Growing Up in the Lord

Remember that 1989 Acappella song, "Growin' Up in the Lord?" I always really liked it... the music and the idea of growing and getting closer to Jesus as time goes by.

On Sunday mornings I'm teaching a survey class about Christian thinkers through the centuries. This Sunday we'll take a look at Irenaeus of Lyon, who lived from the early to mid 2nd century until 202. He was born in modern day Turkey and later moved to Lyon where he likely was an elder in 177 during the severe Roman persecution.

He's most well-known for his arguments against gnosticism, but he had at least one other interesting view about the nature of man and his relationship with God. He believed that Adam and Eve were created as children and their disobedience in the garden was more of a petulant childhood "acting out" rather than a full-blown adult rebellion. Beginning at that point then, all of history, including all the evils in the world, are part of God's design to help mankind mature throughout history. We learn over the centuries, we mature, even the bad things help us grow and mature. Christ came mostly to show us the perfect way to live... just the opposite of Adam. Adam was disobedient; Christ was obedient. Adam disobeyed by eating from the wrong tree; Christ obeyed by being crucified on a tree... and so on. One other interesting thing Irenaeus believed was that Christ, in order to show us how to live in every stage of life, must have been crucified as an old man rather than a young one.

Pretty interesting stuff... even if a little off the wall. Hope my class thinks so. :-)