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 Jeremiah 20-22.

Like Job, Jeremiah curses the day he was born. He even reproaches God for seducing him by the power of his word, a word which has brought him suffering and rejection (rejection which has only just begun). 

Have you noticed how often the major prophets return to the theme of how the rich and powerful treat the poor and helpless? The whole fate of the kingdom comes down to two things: the Sabbath rest being violated (for the sake of doing business) and the poor and needy being crushed by the mighty. It seems hopeless, yet Jeremiah keeps on speaking in the name of the Lord, insisting with high and low alike that they all turn from injustice and oppression and begin to "Hear the word of the Lord!"

Start reading 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.