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I’ll never forget the first Bible study group I ever attended. I was an underclassman in college, but most of the participants were graduate students or professionals from the university community. They were an impressive group who knew a lot more about the Bible than I, who had never read it before.
We were about to read the first passage for discussion, when one of the men said, “As we begin this weekly Bible study, I think we should all agree that if we clearly understand anything God wants us to do, we’ll actually do it.” Imagine that! Reading the Bible to figure out what we should do, not just what we should think. And deciding in advance that we’d really do it! Well, we had quite an intense discussion that evening and never did get to that first passage.
Reading Kevin Perrotta’s new Scripture guide, Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving, brought me back to that life-changing insight. As they say, it was déjà vu all over again.
If you’re looking for an interesting take on the Bible and would prefer to steer clear of anything that might challenge you, keep browsing. Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving is not what you’re looking for. After all, it is focused on the three major spiritual disciplines that Jesus taught. As you might expect, it teaches you what they are and how to do them. But it will also lead you—even inspire you—to take specific concrete action.
Surprised by God’s Word. This is the tenth book in the Keys to the Bible series, and following its popular format, Perrotta has created a guide that works well for individual reading and for group study. There are six sessions, two each for almsgiving, prayer, and fasting.
Each session begins with a thematic Bible passage, followed by an incisive commentary. As you might expect, there is much to learn about prayer from Elijah’s experience of the “still, small voice,” or “sound of sheer silence” (1 Kings 19:12). But I was surprised at how much I learned about almsgiving from the story of Ruth, or about fasting from the missionary journeys of St. Paul.
Perrotta’s commentaries on passages like Isaiah 58 are truly incisive. Here, the prophet rebukes Israel’s approach to fasting and declares that the fast God wants is to feed the hungry, take in the homeless, and loose the bonds of injustice. The people’s fasting is a waste of time, God is telling them—a strange place to begin a study about fasting!
But the guide’s explanation helps us see that we absolutely do need to fast and pray—to be “healed of our selfishness and sins against others and to be strengthened to meet others’ needs.” Only as our hearts change and our love becomes real will God hear and rescue us. So it turns out there is a critical role for fasting after all.
Learn and Discuss. I really appreciated the Understand! Grow! Reflect! Act! parts of each session, with their questions and suggestions for application. Four opportunities to plumb the meaning of the passages and uncover the changes they call us to make in our own lives. For groups, they also offer four chances for discussion.
Some of the best discussions I’ve witnessed in Bible study groups happen when people share personal experiences that shed light on the passage and are themselves illuminated by it. Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving offers excellent leading questions to encourage such stories and discussions. “When has someone’s kindness to you made a big difference in your life?” “When have you provided care for someone who did not express thanks for your help?” And speaking of Elijah and the psalmists: “How does your complaining in prayer compare to theirs?” Ouch!
Four times in each session, there are short In the Spotlight explanations and comments on various fascinating topics. Here, Perrotta’s scholarship enlightens without ever turning pedantic. Do you know the meaning of hesed? Perrotta has pulled together multiple examples of how this important word is used in the Bible, so you can quickly get a feel for its meaning. Did you know that ancient monks have some very practical ideas for dealing with distractions in prayer?
And, what is this “sound of sheer silence” Elijah heard on the mountain? Perrotta drills down to an answer.
Taking God Seriously. Sometimes the Spotlight is turned on other people who have responded to the same word of God we’ve just been reading. Some are famous saints, like Teresa of Avila. Some are modern spiritual writers, like C.S. Lewis. Others are little-known heroes of charity: Elisabeth Leseur, an upper-class married woman who died in Paris in 1914, for example, and a group of lay women in Mozambique who care for AIDS orphans. Their witness of taking God seriously calls forth a response from us and challenges us beyond the easy answer.
As we consider how we might practice prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, Perrotta surrounds us with many supportive voices—prophets and evangelists, Fathers of the Church, saints both ancient and new, revered thinkers like Aquinas, and modern visionaries like Dorothy Day. Even if you are reading this alone, you’ll still feel like you are in the middle of a big discussion group.
Like the Bible study I attended in college, all these voices point toward specific, concrete action. Why? As Perrotta writes:
The spiritual disciplines work, Jesus assures us. The program will not fail to have its effect, if you approach it the right way. The spiritual disciplines are ways of seeking God, and Jesus affirms that those who seek God are never disappointed.
At my first Bible study, we began by facing the issue head on: If we understand that God wants us to do something, are we really going to do it? I’ve remained in contact with some of the men in that group for decades, and I can tell you that they answered “yes” and that their lives were forever changed.
If the measure of a good Scripture guide is that it helps us understand and act on God’s life-changing word, then Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving sets a very high standard.
Jim Cavnar is president of Cross International Catholic Outreach, a Catholic relief and development organization dedicated to helping “the poorest of the poor” in countries throughout the Caribbean, Asia, Africa, and Latin America (www.crosscatholic.org).
Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving (softcover, 136 pp.) is available from The Word Among Us. You’ll find an excerpt on our Web site.
