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 17-19 and (because it is Sunday) Psalms 105 and 106.

Notice how the prophecies to Ethiopia and Egypt end with these lands worshiping the Lord, and with an altar to the living God established in Egypt. There are tremendous prophecies of hope interspersed with the warnings of judgment.

Psalm 105 contemplates God guiding the course of history even through the most unlikely events. It is a fitting accompaniment to our reading of the prophecies against the enemies of Israel. God continues to "write straight with crooked lines," just as he did with "Joseph, sold as a slave" into Egypt.

Psalm 106 takes God's mercies to heart, aware of what happened to those who forgot the saving deeds of the Lord.

Start reading Isaiah 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.