The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Seven Gifts for Your Friends

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

Are you a gift giver? Whether you enjoy giving gifts or not, every Catholic has many gifts to share with those around them. Jeff Cavins explains some of the important gifts that Catholics possess and are obliged to share with those around them. He explains the significance of each gift and encourages every Catholic to share them. Snippet from the Show If you call yourself a Christian, you are obliged to share the gifts that God has given you. 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!

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 389, seven gifts for your friends. Welcome back, my friend, so excited to talk to you today. Oh, when I say welcome back, I'm welcome. you back, but I'm also saying, hey, we're back in the woods of Minnesota, deep in the woods of Minnesota, loons in the morning, and lots of geese and ducks and deer and all kinds of things, really, really enjoyable just to get away, you know, and be a part of this beautiful world

that God created. And it's a gift to spend it with you, you know, to be out here in the beautiful Minnesota outdoors, over 16,000 lakes, you know, in Minnesota, probably about as many politicians as we had, too. In fact, that could be any state, right? Now, what I'd like to share with you, a little bit about pouring into other people's lives, sharing the good things of our faith with other people, learning some of these things that you really haven't committed to memory and then sharing them with other people. You know, I truly believe that every person that goes by the name Christian should have one, maybe two people in their life that currently they are pouring into. What do I mean by pouring into? It's a convenient way of saying that you are

giving them the goods. You are showing them how we live, what we believe, how we pray, and so forth. and so there's a lot of things that you could share with a new believer, but isn't it important to have some kind of plan as to how we're going to do that, right? How are we going to do it? Well, I have seven things that I feel very strongly about, that every person should be showing someone one of these all the time. And when you do it, it's remarkable how much more you know it and understand it because you get to teach it yourself.

And there's nothing like teaching to really drill in the truth that God has given us and the wonderful gifts that He has given us and provided for us all throughout our life. So I have those seven, those seven, and I'd encourage you, number one, before we get to those, if you have someone that right now you're thinking, I would love to disciple them more. I would love to share some of these things as a plan with my friend. Well, now's the time where you can actually say to them, you know, we've been friends for a while and you know I go to the Bible study or whatever you want to say, can I share something with you?

Now, most good friends are going to say, absolutely. And you can share with them how this has really helped you in your life. It is, you know, further down the road did you in a sense as far as your walk with Jesus. More maturity. You're growing. further on down the road, that's what we want to say. You are valuable and you have something to pour into those around you. So number one, number one is show them how to read the Bible. Show them how to read the Bible. Well, showing them how to read the Bible is so important

because the plan of God is in the Bible. That's the plan of God. And it's not written in chronological order. So what I did years ago is I took that Bible, and then I figured out the chronological order of the books, and then I created a chart called the Bible Timeline chart, and boy, that thing just went viral. And the Bible study, the great adventure Bible study, the Bible timeline that I teach. They just went crazy. And the reason is, is because somebody showed the folks out there how to actually read it. And if somebody can teach you how to read it, man, is that valuable? And the people that are around you would certainly love to know how to read the Bible. Well, you're the best choice to teach them because you are doing it

or you know about it and you can simply share that with others. So if we're going to disciple people, we really need to show them how to be equipped in the Word of God, how to read it, the two Testaments, the primacy of the Gospels, the old is revealed in the new, and the new is concealed in the old. Jesus is coming to fulfill all of the stories. We just show them how, just real brief, how to read the Bible. And you can even say, hey, I'll read the Bible with you. Let's go ahead and read the three-month reading plan in the Great Adventure Bible.

I'll read the 14 narrative books with you. So that's one of the keys to the Great Adventure Bible is that I divided it up into 12 historical periods, and that was on purpose. But then to read through those 12 periods, you have to know which books to read, you know, when. And there are 73 books in the Bible, in Protestant Bible, 66 books. But 73 books in a Catholic Bible because it was based on the Septuagint, that's the Greek Old Testament. So we have these 73 books, but the question is, which ones do you read? And so there are 14 that are designated on the chart to read through the 12 periods. Now, you can get the chart.

We'll put it in the show notes for you, but more to the point, learning the relationship between the 12 periods and the 14 narrative books. That's what we're looking at. 12 periods, 14 books to read through those 12 periods, and then show you where the 15, remaining books fit in. That's golden. That is golden. Now, number two, you can do the same thing with the catechism. Show them how to navigate the catechism. Very, very important. You know, the catechism is such a gift. In the catechism, I've got two of them right here. I always have one out here in the woods. I have the green one. But I also brought with me the

white one, the ascension catechism. Is that a piece of art? Or what? that is really amazing. But all my highlights and everything is in the old ones. So I'm in the process of bringing some of them over into my white ascension catechism. But you say, Jeff, how would I teach someone about the catechism? Well, it's very simple. The catechism is a compilation of all that we really believe is Catholics. The Bible, it is inspired by God. God is the author. The catechism is the church's way of bringing together all the treasures of the king, so that we can understand them, and we have some sense of authority relating to these topics. So the catechism takes everything Catholic, except bingo, and what it does is it puts them

into four pillars, four pillars. And so this is the same idea as the great adventure. And the wisdom of education is, or you could say that the genius of an education system, not a person, but the system is that it takes the complex and makes it simple. That's the great adventure, but that's the catechism as well, because you have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of concepts and ideas and people and places. Wow. Help me someone. The church says, yeah, we're here. We'll help you. And so they take everything and put them into four pillars. Number one, you got the creed. What's the creed? The creed is the story of salvation history. That's the Bible. very tightly wound form. And so we take the entire story of salvation history and squish it into a

creed. And so we start off in the catechism with what? With the story. The story. If you don't know the story of salvation history, and that's the first point reading the Bible, then you're going to be a little bit behind in the catechism because everything that we enjoy as Catholic springs from the story. It springs from the story. It's amazing. So I would show that. how it's divided up into four pillars. The first pillar is the story. The second pillar is how to get into the story. That's the sacraments and liturgy.

The third pillar is life in Christ. What's that? Well, that's what you live in the story. You live the life of Christ. And prayer, well, prayer is vital in a relationship. That's conversation. It's communication. Individually and corporately as well.

Corporately with, of course, the mass, sacraments. And prayer is just a part of all of this. Number three, show them how to pray the rosary. Now, the reason I have this in here is because we want to teach people how to pray. And there are two things that I would recommend. The rosary is number one. Number two is the Lord's Prayer. You can read that in the sermon on the Mount in Matthew, five, six, and seven.

So the advantage of the rosary is that people are going to start to learn to articulate good prayers, a language for prayer as they pray the mysteries of the Rosary. And so it gives you something tactile. It gives you a plan to pray. You're assisted by the mother of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary. It's just really an amazing prayer. And you know, Pope John Paul II said it was his favorite prayer. And I think he said one time outside the Mass, that it was his favorite prayer. and so the rosary teaches you how to pray and that's the second thing that I want to say is that we do need to come to a place

where we can pray with spontaneity that we can pray on the spot we have the language we've been studying scripture we've been studying praise and worship in the mass so we have something that we can give and then we have something that we can give to another generation might give prayers to your grandchildren

and they might give them to their grandchildren So the rosary is a great thing to teach people and to give them their first rosary. Okay, we've got four, five, six, and seven coming up right after this. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz. I want to let you know about an exciting announcement that could revolutionize the way you listen to the Bible in the air and the catechism in the air. Ascension has released a new Bible and Catechism app called the Ascension app.

No, here's what you get. In this app, you get the entire text of the Great Adventure Bible. just incredible. You also get the entire text of the catechism of the Catholic Church, as long with the Catechism in your podcast, the Bible in your podcast, and transcripts for each episode. If you're like, I'm tired of listening to that guy. I just want to read it. There's complete transcripts from each and every episode. One thing that makes this app incredibly unique is that it includes special features that make connections between the Bible and the catechism so crystal clear through color-coded references and all these links. The hyperlinks are amazing. I tried it out.

and I'm like, oh my gosh, it kind of has changed the way I read through the catechism, kind of changed the way I read through the Bible. These features will help you navigate the Bible and catechism even more seamlessly, so you can get more out of your experience. Also, the app provides almost 1,000 answers to Bible questions. The people who listen to the Bible in the year, they wrote in with their questions. Almost a thousand answers, and those answers come in the form of audio clips, video clips, as well as resources excerpted from some of Ascension's published works.

If you want to download this app for free, Super simple. Just go to the app store and search for Ascension app. I am telling you, if learning about the Bible and the catechism is important to you, then this app will change your life. Welcome back. We're talking about seven gifts for your friends. If you are pouring into them or you're making disciples, we've got the Bible, the catechism, and the rosary so far. Number four, explain the mass. Oh, is this important? How many kids grow up as Catholics? and they end up being 20, 21 years old, and they still could not tell you what the mass is about.

They'd just tell you little things they noticed. You know, we go up for communion, we got statues, and we say amen a lot, and we kneel, we stand, we hear the Bible. But they can't put it all together. What is the mass? Well, the mass is not a Protestant service. It's not a get-together.

It's not a weekend revival. The mass is a saccharacterial. sacrifice. And that's the theme of the Bible in the Old Testament with sacrifices. And the New Testament, it doesn't change. It goes right away into real sacrifices. And this time God is going to give his life for the sins of the world. Now, the Emmaus Road experience in Luke 24 gives you a really good look at the twofold aspect of the mass. You have the liturgy of the word number one. That's when someone reads on weekends. There's three readings, right? There's two readings, and then the priest or deacon will read the gospel. During the week, there's only two readings, but you start off Mass with God speaking to you as someone among your parish lent their voice to him and read. And then, of course, the gospel. But then the mass turns to the second part of it, which is the breaking of the bread.

And so we have the liturgy of the Eucharist. We have the liturgy of the Word and the Eucharist. And then breaking it down from there a little bit. We don't have the time right now to go into that, but I'm saying, please explain to them the shape of the mass and what the mass is and how we participate. Number five, explain discipleship to the one you're discipling, putting the word into practice. I would explain to them the nature of discipleship. And I have a lot of podcasts on this.

You can search that. And there's a lot of them. Explain what discipleship is. Discipleship means that you are in a relationship with someone who's teaching you and helping to form you in the faith. And in discipleship, you have someone helping you to put the word into practice. And discipleship requires close proximity to Jesus, because we have to be in close proximity to hear him encourage us, correct us, admonish us, comfort us. direct us, warn us. You have to be close to him. You have to be a disciple of Jesus. And so I even wrote a book called The Activated Disciple at Ascension. Yeah, we'll put that in the show notes.

It explains all about being a disciple and how to make disciples. So that's number five. Number six, the shape of your day. I think one of the things that is rarely given or rarely explained to people is that the shape of their day reveals the love of their life. Just look at your day. I can tell you what you love. And so the shape of your day has a song. It has a message. It has a poem. And that shape should be centered around Jesus Christ from the moment you get up to the moment you go to sleep and then even your prayer of watching over you while you sleep. Now, the shape of your day is important. I have found that when I finally wrangled the shape of my day and started my day with prayer and Lexio de Vina with the gospel of the day, with my wife, it made the biggest difference of all.

It made the biggest difference of all in terms of me going deeper into Christ and receiving life and receiving mercy and receiving love. And so the shape of your day is very important. What are you going to do in the morning? And I say, well, you're going to pray? And they say, yeah, when? Well, I'm going to get around to it. It's funny how many people don't get around to it unless they have something that's, you know, it's really permanent in your life, the shape of your day. And that is the way it is for Emily and I.

We just pray in the morning. And then there's other things in the afternoon. There's prayers in the church in the evening. That's pretty neat. So I challenge them, if I'm disciplining them, take a look at your day. You know, look at the shape of your day. what are you giving yourself to? Is there a way to gain more time for knowing Jesus?

And number seven, show them how to forgive and be forgiven. Now, this one is really important because almost every relationship we run into, there is some aspect of unforgiveness in people's lives. There's some aspect, either they're not forgiving somebody else or they refuse to be forgiven by somebody else. You know, they either have to forgive someone or they have to be forgiven themselves, but they've kind of come to a stalemate. And so I think that every single person that is pouring into others

should introduce them to the sacraments in the church and chiefly the Eucharist, but also reconciliation, forgiveness. because oh man i'll tell you people are really tied up inside about unforgiveness hurts and wounds from you know not just a year or two ago but 30 40 years ago so one of the most powerful and life giving gifts that you could give someone is the knowledge of why and the skill of how to go to confession and how to forgive that's it so those are seven things that You and I should be fairly proficient at understanding the Bible and the way it's put together, understanding the catechism, knowing how to pray the rosary, understanding the shape of the mass,

putting the word into practice as disciples, shape of your day is important. And number seven, show them how to forgive and be forgiven. So those are the things that I wanted to share with you. I'll put them in the show notes. And I look forward to seeing you next week. In the meantime, after we pray here in a moment, I believe I am going to take a walk. Oh, yeah. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus, I thank you so much for giving us the Bible, the catechism, the rosary, the wonderful sacrifice of the Mass.

You have called us to make disciples, and you have asked us to put you first, to seek you first, and you have shown us how to forgive. We thank you for all of this, Lord, and ask that. these would really become solid in our life and that we'd be able to share them with others. Thank you, Lord, for giving us this insight. Thank you, Lord, for giving us the power and discipline to do this. We love you. In Jesus' name, amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

I love you. Amen. Look forward to seeing you next week. I hear the looms calling now. We will see you. Thank you.