Questions and Answers

Q. Do stories of evil acts in the Bible necessarily mean that that the Bible is an “evil book” or take away from its overall truth as the word of God?

 

A. Just because the Bible records an act, that doesn’t mean God recommends it. The Bible is not evil because of the evil deeds it describes any more than high school history textbooks are anti-Semitic because they document the Holocaust. For example, Exodus 21:18 describes what should happen “if men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist and the man does not die but keeps his bed.” Clearly the sacred author is not commanding people to hit each other in the head with rocks. He is just giving sound advice about what should be done if something like this happens. Likewise, Exodus 21:10 and Deuteronomy 21:15 both describe a man with two wives and how he should treat his wives and children, but the texts don’t recommend marrying two women in the first place.

Q. Many accuse the Bible of being “anti-woman,” probably more so in the current social and political climate. Does this claim have any legitimacy?

 

A.  It’s true that women had less rights in the ancient world than they do today, but the Bible is testament to God’s plan for equality amongst the sexes. For example, Genesis 1:27 says, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” It is not simply biological males who share in the image and likeness of God; women, too, share this honor. In fact, God’s eternal wisdom is personified as a woman (see Proverbs 8).

 

 Also, women often served God’s purposes by being the heroes in salvation history who paved the way for the coming of the Messiah. Jesus’ genealogy includes Tamar, who outwitted her uncle Judah and exposed his moral hypocrisy; Rahab, who protected the Israelite spies and allowed them to conquer Jericho; Ruth, who courageously left her Moabite heritage and became an Israelite; and Bathsheba, who secured Solomon’s succession to David’s throne.

 

 Let’s not forget the other women in Israel’s history, like Deborah, who led Israel to victory against the Canaanites; Judith and Esther, who saved the Jews from extermination; and of course, Mary, the Mother of God, who the Bible says all generations will call “blessed” (Luke 1:48). No other man in the Bible, save for her son Jesus Christ, is given such an honorific title.

Q. Would you say that most of the internal difficulties or contradictions that people find in the Bible are a result of the manner in which they read the Bible?

 

A. Most of the internal difficulties arise when people think the Bible is written in the genre of a newspaper or a courtroom transcript and so every detail needs to correspond exactly. However, in the ancient world authors could vary secondary details in an account in order to meet the needs of their audience. For example, consider what God says at Jesus’ baptism. In Mark 1:11 and Luke 3:22, God says, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased." But in Matthew 3:17 God says, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." So which is it? Did God say, “You are my beloved son” or “This is my beloved son?”

 

 All three evangelists agree that at this event God publicly revealed himself to be the father of Jesus. Matthew, Mark, and Luke differ only in the words they used to describe that revelation. Matthew chose to emphasize how this message affected the crowd, whereas Mark and Luke emphasized how the message affected Jesus. There is no contradiction, because all three writers are asserting the same truth—that Jesus is God’s Son—but they do so in different ways.

Got to www.catholic.com for more

God Bless
Nathan

Marriage

Last week’s lesson on typology was to familiarize you with this concept.
I wanted you to learn a new way to look at Scripture, not only a way
that the first Christians looked at Scripture but even before them from
the very beginning. If you haven’t read it then I recommend you go
to the blog site posted at the end of this article to go and have a look
prior to reading this week’s leaflet because this leaflet will draw on this
methodology on reading Scripture.

We find in Scripture that the Church can be seen as the Bride of Christ
and Jesus is the bridegroom (see for example Rev 21:2). The Church
Jesus founded is to be as a bride preparing for the wedding day. I’m
mentioning all this so that you may see that a marriage includes one man
and one woman, one husband and one wife. Just as we see Jesus and
His bride as a type of wedding, we can also see that God created man to
be the bridegroom and the woman to be the bride.

The responsibility of the bride is to “submit herself” to her husband
because Eph 5:22-23 tells us that the husband is the head of the wife as
Christ is the head of the Church (I recommend reading verse 25 for the
husbands role, ie Jesus’ role, towards his bride. The Church then, being
the bride, is to submit to Christ. And Christ speaks of marriage as being
the “reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his
wife, and the two will become one flesh” (Mat 19:5).

Let’s think about this for a second. How does the husband and wife
become one flesh? Physically speaking, the complimentarity between
the man and woman seems pretty obvious. The husband is made to be
with his wife and the woman for the man as two puzzle pieces fitting
perfectly together. This coupling is the only way where two human
beings can literally become one as in the form of their child. They not
only become one emotionally and personally but the expression of this
oneness between them can be found in the fact that they can have
children. No other combination will produce this effect.

In principal, the only way children can come into this world is through a
man and woman. The physical union between two men or two woman
cannot bring about new life. And so, God defined marriage to be
between one man and one woman because in making us in His image
made the union between one man and one woman the only union to
be in His likeness in such a way as to bring about life. We are in effect
cooperating with God in bringing new life in this world.

If you want to talk about marriage being between one man and one
woman without bringing God or Scripture into the argument all you
need to mention is that we humans evolved in such a way as to bring
about new life through the coupling of one male and one female. We
evolved this way because the law of the survival of the fittest proved
that children will do better when protected and reared by one man and
one woman. This means that the government and society at large is
duty-bound to protect this institution so as to protect the children that
result from this union.

God created man in His own image, male and female He created them
(Gen 1:27). Just as God is found in the Trinity where the person of
the Father and the person of the Son have perfect love between them
that this love is a person unto Himself and all three are one, so too is
the love between one man and one woman that this love can bring
another person into this world. This is the only union that can resemble
the ‘likeness’ of God in the Trinity and therefore the only legitimate
union to be defined as a marriage. Any union other then between one
man and one woman cannot be a marriage and therefore should never be
treated as such.

Missed past week’s leaflets? Questions? Comments? Come visit our
Blog at www.parishofthepreciousblood.blogspot.com

Prepared by a St.Denis parishioner

Women's Ordination

Priestly Ordination

There seems to be a lot of controversy nowadays about the Church changing its views on female ordination.  Can women in fact be validly ordained to the priesthood?  That's a question that promotes a lot of debate in the Catholic world but one in which the Catholic Church has always answered NO.  Certain functions can be shared between the sexes but what is innate is unalterable or you would be going against nature itself.   “Where there is an absolute difference in the roles the two sexes can play is in the giving of life. By natural law, only women can give physical life by serving as mothers. By supernatural law, only men can give spiritual life to the faithful by serving as priests.”(1)

In fact, Pope John Paul II said that "in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the church's faithful" (Ordinatio Scerdotalis 4).

And so we see that it’s not that the Pope doesn't want to ordain women, it’s that the Church has no authority to ordain women.  The Church has had the chance to ordain women for 2000 years and never has it ever attempted to ordain women beginning with Jesus Himself.  Jesus chose 12 apostles, 12 men. It’s true that the culture of the time of Jesus would have made the choice of women apostles very difficult to continue His ministry but Jesus allowed women to join in His mission, to follow and finance his ministry (Luke 7:37-50) elevating them above cultural norms (Mark 16:9, John 8:3-11).  His decision not to ordain women had nothing to do with the culture.  Women have always been held with the highest regard in the church but Jesus only breathed on the male apostles, the first bishops, giving them the authority to forgive and retain sins (John 20:22-23).  What most don't seem to realize is that the male priesthood of Christianity was a distinction from the priestesses of paganism that existed during these times.  A female priesthood would be a reversion to non-Christian practices.

Jesus called whom He willed (Mark 13:3).  Not because the culture demanded it but because He willed it, whose will was perfectly united to the Will of God.  Who are we to decide to know the Will of God better then Jesus Himself?  To try to ordain women is to go against nature and against God Himself.  Here are a few quotations from very early Christian history expressing this belief…

“[A female heretic], lately conversant in this quarter, has carried away a great number with her most venomous doctrine, making it her first aim to destroy baptism. . . . But we, little fishes, after the example of our Icthus [Greek, “Fish”], Jesus Christ, are born in water . . . so that most monstrous creature, who had no right to teach even sound doctrine, knew full well how to kill the little fishes, by taking them away from the water” (Tertullian on Baptism 1 [A.D. 203]).

“Similarly, in regard to the deaconesses, as with all who are enrolled in the register, the same procedure is to be observed. We have made mention of the deaconesses, who have been enrolled in this position, although, not having been in any way ordained, they are certainly to be numbered among the laity” (First Council of Nicea, Canon 19 [A.D. 325]).

"[T]he so-called ‘presbyteresses’ or ‘presidentesses’ are not to be ordained in the Church" (Council of Laodicia, Canon 11 [A.D. 360]).

Reference: (1) http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/what-is-the-catholic-view-of-women

Prepared by a St-Denis parishioner