Daily Catholic Bible Reading - 5 January 2016

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

January 5 2016

Lectionary: 213

http://usccb.org/bible/readings/010516.cfm

1 John 4:7-10

We should all love each other, love is God, etc. This is good stuff.

All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need

Psalm 72: 1-4, 7-8

Lots of claims about what God will do, but sadly, He doesn't seem to be doing much of it. Also, there's a bit of cherry-picking going on. Verses 5 and 6 have been skipped over. These verses tell us to fear God throughout all generations. I suppose that kind of message was a bit inappropriate with the general mood of love, so best to leave it out.

Luke 4:18

This is actually quite interesting, if you go back to verse 15 and read the whole section. Jesus is reading the OT, specifically Isaiah. But He ad-libs. 

Originally, the words were not a messianic prophecy but Jesus seems to apply them to Himself while He's reading aloud. Also, Jesus adds some additional words that are not in Isaiah. (Or maybe the author of the Gospel of Luke sneaked them in).


Mark 6:34-44

The famous loaves and fishes story. Jesus fed 5000 men (and presumably the women and children too) with just five loaves and two fish - and still has 12 baskets left over.  It's nice imagery but what's interesting is that this is a modified version of the story in 2 Kings 4:42-44 where Elisha feeds 100 men with 20 loaves of bread.  There are other examples like this in the NT - where Jesus re-enacts an OT miracle, but bigger and better. It's as if the authors of the Gospels couldn't think of any original ideas.  

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With thanks as always to Steve Wells