Altobello Melone

Transcription

Hey everybody, this is Steve, and you probably have one of these, but how do you read it? The Bible is the best-selling and most read book in the history of the world. Lots of people read it but lots of people also disagree about what it means. Christians in particular disagree about what role the Bible plays in the life of the church. For instance, some people see the Bible as the final authority in all matters of Christian belief. Which has led to a deep divide between those who are guided by the Bible on the one hand and tradition on the other. Not to mention the divide amongst all those who accept the Bible as the final authority. Because people disagree about what it says. The Orthodox Church has never bought in to this either or divide between the Bible and tradition. We're guided by the word of God, who is Christ Himself. And we connect with God's Word in a variety of ways. One very important way is the words in the Bible. But how do we understand those words? Well to help you, here are three things you need to know about the Bible. The first thing you need to know about the Bible is that Christ himself taught us and the Church continues to teach us how to read it. In St. Luke's Gospel account we read about what happened on the Road to Emmaus. Two disciples were walking to Emmaus. A third man approached them and asked why they looked so sad. The disciples responded with surprise, haven't you heard of Jesus was just who was just crucified? The crucifixion really shook the disciples. If you go back and look at Luke, Chapter 24, you can feel their sadness and their doubt. They said they were hoping that Jesus was the one sent to redeem Israel. Though apparently their hopes were dashed after they saw him dead on the cross. Then the third man said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." Later in the reading you learn that his third man is the resurrected Christ. He was telling the disciples that had they properly understood the scripture, they would have properly understood the crucifixion and who Christ truly is. And his teaching about how we need to understand Scripture that Christ is the key to it all continues to be at the heart of Orthodox Church teaching to this day. In the second century St. Irenaeus put it this way, imagine a beautiful mosaic of a king, now imagine that someone took all the precious stones in that mosaic and rearranged them to look like a dog. It's the same pieces but they put together in a totally different way with a totally different meaning. Similarly if we're not careful you can take the same verses from the Bible and present them in a totally different way with a totally different meaning; different than what Christ and the Church teaches. Speaking of the church, that leads me to the second thing you need to know about the Bible. The Bible is not simply a private book meant for private reading; it's a church book. Don't get me wrong it's good to read the Bible in our own, but we shouldn't forget what it is we're reading and how we should understand it. From Genesis all the way through to Revelation, the books of the Bible are part of the life of the wider community. For instance the Book of Psalms has been called "The Hymn Book of the Temple," and was used by the Jews when they came together for temple worship. Even today Orthodox Church services are full of verses and entire passages quoted directly from the Psalms, because we see those psalms as talking about Christ. And from the beginning the Gospels and Epistles were meant to be read by Christians who came together for worship, a practice the Orthodox Church continues today, because the scripture isn't simply something we read at home alone. It's something we read, and live, and experience together. We don't simply read or listen to the word of God; we become united to the word of God as members of his body, as the Church. And that takes me to the third thing you need to know about the Bible. It was collected, edited, and presented to us by the Church. By the time of Christ, the Jewish community had already agreed upon what books would be part of what we call the Old Testament. In fact a team of Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek. A work we today call the Septuagint. The original Christian community inherited the Septuagint, and the Orthodox Church continues to use it as the official Old Testament to this day. But the situation with the New Testament was a little different. You see for almost 700 years there was no official New Testament. Those books, the 4 Gospels, the epistles, Revelation, were written over time, from about the year 50 to about the year 100. Even though all the books in the New Testament were written by the 2nd century, they weren't all read, by all Christians. And some Christians read books that we today don't accept as being part of the Bible because there was no official New Testament canon. There was no table of contents that laid it out for us. It wasn't until the year 367 AD that we first see a complete list of the books in New Testament. It was written in a letter by St. Athanasios, the Bishop of Alexandria, and the Church as a whole didn't officially agree on that list until the Quinisext Council in 692 AD. Imagine, Christians didn't have an official New Testament for almost 700 years! But we did have Christ, we had the faith, which is expressed in our worship, in our traditions and in our scripture. And to separate the Bible from all of that, from the context into which was written and compiled is to guarantee misunderstanding. The Bible is a beautiful and a powerful thing. To understand these words let's unite ourselves to The Word, to the Word of God, Christ Himself, as members His body, as members of the Church. So let's Be the Bee, and read the Bible like Christ and the church teach us. Be the Bee and Live Orthodoxy! Remember to Like and Subscribe! I'll see you all next week!