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've reached 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 in glory. 

Open my mind today to the gift of life and truth your Word offers me through the Church. By your Holy Spirit, grant me wisdom and strength to put this Word into practice and to become, myself, a presence of Jesus for people who are looking for you.

Jesus, eternal Word and Son of the Father, live in me with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Today's chapters are Acts 5-7 and (because it is Sunday) Psalms 136 and 137.

Just yesterday we read an idyllic description of the community, and today we find hypocrisy and deception even in the first generation of Christians! If anything, Luke's honesty is both refreshing and a reminder that none of us is immune from temptation. As his Gospel forcefully put it: "Unless you repent, you shall all perish in the same way" (Lk. 13:3; remember that?). 

The apostles are facing perils of a different kind. As Jesus had warned, they are being arrested and hauled before tribunals, and it is indeed an occasion "for giving testimony" (Luke 21:13). Here Luke introduces a wise teacher, known to us from Jewish sources and not simply from the Acts of the Apostles. (Gamaliel will later be identified as the teacher of a certain Pharisee named Saul.)

As the community grows, it experiences challenges from its multi-cultural makeup. Even though (for now) all of the believers are Jewish, some of them are "Greek," that is, they spoke Greek and not "Hebrew" (i.e., first century Aramaic). This led to tensions and misunderstandings. As in the time of Moses (Exodus 18), it was more than the tiny leadership team could handle. Consulting the people (and God!), the Apostles appoint seven men give them a share in their ministry, ordaining them as deacons with a gesture that is familiar to us from our reading of Numbers 8 and the ordination of Levites. Even now Church language refers to deacons as "Levites."

We also get a sample of the preaching style of the great deacon Stephen. As you read his account of the history of the Chosen People, doesn't he remind you of the old-time prophets we read over the summer? He will suffer like them, too.

Psalm 136 could be a Responsorial Psalm to Stephen's sermon (if only the listeners had been inclined to praise God's mercy!). Every line of the story of God's deeds for his people is completed with the acclamation: "for his mercy endures forever."  

Psalm 137 takes us back to Babylon. The psalmist, safely returned to the Promised Land, remembers the sorrows of exile, especially the loss of worship ("singing the song of the Lord" meant singing the Psalms in the Temple). The last strophe of the psalm has been excised from most editions of the Psalter as being too distasteful for moderns. Notre Dame doctoral student Timothy Troutner has written that we need to Bring Back the Imprecatory Psalms. What do you think?

Start reading Acts here and the Psalms here.

For additional background

I don't have a lot of resources specific to Acts, but if you would like to go further into this unique book of the Bible, the two-volume set (Witnesses of the Messiah for Acts 1-15, and Envoy of the Messiah for Acts 16-18) by Stephen Pimentel seems to fit the bill. 

The sections include study questions for groups, too!