Understanding Catholics: A Respectful Conversation with Mike Shreve

0:00 Pastor Mike Shreve, it's great to have you back here on Charisma News. And this time we're gonna be talking about your book, Beliefs of the Catholic Church. And we are talking about this from a place where we love the Catholic Church. We love Catholic people. My parents both grew up Catholic. My grandparents were Catholic. I have a lot of respect and admiration for their devotion. But there's definitely some things that I, as I read the Bible, I don't agree with, but I still wanna show love and respect. And so I think this conversation and you sharing your life is gonna help a lot of people be able to connect to our Catholic brothers and sisters.

0:44 And I have nothing but warm memories. My grandmother was an extremely fervent Catholic who prayed the rosary every day. And her last words to my father were, Andy, I'll rise with Jesus. I believe she had a personal relationship with the Lord and that she will be in the resurrection, praise God. That was her final confession. And I was an ultra boy. I could show you pictures of me back in my first communion or in my ultra boy cassock. And I served under priests that were real role models of Christ-like character, gentle, meek, humble, God-loving, God-fearing men.

1:25 And so again, I have only warm memories. They were a positive influence in my life. I went to parochial school up until middle school and the nuns were wonderful. A few of them were a little fierce to deal with, but I don't blame them with a hundred kids in the classroom. They'd have to be pretty strong to manage all of us. But once again, they kept me secluded from a lot of the rampant evil that's in the public school system. And so I'm very thankful. But like you, I have since searched out the Bible myself, which a lot of Catholics do not do.

2:07 They do not read the Bible for themselves. They trust in the Catechism. And once I began reading the Bible, I saw this disparity between true biblical, authentic Christianity and what I'd been taught as a Catholic. And so I felt like this book needed to be written because a lot of times I've seen presentation by Protestants concerning Catholicism that I thought was really harsh and insensitive because they didn't really understand it from a Catholic perspective. But I'm coming from that perspective. I was- I agree with you. I feel like there's been a lot of Catholic bashing and that's not what you're doing.

2:51 It's not what I wanna do. Absolutely not. The Catholics that I have in my life absolutely love Jesus, but there's definitely some other things that are maybe non-essentials, I don't know, that we disagree about. And so I'd love to hear more of what you have to say with this. Well, I think a good place to start is the definition of the church. And in the book, I might read a quote from the first chapter, the first chapter deals with the whole idea of what is the true church. And if you go back in Catholic doctrine in their ecumenical councils and so forth, you'll find out that over and over they teach that the Catholic church is the only true church.

3:39 And it's one point, incidentally, it's 1.3 billion members strong. So that's the largest segment of Christianity in the world. There's about 2.6 billion people. And I think it would help to see that according to my insight now, I believe there's two aspects to what people call the church. There's something called the professing church, which I was a part of growing up, but I did not know Jesus. I had no personal relationship with God, but I was part of the professing church. And that's made up of all those who profess faith in the historical validity of the existence of Jesus and what he accomplished, his death for the sins of humanity, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension.

4:28 I believed in all of that. I was taught all of that, but I did not know him. And yet in John chapter 17, Jesus said, this is eternal life that they might know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. He didn't say know about you, God. He said, this is eternal life that they might know you. And that was the missing element. And it was a very important missing element in my life. Then at the nucleus, at the core of the professing church is a much smaller group I call the possessing church. And that's made up of people of many denomination, Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Episcopals, et cetera, who have had a genuine, authentic, heartfelt encounter that came to them by making Jesus Lord of their lives, by surrendering to him and inviting him into their heart.

5:23 Jesus said, I stand at the door and knock. And if any man hear my voice, I will open the door and come into him. And that's exactly what he wants to do. And that's when I was spiritually regenerated. I was born again at the age of 19. I was not born again when the Catholic church says you're born again. And that's that infant baptism. And that might be a good subject to tackle next. Yeah, let's talk about that. This whole concept of infant baptism versus baptism when you can make the confession yourself. I know that when we look at baptism in the Bible, actually this morning I was just reading in Mark where Jesus went to John the Baptist and was baptized.

6:08 And you look and see, well, we know that Jesus was in his thirties whenever this happened and began his public ministry right after that. So he was not an infant, but when he was at eight days old, we know that he went to the temple and he was really circumcised. And that's what happened at that point because that's historically what happens on the eighth day there. But what is, where did this infant baptism come from? And what is it now today? Well, first of all, let me say that the Catholic church teaches that five things happen. Five definite things happen during infant baptism.

6:49 Number one, that child is born again. Number two, the spirit of God enters that child. Number three, that child receives the gift of eternal life. Number four, that child becomes a member of the church. And number five, original sin is canceled and dismissed and purged from that child. So five supernatural things are supposed to take place during sprinkling that never take place. And so tragically, what happens is you have unregenerated infants that grow up to be unregenerated teenagers that lose faith in Christianity because they never had a genuine encounter with God, or unregenerated adults that think they've received this experience possibly of being born again, and yet they haven't done it the biblical way and haven't had a real encounter with Jesus quite often.

7:46 Quite often that's the case, more often than not. And so that's the tragedy of the matter. Infant baptism strangely was not originally taught in the church. It was not originally taught among the disciples at all. Now Catholics will cite, I think it's five instances, four or five instances where it talks about a whole household being baptized. Like Cornelius that wanted to be saved after Paul and Silas sang at the midnight hour and the jail cell doors blew open. Well, it's that he and his household were baptized.

8:28 And they use those descriptions that happened in the book of Acts about four or five times to try and prove that infant baptism is true. But in not one of those circumstances was it mentioned that infants were involved. A household could have been adults or older children that had an awareness of what they were doing because the proper order is repent and be baptized. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Well, only people old enough to know the concept of repentance therefore can be baptized.

9:09 And I think one of the strongest examples is when Philip preached to the Ethiopian eunuch. It's a great story in the book of Acts where he joined himself to the chariot of this Ethiopian eunuch and he just happened to be, it was a God encounter, a God set up. He just happened to be reading Isaiah 53 at the time. And he said, what's this talking about? And Philip explained it to him. And then the Ethiopian eunuch said, well, here is water. They were apparently parked near a body of water. He said, what does hinder me? Can I be baptized? And Philip said, and this is key, he said, if you believe with all your heart, you can be baptized.

9:54 And so he made that a prerequisite for baptism. An infant baby cannot believe with all of his or her heart. It's got to be later on in life. Some people call it the age of accountability, which is not necessarily a scriptural term or idea, but at least a point where a child can understand and comprehend the difference between good and evil and what's actually happening. Yeah, I know that for me, I prayed the prayer to receive Jesus when I was four years old. And that is a moment that I'll never forget. I can take you to that space at my parents' house.

10:34 And my mother, she prayed with me and I knew what was happening. I can remember what happened earlier in the day that made me want to pray to receive Jesus. And then I remember later as a separate occasion, whenever I got baptized at my pastor's pool and then got filled with the Spirit as well, filled the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And those are distinct moments that I was a part of making that decision. I was the integral part. If I wasn't making the decision, none of those things would have happened. And I'm so grateful for those memories. And I know that an infant will not be able to remember those memories, even if they could, if they could make that decision.

11:19 But it's something that we need to do. Dedicating babies is one thing, but baptism is a completely different thing. Right, and that's a very important thing, very important. And I believe another really important issue is the whole idea of an exclusive priesthood. Because in Catholicism, only a priest can administer baptism, only a priest can serve communion, only a priest or a bishop can preside, and usually it's a bishop preside over confirmation, which is the sacrament where supposedly you're filled with, or sealed by the Holy Spirit. And only a priest can administer extreme unction or the final anointing, which a person receives just prior to death.

12:08 And so it makes a mediatorial priesthood a necessity from birth to death. And that ties you to the church and makes it a very fearful thing for you to even think about leaving because you would cut off your source of forgiveness. Because according to Catholic doctrine, only a priest can forgive mortal sin or sin that leads to death. And so if you don't go to confession and you have mortal sin in your life, you're assigning yourself to an eternal hell. So no wonder these are very, very important issues. And so what does the Bible have to say about it?

12:52 The scripture actually teaches that all believers are priests. In the Old Testament, they did have an exclusive priesthood, Aaron and his sons were the priests. And you had to go to those priests in order to be reconciled back to God through the proper sacrifices being offered at the Tabernacle of Moses, later on the Temple of Solomon and so forth. But that did not overflow into the New Testament because Jesus is our great high priest. Now we have boldness to enter the holiest. See, in the Old Testament, only the high priest could go into the holy of holies. But now all believers can have boldness to enter the holiness, whether the forerunner has, for us, has already entered.

13:37 And that's talking about Jesus, who's made a high priest forever. So we don't have to have a mediatorial priesthood to go through. We go to God directly to be forgiven of our sins. And we, of course, prepare our hearts for departure from this world between us and the Lord Jesus Christ as a personal relationship with him. I don't have to have someone performing a ritual over me before I pass from this world. And 1 Peter 2.5 says all believers are a holy priesthood. 1 Peter 2.9 says all believers are a royal priesthood. Now, to be fair, Catholic doctrine does teach that there's two classes of priests.

14:19 And that there's a ministerial priesthood, and that there is a lesser level of priesthood assigned to all believers. But still, it's not the same as the biblical interpretation of what a priest is. Yeah. And as you were talking about the whole mediator concept there, I'm reminded of 1 Timothy 2.5, where it says, "'For there is one God and one mediator "'who can reconcile God and humanity, "'the man Christ Jesus.'" And so that is one thing that has always helped me, knowing that Jesus is the one that we pray to. He's our mediator. He's the one that's taking our intercession to God the Father.

15:01 And it is not the saints, it's not Mary. But that's one of the things where there's a big difference is sainthood and Mary, and praying to people that, or praying to saints that aren't Jesus. And what actually is the sainthood, actually? Let's talk about that for a little bit. I think that's an important subject. And incidentally, a lot of people don't understand that Catholicism has evolved through the centuries. And all of the beliefs that are now comprising this worldview called Catholicism have not always been a part of that organization. For instance, just to give you one quick example before I address sainthood, for instance, the Immaculate Conception of Mary is a major Catholic doctrine.

15:50 The belief that just like Jesus was conceived without sin, so Mary was conceived without sin. Unknown to most people, that became a Catholic belief ratified by the church in 1854. So just about, what, less than 150 years ago. And then in 1950, through a papal decree that was considered infallible, the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary was introduced, which is the belief that Mary was assumed up into heaven, similar to Enoch or Elijah, that she was assumed up to heaven. And then in 1954, that's less than a century ago, she was declared to be the queen of heaven.

16:37 And so these are more recent doctrines. And if anyone begins to search out, in fact, I'm about to put an article on my website. My website is called to catholicswithlove.org. And I'm about to put an article, probably in the next week or two, on the evolution of Catholic beliefs and how many of them happened hundreds of years, even a thousand or more years after the coming of Jesus to this earth. But talking about sainthood, the scripture is very clear in addressing all believers as saints. If you go to the introduction of many of the epistles, Paul would write to the saints which are at Ephesus, to the saints which are at Philippi, to the saints which are at Corinth.

17:26 So all believers were referred to that way. And so we need to understand what a saint is. A saint is a person who has been sanctified. And there's a triune meaning to that. To be sanctified means, number one, to be cleansed from the defilement of sin. Number two, to be made holy in the sight of God. And number three, to be sanctified means to be set apart for God's purposes. And that happens at a true salvation experience. You're cleansed from your sin by the blood of Jesus. You are made holy because the Bible said the new man, the inward man is created in righteousness and true holiness.

18:10 You are rendered sinless by the power of the blood of Jesus flowing through you. And if you've truly surrendered to the lordship of Jesus, you are set apart for God's divine purpose in your life. Bam, you become a saint at that point. And there was no concept of an exclusive group of canonized saints. The first thousand years of the church, that happened much later on. When I think it was in the 900s, when the first saint was canonized. And then eventually there evolved this concept of being able to pray to the saints to intervene in our behalf.

18:51 But to believe that, well, I should mention the canonization process. In order to be a canonized saint, there has to be two miracles happen by someone appealing to that saint in prayer. And that person has to have a recognized life of consecration, of course, and dedication. But there has to be evidence supplied that that person has some kind of power in being approached after death for a miracle to be wrought. Well, God in Deuteronomy 18, for instance, he very explicitly prohibited anyone trying to contact the dead.

19:36 And we have the account of Saul trying to contact Samuel and how that even hastened his death because he disobeyed God in going to a medium. And I believe the whole Catholic concept of praying to the saints is a transgression against God's prohibiting of that practice. Also, I believe not only is it theologically incorrect, it's logically absurd because take, for instance, if there's out of the church, maybe 25% of 1.3 billion Catholics in the world, if a quarter of a billion Catholics in one day pray to Saint Peter.

20:26 Saint Peter has got to be aware of 250 million conversations at once, or a little over that. And he's got to be personally present in every one of those person's lives. Now I do well to stay focused on one conversation with one person at one time. Can you imagine being hit with 250 million requests in one day? I cannot, I cannot. You break that down mathematically into minutes and seconds, and he's got thousands of people coming to him every second by second. And to process that, he'd have to have omniscience and omnipresence, which are attributes only God has. And to attribute that ability to Mary or to the saints is to lift them up to the level of the Godhead.

21:14 And I believe that's impossibility. And when you look at it just logically, it doesn't make any sense at all. Besides, I've got Jesus, the great high priest, interceding for me. And the Bible says that the spirit makes intercession for us when we don't know how to pray. So I've got the Holy Spirit, and I've got the Lord Jesus Christ praying for me. I don't have to ask a saint to come to my rescue. I've got the two greatest intercessors in the universe petitioning the Father in my behalf. Yeah, and we're not speaking against the people that are recognized as saints for who they are, what they've done. We're just talking about not praying to them.

21:56 They were great people. God used them in mighty ways. But praying to them is where there's an issue. Is that correct? I'm just clarifying that. I think all believers are saints, just like all acorns are potential oak trees. But for that acorn to reach its full potential, it's got to fall into the ground and die, and then go through a growing process. And newborn children of God don't always have all the exhibited qualities of saintliness in their lives, but they're growing into it. And then there are some people who have demonstrated Christlike character to a very high degree that show they express saintliness in a more profound way.

22:46 And I think it's an inheritance that belongs to all of us. All believers are priests. All believers are saints. All believers are temples of God. The church is a living body of believers. The church is not an organization. The church is an organism. It's the living body of believers who have come into a relationship with God. And I think once people realize this, they see the fallacy of all those other beliefs. Yeah. You know, Pastor Mike, I've got a lot more questions for you, and we might have to do another session. I'd like to talk about purgatory and other concepts that have worked in there as well. But I don't wanna miss this opportunity.

23:27 Maybe we can talk about purgatory briefly, but I do wanna make sure that we pray for our Catholic friends and family, brothers and sisters at the end of this time. But let's talk about purgatory. Could you explain a little bit about that? Well, purgatory is the idea of a temporary realm. It's been described as a realm of suffering. It's also been described as a realm of purging, where a person is purged of evil attributes or negative attributes that they haven't dealt with during life. And they're not holy enough to enter the glory of heaven at death, but they're not so evil that they should be consigned to hell.

24:07 That's the concept that they will therefore have to spend a period of time in purgatory in order to atone for their sins. Well, I believe first of all, that takes away from the price that Jesus paid because the Bible said He suffered once for all to sanctify us. And there's nothing I can do to earn a status of acceptability or a status of a great enough holiness in order to enter the glory of heaven. Because then I dismiss the idea that grace is sufficient. I dismiss the idea that faith is sufficient.

24:49 I dismiss the idea that Jesus' death on the cross and resurrection is sufficient. Then it becomes a works-based mentality that somehow I have to do something to earn the status of eternal life in heaven. And I believe that's an insult to the cross, very much so. I do a whole chapter on purgatory and a whole chapter on indulgences in the book. And I go into a lot of detail in those two chapters and I couldn't even hardly summarize everything I cover on this interview. But I would like to say that there is no Catholic source that explains the nature of what a person goes through in purgatory to become a more holy person.

25:39 It doesn't define it at all. It just assumes that there's a suffering process after death. Well, what happens? Does a soul just float around and re-experience the torment of failure and a realization that they failed God until that torment cleanses them? There's no, like I said, no definition of the process whatsoever. And by the way, purgatory is a very contested concept that caused the division of the Eastern and Western portion of the church around. It was about a thousand years after the birth of the church, there was a huge argument among, I think it was a great deal of why the Greek Orthodox Church split off and some other issues as well.

26:30 But I am firmly rooted in the belief that there's only two destinations after death and that's either heaven or hell. The Bible never talks about purgatory. I would like to address the go-to scripture. In fact, Catholics say this is the go-to scripture if you're gonna try and prove purgatory, that you should go to this scripture definitely. And I'm looking in the book right now so I can quote it to you exactly. It's out of Paul's writings to the Corinthians where he said, no other foundation can be laid than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

27:13 And if any man build on this foundation, if he builds good works, then they endure forever, but he can also build, he can build gold, silver, silver or precious stones or wood, hay or stubble. And it said, the day that comes shall try those works by fire. And that those works will either be burned up and the person be saved or that the fire will reveal every man's work of what sort it is. And if you read that passage of scripture out of Corinthians very carefully, it does not say that the fire will try every man's works over a period of thousands of years.

27:57 It says the day, the day, capital letter D, the day shall declare it. And so it's talking about the specific day when Jesus will come again in flaming fire and all his holy angels. And at that moment, he will judge, he will discern, he will immediately assess the works that have been in our life. And he will determine whether or not it's wood, hay or stubble. And instantly that scripture is only dealing with Christians. It's not dealing with the unbelievers. It says, if any man build on this foundation, what foundation?

28:37 No other foundation can be laid than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. So it's talking about those who've tried to build their life on Jesus, but that some of them have built works that are wood, hay and stubble. They're lifeless, they're of no eternal value. And I would dare to say a lot of what's been done in denominational Christianity is wood, hay and stubble because it involves doctrines and practices and traditions that are not biblical. And so because of that, the works will be burned up, but if a person truly loves Jesus and is born again, they will be saved yet so as by fire. That's not talking about purgatory. It's talking about what we do for the Lord after we're saved.

29:22 Yeah, it's very important for people to know why you believe what you believe, and also where did that belief come from? If you can trace that belief back to the Bible, the word of God, then you're in good standing. If you trace it back to history or tradition, then you've got rocky ground and that is not a good thing. Always get back to the foundation of Jesus Christ and his word and then you're gonna be in a much, much better place for sure. Pastor Mike, any closing thoughts and then would you wrap up in prayer and pray for our Catholic brothers and sisters? Incidentally, that scripture I just quoted, I found it while you were talking this 1 Corinthians 3 verses 11 through 15.

30:06 And you mentioned one word that I want to end with very concisely and that's the word tradition. The reason that Catholics can embrace many ideas, many concepts that are not biblical is because of something called the three legs of Catholicism. It's depicted as a stool, a stool that has a top and three legs of equal height of equal importance. And the three legs are sacred scripture, sacred tradition and the magisterium. And the magisterium is a word meaning the hierarchy of the church, the Pope and all the bishops. Well, if sacred tradition includes an idea, concept or practice that is not found in the Bible, that's okay.

30:50 According to Catholicism, that's of equal authority and equally believable if it's established by the magisterium. And so that's why they can have many beliefs that are not necessarily found in the Bible. And I would just urge anyone who's a Catholic who's listening to this, I want you to know that my whole motive in making you address or encouraging you, I'll put it that way, encouraging you to address these issues and to examine these concepts and ideas is so that you can sift your way through the things that have prevented you from having a genuine encounter with the Lord.

31:31 I did not receive the Holy Spirit when I was confirmed, but when I was 20 years old, I got baptized in the Holy Spirit and began speaking in tongues. And it was literally like heaven on earth. That moment was ecstasy beyond description. I want you precious Catholics to experience being born again, like I did when I was 19, to experience being filled with the Holy Spirit, like I did when I was 20. That's my heart's cry for you. And so I'm praying right now, Father God in the name of Jesus, especially if there are Catholic brothers and sisters listening to this presentation, I pray that you will open their eyes to the truth and reveal yourself to them in a very powerful and profound way and that they will come into a greater depth of a personal relationship with you than they've ever had before.

32:26 May there be a great deliverance from any beliefs that are non-biblical and may they see the importance of the foundation of the word of God being in their life at the expense of any other beliefs being forsaken that are not biblically based. Let that be the major step forward that many of those listening to this podcast make in Jesus' name, amen. Amen and amen. Pastor Mike Shreve, it's great to have you here on Charisma News to talk about this new book, the beliefs of the Catholic Church. And I wanna encourage people to go to catholicswithlove.org for more information from Pastor Mike.

33:09 Definitely he's got some great resources that you need to check out. So Pastor Mike, thank you so much for joining us here on Charisma News. It's always a blessing, John. You're a great brother in the Lord. I appreciate you. Well, thank you. Bless you.