Strand: Scripture, Israel and Jesus (SIJPCE2)

Post Compulsory

The Scriptures are alive and inspired, revealed, interpreted and guided by tradition, biblical scholarship and the lived experience of God's people in their context.

Identify understandings and beliefs from the Old and New Testaments and evaluate the significance of these understandings and beliefs for Christians and others today.

Elaborations

The Church community believes that the sacred Scriptures are essential to the preaching, teaching, and ongoing life of the entire people of God. Through the assistance of biblical exegesis by Scripture scholars and teachers, the Church community interprets the Bible in order to make meaning of its place and purpose in the world and to enlighten its members on their journey of faith.

Study of the books of the Bible indicates that biblical authors used various literary forms and figures of speech, histories, symbols, metaphors, and allusions in order to express certain points.

The Old and New Testaments are a source of life and grace for those who hear, study, proclaim and celebrate them.

The message of the Old Testament The Old Testament tells us about God and ourselves. In these Scriptures, God emerges as a personal being concerned with human events. The primary way in which the Hebrews come to know anything about God is through the things God does for them – liberating them from slavery in Egypt, giving them the Law on Mount Sinai, leading them into the land which they come to call their own. The Hebrews come to recognise God as the creator of the world and the ruler of its history, awesome in power and majesty, transcendently beyond human ability to understand or even imagine. They find that this great and holy God nevertheless relates to them with tenderness, calling them as a people into a covenant relationship in which protection and guidance are extended to them in exchange for obedience and fidelity. But they are not faithful, and this leads to another discovery about God: “The Lord, The Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6).

The faithful God not only gives them the law to serve as a rule for their lives, but inspires prophets to call them again and again to justice…Their insistent message was a call to justice in human relationships and eradication of all oppressions, and they levelled their challenge to the rich and powerful in particular. They also called people away from all idolatries – the reliance on anything less than God (riches, power, military might) for what only God can provide human security and fulfilment.” (Fischer and Hart, 1995, pp 55,56)

Examples in Scripture include but are not limited to:

Theme: Fair Business Dealings

Old Testament: Leviticus 19:35-37

New Testament: Matthew 18:23-35

Theme: Welcoming the stranger

Old Testament: Leviticus 19:33-34

New Testament: Matthew 5:43-44

Theme: Homelessness

Old Testament: Deuteronomy 14:28-29

New Testament: 1 John 3:17-18

Learning Lites: Paschal Mystery, Right Relationship, Revelation, Reign of God.

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