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 Romans 4-6.

You may have heard (or even been challenged by) talk of faith and "works" (good deeds) dealt with as an either/or proposition: a person is either saved by faith (alone) or by their own good deeds, but "no one can rely on good deeds ("works") for salvation." This articulation comes from an incorrect reading of today's opening chapter.

When Paul writes to the Romans about "works of the Law," he is not talking about "good deeds," but is addressing the question of the role of the Mosaic Law in the life of the Christian: Will Christian observers of Jewish precepts have a salvific edge over the Gentile converts who are not circumcised and who do not observe the kosher and other regulations handed down within the Twelve tribes? These are the "works of the Law." To answer this pressing question, Paul goes way past Moses, all the way back to Abraham. 

Having dealt with the question of the law, Paul goes back even further than Abraham, to Adam, the one universal father through whom sin entered the world. Paul is going to show us the rebuilding of the family of all humankind, not through "works of the Law" now, but by the gift of grace that comes to us from Jesus. These two words, "works" and "grace," are shortcuts in the Letter to the Galatians, too: "works" standing for our attempts at self-sanctification (!) and "grace" for the only way it really happens. (Wait 'til you see Paul using these terms in Galatians!)

Paul associates "works of the Law" with sin, not because the Law itself was bad (on the contrary!), but because the Law was necessary because of sin. We saw that in Deuteronomy and in the Prophets, especially Ezekiel: God had to keep adding new laws every time the people turned away from him. The Law was a training tool. It was not the goal.

There's too much in these chapters for me to begin to comment on, so I limited myself to this tricky issue that is often taken so far out of context that it is inexplicable. As to the amazing matters of hope (chapter 5) and our baptism into Christ's death and resurrection (chapter 6): these are a lifetime's worth of meditation!!! (Also, this is where St Paul starts to invent new Christian words that our English translations are hopeless for rendering: co-crucified; co-buried; co-raised; these are all single words in Paul's Greek and he had to make them up to express the absolutely universe-shattering newness of what happened in the Incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus!)

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.

And now that we are beginning the longest of Paul's letters, you might also be interested in reading James Papandrea's historical novel, A Week in the Life of Rome. Papandrea is a Catholic theologian and Church historian, so this novel is not just a fun read: it is filled with historical context (and photos and archaeological sidebars) that can help you fill in the blanks when it comes to the culture and times of the Christian community of Rome.