If anyone is ignorant, let them be ignorant.
1st Corinthians 14:38
The ignorant remain ignorant because they do not learn. Instead, a defense for their ignorance is asserted. Usually in the form of personal attacks (Ad Hominem) against the person shaking their ignorance foundations.
To further bolster their case, they project this ad-hominem approach onto their accuser.
This ignorant person then decides they must challenge other beliefs stated by their accuser.
In a C.S. Lewis (The World's last night) essay, Mr. Lewis puts forth a satirical statement:
“Say what you like,” we shall be told, “the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.”
Remember, this 1st part is a satirical proposal, but it is a serious proposal that has been suggested by countless people over the last 2,000 years.
Atheist, Jew, and Muslim alike have used this statement from scripture, to prove Jesus was a false prophet, that he was no Messiah, and that he is not God.
Though this 1st-part is satirical, it is in C.S. Lewis' follow-up, where we see Mr. Lewis not only accuses Jesus of being wrong but also of being ignorant.
"It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible. Yet how teasing, also, that within fourteen words of it should come the statement “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance grow side by side. That they stood thus in the mouth of Jesus himself, and were not merely placed thus by the reporter, we surely need not doubt"
Again, though this 1st-part is satirical, the 2nd is Mr. Lewis' own thoughts and beliefs about such a satirical proposal, and the subject of the satirical proposal.
The verse which Mr. Lewis says "it is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible" is Matthew 24:34
It is because Mr. Lewis is a renowned Christian, and Christian writer, that even the ignorant Christian is more than willing to overlook this great Orator, Writer, Theologian, and Scholar when he said Jesus was wrong and ignorant.
I am a stubborn man myself, but it shakes my inner-being when you can show something to someone, and they flatly refuse to believe what their very own eyes are seeing.
It is for this very reason, why I have largely stopped taking part in the endless supply of debates over Fulfilled and Futurist Eschatology, on social media websites.
I can show verse after verse after verse after verse, while not changing, altering, or redefining so much as one word, and the Futurist still accuses me of being the one who is changing, altering, and/or redefining scripture.
Why I have spent nearly 30 years of my life banging my head against these brick walls is because I take Christ, scripture, and salvation, seriously.
So serious that I am more than willing to take the blows, stand up to the personal attacks, and wipe the dust of the ignorant from my feet, and continue to push forward, in finding those that do listen, and do learn.
© 2020 J.W. Bowers Jr.