Why take Scripture seriously? Summing up one of Pascal’s most brilliant observations :
“It is absolutely amazing that generations of Jews were moved to spend huge sums on parchments, pens, ink, and copyists to record what the Prophets predicted. Then, they sent expensive, hand-made copies of those writings to synagogues in Jewish communities all over the world. Those copies provided St. Paul and the evangelizing disciples, wherever they traveled, with the evidence they needed to show how perfectly the prophets predicted the coming of Jesus Christ. They built Christianity on foundations laid by those who didn’t, and still don’t, see what the prophets and their holy writing did. It is one of the most bizarre things in history that many of the same Jews who’d helped build the foundations ignored, and continue to ignore, the majestic Church built upon them, which was the real reason for their faith and activities.”
When we think about that, it’s hard not to be struck with the miracle of the prophecies and how they were disseminated. When Zechariah, for instance, in one Book, announces centuries beforehand that “God is coming to earth”, “He will ride into His Kingdom on a donkey”, “He will be sold for the price of a slave (thirty pieces of silver)”, and then says “They will look on Him Whom they pierced”, we are struck with how incredible it all is.
Reading Isaiah, we see even more prophecies. We may then have the good fortune to realize that the entire Old Testament (to Catholic Fundamentalists, “The First Programming Log”) is centered around Jewish prophecies that all point to the coming of Christ.
Those who study those prophets and ignore them are ignoring God, Himself. Almost as bad, they ignore the ancestral faith, wisdom, and the great gifts they were given in the form of prophets and prophecies. The price to be paid for that choice is confusion in this life and a lack of joy in the next.
Acceptance of the Scriptures is a sign that God loves us. Like the “Esau I have hated”, those who , hopefully, only temporarily, sold their birthright decided that peoples’ opinions and programmed entities are more important. They separate themselves from the God Who made them and provided the opportunity to be with Him forever.
