What Atheists and Irenaeus can teach us.

We approach most everything in life with preconceptions.  Admitting that is out of fashion these days, but it is reality, fashionable or not.

Steve can walk into any donut shop in the world and know with certainty that the cake donuts will be superior to the glazed.

You’ve probably already come up with a half dozen examples of your own.

It is the same with reading scripture.  We usually have many specific preconceptions about different parts of scripture.  The Old Testament is going to be boring and judgmental.  Revelation is going to be weird and indecipherable.

In the extreme, there are two overall, polar-opposite preconceptions we can have:

1. WE establish the standard, and measure God against it.
2. GOD establishes the standard, and we measure ourselves against it.

Let’s look at option #1.  In this we make ourselves big.  Really BIG.  Our world view, our opinion of how things should work, what we declare right or wrong – that is the standard.  Guess what happens when we measure scripture against that standard?  100% guaranteed – scripture will contradict us (because “God’s ways are not our ways”).  At that point one of two things usually happen – either we decide God just isn’t viable, and we become atheists.  Or, we decide we must re-envision God and make His message “fit the times,” and we become Methodists (just kidding! Sort of…).

How about #2?  Now our preconception is that God is all-good, all-knowing, all-loving, and that He desires the highest and best for us – which is to say eternity in heaven – and scripture is His inspired Word and reflects His standard for our life.  Now when we encounter those passages that are hard to reconcile with our beliefs of how the world should be, we use our God-given intellect to meditate on the passage and seek authoritative commentaries and reliable guidance to resolve our misunderstanding and change our life accordingly.   

Our challenge is that we all have a little #1 in us.  Oh, we’re not radical atheists like Richard Dawkins; carrying on that God is a giant spaghetti monster in the sky.  But we all have those verses that prick our nerves and that we try to negotiate away.

The great St. Irenaeus (c. 130-202 AD) knew all about this.  He battled the Gnostics, who thought they could out-smart God and just think their way to a cerebral paradise.  Here’s how he put it, “It does not follow that because men are endowed with greater or less degrees of intelligence, that they should therefore change the subject-matter [of the faith] itself, and should conceive of some other God besides Him who is the Framer, Maker, and Preserver of this universe” (from Against Heresies)

St. Irenaeus understood full well that we need to approach God and scripture with faith and humility.  1,800 years later, other than the Gnostics now having access to the internet, remarkably little has changed.  Including the fact that we need to first approach God in faith and humility, putting all our preconceptions aside.

Blessings on your journey with Christ –

Steve and Karen Smith

Postscript:  Jesus Must Come First (Mt 10:37-42)

Jesus said to his apostles: "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

"Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.  Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward. And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because the little one is a disciple—amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward."