The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - BONUS: How to Hear God's Voice in Scripture (2023)

Episode Date: December 30, 2022

In preparation for reading the Bible in a Year, Fr. Mike shares five tips for reading scripture that will help you better understand the Word of God. Before we begin this year-long journey, don't forget to get the 365 day reading plan! Text CATHOLICBIBLE to 33-777 or visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. This is not a day in which we are going to be reading from Scripture, but it's a day where we're going to be talking about Scripture. In fact, we're going to be looking at how do I hear God's voice in Scripture? Like what are the ways in which any person can like actually pick up the Bible and not just get the story, not just understand the stories, but really hear God's voice, like really know what it is we're listening to, who it is that

we're listening to. Because the Bible is not only a document, the Bible is a living thing. And it's God's living voice continuing to speak to us now. Here's some tips, three, five little tips, five tips on how to hear God's voice. And I want to start out with the first one. The first one is know what you're reading. What I mean by know what you're reading is a couple of things. First thing is know that the Bible is not necessarily, sometimes we preach approach the Bible, like it's a magic eight ball, right? Kind of like just look for an answer, uh, that, or we approach the Bible like, um, it's a book of inspiring quotes. So we just look for inspiration. We look for like some up being uplifted. And then we read

some stories that we're going to get into the stories. Um, as we go through this Bible in a year plan and like, wait, that was not inspirational. And that does not provide me with a lot of direction for my life. Um, so we need, you need to know what you're reading. What I mean by that is we need to know that there are many genres. There are 73 books in the Old Testament and New Testament, 73 books in the canon of scripture, and they are a mix of literary genres. And so I need to approach them like, okay, this is not all inspiration. This is not all edifying.

This is not all uplifting. This is not all those things that we like to think of when we hear Bible stories. The Bible though is a mix. Yep. Some of the books are historical. Some of the books have a narrative that we follow. And that's one of the things we're going to do by following the Great Adventure Bible timeline. We follow the narratives, but also there's some books that are legal. There's a legal book like Leviticus. There are stories that are retelling the same story. Like for example, Genesis chapter are stories that are retelling the same story. Like for example, Genesis chapter one and Genesis chapter two tell the same story,

but in two different perspectives. We also have things like Exodus and then numbers that will tell a lot of the same stories. So sometimes we have that happening when we're reading the Bible. We have to understand, okay, that's that. Also, there's things like Proverbs, which are wise sayings that belong to the wisdom books or Psalms, same kind of thing that belongs to the wisdom books. And it has like these collection of prayers. Then we have the gospels. And not only do we have the gospels that are like basically a history, but kind of like a biography, but kind of not like a biography of Jesus, a unique kind of biography. But even in the gospels, there are genres like parables, where Jesus tells a parable, which is not meant necessarily to be taken literally or not necessarily meant to be taken as, how would you say it, universally applicable. We've talked about

this before in other contexts, but here's the story of like the 10 virgins, five wise virgins and five foolish virgins. And in that scripture, what happens? They all fall asleep. And when the bridegroom is there, they wake up and the foolish ones have no, not enough oil in their lamps. And so they ask the wise ones, give us some of your oil. And the wise ones say, no, get yourself, get your own oil. And if that were to be a universally applicable kind of a parable,

you'd say, well, I guess we aren't supposed to share, but that's not what that parable is about. So we have a lot of different genres. One of the first tips to hearing God's voice is know what you're reading. Pay attention to the genre. Another thing to be able to do is recognize that when we're reading the Bible, we are reading the word of God expressed in the words of human beings. This is very, very important for us. The catechism reveals this to us, that throughout all the words of sacred scripture, God speaks only one single word, his one utterance in whom he expresses himself completely. That's a quote from the catechism, paragraph 102.

But right before that, right before that, we have Catechism 101, because that's how numbers work. And it says that in order to reveal himself to men in the condescension of his goodness, God speaks to them in human words. So in order to reveal himself, he condescends to us and he speaks to us in human words. In fact, the quote is, indeed, the words of God expressed in the words of men are in every way like human language, just as the word of the eternal father, when he took on himself, the flesh of human weakness became like men. One of the things that means is that the Lord God used the human authors of sacred scripture as true authors, making use of their time, their place, making use of their minds and their ways of seeing things in order to communicate

the truth that he wanted to communicate. And so one of the things we have to understand is when it comes to listening to the word of God or reading the word of God is that this is going to be the word of God or reading the word of God, is that this is going to be the word of God, God's words, um, through the words of human beings. And we, when we realize that we can understand how we're going to continue to read, which means, um, the interpretation of scripture. How do we enter this number two, to have a grasp on interpreting scripture. So the catechism, again, is so good, gives us the fact that the Holy Spirit is the interpreter of scripture, but there are four kind of ways in which to interpret scripture correctly, we have to be attentive to these

four things. Number one, we have to be attentive to the sacred author's intention. We have to be attentive to the sacred author's intention, which means we must take into account the conditions of the time, culture, literary genres and use, modes of feeling or speaking, narrating them, narrating that was current then. So one of the realities is if you were to visit another culture, another country, or another language, you visited a language, if you were to do that, one of the realities is if you were to visit another culture, another country, or, you know, another language, uh, he visited a language. If you were to do that, one of the things we would need to do is we would need to take into account like, okay, we are in different contexts. I remember I lived for one summer down in Caribbean Island known as St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

And it was great. Um, it was hard. It was hard down there because for many reasons, but one of the reasons I did not realize right away is because, well, they all spoke English at St. Vincent and the Grenadines. That was the national language. And so I just kind of assumed that, well, we understand each other because we're all speaking English. I'm a native English speaker. You're a native English speaker. And so we know what we're saying to each other. I did not realize though, after it actually took me until I got back to the United States and someone was expressing, they were conveying their experience. They spent the summer in France, living with a religious community in France, another seminarian.

And he said, yeah, you know, something about living in another culture that strips you of your personality. Something about, he said, something about speaking another language that strips you of your personality because you miss out on all the jokes. You miss on the subtle kind of references. And I thought, oh my gosh, that is exactly what happened to me because here I thought we were all speaking English.

We were, but all the things that, I guess the references that would make me kind of funny or the references that I would get their humor, I didn't. We were different cultures. make me kind of funny, um, or the references that I would get their humor. I didn't, we were different cultures. And so I was regularly told almost every day when I was down in St. Vincent, you're so dumb. Um, there was, there was by teenagers. So you give them a break, but they're like, you're so dumb. Like, well, I guess, I mean, I get it, but why?

And the reason why is because I didn't get their jokes. And I probably came across as kind of being really boring because I didn't make a lot of jokes because we had a different cultural context. Okay. How does this apply right now? It applies right now because we have to discover the sacred author's intention, which means that we have to do some scripture study that are some, you know, study of the culture and study of like, okay, here's what it means to me right now to read these words. Um, but what did Matthew actually mean when he wrote these words? Or this is what it means to me as a 21st century American. But what did this mean to Moses as he wrote the first books of Moses like 4,000 years ago? So it's important to understand, number one, to try to discover the

sacred author's intention. Number two, and when it comes to interpreting scripture, we need to, Quoia Catechism says, to be especially attentive to the content and unity of scripture. What that means is there are 73 books. They're all different. They're all different genres, but they will not contradict each other, but they rather inform each other. And so if in one portion of the Bible, it seems like, wow, God is really unjust. For example, one of the first books we're going to look at in this Bible in a year podcast is the book of Job. And you can look at this and say, wow, did God just like visit all this destruction upon Job for no reason?

Is God evil? Is God cruel? And because there's not really an answer to that question in the book of Job, but there is an answer to that question in the rest of the Bible where God is like, absolutely not. I am not cruel. I am not vindictive. I do not visit punishment needlessly upon anybody. He is a God of justice and goodness and love and life. And that's all he gives or the things that lead to justice and goodness and love and life. We only know that if we look at the scripture as a whole. Again, even though there are 73 different books by many, many different authors, we read every text in context and in light of the rest of the Bible.

Number three. So number one, sacred author's intention. Number two, especially attentive to the content unity of scripture. Number three, we read scripture within the living tradition of the whole church, which means to say that we pay attention to what the church has said about certain topics, certain scriptures. We are attentive to the fact that not only is there sacred scripture, there's also sacred tradition. That part of God's revelation is the written word, but part of God's revelation is also

the sacred tradition that he has handed God's revelation is also the sacred tradition that he has handed on from the apostles through the bishops and through the teaching office of the church and the magisterium. We recognize that divine revelation is not limited to sacred scripture, but is expanded into sacred tradition and in the magisterium of the church. And so we read scripture within the living tradition of the whole church. Number four, we are especially attentive to the analogy of faith. What's that mean? Analogy of faith, the catechism says it means the coherence of truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of revelation. So if you're reading something and

you're interpreting it, that goes against any truths of the faith, it goes against the whole plan of revelation that goes against what many saints have said, what goes against the church. We realize, okay, I have not been attentive to the analogy of faith. Okay. Those are the first two tips to being able to hear God's voice. Number one, know what you're reading. Pay attention to the genre. These are the words of God and the words of men. Number two is knowing what the interpretive principles are, like discovering the author's original intention. It's not, it doesn't mean what I think it means.

It means what the author originally intended and the other things as well. Number three, it's so important to understand that there are different ways to read scripture. There's different what you call senses of scripture. So once again, we're turning to the catechism to find out what is the different sense? What are the different senses of scripture? In fact, there are two, the literal and the spiritual. It makes so much sense because we said, what is the original intention of the author? Okay. What is the literal interpretation of the text? So the literal sense is the basis. It's the, it basically every other kind of interpretation of scripture, all the, every other sense of scripture is based off of the literal. Like what does it actually

mean? That is the number one principle when it comes to interpreting scripture, looking at the literal sense. What is this saying? For example, if the Bible says something along the lines of David entered the city of Jerusalem, leaping and dancing before the ark, the literal interpretation of that is David entered the city of Jerusalem, leaping and dancing before the ark. That's like the literal sense. That is the number one thing, the first thing, the basis for the other senses. Um, so we pay attention to that one first, everything builds off of the literal because the spiritual sense is divided into three different categories, right? So the spiritual sense has the allegorical, the moral and the anagogical. I know all these words. You're like, what the heck

father? Why are you telling me all this? Well, I'm telling you this because there are many times when scripture in the literal sense is like, wow, I don't get that really. And I don't, I don't, I'm not necessarily able to apply it to my life right now, but there is this spirit, these spiritual senses that unpack scripture in a way and apply scripture in a way that we can benefit from. So number one in the spiritual sense, the allegorical sense, what's that mean? It means that there are types throughout scripture. So the example that the catechism uses is we understand the allegory or the type of the Red Sea, the journey through the people of Israel through the Red Sea. It's a type of Christ's victory. It's also a type of Christian baptism. What do I mean? Well, you have the people of Israel who are on one side of the Red Sea, and they, on that side of the Red Sea, are certain slaves and face certain death.

And then they pass through the waters of the Red Sea. And what does God give them? By passing them through the waters of the sea, he gives them freedom and he gives them life. And this is what God gives to us in baptism. So that's the allegorical sense you could say. Another way to say it is the first example I used, which I think was, I think Jeff Cavins had used this years ago. I don't know how long ago, but I heard it. David entering Jerusalem, leaping and dancing before the ark. The allegorical sense could be like, okay, how does this apply to maybe even something like the allegory of here is John the Baptist leaping in Elizabeth's womb before Mary, who is the new Ark of the New Covenant.

Right. So here is the child Jesus in the womb of Mary, the Virgin Mary. And so Mary there is is like a the fulfillment of the Ark of the Covenant to the allegory right there. And then you have John the Baptist leaping for joy in front of, um, our lady and Jesus in her womb. And that would be, so David is an allegory, right? And the fulfillment of that is in the new Testament in Luke's gospel chapter one. So that'd be allegorical sense. The moral sense is, um, the events reported in scripture ought to lead us to act justly. So how, how can I apply this to my moral life? That makes a ton of sense. For example, David leaping and dancing before the ark. He's like, okay, that's

my call to worship God. My call to go before the Lord and with joy, to go before the Lord and point to him, to go before the Lord and again, be joyful in worship. So the allegorical, the moral sense in the last one, the anagogical sense, this means that we can review realities in terms of their eternal significance. So let's go back to David. David leaping and dancing before the ark on his way into Jerusalem. Okay, what could that be an anagogical sense of, of like the end. When that might be would be, um, here we're called to in heaven, be constantly before the presence of the Lord and united in heaven, in God's presence, we're called to give him eternal worship. So these are these three spiritual senses,

the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogical sense. And if we can do those things again, we can read all sorts of different scripture that could immediately be relatively confusing with much more clarity because we not only have this, um, the interpretation principles, we also have the senses of scripture principles. We can apply them. The great thing about having the, both of those back to back the interpretation and the senses of scripture is that if you remain in the teaching of the church, right? If you remain saying like, no, I'm going to completely assent to not only sacred tradition, sorry, not only sacred scripture, but also sacred tradition and the magisterium of

the church, then you realize that, oh my gosh, you get to actually play around. And I say play around in the most cautious way of saying this, you get to rejoice in the multiple ways that scripture can be applied. If you look at the writings of the early church, as well as the middle ages church, one of the things you find is great joy in looking for new analogical senses or allegorical senses or anagogical senses, looking for new ways that the literal sense could be applied in these spiritual senses. And they just like, even to the point of like, they mentioned this particular kind of tree in the Psalms and that kind of tree would reference this and this and this, like it

would mean something deep. And there's just this playfulness with among the saints because they got so used to, I'm firmly ensconced in the teachings of the church. So I'm not going to step out of the teachings of the church. That means this whole scripture is a playground. Again, I say that in the best possible way. It's a playground because I am, there are clear boundaries. I'm not going to step outside of them by interpreting it on my own. Okay. So number one, know what you're reading. Number two, these principles of interpretation. Number three, the senses of scripture. We have two more to go. One is this, read like the Bible has something to teach you. Here's what I mean.

So often there are people who will read the Bible with skepticism or criticism. They read the Bible with not only with questions, because questions are great, but we read the Bible with these questions of like, I'm, I'm standing over the Bible rather than humbling myself in front of the Bible. And when I read the Bible, like it has something to teach me, that means I'm reading the Bible, the words of God in the words of men with trust. And if there's a better, a short circuit your ability to understand scripture, short circuit your ability to even get anything out of scripture, it's to read the Bible with a spirit of skepticism or spirit of criticism, to read the Bible as someone who's trying to prove it wrong.

There are so many things in the Bible that we will not understand automatically, not just because we're limited or not just because, well, you know, God's ways are beyond our ways. That's true. But like I said at the beginning, one of the reasons why we don't understand so much of scripture is because this was written at a different time in a different culture from ours. And so one of the things we need to do is read like it has something to teach us, to put aside skepticism, to put aside criticism, to keep our questions, but our questions get to be based off of, God, you're revealing yourself to me. I trust you even when I don't understand, because I know that there is an answer to this.

There is an answer to the question I have about what I just read. And so that's what I'm going to invite you to read like the Bible has something to teach you. And lastly, lastly, last tip to hear God's voice in scripture is keep on going. When you run up against something that's difficult, when you run up something against something that is confusing, when you run up against like, oh my gosh, I'm getting bogged down and people will often use like the names, like you're getting bogged down in the names and getting bogged down in the details. I'm going through Leviticus and I don't know, you seem like you repeated yourself 12 times in the last 12 minutes. Keep on going. It's one of the reasons why I like audiobooks so much. One of the reasons why we're doing this podcast is because I know for myself, if I'm reading something and I'm

not entirely getting every single word, I'm kind of like a little bit lost. If I just keep on reading, it usually resolves itself. And same thing. That's again, I just keep on listening and it usually resolves itself. It's one of those where like, oh, now that makes sense. Cause I went to the next paragraph, went to the next section. And it brings clarity. So keep on going when you run up against something that causes you a question, causes you problems, or even just something like, I don't even get what they were saying right there. Keep on moving, keep on moving forward because I guarantee you that when you keep moving forward like this, like that, those questions get resolved.

The questions are good, right? Your questions are good. It is great to have an inquisitive mind. But one of the things we want to do is not let that, those questions get in the way. We want to let those questions be the fuel for moving forward, but not let them be the reason why we stopped. So number one, raise to hear God's voice by reading scripture. Know what you're reading. Pay attention to the genre. Know that it's the words of God and the words of men, um, to be familiar with the four principles of interpretation, um, be familiar with the senses of scripture to read the, like the Bible has something to teach

you without skepticism, without criticism, and to keep on going. As I said, my name is father, Mike, we are going to be doing this podcast, this Bible in a Year podcast, and it's going to be so good. I cannot wait. I cannot wait to take this journey with you, or if you've already started on this journey, I cannot wait to continue this journey with you. We're going to keep praying for each other, praying with each other, and no, I am praying for you.

Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. God bless.