Thurzo Gizella Bible Study

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6 NIV

A Christian’s goal should be to create the Kingdom of God here on earth, as it is in Heaven. Not only, to get to Heaven.

To finish the Bible in one year, Read Wisdom of Solomon 13-16 and John 16:1-16.

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Reflection for Today.

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Wisdom of Solomon 13

¹ Yes, naturally stupid are all who are unaware of God, and who, from good things seen, have not been able to discover Him-who-is, or, by studying the works, have not recognised the Artificer.

² Fire, however, or wind, or the swift air, the sphere of the stars, impetuous water, heaven’s lamps, are what they have held to be the gods who govern the world.

³ If, charmed by their beauty, they have taken these for gods, let them know how much the Master of these excels them, since he was the very source of beauty that created them.

⁴ And if they have been impressed by their power and energy, let them deduce from these how much mightier is he that has formed them,

⁵ since through the grandeur and beauty of the creatures we may, by analogy, contemplate their Author.

⁶ Small blame, however, attaches to them, for perhaps they go astray only in their search for God and their eagerness to find him;

⁷ familiar with his works, they investigate them and fall victim to appearances, seeing so much beauty.

⁸ But even so, they have no excuse:

⁹ if they are capable of acquiring enough knowledge to be able to investigate the world, how have they been so slow to find its Master?

¹⁰ But wretched are they, with their hopes set on dead things, who have given the title of gods to human artefacts, gold or silver, skilfully worked, figures of animals, or useless stone, carved by some hand long ago.

¹¹ Take a woodcutter. He fells a suitable tree, neatly strips off the bark all over and then with admirable skill works the wood into an object useful in daily life.

¹² The bits left over from his work he uses for cooking his food, then eats his fill.

¹³ There is still a good-for-nothing bit left over, a gnarled and knotted billet: he takes it and whittles it with the concentration of his leisure hours, he shapes it with the skill of experience, he gives it a human shape

¹⁴ or perhaps he makes it into some vile animal, smears it with ochre, paints its surface red, coats over all its blemishes.

¹⁵ He next makes a worthy home for it, lets it into the wall, fixes it with an iron clamp.

¹⁶ Thus he makes sure that it will not fall down — being well aware that it cannot help itself, since it is only an image, and needs to be helped.

¹⁷ And yet, if he wishes to pray for his goods, for his marriage, for his children, he does not blush to harangue this lifeless thing — for health, he invokes what is weak,

¹⁸ for life, he pleads with what is dead, for help, he goes begging to total inexperience, for a journey, what cannot even use its feet,

¹⁹ for profit, an undertaking, and success in pursuing his craft, he asks skill from something whose hands have no skill whatever.

Wisdom of Solomon 14

¹ Or someone else, taking ship to cross the wild waves, loudly invokes a piece of wood frailer than the vessel that bears him.

² Agreed, the ship is the product of a craving for gain, its building embodies the wisdom of the shipwright;

³ but your providence, Father, is what steers it, you having opened a pathway even through the sea, and a safe way over the waves,

⁴ showing that you can save, whatever happens, so that, even without experience, someone may put to sea.

⁵ It is not your will that the works of your Wisdom should be sterile, so people entrust their lives to the smallest piece of wood, cross the waves on a raft, yet are kept safe and sound.

⁶ Why, in the beginning, when the proud giants were perishing, the hope of the world took refuge on a raft and, steered by your hand, preserved the seed of a new generation for the ages to come.

⁷ For blessed is the wood which serves the cause of uprightness

⁸ but accursed the man-made idol, yes, it and its maker, he for having made it, and it because, though perishable, it has been called god.

⁹ For God holds the godless and his godlessness in equal hatred;

¹⁰ both work and workman will alike be punished.

¹¹ Hence even the idols of the nations will have a visitation since, in God’s creation, they have become an abomination, a scandal for human souls, a snare for the feet of the foolish.

¹² The idea of making idols was the origin of fornication, their discovery corrupted life.

¹³ They did not exist at the beginning, they will not exist for ever;

¹⁴ human vanity brought them into the world, and a quick end is therefore reserved for them.

¹⁵ A father afflicted by untimely mourning has an image made of his child so soon carried off, and now pays divine honours to what yesterday was only a corpse, handing on mysteries and ceremonies to his people;

¹⁶ time passes, the custom hardens and is observed as law.

¹⁷ Rulers were the ones who ordered that statues should be worshipped: people who could not honour them in person, because they lived too far away, would have a portrait made of their distant countenance, to have an image that they could see of the king whom they honoured; meaning, by such zeal, to flatter the absent as if he were present.

¹⁸ Even people who did not know him were stimulated into spreading his cult by the artist’s enthusiasm;

¹⁹ for the latter, doubtless wishing to please his ruler, exerted all his skill to surpass the reality,

²⁰ and the crowd, attracted by the beauty of the work, mistook for a god someone whom recently they had honoured as a man.

²¹ And this became a snare for life: that people, whether enslaved by misfortune or by tyranny, should have conferred the ineffable Name on sticks and stones.

²² It is not enough, however, for them to have such misconceptions about God; for, living in the fierce warfare of ignorance, they call these terrible evils peace.

²³ With their child-murdering rites, their occult mysteries, or their frenzied orgies with outlandish customs,

²⁴ they no longer retain any purity in their lives or their marriages, one treacherously murdering another or wronging him by adultery.

²⁵ Everywhere a welter of blood and murder, theft and fraud, corruption, treachery, riot, perjury,

²⁶ disturbance of decent people, forgetfulness of favours, pollution of souls, sins against nature, disorder in marriage, adultery and debauchery.

²⁷ For the worship of idols with no name is the beginning, cause, and end of every evil.

²⁸ For these people either carry their merrymaking to the point of frenzy, or they prophesy what is not true, or they live wicked lives, or they perjure themselves without hesitation;

²⁹ since they put their trust in lifeless idols they do not reckon their false oaths can harm them.

³⁰ But they will be justly punished for this double crime: for degrading the concept of God by adhering to idols; and for wickedly perjuring themselves in contempt for what is holy.

³¹ For it is not the power of the things by which they swear but the punishment reserved for sinners that always follows the offences of wicked people.

Wisdom of Solomon 15

¹ But you, our God, are kind and true, slow to anger, governing the universe with mercy.

² Even if we sin, we are yours, since we acknowledge your power, but we will not sin, knowing we count as yours.

³ To know you is indeed the perfect virtue, and to know your power is the root of immortality.

⁴ We have not been duped by inventions of misapplied human skill, or by the sterile work of painters, by figures daubed with assorted colours,

⁵ the sight of which sets fools yearning and hankering for the lifeless form of an unbreathing image.

⁶ Lovers of evil and worthy of such hopes are those who make them, those who want them and those who worship them.

⁷ Take a potter, now, laboriously working the soft earth, shaping each object for us to use. Out of the self-same clay, he models vessels intended for a noble use and those for a contrary purpose, all alike: but which of these two uses each will have is for the potter himself to decide.

⁸ Then — ill — spent effort!-from the same clay he models a futile god, although so recently made out of earth himself and shortly to return to what he was taken from, when asked to give back the soul that has been lent to him.

⁹ Even so, he does not worry about having to die or about the shortness of his life, but strives to outdo the goldsmiths and silversmiths, imitates the bronzeworkers, and prides himself on modelling counterfeits.

¹⁰ Ashes, his heart; more vile than earth, his hope; more wretched than clay, his life!

¹¹ For he has misconceived the One who has modelled him, who breathed an active soul into him and inspired a living spirit.

¹² What is more, he looks on this life of ours as a kind of game, and our time here like a fair, full of bargains. ‘However foul the means,’ he says, ‘a man must make a living.’

¹³ He, more than any other, knows he is sinning, he who from one earthy stuff makes both brittle pots and idols.

¹⁴ But most foolish, more pitiable even than the soul of a little child, are the enemies who once played the tyrant with your people,

¹⁵ and have taken all the idols of the heathen for gods; these can use neither their eyes for seeing nor their nostrils for breathing the air nor their ears for hearing nor the fingers on their hands for handling nor their feet for walking.

¹⁶ They have been made, you see, by a human being, modelled by a being whose own breath is borrowed. No man can model a god to resemble himself;

¹⁷ subject to death, his impious hands can produce only something dead. He himself is worthier than the things he worships; he will at least have lived, but never they.

¹⁸ And they worship even the most loathsome of animals, worse than the rest in their degree of stupidity,

¹⁹ without a trace of beauty — if that is what is attractive in animals- and excluded from God’s praises and blessing.

Wisdom of Solomon 16

¹ Thus they were appropriately punished by similar creatures and tormented by swarms of vermin.

² In contrast to this punishment, you did your people a kindness and, to satisfy their sharp appetite, provided quails — a luscious rarity — for them to eat.

³ Thus the Egyptians, at the repulsive sight of the creatures sent against them, were to find that, though they longed for food, they had lost their natural appetite; whereas your own people, after a short privation, were to have a rare relish for their portion.

⁴ Inevitable that relentless want should seize on the former oppressors; enough for your people to be shown how their enemies were being tortured.

⁵ Even when the fearful rage of wild animals overtook them and they were perishing from the bites of writhing snakes, your retribution did not continue to the end.

⁶ Affliction struck them briefly, by way of warning, and they had a saving token to remind them of the commandment of your Law,

⁷ for whoever turned to it was saved, not by what he looked at, but by you, the Saviour of all.

⁸ And by such means you proved to our enemies that you are the one who delivers from every evil;

⁹ for them, the bites of locusts and flies proved fatal and no remedy could be found to save their lives, since they deserved to be punished by such creatures.

¹⁰ But your children, not even the fangs of poisonous snakes could bring them down; for your mercy came to their help and cured them.

¹¹ One sting — how quickly healed!-to remind them of your pronouncements rather than that, by sinking into deep forgetfulness, they should be cut off from your kindness.

¹² No herb, no poultice cured them, but your all-healing word, Lord.

¹³ Yes, you are the one with power over life and death, bringing to the gates of Hades and back again.

¹⁴ A human being out of malice may put to death, but cannot bring the departed spirit back or free the soul that Hades has once received.

¹⁵ It is not possible to escape your hand.

¹⁶ The godless who refused to acknowledge you were scourged by the strength of your arm, pursued by no ordinary rains, hail and unrelenting downpours, and consumed by fire.

¹⁷ Even more wonderful, in the water — which quenches all — the fire raged fiercer than ever; for the elements fight for the upright.

¹⁸ At one moment, the fire would die down, to avoid consuming the animals sent against the godless and to make clear to them by that sight, that the sentence of God was pursuing them;

¹⁹ at another, in the very heart of the water, it would burn more fiercely than fire to ruin the produce of a wicked land.

²⁰ How differently with your people! You gave them the food of angels, from heaven untiringly providing them bread already prepared, containing every delight, to satisfy every taste.

²¹ And the substance you gave showed your sweetness towards your children, for, conforming to the taste of whoever ate it, it transformed itself into what each eater wished.

²² Snow and ice endured the fire, without melting; this was to show them that, to destroy the harvests of their enemies, fire would burn even in hail and flare in falling rain,

²³ whereas, on the other hand, it would even forget its own strength in the service of feeding the upright.

²⁴ For the creation, being at the service of you, its Creator, tautens to punish the wicked and slackens for the benefit of those who trust in you.

²⁵ And this is why, by changing into all things, it obediently served your all-nourishing bounty, conforming to the wishes of those who were in need;

²⁶ so that your beloved children, Lord, might learn that the various crops are not what provide nourishment, but your word which preserves all who believe in you.

²⁷ For that which fire could not destroy melted in the heat of a single fleeting sunbeam,

²⁸ to show that, to give you thanks, we must rise before the sun and meet you at the dawning of the day;

²⁹ whereas the hope of the ungrateful melts like winter frost and flows away like water running to waste.

John 16:1-16

¹ I have told you all this so that you may not fall away.

² They will expel you from the synagogues, and indeed the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is doing a holy service to God.

³ They will do these things because they have never known either the Father or me.

⁴ But I have told you all this, so that when the time for it comes you may remember that I told you. I did not tell you this from the beginning, because I was with you;

⁵ but now I am going to the one who sent me. Not one of you asks, ‘Where are you going?’

⁶ Yet you are sad at heart because I have told you this.

⁷ Still, I am telling you the truth: it is for your own good that I am going, because unless I go, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

⁸ And when he comes, he will show the world how wrong it was, about sin, and about who was in the right, and about judgement:

⁹ about sin: in that they refuse to believe in me;

¹⁰ about who was in the right: in that I am going to the Father and you will see me no more;

¹¹ about judgement: in that the prince of this world is already condemned.

¹² I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you to bear now.

¹³ However, when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking of his own accord, but will say only what he has been told; and he will reveal to you the things to come.

¹⁴ He will glorify me, since all he reveals to you will be taken from what is mine.

¹⁵ Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he reveals to you will be taken from what is mine.

¹⁶ In a short time you will no longer see me, and then a short time later you will see me again.

Sermons by various teachers about these verses.

Catholic Daily Readings and Reflections

Reading 1, Ezekiel 28:1-10

¹ The word of Yahweh was addressed to me as follows,

² ‘Son of man, say to the ruler of Tyre, “The Lord Yahweh says this: Because your heart has grown proud, you thought: I am a god; I am divinely enthroned far out to sea. Though you are human, not divine, you have allowed yourself to think like God.

³ So, you are wiser than Danel; no sage as wise as you!

⁴ By your wisdom and your intelligence you have made yourself a fortune, you have put gold and silver into your treasuries.

⁵ Such is your skill in trading, your fortune has continued to increase, and your fortune has made your heart grow prouder.

⁶ “And so, the Lord Yahweh says this: Since you have allowed yourself to think like God,

⁷ very well, I am going to bring foreigners against you, the most barbarous of the nations. They will draw sword against your fine wisdom, they will desecrate your splendour,

⁸ they will throw you down into the grave and you will die a violent death far out to sea.

⁹ Will you still think: I am a god, when your slaughterers confront you? But you will be human, not divine, in the clutches of the ones who strike you down!

¹⁰ You will die like the uncircumcised at the hand of foreigners. “For I have spoken — declares the Lord Yahweh.” ‘

Responsorial Psalm, Deuteronomy 32:26-27, 27-28, 30, 35-36

²⁶ I should crush them to dust, I said, I should wipe out all memory of them,

²⁷ did I not fear the boasting of the enemy.’ But do not let their foes be mistaken! Do not let them say, ‘We have got the upper hand and Yahweh plays no part in this.’

²⁸ What a short-sighted nation this is, how thoroughly imperceptive!

³⁰ How else could one man rout a thousand, how could two put ten thousand to flight, were it not that their Rock has sold them, that Yahweh has delivered them up?

³⁵ Vengeance is mine, I will pay them back, for the time when they make a false step. For the day of their ruin is close, doom is rushing towards them, for he will see to it that their power fails. that neither serf nor free man remains.

³⁶ (For Yahweh will see his people righted, he will take pity on his servants.)

Gospel, Matthew 19:23-30

²³ Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘In truth I tell you, it is hard for someone rich to enter the kingdom of Heaven.

²⁴ Yes, I tell you again, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone rich to enter the kingdom of Heaven.’

²⁵ When the disciples heard this they were astonished. ‘Who can be saved, then?’ they said.

²⁶ Jesus gazed at them. ‘By human resources’, he told them, ‘this is impossible; for God everything is possible.’

²⁷ Then Peter answered and said, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you. What are we to have, then?’

²⁸ Jesus said to them, ‘In truth I tell you, when everything is made new again and the Son of man is seated on his throne of glory, you yourselves will sit on twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel.

²⁹ And everyone who has left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children or land for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times as much, and also inherit eternal life.

³⁰ ‘Many who are first will be last, and the last, first.’

Dr. Myles Munroe

I am including a video by Dr. Myles Munroe, I’ve listened to him back in the nineties, and rediscovered him recently. Now his perspective seems to be a good way to also look at scripture. In Pursuit of Purpose – Book Highlights