of a bullet wound" - maybe he just ran into a rogue bullet that was suspended in mid-air in Dallas!]

But he says his research still has significant implications for historians, linguists and the Christian faithful. [Not really]

For starters, “if my observations are correct, every book on the history of Jesus will need to be rewritten,” as will the standard dictionaries of Biblical Greek, he says. [Now we get to the heart of the matter. Like many scholars, he wants to be influential. He is hoping his findings make him popular on the scholarly circuit.]

More profoundly, his research “ought to make Christians a bit more humble,” he says.

“We fight against each other,” he reflects, but “the theological stances that keep churches apart are founded on things that we find between the lines.

“We have put a lot of things in the Bible that weren’t there in the beginning that keep us apart. We need to get down on our knees as Christians together and read the Bible.” [Again, the problem of sola scriptura. When everyone can individually interpret what the Bible 'really says,' then we will never come to agreement and be able to resolve the things that keep us apart. It is only when we humbly accept the authority of the Church that such union is possible.]

Most Catholics today have at one time or another met a self-professed ‘Bible Christian.’ This is someone who claims to only believe what is in the Bible, and nothing else. As such they reject supposedly “added” Catholic beliefs like the papacy, purgatory and the sacraments, because they claim they are not in the Scriptures. In some cases, such as purgatory or even the role of Mary, it does take a deep understanding of the Bible to see their foundations found within its pages. But there are some beliefs rejected by ‘Bible Christians’ that jump out of the pages of the Bible with just a cursory reading. These are what I call the “biggest biblical blind spots of ‘Bible Christians.’”

1) The role of Peter
When I was an evangelical Christian, I often studied the Scriptures, but somehow I never saw Peter as an important figure in the New Testament. Now that I am Catholic, I do not know how I could have been so blind. Peter is almost everywhere in the Gospels and in Acts, and he re-appears in Paul’s letters at times as well. We have three separate instances – from three different Gospels – where Jesus gives Peter a specific, and unique, role in the Church (Matthew 16:17-19, Luke 22:31-32 and John 21:15-17). Yet the vast majority of Protestants – and all ‘Bible Christians’ – fail to recognize any significant role for Peter in the early Church or in today’s Church.

2) The Eucharist
‘Bible Christians’ love to claim that they take the Bible literally, and they note their interpretation of Genesis 1-3 to support their claim. But what about John 6? In that chapter Jesus clearly states that he is the bread of life and one must eat his flesh to have eternal life. Yet no ‘Bible Christian’ takes that literally, and they relegate the Eucharist to a minor, purely symbolic, ceremony. The early Christians, on the other hand, understood the meaning of Christ’s words and made the celebration of the Eucharist the central act of their worship.

3) The role of works in salvation
“We are saved by faith alone!” cries the ‘Bible Christian.’ Yet the Bible is full of warnings on the necessity of works for the salvation of the believer. The parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46) directly links our works with our eternal destination, and the only place in the New Testament where ‘faith alone’ is found (James 2:24) condemns it as unable to bring justification. But somehow the ‘Bible Christian’ still cries out “faith alone!” simply because it is a Protestant tradition.

4) The place of suffering in the Christian life
Often people don’t realize how much a culture impacts their worldview. This is true even for Christians. Our modern Western culture puts pleasure at the center of happiness, and rejects any value to suffering. This cultural presupposition has infected Christians, including ‘Bible Christians’. Yet if you read the letters of Paul, you cannot help but notice the role of suffering in his theology. The Lord himself made it clear how integral suffering would be to Paul’s life when he told Ananias: “Go, for this man [Paul] is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before Gentiles, kings, and Israelites, and I will show him what he will have to suffer for my name” (Acts 9:15-16). And of course, the heavy emphasis put on Christ’s suffering and death in the Gospels should tell even the most cursory reader of Scripture how important suffering is in the Christian Faith.

5) The necessity of Baptism
The vast majority of ‘Bible Christians’ believe that one simply has to “accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior” in order to become a Christian. While some might also eventually baptize such a person, it is not seen as a necessary step in the life of a Christian. Yet nothing could be further from the biblical witness. When the crowd asks after the first Christian sermon how they might be saved, Peter responds, “Repent and be baptized” (Acts 2:38). Baptism was the normative means to enter the Church and no Christian denied this fact until recent years.

It is unfortunate that ‘Bible Christians’ reject such clear directives from the Bible. Such people are usually sincere, well-intentioned followers of Christ. Let us hope and pray that one day they will decide to enter the Church that gave us the Bible – the Catholic Church.

Other than Jesus there is no figure more richly drawn in the New Testament than St. Peter, the leader of the apostles whose feast we celebrate today (along with St. Paul). Reading the Gospels and Acts, one really gets a sense of this loyal, impulsive, courageous and flawed man. Much of his personality comes out in the many declarations of his that Scripture records. Thus, I have decided to list here my 10 favorite St. Peter quotes (I would have also done the same for St. Paul, but I’m afraid I would just end up listing his entire epistles).

Favorite St. Peter Quotes

10) “We believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 15:11)

9) “We have given up everything and followed you.” (Mark 10:28)

8 ) “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, (rise and) walk.” (Acts 3:6)

7) “Whether it is right in the sight of God for us to obey you rather than God, you be the judges. It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20)

6) “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38)

5) “Lord, you know that I love you” (John 21:15, 16, 17)

4) “Get up. I am only a man myself.” (Acts 10:26)

3) “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” (Luke 5:8)

2) “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)

1) “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Mt. 16:16)

Sts. Peter and Paul, pray for us!

I have always been fascinated by the topic of the development of Christian doctrine. Not long ago, I wrote a post about the New Testament foundations for this concept. But typically when one speaks of the “development of doctrine,” he is referring to its development throughout church history after the end of public revelation. But what about before the death of the last apostle? Is there development of doctrine within the New Testament? Michael Liccione over at Sacramentum Vitae addresses this question:

To some theologians–mostly modern biblical theologians–the answer is obviously yes. See, e.g., the late Raymond E. Brown’s Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine, a fairly middle-of-the-road view of the matter by a pre-eminent Catholic scholar. To others, the answer is equally obviously no. In their view, the New Testament records divine revelation, so that even if revelation itself was progressive during the time recorded in the NT, the very category of development of doctrine is simply inapplicable to the Bible. Rather than rehash that impasse, though, I’d suggest this: assuming that the Bible records, in written form, the unfolding of the definitive events of divine revelation to humanity, the pattern of that unfolding tells us a lot about how we, as church and as individuals, come to understand it more fully over time. And the means by which the Church comes to state her understanding achieved over time just is development of doctrine.

Continue reading…

Personally, I have always been more skeptical of claims of development within the NT than I am of claims outside it. I have a number of reasons for this:

1) The time frame. Within the NT, we have a time frame at most of about 60-70 years. Usually when one speaks of the development of doctrine, he is discussing centuries, not decades. As Pope Benedict has pointed out, it is a false assumption to say that what comes later always must be more developed than what comes before, especially regarding such short time frames. Was St. Clement of Rome more developed than St. Paul? Was St. Ignatius of Antioch more developed than St. John the Apostle? Within a century you often have lights who shine much brighter than their contemporaries, and of whom it takes a long time to digest and understand fully.

2) Document dating. As much as biblical scholars state confidently the dating of the NT documents, the truth is that we really don’t know exactly when they were written. We can make educated guesses, but we can’t know with absolute assurance the order in which they were written. So how can we know how they developed? In fact, most scholars assume doctrinal development to establish dates, which means we have a circular argument: “Document A came after document B because it is more developed, and we know that development occurred because document A came after document B.” Not exactly a strong foundation for this theory.

3) Inspiration. Unique among all Christian documents, the writings of the New Testament are inspired by the Holy Spirit. This does not automatically preclude the concept of development within the texts, but it should give one pause. All of Salvation History does show a slow revealing of God’s revelation, but in the case of the New Testament, we are talking about a special, condensed time of public revelation in which the Word revealed himself to the apostles and the apostles then preached that Word to the world.

With all the above being said, I’m not totally against any idea of doctrinal development within the New Testament. But I would hesitate to put too much importance on any theory that was completely dependent upon NT development.

In some Evangelical circles, knowledge of the Biblical Greek language is seen as a trump card in any arguments regarding the interpretation of Scripture passages. When a debate occurs, someone just has to say, “well, in the original Greek, this means…” and the argument is won. But the reality is much different: although knowledge of Biblical Greek is helpful in many ways, it does not automatically give one knowledge of the “real” meaning of a passage. Greek is still a human language, and as such, it has its ambiguities just like any language. Furthermore, those who know Greek have their own biases and preconceptions which they bring to the text. Sometimes knowing the Greek can eliminate certain possible interpretations, but never does it alone give you sure knowledge of the meaning of a debated passage.

One of the most well-known Greek teachers in the Evangelical world is Bill Mounce. I myself have used his materials to learn Biblical Greek. Fortunately, even though he is an expert in the Biblical Greek language, Mounce does not fall into the fallacy of thinking that knowledge of Greek gives you some secret knowledge of the inner meaning of the Bible. He understands that proper interpretation includes many factors outside of just knowing the original language.

Case in point: a recent blog post by Mounce caught my eye, as he decided to tackle 2 Peter 1:20-21, which is a heavily debated passage between Catholics and Protestants. This passage states:

RSV: First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
NAB: Know this first of all, that there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation, for no prophecy ever came through human will; but rather human beings moved by the holy Spirit spoke under the influence of God.
NIV: Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Greek: τουτο πρωτον γινωσκοντες οτι πασα προφητεια γραφης ιδιας επιλυσεως ου γινεται ου γαρ θεληματι ανθρωπου ηνεχθη προφητεια ποτε αλλα υπο πνευματος αγιου φερομενοι ελαλησαν απο θεου ανθρωποι

The importance of this passage in Catholic/Protestant debates should be clear: does this passage mean that an individual cannot interpret Scripture? If so, that would go a long way towards undercutting one of the bedrocks of Protestantism. After making some introductory comments regarding context, Mounce posits two different possible meanings for verse 20:

Contextually, Peter is saying that the prophecies of Scripture were not made up by the prophets from what they saw and heard in their prophecies and dreams; but what they understood them to mean was the result of the Holy Spirit carrying them along. They too had experienced the direct work of God, just as Peter had on the Mount of Transfiguration. But can we be more specific?

1. One view is to say the passage is talking about origins. These prophecies and interpretations came from God, as opposed to what the false teachers were teaching.

2. A second view is to say the prophecies are not open to any one person’s individual interpretation, but the interpretation must be in conformity to apostolic interpretation. For us today, this would mean Scripture in general.

At this point, I am not sure there is much difference between these two options. Prophecies and their interpretation come from God, not from individuals who vary from the apostolic teaching.

I would be in basic agreement with Mounce at this point, and in fact I would say the two possibilities can be combined into one: the origin of prophecies in Scripture (and all of Scripture for that matter) is the Holy Spirit, and therefore an individual is not allowed to make up their own interpretation of what they mean. Furthermore, any interpretation cannot vary from the deposit of faith – what Mounce calls “apostolic teaching.” But then Mounce goes off the tracks:

But the Catholic REB translates “No prophetic writing is a matter for private interpretation.” This would cement the seat of authority of interpretation in the church and not any individual teacher, preacher, or prophet, and exclude, among others, people like Luther. At one level, this is not saying anything different. The false teachers were wrong to come up with their personal (and different) interpretation of things. But I wonder how Peter would feel being told that his interpretation of the Messianic Kingdom was wrong because is was an individual interpretation and different from the prevailing (i.e., Rabbinic) views of the day. I suspect he wouldn’t agree.

Let’s get this straight: Mounce agrees that it is not proper to get interpretations “from individuals who vary from the apostolic teaching,” yet he thinks the Catholic understanding of the passage could be used against Peter, the chief apostle?! Peter, by definition, cannot have an “individual interpretation” which varied from the apostolic teaching, as he is himself an apostle. Surely Mounce cannot believe that Catholics would use this passage against Peter, the first pope!

And this brings up a more important question: how do we know what is “apostolic teaching”? Most Protestants today would say it is by properly interpreting Scripture. Yet you can see the circular argument: Biblical interpretation cannot vary from apostolic teaching, yet apostolic teaching is determined by (individual) Biblical interpretation. There must be some determination of what is apostolic teaching outside of Scripture. And fittingly, it is the role of the apostles (and their successors), not just any individual, to declare what is apostolic teaching. The reason is that the apostles have the same origin as the Scriptures, for it was the Holy Spirit which gives them their authority.

Although Mounce errs in his understanding of the Catholic interpretation of this passage, I would agree fully with the final paragraph of his post:

As is so often in Greek, the original language gives us the range of interpretive options, but usually it is context that makes the final decision. Greek is not a magic key that reveals the one and only possible interpretation; otherwise we wouldn’t have an endless supplies of Greek commentaries.

Fortunately, Christ did not expect us to be Greek scholars to understand the Bible; instead he gave us apostles and their successors to guard and teach the deposit of faith, which gives us the overall context in which to properly interpret Scripture.

Over the past two centuries in the Western world, we have seen a fundamental shift in how people interpret the Bible. Unfortunately, much of that shift has caused the Bible to become not more clear, but more obscure. Thus, it is sometimes helpful to go back and see how Scripture was interpreted before this shift. Here are some clear steps for interpreting the Bible, written in 1786 by a Russian Orthodox prelate:

1.) Open the literal meaning, and where it is dark because of translation or an ambiguity in the language, explain it in such a way that no passage is left which students cannot understand, apart from the very rare texts which are too complex to comprehend.

2.) Interpret spiritual and mysterious meanings, especially in the Old Testament, in those passages where such meanings are transparently concealed. In doing this, one has to be cautious so as not to do this with force. Thus, one ought not to seek out a secret meaning where there is none (or where one is forced, as is noticeable with many interpreters), but where links and the parallel passages follow directly from the words. Interpret spiritual and mysterious readings in agreement with the best interpreters.

3.) For a better understanding of dark passages, find and link the parallel passages, for this will make comprehension easier, since what is said in one place is often said ambiguously and briefly in another place, and despite the similarity between the two texts, the one differs in terms of a more detailed and clearer account.

4.) In interpreting Scripture, do not forget to conclude with the moral teachings flowing from the text. Formulate it with great regard.

5.) In interpreting the books of the Old Testament Prophets, indicate clearly when and in which circumstances their prophecies were fulfilled in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

6.) Where passages of Holy Scripture seem to contradict each other, explain these texts in agreement with published sources that contain general agreement.

7.) Wherever passages are found from which some false conclusions were drawn and which subsequently led to schisms or heresies, one is obliged to clearly indicate the right and true meaning of these passages, and to invalidate the opinions and arguments of heretics and schismatics.

8.) Where passages of Scripture are found to which human wisdom might make objections, such objections must not be hidden. Instead, allow them to be seen in a clear and satisfactory form.

9.) On the part of the teacher, it is critical to consult the Church Fathers, to read scrupulously the best Church teachers and interpretors, to know Church history well, and, above all, to beseech often and diligently the Father of Light to open the eyes toward understanding the wonders in His Law.

Frankly, I think these nine steps are still valid today and following them would help anyone draw closer to Christ through the Scriptures.

H/t: Byzantine, TX

You might be surprised to know that I’ve got a lot more to say than can fit on this blog. Just ask my wife.

That’s why I do speaking engagements, too, and have been for fifteen years. I’ve addressed groups large and small on topics as diverse as Scripture, evangelization, marriage and spirituality.

Although my true speaking-topic-loves are Scripture and Evangelization, I’m happy to speak on other Catholic themes and shape my talk based on the audience.

Right now I’m not receiving any financial compensation from these engagements (although I do ask that the host organization pay for my travel expenses, and in lieu of a speaker’s fee I ask for a donation to Little Flowers Foundation). I look at my speaking engagements as a tithe, in the hope that I can help others draw closer to Christ.

The message of my book Who Is Jesus Christ? is that the Lord is waiting to meet us – chasing us down in fact – in Scripture and in the circumstances and experiences of our lives. If I can serve others in seeing Him, encountering Him, embracing Him, I consider that a privilege.

I am now scheduling for engagements starting this Fall through Summer 2011. If you are interested in having me come to speak, just email me. For more details, click here.

My favorite Anglican bishop and non-Catholic Biblical scholar, N.T. Wright, is retiring from his post as Anglican bishop of Durham, England. He plans to return to academic life, taking a position as Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Andrew’s University.

In all honesty, I’m ecstatic about this development. I’m sure he was a positive force in the Anglican church as a bishop, but I think it is as a theologian that he has the most positive impact on Christianity as a whole. In the confused world of biblical studies, he is a giant who uses modern methods of scholarship to support traditional Christian doctrines. He is sorely needed.

May you have many years, Bishop Wright!

One of the unheralded aspects of Pope Benedict’s papacy (as well as his legacy before becoming pope) is his emphasis on Scripture. Yet those who follow him closely have seen how much he desires to bring Scripture to the forefront of Catholic theology as well as daily Catholic life. His committment to making the inspired Word of God a central focus of our Faith and a sure means of drawing closer to the incarnate Word of God was a main inspiration for my book Who is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew. And I am not the only one who has noticed this emphasis of our Holy Father. Scott Hahn writes,

As I write this, I’m looking at the cover of one of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s books, now reissued under his papal name. The book is titled God’s Word, and the cover shows a photograph of the Holy Father.

He’s slightly off-center because he’s holding up the book of the Gospels — covering himself, as it were, with the word of God.

For me, that cover is emblematic of his pontificate thus far. His hallmark is the centrality of the word of God. That’s where he has kept our focus — not on fads or scandals or the world’s alarms. Christ, the Word Incarnate, is the solution to every world crisis. Pope Benedict has invited us, insistently and consistently, to encounter Christ in the word inspired, the sacred Scriptures.

And he has done this through some very large labors.

In 2008 he summoned the world’s bishops to a Synod on “The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church.”

From that synod, a post-synodal apostolic exhortation on the Scriptures will soon be published — a major act of the Pope’s teaching office.

In 2007, he declared a Year of St. Paul, in which he dedicated himself and the Church to intensive study of the great apostle. But even before that, he had devoted his weekly audiences to close-up studies of the individual men and women of the New Testament. Afterward, he went on to the Church Fathers and the medieval teachers, considering them especially as biblical interpreters.

Meanwhile, he has spent every moment of his “spare time” writing his multivolume study Jesus of Nazareth.

These acts of Benedict’s papacy are certainly continuous with the labors of his pre-papal lifetime. It’s as if God’s grace has brought his life’s work as a theologian to a kind of completion, or perfection, with the gift of Petrine authority.

As a theologian, Joseph Ratzinger had proposed some astonishing and radical ways of looking at Scripture. He said “Catholic dogma … derives all its content from Scripture,” and “Dogma is by definition nothing other than an interpretation of Scripture.”

He taught that the “normative theologians” are not the tenured faculty at any Catholic institution, but rather “the authors of holy Scripture.”

One of the greatest gifts God has given the Church is the Holy Bible, and He wants us to use it to draw into a deeper relationship with His Son. Follow the Pope’s lead and spend some time today with the Sacred Scriptures.

In today’s first reading, Luke tells us about the unique community that the first Christians formed:

The community of believers was of one heart and mind,
and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own,
but they had everything in common.
With great power the Apostles bore witness
to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,
and great favor was accorded them all.
There was no needy person among them,
for those who owned property or houses would sell them,
bring the proceeds of the sale,
and put them at the feet of the Apostles,
and they were distributed to each according to need. (Acts 4:32-35)

This is not exactly a passage that we capitalistic Americans like to promote; it appears to come dangerously close to promoting socialism or communism. Many people over the ages have in fact made exactly that claim. So does the practice of the first Christians promote a socialistic economic plan?

I think there are a few things we need to recognize as we read this passage and try to apply it to government economical plans.

1) The Christians’ sharing of all property was voluntary. There is no indication that the first Christians were forced to share all their belongings with the Church; they did so on a voluntary basis. This is obviously much different from a government forcing “sharing” upon its people.

2) This setup was short-lived. There is no historical evidence that this type of communal living lasted very long, and attempts to replicate it over the centuries have all ended in failure. The closest any group has come to replicating it has been monastic communities, but there is a big difference between a group of celibates living together and families living separately but with a common fund.

3) All involved contributed to the best of their ability. In St. Paul’s 2nd letter to the Thessalonians, Paul reminds the Christians there that “we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). In other words, if someone tried to get taken care of by the community without pitching in himself, he should not be included in the distribution of food. Clearly this is different from a socialistic system where everyone receives from the government regardless of their own contribution to society.

4) The early Church was a small and closed community. There is no indication that Luke is advocating that entire nations or empires should emulate the early Church in this regard. In fact, the point of this passage is to show the unique and powerful way the Holy Spirit was working in the early Church. It is not a “normal” way of living.

So this passage is not advocating a socialistic or communist governmental system. But I should also hasten to add that neither does it promote capitalism either. In fact, the Bible is pretty agnostic when it comes to advocating economic models for governments. The truth is that no model is perfect and all will be practiced by people afflicted by Original Sin and therefore all will be unjust. Some might be better than others but none are perfect. In fact, I would argue that if we were all without sin, just about any economic model – capitalism, socialism, etc. – would work fine because we would all be putting others first in our lives.

And that is the other lesson we need to take away from this passage: we are obligated as Christians to care for others. For “conservative” Christians living in America, it is sometimes too easy to focus on the obligation of everyone to work to the best of their ability and “pull their own weight”. But as followers of Christ we need to be more focused on our own obligations to care for those less fortunate than ourselves, as Christ makes abundantly clear in the parable of the sheep and the goats. It would be better to help someone who we felt was “lazy” than to not help someone who was deserving of assistance.

I recently got an email asking me some great questions regarding the proper way for Catholics to study the Bible. I thought I’d share the questions and my answers publicly:

I was reading your blog on Modern Myths about Catholics and Bible Reading.

If Mass is not the place for Bible study and you find small groups to be ripe for abuse, how do you study scripture, by yourself? Is appreciation of scripture different from study? What do you mean when you say there are the boundaries of the Catholic faith that order your appreciation of scripture?

It is true that Mass should not be the place for “Bible study”, and that I have a low opinion of most “small group” Bible studies out there. So how should a Catholic study the Bible? And as the questioner so astutely asked, is appreciation of Scripture different from study?

The primary way that a Catholic should study – and appreciate – the Scriptures is regular attendance at Mass. But wait a minute, didn’t I say that Mass was not the proper place for Bible study? Yes, but my statements are not contradictory. Mass is not the place for Bible study in that it is not appropriate to use a homily to minutely explore the technical details of a passage – the setting it was written in, the original audience, the form of the text, etc. These things might be mentioned in passing, but they should not be the focus of the homily. Instead the Church asks the priest or deacon to use the homily to apply the Biblical passage to the life of the congregation.

The reading of Scripture at Mass is the primary usage of Scripture; in fact, I would say that it is why the Scriptural books were written in the first place. In the early Church, the debate over the canon (i.e. which writings were to be included in the Bible) was really a debate about which writings were to be read during Mass. Furthermore, many, if not most, of the New Testament writings were written to be originally read at Mass. When Paul wrote a letter to a community, he intended it to be read to the whole church of a particular area. And when would that be read? During the only time the local church gathered – at Mass. So Paul (and the other NT authors) wrote their writings with the intention that they be read at Mass – that is their primary usage. So to really understand the Scriptural books, we too need to hear them in Mass. This liturgical context keeps us in the “boundaries”, so to speak, of the original authors, and keeps us from going off into illicit interpretations and flights of fancy.

And hearing the Word of God proclaimed at Mass is the best way to grow in appreciation of it. The Sacred Scriptures were not written to be dissected in a classroom – they were written to be lived. And hearing them proclaimed in their original setting – the Mass – is the best way to appreciate that living dynamic of the Sacred Text.

Thus, the foundation for understanding the Bible is to hear it within the worshiping Body of Christ. This must be the starting point for any understanding – and appreciation – of the Sacred Text. But is this the only way that Catholics can  study the Bible? No; as followers of Jesus, the incarnate Word of God, we need to really dive into the inspired Word of God to better know and love Jesus. So we should take every opportunity outside of Mass to study the Scriptures as well.

What then are some practical ways for the Catholic to study Scripture? It is important, first of all, to remember that the Bible is a collection of ancient texts written in cultures that are widely divergent from our own. One cannot just pick up the Iliad and expect to understand it completely. Likewise, one cannot pick up the Bible and expect to comprehend the Sacred Text immediately. We need guides. The ideal situation would be to be involved in a Bible study led by a priest; i.e. someone who has been trained by the Church to know the Bible and its relationship to the Church. But of course this is not usually possible. Another possibility is to be in a small group that is led by someone who has formally studied the Bible is a faithfully Catholic academic environment, such as Franciscan University of Steubenville or Christendom College or other such school. Better yet, take classes yourself at one of these schools (many offer distance learning classes). But I would not recommend being in a small group Bible study led by someone with no formal training, or even worse, a small group with no leader at all. Too often such groups turn into discussions of “what do you think it means?” with no concrete study of the text.

If none of these possibilities exist, there are some good study guides available that can be used for individual study. Some I recommend highly are the Navarre Bible, the Ignatius Study Bible and the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture. All of these understand the proper place for the Bible in the life of the Church and so can be useful for learning the Scriptures. (I would also be remiss not to mention that my own upcoming book – Who is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew - is intended to help Catholics to understand the person of Jesus as represented in the Gospel of Matthew, so it will hopefully be of some use as well).

As Catholics, we need to be immersed in the Scriptures as much as possible. Fortunately this can be done primarily just by going to Mass. But for those who are able, there are many other opportunities to appreciate and study the Sacred Text, and we should take advantage of them whenever we can.

St. Jerome, pray for us!

Hallelujah! He is Risen!

At daybreak on the first day of the week
the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus
took the spices they had prepared
and went to the tomb.
They found the stone rolled away from the tomb;
but when they entered,
they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
(Luke 24:1-3)

For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God. Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the spirit. In it he also went to preach to the spirits in prison…
(1 Peter 3:18-19)