For a long time I thought the Bible wasn’t really for me. It felt like something for priests, or scholars, or people who’d grown up with a rosary in one hand and a catechism in the other. I figured I’d just pick up whatever I caught at Mass on Sunday and call that enough.

That’s a lie I believed longer than I’d like to admit, and it’s one I still catch myself slipping back into. It sounds humble. Really it’s just an excuse to leave the book closed.

The Catechism says the opposite. In paragraph 133, it teaches that the Church forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ through frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. All. Not the ordained, not the trained, not the ones who already have it figured out. Me too.

What changed things for me wasn’t suddenly understanding everything. It was just opening it. Some days a verse still sits there flat, and I read past it twice before it lands. That’s fine. Understanding isn’t the entry fee. Showing up is.

This week’s whole foundation rests on that. Not on how much of Scripture I’ve mastered, but on whether I’m actually building with it at all.

Today’s Bible Study

In Acts 8:30 to 31, Philip comes across an Ethiopian official reading from the prophet Isaiah and asks him a simple question. Do you understand what you’re reading. The man’s answer is honest. How can I, unless someone explains it to me. He doesn’t pretend to have it together, and he doesn’t put the scroll down either. He asks for help and keeps reading. That’s most of what I’ve learned to do too. I don’t need to arrive at Scripture with the answers already in hand. I need to arrive willing to ask.

Recommended Reading

If you want to sit with this longer, Vatican II’s Dei Verbum is short and worth the read, especially its last chapter on Scripture in the life of the Church. It’s the clearest place I’ve found that says plainly what I’m getting at here, that the Bible was never meant to stay locked up with the scholars.