It happens that we hate things we ought not to, just as we love things we ought not to. We are ordered to love our brothers, not to hate them. If you think that someone is ungodly, remember that “Christ died for the ungodly.” And if you think that because your brother is a sinner you do not have to love him, remember that “Christ came into the world to save sinners.” but if he is righteous, then he is much more worthy of love, for “God loves the righteous.”

—Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans

I think that any love without God is artificial and not genuine. For God, the Creator of the soul, filled it with the feeling of love, along with the other virtues, so that it might love God and the things which God wants. But if the soul loves something other than God and what God wants, this love is said to be artificial and invented. And if someone loves his neighbor but does not warn him when he sees him going astray or correct him, such is only a pretense of love.

—Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans

There is a “mysterious and hidden Wisdom of God. God planned it before all ages for our glory.” And this Wisdom of God is Christ;he is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

In the Book of Revelation we are shown a scroll sealed with seven seals. If you were to give it to a learned person to read, the scholar would say: I cannot, because it is sealed. How many people today, who claim to be learned, hold a sealed Book [the Bible] in their hands! And they cannot open it until the seals are broken by him “who wields David’s key and who opens and no one can close, who closes and no one can open.” Understand from this that you cannot begin to follow the Scriptures without a guide to show you the way [the Holy Spirit].

So tell me: to live in the atmosphere of these holy books, to think about them constantly, neither to know nor to look for anything beside them, is this not to live in the kingdom of heaven already, here on earth? And do not be put off, in the Scriptures, by the simplicity and bluntness of language which may be the translators’ fault or even intentional. They are always set forth in such a way that whoever comes along can find instruction so that, in one and the same sentence, both the learned and the ignorant can find the plain meaning.

I am not by any means making so wild and foolish a claim as to flatter myself that I understand everything in Scriptures: but I confess that I long to understand and am pressing on in my endeavor. So here on earth let us study these things, the understanding of which is laid up for us in heaven.

—Letter 53, to Paulinus of Nola

It was clear through unlearned persons that the cross was persuasive. In fact it persuaded the whole world. How the foolishness of God is wiser than we are, and God’s weakness stronger than we are!

In what way stronger? The living who waged war on a dead man [Jesus] proved helpless. Therefore, when a Greek tells me I am dead, he shows only that he is foolish indeed, for I, whom he thinks a fool, turn out to be wiser than those reputed wise. Paul had this in mind when he said: “The weakness of God is stronger than humankind.” That the preaching of the Apostles [Bartholomew among them] was indeed divine is brought home to us in the same way. That they were fearful and timid, the evangelist makes clear; he did not reject the fact or try to hide their weaknesses. Indeed he turned these into a proof of truth. What did he say of them? That when Christ was arrested, the others fled, despite all the miracles they had seen.

How then account for the fact that these men, who in Christ’s lifetime did not stand up to attacks by the Jews, set forth to do battle with the whole world once Christ was dead–if, as you claim, Christ did not rise and speak to them and rouse their courage? Did they perhaps say to themselves: “What is this? He could not save himself but he will protect us? He did not help himself when he was alive, but now that he is dead he will extend a helping hand to us? In his lifetime he brought no nation under his banner, but by uttering his name we will win over the whole world?” Would it not be wholly irrational even to think such thoughts, much less to act upon them?

–John Chrysostom, Homily 4 on 1 Corinthians 3-4

I cannot help but substitute atheist or secularist or politically correct for Greek in Chrysostom’s writing and see that things have not changed much over time, at least in regard to being an enemy of the cross. May God in his mercy give real wisdom to these poor lost souls so that they too might enjoy real life.

Almighty and everlasting God, who gave to your apostle Bartholomew grace and truly to believe and to preach your Word: Grant that your Church may love what he believed and preach what he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen