Catholics read more scripture in church than anyone?

Question

I have seen several comments on this here today. I find this claim funny even if it is true. Since when is quantity more important than quality? I go to a weekly Bible study at my church. It normally lasts for 2 hours. Sometimes we will only get through a couple verses in the book we are discussing. This is quality study as opposed to quantity. So which would you prefer quality or quantity?

copper o - have to find something new every now and again. Otherwise it would get boring. But I am not really trying to fight here. Just point out that quantity does not necessarily mean quality.

carl - Catholics don't have the same prejudice against protestants? I have seen plenty of prejudice and arrogance on both sides. What would be better is if we could put aside our pride and our prejudices and remember we both serve Jesus.

Swiss Guard - I know and I am not condemning anyone. Just trying to make people think. I admit it is a long time since I have been to a Catholic church and I really don't remember much about it. I am just trying to make a point. If I get up and read the entire book of Psalms to you and do nothing else you will gain some knowledge. However if I get up and expound upon 3 or 4 verses in a Psalm you will get much more knowledge.

Swiss Guard - there is that arrogance I am talking about. The Roman Catholic church did not give us the Bible. God did. The Bible is inspired because God said it is. Not because man says it is. God promised to preserve His Word. He would have preserved it some way. If the Catholics had not obeyed then someone else would have. In fact other groups did. The Bible has never been solely possessed by the Catholic church. If you say God could not have preserved the Bible without the RCC then you must think He is much less powerful than I do.

rebecca b - We have on in authority at the meetings. Our associate pastor is in charge. We also have several women there who probably know more Bible than most priests or preachers. And yes we often have several opinions and we discuss and read and point out more scripture normally coming to a consensus. There was no pope when Jesus started the church. I don't see priests or the pope anywhere in the list in the following verse. We have many good teachers in my church. People who God has given that job to.

Ephesians 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

pepgurli - I am glad to hear that you have Bible study groups. I guess I kind of phrased this badly. What I mean is saying we read more Bible in church than you is a pointless argument regardless of the church that makes it. What is important is what the people get out of it. What is taught. Whether Catholic or Protestant what is important is how much learning is going on. Not how much Bible is just being read.

Answer 1

Hey Edge,

i think there is much to be said about expository studying and the importance of meditating on God's word. In a study where there is a focus on only a couple of verses most certainly - there is some very personal and practical application to the study- and this myself is my preferred method of study as well. In my church i teach Friday and Sunday Bible Studies and it took us about 4 months to get through 1 Thessalonians verse by verse and going over James verse-by-verse on Sundays.

There are days when you can go over a lot of verses as well and have a good study- for example on a study on the what the Holy Spirit does- you may have many many verses.

i think it has to do with how focused the study is on Jesus and how receptive the people are. Yes quality is more important than quantity- but you can also have both...

Personally i'd rather read a couple of verses and meditate on them and really let the Holy Spirit direct me to how to apply that in my life- but i also admire those who are more quantitative and can read through the Bible several times in a year.

At the end of the day- it's not quantity or quality, it's obedience to the word of God!

Kindly,

Nickster

Answer 2

Edge I prefer quality over quantity. Like you, I attend adult Bible "Studies" and have digested the real meaning of God's word. I think that if the Bible is taken "one bite at a time" that it can be thoroughly and properly digested.
I can remember having the Bible "read" at church when I was growing up and getting nothing from it. It was almost like it was a different language. I see this happening today with young Catholics. I have quite a few working for me. When I ask them what the reading at church was about, they usually have a very vague answer or just a shrug - and sometimes "they" are the ones doing the reading for the whole church. The quantity of the reading really is not helping them to digest and remember the truth of God's word. In fact it seems like they are bored with it.
Did you hear about the little five year old boy at church who asked his friend the question "Why do we have to be quiet in Church?" And his friend answered "Because people are sleeping". Oh the truthfull innocence of children. :)

Answer 3

Holy Cow! I don't care how much scripture is being read in the Catholic Church, it isn't quality a lot of the time. My husband is a Catholic with a Catholic priest as an uncle and when I met him at age 24, He didn't even know that John 3:16 was from the Bible. I am not talking about what it says... I am talking about seeing that Passage number at sporting events... He didn't even know it was from the Bible!

Quality is always more important than quantity. My husband has a LOT more quality now that he has changed denominations. Mind you... this is NOT against Catholics themselves, it is against the Catholic religion. I love his Catholic family, even his uncle... but I don't like the Catholic religion because it caused damage to my husband for a very long time and kept him in the dark about many wonderful Biblical issues.

Answer 4

First of all, I have to say that the idea that Catholics read scripture in church must be something that they started recently, because I don't recall our church even having Bibles in the pew, let alone anyone bringing one to church.

That being said, quality is always more important. Like you, I attend a couple different studies each week at our church. One on Wednesday night in Acts, and another before service on Ephesians. There are many weeks that we only cover a couple of verses. We have been in Ephesians for about 2 months now, and are in chapter 2.

There is a difference between reading scripture, and studying it. Reading it bring quanity, but does not really teach. Study is what allows us to truly absorb God's word and bring it into our daily lives by allowing God to lead us as we study.

I wouldn't give up the quality for quanity ever. That would be like saying reciting 20 Hail Mary's is as good as spending 20 minutes in a deep relationship wiht the Lord.

God bless.

Answer 5

This argument is pretty silly...but I'll join in anyway.

From my own experiences, the only real difference between Catholic and Protestant I've noticed when it comes to their understanding of the Bible is this:

Most Catholics cannot give you book, chapter and verse quotations if their lives depended on it. Hence the reason they have a hard time arguing with street evangelists who will shoot at them with a high powered Doctrine gun .

However, a lot of Protestants in general (fundamentalists and megachurches in particular) cannot elaborate on the meanings of the Bible verses they are quoting in an historic context...and how it applies to our lives today. While many times they are right about how certain aspects of historic Christianity became corrupted by the Catholic Church, they tend to throw the baby out with the bath water...and keep re-inventing worship rituals that deal more with emotionality than with solid verifiable tradition or reason...hence the reason why a lot of cults tend to have foundations in Protestant churches more so that the Catholic or Orthodox church.

Since the thousands of years old Catholic mass is based on tradition and Scripture, I've found Catholics find it a lot easier to explain why they believe the way they do because of that foundation of tradition which is often Scripture based if they take the time to look it up...

but it's kinda like knowing that a human needs air to breathe...yet we don't need to know the elements that make air, or have to recite them to make it relevant in our lives...yet some folks feel it's necessary, but that's ok. To each their own.

I don't have a lot of experience with Orthodoxy, but from what I understand with some exceptions they are closer to Catholic theology than Protestantism.

All three are expressions of Christianity, neither right nor wrong. They just are...

but back to the original question/comment....

If you ask me, it's best to have both quantity and quality...and there's no reason why one can't have both regardless of your faith community. That desire for having both is one of the reason why after years of seeking various faith communities, I became an Anglican (Episcopal)...the middle way between Catholic and Protestant...which foundation is based on Scripture, Tradition and Reason. For me, it's the best of both worlds within Christianity...but each person must find their own way, right?

Answer 6

Well your comparison is rather silly because you arn't considering the bible study groups Catholics have. We have class with in our school and groups sponsered by our churches. We do study and usually every friday they talk about the weekend readings. Each reading is reapeated every so often so there discussions are some what repeat which helps retain the information.

Answer 7

And during this marvelous two hours of discussing scripture how many differing Opinions does one get? I prefer truth which does not change from one generation to the next or one culture to the next, or one persons point of view to the next, ...do you get my drift? There has to be one authority. And Jesus gave that authority to the priests and bishops in communion with the pope. besides who said Catholics do not own bibles and read during the week or attend group studies

Answer 8

Absolutely. The handiest difficulty is that plenty of persons who *do* learn the Catechism with anti-Catholic blinders on, instead than letting the Holy Spirit enlighten them. They've already made up their minds that Catholicism need to be of the satan, so they do not want to peer the reality for themselves. And I'm inclined to guess by the point that I publish this, no less than one or 2 of them can have already given you a few lengthy reduce-and-paste "refutation" proving simply how oh-so-improper you're. Edit: That Coke that I guess myself goes to style very well right here in a couple of mins. :-)

Answer 9

That post was in response to some protestant who said Catholics frown on Bibles in Church - typical protestant misinformation. I was attempting to illustrate the absurdity of the statement. As for quality, I trust the Church THAT GAVE US THE BIBLE - THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Answer 10

It came up because people say that catholics do not read the bible.