This is a very common question, especially from young people inside the church who are seeking answers to tough questions. Several variations include:What can the Bible have to say about modern day problems?
Society is so different, that stuff can’t apply now.
They were so primitive, we’ve come so far from then – times have changed.
The problem with all these statements is the underlying assumption: that society has altered to the point that the Bible can no longer speak its Truth on the issues surrounding us. This is a lie that comes to us from evolutionary theory being applied not just to science, but sociology and history: the idea that society itself is evolving, and that humanity’s various cultures have become something that they were not in the days of the Bible. When we look at the technologies that rule our lives today, they seem to bear this out: life does look a lot different now than it did in during Jesus’ earthly days. But are we truly superior? Does the ability to quickly navigate the virtual world of the Internet, or deftly manipulate the buttons of my iPod to bring forth sound, really demonstrate that I am a superior being to those of earlier cultures?
If we ask ourselves some hard questions, particularly those of us in urban areas, how many real skills to do we actually have? If the power went out tomorrow and didn’t come back on, could we even survive for a month? Sure, we’ve learned how to use computers, cars, and all sorts of neat gadgets. But do you really believe that if Paul had been shown a computer and given some basic instruction, he could not have used it?
Consider several passages of Scripture:
Genesis 1-2, the account of Creation. Adam and Eve were both created directly by God Himself, prior to the Fall. Has anyone lived in a state of physical perfection since then?
Genesis 3, the Fall itself. Things were perfect until sin, at which point death entered the world. Most people would call that a negative.
Genesis 5-6, the genealogy from Adam to Noah. Are people living longer, better lives today than at the beginning? And when people’s lives were longer, what were they doing with their time?
1 Kings 3:5-14, of the wisdom of King Solomon. The Bible is specific here that no one who ever lived or ever will live has been or will be as wise as Solomon was.
Ecclesiastes 1, written by King Solomon about the nature of man and the world. He tells us directly that there is nothing new under the sun: man does today what man has done from the beginning of time, and he will do it again and again unto the end of time.
So then, if the most physically perfect and wisest have already lived thousands of years ago, and we live shorter lives even more affected by sin and death than those who came before us…
In which direction is time truly marching?
Truly, the very first men struggled with obedience to God and with sin. Sin grew until there was one – one! – righteous man left in the entire world. In starting over with Noah’s family, we watched the cycle repeat (Genesis 11) up until Babel, at which point people and languages were scattered. Now we live the shorter lives that God ordained so that we cannot explore the evil of our flesh to the fullness we did before (Genesis 6:3). Many today would point out that we are moving toward a one-world government; we worry about this new development. But what have we just seen from Scripture? This is not new, it’s been tried (and it failed, we must note)! The fact is that our lives are the same as always. We’re born. We marry. We have families, and try our best to provide for them. We live, and then we die. And what do we struggle with today? Obedience to God and with sin. Technology has given us new ways to express our basic natures, but it’s the same basic nature still being expressed. There is nothing new under the sun, and the Bible is no less relevant today than it ever was. Truly, it is more desperately needed today than it has ever been because history is moving in one direction, and it’s not the one we’d like to think.
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