Hi. How's it going?
I'm going to read you kids a book.
It's called the Bible.
You're going to love it.
It's fantastic.
It'll change your life.
Hi. My name is Father Mike Schmitz.
And this is Ascension Presents.
Now. I've got this Bible.
This is a Bible that I have for a number of years now.
And I [was] just reflecting on the different ways that I read the Bible over the years.
And I think that almost every person who's introduced to the Scriptures,
the Old Testament, the New Testament,
the Hebrew Scriptures, the Christian Scriptures
from an young age, kind of go through these thing that you might call the ages of Bible reading.
The first age, typically, this is just people I know and myself, is like the story age.
Basically, it's a book filled with a bunch of interesting stories.
There's Adam and Eve. There's Noah.
There's the story of Samson.
There's the story of like, here's the virgin birth.
Here's when Angel Gabriel came to Mary.
Here's the shepherds in the field.
All those kinds of things. Bible stories.
Basically, we get Bible stories.
And we think ... The crazy thing is this,
As kids, because those stories are read to us as kids,
we think, then, we get older, that those were children stories.
But when you actually read the Bible,
like ... wait a second, woah! Those were ... that's who the child ... children's story that they told me where there's some like serious stuff going on in there.
So one of the things we realized is ... OK ...
It's not just a book of children's stories.
We have to go through that phase to the next phase.
Now the next phase I went through was I thought the Bible was a book of inspirational quotes.
So if I ever kind of like really want some inspiration,
or really wanting some kinda like ... I just wanna shot-to-the-heart grace or something like this.
I'm going to flip to the Bible and I'm going to read something from this,
and it's going to lift my spirit.
It's going to inspire me.
And I found out that ... wait a second.
Sometimes, sometimes I find the Scripture that's just really confusing.
I go to the Bible, and I'm actually not inspired.
So this still happens to me as an adult, as a priest.
Sometimes I'll go to the Scriptures and be like,
"Hmm. Yea. I know that one."
I've read this before. I mean, I might have read it once or twice already.
And I can go to the Scriptures and not be inspired.
So I can think, "Well ... this is a book of children's stories."
or "It's a book of inspirational quotes that aren't very inspiring all of the time."
And I can discard it.
So, sometimes we move on to the third age of Bible reading which is reading the Bible like an answer book.
Like, "OK. I don't just need inspiration now,
I need answers. God, I need some directions,
I need some guidance," so we can do the ... we play Bible roulette
where we just kinda go like this, and we say "And here we stop"
And then see if the God has given us the answer to the question that we're asking in this moment.
We realize when we do that,
we can't ... uh ... we don't get what we want.
Because the book Bible is not simply an answer book.
It's not simply a book of inspirational quotes. And it's not simply a children's storybook.
So we get to this place where you might call the adolescence phase.
Maybe you might even call it the skeptic phase, where we think:
"Wait a second. Some of these stories don't necessarily seem like they all are historically and literally true."
Now here's the thing.
When you discover there might be something's in the Bible that are not historically and literally true,
sometimes people say: "well. in that case, then who even knows? Forget it"
And they check out.
But I will say this, the Bible is all true.
Everything in the Bible is true.
But it's not always the same kind of truth.
In fact, the Bible made up of a bunch of different books and a bunch of literary genres,
are going to convey different kinds of truth.
But it's always going to convey the truth.
Like as an example, it wouldn't make any sense for me to pick up a geometry textbook
and flip through it and say, "oh my gosh. This is the worst poetry I've ever read in my life."
"It doesn't even rhyme."
That would make sense. You would come to me and say,
"Well Father, it's not supposed to rhyme."
"It's not even poetry. It's geometry."
I wouldn't say this is bad poetry, but it's still good geometry.
When it comes to the Bible,
all these different books, with all these different genres,
all contain truth.
Now some of those truths are not historically true at all.
For example, Jesus tells a parable.
Maybe it's the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Here's a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho.
And he gets assaulted by robbers,
and three people pass by,
and the third person helps him out.
Like, Jesus isn't teaching that as something that historically happened.
He's teaching that as a truth though.
Who is the neighbor?
But there are some things that are historically true.
For example ... creation. The creation story.
That's historically true.
At one point in eternity, God started time.
And he made everything.
That's historically true.
Now, it's not necessarily historically and literally true.
It says seven days in Chapter 1.
It doesn't say seven days in Chapter 2.
That's a whole other story.
Actually, literally it's a whole other story.
If you realize that reading Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of Genesis,
there are two different stories of creation.
You realize both of them are true.
They are not necessarily historically and literally true.
But it's all true.
So, what do we ... what do we come with? How do we read the Bible like an adult?
We realize that God used human authors to write the Sacred Scriptures.
So, if you ask the question: Who wrote the Gospel of Matthew?
You'd say: Matthew.
If I asked it again: Who wrote the Gospel of Matthew?
You'd say: The Holy Spirit.
And the Catechism teaches that both of them: Matthew and the Holy Spirit are true authors of Sacred Scripture.
In fact, sometimes we have this image of Matthew sitting and writing his Gospel.
An angel whispering into his ear: "Hey. Write this down. Write ...
And he's like, "Oh. That's really good. Really good. I'll keep doing that.
Or we have this idea that maybe like ... God overwhelmed Matthew.
And he went into this trance state and started scribbling out the Gospel of Matthew.
That's not what happened.
What we believe as Catholic Christians is this:
That Matthew wrote the Gospel of Matthew as Matt.
As Matthew. As a Jewish man who spent a number of years as a tax collector,
a number of years living with Jesus,
a number of years living with the Holy Spirit after Jesus.
To us ... to a particular group of people, and he wrote as Matthew,
with his style of writing, with his knowledge, and his lack of knowledge,
but that God used Matthew in such a way that God was able to communicate those things,
and only those things that he wanted to communicate for the sake of our salvation.
Now that sounds strange.
You realize, that's what your life and my life is all about.
When it comes to being used by God,
it's not like we get taken over by him.
It's not like we get these little inspirations all of the time, like: "Hey. Go do this."
"Go say that word to that person" or "Don't do this."
But he allows us to act. And if we say yes to him,
our lives become conformed to his will.
Our lives become directed by the Holy Spirit.
So that we could ultimately,
if we are perfectly conformed to his will, we do those things and only those things that give him glory,
and sanctify our brothers and sisters,
help our brothers and sisters.
Just like all of the writers of Sacred Scriptures,
we are simply disposed to God using them in their talents, in what they knew, [in what there were weakness], in where they were weak and didn't know.
You and I are called to do much of the same things
Cuz there's someone has once said very very famously, saying that:
"Watch how you live, because your life maybe the only Gospel that anyone ever reads."
Is that Gospel a true Gospel?
Am I completely disposed to what God wants me to do?
Or, is it something less than that?
Now, all of us are called to go through those different ages of the Gospel. And I still ... ages of Bible reading ...
and I still read the Bible for the stories. I love them.
I still get inspiration out of the Bible.
I still get answers out of the Bible.
And I still get direction out of the Bible.
But ultimately what I get out of the Bible is that I get the Word.
I get him.
And I get to know the Father's heart.
It's all true.
You can believe it all.
We also use our brains when we read,
because someone use their brain when they wrote it.
From all of us here at Ascension Presents.
My name is Fr. Mike. God bless.
ascensionpresents.com
That make sense?
I bet you they had some stuff.
Like ... I don't know what else.
OK. Yeah. Cut.