Exploring how Catholicism spawned from the early church has been quite the journey. It started as a request from one of my monthly Patreon supporters, but the more I dug into it, the more I realized how much we can learn. Although we disagree with the majority of the Catholic Church’s teachings, it’s important for us to realize that it is our history.
As the saying goes, “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” Let’s discuss 3 things we can learn from our deep dive into how we came from the Catholic Church, and pay special attention to how close we are to repeating history on a smaller scale.
If you’d like to get caught up on the series, here’s everything we’ve discussed:
Part 1: Looking at why Christianity seems so divided today, and whether the unity of the Catholic Church is something we should desire
Part 2: How the Catholic Church grew from the apostles
Part 3: Specific teachings in Catholicism that proved they had drifted from the Bible
Part 4: Why those who wanted to stay faithful to the Bible had to risk their lives to leave Catholicism
Part 5: Discussing the 5 major teachings that defined the Protestant Reformation
Part 6: The Bible is our highest authority
Part 6.5: 3 ways we can misunderstand “sola scriptura”
Part 7: Faith, not good works, is what saves us
Part 8: Salvation is through Christ alone
Part 9: Salvation is given through God’s grace
Part 10: Our salvation is for God’s glory, not ours; because of that, everything we do is for His glory as well
#1 Christians must know their Bible
O how I love Your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies,
For they are ever mine.
I have more insight than all my teachers,
For Your testimonies are my meditation.
I understand more than the aged,
Because I have observed Your precepts.
I have restrained my feet from every evil way,
That I may keep Your word. (Psalm 119:98-101)
The Catholic Church rose to power because of one bad decision with noble intentions: with all the heresy and false teaching that kept popping up, church leaders felt it was necessary to remove the Bible from the hands of those who don’t know how to read it well. By keeping it away from “common folk,” they felt the risk of corrupting God’s teaching would be reduced.
Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. (Acts 17:11)
Of course, we have the benefit of seeing how terrible that idea was. By removing the ability to check the church’s teachings against the Bible, church leaders had the temptation to break away from what’s clearly taught in order to further their own agendas. Christians could be taught anything and have no idea if it was true or not. And since questioning the teachings of the church made you unChristian, what could people do?
Today, we still face half of that problem. Christians have incredible access to God’s word. Not just the Bible itself, but also numerous tools that can help them read and understand it. Yet despite the ability to know God on a deeper level, most people don’t read more than a single Bible verse every day.
Instead, many people are happy to let a pastor, spouse, or content creator tell them what things mean. They put great trust in what these people say, basing their lives on things they’ve never examined for themselves. They have access to something that is their highest source of truth, yet allow others to interpret it for them.
This is often why so many Christians don’t understand why they believe what they believe. Lacking the desire and discipline to read (and study) the Bible weakens us, making us unable to grow closer to God, teach others about Christ, or defend our faith. It makes us dependent on others to know God for us, rather than knowing Him ourselves.
#2 Tradition must never interpret the Bible
Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men (Mark 7:8)
In Sola Scriptura, I discussed why the Bible must be our highest authority. Simply put, that means that the Bible gets the final say on everything we do or believe. Everything else that gives us “truth,” like tradition, emotion, or reason, must fall in line with what the Bible teaches.
Yet as we saw, the early church started putting tradition and historical beliefs over what God said in His word. Many practices that we see in the 1600s had no place in the Bible, yet they were just assumed. Why? “Because it’s what we’ve always done.”
The Catholic Church held so much power because it was the default belief system. Therefore, to be a citizen was to be Catholic. Doing what the church said was just a fact of life, and it was rarely questioned because no one had a Bible to see things for themselves.
And so we saw a belief system that elevated “what we’ve always believed” over what God says. They used the Bible, but only in a way that made the Bible agree with their beliefs. They started with their tradition as their highest source of truth, and everything in the Bible needed to fit with what they’ve always done.
They had it completely backward.
Yet how many of our beliefs are wrapped up in “Well, it’s just what I’ve always done” or “My church does it, so it must be right”? We see this from all areas, whether it’s a Bible version, a church denomination, beliefs about dating and marriage, or even how we vote. Much of what we do isn’t based on what God’s word has convinced us about, but rather how we’ve taken our beliefs and forced the Bible to agree with them.
The Catholic Church had it backward, and so do we.
Instead, we must have the Bible as our single highest authority. It doesn’t matter what our pastor says, how our emotions make us feel, what seems logical, or what we’re familiar with. If we have been responsible in our reading and see, clearly, that God teaches something that goes against what we’re told to believe, we can do nothing except obey God at the expense of everything else we may want to obey.
#3 We cannot give ultimate power to flawed humans
Giving up the Bible in favor of the comfort of tradition is dangerous. The logic for removing God’s precious word from the people seemed sound. Making sure everyone believed the same things and dared not question it made sense to those in charge. Yet we must consider where all of this started – not with God, but with man.
It was man’s logic that removed the Bible from the hands of the people, keeping it only in the hands of those who would eventually make the rules. Flawed humans are responsible for elevating their traditions over God’s truth. No matter how wise we may seem, no matter how good a plan may appear… we can never trust the wisdom of people over the infinite knowledge of God.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1)
Holding a Bible and claiming to represent God doesn’t make someone worth trusting. The Bible is filled with warnings about false teachers, and those warnings are as true today as they were at the time of the apostles. When we blindly follow the teachings of men, simply because what they say seems biblical, we risk following lies that are disguised as the truth of God.
That’s not to say we should constantly doubt or challenge authority. Instead, we are called to keep all people, even our pastors, in their proper place. By allowing human beings to set the pace for what God wants will eventually lead to corruption. We are too easily swayed by pride and the allure of power.
God works through people to do His work on earth. Yet we must never blindly follow someone simply because they claim to represent God. Those in authority are called to sacrifice themselves to lead others closer to God. We must always be watchful that they don’t start sacrificing those under them to benefit themselves instead.
The big takeaway for today
Despite splitting from the Catholic Church, many of its underlying issues are still alive and well in Christians today. We don’t pray to Mary or confess sins to priests, but everything that led to those wrong beliefs hasn’t gone away. So what can we learn from the mistakes of the past so that we can be more faithful to Christ today?
And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-12)
God gives us teachers and pastors to help us grow closer to Christ. There are people who are simply more mature than us, and they are a gift. We should turn to them when we have questions or simply want to grow in holiness.
Likewise, tradition is valuable. Ultimately, tradition is just what happens when a belief becomes a common part of our lives. And that’s not inherently evil, because tradition should be a way for us to be guided into proper belief while we’re still learning. Tradition is like training wheels, helping us go the right direction.
However, both our spiritual leaders and the traditions they teach must never be blindly accepted, nor allowed to have more authority than they deserve. As followers of Christ, we should always be ready to fact-check a teacher against our ultimate authority, the Bible. Likewise, any tradition we practice should have no part of it that is in disagreement with God’s word.
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)
If we don’t read our Bibles, how will we know when someone is teaching something contrary to it? If we don’t know how to read and understand it properly, how will we use wisdom to see when someone is abusing it?
The greatest false teachers always use the same Bible we use. The worst Christian traditions are always defended with the same Bible we use. Simply owning a Bible is meaningless if we don’t know how to use it properly.
If we want to avoid falling into the same traps that led to the Catholic Church’s false teachings, we have no choice but to study God’s word. It must become such a necessary part of our lives that we won’t be able to tolerate false teaching. If it is our highest source of truth and understanding, then it’s important for our lives to show that.
So listen to good, biblical teachers as they help us become more like Jesus Christ. Enjoy the traditions that have been gifted to us from Christians across the centuries. But above all, study to make sure that all of those good things fall under the authority of the Bible.
