Protestant Pastor: The Catholic Church is More Biblical! (w/ Dr. John Bergsma)

[00:00:00]Yes. No, I I totally agree. Yeah. I got caught in that conundrum when I was struggling with the Eucharist. Like, this is so ironic. I'm the Protestant.

[00:00:07]I'm the one who's supposed to be standing on the literal sense. And now my Catholic friend is has, you know, switched fields on me, switched turntables on me. [laughter] He's standing on the literal sense. I'm trying to get out of what appears to be the plain sense of the text. And that was just too much. I was like, I cannot stay outside the Catholic Church because they take the Bible too literally. That is not just not a good reason not to be Catholic. I I can't look Jesus in the face and say that judgment.

[00:00:37]>> That's fair.

[00:00:37]>> As an evangelical, I would have called myself a Bible Christian. And the church that I went to would be a Bible church.

[00:00:43]A church that's centered around the Bible. That fact has origins in the Bible that looks like the church of the Bible. We are operating as Bible Christians according to the Bible. Well, my guest this week on the show, Dr. John Bergsma was a Bible Christian, a Bible pastor [laughter] of a Bible church and a Bible theologian who as he began to look into scripture and stud the roots of his faith realized that the church in the Bible didn't look like his church.

[00:01:12]How he did communion didn't look like how the Bible shows us how Christ tells us to do communion. How to resolve disputes the way that he did it in his church wasn't biblical. and on and on and on and realize that the church of the Bible, the most biblical way of doing Christianity was actually in the Catholic Church. This week on this show, a barn burner of a conversation with former evangelical pastor, renowned Bible scholar Dr. John Bergsma on what's more biblical, the Catholic Church or Protestant churches. It's a fantastic conversation. Cordial as always, but really pulling no punches to get to the core of what matters is Christ and his church and our relentless pursuit of him. Please watch and enjoy. Hey friends, welcome back to the show.

[00:02:07]Thanks for being here. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. Guys, we're in for a treat this week. You know why. I am joined by Dr. John Bergsma.

[00:02:14]He's a full professor of theology at Franciscan University of Stubenville. He is the author of uh a number fantastic number of books including uh stunned by scripture. The Jubilee um from Leviticus to the Kuman which a fantastic book. Um Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls. I got that one wrong though. Jesus and the Jubilee is one that I don't have listed here. I believe Dr. Bergman, you can correct me in a minute. They're they're on my shelf back here. They're not at my fingertips. Anyway, uh Dr. Bergsma is a convert to the Catholic faith, a former uh Protestant pastor. Lots to share this week on the show, guys. You know who he is, even if I bungle up his introduction in historic fashion. Uh he's a a favorite guest of the show. Uh thank you for being here, Dr. Bergsma. Welcome back. Uh hello.

[00:03:01]>> Yes, thank you, Keith. It's great to be on uh the nicest Catholic podcast in North America. [laughter] I got push push for that by line.

[00:03:11]>> I love that. I'm getting that printed on a t-shirt right now while we speak. I'll get that done in the in the background.

[00:03:16]Dr. Bergsma, I love that. Thank you.

[00:03:18]Even after I bungle up your introduction. You know, you're one of the few guests that I I think I've memorized most of your bio and can get it wrong still because uh you've been here a number of times. We're always happy to have you. Even when I introduce you in such a horrific fashion, you could come back. [laughter] >> It was It wasn't that bad. Keith, >> I got half your books wrong that you [laughter] you've written. It's It's fine.

[00:03:43]>> That Jesus Jesus and the Jubilee, the biblical year of the Lord's favor.

[00:03:48]>> Yeah, >> that was that was the one I did for 2025. That the ordinary >> uh Jubilee year proclaimed by Pope Francis. And that was um that's a short book that summarizes all the good stuff out of my dissertation, which was this long [laughter and gasps] study that cost 200 bucks. You got to buy the Netherlands. So anyway, [laughter] >> that's fantastic. Awesome stuff. Listen, [laughter] >> I'm thrilled to have you. And I think so what I'm hoping to do with this episode and the conversation is that you're a Catholic convert. I'm a Catholic convert. You're a more intelligent convert than I ever was or ever will be, Dr. Bergs. But many listeners, viewers of this show are looking at the Catholic Church more and more and more these days. You know this too. There this there's an awesome influx. I think largely in part to to conversations like this and the accessibility of this kind of information on on YouTube and podcasts and and books that has not existed before. I think that's largely what's underpinning or behind this wave of Catholic converts. And so, right, >> my my goal with this episode, Dr. Bergsma, is to talk about So, you were a Bible you are a Bible scholar. You were like a a Bible preacher. you were a pastor, a pro pastor.

[00:05:05]>> And one of those uh the the the hand grenades often lobbed at Catholics is that look, we're Bible Christians over here in this Calvinist church, in this reformed church, in this Pentecostal church, in this Baptist church. We're Bible Christians. You guys are making stuff up. You You're [laughter] the You're a bunch of You're a bunch of pagans. And I love that. I love that for us. We can channel that pagan energy.

[00:05:26]That's that's that's great. But the the reality is folks like yourself, I mean, you're you're a Bible scholar. You became Catholic out of studying the church fathers and of studying scripture. I mean, Stunned by Scripture is the book that you wrote about your >> converist. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think what I want to do is kind of outline these areas where it seems like Catholics are making things up and and Bible Christians have this thing cornered where the reality is actually like the Catholic Church is the church of the Bible is these the reasons why we're doing these things this way is because in many cases they're they're more biblical.

[00:06:05]And so I wonder I wonder if you can give us first of all a a little snippet of your conversion story just to lay the foundation for listeners because the first question I want to talk to you about is how we do church as as Catholics because >> right >> as an evangelical I thought I was doing church like the early church did. I look at the book of Acts and I see these disciples meeting together with followers upper rooms. They're singing hymns. They're breaking bread. listening to the the word kind of unpacked right in these little things. I I think you were doing that same thing too as a Protestant pastor only to realize that actually the the more biblical model for the church is kind of quite different.

[00:06:47]So I want to get to that question. Maybe if you can kind of lay the table out for us though with a bit of your own kind of journey into the Catholic Church because it was through I know in part pastoring a church and coming to the questions of of what a biblical church looks like in part >> right yes absolutely Keith and there's there's so much there and um you know I just want to speak to you know our our Protestant friends out there and uh uh you know acknowledge that you know considering becoming Catholic is very traumatic. Um it's it's a it is a big transition. And it's like one of those major identifiers like uh like what your >> your ethnic background is and what your hometown is and then >> you know your religion and and there's so many varieties but like Catholic versus Protestant is a huge like demographic identifier right so to switch over to the other side you know puts you in a different demographic category a different social cultural history >> and it's It's really, you know, like becoming a different person. And so those who are listening and thinking thinking this, I just want to assure them like we get you. You know, we we've been there, made that transition, understand that it's that it's difficult. And I think one of the the uh another worry that a lot of Protestants have is um that uh that if if they come over into the Catholic Church, their their relationship with scripture will suffer and uh they they won't get as much out of the word and they won't find places or resources to get fed with the word.

[00:08:31]And I want to assure folks that that is not the case. I did have that fear and um you know coming into the Catholic church I was afraid that my reading of scripture would suffer. In fact precisely the opposite happened. It was uh becoming Catholic for me in my relationship with the Bible. Got my one of my personal Bibles here. Um was like the experience of going from black and white TV to color TV. Um the the the lights and the color of scripture suddenly came on. And people say,"Well, what on earth? Why why would that be the case?" It's because of realizing that uh so much of scripture has types, foreshadowings, images of the sacraments um obviously of our Lord, but then also of our lady, of the blessed mother, of Peter and the apostles and the other elements of the church is all like prefigured there. And when you when you suddenly catch on to that, all of a sudden the lights come on, the colors come on, and you feel very much like I do today that that you're still living in the Bible. Okay. When I when I when I would read the book of Acts, for example, when I was a Protestant, um it was like I'm reading about the church way back then, you know, 2,000 years ago. So very, very different. Now, when I read Acts as a Catholic, I'm like, we're still we're still there. Yeah.

[00:09:57]Okay.

[00:09:58]>> Problems are happening. We're having to call councils. We're having to make decisions. The apostles are still here in the persons of their successors.

[00:10:08]Peter's still here in the person of his successor. Um, we're still trying to get the message out all over the world.

[00:10:15]We're still running into persecution in some places, having success in others.

[00:10:20]You know, it just feels like we've never left the book of Acts. Like I we're still right there, you know. And um so anyway, I I just want to assure folks if you think that, oh, my reading of scripture is going to suffer if I become Catholic, you're going to find it's it's absolutely the opposite. And um and then when you have the benefit of the church fathers, too, to And what the church fathers do for us, Keith, is like weed out the the rabbit trails that are not going to be successful. Like there's so many like interpretive paths that you can run down. And guess what? Almost every path's been tried. [laughter] in the course of 2,000 years. And the fathers and the doctors have like ruled out a lot of the ones that like don't even don't even go there. And so it's great to have them because they pre the fathers and the doctors can keep us from wasting our entire lives or our entire careers trying to make certain interpretations of scripture work that the church has figured out that's just not going to work. Okay. So, so you can you can spend your life and your career, you know, interpreting the Bible in a way that is going to work and like actually making an advance rather than trying out old old heresies that that aren't going to happen. But, you know, getting back to your question now, you could tell my professor, right? Because that that preamble was was long enough probably for what you wanted as an answer. Now, I'm only now getting the question. You said kind of lay out my conversion a little bit. Okay. So my father was a US Navy uh preacher, very very uh chaplain, okay? Uh great preacher, had a degree in homalytics from Princeton uh seminary, you know, Ivy League school in the US, a great orator, um you know, man of prayer, studied the word. My mother, very devout, uh a woman of the word, daily Bible reader. She started me reading the Bible through in a year when I was age 12. had a profound impact on me. Uh when I graduated from high school, I decided I want to follow my dad's footsteps and be a pastor myself.

[00:12:23]So I went to our denominational school in West Michigan and did the pre-seminary program and then went right into the seminary. I got married young, started to have children, needed to support my family. So while I was in seminary, I got a job as a acting pastor of a downtown mission church. Um, and it was there, Keith, when doing the practice of Protestant ministry that actually forced me to address some problems with Protestant theology that could have been avoided if I had always just been a lay person and never actually had to put this into practice.

[00:13:02]But [clears throat] to keep it real short, um I would say, you know, doing the work of Protestant ministry, I saw the weakness of basic Protestant principles. Like, for example, two big pillars. Uh solar scriptura, the idea that the Bible alone is all we need, and solid, the idea that we're only saved by faith.

[00:13:25]My group was was so radical that my um my evangelism trainer would lead people to pray to receive Jesus and [clears throat] then immediately tell them basically I'm going through this quickly but that they could go out and shoot people and rob banks and it it would not ever cause them to lose their salvation. You know, it's just such a radical understanding of salvation by faith alone. That really disturbed me when I when he would train me to do that because when he would say things like that, all sorts of scriptures would come to my mind. I'm like, this does not sound like Jesus in the Bible. Matthew 7:21, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my father in heaven. You know, that's Jesus himself. So, and emptying other verses that we could, you know, passages that we could think of. And I I so that disturbed me and started me thinking about what do we really mean by solos scripture, uh, sorry, solid, you know, salvation by faith alone. Do we really mean that you can go shoot people in rob banks and you're good to go? Or is it more nuanced? And what I found is you you have to nuance it quite a bit. You have to qualify what you mean by salvation by faith alone. And by the time you qualify it uh and and make all the proper exceptions, you end up like I like to say backing your way into the Catholic position by the kitchen door.

[00:14:53]Okay? [laughter] You know, you you you back your way by saying things backwards, you know, quite like not not the way the church states them, but like in reverse and then you find yourself basically saying what the church says.

[00:15:08]So, so I was like, you know, after four years of studying that, Keith, I was like, we need to stop this whole solar feed business. This is a this is a red herring. This is um a a mistake and and we should not use this language. And I actually shifted. I was trained by, you know, some Protestants may be familiar with evangelism explosion, D. James Kennedy. I was trained in that method.

[00:15:35]And I abandoned that and I I went to using uh the Gospel of John and the first epistle of John uh for uh verses to share with people to lead them to Christ that focused on the indwelling of Jesus rather than getting into the whole thing about faith versus works which I just felt was completely misleading. So that pillar of Protestantism fell Keith and then and then Solos Scriptura. The problem I had with that was there was I was working in this environment with so many different Protestant groups. I was in this small neighborhood. This neighborhood could have maybe supported one church but there were more than half a dozen different churches. Baptist, multiple kinds of Dutch reformed, uh which is my background. Um charismatic uh various Hispanic traditions. uh uh the Pentecostal and and I would talk with all the different pastors and we agreed on almost nothing. I mean like you know what the Lord's supper was and how it should be celebrated and how often and what it actually did to you and if it did anything to you and and then baptism who should receive it how old you had to be who could administer it how should it be done what does it really mean what does it really do uh marriage sexual morality I mean just all over you know some marriage you know divorce and remarage is okay under certain circumstances and others like no never and just all over uh creation all, you know, claiming to be reading the same word. You know, we're all in the word and we're all just getting all of our interpretations like straight from the Bible. I'm like, this is this is crazy.

[00:17:14]This is not working. you know this and I can remember thinking to myself, Keith, I like consciously thinking Jesus must have left us something other than the Bible to keep us unified because trying to get unified on the interpretation of scripture is a mess. But I could see from John 17, Jesus's high priestly prayer, uh, at the end of the last supper discourse, just before he goes out to begin the passion, he prays that everyone could be like absolutely one, just like the father and the son are one. And I'm thinking to myself, if he prayed for this unity, his prayers surely must have been answered. Where is this unity? And I can't see any unity or any way to get to unity if if all we're doing is is uh trying to interpret the Bible together. So anyway, um I got to make this quick. So being in complete confusion, Keith, and not knowing what to do with my life as a good American, I did what a good American does in these kinds of situations. I went to grad school. [laughter] because more education is the answer, right? This is the the uh you know the the cultural motto, you know, go go back and get another degree and it'll help you sort your head out when you're completely confused. So, I did that and by God's providence, I got admitted to the only Catholic institution that I applied for. I was going to do a degree in in Bible, specifically Old Testament.

[00:18:48]applied to all these state schools that taught ancient near east which is usually where you know Old Testament stuff is done and uh instead I got accepted to the University of Notre Dame into their theology program and they had somebody from my same background teaching there in Old Testament because they're advertised as an ecumenical theology faculty. Well, got down there, Keith, and um met a a fellow a Catholic in the program in the doctoral program, who was able to defend the church from scripture, which I'd never seen done before.

[00:19:22]And then after he argued me to a stalemate on scripture, he said, "Why don't we break the stalemate by reading the early church fathers?" That was a mistake. I want to recommend everybody if if you don't want to be a Catholic, don't read the church fathers. [laughter] Okay? Reading the church fathers is a big big mistake.

[00:19:42]>> Yeah.

[00:19:42]>> If you want to stay protested, just don't do it. But anyway, but I made this big mistake of reading the early martyrs, those the the the church fathers who knew the apostles themselves. We call them the apostolic fathers, guys like Clement of Roman, Ignatius of Antioch. And when I saw their testimony to the basic structures of the Catholic Church, especially the Eucharist, a line from St. Ignatius of Antioch, where he warns the true Christians to stay away from anyone who refuses to confess the Eucharist to be the very flesh of our savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which the father in his goodness raised up. Um, just an incredible statement.

[00:20:28]Um, so the Eucharist is the very flesh that was flogged at the pillar, the very flesh that rose up out of the tomb. And anybody who doesn't confess that to be the case, uh, is not a true Christian.

[00:20:39]And so I felt rebuked, um, over a span of about 2,000 years. And just meditating on that. Yeah. Felt like he was plastic man, you know, that old superhero could stretch, like stretching his hand out, you know, 2,000 years to whack me in the face. And uh uh so I I meditate that and and okay to bring this all to a close what I realized Keith was that the early church was Catholic. The early church was in fact the Catholic Church and the Catholic Church is the early church just grown, matured, you know, aged, developed, spread, gotten bigger and so on. But it's the same thing. Okay? It's the same church. And so getting back to that Acts illustration uh that I talked about earlier, like the church of Acts still exists, the the church that Peter and Paul went around founding. Okay, that thing still exists and it's in uh the Catholic Church. And um and we're still doing the same thing, getting the getting the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ, the God man through whom is salvation and only through whom is salvation. we're still getting that message out uh in uh you know 2026.

[00:21:57][laughter] >> That's fantastic and there's so much in there to to jump off of here and you've touched on this number of times that that structure of the church and I want to begin here Dr. Bergsma because I would have thought I was going to a Bible church. You led a Bible church. I mean I've been to churches that called themselves a Bible church and that the idea is they're based on on on the Bible. That's what roots them. But also, I would have assumed that the model of church they're doing is biblical. So, I had a friend that went to a a charismatic church and they had apostolic elders in their church that kind of ran the church. And they would have said, "We're apostolic elders because somebody, you know, we are commissioned by the last person led this church to oversee this church." And I thought, "Yeah, that sounds very biblical." Like that apostle, elder, those things are are are in the church.

[00:22:47]I never for a long long time and this is it seems funny to think about this and say it out loud but never thought about it well who ordained that first apostolic elder in that church and >> as I began to look at the early church as you did Dr. Bergsma, I realized that the early church had things like bishops, had things like somebody in charge of of the bishops, had this structure that I hadn't even fathomemed.

[00:23:15]I read Acts of the Apostles and thought that church structure, the biblical version of church structure was what I was doing in my charismatic church. But my what my friend did in his charismatic church was was meeting in in groups, right? And when one of us when somebody felt called to begin a new church, they went to Bible college at some denomination and began a new church.

[00:23:40]>> What that is not the biblical version of what of how you do church though, right?

[00:23:46]>> It it isn't right. Yeah. I don't think Ephesians says, "Well, when you want to plant a church, go to Bible college first." [laughter] And then, you know, it's it's funny. It's like so scrutin if you actually you know separate yourself a little bit and step back a little bit look at what's going on like >> because we would criticize the Catholics like oh all those guys in dresses with their bells and smells where's that in the Bible but we never asked ourel hey where's a suit and tie you know where say tie where does it say electric guitar you know etc. So, we're kind of like blind to our own worship practices and whether they're really biblical or not, but like we knew. And actually, the robes, the bells, the candles, it's from the book of Revelation.

[00:24:31]>> Yeah.

[00:24:31]>> And and I never got that, [laughter] Keith. I thought, "Oh, those Catholics are so unbiblical. Like, all the things they do, they aren't in the Bible." And when I was thinking of a Bible, all I was thinking of was like the epistles, like Paul's epistles, because he doesn't have much about how to worship. It never occurred to me to go to the book of Revelation to see how to worship. There you have robes. There you have um sensors like the thorable that we'll that we use in in Catholic worship.

[00:24:58]There you have candlesticks. There you have altars. There you have hymns. Um there you have kneeling and and and standing and you know different postures of prayer all around the heavenly throne. And quite literally, Keith, you know, uh, Eastern worship, like Orthodox worship and Catholic worship is largely inspired from meditating on the book of Revelation. And then you, you know, saying, well, if what we're doing down here participates in what's in heaven, then we should try to make it look externally uh like like uh like heavenly worship. Now, of course, we can, you know, if you're on the battlefield, you can, you know, put up a makeshift altar and worship under any conditions, you know, and and so we know that the essence of it is is spiritual and interior. But if we've got time and resources, we want to have the external reflect the interior reality that we know exists and comes to us from the book of Revelation. But anyway, now I lost the thread of what the question was. I'm sorry. [laughter] >> Biblical. Yeah. Well, let me talk about this too because there are no instructions in the New Testament for how to plant a church uh or how to elect elders and deacons or basically how to do church. There there's a there's hints about qualifications for some offices and in Paul's epistles, but really the New Testament is not a manual of church planting. And that I noticed that Keith when when I was in seminary and I was kind of frustrated and I'm like how come we don't get the instructions of how to do church from the Bible? And I remember asking my brother who was also ordained and we were in the same denomination.

[00:26:41]I'm like what do you think is the biblical model of church government?

[00:26:45]because this is a matter of debate in our tradition and at the seminary, you know, different different models of of authority and and and my brother quite honestly said, "I don't know. I don't know what the biblical model is."

[00:26:58]>> And that's because the Bible wasn't intended for you to start the church because the assumption is the church is already there. Okay.

[00:27:06]>> Yeah. the the New Testament presumes the existence of the church, presumes these authority structures that were already set up by the apostles and continue down to this day. You know, let me reflect on Hebrews 13:17, which says, "Obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as men who will have to give an account."

[00:27:31]Uh, let them do this joyfully, not sadly, for that would be no advantage.

[00:27:35]And that's an interesting passage, Keith, because it just presumes that everybody's got leaders already and you don't have to figure out how to elect them, how to appoint them, how to choose them, etc. because it's it's already there, you know, like the church physically and organically has gone out and spread. And and so that that presumes that. And and also when it says obey your leaders and submit to them, that implies that there's a kind of unity here because if uh if you can just ditch your leaders and and and go to a congregation down the road and and choose some different leaders, then this whole idea of being obedient doesn't really work because you can just, you know, church hop around >> uh until you find somebody who who tells you what you want to do. So the the the presumption of an authority structure, a visible authority structure that we find in the New Testament really presumes that there's one church and it's already set up. It's always got already got these um these officers and and our job as leoty is is to obey, not to figure out how to choose them and uh and do church ourselves. And I think what helps too uh Keith is if folks aren't aware um the the biblical words that we see like episcopos that gets translated as supervisor oftentimes that actually becomes the English word bishop. So we say bishop it comes from the Greek episcopos overseer which is in the new testament when St. Paul for example will address the episcopo of the church of Ephesus the overseers the bishops uh near the end of the book of acts and likewise uh we'll find this word elder in the new testament it's often translated elder which is presbutdderos an old person but it becomes the English word priest so the priests and bishops of the Catholic church those are actually English words that go back to the Greek that's in the New Testament um and when you see that it helps you to see the continuity in the Catholic Church.

[00:29:43]>> I want to dwell there for a minute because again thinking of the biblical what's more biblical right I would have thought that my that that as an evangelical right that pastor in charge which was you at one case Dr. Bergma was a biblical model for how to do church leadership, right? So that you were you felt this calling from God to go to Bible college. You you went there, you probably were commissioned at some point by a denomination in in increasing cases of no denomination at all, just these non-denominational churches, right? But you would have felt some kind of call, been kind of commissioned to do this.

[00:30:18]There are biblical roots for like a great commissioning, right? and for the Holy Spirit calling people to do things that that that does exist. But I would have thought that a Catholic priest and this kind of thing these ideas were were unbiblical, right? I was calling somebody father first of all is unbiblical. We we all knew that as evangelicals, right? despite the many counter examples, but I wouldn't have thought that that was a more biblical model than just a pastor in charge of a church who was commissioned by maybe a denomination who went to Bible college.

[00:30:52]I you know this deeply because you've written a book on the Old Testament roots of the priesthood. But to realize that a more biblical model for the the guy leading that particular church is actually the Catholic model. Uh that was fairly shocking. Can you can you unpack that a little bit for us in terms of that being a more biblical model for leading a church?

[00:31:17]>> Sure. Because the biblical model of church leadership that we see in the book of acts starting in the gospels where Jesus chooses 12 you know and he commisss them and then at the end of John he breathes on them and gives them authority >> to forgive or retain sins which is like whoa that's a divine authority given to these guys and then in the book of acts what we see them doing is spreading out and they choose others and consistently in acts you do not see in the Book of Acts, local congregations just kind of forming of themselves and then electing uh you know their own representatives.

[00:31:57]It's very dem democratic. That's very American, you know, but you don't see that in Acts. What you see is the apostles traveling around evangelizing and then they appoint uh elders and episcopo uh supervisors you know ultimately bishops you know it's always by appointment >> and you see that also in the pastoral epistles of first and second Timothy and Titus how Paul has appointed Timothy and appointed Titus and sent them on a commission you know so they are carrying on his aposto mission uh in places beyond where he can be um you know and then and then beyond his lifetime uh ultimately and that's that's where we get this idea of of succession. So um I think you know you can see it in the scriptures um you know non-atholics might worry well what about after the apostolic era you know how how is this supposed to continue? Well, it's interesting that in uh some of what might be arguably the earliest post New Testament writings like uh uh first clement uh the the letter of Clement uh the bishop of Rome to the church in Corinth you know Clement was a successor of St. Peter, one of the first things they had to to hammer out and and this document many scholars think was written around 80, the year 80. So the gospel of John may not have even been finished at this time already. You have this letter from a successor of St. Peter ministering in Rome who's writing to correct a problem in the church in Corinth, which is in a whole different country. And um and what you see is that whole letter is about apostolic succession where Clement is explaining how this went that the apostles went around they chose men and then they told those that they appointed that you know upon their deceased etc they choose others to succeed them and set up this pattern of succession. That was almost almost the first thing the church had to get down.

[00:34:01]>> It wasn't like women's ordination. It wasn't predestination. It wasn't salvation by faith alone. All these different things that you know became huge theological controversies later in church history. The first thing they had to hammer out was succession from the apostles. And so you already see this in the earliest of um the uh the writings of the men who were formed who were trained by the apostles themselves. So you see it in Acts. It's it's always top down. You know, you see the laying on of hands to appoint, for example, the first deacons in Acts six and then later in Acts 14, the presbutaroy and the episcopo. Um, at first those terms were kind of interchangeable and then they kind of uh differentiated out to represent different roles, but you you see the apostles appointing a top-down structure. And so it has remained to to this day. And there's something very human, very organic about the Catholic church because my pastor at my local parish, you know, he had hands laid on him by a bishop who had hands laid on him who had hands laid on him in a chain going back to Peter, Paul, James, John, etc. and and to Jesus, you know, so a a succession of human touch, one, you know, human touch from one to another going all the way back to Jesus himself.

[00:35:26]So the Catholic Church is very, you know, it's like flesh and blood and organic family. It really is a community that has been in touch, you know, with itself going all the way back to Jesus, the body of Jesus, touching the body of Jesus. So, we are his body and we're connected in a chain of touch back to his body.

[00:35:47]>> That's fantastic. And I love that you point out that there is no biblical basis for somebody going and planting a church. We don't see that in the Bible.

[00:35:55]What we see is a succession from the apostles and that authority being passed on in these structured churches. I I love that. And I think of I think it's an Ignatius, right? one again one of these early church fathers that I I you know began reading the early church fathers and like you warned us against I was scandalized to learn that these existed and I think it's Ignatius who says you know where the bishop is that's the Catholic church like that's the church and I thought of all the ways and I and and I as an evangelical went looking for churches right I moved from my hometown to my university town and had to find a church I didn't I didn't go looking for where the bishop was right but here's a guy who learned who learned at the feet of one of the apostles who writes about who writes about look you see this structure in in scripture he and here's how it's being played out like immediately by somebody who learned from uh you know the the apostles >> one of the authors of scripture right >> yes yeah so I mean that for me was was thinking about biblical models for things I mean here here's somebody who's who is formed by those people who saying it's not who has this this and just write about scripture. It's look, we see in scripture, the apostles began churches and commissioned others to do that. That's how you look for a church where where the church is that has that history, that link, that lineage, that that family touch back to the apostles, right?

[00:37:22]>> Yeah. Yeah. It's it's truly amazing. And um you know I was I was largely uh converted by reading Ignatius of Antioch, reading his letters because when I would read through I saw this guy thinks like a Catholic. Like a Protestant always makes doctrinal points primary. Like you you know in my tradition it was like getting the doctrine of predestination correct, right? It's like that was like almost was the the heart of the gospel was to understand predestination in the proper way and speak absolutely precisely about it. But there's nothing about predestination in the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch. And to put this in perspective, let's just remember he's writing maybe 10 years after the death of the apostle John. You know, writing in like 106. Um John dies in maybe 96.

[00:38:14]So 10 years afterwards, he's being taken to his martyrdom. He's writing these letters to these early churches in Asia Minor, which is now modern day Turkey.

[00:38:23]And and he says things like only that Eucharist is valid, which is uh um approved by your bishop. And that's like a very Catholic way of thinking like >> what sacraments are valid and what aren't and where's the bishop and who's the authority? And so the emphasis on visible authority figures, the visible unity of the church, um the validity of the sacraments, uh sacramental realism, you know, that the sacraments actually change you, that they do things to you.

[00:38:55]They're not just like passive signs of your interior, um you know, faith commitments. Um I'm like th this is this is how ca these are this is how Catholics think. This is these are the basic axioms of of Catholicism. If you if you take all the axioms that that Ignatius Vanny gives you, you can derive like in geometry, you could just like derive all the rest of the theorems of Catholicism like kind of follow from this, you know, and uh it was it was really quite shocking. But then, you know, it and it's not counter to the New Testament. It's just like I had blinders on like I couldn't see that >> apostolic you know top down order like I I I wasn't recognizing it but you know they read Ignatius and you go back to Acts like oh yeah like local communities don't just elect people it's like the apostles going around pointing people it's always like the authority comes from Jesus to the apostles to the first generation to the next generation and there's even a kind of mute testimony to that in Protestantism because as you were saying Keith like the elders at your church were were ordained by the ones previously.

[00:40:05]>> That was how my group worked as well.

[00:40:07]>> Um, you know, all the pastors in in my denomination were ordained by the pastors before them going all the way back to the 1500s and the time of Don Calvin. And then at some point while I was in seminary, I I started to think about, hey, how did this all get started? You know, like >> you know, this this presumes that there's always a previous generation.

[00:40:29]You know, we call that a regression, right? I'm like, how did the first cohort, you know, did they just up and appoint themselves to just lay hands on themselves? Like, how did this happen?

[00:40:40]And and so it was like we recognized the principle of succession within our own little group that each generation of leadership had to be approved by the previous one. But then when you get back to our beginnings in the 1500s, we didn't have like a coherent account of how we got started. So if you're going to recognize that principle of succession, the only consistent position to have is to become part of the Catholic Church and then your succession goes back to Jesus and then it, you know, makes sense.

[00:41:10]>> Yeah. Yeah. I remember reading St. Francis Deal's Catholic controversy who writes to right in Geneva, writing to the very first like you know at a time of the reformation writing to the reformers and literally saying wait who ordained you? Who commissioned you? And I thought look this question was being asked at the beginning right. So when when your guys John were were ordaining themselves and passing on that succession which would later would be the guys who laid hands on you at the beginning of that here was a Catholic bishop saying wait a minute hold your horses here. Right. I thought that was was incredible.

[00:41:44]>> Yeah. Yeah. Really preient. Yeah.

[00:41:47]>> Yeah. I think of again on this idea of church structure and church you mentioned the visible unity of the church. I can remember uh discussing this with my non-denominational pastor.

[00:41:57]And so we were part of a church for a long long time. My wife and I met in this church, got married in this church.

[00:42:02]Our best friends were part of this church. It was it came from a Pentecostal denomination, but it was then non-denominational.

[00:42:08]I remember bringing the the my pastor this question of Matthew 18:15-19 where it talks about how to solve disputes in the church. And I said to him, look, Jesus tells us to bring this to, you know, one or two, and if they can't agree, bring it to the church. If they can't agree, that person is out of the church. Like they've the church rules on this. The person that they can't be they can't, you know, abide by that ruling, they're they're kind of out of the church. And I said to him, I said, you know, we're a non-denominational church. So if you tell me this is what X Y or Z doctrine means and I disagree with you, I can go down the street to John Burksma's church who believes differently [laughter] and I can join his church. And I said, "So how like this is the biblical model for for what Christ gives us to resolve disputes in the church, but without a visible church that that I can be a part of and not to go to this church or this church or this church, how does that work?" And that's when I kind of I began to realize that the biblical model for solving church disputes like presumes or assumes a visible church that you could be in or out of. Right.

[00:43:23]>> Right. A visible church and and only one because if there's multiple churches then it undermines the whole system because you can go choose the one that will give you the judgment that you want. Um and uh you know so yeah so definitely that the whole model of of church discipline that we see in Matthew 18 presumes that there's one church and it's a visible church and it's a church that can speak that can make a make a decision not you know not just like a theoretical >> aggregation of all the elect known only to God but like a a visible organization that is able to render a decision and has a spokesman you know who can say this who can speak for uh for the body.

[00:44:13]So that you know that definitely presumes a single visible church. um as is presumed also by one of my favorite passages which is 1 Timothy 3:15 where Paul says um that he writes to Timothy so that if he's delayed you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God which is the church of the living God the pillar and bull work of the truth.

[00:44:43]>> Yeah. And right there you see that Paul is not thinking like a Protestant because no Protestant would ever say that the church is the pillar and bull work of the truth. We would we would have all said no the scriptures are the pillar and the bull work of the church.

[00:44:57]Uh sorry the pillar and bull work of the truth. Okay. But to say that the church is the pillar that means the support for and then and the bull work which it means the defense of uh the truth that doesn't work with Protestant theory of the church where again the church is is invisible unknown. It's like only God knows who the elect are. We're just this non-denominational organization. We don't even claim to speak for Christ's church. you know, we're just body of believers, you know, and so it's it's interesting how most denominations don't even claim uh authority, you know, they certainly the authority of Christ Church. Like my own denomination just said, well, we're a little part of Christ Church. And if you had asked our theologians and our seminary professors, you know, do you speak to do you speak for, you know, Christ's universal church? They said, "No, no, no, no.

[00:45:57]We're we're a tradition, you know, we're we're a a group within the the B. So see what a denied, you know, the only the only church that claims, you know, Yeah.

[00:46:09]>> to speak for Jesus is the Catholic Church. It's almost like the only one that claims that authority is the only one that has that authority. Even the Orthodox, they they don't claim that authority because they recognize that they're broken up into >> Yeah. uh autophilis that means like independent uh different national groups and they respect the other patriarchs of the Bulgarian and the Greek and the Ukrainian and the Russian and and and whatnot. So no one of them speaks for Christ's church but you know it sounds impossibly arrogant but it's not bragging if it's true. You know the Catholic Church when it has a counselor when the pope speaks it's like no we speak with the authority of Christ church and you can only make that claim with a straight face when you really are know in your heart of hearts that you are in obedience and you are in succession going back to the beginning.

[00:47:08]you don't have any doubts about that and and so without lying and without uh you know uh deceiving other people or what you can say no when I as pope speak you know I'm speaking as successor of Peter and if I need to you know I I will give an infallible decision and likewise in ecumenical council you know this is we're speaking for the one holy catholic apostolic church so it's >> yeah it's it's uh it's really incredible Think about it that such authority is given to to men. It reminds me of, you know, when when Jesus would forgive sins and they say, you know, wow, it says the crowds were astounded that such authority had been given to men.

[00:47:49]>> But um but the authority that Christ entrusts to his church, which is the authority of Christ himself to to act and to speak on on his behalf, it really is awesome in the classical sense of like filling a person with awe.

[00:48:04]>> Yeah. Yeah. I I love that. I want to not forget to get to the Eucharist because that's a hugely important thing. But I want to dwell here for a minute because again that idea of the biblical way of of deciding things of running of being a Christian of making decisions is is solura is is Bible alone. I was kind of stunned to read the scriptures from maybe a bit different lenses and see things like the apostles being given the authority to bind and loose. Seeing things like church councils happening for deciding things that shook my evangelical sensibility that the Bible alone is our thing for making decisions and then I as you do encountered the Catholic Church and realized like we've talked about already church councils that still exist bishops who talk about succession from the apostles who can get together and in the magisterium make decisions and rulings that are that are binding on on the whole church. So I thought the biblical model for doing my faith for living as a Christian was reading my Bible and interpreting what that meant and that was how how I lived.

[00:49:11]When I read the Bible more closely, I saw a a church and a way of deciding things that that looked very Catholic.

[00:49:20]Right? We touched on this quite a bit already, but but but can we flesh that out a little bit more? The idea of of no, it's not solos scriptorer. The biblical model is the apostles binding and loosing the magisterium and the these church councils, right?

[00:49:34]>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's uh I mean a number of different points that can be made. Most obviously at the center of the book of Acts, there's a huge council.

[00:49:44]>> Yeah.

[00:49:44]>> Where the apostles and the presbbiters, that's the word from which we get priest. Okay. But the apostles and the presbytors get together. So not only the apostle the twelve apostles but also the men that they had laid hands on they took part and in in several times St. Luke who writes Acts he emphasizes that the decision was made not by the apostles alone but by the apostles and the presbytors that is to say the apostles were allowing the prestors on the job training and allowing them to exercise real authority they the the that first generation of leaders that they laid hands on they weren't just lackeyis you know to they they they did represent the apostles uh and the apostolic authority, but they also took part in exercising that authority in a very real way. But just, you know, to make a very obvious point, we find this controversy blow up in in the middle of the book of Acts, like, do we have to circumcise the Gentiles before they can become Christians? And Keith, you can make a good biblical argument that you should because Genesis 17, which is the holy inspired inherent word of God, says that God gave Abraham circumcision as a sign of the covenant and and it was an eternal covenant, okay? Which which is like going to last forever. So, so if you're going to become a child of Abraham, you know, who's who's the father of everyone who has faith, then obviously you should take the sign of the covenant, which is circumcision. So, you can make a strong biblical case for circumcision. But what we see in Acts is they don't just sit there arguing about Bible and and they certainly don't leave it up to every baptized believer to read their own Bible because people didn't have their own Bibles back then. um and and just decide what they think Genesis 17 meant and what they do. No, they say we all have to be on the same page. So they call a council. They gather the the apostles and those that the apostles had appointed as office bearsers as as authority authorities. They pray they debate. They discourse and God leads them by the Holy Spirit and by the witness of uh St. Peter and um the other council members to come to a decision and then they promagate that decision and it's authoritative. It wasn't like oh you know take it or leave it you know if you want to do something else that's fine. It's like no this is what we decided and and it's made it. So that's become the model for all church councils uh subsequently. But then two you brought up a a great point um Keith and that is that uh in Matthew 16 Jesus gives Peter the power to bind and loose and then he also gives it to the apostles as a group speaking to to the gathered apostles in Matthew uh 18.

[00:52:51]Matthew 18:18 1618 and 1818 roughly speaking in Matthew and people need to know the Old Testament background for that because in the Old Testament it was not solless scriptura Keith there's actually a passage I was so shocked to discover this but in Deuteronomy 17 never knew this only found this out um back in 2011 17 I was work I was doing a study and and uh I I ran across this passage But Moses actually makes provision for what to do if you can't figure out how to interpret his law. And in Deuteronomy 17, he says, if if there's some matter arises, you know, that that's too difficult for you to figure out, then you go to the central sanctuary and you consult the Levitical priests and the judge. He says, I think the judge was like a baiff, you know, kind of like an enforcer, like law enforcement kind of guy. you you you consult the Levitical priests and the judge and they will tell you what to do and anybody who dis disobys the priests and the judge uh is stoned to death. Okay. So, so they had absolute authority like the authority of the interpretation was as binding as uh the inspired word of God itself. And so Moses sets up priests in succession, one generation after another, to interpret the law if you can't figure out what the interpretation should be. And that's the authority that Jesus gives to Peter on his own recgnissance, speaking to Peter, you singular in Matthew 16, you have the authority to bind and loose. And that term binding and loosing in ancient Judaism meant the authority to make um binding religious decisions. You know, decisions about the interpretation of God's word for daily life that could not be revoked. If you really get into it, if you if you um if you do a deep dive on it, Keith, it's really infallible.

[00:54:59]Okay. The power of binding and loosing was infallible because the Jews believed it was backed up by heaven. And that's exactly what you see because Jesus what Jesus literally says to Peter is whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven. It's a interesting what they call future pl perfect perfect like it will already have been done. So in other words the decision that Peter makes will reflect what heaven has already decided and then that authority is shared with the apostles as a group in Matthew 18.

[00:55:31]And and to this day, that's how the Catholic Church operates. The successor of Peter, if he has to make a solo decision, he's backed up by heaven to bind and to loose. And then a church council is like the apostles gathered together. All the successors of the apostles gathered together like Vatican 2. And they likewise will be uh um they have the power to bind and loose. And this is based on scripture. I mean like Vatican 2, the authority of Vatican 2 goes back to Matthew 18, okay?

[00:56:03]>> To Jesus authorizing the apostles and their successors to be able to speak authoritatively.

[00:56:09]>> And and likewise the successor of Peter.

[00:56:12]And this also doesn't work if you can just decide for yourself whether you think the successor of Peter is legitimate. Like well I don't think he's a successor of Peter. Well, that undermines the whole system, you know, and and also whether we have like personal uh personal authority to decide who's bishop and not. Okay. So, that's not that clearly cannot be up to every baptized person to just decide for themselves who they think the pope is and who they think the bishops are, you know, because that because the system cannot work if if if that's the case.

[00:56:42]And we don't and there's no instructions about that in the New Testament like this is how you tell a true successor of Peter from one who's a false one or you know this is how you tr tell a true bishop for a you know no because it's not up to us okay it's up to the authorities of the church and it has to be that way that's the only way you've got a workable system and um so I was really surprised Keith to find that both in the Old Testament Moses sets up a court to adjudicate problems of interpretation and Jesus authorizes Peter and the apostles to adjudicate hate interpretation in the new covenant as well. And in neither case is it, you know, up to each one of us to figure out what the Bible means for oursel and and that's what you're left with with solos scriptura. I remember talking to an a very very old theologian who was very famous and he had gotten kind of arrogant in his older years and I offered him a fraternal correction. I told him, you know what, you are setting yourself up as your own arbiter of the truth. And he turned to me and said, 'Well, that is the basic principle of Protestantism. [laughter] >> And I was so scandalized. I it never occurred to me, but he had figured out that once you buy into solos scriptura, then it it ultimately since you reject tradition and you reject the church, then it's up to you to decide what scripture means. And so you're you are your own authority. He figured that out and he embraced it. When I figured it out, I was deeply disturbed and I started to look for a way out and that eventually led me into the Catholic Church. Like I don't want to be my own arbiter. You know, Keith, I I I confess to you as my brother in Christ, I do not want to be my own highest authority where like I decide who's right. I decide who who's the successor of Peter.

[00:58:27]I decide what scripture means. Like no, I mean there's a there's a big theme from Genesis to Revelation about being under authority, right? That's a good thing. Like Jesus says to this >> to the the centurion says, "I too am a man under authority. I know how authority works." And Jesus really commends him for that.

[00:58:45]>> And so I want to keep my head under authority. I do not want to be my own arbiter. So [laughter] >> I I I hate to, but maybe it's fitting to at the end put this here. The Eucharist is the the the source and summit of the faith life for the the Catholic. Right.

[00:59:04]And as as a Protestant, I would have understood now there are a variety of Protestants. As an evangelical, I would have understood communion to be a symbolic thing we did in memory of Christ, right? Those that was the biblical model of doing communion. And it wasn't until I was in a a Baptist church service where the pastor read from Corinthians where Paul is recounting the words of Christ at the last supper and the the pastor changed the words changed the words of Christ and said, "This is like my body." And I thought, "Wait a minute, this pastor is quoting scripture, right? But in order to make his theology work, he's actually making it less biblical." And that for me was a huge was a huge you know moment of realization uh Bergs mount where I realized that actually >> that biblical model of communion >> in order to to that to be the evangelical way you have to change the Bible. Right.

[01:00:04]>> Right. No, it's scary. It's scary. And in first Corinthians um St. Paul says a number of striking things, but he says, you know, the bread that we break, is it not a communion in the body of Christ? Or you could translate that a partaking? It's like you're you're really sharing the body.

[01:00:24]He doesn't say it's a symbol of the body. And I used to think when I was naive, like, well, they didn't have categories for symbolism and they didn't have language of symbolism back then.

[01:00:35]you know, there was all kind of like they're all concrete operational like you say in psych psychological studies like they didn't have like symbolic abstract. No, no, no. That's not the case. There, you know, in Greek culture and in in Jewish culture, they had elaborate, you know, systems of symbolism. You read Pho, uh, the the philosopher and other ancient Jewish authors and they talk about this, you know, the symbolism of the temple. So they they definitely understood the language and and the conceptual categories of symbolism and certainly St. Paul did and he talks about elsewhere. He talks about the typology of Hagar and Sarah for example but not here not with the Eucharist. He doesn't say it's a figure of or it's a type of or it's an image of but he says no is a partaking of the body. And then he goes on uh to say that you know if you if you partake without it's usually translated discerning the body but I think it's it should be rendered without recognizing the body. And then people are like what does that mean? Well >> I think it's pretty clear if you partake without recognizing that it is the body.

[01:01:45]Yes.

[01:01:46]>> Okay. That's [laughter] that to me that seems kind of >> plain that that's what Paul is saying.

[01:01:51]if you're partaking without recognizing that it is Jesus's body and therefore that it requires holiness of life and conduct um you know to to partake of it then then you're guilty of profaining the body and blood of Jesus he says and again not a symbol thereof or you're disfiguring a symbol or disfiguring an image no profaining the body and blood of Jesus and um in the Old Testament that language is very serious ious that is um uh the the language that St. Paul uses there is used for capital offenses in the Old Testament. So it's like very grave you know so it's a very grave thing to take the Eucharist without recognizing that it is Jesus's body and then you know what that requires of us too to be living in a state of grace when we approach to partake. So, it's very that's that's only one avenue. We you haven't touched John 6 or a number of other things that come into play here. But you're absolutely right, Keith. Um the the the uh the dignity um of the Eucharist is something that really is um uh emphasized in in u strong language in in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then the the writings of of St. Paul, it it all comes through in the institution narratives and then Paul's own discussion in uh first Corinthians.

[01:03:21]>> Yeah. Yeah. We see that of course you already mentioned about Ignatius in the church fathers too, right? It being the actual flesh that that the same thing that Paul's saying here is echoed right by the very first Christians. So I think that's yeah that's that's remarkable.

[01:03:35]And again thinking of that biblical model of Christianity the it made no sense uh when I'm talking to you know literal biblical Christians you say I interpret the Bible literally literally like right and then read John 6 the one verse where Christ is speaking quite literally and then interpreting that in figurative language never made any sense to me right that's that's yeah >> yes I I totally agree yeah I got caught in that conundrum when I was struggling with the Eucharist This is so ironic.

[01:04:06]I'm the Protestant. I'm the one who's supposed to be standing on the literal sense. And now my Catholic friend is has, you know, switched fields on me.

[01:04:14]Switch turntables on me. He's standing on the literal sense. I'm trying to get out of what appears to be the plain sense of the text. And that was just too much. I was like, I cannot stay outside the Catholic church because they take the Bible too literally. That is not just not a good reason not to be Catholic. I I can't look Jesus in the face and say that and judge.

[01:04:37]>> That's fantastic. Dr. Bergsma, uh, as always, a pleasure to welcome you on the nicest Catholic podcast in in in North in North America. I'll put links to your books, your your podcast, your website in the show notes. Is there anything you want to highlight in particular for listeners to find and to check out uh before I let you go?

[01:04:56]>> Yeah. Yeah. Check out my book, Stunned by Scripture: How the Bible Made Me Catholic, um, from our Sunday Visitor Press.

[01:05:03]And uh a lot of the things that we went over today, uh Keith, and a lot more are are in there. And um you know, there's a lot of great conversion stories out there. Mine's one among many, but um a lot of people have found uh the way I approach uh the the problem of, you know, becoming Catholic. And so, you know, from kind of like evangelical principles of biblical interpretation, you know, this is how we were trained to read the Bible as evangelicals. And if you do it consistently, you end up as a Catholic. And that's that's pretty ironic, but that's what happened to me.

[01:05:37]Like reading, you know, the inspired inherent word of God and and finding that it's it's pointing me to the Catholic Church.

[01:05:45]>> Yeah, that's fantastic. Dr. Bergsma, as always, I want to say God bless you, the work you're doing for the church. Thank you so much for being here today. Uh it's always a pleasure. Thanks so much.

[01:05:56]>> Yeah. Thanks, Keith.