Bible Month: 5 guidelines for fruitful reading in a Catholic key

Every September the Catholic Church celebrates the Month of the Bible, a complex book whose understanding and better use is advisable to take into account a series of guidelines.

ACI Prensa has consulted Father Luis Sánchez Navarro, professor of New Testament II and professor at the Faculty of Theology of the San Dámaso Ecclesiastical University of Madrid, who offers five keys that can serve as guidance to Catholics when reading the Bible.

1. Do not read the Bible outside of the Church

Father Sánchez explains that if Catholics read both the Old and New Testaments it is “because the Church has recognized them as inspired testimony of Revelation. Therefore, reading them apart from the Church, from her faith, is sterile.”

The expert elaborates on this idea by stating that “its proper context is the Liturgy and, in particular, the celebration of the Eucharist, where this Word becomes flesh in an eminent and real way.”

On the one hand, the Old Testament, “written testimony of God’s alliance with Israel, has been accepted by the Church – as Jesus Christ himself taught – as preparation and prophecy of the New Alliance.”

The New Testament, for its part, “is the embodiment in writing, with diverse literary genres, of the apostolic testimony about Jesus Christ; It is the work of men of the Church who were inspired to do so.” If they did not exist during the first years, it is because it was not necessary, since “the living testimony of the Apostles resonated in the Church,” the professor details.

2. Take into account the unity of the Bible

Father Sánchez states that the Bible is a small library made up of 73 books: 46 are part of the Old Testament and 27 are grouped in the New Testament. All of them differ from each other “due to their historical, prophetic, sapiential, prayerful or epistolary character.”

But, at the same time, “it is, at the same time and above all, a book (in fact, we say the Bible)”, both in its linguistic aspect, and “above all, from the historical, sociological and theological point of view” .

Its unity is supported, on the one hand, in the history of salvation that reflects: “A sacred history that begins in creation and will culminate in the new creation, the heavenly Jerusalem.” Proof of this is the long genealogy that culminates in the birth of the Messiah at the beginning of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, the professor recalls.

A second element of the unity of the Bible is “the subject of this story.” The Old Testament refers to “the people who are heirs of the promise” of God to Abraham, “who will reach their fullness in the people of the New Covenant, in the Church.”

Thirdly, the entire Bible “witnesses God’s intervention in history to save man and his revelation as the true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Thanks to that “we can talk about Him: that is what the word theology means.”

3. The Bible as a testimony of Revelation

The Holy Scriptures constitute “the written and inspired testimony of the Revelation of God.” This means that it accounts for “God’s true intervention in history”; that “participates in the stability of written communication”; and that “it does not obey the simple initiative of a man, but through the human author it is God himself who gives us testimony about himself.”

This is the reason why Father Sánchez recommends reading the sacred text “as one who hears the voice of a friend, of a father, of a husband: of someone who, as Saint Teresa would say, ‘we know that he loves us’” .

At the same time, he points out, “Revelation is not something static, but a dynamic event that happens” when someone opens “to the action of God in the Church,” for which “Scripture represents a very valuable element.”

4. The Bible as a path to plenitude in the face of ideologies

The pastoral constitution Joy and hope The Second Vatican Council teaches that Christ “fully manifests man to man himself and reveals to him the sublimity of his vocation.”

On this basis, the professor at the San Dámaso Ecclesiastical University points out that “the Holy Scripture appears before us as a path to human plenitude in the face of ideologies that, totalitarian, lead us to inhumanity.”

5. Read the Bible from faith

Father Luis Sánchez summarizes that “the fruitful reading of the Holy Scripture can only be achieved in the faith of the Church: formulated and synthesized in the Creed, celebrated in the sacraments, lived according to the Gospel.”

In this sense, he emphasizes that “faith is thus the key to that great book” because, although each book is different, they are all “born from Revelation and testify to faith, a response to the God who reveals himself.”

“To read the Bible with fruit, with fruits of great and beautiful life, of eternal life, we can remember the initial word of Jesus: ‘Repent and believe in the Gospel,’” he concludes.

Originally published September 11, 2023. It has been updated for republication.