Returing To Our Senses

[Livin_the_MASS]

"Of course all the books you'll ever read, the Bible is unique. Most books have only human authors. [b]The Bible alone can truly claim to have both human authors and a divine author, the [u]Holy Spirit.[/b][/u]

"Thus, if we want to get to God, the Bible is the one book we can't do without. [b]Saint Jerome said that "ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." [/b]And it's true: [b][u]You can't understand one without the other.[/u][/b] Jesus Christ is the Word of God incarnate, fully divine, yet fully human---like all of us, except without sin. [b]The Bible is the Word of God inspired, fully divine yet fully human---[u]like any other book except without error.[/b][/u] Both Christ and Scripture are given "for the sake of [our] salvation" (DV,11).

"So when we read the Bible, we need to read it on two levels at once. We read the Bible in a [i]literal[/i] sense, as we read any other human literature. But we read it also in a [i]spiritual[/i] sense, searching out what the Holy Spirit is trying to tell us through the words.

[b]"What the soul is to the body, the spiritual sense is to the literal.[/b] You can distinguish the two; [b][u]but if you try to seperate them, death follows.[/u][/b] [b][u]God "has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant---not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (2 Cor. 3:6, NIV).[/u][/b] As Saint [b]Augustine taught, the literal sense without the spiritual is not only dead, but deadly.[/b]

"Before we can read the Bible's spiritual sense, we need to develop a [b]"sacramental imagination"[/b] so that we can learn to interpret history and creation in terms of the sacred symbolism of Scripture. [b]For God wrote the world the way men write books---to convey truth and love. Thus, nature and history are more than just created things---God fashions them as visible signs of other things, uncreated realities, which are eternal and invisible.[/b] But because of sin's binding effects, the "book" of nature must be translated by the inspired Word of Scripture. Likewise, Scripture illuminates the spiritual significance of God's saving deeds in history---for example, the Flood or the Exodus. This is where our sacramental imagination comes in, enabling us to interpret history and creation in terms of the sacred symbolism of Scripture."

Scott Hahn Rocks! I've been reading this book and half of it I got highlighted and marked!

"Scripture Matters" get it today!

Bolds added by me!

God Bless
Jason

[phatcatholic]

this belongs in the apo board

[Livin_the_MASS]

[quote name='phatcatholic' date='May 1 2004, 03:02 PM'] this belongs in the apo board [/quote]
You can take the thread if you want Phat!

God Bless
Jason