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 are finishing 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. By your gift, the Church continues to receive unfathomable riches from the inheritance handed on from the Apostles and guaranteed by the Holy Spirit.

Let the Spirit who inspired the writing of today's pages "guide me in the truth and teach me" to follow Jesus ever more closely, until he calls me to follow him to the Kingdom where he lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen.

Today's chapters are 2 Corinthians 5-7.

Paul reminds the Corinthians that the Resurrection we look forward to after the General Judgment is not just about something for the end of time: It should actually change the way we deal with things in everyday life! By his Incarnation, Death and Resurrection, Jesus has made everything new! The theme of reconciliation comes back, but this time, Paul is begging the Corinthians to be reconciled not to himself, but to God. The entirety of Chapter 6 is an appeal for repentance and conversion, backed up with Scripture and with the example of Paul's and Timothy's own apostolic sufferings endured for their sake.

Chapter 7 brings us back to the changed travel plans and the letter (lost to us). He reinterprets the whole experience in the light of Divine Providence, seeing God draw good fruits even out of painful misunderstandings.

Start reading here.

For additional background

N.T. Wright's Paul: A Biography 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 a noted Scripture, this is a flowing narrative that is scripturally enlightening and historically sound. Wright gives the reader a way of following Paul through the Acts of the Apostles and the writing of his letters, making Paul the person that much more approachable, and the letters themselves more readable as a result of having a social and historical context.

While we read Paul's letters to the Corinthians, you might also enjoy A Week in the Life of Corinth. This unique historical novel is set in first-century Corinth and outfitted with historical footnotes and archaeological sidebars. Ben Witherington III is a Scripture scholar in the Evangelical tradition, so there are some points in which his description of the worship in the Corinthian community mirrors that tradition rather than the Jewish roots of the liturgy we know so well, but his description of the social life and values of ancient Corinth may be extremely helpful in understanding things Paul takes for granted in his letters.