The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - The Bible Has Answers

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

Are you looking for answers to the big questions in life? Are you looking for instructions on how to live your life? Jeff Cavins shares how so many of the answers we seek can be found in the Bible. He also gives advice on how to approach reading and learning from the Bible. Snippet from the Show In the Bible, God reveals his heart and his plan for all people. 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 ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow 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 332. The Bible has answers. Welcome to the show this week, my friend. Good to be with you. Today we're going to talk about the Bible and how. the Bible has answers. I've got some really interesting statistics that, for some, I guess you would say they're not good news, evangelical circles specifically. But whatever happens in evangelical circles, I'm sure that there are statistics that are similar in mainline denominational churches. And of course, the Catholic Church, which we don't really consider ourselves a denomination because we didn't leave anything, we can struggle with some of these statistics as well. But I think

it I think it has given us a great opportunity to double down and to share Christ with other people. By the way, there is an amazing thing happening in the Catholic Church right now, specifically with the Bible and reading the Bible. You know about Bible in a year, catechism in a year. So there's some really good things. But I want to talk to you about how the Bible is unique in terms of providing answers for living. And this might be the type of thing that not only can you take advantage of yourself, but you can certainly pass on to other people. I do have some scriptures and some things to share with you that you might want to write down. So if you want the show notes, all you have to do is text my name, Jeff Kaven's

one word, and you can text it to the number 33777. That's 3377, and we'll get them out to you. And after that, we'll get them to you every single week. I want to stay in touch with you. You know what? I love today. And the reason is, is I took a little bit of a break and went out deep into the woods of Minnesota. And I love it because I'm completely surrounded by green and water from the lake. And off to the left of the window I'm looking at, there is a path that people will occasionally walk on.

And that right now is almost completely. covered with foliage and we've got geese we got ducks what else do we have out there muskrats we got all kinds of uh of wildlife but i love it i love the smell of it i just love the the peace and if you ever get a chance to go into minnesota into the woods it's like none other fishing walking trail trail walking all of it is just great anyway i won't let it distract me today all right so there are many, many things that you can study in the world today, and you can delve into a lot of different things, particularly online, that might produce some good things in your life. You can also get a degree. You can watch a documentary. You can go to online courses,

YouTube videos, famous social media stars, and so forth. But what if there was something that could answer life's questions and give the reasons behind all that we do? Good. or bad? Well, there is, and that is the Bible. And as you know, there has been this, this really surge forward in Catholic circles more so than any other group of Christians in the United States. In fact, other groups are falling in terms of Bible reading, but Catholics are racing ahead like never before, and you are probably part of that. I ran into some, statistics from a gentleman by the name of George Barna. He was relaying statistics from the Cultural Research Center. And George Barna is an interesting guy because he was raised Catholic.

He went to Mass. I believe he went to Mass regularly in college, but he ended up leaving the church and became an evangelical. And now he is sort of the, you know, the leader of research in terms of how is the evangelical church doing? And they just came out with some rather disappointing news about evangelicals around the country. And I'll share just a few of them with you. But it's, it really is. I think it's disturbing, but it may be the canary in the coal mine for a lot of people. Since the beginning of the pandemic, many dropped out didn't return. One of the things they found out. And in the last six years, attendance has dropped from 56% of adults attending church once a month to 35%. That is a significant drop among evangelical churches.

Now, Bible reading is another category where there has been a big drop. 37% read the Bible outside of a service in the last six years or so. and now that is down to 33%. That's a 4% drop, my friend, is a big drop. It really is. Only 55% of evangelicals believe that we are born sinners and need Jesus Christ. Now, part of that, I think, is due to just so many opinions today in the social media sphere and among progressive circles who don't believe that Jesus,

is the answer. That seems to be affecting evangelical churches. And a third of the attendees don't believe they will go to heaven when they die. That is shocking because one of the planks in the platform of the evangelical churches is that is that we are sinners and we need Jesus Christ. As Catholics, we'd say original sin. We need Jesus Christ baptism to free us from original sin. And evangelicals, the third of the attendees, believe they will go to heaven when they die. It's shocking. But something is happening, and this is good news, something is happening in the last 10 years in the Catholic Church, and that is this incredible growth in Bible study and Bible reading.

25 years ago, if somebody would have told you that evangelicals are going to tank when it comes to reading the Bible and that the Catholic Church is going to surge in reading the Bible, most people wouldn't have believed you. They wouldn't have. And I think this is our time, to be honest with you as Catholics. For one, you know, certainly there are a lot of Catholics who don't go to Mass. We know that. But I was in Mass this last week, which I always am. And I was looking around it at all of the different people sitting there. And again, this thought, which I'm going to share with you, came to mind. And that is that to me, it's like a miracle that so many Catholics return to Mass every single week. And if you were to interview them, they may not

know much about the Bible, certainly the narrative story of salvation history, or the individual teachings of the Catholic faith as spelled out in the Catechism. but they're there. And there's something about the Catholic mindset that says, I need to go. I'm not going to miss. I'm not going to come up with a lot of excuses as to why I shouldn't be there. That's a plus, yay, right there. And so I think we have an opportunity right now to not only reach more people in the pews

who are going to church, but don't understand exactly why, but we also have an opportunity here to share good news. the fullness of faith, the fullness of the deposit of faith with evangelicals who are growing weaker and are discouraged about the culture and what's being offered in their churches. I went to an evangelical church a couple of years ago just to sort of peek around, see what's going on. And one of the things that I had noticed was, and this is different from the years when I used to be a pastor before coming back to the Catholic Church, is that I didn't see many people holding a Bible.

Isn't that weird? They were reading the Bible off of the screen up on the front of the stage, but they weren't carrying a Bible anymore. And I thought that was interesting because now we're seeing more and more Catholics carrying the Great Adventure Bible, among other Bibles. Well, there is, I think, some reasons why the Bible in a year and the Great Adventure Bible study have skyrocketed so much in the last. 10, 15 years. Number one, people are looking for answers more than ever before. They are looking

for answers, but they're not finding the type of answers that provide substantive change in their life. The shocking assortments of self-identification are drawing people back to natural law and what we have known about ourselves for a long time. It's evidence, self-evident, who we are, what we're created for. That's natural law built into every, one of us, and I think, and this is point number two, is that this shocking assortment of self-identification is turning up bankrupt, and people are returning, some are returning to natural law, which natural law will lead you to, I believe, Jesus Christ. I believe it will lead you down that direction that, you know, there are certain truths that are just

self-evident. And number three, one of the things that has kept people from reading the Bible has been that they didn't know how. But in the last 15, 20 years, just hundreds of thousands of millions of Catholics have learned to read the Bible as a narrative with the Great Adventure Bible. I can speak for that. The Great Adventure Bible studies, I should say, and then now we have the Great Adventure Bible. And the Bible in a year went to number one on Apple. And so all of that is good, good news. Number four, knowing that the church has guidelines for reading and interpreting the Bible gives a sense of certitude, a sense of authenticity. And so that is a big plus that we have going for us, is that we're not just studying the

Bible and saying, what do you think, what do you think, what do you think? And everybody's right. Well, we know where that's going in social circles right now as far as our own identity, but we don't do that with the Bible. The church gives us guidelines. The church doesn't tell you what you must think when you read that Bible in terms of individual, small, little details, but it gives you guidelines because the Bible is like an onion, multi-level, and you can get deeper and deeper. You start with a literal sense, and then you move on to the spiritual sense, and that is the allegorical sense, how it relates to Christ, the moral sense, how it relates to me personally. And then the anagogical sense, how it relates to the future.

And number five, the bankrupt ideas passed around online and on TV have left people empty and some in despair. That's right. The bankrupt ideas passed around online and the social profits online, it's coming up empty. You don't have that much to share. And people get bored and they move on. and I think we have an opportunity right now. Now, when I get back here, I'm going to take a break in a moment here, and when I get back, I want to give you several reasons why people would want to read

and study the Bible, what it gives you as far as finding answers for your life. I'm Jeff Kavens. You're listening to The Jeff Kavens show. Hi, my name is 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 book. Bible and Catechism app called the Ascension app. Now, here's what you get. In this app, you get the

entire text of the Great Adventure Bible. This is 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 in 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 today about the Bible having answers to life's questions, and we, I said this before the break. I really think we have an opportunity right now, but we've got to take that opportunity. We can't just sit back and study for ourselves and read for ourselves and find the latest, you know, podcast or whatever it might be for ourselves.

We have to share. We have to share with other people what we're finding and share with them the good news. So I want to give you several reasons why people would want to read and study the Bible. Number one, it reveals who God is. Biggest question, biggest question on the table, who is God and has God revealed himself to us? Or is everybody right in their opinion of who God is? Think about this. It is absolutely incredible that in the Bible, God reveals himself in words and deeds. Now, if you really meditate on this, this will blow you away. God made the decision, the God who always was and always will be made the decision that I'm going to let, let's say I'm

God, which I'm not, I'm going to reveal myself to you. And not only am I going to reveal myself to you, I'm going to reveal it in a way that you can comprehend, that you can understand. And so what God does in scripture is he reveals himself in words but the words work with the deeds and when you put the words and the deeds together there emerges this picture of who god is and then when jesus comes it's the full revelation of the father this is incredible absolutely incredible so the scripture reveals his plan There's two things that the scripture does here about revealing God. Number one, it reveals his plan, his plan. And I think that is incredible because people have lost a plan for their lives.

So he reveals the true plan for you, but the true plan for the entire universe. And as Pope John Paul II said, all of life is a pilgrimage back to the father's house. So the plan leads you somewhere, not just lead you to, some, you know, ethereal truth, but the plan leads you somewhere and specifically leads you to someone who is God, who is your father. And so when you embark on Bible study, it's going to land on getting to know the father. I'm drinking some of my hot tea out here in the woods. I love it. So you've got the revelation of God's plan, but you have the revelation of the heart of the father as well. Those are the two things. He reveals his plan, reveals his

heart. That's what happens in Bible study. That's what happens in Lexio-Divina. That's what happens in hearing God in the Mass readings during every, every day and especially on Sunday. Number two, not only does the Bible reveal who God is, it reveals who you are in relationship with God. Why we do what we do. It reveals the mystery of who we are. And I've got to tell you, I'm a mystery. And you might feel that way too. And Paul did when he said, why do I do the things I do and I don't do the things I want to do? Oh, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to the Lord Jesus Christ.

So figuring out who God is is one thing and figuring out who you are is another thing. But the only way you're going to figure out who you are is to start with who is God. because your identity is hidden in who God is, in the mystery of the Trinity. So I am constantly looking for who God is and who I am when I study the Bible, when I read it even casually or just listen to it in the car. The third reason is that the Bible reveals truth. Now, this is a hot potato these days. It's such a hot potato.

It's not really a hot potato anymore. It's all been diced up. It's more of a hot pile of french fries now. Because everybody has their truth. Everybody is my truth. Your truth. I got to respect your truth. You got to respect my truth.

I don't know where this popped up on the scene exactly that everybody was entitled to truth, their truth. But I can tell you this wasn't that way not too long ago. But everybody is entitled to their own truth. but I'm not interested in what every individual's truth is. I am interested in who you are and the value that you represent and the uniqueness that abides within you, but there is one truth, and that truth is not just a concept, but the scripture tells us that it's a person. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Now, I believe that. He is the truth. he is the truth and he reveals the truth to us and so there may be your proclivities there might be your preferences in life but preferences is very different than truth because my preferences might not be truth but they're my preferences and so I don't want to sell you this bag of goods it says that what I prefer is truth it's a preference and sometimes my preference needs to be altered by truth. So the Bible really reveals truth and what you and I are called to do is to speak the truth in love and the two go together. So number four, one of the

reasons that we'd want to study the Bible and read it is that the Bible provides wisdom for daily living. And that's why I so enjoy Proverbs and Syrac. Wow. You know, when I used to be a Protestant pastor, I didn't really have any daily access to the book of Syrac because in my Protestant Bible, there were 66 books, Catholic Bible, which is the Septuagint. That's what the early church adopted, has the book of Syrac in it. And man, when I got a hold of that after coming back to the church, you talk about richness. you talk about a treasury of wisdom get into syrac so do you need wisdom in your life today that's the bible you know there's 31 chapters of uh proverbs and some people have adopted this

pattern of reading one chapter of the proverbs a day which isn't that much and uh you can you can read 31 days for 31 days in the month and i like that you might want to adopt that here's another thing, the Bible is so important because the Bible helps us in our relationships with other people. Now, when you embark on living, when you wake up in the morning and you get dressed, eat breakfast, you do your daily devotions, and you go out into the world, it's going to be a day of relationships. You're going to meet with people who work for you. You're going to meet people who work with you. and you're going to work for people who you work for them.

Okay, you're an employer, an employee, or you just don't know what you're doing at work, but there are relationships, and the relationships are the place where problems evolve, where we feel dis, or we feel unrespected, or we feel that people aren't listening to us, or people aren't getting their job done, and what do we do? Or someone just rubs me wrong.

you know you've heard that before well the bible will teach you about how to live with other people whether it be family or at work or neighbors or extended family that's a big one today you know a lot of people really struggle with that to which i'll have a sip of tea on that one and so the bible helps us in our relationships and then the most important one of all of course is our relationship with God because you know the the Catholic Church teaches that the Trinity is a family father son the Holy Spirit the father loves the son and the son loves the father and the love between the father and the son is the Holy Spirit and it is a community of love a family of love and we are called to live in that love that's where we learn about relationship between the father

and the son and the son and the father and the holy spirit and that's what we can learn from and take out into the world and apply it to our relationship with others the bible filled with wisdom about relationships and then number six family living this one is really important because when you go home from work or you leave that room in your house that's work and go into the living room well you've got your family there so you have to answer questions like what is a man what is a husband what is a wife what is a father what is a mother what is a woman well we know all that we know that and we don't say that in some braggadocious way or you know some uh some way that says you know nan babu we've got the truth and you don't no the bible reveals marriage the very first

thing that comes out of Genesis, really, after the creation is husband and wife. For this reason, a man will leave his mother and father, cling to his wife, and the two will become one. So the family is the school of love. It is the place where the love of the Trinity is lived and demonstrated. That's what the family is. It isn't debatable. It isn't up for public opinion as to what a family is or what a man is or what a woman is. And I know that that's not popular, but hey, this is what the Bible reveals. Number seven, the Bible is so good at revealing the source and the solution to emotional upheavals, like anger. What is anger? Well, James says you've become angry because you didn't get what you wanted. And you didn't get what you wanted because you asked

incorrectly. And so anger tries to accomplish something in our life. And that's why scripture says the anger of man will not accomplish the righteousness of God. Try as it may. Anger won't get you there. It won't. But there is a place for anger. And the Bible reveals that. Anger is a flag that something is a wrong and something needs to change. And that's what it's telling you. Are you going to do something about it? If not, let it go. Move on. But emotional upheaval like anger, but also depression, anxiety, those are big deals today. And the Bible addresses them. Now, I'm not saying that every person who's depressed or anxious is simply a spiritual problem or something that you can read a verse and everything's okay. These are things that take time to deal with, but the Bible has

so much to say about it. It might be real help to you. We have emotional upheavals like envy. Envy's a deadly sin. Unforgiveness is way up there at the top of the list. You're not going to, you're not going to get a lot of substantive answers on YouTube about unforgiveness if it's outside of Jesus Christ. I know that. I know that. And I've heard other people say that as well, is that it's just not working for them. Well, we need to discover what true unforgiveness is and what is true forgiveness.

And what happens when we walk in unforgiveness? And does Jesus forgiving us give us any power or solution on how to release other people? Yes. now it also the bible also talks about the keys to to uh being victorious over lust deception it talks to us about how to handle money it's amazing so let me just encourage you this way the bible is there it's ready to be read and there are so many answers i'll give you a few suggestions one get a bible for sure if you don't have a bible that you can write in underline make notes in the column, please get a Great Adventure Bible.

Because the Great Adventure Bible will teach you not only how to go about reading like Lexio de Vina. There's a whole article in there on that and how to interpret scripture, another article on that in the Great Adventure Bible. But it also gives you a plan on how to read it as a narrative, a complete story. So, you know, people ask me all the time. I want to read the Bible. Where do I begin? And my answer is, begin with everything. thing, get to know the overarching story. Now, you can do that with unlocking the mystery of the Bible,

which is a very short series that I put together at Ascension on how to get your mind around the entire story. The Great Adventure Bible study is 24 one-hour sessions. That's the one that Father Mike is talking about. That's the one that he reads. That's the one he studied. That's the one that we developed into Bible in a year. It's the Great Adventure Bible timeline, the Bible study, and then the shorter version is unlocking the mystery. So number one, get a Bible. Number two, start to understand the overarching story. Now, in the Great Adventure, what I do is I break down the entire Bible into 12 periods, color-coded periods, 12. Then I show you the 14 narrative books in the Bible to read through those 12 periods so that you get the story.

And then I show you where the other 59 fit in the context of the 12 periods and the 14 narrative books. That is key. I love it out here. There are so many little geese who are growing up outside right now. I wish you could see it. Okay, the other thing I want to share with you is this. Open your home.

That's right. Open your home to Bible study. Open your home. Get a hold of one of the great adventure studies. Either the unlocking the mystery or the big one, the big, big, big one. I would encourage starting with unlocking the mystery. And you can do this and bring people into your home and have some hors d'oeuvres and something to drink and enjoy a Bible study with your friends. no heavy pressure or anything like that just invite people uh to it i was listening yesterday

to bernard langer the the golfer in the back in the 80s i think he won the open in 85 he just gave a simple testimony of how he came to christ and it was a friend who who just invited him to come over to the house for a bible study and he did and it ended up in a life change for bernard langer the golfer famous golfer so open up your home and be hospitable and invite people in. Do that. Do that. Do something different this year like that. And if you do this, you stand a better chance of going deeper than just starting a random book club. It can be helpful. It can be helpful to pick a gospel and read it in a devotional way. Well, you study the structure of salvation history. The two can work together real well.

As you read and study, take notes. Take notes. Find out those things that are being revealed to you. Try to put them into your life on a daily basis. This is what we do in Bible studies. So along with this, you can do Bible in a year, catechism in a year, get to know your faith in a deeper way. Well, say that's what I wanted to share with you today, deep in the woods of Minnesota,

where there's people fishing and there's geese and there's geese and there is, what else out there? Just a lot of birds right now. I put food in the bird feeder, and it seems to go down about every two to three days. People are hungry. Birds are hungry. But people are hungry.

So we need to give them Bible studies and put it into practice. Let me pray for you. I know it's summer. Some of you are up at the cabin, and some of you are on vacation, but you are still listening. Thank you. thanks for going and liking the show and making some comments it just makes it easier for other people

to find what they're looking for i hope you do that we can work together that way but anyway text my name jeff kaven's one word to the number three three seven seven seven we'll get you the notes for every single show let me pray for you in the name of the father and the sun and the holy spirit lord i thank you for creation i thank you for the beauty of this world and how intricate it is and how how it reveals so much about you. You are the artist, Lord. The beauty of the lakes and the trees and nature and the animals. And you have created us in the midst of it. And we are the zenith of your creation. Lord, you've given us the user's manual scripture. Help us to go deeper into it today. Help us to learn about you and who we are. Help us to understand about our relationships with others and why we do what we do.

you, Lord, for revealing this to us. I pray, Lord, that everybody listening, all my brothers and sisters will take a step forward, do something different to grow in your word, and share it with other people. In Jesus' name, I pray, amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.