New Testament Basics for Catholics

While the current lectionary allows Catholics to hear more of the Bible, it's true that Catholics often are not as well versed in the Scriptures and what they mean as their Protestant brethren. Bergsma's books on the Bible serve to change this in a way that is thoroughly delightful and easy for laypeople to understand.

This book on the New Testament is his latest. He takes three of the gospels (Matthew, Luke, and John), Acts, Revelation, and Paul's letter to the Romans to explain many aspects of Christ, His ministry, the creation of the Church, and how to live.

I liked that his explanations were clear and orthodox. His writing was free of the debates of scholars that often mar other Biblical studies, even for laymen. I also liked that his explanation was thoroughly grounded in an understanding of the Old Testament but also thoroughly Catholic.

Bergsma's past as a Evangelical pastor serves him well, providing enlightening stories as well as a firm understanding of why this is a book for Catholics.

Silly as it might seem, even his simplistic line drawings create memorable illustrations that drive home many of his points.

I highly recommend this book both for individual reading or as the basis for a group course on the New Testament.

This is the way to read the Bible. The Bible in one hand and an exegetical work like this in the other. So much of the Bible is easy to misunderstand without context. So much of the Bible is easy to misunderstand if you can’t correlate the passages in the New Testament with their precursors and parallels in the books of the law and the books of the prophets in the Old Testament.
John Bergsma does an excellent job of not only what was mentioned before, but of adding insights to where the English language doesn’t have good words to interpret the original Hebrew and Greek/Aramaic. He also can add historical and cultural insights that add whole new layers of meaning to scripture.

My only complaint is that this is an introduction and not a comprehensive work. He skips several books of the New Testament and parts of some of the books he does treat. He is clever and witty as well. His references to modern culture are good, but I hope they don’t give younger generations moments where they end up needing interpretations of his interpretations 

I normally spend just a few minutes at lunch and try to go to bed early. My lunch breaks extended to and beyond the allotted hour many days, and I have been up late as well. A very good read that I wish I’d had five years ago; maybe even twenty.

This is a good, easy to understand, and basic guide to the New Testament. The sections and information are appropriate.

All the books of Ave Maria Press I have read have been very interesting and enriching, and "New Testament Basics for Catholics" is no exception. Being a Latin American myself, I in fact would like to see the book translated into Spanish for more people to have a change of reading it. The book basically provides an explanation of the New Testament that is very clarifying, for several reasons. Firstly, because it manages to point out what many of the connections between it and the Old Testament are, something that for instance baffled Leo Tolstoy and actually makes the reader understand the legacy and lessons of Judaism, how it sheds light on our beliefs and traditions and what we can learn from it. Additionally, the book indicates what the meaning and context of many of the parables or books in the New Testament are, permitting to truly understand its deep meaning, as happens for instance with the elements of liturgy in Revelation. Altogether, I think that the book indeed is an important contribution to better understand the New Testament and learn from its many messages, and accomplishes the task of showing why its lessons are still valid today, given the reiteration of patterns in the past, present and future that make the "Good News" as valid today as they have always been. This is a beautiful and inspiring book, which is yet simple and not excessively extensive, making it a perfect reading and accessible for many.