Ambrose and the Word

Today's Reading

Read Romans 10:14-17: "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?... So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ."

Then read 2 Timothy 3:16-17 on the nature and purpose of Scripture.

Augustine's Insight

Augustine arrived in Milan as a disillusioned Manichean, an ambitious rhetoric professor, and — crucially — a man who considered the Bible to be a crude and poorly written book. He had tried to read the Old Testament and found it barbaric compared to the polished Latin of Cicero. The Christian Scriptures seemed beneath him.

Then he encountered Ambrose.

"I came to Milan, to Ambrose the bishop... and I began to love him, not at first as a teacher of the truth — which I had no hope of finding in your Church — but simply as a man who was kind to me."

Augustine went to hear Ambrose preach not to learn truth but to study his rhetorical technique. He was a professional speaker evaluating a competitor. But something unexpected happened. While analyzing Ambrose's style, the content began to penetrate.

"I was delighted with the sweetness of his speech, which was more learned but less witty and entertaining than that of Faustus. But as to the matter, there was no comparison."

Ambrose read the Old Testament allegorically and spiritually, drawing out layers of meaning that Augustine had never imagined. Passages that had seemed crude or violent suddenly opened up. The "letter" that killed gave way to the "spirit" that gave life. Augustine found his intellectual objections to Christianity dissolving — not all at once, but steadily, sermon by sermon.

Reflection

Paul's logic in Romans 10 is a chain: calling depends on believing, believing depends on hearing, and hearing depends on preaching. God works through human voices. Augustine's conversion did not begin with a private mystical experience — it began with showing up to listen to a preacher, initially for the wrong reasons.

This is a remarkable testimony to the sovereignty of God working through ordinary means. Augustine came to critique; God used the visit to convert. The word of Christ came through a human voice, and faith came through hearing — even reluctant hearing.

Ambrose also gave Augustine a new way to read the Bible. Many people abandon Scripture because they encounter a passage that offends or confuses them and assume the text is simply primitive. Ambrose showed Augustine that the difficulty was not in the text but in the reader. Scripture rewards those who approach it with humility and patience, trusting that its depths exceed first impressions.

Going Deeper

Paul tells Timothy that "all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness." Augustine's journey illustrates every dimension of this. Scripture taught him what he did not know, reproved what he had gotten wrong, corrected his direction, and trained him in a new way of life.

Consider your own relationship with the Bible. Are there passages you have dismissed too quickly? Is there a teacher — a pastor, a writer, a friend — through whom God might be opening the text to you in new ways? Augustine's example suggests that the path to faith often runs through the patience of listening, even when we come with mixed motives.