Objectives:

At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:

Make a survey of people as regards the importance of reading the Bible.
Describe in their own words the importance of reading the Bible in the light of the principles of Dei Verbum.
Make a reflection paper based on the insights gained in listening to a homily.

Activity: Group survey. Form small groups (3-4 members) and do a survey of around 10 people about the use of the Bible. Find out how many read it regularly and voluntarily and how many consider it as important in their lives. Share your findings via Zoom or any other online video conferencing platform. (Kindly see assignment section)

Lesson Proper

According to Cacho and de Mesa (2012), “the Bible is the most fundamental testimony of God’s Pagpapadama among Christians” (p. 127). Believers are able to understand what it means to fall and stay in love with God through the witness it offers believers. As far as Christians are concerned, the Bible most truly represent or mirrors what the faith community had experienced of God as a whole when compared with many other writings attesting to the same experience. Faith expressions that are consequently conditioned or influenced by culture and history such as dogma and doctrine must be gauged in the light of this biblical witness. For this reason, the Bible is considered as the primary witness to human experiences of God within Christianity (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012).
There is no doubt that the Bible is still the best seller among Christians. Writer James Chapman (in Polland, 2012), in the list of the most read book based on the number of copies sold, said that the Bible is the number one. However, more than the sheer number of copies produced in many languages it is the most loved and the most studied book of all time (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012). What is referred to as scripture (Latin, scriptura, what has been written) is the collection of what had been articulated and written about the relationship between God and people at different times and in various places.
Dei Verbum says that the Holy Scripture is like a “mirror in which the pilgrim Church on earth looks at God, from whom she has received everything, until she is brought finally to see Him as He is, face to face” (Dei Verbum, 7). More often it is referred to as “the Holy Bible” (Greek, biblia, books) because it actually consists of many different books.
The books in the Bible are categorized either as “Old Testament” or “New Testament.” The term “testament” from the perspective of the Bible essentially means bond and relationship (Hebrew, berit) which God entered into Israel. In Cacho and de Mesa (2012) the word testament is derived from the Latin term testamentum which means “provision;” “arrangement” or “agreement.” This arrangement or agreement refers to the agreement or covenant (Greek, diatheke) between God and people. Some scholars explicate the distinction between the “old” and the “new” in this relationship by contrasting the covenant of Yahweh with Israel on Mt. Sinai (See Exodus 31, 34) with a “new covenant” spoken about by the prophets. According to Levoratti, the “old” had been written on tablets of stone, but the “new” one was to be written on the hearts of the people (See also Jer. 31: 31-34; Ezek. 36: 26-27) (Levoratti, 2001 in Cacho & de Mesa, 2012)
However, as noted in Cacho and de Mesa (2012), other scholars would rather see a continuity than a contrast between the two instances of covenant or testament between God and people and suggest instead “first” and “second” covenants. Nevertheless, it is the same God who decreed or ordained both testaments.
The Old Testament refers to the Tanak or Jewish scripture. The word Tanak is actually an acronym made up of the initials of Torah (Law), Nebi’im (Prophets), and Ketubim (Writings) which is the division of the Hebrew Bible (Levoratti, 2001). The New Testament on the other hand signifies the specifically Christian scripture. The Bible, thus, reflects the combined spirit of Judaism and Christianity and is suggestive of the kind of faith tradition which Christians subscribe to: Judeo-Christian Tradition. Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew and not a Christian. The Jewishness of Jewish, Cacho and de Mesa argues, particularly embodied and manifested by his manner of relating to God, must be taken into account and not put aside if we want understand him correctly. However, equally seriously, we must attend to the implications arising from the fact that we belong to the community of faith that originated from Jesus. This community we call “Church” has, from the beginning until now, consider him as “the Christ,” the one who brings salvation from God. We may, perhaps, in simple terms refer to this faith heritage as “the Way of Jesus,” and Daan ni Hesus. For us Filipinos “daan” suggests experience (pinagdaanan) and a manner of living (paraan) which Jesus Himself demonstrated.
The Bible is very well treasured, celebrated and revered in various ways by Christian churches aside from just being read both privately and publicly. The Bible has been, and still is regarded as a source of guidance and inspiration by those who follow “the way” (cf. Acts 19: 23; 22: 4) of Jesus and, at times even by those who do not. Individually and personally, numerous Christians approach the Bible with devotion; they read it and meditate on it, whether alone or together with others, for personal benefit and growth. Christians search for insight and path from it.
The Word of God as the words of God

Aside from the individual and personal use of the Bible however, Christian churches, whether Catholic or Protestant, have, in our recent past, looked at the Bible as the source of divinely revealed truths which the churches are to teach to all (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012; Dei Verbum 11). Christians in general interpreted the Bible as containing the very words of God which they often regard as “the word of God.” The Bible contain the “words of God expressed in human language” (Dei Verbum 13). For Cacho and de Mesa (2012), “God had literally ‘spoken,’ albeit through human mediators” (p. 130). The Bible is for that reason a kind of treasury of divinely revealed accounts. What is written in it is understood as especially inspired by God and, as taught in Dei Verbum, “since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation” (Dei Verbum 11). Whereas the Protestant tradition of Christianity contends that such revealed teachings are only found in the Bible (sola scriptura), the Catholic theological tradition in Neo-Scholastic theology of the 19^th century conjectured that such spiritual truths are not only contained in the Bible but also in the tradition of the Catholic Church (Bible and Tradition).

A Careful Note

Notwithstanding the customary understanding of “word of God” as the revealed “words of God” as truths from the context of European rationalistic frame of mind which can be easily confused about what the Bible seem to be communicating. As regards citations from the Bible about what God “says” which are expressive of Her marvelous love for the people (e.g., Lam. 3: 22-23; Titus 3:4), the human being is made in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen. 1:27; 1Cor. 15:49) and how human beings are living in unity and care for each other (cf. Ps. 133: 1; 1Cor. 12: 1-26). However, in what way for instance can we make sense of passages where God appears to commend or command what we humanly consider as evil? An example of this is Psalm 137: 8-9 where there seems to be gladness in the destruction of others. Another example is Joshua 8: 18-19, 22, 25, and 27 where God orders an attack that would annihilate all the inhabitants of the city. These are passages from the Bible that seem not to speak of the kind of God whom we have known to be loving, just, compassionate and forgiving. A careful note should therefore be taken into consideration when we read the Bible, especially when we take everything from it literally.

Commentaries from biblical experts are helpful in understanding the Bible which was written thousands of years ago by writers who have been inspired by God (cf. 1 Peter 1: 21) to write using their distinct individual cultural circumstances in order to convey God’s message. These biblical commentaries become reliable when there is an integration of the meaning of the text to the writer, what it meant then and there (exegesis) and what it means here and now (hermeneutics) to the reader. There is no real understanding of the biblical texts unless the meaning is unfolded into the world of the reader. Schneiders (in Bragado & Monera, 1997) noted that this understanding is the event in which the text’s meaning comes home. Students and teachers of biblical theology and even ordinary people are to be guided therefore by reliable biblical commentaries in order to have a relatively “accurate” understanding of the Bible.
The word of God as God’s Pagpapadama

Cacho and de Mesa (2012) conjectured that in considering the meaning of the phrase “word of God,” an imagery or metaphor is quite helpful. The use of metaphors is significant in theological language. The “word of God,” is Jewish cultural metaphor for the way god relates with people. Of the five senses, the Jewish culture emphasizes the sense of hearing (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012). God therefore is imaged (viewed) as “speaking” to them, and we, in response, “hear or listen.” Hence, the word of God is a way of portraying God relating with us, especially in Jesus Christ. God is seen and “experienced” as a person, a “father” who communicates with his people. They are not literal words that God utters or speaks but a way of portraying God as someone who relates and narrates based on the culture of the Jews.

Distinct from the Western concept of “revelation” which is associated with true knowledge about God, revelation in the Filipino culture is somewhat related to the Jewish perspective which is really God’s relational action. Understood in the Filipino context as God’s Pagpapadama, revelation becomes intimately connected with experiencing God in the ordinary circumstances of life. de Mesa (2016) noted that, “in ordinary life, Filipinos talk about communicating such goodness in terms of making the other person experience such goodness rather than just showing it. Pagpapadama (making the other person experience) is more profound and meaningful in relationships among Filipinos than pagpapakita (showing in the sense of making visible)” (p. 324). Therefore, what we have in the Bible is not a collection of essential truths spoken by God to which we give our intellectual assent, but rather experiences of people in and through which they have perceived divine revelation. To relate better to the Filipino psyche is to re-appropriate revelation in terms of the relational concept of pagpapadama. Unlike the Western understanding of revelation which is culturally irrelevant to the Filipinos, revelation as pagpapadama speaks of what the Bible tells us. What we read in the Bible are testimonies about how this faithful God had been experienced by people. Filipinos can relate better to this understanding because we are accustomed to giving testimonies of how God made us experience his / her goodness.
As a collection of stories told in different literary genres, the Bible is somehow regarded as a “library.” It is an assortment of stories brought together by the people involved after centuries of formulating, selecting, rewriting, and restructuring in which experiences of God with particular contexts are described, molded by the patterns of a culture and enhanced by the traditional techniques of different forms of literature. As far as Christians are concerned, the Bible is not just like any other book but a special book since it is “inspired by God.” Biblical inspiration does not mean divine dictation as regards the words to be said and written down. Biblical inspiration is the active presence in the life and consciousness of people who had written the different books of the Bible, guiding and inspiring them (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012; Dei Verbum 11). In the Bible, God speaks to us in human words (Bragado & Monera, 1997). It is God’s word in human language (Williamson, 2001).

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The Bible can be said to be “really of God” inasmuch as God’s active presence initiated, guided and brought the process to completion. It can be spoken of as truly human verbalization when consider those who gave its expression and shape were truly human beings. The Bible is thus, “really of God” and truly human, the word of God written in the words of human beings.
The authority of the Bible

The point of departure of the Bible is the faith experiences of a people and of prophetic personalities within this people who perceived that God was present in their lives, their culture and their history. Considering that all experiences are necessarily culturally interpreted experiences, their expression inhuman language as well as different literary forms is only to be anticipated. Experiences of God found in the Bible were therefore articulated in the form of narratives, historical accounts, legislation, elaborate reflections, songs, poems, proverbs or letters and led gradually to the creation of numerous manuscripts (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012). The Bible was not a ready-made book that just fell heaven. It went through some laborious and long human process where such experiences of God were articulated, reflected, talked about and modified and revised, written down, reworked and in the end examined through conscientious selection. It went through an extensive process under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (Dei Verbum 12).

According to Cacho and de Mesa, as far as Christians are concerned, this extensive process was and is centered on Jesus Christ. The disciples in experiencing decisive and definitive salvation from God in Jesus Christ, and consequently the Christian communities, interpreted the Tanak accordingly and eventually produced a considerable collection of Christian literature. In faith they made a careful selection of the manuscripts. The collection of books in time decided on by the community of believers as faithfully expressing and reflecting what it believed about God in Jesus Christ, human beings and the rest of creation in relationship began to serve as the yardstick for further articulations of faith. Mindfulness of God’s Pagpapadama led to the faith assurance that the selected writings undeniably embodied what the community believed to be true. In the content of this selection of literature the Christian communities fully and completely recognized themselves. For Cacho and de Mesa, this was the most direct and historically responsible access to the original event: the Christian movement which started in Jesus. At some point, the Bible nonetheless belongs to the Jesus event and that it has a constitutive and normative value for the whole subsequent tradition of the church (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012, p. 133).

How the Bible came to be:

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Source: Cacho and de Mesa (2012). In love with God: doing theology for college students. St. Scholastica’s College.

As a privileged witness, scripture is a mirror in which the church acknowledges the recurring law of its origin. Altogether, the Bible bears truth insofar as our salvation is concerned (See Dei Verbum, 11). The assurance for its truthfulness is God’s fidelity, the God who is at all times true to us (ang Diyos na laging tapat sa atin). God’s love which is unquestionably authentic is the guarantee for its faithfulness. As the benchmark in understanding the Christian faith, it is regarded as “the canon,” (Greek, kanon, measure) and in the theological circles spoken as “Norma normans non normata” (The norm of norms which cannot be normed, ang sukat na nanunukat na di nasusukat). This is considered to be the distinctive and inimitable value of the Bible for Christian churches.

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As the principal rule in our understanding of the Christian faith, the Bible have to be the underlying point of departure in framing doctrinal statements in the church. Doctrine takes its cue from and is subordinate to the Bible. The sequence is not supposed to be the presentation first of the doctrine followed by the Bible as support. What ought to be understood and held in faith in the community should take its direction from scripture and not from doctrine. Due to the influence of neo-scholastic theology it is the doctrine that made the Bible say what the church wanted the biblical passage to say. For instance, the gospel narrative concerning Jesus’ changing water into wine during the wedding feast at Cana (See Jn. 2:1-11) was commonly used as a proof that matrimony is a sacrament of the Catholic church, even though the text does not say anything regarding the sacraments. The Bible seems to be interpreted to conveniently fit to support an existing doctrine.
By the second half of the 4^th century the normative value of the Bible was formally and officially acknowledged when it initially established the canon. However this was only decisively fixed in the 16^th As noted by in Cacho and de Mesa (2012) it is important to take note that what stood in the beginning was not the formal authority of the Bible, but the salvific event of God’s pagpapadama in Jesus Christ. The starting point was nevertheless the authority of the experienced event itself. The order in the development of the Bible was as follows: Experience of God in Jesus Christ and the articulation in language of such experience, followed by the selection from the different expressions. And finally the recognition of the collection as canon. The Bible was and is, therefore not the point of departure for the understanding of the faith; it was and is our experience of God in Jesus Christ (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012; de Mesa, 2016). In this regard, we can say that the Bible, despite being our primary norm, is not an absolute one as presuppose by some Christians.
God’s Pagpapadama is universal, i.e., God’s loving action in never discriminatory or prejudiced- meaning, it does not favor certain cultures and bigoted in some nor it more intense towards some and less towards others. God’s Pagpapadama knows no bounds. Accordingly, God’s guidance and inspiration are given to all in the same way. It is offered to all equally. This implies that new stories of Christians remain possible, provided they are genuine interpretation of the original story within the silhouettes of novel circumstances. God who is grace himself is thus universal (Rahner in Endean, 1996). In the centuries after the completion of the biblical canon, the churches understood this well and they wrote their own story of Jesus within their various cultural contexts. The Second Vatican Council urged all Catholic communities to follow and realize their own local cultural circumstances. Incidentally, theologian Edward Schillebeeckx (in Cacho & de Mesa, 2012) proposed that every community of believers ought to write their own “fifth gospel.”
Reading the Bible

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Reading a “classic” as “conversation.”

Because of its supreme importance in the understanding of the faith, the Bible has been regarded a “classic” for Christians. It likewise a timeless masterpiece it is read, consulted and persistently mentioned. Unceasing citation to its can undeniably be done to value the Bible as a magnum opus (great work). For Christians, nevertheless, such turning to the Bible by reading, studying and meditating on it is directed precisely at nourishing one’s faith life communally and personally. Sanchez (in Cacho & de Mesa, 2012) noted that the Bible is read, to begin with, by the believing community. Interpreting it therefore is a communal endeavor. It was the community that is driven by the Spirit that brought forth the Bible and it is the community that acknowledges its authority. As believers, individuals encounter the Bible through other believers and learn to draw nourishment from it because of the community (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012.). That is why when read, the Bible is not taken in isolation by individuals even if they are physically alone. They listen to the Bible with all the living and the dead who have come to believe that Jesus is the Christ.

We “speak” to the Bible as the Bible “speaks” to us like in a conversation. We “listen” to the Bible as the Bible “listens” to us. Cacho and de Mesa argued that in reading the Bible, we speak to it because we read it with certain concerns and interests and from a particular point of view. According to Cacho and de Mesa (2012), “we do not attend to everything that is in the Bible. We sort of direct our own questions, hoping to find some form of answer and enlightenment” (p. 138). In this sense, the Bible listens to us. Barbara Bowe (in Cacho & de Mesa, 2012) noted that the biblical text is a vehicle that mediates revelation and meaning in the dialogue. In this dynamic dialogue between reader and text, the scriptural text is described as both “window” and “mirror.” It is a window that lets the reader see (though not perfectly) something of the world described in the text and the historical circumstances that shaped it. “It is a mirror in which readers find the issues and concerns of their own situation reflected” (Bowe 1998, in Cacho & de Mesa, 2012, p. 138).
When we read the Bible something else happens. The text “speaks” to us as we “listen” to the experiences of the people about great things God has done (See: Acts 2: 11) and how they have positively or negatively acted in response. In sharing with us the experiences of other believers of another epoch and cultural background, we learn to think of ourselves and in due course create our own judgments. Scripture does not provide us with ready answers to our questions nor a scheme or a blueprint on how we ought to live our lives. Instead, by knowing about the faith experiences of others and how they struggled to be faithful despite difficulties, we are aided in resolving our own issues and concerns. Cacho and de Mesa argues that we are helped, in this regard, in making up our own mind. O’Connel (1990 in Cacho & de Mesa, 2012) noted that biblical passages often provide guidance in terms of overall style, quality, tone and approach we should adopt in making decisions. Lessons for life such from such experiences can be learned, at times by being reassured and affirmed, at other times by being probed and faced up to. Some lessons are inspiring yet at other times hurting. To this we hope that, “sana kapulutan natin ng aral ang kanilang karanasan.”

Through reading the Bible, the reader may perhaps recognize that God is nevertheless at work today through the means of its text. “The revelatory power of the Word of God comes to us when we hear the deep resonances of God’s Word as it addresses us across the boundary of time and culture” (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012, p. 138). Filipinos, as remarked by Barbara Bowe, “hear” the Word of Go with an intuitive sense. She demonstrated this point by explaining how hiya and dangal enable our notion of “shame” and “honor” which are important themes in the Bible. With regard to St. Paul’s understanding of the church as “body of Christ,” the Filipinos positive values of “hating-kapatid” and “pakikisama” are utmost useful. For Bowe, “in the dynamic dialogue between text and reader, believers claim that God’s Word is revealed. This Word can only be received in all its richness, however, when we begin to listen to the wisdom of all those who hear it differently from ourselves” (in Cacho & de Mesa, 2012).
On being mindful of context
In order to be able to “listen” to the text, we have to take the text seriously. This implies that we shall try, at the very least our best, in carefully studying the text’s original meaning, or the meaning as intended by the writer to his / her original audience. However, in order to do this we have to realize the historical and cultural backgrounds different from ours that produced it. Imagine what needs to be taken into consideration by a Filipino who lives in a warm and humid geographical location to understand an Eskimo, who lives in glacial conditions with its cold temperatures. Here, it is considerably useful to be mindful of context of a biblical text in order to understand it. Like any other “classic,” the Bible is a product of historical and cultural factors. Therefore, when we read it, we have to be mindful of the contextual influences that have a bearing on biblical writings when read and reflect on them. As stated by Cacho and de Mesa, “recognizing the bible is an account of faith experiences of peoples in particular cultural and historical contexts enable us to allow the time and culture-bound expressions to guide us to the deeper meanings they represent” (p. 140).
Examples:

The phrase “word of God.” When we ignore the Jewish cultural context of this metaphor and take it literally, we may begin to assume that the words we read in the Bible are the very words God had spoken. This means that instead of “listening” to what the text has to say, we make it say what we think it should say or should have said. But if we interpret this phrase contextually, then we are led to realize that what it is meant to express is the singular way that God relates with people (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012).

Another example is the phrase “taking up the cross” to follow Jesus. Lacking the cultural and historical awareness that the cross was the form of Roman punishment intended to put a stop to what Jesus was doing, we may be disposed to think that “taking up the cross” means to love suffering. Yet, when we realize what the text meant in its actual context, we see how it rather refers to accepting courageously the consequences of following Jesus. In any case, we are aware that in life taking up a good cause and religiously advocating it will have surprising implications. These unforeseen difficulties hitherto are “crosses,” and “taking them up” means accepting them as part of the process in carrying out one’s mission.
The relationship between the Bible and Tradition

According to Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation:

“There exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence” (De Verbum, 9).

Dei Verbum clarified the false opposition between Catholics and Protestants who, prior to Vatican II, viewed the Bible and Tradition differently. The Catholic thing is Tradition with its doctrine and dogma, while the Bible alone was the Protestant thing. Bible and Tradition are not two sources of truths revealed by God, as neo-scholastic theology claimed, but are witnesses to the one and the same event: the experience of Jesus Christ as the decisive and definitive manifestation of God’s Pagpapadama (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012). This is an event which, in the Spirit, is unceasingly happening today within the Christian movement. The experience of God’s Pagpapadama is to be found, not in the first place in the Bible or doctrines, but in the living community of the church. St. Paul says, in referring to Christians as the people of God: “you are a letter of Christ…written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets human hearts (2Cor. 3: 2-3).
When we conjecture the Bible as the primaria 'vexillum (primary standard) for understanding the faith, we are not setting it against Tradition. As what we have seen, the Bible is a product of Tradition, understood as the whole life of the church with its practice, worship and understanding. The Bible therefore was brought forth within the life process of the believing community. Richard Gaillardetz (in Cacho & de Mesa, 2012) said that before there written texts there were stories that were “handed on” from generation to generation and from community to community.
From this perspective, the Bible is nevertheless, “The written Tradition.” Tradition therefore is the context within which the Bible is to be interpreted. Tradition is the ongoing life of the church from which the Bible is to be constantly reinterpreted so that it (Bible) does not become a dead letter confined within a particular culture and history. Therefore, Bible and Tradition go together and have to be understood as such. Knox (2003) noted three important points with regard to the relation of the Bible and Tradition: 1) The Bible does not contain the whole of Tradition; 2) Scripture comes from Tradition; and 3) Tradition does not stop when it is written down. The church has always regarded scriptures together with sacred Tradition as the supreme rule of faith, and will ever be so (Dei Verbum, 21).
According to Cacho and de Mesa (2012), “Tradition as the life of the Christian community is normed by the Bible. For it to be truly alive, the church has to make concrete, historical decisions: what language it will use to teach, what specific expression its practice will take and what cultural forms its worship will employ” (p. 142). This implies that local customs inexorably arise from the life of the churches to “enflesh” the Judeo-Christian Tradition as a whole. This is how Tradition (from Latin, tradere, to pass on something) is “handed on” and lives on. The universal Tradition within Christianity as a whole is designated with a capital “T” and the “traditions” (small letter “t”) refer to the local practices of this Tradition.
Theology as Mabathalang pag-aaral is an effort to craft a Filipino theological tradition that would translated the heart and the spirit of the Judeo-Christian Tradition (or “the Way of Jesus”), into a language that is both intelligible and meaningful to the Filipinos (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012). This process of inculturating the Tradition is exigent and challenging. If we are to ensure that the gospel does not become irrelevant through vagueness and unintelligibility an every so often tedious process of rethinking is demanded. Cacho and de Mesa suggest that the reinterpretation is aimed at providing guidance and inspiration for our own times. However, we should be reminded that this process is a service to the original story which, with its own suggestive language and symbols, persists for us an inimitable and irreplaceable story (Cacho & de Mesa, 2012).

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Conclusion

As the primary witness to God’s Pagpapadama (revelation), the Bible remains for us as the fundamental reference point in understanding our faith. It is the primary norm in formulating doctrinal statements of the church. The Bible is the “norming norm that is not normed” (ang sukat na naunukat na di nasusukat). This the unique and irreplaceable value of the Bible for the Christian churches. What we read in the Bible are testimonies about how this faithful God had been experienced by the people. The Bible both “speaks” and “listens” to us. The God who stayed faithful and loving to His / Her people is the same God who listens and speaks to us today. It is with earnest hope that through the Bible we shall fall and stay in love with God who constantly manifests His / Her gracious kindness for us in our everyday life circumstances.