Love Basics for Catholics

Winner of a honorable mention award in the popular scripture studies category from the Catholic Media Association.

When you begin to see the Bible as a book of love, it will change the way you view love, sex, marriage, family, and your personal relationship with God.

Walk with popular scripture scholar John Bergsma from the creation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to the wedding between the Lamb and the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation to learn how marriage in the Bible represents the love between God and his people.

Bergsma focuses on what nine biblical marriages tell us about God’s relationship with us. These stories include:

• Adam and Eve—who show us that marriage is the culmination of all creation and that marriage can be an image of the Trinity;
• Ruth and Boaz—who display the tenderness and virtue of a marriage;
• Solomon and his bride in the Song of Songs—who illustrate a positive, healthy view of the body and physical beauty; and
• Jesus as Bridegroom of his people, the Church.

 

Using his popular, whimsical stick-figure illustrations and engaging style, Bergsma helps us understand scripture and salvation history in a unique, memorable way. He also provides insight into Church teachings on marriage and relationships—such as monogamy, the single life, the Sacrament of Matrimony, and Jesus’s words about divorce—to show how these teachings come from the love God shares with his people through the covenants in scripture.

John Bergsma is a professor of theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. He served as a Protestant pastor for four years before entering the Catholic Church in 2001 while pursuing a doctorate specializing in the Old Testament and the Dead Sea Scrolls from the University of Notre Dame.



In addition to teaching scripture at Franciscan, Bergsma is a frequent guest on Catholic radio, and he speaks regularly at conferences and parishes nationwide. Bergsma has published a number of academic and popular works on the Bible and the Catholic faith, including Bible Basics for Catholics, New Testament Basics for Catholics, Psalm Basics for Catholics, and A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: Old Testament.