The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - 10 Things to Know About the Catholic View of Scripture

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

Why does the Catholic Church have 73 books in the Bible, and how should Catholics read and interpret Scripture? Jeff unpacks ten foundational truths about the Catholic understanding of the Bible, explaining how Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the teaching authority of the Church work together to reveal God's plan of salvation. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit https://media.ascensionpress.com/?s=&page=2&category%5B0%5D=Ascension%20Podcasts&category%5B1%5D=The%20Jeff%20Cavins%20Show for full shownotes!

This podcast is brought to you by Ascension. To discover even more free Catholic podcasts, videos, and resources, to help you live your faith every day, visit ascensionpress.com. Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is show 490, 10 things to know about the Catholic view of Scripture. Welcome to the show. My friend, I'm Jeff Kavins. And every week we talk about the Bible. Every week we talk about discipleship, the church, evangelization, all these things, putting God's word into practice in everyday life. Well, today I want to talk to you about 10 things to know about the Catholic view of Scripture. One of the common questions that I receive is, well, how is, how is that? our Bible different than a Protestant Bible? Or what does the Catholic Church think about the Catholic Church in terms of not only its structure, the number of books, but is it God's word? I mean, what does that mean, his word? And does it relate to the Mass in any way? So we're going to talk

about a number of those things. I came up with 10 of them for you. And if you want the notes, I'm more than happy to share it with you. You can go ahead and text my name, Jeff Kavens, and text the number 3377. We'll get you on board. Hey, I hope you're having a good day. I really do. And I hope that you are experiencing right now a joy in your life

regarding the word of God and the beautiful church that God gave us and what it's like just to walk with Jesus. you know, on a daily basis, to have God living inside of you, animating you with love, leading you with wisdom, consoling your heart with understanding. You know, that's what this is all about. I think sometimes we make it way too difficult, you know, in our lives. And sometimes people feel like, well, before I really get going, you know, on all cylinders, I've got to understand everything. That's not the perspective that we have when it comes to discipleship. You start with nothing.

you end with something, but along the way you had to get it. And that's called study. That's called meditation. That's called getting involved in the kingdom of God. And it happens over time. Growth takes place over time. As I'm looking at the Bible that I bought when I was 18 years old, after a mighty conversion experience,

I'm still reminded of that feeling of looking at it and being in awe of the Bible, but really not knowing how to go about it. So I just dove in and started to read. And naturally over the years, if you have a hungry heart and you keep pursuing the Lord, you're going to learn more and more and more. It's like entering college and you're going to be an electrical engineer and you've never even studied an outlet at the house. But by the time you're done, you're going to have a whole different understanding of electricity

and the benefits of it and the dangers of it. But that's going to come with time, right? You know, God doesn't just drop all of his knowledge in your heart when you have a conversion experience and you get baptized and confirmed and voila, let's talk about canon law, you know. It doesn't happen that way. It really is a process, but it's a beautiful, affirming process, but it is a process. And you've got to go after it every day, day by day. You know, when I look back at the Great Adventure Bible Study and the Bible timeline and now the

Great Adventure Bibles. I look back on that and that didn't come by one little section of my life or people who contributed to it. No, that's what I started doing when I was 18 years old. And at 25 got this idea for a Bible timeline chart and when you know it, that's all I've been doing. And many decades have gone by. But now I have an understanding of it, not because I'm older. not because I read a book, but because I've immersed myself in that story of the Bible for nearly five decades. And what happens at the end of that is you change, you know? So let's talk for a minute, shall we, about ten things about the Catholic view of Scripture. And this is by no means exhaustive in any way, or it's really just to give you kind of a thumbnail sketch of,

You know, the Bible really does relate to the Catholic Church in such a powerful way. And we'll look at some of those. Okay. Number one, the Catholic view of Scripture is, number one, the Bible is the Word of God. It is the Word of God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus is the living Word of God. So Catholics believe the Scriptures are inspired by God, and they're written.

under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So God is the ultimate author. But it's interesting also that he he collaborates with. He works with human writers and he even uses their style and context. But in a way that we have to receive by faith, God is the author and he worked with human authors. Now, I said it's the inspired word of God, which means that it's God breathed. Theo Nustos, God breathed.

He is the author. So when you pick up your Bible or you hear it during Mass, you're not hearing secondhand, really. You're hearing his words. And that, you know, what a big praise God is that, you know, that he actually wrote to us a letter in many of them to show us who he is, to reveal himself and to reveal ourselves,

Who are we? What situation are we in before we know him? And how do we take care of it? And what does life look like? And what does eternity look like? So the Bible is the word of God, number one, for sure. Now, I know a lot of denominational Christians and non-denominational Christians will say the same thing. This has been with us from the beginning for over 2,000 years. The church has taught this. All the early church fathers, anybody that goes, to a non-denominational church today, you owe one big thank you to the Catholic Church fathers who established this in a big way. Number two, the Bible is part of God's revelation. It's a revelation. And that's what we believe that God reveals himself through sacred scripture, number one, and sacred tradition. The Bible is central, but it's understood within the living, tradition of the church. Now, someone might say, well, what do you mean? I thought the Bible just kind of stood on its own. Really? Like it just appeared? Like it was just published on its own? Like somebody decided on what books by themselves? No, it didn't work out that way at all.

God reveals himself through sacred scripture and sacred tradition. I'm not talking about tradition like we open presents on Christmas Eve. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about Big T tradition. That is, what did the church establish and under the leadership of the Holy Spirit declare? That's our sacred tradition. It's not less than anything. It's part of what we would say is the living word of God. Sacred scripture and sacred tradition. Because I say sacred tradition doesn't mean that scripture is relegated to some lower level or anything like that. It's two coming together to give us the full revelation of who God is. And by the way, we didn't come up with that.

The Jewish community has always believed that. They've always believed that Moses received the Torah on Mount Sinai, the written word of God. And they've also always believed that Moses received an oral tradition that was taught and passed down, the two of them together. That's the world of Jesus. That's the world of Peter Paul. That's the world of the early disciples. Number three, the church decided the canon. Now, we're not talking about a military canon. A canon is the number of books brought together that encompass God's word. It comprise, I should say, God's word. And that had a beginning. Now, this might sort of. surprise some people because sometimes people just think, well, the word was kind of always there

in how we got it. And by what means, who cares, we've got it? Well, you better care. It's important to have what archaeologists call a chain of custody. Where did the 73 books in a Catholic Bible come from? Where did the 66 books of a Protestant Bible come from? Did Catholics add seven books? No. Did Protestants take away seven books? No. Neither one. Let me explain. The Catholic Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, recognized which writings that were floating all around the known world at that time, which writings belonged in the Bible, which books were inspired by God. Now, who's going to figure that out? there is no index in the Bible that says, hey, hey, look here, these are the ones. It just didn't happen that way. Somebody met.

Somebody made a decision. Someone had authority. Listen, if you've got a Bible that has 66 books, you need to thank the Catholic Church. If you've got a Bible that has 73 books, you need to thank the Catholic Church. You really do. Now, this includes the Old Testament,

46 books, New Testament, 27 books, total of 73. Now, here's what happened in the early church in the Council of Hippo. When was that? Well, it wasn't a couple weeks after Jesus died. It was 393 AD. What? Yeah, 393 AD at the Council of Hippo. they produced one of the earliest surviving lists of the old and New Testament books

matching, by the way, the modern Catholic canon. 46 in the old, 27 in the new, and the acts of this council have largely been lost, but its decisions are reflected in later councils. Like, for example, just a few years later in 37, the Council of Carthage. They reaffirmed the biblical canon established at Hippo. Canon 24 listed the books of Scripture and stated that no others were to be read in church as divine scripture. It also requested that the Bishop of Rome confirm the decision. I'm not making this up.

This, my friends, is history. It's history. So what happened later on? Well, at the Reformation, there was a decision made by the reformers that they were not going to use the Bible that had 73 books. There were seven books called the Deuterocanonical books, and they decided that they were going to go to a different canon. Now, there were two canons in the first century. There was the canon that the church out in the diaspora and the Jews out in the diaspora, there was an Old Testament that they used called the Septuagint.

And it was those 46 books translated into Greek for all the Jews in the diaspora, those who had been scattered. But there was also another canon that didn't have those seven books, and that was closer to Jerusalem. And the Jews that were closer to Jerusalem tended to favor that one, two canons. Which one did the church choose at the beginning? The one with the seven books, not extra books, but the canon with 73 books, or those 46 in the Old Testament.

And when you know it, they used it for century after century, after century, after century as the inspired word of God. That does hold weight, doesn't it? Especially when it has to be confirmed by the Bishop of Rome, who has the keys, right? So what the reformers did is they said, we're not going that way, we're going to go a different way, we're going to go to the Jerusalem canon. And that, my friend, is the rest of the story. Number four, scripture must be interpreted.

That's what the church teaches us. The Catholics don't read the Bible in isolation, not just all by yourself. You can read it by yourself. but the task of interpreting and giving direction, official direction, not so much. And Peter even said that in scripture, in both canons, by the way. And that is that no interpretation is of private, no revelation is of private, but it is a family, the church. And the church teaches that the Bible must be interpreted in light of the whole faith with the help of the church's teaching authority,

better known as the Magisterium. Let's take a break. We come back. We've got several more we're going to talk about. We're talking about 10 things to know about the Catholic view of Scripture. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show. Someone shows up in your parish because they're being drawn towards the Catholic Church. Maybe they can't quite explain why, but something is pulling them.

OCI could be the moment that changes everything for them, where a quiet curiosity becomes a real, encounter with Jesus Christ. But the gap between how OCIA is and how it could be is real. And the catechus leading it need more than a schedule. They need vision, tools, and a program that actually forms disciples. Invited, your journey into the Catholic Church is Ascension's new OCIA program. 28 lessons that walk participants through the Catholic faith with theological depth, personal warmth and a focus on conversion, not just completion. Invited includes a participant guide that meets the seekers exactly where they are, a leader guide with catechus formation built right in.

A trade book with questions and answers many newcomers might be afraid to ask, and a mass companion book to help them participate in the mass actively, both interiorly and exteriorly. Our hope at Ascension is that Invited will help make OCIA in your parish what it was always meant to be. A true journey into life with Christ. To learn more, visit ascensionpress.com slash invited. Welcome back. We're talking about 10 things to know about the Catholic view of Scripture. We do know so far that the Bible is the Word of God. The Bible is part of God's revelation.

the church decided on the canon, and scripture must be interpreted. But number five, scripture is without error in what God intends to teach. That's right. And the inerrancy not only is inspired, but it's inerrant. The Bible is inerrant in matters of faith in salvation, and it must use sometimes, as you know, symbolic language or Hebrew poetry or different literary styles, but its divine message is always true and without error. Say, what about translations? Well, translations can be another thing altogether, as they say, a whole new kettle of fish. And that is that you can get any

company that goes out there and says, we've got a new modern translation. And it is just that. It's not the original language, it is a translation. And there's three types. There's a literal translation, word for word. There is a thought for thought translation like the paraphrase Bibles, one of the living Bibles that way by Dr. Taylor. And it was for his daughter originally. And then you have what's called a dynamic equivalent in the middle. And that is we're going to get a translation that is as much thought for thought and word for word as we can get. But the scripture is without error. The Old and New Testaments are united. They're united.

That's what we believe as Catholics. There was a big heretic years ago called Marcian. He didn't believe that. He had kind of a bad attitude about the Jewish community. And he saw those stories in the Old Testament as being disconnected with the words of Jesus and the new. and so he got himself in a whole lot of trouble over that because you can't divide the old and the new. One of the church fathers, St. Augustine said that the New Testament is hidden in the old and the old

is revealed in the new. And I always get this question. How do I get to know more about Jesus? Well, I'd say start by learning the Old Testament because that's the Bible that he taught from, that's what he's fulfilling. That's where many of his analogies come from. The Old Testament prepares for Christ and the New Testament fulfills it. And Catholics read the whole Bible as one story of God's saving plan.

And by the way, that's why we read from both the Old Testament and the New Testament in Mass. Number seven, the liturgy is filled with Scripture. Now, if you're Catholic and you go to Mass, you know what. I'm talking about. From the very beginning of in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to go in peace, to love and serve the Lord, it's filled with Scripture. In fact, it's so filled with scripture that the Book of Revelation describes the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that's taking place in heaven and it describes it with Scripture, all of the words that are used. It's amazing. And if you, for the first time, as a seeker, non-denominational person, a Protestant who's coming into the Catholic Church, and you're interested, you'll be struck by just how scriptural the entire Mass liturgy is.

So at Mass, Catholics hear readings from the Bible. They pray the Psalms and celebrate the Eucharist with words drawn directly from Scripture. the Mass is sometimes referred to as Bible prayer. Bible prayer. How come you Catholics don't get into the Bible that much? Well, come to Mass. I will venture to say that you're going to see that it's at the very center of our faith. And we are asked to read it personally and meditate and go deep into the scripture and live it.

Number eight, the Bible nourishes spiritual life. That's what the church teaches. Catholics are encouraged to read and pray with scripture. we call that Lexio devena. And Lexio devena is where you, through four steps, you gain the knowledge of Scripture on a personal level. Number one, you read a text. It could be a few verses.

Number two, you meditate on it. You enter that with meditation. Number three, you begin to pray. You ask God questions about it. You listen to if God's asking you any questions about it. And number four, contemplation. We rest in that revelation. It's like six days of Christ.

creation, seventh day rest, three steps to get all we can out of the word of God, and then rest and just take it in and say, Lord, thank you. And you enjoy the fruit of what you've gained in that. By the way, Ascension has a great book by a good friend of mine, Dr. Tim Gray, praying scripture for a change. It's all about Lexio-Devina. So Catholics are encouraged to read and pray with scripture, not just for information, but for truth. transformation. And letting God's words speak to your heart is one of the greatest things you can do because it will change you. Number nine, the Bible is meant for the whole church. That's right. You know, I used to hear this a lot. I don't hear that much anymore, but people would say, well,

when I was a kid growing back up, you know, in the 40s and 50s, we were told not to read the Bible. We were, in fact, didn't they have, I saw a picture somewhere where they chained the Bible, you know? And, well, if you ever saw a picture of the Bible being chained, is probably because somebody was trying to steal it, right? So, no, we are called as a church to take a deep dive into Scripture. It's for all of us. And that's why Ascension just put out a children's Great Adventure Bible. It's for the children.

Let the children come to Jesus, right? And so the scriptures belong to the entire people of God, not just scholars or clergy. meet someone who gives you that view that only the scholars and clergy are the ones that can completely understand this and you need to be related to them like a litter of little pigs to its mother. You can reject that right away because it is for the entire people of God. Of course we are under the direction of the Magistarium. Of course we listen to Father when he teaches and guides us in our understanding.

we're not saying that. But if our view is that it's just for a few scholarly elite, whoa, have you missed it? You know, it's like Emily writes me a love letter. Okay, she's my wife. She writes me a love letter. And I look at it and go, how in the world am I supposed to interpret this? And someone says, well, you can't and you shouldn't. You should take that to only a professional.

And they'll tell you what Emily said in the love letter. Oh, well, okay. Where do I go? Well, Google it. So the Holy Spirit helps every believer understand God's word, though in communion with the church. We receive the word of God in the church. It was given the authoritative approval in the church. There is no authoritative index. There is no flash in the sky with 73 books. This is all incarnational under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and approved by the one with the keys. That's Peter, better known as the Pope today, Pope Leo. Number 10, Jesus is the living word, and that's what we believe. For Catholics, the Bible isn't just a book of teachings. No, it points to a person. Jesus Christ, the word made flesh.

and scripture is meant to lead us into a deeper relationship with him. That, my friend, is why your Bible should look worn. That is why your Bible should be accessible. That is why you should spend time every day with the Bible. Are you Catholic? Then you're a biblical Christian. And the Bible is at the center of our life right there with the Eucharist. In fact, it's celebrated in the Mass.

visitors come take a look it's right there in the mass the liturgy of the word and the liturgy of the Eucharist we've got both we've got both and both came from us in that beautiful love it let's pray in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit lord we love you so much and we thank you today for inviting us into the family of the trinity we thank you for dying for us we thank you for giving us your word and your word is living, draw us evermore to that intimacy with you, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.