Things Protestants Don't Understand About The Church - The Bible

The Bible is the written, inspired, and inerrant Word of God. 

Roman Catholics have always believed this and have always revered this collection of holy books with awe. What my Protestant friends fail to understand is the Bible was built by the Church and not the other way around. This collection of holy books contains every kind of literature known to mankind. It has in it many wonderful stories and lessons for us to learn what the will of God is for His children. It is through this marvelous collection of tales, history, and parables that we learn how God has been with His people through the ages.

The book has been divided into two sections which we call the Old and the New Testaments. The Old Testament reveals stories that include our creation and subsequent disobedience. After the disobedience, we are told that God Himself will make things right again and will send us the Messiah. It tells us a bit about the first family and how Cain killed Abel. This wonderful book relates the story of the Exodus, the Flood, King David and his Psalms all the way up to the Book of Revelation where we are shown the celebration that takes place in heaven.

The Catholic Bible and the Protestant Bible are not quite the same. Catholics have forty-six Old Testament books while the Protestant denominations recognize thirty-nine. The New Testament books for both Catholics and Protestants are the same. The reasons for this difference are kind of complex but it boils down to the fact that the reformers accepted the shorter list of books in use by the Jewish community in the first century while the Roman Catholics used the canon of scripture that included these missing books because works from the earliest times included quotations from these seven books deleted by the reformers. Modern Protestant scholarship is coming around to the view that these books are indeed inspired works.


The Bible did not just fall out of the skies. The Holy Spirit inspired the individual authors to write what they wrote but we cannot say that He dictated it to the writers. But just who decided what books belong in the Bible and what books do not? Why is the Gospel of Mark included in the New Testament while the Gospel of Thomas is not? The Church had quite a job on their hands because there were writings a-plenty circulating in the early Church. The Church had to decide which books were inspired and which books were not. It did so under her teaching authority. The oldest record we have is that the canon was approved under Pope Damasus in 382AD and subsequently, the list was confirmed in 392AD at the Synod of Hippo and the Third Council of Carthage in 397AD. The Council of Trent on April 8, 1546, declares as "sacred and canonical all the books of the Old and New Testament contained in the Vulgate." The Vulgate? What is that? The Vulgate is a late fourth-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was the translation of St. Jerome who was commissioned by Pope Damascus I to revise the "Old Latin" collection then in use by the Church. So we can see that the Canon of Scripture was decided upon early on. It was only later the "reformers" threw out the Old Testament books found in Catholic Bibles. We can see that the Roman Catholic Church took (and takes) a lively interest in Holy Scripture. It is her mission to keep Scripture pure. To make sure that only books that can be demonstrated to be inspired by the Holy Spirit make their way in between the covers of this great collection.


The Catholic Church surely had a hand in carrying the Bible and passing it down through the generations assuring that only the inspired word is found in its pages. But the question is why are some Catholic beliefs not found in the Bible? Protestants believe that the Bible is the whole rule of what a Christian should believe and do. We Protestants believe in Sola Scriptura and we believe that the Church is in error because it uses human traditions as part of the belief system it follows.


The Roman Catholic Church believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. As such is takes a prominent place in her life of faith. It is part of every sacrament she dispenses, it is in her prayer life, it is in the Mass where we are fed both by Holy Scripture and by the Sacred Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. The "traditions" you speak of are not mere human traditions. One of the Traditions of the Church is the Bible! Sacred Tradition is the act of passing down the belief from one generation to the next. The process began in the first century and continues to this very day.


The pillar and foundations of the Church are not the Bible. Heresy? I think not. We read in 1st Timothy Chapter 3 verse 15, "I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God the pillar and foundation of truth."


Look as hard as you want, sola scriptura is not a principle you will find that is taught in the Bible. The verse often quoted in defense of sola scriptura is 2nd Timothy, Chapter 3, Verse 16, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." There is not a Catholic living on earth or happy in heaven that would dare to disagree with this passage. It just doesn't say that the Scriptures are the only way to do these things, it states that it is just a way that can be used.




Let's look at Sacred Tradition. In my household, we have a tradition of putting up and decorating a Christmas tree every year. The people next door have a tradition of going to visit their relatives at Thanksgiving time. Both of these things are traditions, but they are not Sacred Traditions. Bobby may go to church to pray the rosary daily, that is his tradition, but it is not a Sacred Tradition. If we were to suddenly say that Sola Scriptura was the way to go, we would have a problem in supporting that position. The first century there were no written Bibles. So, how was the Word of God preached to the first century Christians? It was shared by word of mouth. The letters of Paul were read to the people and they carried them in their heart. They did not get a copy of them to take home and ponder. They relied, unknowingly, on Sacred Tradition. Sacred Tradition is the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation. It has nothing to do with human traditions. The Church is protected from teaching error by the Holy Spirit. This Sacred Tradition is how the church has moved year by year and century by century teaching her unchanging doctrine.




Roman Catholics often are scolded for a lack of Biblical knowledge. This is true, some of us have not taken the time to study the Word of God as we should. It is going to be hard to stand before the Lord when he asks, "Did you read my book?" Here you are standing by God and what can you say, "Seventy-eight years was not enough time, I was busy." I don't think that will wash. The Church has always revered the scripture. In the twentieth century, Catholics were taught scripture through catechisms such as the Baltimore Catechism. It taught Biblical principles and relied on the Bible for the truth it taught but it did not give us the familiarity of the Bible that Protestants have. This being said, it should not be thought that Catholics were being starved to death for want of the4 Word of God. We Catholics are obligated under pain of sin, to attend Church every Sunday. At our worship service, called the Mass, we are served up heaping helpings of Scripture, including a reading from the Old Testament, A Psalm, a reading from the Epistles, and finally a reading from the Gospels as the main course. As a matter of fact, the Catholic who attends Mass daily will hear most of the Bible read to him over the course of three years.




Our last topic is who can interpret the scriptures? The reformers said the Word of God conveys such a simple message that any man with the help of the Holy Spirit can interpret scripture. I don't think so. If this was true, then why are there so many different interpretations of so many different passages of scripture? Is the Holy Spirit the spirit of confusion? Would he tell one person one truth regarding a passage of scripture and another person a different interpretation of it? The church Luther split because of the interpretation of scripture. At the time of that first split whose interpretation of scripture was each side relying upon? It would seem that the Holy Spirit had gone schizoid because he changed His story. No, the Holy Spirit is not nuts. People take it upon themselves to make scripture fit the way they think. Because of this, instead of one Church, we have the Church and thousands upon thousands of denominations who interpret the Bible differently. Scripture was never meant to be interpreted in such a manner. I am very fortunate that as a Roman Catholic I can rely on authoritative interpretations from the organization who has handed the Book of Books unsullied down through the generations. The Authority of the Church is guaranteed by Christ to be without error.




The Bible is the paramount bastion of where we should get our plan of life. God has given us a great gift in this work of inerrant inspiration. I call upon my fellow Catholics to accept the church's invitation to immerse yourself in the Word of God. If you do not know the Bible, you do not know Christ. To my Protestant brothers and sisters, keep up your studies, the truth will set you free! Let each one of us pray for the unity that Christ wants for his children on earth.