Bible Study 2023-2024
John
Join us for bible study class on Sundays after the 9:00AM Mass in St. Patrick’s Hall. This year’s bible study will be the Gospel of St. John. All classes are held after the 9:00 Mass on Sunday and begin around 10:15am. The classes go at their own pace and are generally over between 11:45 and 12:15pm. Contact Brad Pappalardo at 916-775-1070 or John Pappalardo at 916-205-2988 for more information.
WHY BIBLE STUDY?
Most of us have never read the Bible. Maybe we have heard excerpts while we did our Catechism. We hear three readings every Sunday; however, they are organized together to reflect a certain theme or teaching. How many of you have read one of the “Books” in the Bible (there are 73 Books) from beginning to end? How many of you have read the Bible itself from beginning to end? The answer to both questions is that there are very few who have. You are not alone! Most Catholics are not Biblically literate. Why is that important? You are seeing today and in the past, God and the Catholic Church under constant attack. You should be able to defend your faith (called “apologetics”). You should know why you are a Catholic or a Christian for that matter.
The tenets (“Canon”) of the Catholic Church are based on the Bible. The problem for us is that we have received most of what the Bible says in bits and pieces. There is this sense of gaps in our knowledge of the Bible, because there are. We do not read the passages in their “context” so we have this feeling of either not having scripture under our command (a grasp of the Bible as a whole) or not really being sure if we fully comprehend any of it; which makes it pretty tough to defend your church or your faith, let alone understand it.
More importantly, do you have a relationship with God? The people in our church, as Father Dan has often said, are good people. I am proud to say, you do an incredible amount of charitable work just as God intended. However, God wants to have a relationship with you personally. Most of you have a strong prayer life and that is fundamental. But does God talk to you? For most of us, our prayers seem somewhat one sided. Of course, they’re not. When we read the Bible, God is talking directly to you and often it can be profound, an epiphany! God wrote the Bible for us to read it, to teach us life’s many lessons and to reveal Himself to us. Our Bible study group reads the Bible, and related readings, in context. We have questions that cause us to think about the readings and then we come back together and discuss what we have read. It is amazing what we learn about ourselves and about what God is trying to teach us; well, it’s a good start anyway.