Read the Bible with Me!

Welcome to the Pauline Family's "Year of the Bible"! I'm reading the Bible clear through this year, and I invite you to read along with me. But first, let us pray: 

Everlasting Father,

All time belongs to you, and all the ages. In signs, in songs, in words of promise, you reassured your chosen ones, “I am with you; fear not.” You taught them through the prophets to trust that your saving deeds were not limited to the past.

When Jesus came, he fulfilled “all that was written in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”

The Church has found him everywhere in these same holy books.

Help me to find Jesus in my reading today, to listen to him, and to follow him with all my heart.

Amen.

Today's chapters are Isaiah 38-40, and (because it is Sunday) Psalms 107 and 108.

After reading a bit more that repeats what we have read in 2 Kings, we return to strictly Isaiah material. Chapter 40 is loaded with famous passages: "Comfort ye my people"; "Prepare ye the way of the Lord"; "Every valley shall be raised up and every hill made low"; "he shall feed his flock like a shepherd and gather the lambs in his arms"; even he shall "bear you up on eagle's wings." One word of comfort after another; assurance after assurance comes to a people who have been besieged time and again, and tempted just as often trust in money, weapons and strategy. Now God asks, "To whom can you compare me as an equal?"

This chapter alone could serve for a month of spiritual renewal.

With Psalm 107 we start the final "book" of the Psalter (which at one point was divided into five "books" like the "five Books of Moses"). Psalm 107 is a delightful psalm in its set-up: it offers four scenarios of people in desperate straits, describes their predicament in a poetic manner, depicts them calling upon the Lord, and then sums up how they were saved. Each little story is followed by a refrain inviting all people to thank God for his goodness and mercy. The four sets are then followed by a kind of reflected prayer that seems to exhort the people (still in exile?) to "take note of these things."

Psalm 108 may sound familiar. It is basically a combination of Psalms 57 and 60.

Start reading here and the Psalms here.

If you are looking for a solid but approachable companion to the Bible, I can wholeheartedly recommend A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament by John Bergsma and Brant Pitre. Although the authors are top-level Scripture scholars, they write for "real" readers. Notes include recent findings from archaeology and ancient manuscripts, and how each book of the Bible has been understood by the Church Fathers and used in Liturgy.