Ignorance of Scripture is Ignorance of Christ

“You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me.”

John 5:39

Placing a right understanding on what I read, I obey Christ’s command: â€œSearch the Scriptures” (John 5:39), â€œSeek and you will find” (Matthew 7:7). 

Christ, then, won’t say to me what He once said to the Jews: “You err, knowing neither the Scriptures, nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). 

Now, Paul tells us that 

“Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom.”

1 Corinthians 1:24 

So if the person who doesn’t know Scripture doesn’t know God’s power and wisdom, it follows that ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.

I will act like the master of a household, bringing forth from his treasury things both new and old (Matthew 13:52), saying to his beloved in the words of the Song of Solomon: â€œI have kept for you things new and old, my beloved” (Song 7:13). 

Allow me, then, to explain Isaiah in this way, demonstrating that he wasn’t just a prophet, but also an evangelist and an apostle. Of himself and other evangelists, he says: “How lovely are the feet of those who preach good news, proclaiming peace!” (Isaiah 52:7). God moreover addresses him like an apostle: â€œWhom shall I send? Who will go to My people?” Isaiah replies: â€œHere I am; send me” (Isaiah 6:8). 

But it mustn’t be thought that I intend, in a single short discourse, to explain this outstanding book of Scripture’s total meaning. After all, it encompasses all the Lord’s mysteries. It foretells Emmanuel’s birth from a virgin, and His accomplishing wondrous miracles and signs. It foretells His death, burial, and rising from the dead as the Saviour of all people. I don’t need to mention the natural sciences, ethics, logic; but those things which are the proper subject of Holy Scripture’s teaching, and can be conveyed in human language and grasped by the human mind, are found in the book of Isaiah.


This discourse by Jerome is excerpted from his Commentary on Isaiah, Book 1: Prologue. English translation by © Nick Needham, Daily Readings from the Early Church Fathers, published by Christian Heritage, 2017.

Top image credit: Praying hands on open bible and candle, photo from Bigstock.com, © by Ale-ks, stock photo ID: 7079929. Used with permission. Scripture verse from Psalm 119 added.

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