Read the Bible with Me!

Welcome to the Pauline Family's "Year of the Bible"! We've been reading the Bible clear through this year. We are finishing the New Testament, so read along with me. But first, let us pray: 

Father,

When the fullness of time had come, you sent your Word in the One who said, “Whoever sees me, sees the Father.” No revelation can surpass this until Jesus comes again. By your gift, the Church continues to receive unfathomable riches from the inheritance handed on from the Apostles and guaranteed by the Holy Spirit.

Let the Spirit who inspired the writing of today's pages "guide me in the truth and teach me" to follow Jesus ever more closely, until he calls me to follow him to the Kingdom where he lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen.

Today's chapters are Hebrews 7-9.

Do you remember when we read Romans and Galatians how Paul labored to get across the point that the Mosaic Law could not save people's souls? That Jesus did "what the Law was powerless to do" (cf. Rom 8:3-4)? That is what Hebrews is doing with the "digression" into the priesthood of Melchizedek. 

The Law was centered on animal sacrifices in the Temple, sacrifices that had to be offered by Levitical priests descended from Aaron. The most important and efficacious of those sacrifices, the ritual on the Day of Atonement, still had to be repeated annually. Not only that! The Temple itself was only an earthly replica of a heavenly reality. You see where this is going: God was preparing the world for a surpassingly glorious reality. Now that it has arrived, nothing can surpass it; we can expect nothing more, nothing better, nothing else. Only for Christ to "come again in glory to judge the living and the dead." 

Will we be ready?

Start reading here.