ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS -- Jesus explains the Scriptures Episode 1

Picture by Robert Zund

On the road to Emmaus two disciples of Jesus are heading back to their home after the death of Jesus.   They are trying to console themselves after witnessing his horrifying death, feeling they have lost everything.  They truly believed that he was the Messiah they had been waiting for. The Messiah spoken about by the prophets; the one who would return Judah to its former glory and renew its kingdom.  But now with his death...there was nothing to hope for anymore.  On the road, they meet a fellow traveller who seems oblivious to what had just happened -- how could he not have heard about this Jesus that had brought healing to the sick, who raised Lazarus from the dead, and who spoke of God with such words and such love that it stirred their hearts in such a way they could barely comprehend.  The stranger smiled at them when they told him about the empty tomb and were so perplexed as to what that meant.  He said to them, "Oh how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!  Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" (Luke 24: 25,26) And then the stranger began to open up the Scriptures to them of everything that had been written about the Messiah.

From the very beginning of the Bible, Jesus has been revealed. The all-knowing God knew that His creation would fall into sin. Although His plan was to have a personal one-on-one relationship with us, walking in the Garden of Paradise together, He knew that at first this would be temporary, that man would disobey Him and would need to be redeemed.  But in spite of that, He created us anyway.  His love is so boundless it did not matter to Him.  He wanted us to love and He wanted to share His existence with us. 

So we can start at the very beginning of the Bible to the act of creation itself  where we first see Jesus as God uses His Word to bring about His Creation. Jesus IS the WORD of God. (Gen1:3)  He was not yet HIS SON, nor was He JESUS.  In the history of man, at this moment in time, HE was the Word. And together, God, His Word, and His Spirit (The Trinity) brought about creation in all its glory, wonder and beauty.  God didn't just  create a "place" for us to live, but he created a vast universe of beauty and splendor and awe. God did not love in a small way, but only in a marvelous uncontained symphony of love.

But we betrayed that love through Adam and Eve's (our) sin of disobedience and of pride as they wanted to be equal with God.  But God, out of his immense love, did not forsake us.  He promised us that someday we would be able to win back our salvation through the greatest gift he could give us--His own Son.

"I will put enmity between you and the woman,

 and between your offspring and hers; 

He will strike at your head, 

while you strike at his heel." (Genesis 3:15)

There are many interpretations of this verse.  "You" of course refers to the serpent, the fallen angel Lucifer, the devil.  Who, through the same sin as Adam and Eve's pride, lost all that God had given him when he wanted to be as good and maybe even more glorious than God.   The woman refers to Eve, but it may also refer to Mary the mother of Jesus, whose offspring will strike at the evil in this world by his suffering, death and resurrection that will set straight God's creation on the intended path towards eternal life with God.

St Paul, through his Letters to the Romans and the Corinthians speaks of Jesus as the New Adam.  He makes clear that the obedience of the New Adam negates the disobedience of the First Adam.  How his humbleness, which culminated in His coming in the form of man, would bring him eternal glory where every knee shall bend with the mention of His name.   JESUS CHRIST.  A statement in itself, the most perfect prayer, the complete meaning of love.  

St Paul's Comparison and Contrast

between

Adam and Jesus

ADAM	JESUS
First Human being (Hebrew, ‘adam)	Last Adam (new creation)
A living being	A life-giving spirit
A natural being	A spiritual being
An earthly being	A heavenly being
Humans bear the earthly image	Christians bear the heavenly image
Pride-filled	Humble
Disobedient	Obedient
Led to sin	Leads to salvation
Led to death in the world	Leads to resurrected life in the world to come
All ultimately die	All ultimately have eternal life
Is a “type” (Greek, typos) of Christ	The one who was to come, prefigured in Adam

(Gen 2:7; Romans 5:12-14; 1 Cor 15:45, 49; 2 Cor 5:17)

In the next episode of "ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS"  we will continue our journey in Genesis of the Old Testament Scriptures that reveal  the promise of the Messiah.

BIBLE BASICS Part 1 : A Logical Way to Approach the Bible

My first attempt to read the Bible cover to cover failed miserably. Genesis was pretty easy, after all I knew most of the stories it contained.  Exodus... I saw the movie THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, so that was a breeze too.  But then I came upon Leviticus...and it all started to come to a grinding halt....Holocausts, cereal offerings, peace offerings, guilt offerings, sin offerings...that was enough for me.    

I found that my failure to accomplish my reading of the Bible was that I knew very little about it. I had little knowledge of the types of  books in the Bible and how those books related to each other.    I never did a Bible study before so I never had the really big picture of the complete work.  I knew that I needed to get a fundamental idea of how the various books of the Bible were organized, as it surely wasn't chronologically.  The Bible seemed to jump around and I had no idea what the prophets were talking about and what time period they were referring to.  I began to limit myself to the New Testament as that made more sense....but I knew that I was missing a very important part by not reading the Old Testament...after all I kept hearing St. Augustine's words "The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New." ...I needed the whole story of salvation!

Fortunately I found a great Bible study "The Little Rock Scripture Study"  Series.  My parish brought that in as one of its ongoing adult faith formation classes and I was eager to give it a try.  After a few years, I was so enthralled with it all that I took over as the Facilitator and have been running the group for fourteen years and in my class I have a core group that have been with me from the beginning and new members trying it out and staying with us as we revel in God's word.  So my first recommendation, if you want to read the Greatest Stories Ever Told... join a Bible Study Group.  But if that is not possible for whatever reasons, let my try to give you some basic knowledge in understanding the Bible and how to read it for the first time.

The Bible is not just one book, it is not just two books either (Old Testament and New Testament), rather it is a collection of many books of varying literary styles.  

The books of the Bible and the Hebrew Scriptures, in large part, are grouped by literary style.  First are the Historical books, then Poetry, Wisdom literature, Prophecy and finally The Letters.  Unfortunately by grouping the books in this way (by type) the Bible does not follow a strict chronology which can make reading the Bible from cover to cover difficult.  In order to follow the "history of the Bible", to get an overall picture,  it would be best to read these books first:  Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 Maccabees, The Gospel of Luke and finally The Acts of the Apostles.

To help understand the history of the Bible it can be divided into 12 Periods of Biblical History:

      1. The Early World--From Creation to the Tower of Babel (Genesis chapters 1-11)

      2. The Patriarchs--From Abraham to Jacob/Joseph (Genesis chapters 12-50)

      3. Egypt and the Exodus (Book of Exodus)

      4. Desert Wanderings (Book of Numbers)

      5. Conquest and Judges (Joshua and Judges)

      6. Royal Kingdom (1 and 2 Samuel; 1 Kings chapters 1-11)

      7. Divided Kingdom (1 Kings chapters 12-22; 2 Kings)

      8. Exile (2 Kings)

      9. Return from Exile (Ezra and Nehemiah)

    10. Maccabean Revolt (1 Maccabees)

    11. Messianic Fulfillment (Luke)

    12. The Church (Acts)

If you are determined to read the Bible cover to cover try ordering your reading by the above historical timeline, and also add the Supplemental books that pertain to that era.  Supplemental Books of each era:

                                                                   

Early World  (none);  Patriarchs  (Job); Egypt and Exodus (Leviticus); Desert Wanderings (Deuteronomy); Conquest and Judges (Ruth); Royal Kingdom (Psalms, 1-2 Chronicles, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon [Songs]) ;  Divided Kingdom (2 Chronicles, Obadiah, Joel, Amos, Jonah, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah); Exile (Tobit, Nahum, Habakkuk, Daniel, Ezekiel, Judith, Lamentations, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Baruch);  Return from Exile (Zechariah, Haggai, Esther, Malachi);  Maccabean Revolt (2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach);  Messianic Fulfillment (Matthew, Mark John); The Church (Paul's Letters, Other New Testament Letters, Revelation).                                                                                                     

Hopefully this way of reading the Bible will help to give you the overall picture of Biblical and Salvation history.  And I hope that you will soon be as enthralled as I was with the Bible that you will seek out a Bible Study near you where you can grow and share your faith with others.

Now that you are ready to embark on your Biblical Journey your next choice....which Bible to choose... yes, there are many versions, There is the  Catholic Bible which has more books in it than a Protestant Bible.  Why is that?  And if that perks your interest, did you know that  the Hebrew Scriptures of today are not what they use to be at the time of Jesus?  How could this be?  I will get into that in my next posting in Part 2 of the BIBLE BASICS.