The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Why I Came Back to the Catholic Church

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

Last episode, Jeff Cavins shared why he left the Catholic Church. Today, he explains what made him return to the Catholic Church. Not only does he share the events leading up to this decision, but he also lists some of the primary theological reasons that led to his reversion. Snippet from the Show Your testimony can be a powerful way to speak truth into the lives of people around 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 ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kavens show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is show 327, why I came back to the Catholic Church. I want to welcome you. I'm Jeff Kavans, and we're going to continue on this week with what we started last week, which is why I left the Catholic Church and went through kind of the whole story with you and all the highlights and the lowlights as to, you know, how I grew up Catholic but ended up leaving the Catholic Church. But, you know, the story wasn't over. And I've learned something throughout the years and that is that don't let someone else write your story. Give the pen to God.

Let God write the story in your life and keep your eyes on Jesus. Because when I left the Catholic Church, yes, there were 12 amazing. years with people and building churches and evangelization and friendship and miracles and all kinds of wonderful things a food shelf that was second to none trips to Israel we taught Hebrew just really good good memories and wonderful people wonderful people now what I'm sharing with you is from my book My Life on the Rock ascension press published it you can I'll put that in the show notes for you but I wanted to talk how I began to return. I was a path, and again, the points that I'm going to give you here

are my points, but they may be other people's points as well. And you might be able to riff off of them and, you know, put them into the conversation you're having with your son or your goddaughter, whoever it might be. So why I came back to the Catholic Church? Well, after 12 years of being a pastor, a lot had happened in my life theologically. I mentioned to you in last week's show that that I left not because of theology, but I was loved out of the church. I came back to the church, not so much because I was loved into the church, because it really wasn't a whole lot of that, but it was theological. I studied my way back into the church.

It's like I was a paper convert, I guess you could say. I read books. I read the catechism and so forth. But I ended up about three years before coming back to the church. I ended up getting really serious about studying the early church. I began that study, actually, in 1983. And when I came back to the church, it was 1995. So that is about 12 years, right?

So I started in 1983 reading all about the early Hebraic influences on the church and the Jewish rabbi Jesus. And so I had about a decade of really, really good teaching from teachers at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Center for Judaic Christian Studies in Austin, Texas, and Israel, Dr. Brad Young from Oral Roberts University, Dr. David Biven, Dr. David Fluser, Shmuel Safrae, all these big names over in Israel that were masters at the Second Temple period. So I was completely steeped in that. And the more I learned about the Jewish roots of Christianity, the more I started to get interested in the actual early church fathers, the leaders of the first, you know, St. Ignatius and others the first 400 years. And I started studying and I started to recognize that there were a lot of things in that early church that didn't look anything like the church that I was

pastoring. Now, before I tell you four of the major things, a theologically that brought me back, I would say this, and that is that my observations about the independent non-denom movement in the United States, there were some problems, okay? Number one, the inherent weakness of independent churches. There's no sense of authority. And that can really be a problem. That can really be a problem because if there's no central authority, then what you have is you have a pastor with elders and you've taught people to try to listen to God in their life. But sometimes it moves into the direction of everybody's listening to God and God's telling everybody things about you or that they should leave church or imagine that. You're pastoring people and the Lord is whispering in their ear. you got to get out of here. I want you to go down to Pastor Frank's church. He's got a really good

speaking series. And I'm thinking, Jesus doesn't talk like that. Jesus isn't pulling people out of churches and bringing them across town because they have a good speaking series coming up or something. It just didn't make any sense. And so when everybody's hearing from God, then nobody's hearing from God. And it's really an inherent weakness in independent churches. Ask anyone, they may say no, but in the end, yes, it is a problem. Number two, God is literally speaking to everyone about how to run the church seriously. And when you take your emphasis off of the word of God and onto the word spoken to you or what you hear inside or what you're thinking and you confuse what you're thinking with, God is speaking with me. Now, I'm not saying God doesn't

speak to us. But when God is telling you to put the yellow socks on and the blue socks every other morning, I kind of wonder about that, you know. My people didn't do that, but I actually have heard of that in some groups before. But there's a problem with the church structure. There was in my situation there as an independent church. And everyone is hearing from God, which creates an unstable atmosphere, especially if people don't like what's going on in that particular church. Good or bad. Remember, this is my experience. I'm not saying this is true of everything. Number three, good people, no foundation. It's built on the pastor. And I knew that, that this church was built on personality. It was built on gifts. It was built on ability to speak or to teach or to lead.

but the bottom line was I wasn't feeling like my life was really on a foundation. Theologically, and the more I looked at these early church writers, the fathers of the church, the more I felt like I was on thin ice in some ways. Yes, I had the Bible. Yes, we had a good relationship and wonderful fellowship and so forth. But I was digging at a level deeper than most people realized. and I wanted to know what that early church looked like. And so ultimately, number four,

I didn't know if what I was teaching was actually bedrock. So when I prepared my sermon on Sunday night, and I got it together as a result of reading books, listening to tapes, CDs, maybe files. If they say tapes these days, some people are like, what? Google it. But I listened to cassette tapes, and I read books, and I would put together a nice sermon.

But deep inside, I'm wondering, how do I know if I'm really right in this? And so as I studied that early church, I started to notice common denominators in the church that, and this was my church, that absolutely looked nothing, nothing like my church, my modern church, nothing. and it really brought about what I would call a crisis of faith.

Lord, I would pray, Lord, if my church doesn't look anything like that early church, I want that early church. I want to do the things they're doing. I want to experience what they experience. I want to read what they wrote and have this sense that this is my church. This is the beginning. These are my fathers in the faith. This is the seedlings that grow.

And they've grown into what we see today. And so I read more and more. And I started to actually started to look into liturgical churches and the Anglican church. And I started to get really, really interested in the early church, which is more liturgical and reading seasons, you know, liturgical seasons of reading and so forth and very incarnational with what you eat and how you celebrate and the year and all. All of that and the priests, that was different than Judaism, but the priests, oh, wow. And so, so, that brought on a real conflict inside.

And I started to read books about these four things. I'm going to mention to you on the other side of the break. And everything led to one church, and I didn't want it to. because the night before I left home and went to Bible College in Dallas, Texas, my dad and I got into a fight about the faith, never talked about it ever until I came back. I'll let you know what those four things are, the four pieces like a puzzle right after this. Hi there, I'm Mark Hart, and I'm going to share with you an exciting new series called Venture, the Bible timeline for high school.

Now, let's be honest, the Bible is easily the most confusing, most misunderstood, of all time. How do these random time periods, these random people, these random stories all fit together? And what do they mean for me and for my life? In this study, we're going to take a journey through the basic story of scripture from Genesis through Revelation so that by the end of it, teenagers will understand the big picture of salvation history. Because when we come to know the story, we come to know our place in the story. To find out more and get a free preview of this engaging new study, visit ascensionpress.com All right. Okay, I'm going to share them with you. This show is why I came back to the Catholic

Church and there are so many reasons why. But as I studied, it was really, it was really the opposite of me leaving the church. I left the church because I was just loved out and everything was exciting. I came back to the church not because I was loved into the church and it was so exciting. It was actually like, oh my gosh, am I really doing this? So, So my first move was to check out this Anglican church that was called the Charismatic Anglican denomination. And I got in touch with them and I asked if I could come and meet them in Kansas City. Now, I was in Dayton, Ohio at this time.

So I went to Kansas City and I met with a wonderful guy by the name of Bishop Randolph Sly. He's now a Catholic priest out in, I believe, Washington. Great guy. And, you know, we spent a couple days together, and the conclusion basically was, yes, this is the direction that I'll be going, and they're going to coach me through it, and I'll become a priest in this Anglican denomination. Before I left that interview, I saw a book on a book table. They had a book table outside of the sanctuary. You've got to watch out for book tables. A book will change your life. And there was a book by Thomas Howard called Evangelical is Not Enough. and boy that title caught me and my wife was with me and we were pretty much in agreement about this Anglican deal and so I bought it and I read it and I loved it. I loved it and I thought

this guy is amazing and he's Anglican and well then I got to the last page and Thomas Howard said I wrote this book I think it was like in 1987 or whatever and I came into the Roman Catholic Church later I'm like no no and so I got his phone number I called him up I asked him why did you go Catholic and he told me the reasons and I said Mr. Howard that's happening to me that's happening to me and so that changed everything I started sneaking into St. Mark's Catholic bookstore in Dayton Ohio I got a catechism it just came out it was unreal when I When I first opened it up, I opened it up to paragraph 133. It says ignorance of Scripture, is ignorance of Christ?

And I thought, is this Catholic? Wow. Well, the more I read that catechism and the more I read all about the early church, I knew I had a decision to make. Now, the four things that the early church was unanimously on, really. And I didn't have any clue, and I never saw this in my church at all. Number one was the Eucharist. In the early church, they believe that the Eucharist.

was the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus. That at the words of the priests, the words of institution and the mass, this is my body, this is my blood. The bread became the body of Christ and wine became the blood of Christ. Now, I didn't even really know we did that when I was Catholic. Honestly, I didn't understand this idea of the real presence, but it was quite clear in the early church. It was very explicit in the early church that that is what they believed. And they believed very heavily in John chapter six, the bread of life discourse, where Jesus said, unless you eat my body, you have no life in yourself. How do you deal with that? There was nothing in my church that remotely looked like that unless I just went, you know, screamed metaphor all day.

The second was the papacy. Now, in my book, My Life on the Rock, I go through these. much more detail, obviously, but I'm just sharing with you what they were. The Eucharist is number one that if the Eucharist is true, I want it. If that is the body and blood of Christ, what in the world will I substitute for that? What will I go to and deny that if that really is the body and blood? The most treasured, valuable thing on earth? Seriously, there's the body and blood of Christ, and what am I supposed to say? Well, I'm not going to go to that church, because

over there, they give better talks. Seriously? Body and blood of God, they give better talks. I think you know who won there. The second was the papacy. Now, this was interesting because I knew about the prime minister in the Old Testament. Where in the country do they talk like that? The Old Testament. But in the Old Testament, they had a position called the Al-habait. Al-Baiet. That is, the one who's over the household, the prime minister. In the kingdom of David, there's a prime minister. And if David's gone, dead, or incapacitated, the prime minister is the one who receives the keys to the kingdom.

Now, I knew that in Isaiah 22, Shevna is the one that was deposed in Eliakim is the one who received the keys to the kingdom. It's the only time you see the keys. It is the prime minister who runs the kingdom when the king is. away. And I knew that in Matthew chapter 16, Jesus said, who do they say the son of man is? And they said, well, John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets. Well, who do you say, I am? And Peter said, you are Christ, the son of the living God. And as a result of that, Jesus looked at Peter and said, Peter, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my father,

who is in heaven. And I say to you, you are Peter. And upon this, rock. I will build my church. And he gives him the keys to the kingdom. And so if you know the Old Testament and you know that the prime minister, the al-habayet, the one who is over the house, you know he has the keys to the kingdom, then you have to be honest about this when you get into the New Testament and you've got to look for those things that are fulfilled. The prime minister's position, very easy to answer that. Who's got the keys? who has the keys somebody find the keys well i think jesus gave the keys to peter there seriously peter yeah he gave him the keys that means he's the he's the leader he's the first pope he's the one who

can bind and loose juridical language he has the keys to the kingdom what what is bound is bound what is loosed is loosed wow and the gates of hell will not prevail on this house that jesus is building Oh, it all started to make sense. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. I never saw that quite like that before. And then there was the Blessed Virgin Mary number three. Same thing.

There was a position to the right of the king in kings, first and second kings. And that person is the queen mother, the Givera in Hebrew. Now, there's only one queen mother. A king could have several wives back in antiquity there, but there's only one mother, and the mother is the queen. and the queen works with her son as an advocate and an intercessor. I didn't make this stuff up. You can't write it unless you're God because he wrote it in the Old Testament.

And so once you come to the New Testament and you ask yourself, is there a queen mother? Well, let's see. Who's the mother of the king? Well, Jesus is the king. Who is his mother? Mary, then Mary is the queen. No. People would say that all the time.

They'd say, how do you believe that? that, that Mary is the queen, the queen mother. I said, well, it's very interesting. First of all, it's established in the Old Testament. And my Matthew study goes deep into this. I have a 24-hour Matthew study at Ascension Press. But anyway, all you got to do is go to the New Testament and ask the question, who's the queen mother? Well, who would that be? Well, it's the mother of the king. So I would say that to people and I'd say, okay, look, let's just do this logically. who's Jesus? He said, well, Jesus is God.

Okay, Jesus is God. Who's his mother? Well, Mary's his mother. Virgin Mary, she's his mother. Okay, so Mary's the mother of God. No! Okay, well, let's do it again. Is Jesus God?

Well, yes. Is Mary his mother? Yes. So she's the mother of God. No! It was just something they couldn't accept. You know what's so funny about that? Is that that name, Theotokos,

at the council in Ephesus was all about Mary being the mother of Jesus and the whole debate was on the divinity of Jesus. Is Jesus God or is He man? Or is He God and man? This is what was argued at the Council of Ephesus. And they finally decided she's the Theatocos. She's the God bearer.

She's the mother of God. My friend, this is just church history. people died for this and so the fourth thing was the concept of the word of god in the word of god to the jews was not scripture alone even though my church was due to the reformation sola scrupura sola fide faith alone scripture alone but the concept in the early church was that the word of god was not a written book solely in fact there wasn't a book until 393 and 397 in the councils of Hippo and Carthage when they put together the canon 393 years after the birth of Jesus.

And so we're not people of the book. We're people of the Word, the living word, and that word comes to us in written form, in Scripture, and then the oral word, the tradition that's passed on. Together, the two of them, the sacred scripture and sacred tradition, are led by the Magistarium, the leaders of the church with Peter, the successor of Peter being the prime position. It's all there. It's all there. We make it up. It's all there in the Old Testament, the New Testament. It fits like a puzzle. And that's the way I approached it. Like a puzzle, you do the edges first. My wife does the middle part first because she's weird, but I can't do it

that way. She goes right for the middle and she's just really good at this stuff. And she says, Isn't this fun? No, I want to go read a book. So I went with the four edges first, and that was the Eucharist, the papacy, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the concept of the word of God. That is what brought me back. That's what brought me back. And my friend, I just want to pray with you. Last week we talked about why I left, and this is a little bit of why I came back.

And if it got your attention, kind of wet your appetite, seriously, read. my life on the rock, my book, where I really go into the details of both why I left and why I returned. And it's my testimony. And you have your testimony. And testimonies are a wonderful way to speak truth into the lives of your grown-up kids or your teenagers or your spouse. And that combined by prayer in you living the faith can be very powerful in people's lives. But I want to encourage you in this. Don't despair. Don't lose hope. I was not even looking at becoming Catholic. I wasn't even looking in that direction. I'll be honest with you. Coming back to the church was, it wasn't what I wanted. Boy, it is now, but it wasn't what I wanted back then. Because it also

meant, it meant reconciliation with my father. We got in that fight the night before I left home and it wasn't pretty. But when I came back, there was such a tremendous healing. maybe I'll do a whole podcast just on that story, but it was a tremendous healing between my father and myself when I came back and in the end, I win. And more importantly, Jesus wins. We can be his disciples and enjoy all that he has given us

with the Eucharist, the papacy, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Word of God, the sacraments, the saints, and the Pope, just so many wonderful things. So I'm going to pray for you now, your loved ones. And let's go from here. I'd love to hear from you. I really would. You can get a hold of me by simply emailing me the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. And I'd love to hear your story. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus, we love you and thank you for all the things you do in our life to draw us closer to you. Lord, as I look back on my story,

still to this day, I'm in awe of your grace and your abilities. Lord, I didn't see that coming. I didn't see a coming, your love and your provision. I lift up right now, Lord, my friends' family and friends, and I ask you, Lord, to do a mighty work in their life and to draw them back to the Eucharist, draw them to the security of having a papa in the church, the pope, and having an advocate and an intercessor like your mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

And thank you, Lord, for the fullness of your word, which you believed the written word and the story, sacred tradition and the early church did as well. And Lord, we thank you that we've been able to hold this together through the Holy Spirit all of these years for our salvation. Do a miracle in my friend's life. Do a miracle in their family. In Jesus' name, amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. I love you, my friend. I really do. And I pray that God will continue to work in your life and in your children's life and in your grandchildren. life. God bless.