Ignorance of Scripture is Ignorance of Christ

 

 

One of my friends, in response to my reflection on Jerome’s (and mine!) irascibility, mentioned that Kathleen Norris touches on Jerome in The Cloister Walk. Here is how Norris begins on page 23:

 

“We hear from Jerome today, at morning prayer, a section of the Prologue to his commentary on Isaiah. He was a contentious man: ‘Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ,’ he booms, and his words shatter our sleepy silence. Jerome was the hard-edged, brilliant fellow who first translated the Hebrew scriptures into Latin. And, judging from his letters and his life, he may have been one of the most irascible people who ever lived.”

 

What do you think of this idea that, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ”?

 

As Jesus makes clear in Luke Chapter 24, on both the road to Emmaus and in the Upper Room, all of the Scripture reveals Him – the Law, the Prophets, the Writings. And we can now add what we term the New Testament. Of course the Scriptures must be made alive by the Holy Spirit, for only God can reveal God (see 1 Corinthians Chapter 2, as well as John 5:39 – 40; 6:63).

 

We don’t seem to mind our ignorance. Much of what passes for Christian ministry, including Sunday school and small group curricula, caters to our ignorance, coddles it, enables it, encourages it. It does not expect us to know the Bible, nor think, nor search for Christ in Scripture, nor grow in Christ from one year to the next.

 

I have a friend who built his own high – performance airplane. Do you think he knows his plane? Do you think he keeps his plane well – maintained?

 

He is also a flight instructor. Do you think he conveys to his pupils that what they are doing is a matter of life and death? He will refuse to teach a flight student if that student isn’t taking flying seriously, if that student is not paying attention to him, the flight instructor.

 

We tend to pay attention to things that matter, to pay attention to things that are matters of life and death. I view the Bible as a deep-sea diver with a bell helmet views the oxygen line connecting him to his ship; no functioning oxygen line means no life support, no life support means death in the ocean. No Word of God means no life, and no life means death in this dark and dying world.

 

How is it that adults act like children, worse than children, when it comes to knowing the Bible? “I don’t like to read.” How many times have I heard that? A long-serving elder told me that a few months ago…really? Would you tell your employer that? Would you tell your professor that? Why do we think we can tell our God that? Our church? Our brothers and sisters? Men and women and children have suffered and died to preserve the Scriptures, and are doing so today…and we accept the statement, “Well, I don’t know the Bible because I don’t like to read”?

 

We do what is important to us. We pay attention to what matters to us.

 

Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ, and for the professing seasoned Christian, ignorance of both is inexcusable.

 

What would St. Jerome say?