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Letters Twenty-Ninth
Sunday in Ordinary Time |
The Catholic Telegraph
October 19, 2001About half way through chapter two, the senior apostle begins to deal with the false teachings and other dangers that are facing the Church or that will soon face it. He laments the haggling over words and the foolish debates that people are engaged in (cf. 2.14 and 2.23). Some people are asserting that the final resurrection has already taken place (cf. 2.18). It’s not hard to foresee the moral decay that will arise as the end draws near (cf. 3.2-5). The author encourages Timothy to continue to follow his example of perseverance in times of trial.
At the beginning of our Sunday reading, the author exhorts Timothy to be faithful not only to what he has seen in the life of the senior apostle, but also to the teaching he has learned from him. What he has learned and believed is reliable both because it has come from an apostolic source and also because it is contained in Sacred Scripture. Scripture offers not just information, but direction and insight that make our faith in Jesus more effective for salvation. (The author is alluding to the Hebrew Scriptures here, those books of the Bible that we refer to as the Old Testament. Since most of the members of the Church were Gentiles, they would have been acquainted with this part of the Bible through the Greek translation known as the Septuagint.)
The author goes on to explain why Scripture is so helpful in our life of faith. First and foremost, it is all inspired, that is (as the New Testament original puts it) "breathed by God" into the heart and mind of the human author. It has a value beyond that of the wisest of merely human words. Consequently, Scripture is useful for teaching and guiding, for reproving and calling to repentance. Scripture has to be part of the equipment of anyone who wants to be properly outfitted for doing God’s work. No one who wants to be in touch with God can do without it.
Now, one more time, the senior apostle calls his young colleague to faithfulness in ministry. He reminds him of the context in which they work: God and Christ Jesus are present in our midst; the final judgement is coming; the Lord will appear to rule heaven and earth. In view of all that, keep proclaiming the word! This proclamation is to be an ongoing activity, not just something that is engaged in when all the circumstances are right. The teaching and guiding, the reproving and calling to repentance in which Scripture excels are to be the consistent task of those called to announce the gospel.
Catholics are more familiar with the Bible than they used to be. We get a richer dose of it in the liturgy through the Sunday three-year cycle of readings and the weekday two-year cycle. If we attend Mass regularly and listen attentively to the readings, we can acquire a much deeper knowledge of God’s word than Catholics used to have. In addition to that, there are the Scripture reflection and prayer groups that have grown up over the years in which lay men and women open themselves to the guidance of the Holy Spirit that is offered through God’s inspired word. There is also the fact that Catholic Scripture scholars, who used to be looked on as rather retrograde, are now generally acknowledged as leaders in professional Scripture studies.
The Bible is important for us. It provides the basics of belief and morality on which our Catholic faith is built. St. Jerome says that to be ignorant of Scripture is to be ignorant of Christ.
This is not to say that the Bible is our only source of knowledge about God’s will for us, or that the meaning of the Bible is immediately or effortlessly clear. It is not to say that the Bible provides detailed directions for every contemporary human need or that knowing the Bible by heart will insure an immediate answer to every question.
The Bible is the inspired word of God, but it is also the result of human effort. It has to be read and studied with both its divine and its human authors in mind. It offers us the story of God’s care for His human creatures from the creation to the end of time, and so we have to be clear about how each individual part fits into the whole. Like every product of human words, it has to be carefully read both in the context in which it was written and in the context in which it now finds itself. Our use of the Bible requires guidance from the tradition of the Church (that we spoke about a few weeks ago) to insure that we use it correctly. But the fact remains that Sacred Scripture is an essential component of the Christian’s life of faith. It has been so from the very beginning, as this Sunday’s reading reminds us.
There is another lesson that is implicit in this Sunday’s reading. Although the author is addressing himself to a "professional" church leader, it does not follow that all proclamation of the gospel is to be done by Church leaders. In our reflections on earlier portions of II Timothy we have seen that we all share responsibility for making Christ known. The "non-professionals" in the Church are not passive recipients of what Christ offers. We are all called to make Christ known. We are all fellow workers of the apostles.
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Conversation Questions
How is Sacred Scripture helpful to my personal spiritual life?
How does Sacred Scripture influence my witnessing to the gospel?
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