The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - How to Read the Bible

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

Do you know how to read the Bible? The Bible can be very intimidating and for many, it isn’t immediately obvious how to go about reading and studying it. Jeff Cavins shares about some of his favorite resources for reading and studying the Bible, many of which he created! Snippet from the Show There is a revival in Biblical study in the Catholic Church. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit https://media.ascensionpress.com/?s=&page=2&category%5B0%5D=Ascension%20Podcasts&category%5B1%5D=The%20Jeff%20Cavins%20Show for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together and living as activated disciples. This is show 395, How to Read the Bible. Welcome to the show again this week. So good to have you with me. And for those of you, it's brand new. welcome it's good to have you too and i hope that uh i hope that whatever caused you to come to this show i hope your questions are answered your hopes are lifted we're going to be talking today about how to read the bible probably as i'm looking this is show 395 so as i'm looking over a number of past years prior to the show i don't know that i've ever really had a show on just how to read the Bible, sort of the center of everything that at least my life is involved in. So I got to thinking,

wouldn't it be fun to talk about how to read the Bible today? But I also want to introduce you to a book that Dr. Tim Gray and I wrote a number of years ago that there is a new addition. It's called Walking with God. There's a new edition out now, and I think it's going to interest you. It is simply put, the best book I've ever seen as far as the layout, the look, the color, and everything. And walking with God is a book that Tim and I wrote, Dr. Gray and I wrote a number of years ago about how to read the Bible and how to go through the entire story of salvation history from Genesis to Revelation.

How do you do that? Well, if you're familiar with the great adventure, the studies, and unlocking the mystery, which is a kind of a miniature version of the great adventure, then you know that that's what we were trying to accomplish with that study is to show people how to, to study their way through the Bible. But then a number of years ago, Dr. Tim Gray and I wrote a book called Walking with God a Journey through the Bible, which literally takes you as a book would through the entire story, showing you all of the major characters and all the major events of salvation history.

It's laid out so well. We'll get into that today, all right? So we're going to go all the way from question, how do I read the Bible, to the answer. we'll show you how to read the Bible. I think you're going to like it. And it's the type of show that if you know of anybody who is interested in how to read the Bible, this will prove to be invaluable. It will be very valuable. And we'll get into this a little bit, but it's one of the things that doesn't happen in parishes that I wonder about sometimes. You know, how can somebody go to a parish for 15, 20 years and not once have anybody actually sit down and show you how to

read the Bible. So that's what I'm going to do today, at least with a couple of the tools that we have developed at Ascension to help you do it. These are the tools, by the way, that Bible in a year, Father Mike Schmitz and myself in Bible in a year, this is basically what we did is we took the great adventure methodology of how to read the Bible. And I put it into a study years ago, back in the 1980s, actually. And so the studies do that. They take you through the story. the book takes you through the story and we'll look at that but i do hope you're having a good week i do you know i thank you for praying for my beautiful wife amlaid she yeah about five six weeks ago was it five weeks ago six weeks ago she was playing pickleball she she ended up going for the ball and

stopped suddenly and man she broke her tibia plateau that's that plateau on the top of your tibia, the largest bone in your knee down. And man, that hurt. And she had surgery. And she had been off of the knee for five weeks now, five more to go, actually. When this Saturday, when I was in a church giving an announcement, she fell and she broke her wrist and had to have surgery on Sunday. So in a matter of six weeks, she broke her knee and she broke her wrist. And now I have to take total care of her, which I don't mind doing. But wow, have the roles changed in our household. But it is a privilege to take care of her. Pray for her. That's a lot to go through, you know. And the wrist that she broke was on her left hand and that and she's left handed so yeah so i appreciate your prayers

you never know what a week is going to bring you really don't and there really is no way for you to know for sure but you have to be ready when difficulties come the time to prepare for that was prior to the difficulties that's what we learn here you know is that that when something difficult takes place, that's not the time where you say, well, I better hunker down and learn something now. No, that's what you did prior to the accident. You were preparing yourself so that when difficulties came your way, you would know how to proceed. You would know how to live.

You would know to trust in God with all of your heart. And I can say that that's what we're finding out in our life right now is that there's been a lot of legwork, you know, prior to these two things that have happened to Emily and the faith lifts us up our relationship with the Lord lifts us up and at the heart of this at the heart of this is really knowing his story and that is really really important to know his story to know his heart and and that's what really proves to be the difference to know his story to know his heart to know how faithful God is when difficulties come your way and they do don't they I don't know of anybody who hasn't really struggled with something in their life, some kind of valley or

bad news or disappointment in their life. Lots of times we hear these types of things, but it is the preparation that gets you through it. I remember one man telling me one time he said the time to prepare for the battle, to prepare for the war, for the engagement isn't right when it breaks out, but it's to train in the good times, in those times when you're so peaceful and you're thinking, oh, man, could life get any better, you know? My wife and I actually did that in 2000, right when COVID broke out, it was about three weeks before it broke out that Emily looked at me. We were down at our friend's house in Louisiana, Baton Rouge, Chef John Falls. And we looked at each other and she said, could life ever get any better than this? And if three

days later, we were driving back up north because of COVID. It broke out in New York. So you never know. Okay, so what I would like to do is, first of all, I want to share with you just a little bit about reading the Bible, learning how to read the Bible. And I want to do it in a way that is very simple. And I'm going to be using a couple of tools from Ascension here that we'll put in the show notes for you. The first is the Bible timeline chart. Now, the Bible timeline chart, and I'm going to do my best to describe this to you in an audio way. And really, it's best to take a look at the Bible timeline chart in person to get one of those. And we'll put that in the show notes for you. For just a few bucks, you can get one of these beautiful colored charts of all of

salvation history in showing you all the major characters, all the major events. All right? And that's number one. And I'll give you more information about that a little bit later. But the Second is this book called Walking with God, A Journey Through the Bible. Dr. Gray and I wrote that a number of years ago, but it has gone through different iterations. And the latest one, wow, beautiful. And I'll explain it to you. And who knows, maybe our amazing staff here at Ascension Press will put some kind of graphic in the notes for you. We'll see.

We'll see what we can do there. Okay. So by the way, if you do want notes for all the shows, all you got to do is text my name, Jeff Kavens, one word, Jeff Kavins, and text it to the number 3-3-777. It's quite easy, quite biblical, 3377. And we'll get that out to you and try to keep you on the list there. Okay, so you want to read the Bible. Everybody wants to read the Bible.

And I remember before I came back to the Catholic Church, I was a Protestant pastor, and that was one of the things that people spent more of their time in than anything else, that is reading the Bible, then talking about the Bible, and reading books about the Bible. But one of the things that I realized prior to coming back to the Catholic Church was that as Protestants, many of my Protestant friends, whether they be evangelical churches or fundamentalists or independent charismatic like Joel Osteen, and whatever group it was, what I found out, and I can say this because I experienced it, and I was a pastor for 12 years. What I found out was that Bible-believing Christians, for the most part, they understood

many of the stories in the Bible, as well as Catholics do. They understand many of the stories in the Bible, whether it's the Good Samaritan, or it is the visitation in Luke's gospel, or the baptism of Jesus, or David and Goliath in the Old Testament, or Abraham and his son Isaac when God asked him to sacrifice his son on Mariah. We're familiar with a lot of these stories. We really are. The problem that I found in my Protestant friends and their churches, which isn't any different, if anything, it's probably a little worse in Catholic churches, I think, from my experience, is that although that's changing, that really is, particularly with Bible in a year in the last few years, it's really changing. It's really changing in the Great Adventure Study in the Great Adventure Bible.

But what I found out was that most people didn't know how to read it as a complete story. And it actually came as a surprise in some ways, I guess. I'm not sure why, but it came as a surprise that there actually was a cohesive story, a complete story of salvation history from Genesis and creation all the way to the book of Revelation, and dealing with the New Jerusalem and the future. So, you know, a lot of people were not really aware of it. And the situation that I ran into was that people knew most of the stories, but they didn't know the story.

They didn't know the story. Now, I realized that back when I was a young pastor before coming back to the church, I was 25 years old. I wasn't very old. and I was the pastor of a of a church. And I did find out that most of the people could not walk me through the entire Bible. That was a given. And I realized that that was a weakness in Christianity is that the people who were confessing Christianity

didn't know the basic story from which Christianity springs. They don't know the story that comes from this amazing library of books. Now, as Catholics, we have 73 books in our Bible. Protestants have 66. I think I mentioned this to you in the last number of weeks, but the Catholics did not add books to the Bible. And Protestants did not take away books from the Bible. There are two canons. There is a Jewish canon.

And then there is a canon that the Catholic Church used in the beginnings of the church. and that was the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint. It's called the Septuagint. And that's what the early church used. Now, there was another canon out there, which was a Jewish canon. Now, that one did not have the seven Deuterocanical books that the Septuagint has. So we didn't add books. They didn't take away.

We have to realize there were two different ones. And at the point of the Reformation, the reformers thought that it would be best to go back to that Jewish canon that doesn't have these seven additional books in the Old Testament. And I might add books like about praying and asking for prayers from those who have gone before us in Maccabees and a number of other issues. It at least seems to be a separation from the church in not only the papacy, not only the papacy, not only. the Magisterium, but even the canon of Scripture that is going to be, it's going to be used. So when I say 73 books, and if you are listening and you are a Protestant and you know that you have 66 books, please know that I'm talking about the Greek Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures.

Okay, so starting off, we got 73 books, okay? And if you're listening in your Protestant, you've got 66 books. we have 73 books and the and when we pick up that Bible which I am holding one right now in my hands when you pick up that Bible the natural inclination for most people is to pick it up and open up to Genesis chapter one and then read all the way through to the end of of the book of Revelation and the assumption is is that when you are done reading and you're at page 1439 or however many pages there are in your Bible. The idea is that when you are done reading through all of that, you're going to, you're going to take that Bible and put it down

and go, wow, that was amazing. What a story. Not going to happen. Because the basic approach that most people have to the Bible is wrong from the beginning. What do I mean by that? Well, what I mean is that most people make the mistake of thinking that the Bible is a book. And you say, Jeff, come on. Of course it's a book. I mean, look, I've seen you with your Bible. It's a book, has pages, or must be a book, rather. Well, no.

It is a library made up of 73 individual books. 73 individual books that are, by the way, not in chronological order. Now, here's where people get lost, is that they didn't know that the Bible was put together originally by literary genre. So you've got historical books. You've got poetry. You have wisdom literature. You've got the prophets, even divided up into the major prophets, lots of writing, minor prophets, less writing. And apocryphal literature, like the Book of Revelation, parts of Daniel, parts of Ezekiel.

So the biggest mistake we make is that we think the story will be recognizable by going from page one to page 104, 100, 1,423 or however many books or how many pages you have in your Bible. So that's what we thought would happen, but that's not what happens. It's not what happens. So how do you read it? How do you read it? Well, I have in my hand right now the Bible timeline chart, and this is the key to the whole great adventure stuff. and the Great Adventure Bible, and Bible in a year, you know, this is the key. The key is how do you take that which is complex?

The Bible certainly is the most. And how do you organize this so that you can understand the basic storyline of salvation history? All right. Now, here's what I did years and years ago, and I was in my 20s. This was in the 1980s. this is a long time ago is that I grew in a hunger to know the Bible like never before and I came face to face with that problem of trying to read the Bible but not getting the story I faced that and that's why I was searching I was asking how do I do this and then one day

getting ready to go into my Hebrew class at the University of Minnesota I was asking the Lord how do I do this? How do I, how do I get my mind around the whole story and how do I share it with other people? And all the sudden I had this, I fall short of saying vision. I wouldn't call a vision. I had this thought that came into my mind. I guess you could say a vision of types that I saw the layout of this timeline chart where I could put together the entire story of salvation history in chronological order and show people how. to read through it. And the current Bible timeline chart is close to probably 90% of what I had in my head that day. And I got so excited about the idea of laying down a chart that would walk

you through the Bible, show you how to read it, keep track of major events, keep track of major people, keep track of all the enemies of Israel and the movements of salvation history. And I got so excited when I saw this in my heart. I didn't go to class that day. I went to a, what was it? I went to a, it was like an art store. And I got a whole bunch of markers and a yardstick. And then I went to a meat market and I got a piece of white paper, big piece for probably a quarter, went home and opened up my, my theology books and my Bible. Long story short, I created that whole thing in 48 hours. And I had no idea that it would define the rest of my life, especially knowing that for the next 10 years after that, hardly anybody knew who I was or what I did. And it was my own little chart

that I studied with. But now so many people hungered for the Word of God and have desired deeply to know how to read it. This is a revival, my friend, that's going on right now in the Catholic Church. It's a biblical revival of Bible study and revelation and Eucharistic, sacramental centered. It is an exciting time. I know what you're hearing on the news. I know what I watched it too. I know what you're thinking, you know, when you see debates and so forth. And a lot of people feel very discouraged these days.

But listen, it's not a time to just sit and wallow in discouragement. It is a time of action. It is a time of learning. and growing stronger in the Lord, that our day is upon us and it is time for us to live out the story of the Bible. It really is. It's time for us to do it. And I think I told you, you know, a few weeks ago that I truly believe that there's coming a day when people will move to a new city, you know, be it Seattle or Cincinnati or Lexington, Kentucky, or Omaha, wherever it might be, and they're going to look for a Bible study, and people are going to be

like, duh, you go to a Catholic church. That's where you get the good Bible study. That's where you get the deep Bible study. That's where you get the historical Bible study going all the way back to the beginning and what was handed on from the disciples to the next generation via apostolic succession. I really believe that, that the best Bible studies in the country right now in terms of effectiveness in being true to the senses of scripture, true to the history of the church are Catholic Bible studies. I really believe that with all of my heart. And I've been on both sides

of the fence here, 15 years away from the church, 12 of which I was a pastor, been back in the church teaching at Steubenville, teaching, you know, on EWTN and the Great Adventure Studies. So I've been on both sides. And I can tell you, it is the Catholic perspective and the Catholic way of studying the Bible that is going to yield the most fruit, not only in your life, but in the church's life in terms of evangelization. I really believe this. And I love to hear from you, too. If, you know, if Bible study has caught your heart in the church, let me know. You know, email me or make some comments, you know, whether it's on Google Play or Apple, wherever, fireside. Go ahead and make some comments there because we go through them.

We learn from you and we're excited about it. Okay. So what I did to make this simple is I took the entire Bible and I wanted to simplify it. How I wanted to divide up the entire Bible into 12 periods, just 12 periods from the time of creation to the end of Revelation, we're going to divide up all that area into 12 under. understood periods. We're going to cover, color code them, and we're going to put those 12 periods on a Bible timeline chart so that you can go from the early world to the patriarchs, and then from the patriarchs to Egypt and Exodus and onto the desert. We'll look at that in a minute, but through all of these periods, there's 12 of them on the chart. And I might add that the

The Great Adventure Bible from Ascension has the Bible timeline chart baked right into the Bible. So what you gain in the chart will never be lost in the Bible because it'll be buried in there. And it's part of the secret of how to read the Bible as a complete narrative, as a chronological narrative to find out what is the heart of God. What is the plan of God? And so we have these 12 periods. Let me just give them to you. I would recommend that you go to the show notes and get yourself one of these charts and the book that I'm going to be talking about here in a minute as well as a great adventure Bible. I mean, get the whole ecosystem.

It'll change your life. I guarantee you that. Okay. So all of the time in the Bible, 12 periods. Number one, early world. Okay. Number two, patriarchs. That's Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.

So, number three, Egypt and Exodus. Number four, we have the desert wanderings. Then we have the conquest and judges. And after that, you'll probably hear my chart here, deep in the woods. You got the royal kingdom. That's Saul, David, and Solomon. Then you've got the divided kingdom. Then you've got the exile.

Then the return, Maccabian Revolt, Messian fulfillment, and the church. There it is, 12 periods. That's it. So the first thing that I recommend for people, if you really want to know how to read the Bible, is commit those 12 periods to memory. It's not that big of a deal.

To commit them to memory, and each one of them is color-coded. Each one of them is color-coded. So, for example, you have the first period, the early world, it's turquoise. and I put in there a little saying that will help you to remember that period. So turquoise is the color of earth viewed from space. That should remind us of creation.

God created the heavens and the earth. So you've got the early world is turquoise, patriarchs is burgundy, red is Egypt and Exodus. We have the tan color for the desert wanderings, the conquest and judges, It's green. It's green. And then after that, we've got the royal kingdom purple, divided kingdom black. It's the darkest period in Israel's history there. The exile. And then the return. The exiles, baby blue. The return is yellow, brighter days ahead. And then the Maccabeean revolt is orange. Then we have the gold for the messianic and then white for the church. So there you have that. Now, the rest of the timeline fills in all the the major characters, all the major events, and I show you where the other 59 books fit in their proper place. And world history at the bottom. And we've got everything on one chart that folds up. You can put it in your Bible. You can put it in the catechism. You can put it on the bedstand. Put it on your desk where you study. So in one chart, we have that. Now, to what I wanted

to share with you today that goes along with that chart. And the reason I'm just sticking with these three things, that is the Bible timeline chart, the Great Adventure Bible, and walking with God a journey through the Bible book, those three things. Those are enough right there to get anybody going in reading the Bible in a way that will keep you on target. And you'll know what you are reading through at that moment. Now, I'm not going to to go deep into the Great Adventure Bible on this show. I am going to do that in an upcoming show. I'm going to walk you through that along with the catechism, a one-two punch. But I do want to share with you about this book, Walking with God, a Journey Through the Bible.

Now, I know that many of my friends, you might be one of them that has the copy of walking with God, which is that old copy, and it shows a young boy walking away from the camera through a wheat field. That was changed to another cover. Now that cover was changed in this third iteration and is it beautiful? I don't talk like this very much. I don't like to sell things. I'm not into that. Okay. But this book, had I had this book when I was in my 20s, I think it would have been a game changer for me then. To have a book that went through the entire story of salvation history from Genesis to Revelation, this book has, on the side pages, it has the 12 colors of the great adventure. So you can look, for example, at the Conquist and Judges. I can go to that part

of the book immediately and read all about that period of the Conquist and Judges. And there's reflection questions for small groups. And there's beautiful callouts in it. And there's an emphasis on all the major events and some of the things that, you know, some of the maps and charts. This is an amazingly beautiful book. It's in color, full color, taking you through the Bible and showing you how the story develops and it finds its completion in Jesus. Walking with God a journey through the Bible. In fact, recently, I handed this to a few people at a conference and their eyes lit up. They said, wow, is that a beautiful book? And so usable. you know the references are so easy to use so i'm saying man if you want to go through the bible and read it

in chronological order and you want a companion walking with god a journey through the bible would be that and the new ones are out so i encourage you to to go ahead and get that now i just realized i got so excited about talking about how to read the bible that a half an hour went by And I didn't even see that happening. See, that's what happens when you start reading the Bible. You get so so joyful that you lose track of time. Okay, so I'm going to be, I'm going to be wrapping it up here in just a second. I think we're going to do a show coming up on the Bible and the catechism and walking you through that.

Okay. So stay tuned for that. But as we get ready to wrap up here, I really would include. you to get that Bible timeline chart, get the Walking with God book that Dr. Gray and I wrote and a Great Adventure Bible. You will not believe the depths that you can go in your understanding of the story and how it can help you in not only your life, but your marriage, your finances, your children, all of it. And this is what's happening in the world right now. There's like a revival going on in biblical studying in the Catholic Church. It's tremendous. And I know you well

enough because we go back and forth from time to time that I know that the Bible has affected your life to some degree. And that's a beautiful thing. I'd love to hear about it as well. So I'll put those three things in there for you. Now, when you do read through the Bible timeline chart, it's going to take you through all the characters and all the events. And that's what I'm excited about is not only knowing the 12 periods, but then get this, and I'm going to leave you with this, then knowing the 14 books that are necessary to read through those 12 periods. Let me just give me a few minutes here real quick. This is so important, and I realized I didn't even take a break in this show.

You've had to listen to me in all my excitement by half an hour. Okay, so here's the important thing to remember here. that when we go through these 12 periods, okay, when we go through the 12 periods, the books that we read to go through those 12 periods are called narrative books. That's a narrative book. It is a book that keeps the story moving. And as you go through these 12 color-coded periods,

you're going to go through them with the 14 narrative books. That's right. Fourteen books out of the 73 books, 14 of them, that really keep the story going. You know, you start reading in January with Genesis, and then you get into Exodus. So exciting, but then around March you quit. Why you're in, we all know why, you're in Leviticus. Story ended, don't know what's happening anymore. That's what we want to avoid. You want to teach your children, avoid that. and learn to read those 14 books right away, read them according to the chart. It's all very simple. And then next time you go through it, start throwing in one of the 59 other books and read those books in their proper context.

You know, this is like handing the keys to people. And I remember a number of years ago, a guy from Duluth, an elderly gentleman, I think he was 98. he wrote ascension just in tears that it was he was 98 and he discovered for the first time how to read the Bible and he said something really cute he said I'm going to spend the rest of my life studying scripture I thought that was so beautiful and shouldn't we all I mean this is God's love letter to us it is the Lord speaking to you guiding you directing you correcting you informing you warning you this is the key You know that everything that comes to us in the church comes and springs from this amazing story. So take the time to get to know it. It's the answer to every time someone says, I want to know Jesus better. What do you recommend? What do I recommend?

I recommend you know the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. And then you'll see the story from which Jesus comes and is fulfilling. so in short there's the timeline chart the book walking with god a journey through the bible and the great adventure bible okay those three together what a way to begin and i haven't even mentioned the 24 week bible timeline study that i did uh with ascension or the eight week unlocking the mystery study one short ones long depends on where you're at but uh once you have that chart and once you have that bible and once you have this book and you begin to plow ahead in the study, my friend, everything is going to change for you. You are going to be so surprised

at how well you understand the Bible. I've seen it for years now, you know, over 40 years. And I've seen lives change. And I've witnessed people who said that they had a hard time remembering anything. They can now walk you through God's story. It's an amazing thing. So get that if you can. And then as I said, coming up here in the next few weeks, I'm going to be talking about that great adventure Bible as well as the catechism and how they work together. And this will be the point where I'm going to introduce to you the Ascension app. It's the only app in the world that has this new beautiful Ascension Catechism and the Great Adventure Bible sinking with each

other and it's free. Lots of videos in it of us teaching. People like myself, or Father Mike Schmitz or Dr. Edward Sri or Dr. Marcellino de Ambrosio and other people right there in the app. It's like a gold mine and it's free. So I'll put that in the notes for you too. Let's pray, shall we? In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus, we love you. And thank you so much for giving us life.

I thank you, Lord, for reaching us where we were at and providing life. for us. Help us, Lord, to be faithful in our response to your word and to your revelation. May we truly experience a revival in our own life as we dig deep into your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. I love you. I do. And I'm already looking forward to next week. God bless you. Thank you.