Sharing the Gospel with a Catholic Friend: 3 Wrong Turns

God willing, in Autumn 2025 a book I’m writing will be released, provisionally titled ‘Sharing the Gospel with a Catholic Friend’. I want to point out here that in thinking about the gospel and our Catholic friends, we can make a few wrong turns:

Wrong turn 1: We can think that nothing that the Catholic Church teaches is true. That’s simply not the case. Looking back, I’m genuinely so thankful for aspects of my Catholic upbringing. Because we said the Creeds regularly on Sundays, I really understood that the true God is one God in three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I knew that Jesus Christ is both God and Man, and I knew that he had died, and risen again. And every Sunday Mass, I would hear readings from a Psalm, another Old Testament reading, a reading from a New Testament letter, and a reading from the Gospels. That’s more of God’s word being read than in most services at evangelical churches.

And as well as helpful things about belief in God and hearing from his word, there was so much in terms of ethics and morals that was good and true: Things like marriage and sexuality were simply right, according to the Bible. Things have obviously shifted a lot in our culture since the 80s and 90s, but even then, there would have been things I might have been confused about without the teaching I received. And there was a real concern for the vulnerable, both the born and the unborn.

But then there’s Wrong Turn 2: We can imagine that the differences between what Catholics believe and what evangelicals believe are small and unimportant. But there are big, important differences – not just based on church traditions and preferences, but that are very close to the centre of the good news of Jesus. As I say, I knew that Jesus had died and risen again. I even wore a crucifix around my neck for years to remind me of that truth. But actually, even though I believed in the reality of those events, I had no idea what their purpose was.

It wasn’t until I began to read John’s gospel for myself that I realised that I was a slave to sin, chained down, unable to reach up to God. And it was only as I read John’s gospel and heard preaching from the Bible that I realised THIS was the reason Jesus had come – not just to show me how to live, but to live the perfect life I haven’t. THIS was the reason Jesus had died – to take my place, bearing my sin. THIS was the reason Jesus rose again – to give new life freely to all who come to him. And it was that freeness of it all that so excited me, and excites me still. That we don’t work our way to God, but he has come all the way down, to raise us up.

By the way, official Roman Catholic teaching does recognise Jesus as the sacrifice for sin, though like many baptised Catholics I had never understood that. But there are big problems with their understanding of how it works, and how we receive the benefits of it. And there are many other important differences too.

And then, there’s Wrong Turn 3: We can imagine that just because someone tells us ‘I’m Catholic’, they’re telling us a lot about what they actually believe. With 1.376 billion Catholics in the world, it seems unlikely that they will all believe the same. So, in my book, I’ll be introducing you to four Catholics you and I might meet, and how we might best seek to share the gospel with them. I hope, when it comes along, you find it helpful as you seek to share the glorious good news of Jesus.