The insight God gave me with this incident was connected to the accusation of Protestants against the Catholic Church that it does not allow its followers to learn the Bible. This incident put a big question in my mind; ‘Does the learning of the Bible make one a real Christian?’ It is true that the Catholic Church never insisted on or demanded its believers to learn the Bible earlier as done by Protestants. I found that non-Catholics are very loyal to learning the Bible.
Is learning the Bible only the prerequisite to being a good Christian? Another major
question that came to my mind was who knows the Bible better? It might not be any
human being but surely God. Again,
another question arose in my mind; after God, who knows the Bible better? Will
it be the Pope or any pastor or the one who has by-hearted the Bible words? The
answer was ‘No’. The insight I got was that the one who knows the Bible better
than God is ‘Satan’. Yes, Satan is well versed and knows all the words of God.
If it is so, Satan should be the best Christian as he knows all the word of
God! We know that it cannot be true. Thus, it is clear that learning and
knowing the Bible does not make one a real or a good Christian.
Here lies the fundamental difference
between Catholicism and Protestants. Protestants choose the Bible verses
selectively to criticize the teaching of the Catholic Church as Satan did it
while tempting Jesus Christ and did in tempting Adam and Eve. That is why
criticisms raised against the Catholic Church by non-Catholics seem
convincing and pleasing to people. They put them in such a way to show that
many of the practices of the Catholic Church are against the Bible. On the
other hand, the Catholic Church takes and considers the Bible in totality in
its teaching.
Nowadays every Christian denomination
encourages reading the Bible. Many Catholics also take interest in learning the
Bible and by heart it. It is good and there is no harm in it. But the
problem lies when one only learns the Bible and does
not live it. Many Christians read the Bible and use passages from it to
justify themselves and accuse others the same way other Christian denominations
do it against the Catholic Church. But reading and learning the Bible should go
along with practicing it by loving our fellow beings and forgiving people who
have harmed us. Without practicing the teachings of Jesus reading and learning
the Bible is useless.
This is what we
see everywhere mostly among Protestants, the Bible is being interpreted
piecemeal so that people are confused. It is the same that we see in the
uprising of Protestantism in the medieval period and many other movements in
Christianity even today. It is a fact that strangers have a great influence in
taking away one on the right path as we see in the case of Adam and Eve. It
is also true today.
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