h spends years, sometimes decades, discerning and studying the Scriptures before setting any doctrine, to make sure that it is accurate and from the Holy Spirit. This is why Christ established a Church, and a teaching authority. What are the dangers if we leave the study to ourselves? We lead ourselves into deeper and deeper confusion, and leave open room for the devil to tempt our minds with actions that are not from the Bible, but claim to be by Satan. St. Peter wrote about what his fellow apostle St. Paul, had written and taught, but he cautioned that Paul's letters can be difficult: "There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures" (2 Peter 3:16). Ignorant people (those who have not been taught the true interpretation of the Scriptures) and unstable people (those who do not adhere to the true interpretation that they have been taught) can twist the Scriptures to their own destruction. These are strong statements, but St. Peter wrote them so that we would know that we must not approach Scripture as an ignorant or unstable person would do, and embrace the infallible, Holy Ghost directed teaching of the Church. The next step to understanding apologetics is knowing the position of those you wish to evangelize. While this isn't the most difficult part in theology, it is the most difficult part spiritually. Gather up as much anti-Catholic literature as you can, and begin to study it as much, if not harder, then you did the Bible and Catechism. Most anti-Catholic works are products of a vivid imagination, but there are the anti-Catholic "professionals" such as Bob Jones, Oral Roberts, James McGarthy, and Jimmy Swaggert. Though it is difficult to read the works of men who have a very hateful and ignorant position toward the Church, it is vital to read the objections, because without the objections, there is no way to evangelize. Catholic apolog...
