Revelation and Faith

• Everything we say about God is subject to reservation that our language is not equal to God’s greatness
• Man can know by reason that God exists, but not what God is really like
• God did not have to reveal himself to us, but he did it out of love
• One can know something about the beloved person only if he opens his heart to us
• From creation on, through the patriarchs and the prophets down to the definitive revelation in his son Jesus Christ, God has spoken again and again to mankind
• Revelation means that God opens himself, shows himself, and speaks to the world voluntarily
• God made covenants with Noah, Abraham, and Moses
• With Noah, he establishes a covenant to save all living things
• He calls Abraham as to make him the father of a multitude of nations and to bless all the families of the earth in him
• Yahweh, means I am who I am
• He frees Israel from slavery in Egypt, establishes a covenant with them on Sinai, and through Moses gives them the Law
• But God so loved the world, that in the fullness of time, He sent His only Son to be our Saviour, like us in all things except sin
• He is there in out abandonment, our sufferings, our fear of death
• In Jesus Christ, God himself came to earth
• The Sacred Scripture and the living tradition of the Church transmit to us the teachings of Jesus
• God continues to manifest Himself today through the Holy Spirit in the Church
• The Sacred Scriptures are the inspired record of how God dealt with His people and how they responded to, remembered, and interpreted that experience
• The Bible was written by persons from the people of God, for the people of God, about the God-experience of the people of God
• The books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach the truth… Written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as the author
• The message of the Bible can never be outdated
• Inspiration in Latin is Inspiratio meaning inbreathing
• The Old and New Testaments were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so that we can call God their author and the Bible the Word of God
• Canon in Greek is Kanon meaning measuring rod, rule, or norm
• Canon is the authoritative collection of Sacred Scriptures in the Old and New Testament ls of the Bible
• The Old Testament has 46 books while the New Testament has 27 books
• Testament in Latin is Testamentum meaning covenant or will
• In the Old Testament, God reveals himself as the Creator and Preserver of the world and as the leader and instructor of mankind
• The New Testament is the second part of the complete Bible
• The four Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the centerpiece of Sacred Scripture and the most precious treasure of the Church
• The Magisterium in Latin is Magister meaning teacher namely Pope and Bishops
• The Magisterium is a term for the mandate of the Catholic Church
• To be a Christian means to unite oneself ever more deeply with the life of Christ
• One must read and live the Gospels
• Creed from the Latin word Credo means “I believe”
• Everything is possible to one who has faith
• Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed
• The Apostle’s Creed is a faithful summary of what the Apostles believed