A Lenten Bible Study: Genesis to Jesus Lesson One: Reading Scripture with the Church
From the Saint Paul Center for Catholic Biblical Theology, the following is a transcript of their Lenten Scripture study, Genesis to Jesus. Genesis to Jesus presents the whole sweep of salvation history, to help you make sense of the Bible. By the end of Lent, you'll understand the importance of Easter as the eighth day of creation in light of God's unified plan for our salvation. You may sign up to receive new video lessons [here] and buy related study materials.
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Welcome to Genesis to Jesus part of the St. Paul Center’s Journey Through Scripture Bible Study. To many people, the Bible is simply a giant book that doesn’t make a lot of sense. And that’s a shame. Because actually it’s a beautiful story. In fact, it’s our story. It’s the story of where we come from, what went wrong, and God’s incredible, merciful plan to save us and make everything right again.
Certainly, you could say that plan – that story – culminated with the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem. That’s what much of the New Testament of Sacred Scripture is all about. But as with every great story, there’s a fascinating backstory. Thousands of years of God’s working and moving in history – what we call the Old Testament – set the stage for our salvation in Jesus Christ.
It’s a true story full of tragedy and triumph, heroes and villains, as well as spiritual and physical combat. But most of all, it’s the story of love… God’s undying, undeserved, unbelievable love for us, his children. That’s what this study is really all about.
And we’re not going to just learn the facts of the biblical story. We’re going to come to fully understand how we’re fully part of it. We’re going to see how we’re standing in the stream of salvation history right now. Because the Bible isn’t just some ancient book that tells us about God. It tells us how to get to God.
It’s a story whose perfect ending is waiting to be written upon our hearts. Let’s take a look at the Bible itself. After all, it’s the most unique book in the world. if we’re going to understand the story Scripture tells, we need to first know how to read it the right way.
As some of you may have discovered when you sat down to read the Bible on your own, reading Sacred Scripture isn’t like reading a Tom Clancy novel or an Agatha Christie mystery. Among other things, it’s filled with lots of foreign names, faraway places and unfamiliar customs that can seem disconnected. Its stories often have multiple levels of meaning. And the timeline of events isn’t always linear. Tracking the main characters, let alone the plot, can, feel all but impossible. That’s why, often, when a person opens the Bible, determined to read it cover to cover, from Genesis to Revelation, they get about as far as Leviticus before they give up.
We will not be doing a page by page, book by book in depth analysis of the Bible. Instead, we will examine how God made his plan for the world known in history, and how that plan affects you and me, here and now. Essentially, this Bible study is going to help you understand the “plot” of the Bible. By the time we’re done, you’ll be able to track the central characters and know what the overarching story is all about.
What is the overarching story? What is the plot of Sacred Scripture? The plot is salvation history – the story of how God’s plan for human salvation unfolds in the course of human events. That’s the story that runs throughout the Bible. And that’s a story we can come to know intimately through the lives of the Bible’s main characters. People like Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus Christ and his mother Mary. These people, in a certain sense, play the starring roles in salvation history. And in the lessons to come, we’re going to look at who they are, what happens to them, and how they lived their relationship with God. Doing so will help us grasp the big picture, the real meaning of the Bible.
Before we can begin unpacking the Bible’s plot, we need to have a common foundation for how to do that unpacking. In other words, we all need to be on the same page about how to read Sacred Scripture. We will start by asking two questions: 1.) Why should Catholics study the Bible? and 2.) How should Catholics study the Bible? To some, the answers to these questions is obvious. But they’re not obvious to everyone.
If we want to understand the Bible, we must consider it from the Catholic perspective, not a secular or academic one. Moreover, we can only understand salvation history and our place in it if we know how to read the Bible from the heart of the Church. Nothing in the following lessons will make much sense if we don’t have that perspective.
The first place we’ll turn to answer the “why” and the “how” we posed earlier is Luke 24, which recounts a meeting between Jesus and two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus, which took place on the first Easter Sunday, the day Jesus rose from the dead:
"13 That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. 22 Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23 and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.”
Even though the disciples are with Jesus, they didn’t recognize him. But then he starts talking with them about the scriptures. In the next few verses [Luke 24:25-27] he tells them two things: First, that the Scriptures show that Christ must suffer before he enters into his glory. And second, that all of the Scriptures point to Christ: He is what they’re all about. In telling them these two things realize that he’s not just telling the disciples what’s in the Scriptures. He’s telling them how to read Scripture.
Luke 24:28-30 goes on to tells us that as Jesus and his companions drew near to Emmaus, his disciples urged him to stay and eat with them. And Jesus agrees … sort of. In Luke 24, he does sit down at the table with them. He takes the bread blesses it, breaks it and gives it to his disciples. Does that seem familiar to you? It certainly did to the disciples. It reminded them of what Jesus did at the Last Supper. Luke 22:14-20 tells us that in the upper room, Jesus sat at the table with his disciples, took the bread, blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to them. What happed at the Last Supper was the institution of the sacrament of the Eucharist. What happened on the road to Emmaus was its first celebration after the Resurrection. What is remarkable is the effect it had on those two disciples. Luke 24:31- 34:
"31 And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” 33 And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, 34 saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” 35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread."
“And their eyes were opened,” And they discovered Christ in his Real Presence in the breaking of the bread. But as soon they recognize him, Christ vanishes. And the disciples are left to wonder at the experience, and asking, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” This passage helps us to see that the Mass is the key to understanding the Bible.
Remember how the reading of the Scriptures caused their hearts to burn? And how the breaking of the bread opened their eyes? Well so to should the reading of Scripture in the Liturgy of the Word and the breaking of bread in the Liturgy of the Eucharist cause our hearts to be enflamed and our spiritual eyes to be opened and recognize the presence of the Risen Jesus in our midst. The Emmaus Road encounter helps us to understand that what’s written in the Bible is proclaimed and made real in the Mass. The two are integrally related.
That relationship exists because Christianity is a religion of the Word, not simply a religion of the book. And that Word is a person, Jesus Christ, who comes to us in both the Scriptures and the Eucharist at every Mass.
Our personal encounter with him in these two ways impacts how we are called to think of the Scriptures. The Catechism tells us that [CCC 108], “the Christian faith is not a "religion of the book." Christianity is the religion of the "Word" of God, a word which is "not a written and mute word, but the Word which is incarnate and living". If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, "open [our] minds to understand the Scriptures."
One of the primary places the Holy Spirit “opens our minds” frequently and powerfully is in the Mass. The Church has always understood this. That’s why in verses like Revelations 1:3, Colossians 4:1-6, and 1 Thessalonians 5:27, the Apostles say that their letters should be read out loud in the assemblies of believers, in the Church. The canon of Scripture was put together primarily for the celebration of the liturgy. And that is why at every Mass there are readings from both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
By giving us himself in the Scriptures and by giving us himself in the Mass, Christ does for us what he did for those disciples on the Road to Emmaus. Like those disciples, he wants us to recognize and receive him. But we can’t do either of these things on our own power. We need some help. John 16:12-15 states:
"12 I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore, I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you."
So how exactly does the Holy Spirit help us recognize and receive Jesus? As the Catechism describes, it happens in three ways:
- The Spirit inspired Sacred Scripture.
- The Spirit safeguards the Church’s interpretation of Sacred Scripture.
- The Spirit continuously guides Jesus’ disciples in all truth through the Church.
Since the Church teaches that the Holy Spirit inspires Sacred Scripture, let’s investigate what the word “inspired” really means. Its important because 2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us that all Scripture is inspired:
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God[a] may be complete, equipped for every good work.
What exactly do we mean by “inspired”? The Greek word Paul uses for inspired in that passage is Theópneustos – God breathed. When we talk about the Bible being inspired, we mean the words of Scripture are the very words of God. God is, as the catechism tells us, [CCC 304] …the principal author of Sacred Scripture. That doesn’t mean the words of Scripture aren’t also the words of men. Even though God’s role as author was primary, realize that the human authors of the various books in the Bible weren’t robots mechanically writing down dictation from God.
2 Peter 1:20-21 tells us that the human authors of Scripture were moved to write by the Holy Spirit. They wrote down exactly what God wanted and nothing more. That said, the sacred books still bear the human author’s own personality, their own perspective and individual style. The technical term for this is Divine Concurrence, and let’s be honest – it’s a mystery. We don’t wholly understand how God acted on them to write exactly what he wanted while they continued to exercise their free will.
We recognize that God moved the human authors. That means the word of God is both divine and human. Which makes sense because Jesus Christ, the Word of God, is also divine and human. He is both God and man, possessing a divine nature and a human nature. And just as the Word Incarnate took on all the weakness of human flesh except sin, so too does the Word Inspired come to us with all the limitations of human language, except error.
Dei Verbum, the Vatican II document on Sacred Scripture, repeats this ancient teaching of the Church when it says: “Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation.”
Dei Verbum also tells us however that when we are interpreting Sacred Scripture, we need to take the human authors into account: “The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture.”
The phrase contemporary literary form is an important one. That’s because the Bible is not just one book; it’s a library of books – books of poetry, prose, prophesy, narrative, proverbs, and parables. And like other forms of literature, the Bible is full of literary clues that convey the meaning of the text. When we discover the “literary sense” of verses, chapters, and books, we’re able to see all the parts of the Bible coming together in a unified plot – the story of God’s plan for our salvation.
The Bible isn’t just a literary work. It’s also a historical work. Those literary signs we just spoke about point to historical realities. Modern history, the kind that most of us are familiar with from school, is secular. It is told from a purely human perspective; it focuses only on the human aspect and motives behind political, economic, and military events. The Bible isn’t like that. Biblical history is sacred history. It is told from God’s perspective, and that means that it focuses on God’s purposes and saving actions. It is literally His Story. That means that a lot of things that other people might think important don’t make their way into Sacred Scripture.
For example, what historians would consider pretty earth-shattering events might have been occurring in Rome or China or South America on the day Jesus was born. But none of those events made it into the Bible. From God’s perspective what mattered was the birth of the Messiah, not political intrigues in Caesar’s palace.
Biblical history is divided into two parts; the Old Testament and the New Testament. It begins with the creation of the heavens and the earth, and ends with the passing away of this world and the coming of a “new heaven” and a “new earth”. And at the center of the drama is the cross. Galatians 4:4-5 says:
"4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons."
The place of the cross shows us that the division of biblical history into the Old Testament and New Testaments is more than just a structural division. Salvation history itself is a two-part story. It is the story of the world before Jesus, the story of God’s promises. And it’s the story of Jesus entering the world and changing it forever – the fulfillment of God’s promises. That’s the beautiful story we’re studying in Genesis to Jesus.
In our next lesson, we’ll dive into several important ideas and concepts that we need in order to correctly read and understand what the Bible has to say. We’ll also answer the question of why God gave us Sacred Scripture to begin with, and how it fits with Sacred Tradition to make up a single deposit of the Word of God. Finally, we’ll discuss how everything in Scripture revolves around the covenant family of God, the family we were made for.
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