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 8-10.

So much good stuff to read today!!! In these three chapters, we meet three of my favorite Bible characters: The royal treasurer from Ethiopia (a "God-fearer" who could never become Jewish because he was a eunuch), a Roman centurion who is so devout that he prays in his home in Caesarea at the hour when the evening sacrifice is being offered in the Jerusalem Temple, and (drum roll, please), Saul of Tarsus (better known by his Roman name, Paul).

I already commented on the Ethiopian official when we read the same passage he was puzzling over that day on the road to Gaza. In this account, we see both the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecies and the early Church, within a few years of the Ascension, already reinterpreting the Old Testament in the light of the coming of Jesus Christ.

The story of Cornelius the centurion is significant because when he and his "whole household" are baptized at Peter's orders, they become the first Gentiles to be welcomed into the Christian community without having first been Jewish converts. Peter will have to defend his decision (in all the story is retold three times), but this is a turning point in Church history. The promise to Abraham is fulfilled: "I will make you the father of a host of nations." 

Another story that is told three times in the Acts of the Apostles in the dramatic conversion of St Paul, or what the man himself would probably speak of as his "call from God" (see Gal 1:15-16) or "vision of the Risen Christ" (cf 1 Cor 9:1). I wrote about that at length on the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul some years back, so I invite you to read that reflection if you are looking for more than the account we find in this first telling in Acts 9.

Start reading here.

For additional background

Now that we're being introduced to Saul of Tarsus, it's time for me to introduce you to my single favorite volume on St Paul. This is the book I would recommend to someone who wanted to read one (only one) book that combined the life and letters of St Paul. Written by the noted Scripture scholar N. T. Wright, this is a flowing narrative that is Scripturally enlightening and historically sound. Paul: A Biography gives the reader a way of following Paul through the Acts of the Apostles andas he writes his letters and makes Paul the person that much more approachable.