How the REFORMERS Were WRONG about the BIBLE (w/ Gary Michuta)
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
- In this episode of The Cordial Catholic, I'm joined by the renown expert on the Bible, apologist Gary Michuta from @ApocryphaApocalypse to discuss the Bible. With bucketloads of insight, wisdom, and decades of research and experience Gary explains exactly how the Bible came out of the Catholic Church and why understanding the origins of the Bible is so important when talking to our non-Catholic Christian friends - who love their Bibles!
Gary explains the process used to discern which books of the Bible belonged in the Canon, how this began in the very early Church councils, and why the Bibles supported by the Reformers actually removed books that had originally been in the Bible, accepted by all Christians, all along.
It's a fascinating and informative look at any extremely important area of apologetics - something at the very core of Protestant Christianity.
For more from Gary visit his website where you can buy his fantastic books on this topic: www.garymichuta...
Send your feedback to cordialcatholic@gmail.com.
Sign up for our newsletter for my reflections on episodes, behind-the-scenes content, and exclusive contests at newsletter.thec...
To watch this and other episodes please visit (and subscribe to!) our RUclips channel.
Please consider financially supporting this show!
For more information visit the Patreon page. All patrons receive access to exclusive content and if you can give $5/mo or more you'll also be entered into monthly draws for fantastic books hand-picked by me at / cordialcatholic
If you'd like to give a one-time donation to The Cordial Catholic, you can visit the PayPal page at paypal.me/cordi...
Thank you to those already supporting the show!
Thank you so much for mentioning his channel! Everyone needs to go sub to it and binge those videos. They take down all the usual Protestant arguments and objections. The canon is the Achilles heel of sola Scripura and Protestantism.
Gary Michuta is fab 🩵
Thank you brother in Christ for making a video about this important topic. It is what I called "One of the Many Strong, Affirmative, valid and substantive cases for Catholocism".
The Bible is the book of the Catholic Church. It was compiled by the Catholic Church.
The process culminated in 382 as the Council of Rome, which was convened under the leadership of Pope Damasus, promulgated the 73-book scriptural canon. The biblical canon was reaffirmed by the regional councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397), and then definitively reaffirmed by the ecumenical Council of Florence in 1442.
Finally, the ecumenical Council of Trent solemnly defined this same canon in 1546, after it came under attack by the first Protestant leaders, including Martin Luther.
Again, thank you very much brother in Christ. God bless you and your ministry.
Gary is one of the best 😊
I’m here to comment my support for Gary Michuta and you!
Many thanks and thank you Gary. I have added his channel!
Wow, this is fascinating. I am just now learning about this! Very heartening information for Catholics. This plus the Blessed Shroud news makes me even grateful to be Catholic! Praise Jesus❤
I see Gary Michuta; I click😂👏🏽
Excellent content
Fascinating insight around minute 46, where 2nd century Christians had one list of what they could use in apologetics with Jews, and another list of what they themselves might have used within Christian communities! It rings true! I hope there is research that backs this up, but it's the kind of idea that had never occurred to me before! A real "aha" moment! Thank you! Even if there's no historical evidence for it, it makes perfect sense as a theory.
Gods Catholic Church comprised & gave The Holy Bible to the world. Written in 325AD, canonized in 382AD & reaffirmed in 393AD & 397AD. Over 1500 years later, Protestants, WITHOUT GODS AUTHORITY, rewrote it, added/deleted words, verses, chapters, books m, giving their version of Gods words. Rev22:18-19. Jer26:2, 2 Pet1:20-21, 3:16
“Bible believing Christian” corruption perpetrating it and then corruption trying to explain it away and shift the blame
Dude, it was not "written" in 325, but compiled
@@mickyfrazer786Council of Nicea was not about the Bible.
@@fantasia55 dude you are missing the point. OP mentioned it was written in 325, I merely point out that it was written well before that. Perhaps the first codex was compiled perhaps not, the point is it was not written in 325
@mickyfrazer786 There were dozens of gospels and hundreds of epistles written before in AD 382 the Catholic Church declared which were inspired.
Awesome Gary Mitchuda is awesome
Some of the best presentations about how we got our Bible are those given by Tim Mackie. There are some on RUclips from August of 2017.
I love how Paul's first chapter of First Corinthians tells about early Christians some of whom said they followed Peter while others followed other Apostles or said they followed Christ. There, Paul exalts Christ over the apostles. The chapter concludes by saying that the one who boasts should boast in the Lord (quoting OT, BTW). In Chapter 3, Paul is still continuing this message, and then in 3.21-23 he makes the strong point that Apollos and Paul and Peter belong to all of us, even to those who aren't of the group that says "I follow Peter." I conclude from this, that even those who don't consider Peter to be the first Pope still have Peter as ours, and even those who claim to have Peter as the first Pope, still have Apollos and Paul as long as those followers are followers of Christ first and foremost! For all who trust in Christ, we lack nothing and we lack nobody. It's not as though I were missing out on Peter or any of the other church fathers or councils just for not identifying as a Catholic in the modern institutional religious landscape.
Very good point at 42 minutes where Gary says that the heretics didn't push back about the church council using non-scripture!
The main problem with Luther quoting deuterocanonical books to confirm doctrine is not that he was hypocritical, but that it all became a big argument over doctrine. But it is an ancient rhetorical strategy to quote an opponent's own works in order to show them a fallacy in their thinking, even if the person correcting the fallacy does not confide in the opponent's works being thus used. This happens when Christians point out things in the Koran that work against Islamic doctrine, or when Catholics point out things in the New World Translation (JW Bible) that lend support to the Trinity, etc.
So Augustine looks to which books the churches were using, and the churches basically looked to which books the Jews (like Paul and Jesus) were using, plus the NT books. But that doesn't go to the core matter about what criteria the Jews used to form the pre-NT canon, and basically the Catholics are about as much enlightened or in-the-dark about that as the later Protestants and modern Jews are. That's why it's nice to have the scholarship and communication skills of folks like Tim Mackie to teach us about those things. It is really hard to point to anything like an "original manuscript" of a book like Jeremiah or Isaiah. Those books were almost certainly at least the second edition, if not perhaps the twentieth or fiftieth editions, or anthologies of prior works that got put together. A whole lot of editing and insight and inspiration went on for those works we have today, not just one man or woman sitting down at a table and writing a book like that from start to finish. We also may have inspired books in multiple manuscript traditions at the same time, such as when we look at Aramaic NT books, or when we compare the Peshitic, Masoretic, Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls, etc. The whole process of looking at them together under the illumination that the Holy Spirit brings, and in fellowship as diversely gifted disciples of Christ, is all part of what God wants to use in our lives to shape us as His children and use us in being a light to the world! That is what the early Apostles seemed to have done, and they passed on to us that we are to do the same. See, for instance, Paul's exhortation to Timothy about the Scriptures, or the examples of the sermons, or Jesus' command to study the Scriptures, ... this is all a living process in addition to it being a static canon, just as a human body has both skeleton (fixed structure) and organs (organic function/process), ... or just as the human body has both anatomy and physiology. As the body of Christ we are similarly created by God to have fluid growth (Spirit-led) at the same time that we have rigid standards (Spirit-set). I borrow somewhat from Christian Schwarz's Natural Church Development model.
Esther is referred to in the NT in John 5:1. "The only feast on Shabbat between AD 25 and AD 35 was Purim, AD 28." citation from Bibloscope. Plus there are numerous biblical motifs from other parts of the Bible that come up in Esther, such as falling into one's own trap, God saving a remnant from captivity, Gentile rulers honoring God and God's people, etc. One for Israel ministry compares it to approaching the throne of grace when the king (Jesus) could kill us for being in his holy presence, ... and the creation of a new law that does not void the old one, but does overpower the old one, ... the raising up of Esther from orphan to queen and of Mordecai from death row to great honor, ... themes in I Samuel 2.7-8 also reflected in Mary's Magnificat.
I don't know that the Bible is designed as a "final arbiter of disputes" when God put it together. If that's the point of this video, that many Catholic early church fathers and later Protestant Reformers viewed the Bible primarily as an arbiter of disputes, when it was never meant to be that at all, then I am on board with this video.
Book: "Where We Got The Bible" by the Rev. Henry G. Graham. An easy read, it provides much needed perspective on how the bible as we know it came to be. It also contains Rev. Graham's conversion from the Scottish Presbyterian (Calvinist) Church to the Catholic. Highly recommended.
Mike Heiser did not regard the book of Enoch (one of the books of Enoch) as Scripture, yet he used it quite frequently to back up his theology and biblical understanding. I take the same approach when I read scholarly books that tell me about ancient near east culture. I don't regard those works as Scripture, nor do I hold the same views as all those ANE people groups, but it sure does a lot to help in my theological formation and biblical understanding. We are foolish to think that the only theological formation and biblical understanding we can get is only found in the Bible itself (or even in Catholic tradition), and not from other sources that help us learn and grow. It's especially true when those other sources are helping us learn and grow in biblical knowledge and application. Most Protestants I know agree with that way of valuing (giving importance to) tradition and new information, much of which may go back to Jewish and ancient traditions that pre-date the Gentile Catholic church fathers, but were part of Jesus' and Apostolic Jewish tradition. A lot of tradition that Jesus and the Apostles recognized and included got lost along the way once most of the western church consisted of only Gentile-background believers. That unfortunate loss had a huge impact on both western Catholics and western Reformers. There is a chance to recover those golden nuggets today, and use them to enlighten our theology and biblical interpretation.
Around minute 53, a NT reference to Maccabees is pointed out, but Heiser's work shows that there are at least several references to Enoch, and there is reference in Jude to Enoch, yet Enoch is not canonical for Catholics. Heiser says, "Guess what, people in that culture read books, and didn't just read the Bible."
If it is so easy to get the "proper interpretation of Scripture" by Augustine's methodology, then why is there so much diversity of interpretive conclusions and arguments among Catholic scholars who align with Augustine's methodology? There are only certain interpretations that the Magisterium has weighed in on definitively, while there are multitudes of varied interpretations that fall under the umbrella of sanctioned Catholic scholarship and debate.
The presence of references or allusions in the NT doesn't affirm those books alluded to, not because that criterion is totally arbitrary (it's not), but because that criterion is only one of several that received consideration at the Councils (Councils per Wikipedia are several in number: AD 382, 393, etc.). The same is true of the Reformers. I am at about minute 12 in the video when posting this comment.
Can you provide a direct citation to the criteria used to determine canonicity at these councils? Where are you getting this knowledge directly that these councils used quotations as a factor to determine canonicity? Either way, several Protocanonical books fail to meet this criteria too.
Luther and Calvin were also for a time basing their understanding of "the Bible" just on what they had always called the Bible in their Catholic upbringings and culture. Once they did more research and gave it more thought, they apparently came to different conclusions. This is like Catholics in syncretistic contexts who grow up thinking of certain spiritist or animist practices, or superstitions, as being Catholic ones, but later realize that they should reject those things as contrary to good Catholic teaching.
There are rabbinical works that point to Jesus being God, and point to the Messiah being a Joseph figure, etc. etc. I would definitely cite these as apologetics that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, even though I don't count those works as part of the Bible. I think God inspires a lot of people and a lot of messages and thoughts outside of what is recorded in the Bible, but I think like the Church Fathers that when all is said and done, we must use the Bible as the standard against which to test those people and messages to see if they are beneficial in our walk as believers. (or detrimental, or basically neutral). There is no one formula for testing, and the Holy Spirit's role is greater than the role of our intellect, but in some measure the Bible is often setting the path for how to weigh and discern those other people and messages. It's important to get a global familiarity with God's voice and character in the Bible, not just pick out certain verses that seem to refute or support particular ideas. We should be saturating ourselves with who God is and what He desires, through the pages of Scriptures, in accordance with the example of even biblical folk who had been doing the same thing. When Paul wrote his epistles, he did so saturated with the Torah and prophets. When James wrote his epistle, he did so saturated with the teachings of Christ and the book of Proverbs. When Paul was prophesied over by people during his jourmeys, their words were not in the Bible, yet Paul was able to discern their words as inspired by God on a different level from the inspired Scriptures he had pored over as a Pharisee. In the Romans 15 council, a decision had to be made in accordance with Scripture, but not according to a formula based on any one particular Scriptural passage ... they knew from Scripture what the voice of the Holy Spirit was like, so they were able to recognize the Spirit's voice when He spoke to them directly outside of what they could read in the Scriptures. Jesus said that he would send Another (a Vicar) to lead us into all understanding once He (Jesus) had gone to heaven and couldn't be on earth himself to sort us out. That Vicar of Christ on earth is the Holy Spirit, who is Lord and should not be ignored or usurped by any other pretend vicar.
I'm not looking for what church to believe, but which human is actually the Messiah we should trust in. (Obviously the human we should trust in is Jesus, who is also God!) Then all who trust in that Messiah, we all become the church,, his body by virtue of having trusted in the head, and receiving His Spirit!
That the Bible put itself together by self-referencing? That would be very hard for anyone to try and explain. I don't think Protestant Reformers try to do that when it comes to the formation of the Tenakh or the New Testament. One of the reasons bolstering the acceptance of the Bible is the unity and inter-referencing, but that is a post-compilation observation, not a description of how it got put together. Nobody claims that the Book of Job is in the Bible because the Book of Deuteronomy refers to it, for instance. Though one might say that the conversion of Gentiles through the use of Israelites called to speak God's word to them, well, yes, that is a good thing to point out. Deuteronomy (among other OT books) sets the stage for that, and Job is a related narrative. But I don't recall hearing that the Jews argued that Job should be in the Tenakh based merely on it being a narrative related to books in the Torah in that sense. They really viewed the book of Job as having been inspired by God, and sacred in its nature, worthy of preservation and inclusion.
sorry Tynedale..
St. Clement of Rome appealed to the story of the Phoenix in one of his epistles to the Corinthians. That doesn't make the Phoenix story divinely inspired or true. Clement's point was not to teach the Corinthians that the Phoenix story was true, but to convey a concept about godly thinking and living. Had St. Clement later realized that the Phoenix story wasn't true, he may have regretted including it, but it wouldn't have changed the point of his message. Historical Apostles and Reformers may likewise have used certain writings in their arguments that they later came to regret having used, once they realized maybe something wasn't right about it. St. Peter at one time (after the resurrection of Christ) refused to eat with Gentiles, and he was likely basing it on the book of Jubilees, which he probably did not consider to be canonical. I say this because Luther seems to have had ambiguous or developing views about some deuterocanonical works, but to say that he is only human like St. Peter, St. Clement, and others, and subject to changing his mind and saying things he later regretted, as well as being subject to using things in ways that are fitting for one context, but would not be fitting in every context.
The NT Apostles and NT-era bishops came a considerably long time after the OT-era Jewish traditions and decisions that established most of what we today call the biblical canon. Yes, we can trace certain things back to Catholic bishops and the Apostles of Jesus (the Reformers do the same), but then we shouldn't stop there, because their decisions were based on a work of the Holy Spirit that goes way back at least to the time of Moses, if not earlier in the case of a book like Job. This video lacks that expression of awe over what the Holy Spirit was doing in the formation of our canon long before the days of Jesus' earthly ministry.
Unfortunately, the Old Testament Canon was still not established when the New Testament apostles were alive and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Keep doing research Glenn. Peace be with you, brother. ⛪️🙏🏼✝️😃🕊️📖
Imagine criticizing a video because it doesn’t “feel” aweful 😂
We don’t care about “A protestant response.” The video refutes every one of your statements. Please watch the video and respond to it.
The Bible wasn't allowed to be read by layman. Only Priests had access to it. It was Martin Luther who started the first German Bible. William Tyndale was burned at the stake by the church for translating the Bible. If it wasn't for these men, we don't get to read the Bible. Give glory to God, who inspired the Apostles to pen the gospels and the letters. I believe the church was in opposition to God will by keeping it from the people. But his will eventually fulfilled. Everyone can read the word of God.
👍
There seems to be something missing from the conversation so far (I'm at about twenty-two minutes through). Just because early churches and Jesus used the Septuagint, does not mean that they revered every book in the Septuagint as sacred scripture on par with the Tenakh. I can read a Bible that includes commentaries in it, while discerning that even if many many churches use that same Bible, we all know when using it which parts are the canon and which parts are the additional non-canonical writings included in the collection. Isn't it quite possible that the fourth century Gentile church leaders, once detached from Judaism, failed to be aware of such a distinction likely part of the common knowledge of Jewish Jesus and the Jewish Apostles, and simply assumed that because certain books were in their Jewish Septuagint collections that they also looked at all those books as of equal stock and value in God's kingdom? Don't the Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance, include works that the Catholics do not consider canonical, even though those books are in the Dead Sea collections? Should Catholics now add to the canon based on what was found on Qumram? ... adding after original post: There are books of the Septuagint which are not included in the Catholic Bible - third and fourth Maccabees, and First and Second Esdras. There also are DSS (Dead Sea Scrolls) which are not in the Catholic canon. I think the way the DSS discovery changed arguments about the canonicity is poorly presented in this video; there is a lot more nuance to it, and the change is on a fairly narrow point, not a broad sweeping rebuttal to the canonicity arguments in either direction. I could be wrong about what changed, but I believe I'm right that if someone wants a good explanation of what changed, this video is not the place to find it.
It was the Holy Spirit that led the Catholic Church to determine, in AD 382, which books are Scripture.
You should watch Gary Michuta’s videos and re-watch this video. I agree, the LXX does not perfectly align with the Catholic bible. It does have non-canonical books in it. This is, in my opinion, even worse for the Protestant case. The Jewish literature at the time was even LARGER, and they have stripped away not only the margins, but some of the books that the earliest apologists used as divine scripture too!
I was the orthodox Church but whatever.
Kyrie eleison ☦️
If the Catholic Church gave us the Bible and teaches that Divine Tradition holds the same authority as the Bible, why hasn't the Church provided a compiled 'deposit of Divine Tradition' in the form of a collection of books, similar to the Bible? Additionally, why hasn't the Church given us a complete list of the authors of Divine Tradition?
If God is good, why bad thing happen?
@@zeektm1762 I'll take a shot at answering your question from my Christian worldview:
I believe God has given humans free will, allowing them to make their own choices. This freedom is essential for genuine love and moral responsibility, but it also means that people can choose to do evil.
The world was originally created good, but the fall of Adam and Eve introduced sin and suffering into the world. This original sin has affected all of creation, leading to the presence of evil and suffering. Sin returns corruption.
My positive attitude looks at how suffering can have a purpose, such as building character, fostering dependence on God, or bringing about a greater good that may not be immediately apparent. Romans 8:28 states, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose”.
I acknowledge that God’s ways are beyond human understanding. Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”.
Ultimately, with the hope of redemption and the promise of eternal life. God will one day make all things right and the present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed (Romans 8:18).
A Protestant response. Saying "Protestants removed books from the Bible during the Reformation" is as misleading as saying "Catholics added books to the Bible at the Council of Trent." Both statements assume a fixed OT canon prior to the 16th century, which these traditions then either subtracted from or added to. But there was no fixed, settled OT canon in the early or medieval church. Disputes endured, including among leading Catholic theologians, and including after the Council of Florence (e.g., Cardinal Jiménez, Cardinal Cajetan). Even where the deuterocanonical books are included within the canon, they are often given a subordinate status -- e.g., many church fathers saw them as a kind of "second-tier Scripture." Thus, the deutero-canonical books always had a contested or ambiguous status. Here is how the Catholic Encyclopedia puts it: "in the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. There is a current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavourable to their authority and sacredness, while wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing, and among those we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity." So whichever view is correct, it remains false to say Protestants "removed" books from the Bible. (You cannot remove something from a place it does not yet occupy.) Rather, the Protestants followed one earlier tradition (following Jerome and numerous Eastern Fathers) and the Roman Catholic Church followed another earlier tradition (following Augustine and numerous early councils). We can debate which of these traditions is correct, but neither of them had taken dominance by the early 16th century. Hopefully remembering this will help our discussion.
Catholics follow the original biblical canon, from AD 382.
It was closed by the Universal Ordinary Magisterium of the Church. It doesn't matter if individual member of the Catholic Church disagreed with it or not.
@@felipeneves9571 How convenient.
@@paulsmallwood1484 It's not convenient, it's just how the Church works. If you don't even know how the Church works, why are you arguing against that which you do not know?
@@felipeneves9571 You aren’t “the Church”. If you don’t know what the Church is,why are you discussing this? Rome isn’t “the Church”.
I think it was the Eastern Orthodox Church
Yes the infallible Pope Francis is right: religions lead to God
He was not infallible when he said that. Why did you not learn about the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility before making this comment?
_lauging in Greek_
Lord forgive the arrogance of our Catholic brothers.
Kyrie eleison ☦️
Still don't know what the Gospel is, it's the only thing God wants from you! But that's probably because you do not know God, you only know what is not God which means the old covenant doesn't mean much to you. That probably why you don't know God!
Sounds like you have no clue who God is or what his Gospel message is about.
A Protestant response. The Roman Catholic Church did not create a list of scripture and present it to Christians. But the historic church that led to the modern Roman Catholic Church and other Communions did hold councils periodically to declare certain things were or were not canon, in response to specific heresies. Many of these councils could be interpreted as political in addition to theological, but they were based on generally accepted traditions of the churches in attendance. This usually comes up as an argument against Sola Scriptura, to make the point that the books in the bible are canon because of church tradition, and therefore Sola Scriptura depends on church tradition. But it does nothing to require Roman Catholic traditions, instead of Orthodox, Lutheran, Baptist, Anglican, etc traditions
The biblical canon was determined by the Council of Rome in AD 382.
Jerome’s Latin version of the Bible, the Vulgate commissioned by Pope Damasus had all 73 books in it.
The problem of the canon proves the Roman Catholic Church is a different argument. The argument of the problem of the canon in regards to protestantism is that it disproves Sola Scriptura and therefore protestantism.
@@fantasia55 Not a universal council.
@@Spiritof76Catholic So? So did Luther’s German translation.
I think it was the Coptic church
I think it was the Ethiopian church
How could they give us the Bible when forty two inspired by God writers put in down on manuscripts, it’s only the 1611 King James Bible has the word of God “textus receptus”
Catholic Church does not trust the Scriptures. Catechism page 31, section 81-82
The Jews before the time of Christ gave Christians the Old Testament Scriptures.
There were at least five Jewish canons in Jesus lifetime.
God gave us the Bible and it is God who preserved it for all eternity. Psalm 12:6,7. The Catholic Church claims its tradition of men is equal to the Word of God. Blasphemy. Catholics don't even take Bibles to church.
You are apparently confused and/or mistaken. How is the text reference you shared germane to the conversation? What is your basis for saying that Church Tradition is "equal to the Word of God?" What does that mean?
Remember, the earliest Christians had no New Testament to which they could appeal; they learned from oral, {Tradition} rather than written, instruction. Not everything that is true is in the Bible, although what is in The Bible is true (albeit interpreted in myriad ways.
The Catholic Mass, (the Catholic Worship Service) order is not followed by many Protestants, especially Evangelicals. The Mass is a service of a Liturgical Worship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, not a Bible Study, which is a different event. There is always a reading from the Old Testament, A Psalm (usually sung), The Gospel Reading is always read by the Priest, and then a reading from the New Testament. The Scripture readings are always related to one another, and then the Homily (Sermon) by the Priest is based on the readings. There are missals for the congregation to follow along with the service. The Catholic Church has existed for centuries; most of which time the congregation did not own or couldn't afford Bibles. There is no "Bible Study Style" sermon, with a leader saying, let's turn to this or that Scripture. There is no need to bring a Bible to follow the Mass service.
Have you ever been to a Catholic Mass just to experience what happens? There are Mass services all over on YT.
@@cindiloowhoo1166 Same thing every week .Stand up, sit down, kneel. Routine. Same old, same old tradition. Then some eat God for a day. No wonder your pope doesn't believe the Bible when it says there's only one way to God through Jesus. I was brought up Catholic and attended Catholic school.
@@johnbrowne2170 The purpose of The Mass is to Worship Our Lord as a Common Body, and partake of The Eucharist. I do not know where, or if, you worship, or what your entertainment expectations are. You could go to Mass on Saturday evening, then to a "Bible Study Church" on Sunday, or follow probably any number of Bible Studies and Chat Groups online, I usually prefer YT to FB. Sometimes one gets out of an experience what they put in, whether your family worship habits, school, or Mass ~~
@@cindiloowhoo1166 The Catholic Church teaches Scripture plus apostolic tradition. At least it did when I was Catholic. You disagree?
@@johnbrowne2170 The Church Fathers were a big part of interpreting and teaching - St Paul did not have a Bible in his hand as he went on his mission trips. Not sure what exactly you mean by apostolic tradition. There is Apostolic Succession. Whatever Church or Philosophy that meets as a group has someone studying and preparing a message that may be wonderful enough to have others pass it along too. You might enjoy listening to Steve Ray or Jimmy Akin, There was quite some time between the time Jesus ascended back up to heaven and when "The Bible" was canonized. And even now, there are different views as to what Books should be included. Don't get hung up on a denomination. I am an RCIA convert from a fundamentalist borderline almost cult. There are approximately 45,000 denominations, each of whom thinks they are right, and everyone else may be going to hell. Nevermind following The Denomination. Look to follow Jesus and He will put you where you can best be fed spiritually for your needs. 8 BILLION people on The Planet right now, we all dont need the same brain food, or digest it the same way...