In Jesus’ dialogue with a teacher of the law in Israel who came to test him, we find ourselves faced with a question that Jesus poses to his questioner on the subject of eternal life: “What is written, and how do you read it?” (Luke 10:26). Of course, this question assumes that the one Jesus is addressing knows the law, the knowledge that comes from daily companionship and study. However, Jesus also wants his question to indicate that the daily reading of the Word of God is the kind of reading in which God reveals the true meaning of this Word and its requirements in life.
Not every reading of the Bible is an honorable reading. This is what the African scholar Tertullian (155-220) noticed, who categorically refused that heretics (such as today’s “Jehovah’s Witnesses”) read the Bible or even touch it. This is because he considered that heretics have no message in it. He added that their recourse to it is an illegitimate recourse and recommended not discussing matters of faith with them on biblical grounds.
The Bible is the Word of the living God, and reading it should be in accordance with “the truth that is in Jesus” (Ephesians 4:21). As a divine message, reading it calls us to confront the one God as He wants to define Himself. Perhaps the greatest sin in the world is dealing with a God that some or most people say is our God and they evaluate Him according to their own standards, but He is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Paul. Reading the Bible breaks the idols that man makes for himself and makes him stand before the true God to take a stand: whether he is with God or against Him. Man’s life and integrity are renewed on the basis of his decision, because God’s plan is salvation and the Word, the divine who became human, calls man to become a Word, meaning that He calls him to divinity.
No religious awareness is possible if what God has delivered “all at once to the saints” is neglected. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ spoke to people, as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, “God, who spoke long ago to the fathers by the prophets in many and various ways, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son…” (1:1-2). Since God has spoken throughout history, this presupposes the existence of people who hear and obey the word. However, spiritual benefit is avoided by those who love God with a great love and repent to Him, because only he who loves God with repentance is able to listen to His words, since they interest him and become sacred to him, and then the word itself is an aspect of the presence of its owner.
Every Christian is a disciple of Jesus, and the disciple studies with his teacher, and his diligence is indicated by his memorization of the words in his heart and mind and their translation into life. The Holy Bible says about Mary, the Mother of God, that she “kept all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 1:19). This evangelical thought, whose power Easter revealed to us, is what establishes us in righteousness and saves us from error.
The Bible is known to those who know its texts. The true reader progresses from the letter to the spirit, and therefore every Christian must possess a Bible with its Old and New Testaments, which was the only possession of many saints, and must spend a certain time with it every day. Paul’s commandment to his disciple, “Read diligently” (1 Timothy 4:13), meaning reading the Bible, is in fact a commandment directed to each one of us, because the divine word is for the true believer a daily nourishment and a support on which he casts his worries and lives by it. He who is ignorant of the Bible, says Saint Jerome (420+), is ignorant of Christ. It also, with daily prayer, which is indispensable, completes the two aspects of the dialogue with God. Saint Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (+202), says: “When we read His book, He speaks to us, and when we respond to His words in prayer, we speak to Him.”
Studying the Holy Bible is essential for every Christian. Returning to the Holy Fathers and to some contemporary commentators, by reading their books or purchasing them if possible, is an invitation to deepen reading so that one can draw from the splendor of divine love that every word aims at from the beginning of the Book of Genesis to “Come, Lord Jesus, Amen,” the last words of the New Testament.
The decision is ours, for God calls us to life and He remains true to His ancient word, renewing it for each one of us: “I have set before you life and death” (Deuteronomy 30:19). And each one must choose the path he wants.
From my parish bulletin 1995
