full gospel
"If you believed Moses you would then believe Me, for it was about Me that He wrote." —John 5:46
We must believe in the Word of God in its fullness. For example, if we don't believe the part of the Bible attributed to Moses, called the Pentateuch, we won't believe Jesus and what He said through His body, the Church, in the New Testament. Jesus said: "If you believed Moses you would then believe Me, for it was about Me that he wrote. But if you do not believe what he wrote, how can you believe what I say?" (Jn 5:46-47) Furthermore, if we don't believe Moses and the prophets in the Old Testament, we will not believe "even if one should rise from the dead" (Lk 16:31). On the day Jesus rose from the dead, He interpreted for two of His disciples "every passage of Scripture which referred to Him," beginning "with Moses and all the prophets" (Lk 24:27; see also Lk 24:44-45).
We need Jesus to remove the veil from our eyes so that we can understand the Scriptures (2 Cor 3:15-16). We need the New Testament to understand the Old Testament and vice versa. We need the Church to understand the Bible and vice versa. We need Jesus in order to understand the Church and vice versa, for Jesus said of His Church, "He who hears you, hears Me" (Lk 10:16). We must accept God's Word in its fullness — Jesus, the Church, its magisterial teaching, the full Gospel, and the whole Bible.
Prayer: Father, in humility and docility, may I tremble at Your word (Is 66:2).
Promise: "I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky; and all this land that I promised, I will give your descendants as their perpetual heritage." —Ex 32:13
Praise: When Joan faced a cancer diagnosis, she turned to the Scriptures and understood them for the first time.
Reference: (Be a Bible teacher. For encouragement, listen to or download our Bible Teachers Series, which is a six CD series that starts with CD 117-1 or a three DVD series that starts with DVD 117 at presentationministries.com.)
Rescript: †Most Reverend Joseph R. Binzer, Auxiliary Bishop, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, September 28, 2015
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